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Planetary System Similar to Sol
sgtwilko writes "The BBC News site has an article about how astronomers have found several new planets including some that have a similar distribution to our own Solar System. They are finding planetary systems that are more and more like the one in which the Earth resides. It's only a matter of time until the Terrestrial Planet Finder program gets going and finds another Earth." There's another story on space.com. Update: 06/13 21:51 GMT by M : Space News and Wired have stories as well, with spiffy graphics and artists' renderings and so on.
Then we find the small planets
Then we find the ones with intelligent life
Then we communicate
Then...
Alien Pr0n!
The system also has a slightly smaller neighbor which whips around every 14.5 days. My guess is the tidal forces of these two planets would eventually rip anything in between to shreds.
Yes, TPF will be a nice box to have. However, I wouldn't plan on the longevity of HST since it will be located at one of the LaGrange points just outside earth orbit.
Brian
Flamebait
Serious inquiries only.
It is all just a hoax. As it turns out, a group of rival scientists went up into space and just put a REALLLY big mirror up there.
- Freed
"Coffee should be black as hell, strong as death, and sweet as love." -Turkish Proverb
Okay, so the planet 3-3.5 times the size of Jupiter, at NEAR the same orbit as Jupiter....
But that planet right near the star that's just a bit smaller than Jupiter is a BIG difference.
But hey, it's a start, and doesn't mean that there AREN'T planets geologically similar to Earth there.
Guess we might find out soon.
Dark Nexus
"Sanity is calming, but madness is more interesting."
i don't get the thrust of the article focusing on finding earth-sized planets. is there some theory that necessitates a planet be our size to foster life? if so, why?
(here comes the (-1, Ignorant). bring it on.)
go get it
They have also found the smallest exoplanet yet. It is only 40 times more massive than Earth.
The size of the planet isn't really the issue though,
Detecting Earth-sized planets is probably not possible using current ground-based techniques. That will have to wait for a new generation of satellite observatories, due in the next decade.
The important part is
Calculations made by Greg Laughlin of the University of California at Santa Cruz show that an Earth-sized planet could survive in a stable orbit between the two gas giants.
This of course doesn't mean that we found anything only that when we are able to look for earth-like planets this is our best bet for hitting the jackpot.
I stole this Sig
It's slow and full of pop-up ads..
----
A team of astronomers announced today the discovery of the first planet outside our solar system with an orbit similar to Jupiter's, a configuration that has the potential to support an Earth-like planet.
They also found the least massive world ever detected around another star, a planet just 40 times as heavy as Earth.
The primary discovery is a gas giant planet that circles a star called 55 Cancri every 13 years, comparable to Jupiter's 11.86-year orbit. The planet is between 3.5 and 5 times as heavy as Jupiter.
"It's the first extrasolar planet that reminds us of a planet in our solar system," lead researcher Geoffrey Marcy said in an interview with SPACE.com several days prior to the announcement.
Marcy, of the University of California, Berkeley, said he and colleague Paul Butler, of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, have dreamed of this discovery for 17 years as they compiled data using a technique that many scientists said would never work. The two astronomers, whose team has grown in recent years, also announced 11 other worlds today at a press conference at NASA headquarters, bringing the total of known extrasolar planets to 98.
Potential for Earth twin
The new planet orbits 55 Cancri at 5.5 astronomical units (AU). One AU is the distance from Earth to the Sun. Jupiter orbits at 5.2 AU. The same team had already spotted another planet around 55 Cancri, a place slightly less massive than Jupiter. It orbits so close to the star that it makes a complete orbit in just 14.6 days.
Marcy speculated that the two-planet system could harbor more intriguing worlds, possibly even rocky planets like Earth, known as terrestrials.
"A Jupiter at five Earth-Sun distance units might serve as the marquee of a planetary theater located within, where terrestrial bit players are racing around on smaller tracks," Marcy said. "We are left to imagine what geophysical and perhaps biological improvisation is taking place inside this planetary playhouse."
Armed with their new data, Marcy and Butler enlisted theoretician Gregory Laughlin of the University of California, Santa Cruz, to look into whether the 55 Cancri system could also retain an Earth-sized planet in a life-sustaining orbit. Such a region, called a habitable zone, would maintain moderate temperatures suitable to the retention of surface water and the possibility of life.
Laughlin ran the data through computer models of planet formation. The answer is "yes."
