Slashdot Mirror
Looking For Intelligence
Calgacus writes "We've all read stories about extra-solar planets being found by gravitational wobbles. The Scotsman has a story here about a planet in the Fomalhaut system being discovered because of its wake through a dust cloud. It's further out than other recently discovered planets and astronomers are saying it means there's an odds-on chance of intelligent life being out there. If only there was more on Earth..."
Move along, nothing to see here :).
I think Hobbes said it best: "The surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that it has never tried to contact us."
"Oppression and harassment is a small price to pay to live in the land of the free." -- Montgomery Burns.
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;-)
If only there was more on Earth...
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Someones had to replace a coffee cup holder recently, haven't they?
As far as I can tell, the article has nothing specifically to do with the search for life, much less the search for intelligent life. All it is really about is the detection of a planet with a much larger orbital radius than previous extrasolar planets. According to the team in the article, this makes it "much more likely that other solar systems exist." Well, duh. The only bearing this has on life is as more confirmation that there are indeed extrasolar planets. Which I think we already knew. So, yes, it's an interesting detection technique, but life? Intelligence? Including these references is sensationalistic and dumb.
Maybe it's me, but that picture looks like Saturn coming in for a crash landing. I guess it's the cut-and-paste school of astromony illustrations.
Eureka!
If the inhabitants have learnt how to leave a trail of noxious chemicals behind their planet then they MUST be intelligent!
This may be a stupid question, but how can they say there's a likely chance, when they haven't actually proved there's any life anywhere off-earth yet? Is this more astronomers trying to fund their projects again by mentioning the L-word?
"A specially-cooled camera called SCUBA was used to detect the dust because it is too cold and emitted insufficient light to be visible to optical telescopes such as the Hubble Space Telescope.
SCUBA operates in the "submillimetre" region of the electromagnetic spectrum, which lies between infrared light and radio waves. Its detectors are cooled to just 0.1C above absolute zero, -273C. "
they're talking about a camera that can see this dust because it's really cold, and that can see this light that they can't even see from telescopes in space.
i thought that space was absolute zero for temperature, or at least something remarkably close. how in the world are they able to get something colder on earth than they can in space?
anyone know anything at all about telescopes and the like as to why Hubble wasn't able to see this before?
"We've all read stories about extra-solar planets being found by gravitational wobbles...
I think that's why I keep coming back to SlashDot; only here does a story begin like that and nobody blinks an eye...
God luv yuz...
Bigger, dumber human says: "And now, for the severe beating of an intelligent human..."
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So in other words, don't believe the hype?
Let me get this straight -- now that we've found conclusive (?) evidence of another planet that most likely wouldn't support life, this increases the chance of finding intelligent life in outer space. Makes sense.
Karma: Bored. (Thinking about resurrecting the "Anyone else is an imposter" joke.)
You might want to visit the STI website then ?
They're planning to use the 90% unused brain power in every person out there, with the STI@Home project, but their Antartica station is still under construction...
Ok. Now reread the article for what it actually says.
,who led the team,] said there was little chance of finding life on the planet because it was under constant bombardment from a surrounding belt of comets. "
"However, [Dr Holland
before that his unrelated comment to the finding was...
"Personally speaking, I think it must be odds-on that there is intelligent life elsewhere in the universe, and I think one day we will find it - or they will find us."
Please read the article all the way through before you jump to conclusions.
This space intentionally left blank.
The article doesn't say that this planet itself is in any way relevant to the odds of alien life. And given it was found because of it's signature in a dust cloud (which means that firstly it's very young, and secondly it's likely to be getting a constant bombardment of metors), I don't thing there is likely to be any there right now. Life may develop there (or at least, in that system) in the future, of course, but not yet, and certainly not intelligence.
(Spudley Strikes Again!)
Dr Mark Wyatt, another team member, said the dust showed evidence of comet activity.
Something tells me my wife won't be excited by this and I'll still get yelled at for not doing a better job of cleaning up the living room.
Let's face it folks
Consider this: If we are able to communicate with extra terrestrials, odds are that they are more advanced technologicaly than we are. That being said, what if these aliens are aggressive beings that are looking for a conquest? Do we really want to make their job of finding a planet of slaves any easier?
Has anyone considered the possibility that we might be putting a big red target on our planet?
Just some food for thought
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This was also featured on space.com. Don't know if it's the same story since we seem to have slashdotted the Scotsman.
Got brain?
So remember, when you're feeling very small and insecure,
How amazingly unlikely is your birth,
And pray that there's intelligent life somewhere up in space,
'Cause there's bugger all down here on Earth.
