Hubble Neatly Captures Messier's Ancient Stars 31
New submitter DevotedSkeptic writes "Hubble has produced a crisp image of the Messier 56 Globular Cluster. Messier originally noted that this object was nebula without stars. When he originally viewed the cluster in 1779, telescopes were not powerful enough to see more than a fuzzy ball. The crisp focused view we get from Hubble enables us to easily see the globular cluster and ancient stars contained within. Comparing observations from Hubble with results from the standard theory of stellar evolution, scientists have calculated the age Messier 56 at 13 billion years."
Re:its (Score:3, Insightful)
All life on this planet we have found thus far is carbon based. No alternate biochemistry has been shown to be even theoretically realistic
All carbon based life we have found thus far requires liquid water in some form or another. This makes life impossible in the vast majority of the universe.
Most star systems either lack the heavy elements necessary for life (too far from the galactic core) or have too much ionizing radiation for life to survive (too close to the galactic core.)
Most star systems are binary, no life there as stable orbits are not realistically possible.
etc.
The sad fact is that a hundred trillion times zero is still zero.
Could there be life on other planets? Sure. There could also be a monolith in orbit around Jupiter. Given the evidence we do have about life, it's complexities, and limits, one should be skeptical about the possibility of life outside of Earths atmosphere until that evidence of its existence is shown.