"We tried a hypothetical configuration of a terrestrial planet in the habitable zone around one AU from the central star and found it very stable," said Laughlin, who also is associated with Lick Observatory. "Just as the other planets in our solar system tug on the Earth and produce a chaotic but bounded orbit, so the planets around 55 Cancri would push and pull an Earth-like planet in a manner that would not cause any collisions or wild orbital variations."
Marcy and Butler caution, however, that there is no way to detect an Earth-sized planet with present technology. Meanwhile, their data does suggest a third planet in the system, a possible Saturn-sized object. Others could lurk there.
Laurance Doyle, a researcher at the SETI Institute who was not involved in the discovery, told SPACE.com the new finding "is a strong encouragement" that our solar system "may not, after all, be totally unusual."
The Jupiter-like planet has another potential benefit, Doyle points out: Its gravity would lure comets, shielding inner planets from life-threatening bombardment. Jupiter plays this protective role in our solar system.
Pushing the limit
Marcy, Butler and their colleagues also announced today the lightest extrasolar planet ever found, one 40 times as massive as Earth.
This discovery pushes the lower limits of their wobble method, which spots movement in a star induced by the gravity of an orbiting planet. (No confirmed planet outside our solar system has ever actually been photographed.)
This relatively small planet, whose possible presence was first reported in May by SPACE.com, was detected around a star called HD 49674. It is just 15 percent the mass of Jupiter. Theory holds that it would be gaseous, not rocky. Previously, the lightest known extrasolar planet was more than 50 times heavier than Earth.
For comparison, Neptune is about 17 times as massive as Earth and Saturn is about 95 times as heavy.
Marcy has said the wobble method will not be able to find planets weighing less than 10 Earth-masses.
The SETI Institute's Doyle uses a different method for planet hunting, however. He looks for slight dips in a star's light that indicate the passage of a planet. The method has yet to discover a planet, but it has been used to detect the atmosphere of a known extrasolar planet.
This so-called transit method could spot a planet twice as big as Earth, Doyle says, if the planet's path is properly aligned so that it passes in front of the star as seen from Earth.
Such a planet would have roughly eight times the mass of our own. It would still be rocky and could, theoretically, harbor life.
Doyle said the existence of two planets bracketing the habitable zone around 55 Cancri "indicates that planet production may have taken place within the habitable zone of that system."
Next Page: A dream come true, plus what's next
~
Dream come true
The discovery of the Jovian twin caps 17 years of planet hunting by Marcy and Butler, who were not deterred by early skepticism in their technique.
"Way back in 1985, Paul Butler and I began sketching the idea for a new instrument, attached to a telescope, that might someday detect planets around other stars," Marcy told SPACE.com. "Some very smart people told us that we wouldn't succeed, that we would never detect the wobble of a star caused by its attendant planets."
They did, beginning in 1995 just months after a European team found the first planet around a star besides our Sun. Marcy and Butler confirmed that finding and went on to become the world's most prolific planet-hunting team.
"We always dreamed that maybe, with a wisp of phenomenal luck and dogged perseverance, we might capture evidence of a Jupiter-like planet," Marcy said.
Prior to today's announcement, all known extrasolar planets orbited more closely to their host stars, some as close as Mercury is to our Sun.
Because the planet around 55 Cancri takes 13 years to make a complete orbit, it took equally long for enough data to accumulate to definitively identify the object. Its orbit is elongated instead of being nearly circular like Jupiter's. "We haven't yet found an exact solar system analog," Butler said. "But this shows we are getting close."
Other recent discoveries have shown that circular orbits do exist around other stars.
Butler said more Jupiter-like planets will likely flow from the data they are collecting on 1,200 Sun-like stars.
What's next
While Doyle or someone else might find a planet twice the size of Earth, the discovery of a true Earth-sized planet won't come for at least a few years, most researchers agree.
But now there is a perfect place to look.
The 55 Cancri system "will be the best candidate for direct pictures" by a next-generation space-based observatory, said Debra Fischer, a UC Berkeley astronomer who is part of the Marcy-Butler team.
Two such missions are planned by NASA, first the Space Interferometry Mission and then the Terrestrial Planet Finder. The discovery of a solar system with elements similar to our own "adds urgency to missions capable of detecting Earth-sized planets," said Charles Beichman, NASA's Origins Program chief scientist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena.