-- The last lines from The Galaxy Song - Monty Python's The Meaning of Life
this gives more reason to use seti@home in hopes in finding intelligent life
6 billion isn't enough for you? grow some respect, kid.
So, if this planet is located in a comet-dust-other-space-junk belt/disk then you can imagine the devastation that planet must endure every day! We saw what happened to Jupiter when the Shoemaker-Levy comet bombarded the planet, in the system around this newly discovered planet this would most likely be a daily event, so to say that the chance of life is low is like saying that living through having an h-bomb inserted in your anus and detonated is low.
So according to this article, we have bigger chances to see intelligence through the fact that there's a planet "eating" up a whole mess of dust and comets... That's VERY interesting. Now /.-ters, just close your eyes and imagine - a planet roaming around a whole mess of dust and comets. Every second millions of tons fall into this world, from time to time we see Comet-Shoemaker-like fireworks shining from its surface. WELL, THAT'S A VERY GOOD CHANCE TO FIND INTELLIGENCE!
That's a whole lot of intelligence to look into one of the last places capable to harbour Life and state that "we can find some intelligence"... Couldn't they count yellow stars and say we have lot of chances to find intelligence?
Or maybe there is some intelligence out there? Exactly on that star system? So I hope that the dust will cover Earth from their view. We are a paradise compared to these Armageddonians...
for the verb form "were" being correct in this sentence. The word "if" in the sentence invokes (in most languages) the subjunctive tense which in English (but not in most languages) just happens to share the same spelling as the plural past tense of the verb "to be".
To illustrate, if we simply remove the word "if" from the beginning of the sentence, "There was more on earth..." it becomes grammatically correct. Even adding your "collective noun" to the sentence doesn't change it: "There was more intelligent life on earth." is still more correct (and readable) than, "There were more intelligent life on earth."
No one ever had to evacuate a city because the solar panels broke!
One of the large problems in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence is the preconception that any "intelligent lifeforms" would conform to the human concept of what qualifies:
.5 or 3.5 times the size of humans, and life in subterranean caves and achieved energy/sustainence from lava-flows or something similar as opposed to a solar source.
a) Life
b) Intelligence
he said there was little chance of finding life on the planet because it was under constant bombardment from a surrounding belt of comets.
In the case of (a), for the most-part we are looking for carbon-based lifeforms that function in a similar way to human beings. This isn't to say that were looking for a bipedal species with human characteristics, but that we ignore other possiblities. There could be lifeforms that are not carbon-based, as is life on earth. Indeed, a planet that is completely inhospitable to earthly life may provide what another race/species needs to exist, but is overlooked due to the fact that "we" couldn't live on it.
If that is the case, then why shouldn't there be planetary systems like our own that contain Earth-like planets?
In the case of (b), we qualify intelligence as matching a particular set of humanistic functions. Among these would be the ability to manufacture tools, buildings, monuments, etc that are recognisable to us as such.
There's no reason why (possible) life on other planets should conform to these classifications. Indeed, there could be lifeforms that are not x-pedal (have feet, etc) in nature, are
Outworldly life is greatly unknown. There's nothing to say that such life would be in any way similar to our own, and to us may resemble a rock more than a human being.
We're all limited by our own sense of being - phorm
There's no other intelligent life on this thread.
I am a Karma Library.
I get anoyed by people talking about the probability of intelligent life on other planets. Frank Drake's 1961 equation, is the most famous example.
We have a sample group of 1 so far. You can't predict anything from a sample of 1. Its basic math.
here !
So are they gonna name it Crikkit? :-)
I first read this as "gravitational wombles" and thought it was some weird furry creature living in space...
Based on the most conservative estimates for variables in the Drake Equation, odds are we're not alone.
That's no proof, but it's not like astronomers are asking people to believe there's an invisible pink unicorn listening to their prayers. It's the best estimate we have. Without an ftl jet or a working dimensional transfuctioner or whatever the gyroscope thing was in Conact, in this case absence of evidence is not strong evidence of absence.
All these comments and no one has pointed out
that we already KNOW who (or what) live there?
I'm not going to mention it, since I would not want to be
responsible for costing anyone else their sanity, but
do a search and you'll see what I mean.
(try "Fomalhaut" and "cult" for best results, but you
have been warned)
beware the mouth of the fish!
Dr. Milo Voo
Information Sciences
Miskatonic University
Ok, I know that we have found microbial bacteria in Antarctica... but take the temperatures there, and quintuple it... and you've got Pluto. Where, arguably, no life could survive past the microbial stage.
Now, go out a few million more miles, and your on one of these planets, who's temperatures make Pluto look like the Bahamas... NOW what are your odds?
