NASA's Kepler Discovers 11 Systems Hosting 26 Planets 89
An anonymous reader writes "NASA's Kepler mission has discovered 11 new planetary systems hosting 26 confirmed planets. These discoveries nearly double the number of verified planets and triple the number of stars known to have more than one planet that transits, or passes in front of, the star. Such systems will help astronomers better understand how planets form."
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As much as I'm not one to defend any religion, this is certainly true. Look at official stance of the Vatican on the issue, they hold that there is nothing in the bible or any tradition of early christianity that prevents the existence of life outside Earth. (and they have scientists working towards SETI and other projects)
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As one who believes in the literal truth of the Bible, I don't have any conflict with life on other planets. I tend to doubt that there is, but it would not be earth-shattering for me if there was.
C.S. Lewis even has a series, The Space Trilogy [wikipedia.org], with life on other planets and addresses the issue of Christianity - if there was no original sin on the other planets, do they need Salvation?
Christian fundamentalists are not as backward as you may think, and we do put on our thinking caps.
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Do aliens have original sin?
How may angels can you fit on the head of a pin?
Where is Russell's teapot?
There and other retarded questions answered LIVE tonight.
Re:Depends on the Christian (Score:4, Funny)
How may angels can you fit on the head of a pin?
That one's easy. As many as want to be fitted on the head of a pin. Even the atheists agree.
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Well, who cares about how many boiling hot super-gravity planets are around stars thousands of light years away?
How can we get cheap gasoline, and stop the glaciers from melting??
Not as backward.... (Score:4, Insightful)
The 99% of you that are backward give the rest of you a bad name.
If your thinking cap is not broken, run this by it:
God is benevolent, all knowing, doesn't make mistakes, and so on. Humans are evil, largely stupid, screw everything up, and so on. Therefore, it makes perfect sense to put one's faith in God, and no sense at all to put one's faith in other men.
HOWEVER....
How do you actually go about putting your faith in God, without putting your faith in other men? If your pastor tells you what God wants you to do, and you believe him, then you are actually putting your faith in your pastor, not God. Maybe when God comes down from the sky and tells you what he wants you to do, maybe THEN you can really put your faith in God. But so long as you are hearing it from another human (be it a pastor, or a mystic nut, or a book written by either), then you are actually just putting your faith in men.
It turns out that all of Christianity is built on faith in other men. The Bible is a book, written printed and distributed by humans. The notion of "divine inspiration" is perpetuated by men. Did God tell you, himself, that He inspired the Bible, or did some other human tell you? Did God tell you, himself, that Jesus was his son, or did another human tell you?
Use your thinking cap and you will see: all religious teachings come from humans. And humans, as we already established, are unworthy of faith.
If you really want to put your faith in God, you are going to have to make a leap. You will have to reject every human idea about God. Every one. All that is left is the simple living of your life to the best of your ability...figuring things out as you go along...like the rest of us do. It is really scary living without absolute moral justification for your actions, or the comfort of knowing that you are doing exactly what God wants you to do. But the fact is...you have always lived this way, you have just been deluded (by other men) into falsely believing otherwise.
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I'd mod you up if I could. It's always good to see interesting angles about religion.
I always see a lot of good that comes from humanity, and I see a lot of bad that comes from chance (which a Christian might call God).
God gives us disease: other humans research ways to fix it and spend time fixing it for us. God causes earthquakes: humanity forms groups to save the trapped. God causes floods: humans arrange safe accommodation.
Personally I have a lot of faith in humanity. It seems to have overcome a lot of
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No. All Christians (no matter how fundamental you are) are fucking idiots. Worshiping invisible men and voices in your head actually makes you crazy as well.
Religion is a mental illness. You are sick in the head. Now that you know whats wrong with you, the next step would be trying to fix it.
Have fun with your insane rationalizations about how you are not an idiot and not crazy!
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Only Christians have this craziness? This is unfair.
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As a Minister in the CoTFSM, I naturally have complete faith in the FSM and utterly believe it to be a true description of the universe. (However I also have faith in the FSM's sense of humour in having created a universe that appears to follow the laws of physics, and see no contradiction in both proselytizing my religion, and being a working geologist operating in the "real world".)
And when I get my Rapture, the Beer Volcano WILL
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The more interesting thing to think about is why God allowed original sin to occur in the first place. If he knows everything that will happen, he knew that placing Adam and Eve in the garden with the tree would end up with their stomachs full of apples. If I placed my cat in a cage with a canary, I wouldn't hold my cat responsible for the inevitable conclusion.
Even more interesting for me is trying to figure out how it is moral to hold one's descendants responsible for the sins of their ancestors. If
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The literal truth of the Bible is that the sky is a firmament with water above it (Genesis 1:6-8).
Missing the point (Score:2)
The literal truth of Genesis is that God created. Genesis was not written for the purpose of providing a literal or scientific account of Creation. To read it looking for such is unwise, because it ignores the authorial intent and misses the meaning of the text.
Remember that the Israelites had no concept of modern science nor modern historiography. It simply makes no sense to read their works by such standards. Any such attempt is doomed to fail to understand the text's intended meaning.