No firm launch dates are set for either of these satellites, however. Both would follow the less ambitious Kepler mission, set to launch in 2007. Kepler will use the transit method to detect and generate a census of Earth-like planets around other stars, assuming such planets exist, but it won't photograph any.
Details of the research
The star 55 Cancri is in the constellation Cancer. It is roughly 41 light-years from Earth and about 4.7 billion years old, comparable to our Sun.
The new discoveries were funded by NASA and the National Science Foundation. Observations of 55 Cancri were made at the Lick Observatory. The Anglo-Australian telescope was used to find two of the other planets announced today.
Other scientists who collaborated in the new findings: Steve Vogt, UC Santa Cruz; Greg Henry, Tennessee State University; Dimitri Pourbaix, Universite' Libre de Bruxelles; Hugh Jones, Liverpool John Moores University in the United Kingdom; Chris Tinney, Anglo-Australian Telescope; Chris McCarthy, Carnegie Institution of Washington; Brad Carter, University of Southern Queensland, Australia; and Alan Penny of the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in the United Kingdom.
The wobble method, which is so far responsible for all extrasolar planet discoveries, is also known as the Doppler technique. The researchers employ special filters in a telescope to measure a change in the wavelength in light coming from a star. The change results from the star moving toward the telescope and compressing the waves, and then moving away from the telescope and lengthening the waves.
The effect is similar to the change in sound of a siren from an ambulance rushing toward you and then heading away.
A quote from the CNN article (which seems to be a bit more fleshed out) I didn't see in either of the ones listed at the top:
"We haven't found an exact solar system analog, which would have a circular orbit and a mass closer to that of Jupiter. But this shows we are getting close," said Paul Butler, another member of the planet-hunting team.
But the orbit of the Jupiter-like planet is stable enough to foster a benign, life-friendly environment in the inner solar orbit, Fischer said.
Dark Nexus
"Sanity is calming, but madness is more interesting."
With the money and resources that would be required to move to a new planet in a distant solar system, wouldn't it be far easier and cheaper and quicker to set up a colony on a planet/moon in our own system? They would need some sort of enclosed structure to survive, but could possibly begin terraforming that new world. Given how long it would take to find and inhabit a new earth, we could probably create one here quicker.
As an added bonus, we could send much more people to mars much faster, since in the time it would take to reach even the closest star, let alone one with habitable worlds, we could make many many round-trip voyages to an in-system world. This would certainly help overcrowding here on earth, and also get us started on interplanetary colonization. Once we actually got experience moving to new worlds, each successive one could only get easier, and with people on more than one world, there would most likely be more motivation for development of new technologies to make the trip faster and more efficent, as well as improving communication times.
Maybe it's just me, but I'd rather be on a hostile new world now than a less hostile one in a few million years.
-Space for rent
The article doesn't give much information about this, so I figured I'd put in my 2 cents from what I learned in astronomy this year:
Currently, they have 2 ways (that I'm familiar with) to find an extra-solar planet. First, they can look for a "wobble" in the path the star takes. This wobble is caused by the gravitational pull of a large planet orbiting the star. Earth is so small that the tiny wobble caused by a planet similar in size would be impossible to view; or at least it would disappear with the systematical error.
The other way I've heard of to find extra-solar planets is similar to an eclipse. When the planet comes between the star and Earth, we can measure the changes in luminosity of the star. Obviously, with planets with small orbits, we can determine how quickly the planet orbits the star because of the pattern in the luminosity. Again, we can't detect earth size planets since earth is just too small.
mmm...physics...
The problem is that these are gas giants, like Jupiter or larger and we do not at this time have the tech to discover anything else.
Only 'flamers' flame!
Start building the fleet!
I recommend employing shiny white robots as our attack force.
-Rothfuss
On the other hand, my uncle said:
I completely agree with both, Spock and my uncle.
This sig is a true statement, but I cannot prove it.
i don't get the thrust of the article focusing on finding earth-sized planets. is there some theory that necessitates a planet be our size to foster life? if so, why?
:).
Planets smaller than Earth will tend to lose their atmospheres over time (e.g. Mars, Mercury).
Planets larger than Earth will tend to have super-thick atmospheres with very hostile environments (e.g. the smaller gas giants, and Venus). Notice Venus in this list - an Earth-sized planet has a gravity well deep enough to hold an inhospitably thick atmosphere. Only some quirks of Earth's formation and evolution (mainly the presence of the moon) give us an atmosphere thin enough to let our type of climate and our type of life exist.