The one thing that amuses me... is that the astronomers know the odds of finding life in the universe... infinitesimal, but life is out there. Yet, even when knowing this, they still hold hope of finding that life HERE in our own solar system.
Heres to the infinitely optimistic astronomer... Cheers!!!
The Code Ninja is swift with his tool, precise in his delivery, and deadly accurate in his execution.
If they had put up an image as opposed to an artists sketch.
See http://www.disclosureproject.com .
Because someone did it on there recently. It was floor cleaner, if I remember correctly.
Bunch of arse.
And then to take this proof, and amek the jump, if there are solar systems, then there should be earth like planets - that is a huge assumption. And finally, to go from solar system to intelligent life, that just took it from huge assumption, to science fiction. Not that I don't like science fiction, but not is a scientific article!
First Falcon-1 to orbit, then Falcon-9. Then I can die a happy man.
Is already known to dwell somewhere near the star Fomalhaut. No, not the oscilloscope for your mp3 player; an unspeakable great old one who gibbers and meeps unspeakably beyond the dimensions we know.
Now that we have located intelligent life, all we need to do is contact it (which, under the new rules, will cost us a permanent wisdom point.)
The good and new comes from no quarter where it is looked for, and is always something different from what is expected.
Why does everyone seem to stress that life may only be found on Earth-like planets? IMHO, I don't think Earth is particularly suited for intelligent life, I think its obvious that we've evolved to utilize the Earth's means. Why should we limit ourselves to searching for life on Earth-like planets? (Aside from the fact that it has possible relocation possibilities)
And exactly which part of the "good book" claims that we are the only things that "God" created? Does your book include a *direct* claim that we are the only things "He" created?
And if it doesn't, then what are all the planets we can see up there? "He" got bored and wanted to use up the rest of his "Tapioca-coloured dust" paint?
We've also all heard that every single one of the so-called planets have been determined false. The wobble spazm is a bogus technique. I'm sure that there are some "extra-solar" planets out there...but so far exactly zero have been found.
of the Fomalhaut system and planet is today's Astronomy Picture of the Day.
Stephen King news is the best part of slashdot.
Please this is not flamebait. The presented article was very bad and if Internet-based journalism is continued in such a way, there will be no more intelligence on this planet indeed.
What the article meant to say is that the existence of a huge planet in a far orbit from its star increases the probability of finding Earth-like planets in the habitable zone.
Life exists on this planet because it is protected by the big ones (Jupiter, Saturn) that attract comets and asteroids. So, scientists assume that a solar-like system will also have big planets orbing its outter rings.
The article is so bad that it says "other solar systems". There is only one solar system, and that is the one with the 'Sun' in it.
Maybe "planetary system" is a better term.
"Oooohhh... Look who knows so much!"
You moron. The Bible never says anything about a flat earth... that was a man-made construct of the dark ages. Idiot.
Maybe you'd be interested in the TOTL STI project (STI= search for terrestrial intelligence) i'm sure if there's any intelligence on earth to be had they'll be the first to know.
-tid242
With a few exceptions, secrecy is deeply incompatible with democracy and with science. --Carl Sagan
It's right up there with the (earlier) idea that because we were finding supergiant planets so close to stars, it must mean there aren't many Jupiter-sized planets out there in mid-range orbits to suck up comets in their gravity wells -- so there must be less chance of life, right, 'cause all those comets would scour inner planets clean? That one got floated when they were first finding the big whoppers that caused stars' images to wobble. 'Course, it was based on assumptions about the fundamental role of comets in planetary life -- the whole dinosaur thing was in the news then -- and about how every star system must look like ours, and so on.
We're still in the data collection stage of figuring out extrasolar planets. Our means of seeing them are dependent on flaky situations -- planets that travel through dust trails, planets that are so huge they cause stars to spin funny, stuff like that. We can't say anything really solid about the frequency of different types of planets, because our methods of looking for them are still picking around the edges, seeing the outliers rather than getting any sense of the norm.
(Personally I think some of the outrageously adaptive bacterial life on earth argues pretty strongly for life wherever there's the slightest opening. If you wanna argue the likelihood of extraterrestrial forms, take a look at the conditions bacteria can get by in. Life can get by.)
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
Not because Carl Sagan said so, but examine the basic argument. Kind of like teaching a talking bomb phenomology. The logic is independent of the bearer.
Our civilization cowers in fear at the idea of naughty people getting their hands on nukes. Space is BIG, and any way you cut it, the energy it will take to cross interstellar space makes our total capabilities look like a firecracker. We see how difficult an unsuccessful a time we've had "containing" our mere firecrackers. An interstellar civilization will have ready access to tremendous energies, and it must be reasonably widespread. If they had our self-destructive tendancies, they would have had ample time to fulfill them prior to achieving interstellar capability.