"How did God cre
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"Genesis was not written for the purpose of providing a literal or scientific account of Creation. To read it looking for such is unwise, because it ignores the authorial intent and misses the meaning of the text."
Jesus thought Adam and Eve were real, as did Paul. Indeed, the whole point of Christianity is that Jesus redeems the original sin of Adam and Eve. You can't have a real Jesus and a metaphorical Adam.
You're not a real literalist, you're just pretending to be one.
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I didn't say that Adam and Eve didn't exist. You're attacking a strawman.
The point is that people err when they read Genesis attempting to figure out how Creation happened, when they go looking for scientific evidence that the author never intended to provide.
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That's just sophistry to try to deny your backsliding. There's a whole science [blogspot.co.uk] of how precisely the Genesis creation and flood occurred.
Re:Depends on the Christian (Score:5, Insightful)
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The Catholics actually have their own astronomy department and do a fair amount of real science. As a sect of Christianity they are by far the most progressive about such issues. Seems they're making up for lost time after their historical antagonistic relationship with science (see: Galileo)
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Before the whole "war on heaven" business, Satan was a good guy if you remember. He was given dominion over the earth. When God decided to give "grace" to humanity (basically meaning humanity could disobey him and still receive his forgiveness) Satan got pis
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Before the whole "war on heaven" business, Satan was a good guy if you remember. He was given dominion over the earth. When God decided to give "grace" to humanity (basically meaning humanity could disobey him and still receive his forgiveness) Satan got pissed and turned. Well, the idea is that the bible is very specific that Satan was given dominion over the earth... so much so that it sounds like other angels had dominion over other areas... other planets maybe?
The Christians are now using Milton instead of the Bible as their source???
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Culturally, this has long been the case! Lots of stuff people think of as "Christian" is straight out of Milton or even Dante.
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The same can be said of Scientology. It doesn't make either of them any more likely to be true.
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Perhaps you are not aware of the fact that many big names of Orthodox Christianity have said that there are no other worlds like Earth.
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I like to think that after his death and re-incarnation Jesus flew to other planets via divine means.
Unfortunately, he ran into a planet with alien life that had blood composed of acid and a nasty habit of depositing eggs into human hosts.
It didn't look too good for our savior in the beginning, but Raptor Jesus happened to pass by the sector with the space ferrying Flying Spaghetti Monster. Through many trials and tribulations they were able to "save" the alien race.
By save I indicate the use of heavily arm
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Get over it (Score:3)
the only thing more annoying than the fundamentalist arguments are the people who complain about them.
Seriously, it's why reddit has an Atheism section where all that shit goes, so that people can remove it from their list of subscriptions. People are tired of hearing you're pissed off. You don't matter that much. Get over it.
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Is it safe to answer you with an "AMEN"?. Seriously though reddit.com/r/atheism/... there are a *lot* people are are just as angry about Christians as you people at slashdot are and instead of subjecting the rest of us to your blind hatred and bigotry, you can go there and post stories, pictures, 4koma and all sorts of fun lolz. Let's talk about computers and science here, why don't we?
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Really? We already know there are Starbucks, Strip Clubs and Walmarts on these planets? I'm impressed with Kepler's resolution!
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I say we apply Drake's to this. If we can do it with extraterrestrial life on other planets, we can do it with anything. I've done it with the question, "How many cell phones are currently playing the ringtone 'Combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell [youtube.com]' by Das Racist right now?" Any-thing.
USA is not a country of God. (Score:2, Troll)
Fixed.
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BMO
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>Truth marked as troll
As if the Treaty of Tripoli means nothing.
As if the Letter to the Danbury Baptists means nothing.
As if the Letter to the Touro Synagogue means nothing.
As if William Penn and Roger Williams never existed.
As if the Rhode Island Charter of 1663 granted by Charles II never existed.
As if the Lively Experiment never happened.
Right.
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BMO
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Lord did such a good job providing living ground for his children.
He sure did provide his children with this beautiful land. Then we killed 90% of them and put the rest in concentration camps (reservations).
And SETI has a new project... (Score:5, Interesting)
http://setilive.org/ [setilive.org] focuses on Kepler planets, and it's much more interactive than the old SETI@home
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What is the "signal" we are looking at there? Any idea?
Re:And SETI has a new project... (Score:4, Informative)
Any modulated RF that doesn't have a natural or human source.
We're not going to be downloading plans, like in Contact. It's unlikely that we'll be able to decode the message, since we won't know what it's encoding.
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It's unlikely that we'll be able to decode the message, since we won't know what it's encoding.
That shouldn't be a problem, as long as the aliens use XML.
Re:And SETI has a new project... (Score:5, Funny)
That shouldn't be a problem, as long as the aliens use XML.
Now we have two problems.
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Encoding isn't the issue. Language and script is.
If the message is encoded digitally, good luck figuring it out. First you need to find out how many bits encode one symbol, and that's already assuming that number is constant. That's the encoding part. But even if you get the symbols, how do you attribute meaning? Even lost human languages are hopeless unless you have a Rosetta's Stone or some other translation that gives you a starting point.