Life could exist deep underground in a much wider range of planets, but this would be microbes and not much else.
Life could potentially exist in oceans under the frozen crust of smaller worlds (e.g. Europa), but would likely be less interesting than life on Earth-like worlds, due to a much smaller energy throughput. These worlds would also have to have a substantial source of heat (either radioactive, like Earth's, or tidal, from being a satellite of a larger planet) to avoid freezing solid. Larger worlds will probably have enough geothermal energy to churn up their oceans, making stable life-bearing layers less likely.
So, Earth-like planets do seem to be the best place to look for non-microbal life
Soon, environmentalists won't be able to tell us not to pour motor oil down the sink because "It's the only planet we have".
The astronomers said that an Earthlike planet _could_ survive in an orbit between the two large ones. Given a choice between your guess that it would get ripped to shreds, and the opinions of professional astronomers who've studied this specific solar system, and concluded that an Earthlike planet could be there, I'm going to side with the astronomers.
Arrr, it be the infamous pirate, No Beard Pete!
There are other plans to examine the spectral properties of the light as the planets pass in front of their star. Theoretically, one should be able to determine by subtraction what atmospheric properties belong to the planet using this technique.
Visit Jonesblog and say hello.
Eloi are stupid, throw morlocks at them!
That gives us two things to look for. It tells us how far from a star to look (for the temperature and energy variables), and THAT gives us the likely type of planet to find in that region. From what we know of the physics of planetary formation, those planets would tend to be small and rocky, with the likely working fluid being water.
With a planet with aqueous water, the likely atmosphere would include some oxygen, but too much or too little would tend to work itself out over time (too much, and you tend to support a LOT of combustion, which would take up the excess oxygen. Low oxygen environments are thought to be similar to that in which life developed here on Earth. . . )
In a long and possibly too-technical explanation, that's why we look for "Earth-like" planets when we look for life. . .
You might want to look at Jean Schneider's Extrasolar Planetary Encylopedia for a lot more information, including accurate information that hasn't been put through the popular press. :D
After all, we ALL know how precise the media is, right?
55 Canri, btw, has been on the extrasolar planetary astronomy watch list for some time. Read the paper references at Jean's site. I wondered why it looked so familiar...
Do you know why the road less traveled by is littered with the bones of the unwary?
This is not a troll -- I'm genuinely very curious.
What do Christians think about stories like this? I ask becuase, in discussions with Christians, I've heard Christians tell me that there is no intelligent life on other planets. This was usually in response to my questions like, "Did Jesus die for aliens on other planets?" Perhaps a silly question for me to ask, but the "There is no intelligent life on other planets" was not an uncommon belief among the Christians I've met.
So I've often wondered what Christians (particularly Christian nerds, who are probably significantly more friendly to science than some of the Christians I've met) think when stories like thit surface and hint at the possibility of finding other "Earth-like" planets that may have intelligent life on them.
Thoughts?
I don't make the rules. I just make fun of them.
Only works if we're dead on with the plane of the ecliptic. How likely is that, for any given star?
It's only a matter of time until the Terrestrial Planet Finder program gets going and finds another Earth
Yep. And when that happens, I'm leaving.
Incalculable doesn't mean zero.
What bothers me about this is that while there is a quick mention of "formation models," most of the discussion of the potential existence of a terrestrial planet seemed focused on the stability of an orbit in the present configuration. In fact, it isn't clear to me that they've even considered the formation processes at all. (To be honest, I get the opposite sense.)
Why does this bother me, you ask? Because an orbit at 1 AU might be stable NOW, but if you have a giant planet migrating in through the inner solar system to an 15-day orbit, it'll wreck jolly hell with any planets it passes. The migration is slow enough that you are almost guaranteed a close-enounter of some kind. Once a Earth-sized planet gets near a giant planet, the orbit is in the very least highly perturbed. Odds are fair that it could be ejected altogher or will collide with the giant planet and be effectly lost. But even if it isn't, the eccentricity is probably going to be increases substantially. A planet that changes its distance from its star radically over a year is unlikely to be habitable, if you believe current models.
How likely is that, for any given star?
It's more likely than you might think. It has to do with conservation of angular momentum and it's the planets and even the moons in our solar system are all within a few degrees of the same plane.
Sure there are exceptions, but the chances of seeing a solar system on edge is considerably better than whatever it would be if they were just randomly distributed.
Even though I'm still young, the one thing that I hope I live to see is the discovery of other life in the universe. If nothing else but to give a big Nelson "Ha ha." to all the people who believed otherwise. Billions and billions.
The whole universe, eh? Gosh, you're smart.
- Have a picture
What he's talking about is that this discovery pushes the lower bounds of the "wobble" technique for finding planets. Therefore as we get better instruments, it's reasonable to think we WILL find more earth-size planets.
To use your fish analogy, we're using wimpy hooks and catching small fry. As we get bigger and stronger hooks we keep pulling bigger fish. It's therefore reasonable to proceed with buying even bigger hooks, in the hopes that we haven't yet caught the biggest fish out there yet.
as a follower of Christ who specializes in nerdiness/geekiness, i feel obligated to answer your questions.
while the bible does not specifically state that there is life on other planets, it never says that there isn't life on other planets. i, personally, believe that there isn't life, even though i know this is total flamebait. this is my belief and it is based on feelings, not facts. i would venture to believe that the feelings i have that lead me to believe this are probably similar to one's feelings that would lead one to believe that because there are other planets, there's a possibility that life exists on them. We currently have no evidence that really proves that extra-terrestrial life exists, but we have no evidence that really proves that extra-terrestrial life doesn't exist. Very similar to my faith, in that I have no rock-solid evidence that proves that my God exists but I have no rock-solid evidence against Him, either. That's why it's called faith..
As far as Jesus dying for the sins of aliens on other planets..hmm..it really depends on a couple of things. First of all, if we are to believe that the fall of man was confined only to earth, then I would probably say that yes, Jesus did only die for the sins of those who live on earth..e.g. "For God so loved the WORLD" -- However, I believe that man's fall was universal, and therefore I would have to say that the universe, in turn, was entirely effected.
Many questions remain, even though none have really been answered.. if aliens exist, why do we assume that it would be intelligent life and not like a martian dog or rat or something? if the life is intelligent, does it have a soul that is saveable, according to Christian theology? hmmm..much meditation and critical thinking is required here..
What do you think about this?
Those who can, do. Those who can't, go into business for themselves.
The likelihood is large enough that it is a virtual certainty, given the BILL-yuns and BILL-yuns of stars we can observe.
Yeah, and it's populated by by people who are exact duplicates of people who currently live on Earth. The big difference is that they are the exact opposite of their Earth counterparts and have goatees and mustaches... wait, no! that's a Star Trek TOS episode.
The important part is
Calculations made by Greg Laughlin of the University of California at Santa Cruz show that an Earth-sized planet could survive in a stable orbit between the two gas giants.
This of course doesn't mean that we found anything only that when we are able to look for earth-like planets this is our best bet for hitting the jackpot.
--
/me does a double-take..
Just because it is possible for a frog to survive on a patch of grass dividing a 6 lane highway, does not mean that this is the best place to look for frogs.
Currently, we are using radar guns to observe speeding tractor-trailers, and speculating that due to the theoretical possibility of frogs living in the adjacent grass, that's where we should focus our efforts.
If you want to look for frogs, you go to a swamp, marsh or pond. Now, where are equivalent environments for finding Earth-sized planets? And what do we need to find them?
The REAL jabber has the user id: 13196
What you do today will cost you a day of your life
Quote from the Yahoo article about the same thing:
55 Cancri is located 41 million light-years from the Earth, in the constellation of Cancer. The star, believed to be around five billion years old, is visible to the naked eye, astronomers said.
HA! I don't think so. That's about 20 times the distance to the Andromeda Galaxy. Nice how the people they have writing these things up have a good grasp on the fundamentals of the subject matter.
When are we going to find the planet that is inhabited by beautiful women who love scientists, engineers, and computer geeks?
(audio version)
Krótko: kady Erotomek
W pimiennictwie ma swój domek.
Too bad it wasn't you.
By now, I am readily convinced that there is other life in the universe. In fact, it seems that odds are greater that there isn't life in the universe.
But if I'm like most anyone else, the possibility of life on the western spiral of the Andromeda Galaxy just isn't useful. Its simply too far. We would never recieve a radio transmission from there and its too far to travel.