The same holds true for math. We think that math transports univer
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stupid error, it would of course not be 1+1=2 but 1+2=3 etc.
Unless, of course, their language encoded 1 different depending on circumstances. Like some human languages that use capital letters at the start of a sentence and small letters inside the sentence. And many of those letter are not just larger versions of each other (like s and S), but pretty different (like a and A).
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Language and script are just additional encoding schemes.
"Table" has no inherent meaning. Instead, it's our encoding for the object with a flat top and four legs.
Heck, "1" has no inherent meaning. We just have a common understanding of what that symbol encodes.
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They are by far not the same.
Language includes a change in the levels of abstraction, encoding does not.
I had a lot more written here, but then I realized it all logically follows from this one point. You might need to have read Korzybski to understand, though. I can't explain it in a few sentences.
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When people are speaking, yes.
When you're talking about radio communication, "table" or "101100001000" (Table in Morse code) are encodings that then allow people to speak.
The literal words or bits transmitted aren't language. They contain language.
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We're not going to be downloading plans, like in Contact.
Unless that turns out to be what happens, of course.
It's unlikely that we'll be able to decode the message, since we won't know what it's encoding.
Another option here is that we can decode such a message because we do figure out what it is encoding.
In the story about predicting the effects of room temperature superconductors, several people have warned about the great errors that always occur in predictions about the future. Those concerns apply here as well. Deciding in absence of hindsight what aspect of predictions, about human/ET intelligence contact, will occur or not, is just as error-prone
Piratebay in space? (Score:2)
Hosting in space? Is that their next move?
Earth-like planets (Score:3)
Re:Earth-like planets (Score:5, Informative)
54 candidates in habitable zone, at least five roughly earth-sized (but note even gas giant in habitable zone is significant because it might have habitable moon)
http://kepler.nasa.gov/news/nasakeplernews/index.cfm?FuseAction=ShowNews&NewsID=98 [nasa.gov]
Can't help but feel like.. (Score:2)
We're pre-tracing oue steps towards the ending of the Foundation novels..
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yes.
Great, who let the Vorlons onto Slashdot?
YAWN (Score:2)
Wake me up when they discover Risa.
trashing Christians is your only comment on this? (Score:5, Insightful)
The Kepler mission makes this very interesting scientific find and the only thing you people can do is trash Christians? That is your response to FINDING 11 PLANETARY SYSTEMS IN OUR GALAXY, that Christians are lolstupid?
Re:trashing Christians is your only comment on thi (Score:5, Insightful)
this is one of the reasons slashdot doesn't garner the traffic it used to. People don't care if you're pissed off at christians, in fact they find the incessant complaining quite obnoxious.
Re:trashing Christians is your only comment on thi (Score:4, Interesting)
I have to agree with what you've said, but it's not just bagging Christians that is the problem.
Often in Slashdot there are people knowledgeable about certain branches of science. They can often provide insight that hits the sweet spot between the pop-science ad-filled blog that stories link to and the original uninterpretable specialist and dry journal article. That's what I come here for.
Generally, the first 40 comments are people trying to make obvious jokes or trolling, followed by 20 or so dickheads like you and me complaining about the jokes. Fortunately reading the story late in the piece gets the few interesting comments up-rated - which is why I keep coming back.
Anyway, speaking of Christians and exoplanets: Giordano Bruno [wikipedia.org], one of the first people recorded as speculating that other stars might have planets, was executed by The Catholic Church in 1600.
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Anyway, speaking of Christians and exoplanets: Giordano Bruno, one of the first people recorded as speculating that other stars might have planets, was executed by The Catholic Church in 1600.
And that is why we should mock them. Because you really, really don't want us picking any of the more "adult" alternatives. Be happy that we're a bit childish and just mock them.
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It's ignorant to equate Catholicism with Christianity. Real Christianity doesn't condone executing anyone. (cf. John 8:1-11)
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Most "Catholic" politicians are adamantly pro-abortion, a subset of executions, despite a biblical commandment against it. It's easy to see how some guy who went afoul of the establishment in 1600 could get burned at the stake as a heretic and the Church take the rap. In case you wonder how many Catholic scientists did NOT get burned at the stake: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Roman_Catholic_scientist-clerics [wikipedia.org]
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Real Christianity is not defined by those who claim to be Christian. Real Christianity is defined by Christ.
You're generalizing millions of people into one, "intolerant", "ignorant" whole. That strikes me as hypocritical.
Not to mention your generalizing the entire state of Texas. Your arguments aren't logical at all.
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Had to browse at -1 (Score:2)
Reserve that bashing of christianity for the next tenessee bill on "evolution is only a theory" or the next stupid things the current pope do, or the next priest diddling choir kids being shifted between parish. THis story OTOH is not about religion at all this is a
Not news anymore (Score:2)
Come on, Kepler has been operating for years and keeps identifying a trickle of additional planets. It's not news every time the total changes.
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Have to ask (Score:1)
Can I have one?
This is news from January. (Score:2)
I thought these had been discussed back then.
Back to the god-squaddie baiting!