First, lets assume Einstein is correct and we can not travel faster than the speed of light. In addition, lets rid our minds of all this science-fiction crap like wormholes and warp-drive. While I am naive, I'm not *that* naive.
Lets take the nearest star. I've heard it is 4.3 light years away. That means a radio transmission originating their takes 4.3 years to travel here. Honestly, we could live with that. Of course that is not only assuming that that civilization has developed technology, but it also assumes that they haven't been exinct by some means.
But, we're pretty sure there isn't a planetary system around proxima centauri. So we have to look farther out. But how long are we willing to wait for a round of communication from us to them? One hundred years? One thousand years? A hundred-thousand years?
Okay, as a second consideration, how long does a civilization last once it discovers radio? We've only had radio technology for a relatively little time. How much longer will we continue to exist? Take HG Wells Time Machine. Will we unlearn our technology and instead progress towards a native happiness? What about other civilizations?
In all, what are the odds that not only life exists in the universe, but that it is close enough and that it is in their technological prime?
I'd fashion that the odds are astronomical against us.
Yes, I'm a Christian. And, to be frank, I don't really care whether there are aliens out there. Whether or not they are out there is not going to affect me, my salvation, and my personal goals here on Earth.
I personally don't believe that there are aliens, but I'm not going to prove that to you in any way. Why? Because I don't have the time to start researching the evidence about something that doesn't interest me. So I'm not going to get into a debate that will go nowhere. I do think that NASA and a lot of people are wasting too much money and time looking for aliens, when those resources could've been more usefully spent on things that will benefit humankind.
I just saw your post and thought that site might be helpful.
Is it? There are something like a hundred billion stars in this galaxy alone. And like a hundred billion galaxies (not that those galaxies really matter, we'll never leave this one).
Yeh, it's virtually guaranteed that a few out there are perfect (maybe more? can someone do the math for this, I don't know how). But what if it's our luck that they happen to be the least interesting stellar systems? Or so far away it doesn't matter?
It's simply not a viable way to detect planets, by itself. In conjunction with other methods, it's somewhat useful, or so it would seem to me.
Then again, I am kindaa dumb, is it possible that you can determine the plane of ecl. by observing the "wobble" they see?
Revelations. Is it just me, or could this very well fit into an alien attack? Orbital bombardment, bio/chemical weapons, the whole nine yards.
Anyway, I'm Christian, and it's a tough question to answer. I saw somebody had a link addressing the issue, but I can't say I was too impressed by it. I'm under the personal opinion the Bible is a biography on what we need to know, not what we want to know. It tells about the things revelant to us. Creation relative to us.
"Did Jesus die for Aliens on other planets?" That really depend on how broadly you want to define a gentile. in the Bible, it pretty much refered to any man not a Jew. Again, the Bible was mainly skewed to Earth. I would think that if God did create other races, that something similar might have happened with them. After all, free choice seems to be a reoccuring theme with his creations (Men, Angels). Unless those other races were perfect, I'd think they may have (or will) be given the same opportunity. Somehow. Not meaning this in any demeaning fasion, but a Jesus on every alien world? Why not, he can obviously transend our physical limitations. Or maybe one every 5 races, the rest being a galactic form of Gentile. Beats the heck out of me. It makes for interesting musings, but not something I'll lose sleep over. My Jesus was more than enough for me.
And here's an interesting bone to pick... If we are the only intelligent life in creation, is it really a terrible waste of space, considering the Lord saw fit to make us unique amoung entire Galaxies? I'd consider it an honor. Of course, I'm saved, so I consider it an honor ET's or no.
Serious discussion is welcome as are trolls... After all, I need a good laugh every now and then.
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You deserve a compliment for that, it very much resembles the Hitchhiker's style. Congratulations. :)
Lack of eloquence does not denote lack of intelligence, though they often coincide.
Why is that? I would think that discovering a form of sentient life that is completely different from ourselves would be much more adventurous than finding like Humanity v2.0. You know what I mean? Exploring space is already the biggest adventure mankind has ever embarked upon, and why would we want to wreck the excitement by meeting extraterrestrial life we already know everything about? Wouldn't we want to be able to learn something completely new?
Lack of eloquence does not denote lack of intelligence, though they often coincide.
Why are so many people trying to spell "dimensional?" What's the big draw all of a sudden? Or are you just attracted to anyone talking about a dimension? But to answer your question, yes, I think Slashdot has been taken over by fifth graders. Well, maybe everyone just thought it would be a better idea to drop out of school after the fifth grade and get certifications to appear more desirable in the job market... ;)
Lack of eloquence does not denote lack of intelligence, though they often coincide.
---catholic... as in "one holy catholic and apistolic (sp?) church" = Christian---
Uh, isn't that definition sort of bending the truth of the situation with regard to the differing opinions of the various Protestant churches? There' nothing wrong with finding points of commonality: but I don't see the point in wiping away differences with a pat definition that simply ignores them.
"Something alive" would be incredible enough, because it's fairly likely that it would be foriegn to us, and teach us a great deal about the different possibilities for living creatures.
---And, to be frank, I don't really care whether there are aliens out there. Whether or not they are out there is not going to affect me, my salvation, and my personal goals here on Earth.---
Isn't that, well, a little uninquistive, not to mention self-centered? Certainly, what we know and can deal with, and have moral obligatins to deal with, are more important. But that hardly makes the possible existence of alien life uninteresting or meaningless. It could well have very real impacts on life here: how we see ourselves and hte universe around us.
Generally, I think it to be bad form to assume the position of your fantasy opponents, and speak for them so you can knock down your own utterances.
While I am not a believer, I also don't think that people who happen to feel that they a have personal knowledge of God, and are following their hearts on how they understand certain aspects of him, deserve ridicule or pre-emptory challenge. Plenty of even literalist Christians are quite humble in their own free admission that they relaly know very little about what they believe to be god's Creation. There's no need to paint all literalists with such a broad brush.
And I think it's exceedingly cool. I strongly suspect that there is life in many different places and some of that life is probably intelligent and self-aware.
Do I think that Jesus died for intelligent life on other planets? No, I do not.
If God has plans for these beings, God is going to reveal it to them in a way appropriate to their nature.
I have discovered a truly marvelous sig, unfortunately the sig limit is too small to contain i
It may be interesting to you, but it's not to me. You might be interested in certain TV shows which I'm not interested in. Same here.
I did not say that it's meaningless, I just said it's uninteresting to me. I'd rather spend my time and energy exploring things that are interesting to me... things which I believe in.
You can go ahead and spend your life examining alien life if you want, I've no problem with you doing that. I'm just not interested in participating.
"Me, my salvation, my personal goals." It sounds a bit self-centered, don't you think?
;)
Well, then it is. But that's just me and how I am.
My question made you feel like getting into a debate? Why are you so defensive?
Aren't all the comments here on Slashdot, especially on stories like this, a huge debate? It's neither right nor wrong, and no one knows for sure. You might think that I'm being defensive, but actually I'm just being frank and letting you know that I'm not interested in discussions which I think will lead nowhere. You're more than welcome to have different views.
I think this statement really demonstrates the flaw in your thinking. I'm not looking for "the answer" and I certainly don't think it's going to be found in the bible. I can argue capably and scripturally that the bible raises many more questions than it answers. What I was asking for were opinions from Christians, not answers. You don't have "the truth" and you are not obligated to give "God's answer" any time a question comes up. All I really wanted was opinions.
I'm not saying that that site has *the* answer and all that. In a way, the guy who wrote that site is also just stating his opinion. It's just that he probably made up his opinion based on more research than I did, so I just wanted to point it out to you. As for me, I'd rather form my own opinion only after doing the proper research, and not believe anything just because other people "say so." But this issue is something I'm not particularly interested in, so I'm not going to spend my time and energy researching this. So my opinion is: I don't believe in aliens out there, but I don't really care. But again, that's just me.
Unlike many atheists you may have met, I respect the dignity, inherent worth, and thoughts of Christians. I believe it's called, "Hate the Christianity, love the Christian."
I appreciate that. There are many atheists out there who absolutely do not want to have anything to do with Christians or Christianity. But I did not consider you to be one of those at all when I read your post. In fact, I don't have problems with atheists and non-Christians. I'm not one of those who'll push Christianity down your throat. I treat everyone fairly. Even if a Christian asked a similar question to yours (the follow-up question I mean, where you let me know that the site is not what you're looking for), I would've answered the same way.
Actually, many believe that if there was intelligent life, that Since MAN is made in Gods' image, and aliens probably will not look like men, and so would be demons, "fallen Angels", if you will
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"