Caveats to this:
An immature race discovered or stole the technology from a mature race. (Footfall, Niven/Pournelle)
Alien/xenophobic psychology - Hive minds, Benford's mechs, Saberhagen's beserkers.
Different neighborhood - Imagine multiple inhabitable planets in one solar system. Or how about the nearest start being quite a bit closer? It might be possible to make baby steps to interstellar travel, relieving some of the "pressure cooker" effect we have living on one little planet.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
For all the easily disappointed posters blaring on about how this has nothing to do with the chances of extra-terrestrial intelligence, it's not that hard to decipher the science from the hyperbolic headline. This observation just allows us to infer higher values for the f p and n e terms of Drake's equation. It improves the odds a little.
(OT, but didn't we used to have <sub> tags here?)
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
Why is it that all the instruments on that are looking for intelligent life in the Universe, are pointed away from Earth?
This above all: To thine ownself be true... --Lord Polonius Hamlet: Act I Scene 3
... and many of them have already been voiced, so I won't delve into them...
Except this one: The idea of contacting ET is predicated on the idea that, in all the universe, life would happen in both an accessable region of space, and during a time in history when the two species are actually BOTH ALIVE.
Time seems to always be left out of the equation.
The human race, in one form or another, has been on Earth for, what, tens- to hundreds of thousands of years? That's not even a molecule of a drop in the bucket of eternity. The chance that, right NOW (or even in the forseeable future -- let's be generous and suppose that humans will last another, oh, 500,000 years) there is some alien race out there evolved at least to the point that we can contact or that would contact us... well, it's laughable. The chances of historic overlap are worse than astronomical. You'd be better off predicting that a Dilophisaurus will be seen touring around New York City, barring Michael Criton's interference.
I think if we ever have contact with aliens, it will not be through living representatives. From one direction or the other, it will be through artefacts or other long-dead signals in the noise. Theirs or ours.
In short: Overcoming the gulfs of space isn't the only problem. There's just too much time for things to happen in. History on the cosmic scale is a pretty spread-out resource.
GMFTatsujin
You are assuming that since we are becoming more technologically advanced, we also are becoming more morally advanced. I don't see that in history. We are not any less likely to kill one another than before. We just have more effective weapons.
So if an Alien species finds earth, that explorer and scientist crew might see money to be made by exploiting us.
Here is another counter argument. Imagine it is not an explorer that comes across the tiny oasis with the interesting bugs but a construction crew. Perhaps they don't find the bugs very interesting. They're just paving a few systems to build a parking garage for a nearby ringworld. ET: "damn another intelligent species, the environmentalists are going to freak... quick... wipe out that little nest of them on the third rock out before that EPA guy shows up."
Perhaps they have developed an ethos or instinct that ensures they are not *self* destructive but that is no guarantee they are not *other* destructive or care that much about *others* at all.
Possibly not. But it's not something we'll ever know until we meet a few new races from out among the stars. Until then, everything is just more-or-less conjecture and to a certain extent educated opinion.
By then it will be all retrospect - phorm
Indeed, we're just blundering our way around the local stars looking for something familiar. It's like putting an MCSE in charge of linux servers, he might get lucky and figure things out, and he'll hopefull get better over time, but until he gets some evidence of what he's looking for. Our best chances of finding non-carbon life might be in them finding us, or us noting some very simple indicating of life/intelligence (hey, it moves when you poke it), so for now I probably carbon is our best bet, unless some scientists can identify what might be the optimal living conditions for expected non-carbon lifeforms.
*Gender equity note: He used in general because it's easier than typing he/she.
Heck, half of the time we don't understand life on earth, or even our own species.Perhaps once we understand what makes us and our planet "tick" then we'll be better suited for out-of-world exploration
Can anybody explain "females"? - phorm
The fact that most of the detected planets are very close to their parent stars is no cause for concern. In fact, it's actually heartening that planets have been detected around only a few percent of the stars which have been searched.
Why? Because most of the current searches can only detect huge planets close in to their parent star. It's no surprise we've only detected planets of this sort... they're all we're capable of finding!
Don't worry about the close in planets. We've found a lot of them, but they aren't around most stars. The fact that they're there at all is what gives many of us the hope that planetary systems are commom!
A friendly neighborhood astrophysicist
What I never quite gathered about the mars meteorite thing--we're talking about the one they made all that hubbub about a few years ago, right?--was how they could determine that any life was extraterrestrial in nature, and not just something that happened to crawl onto from here on Earth.
(But I am quite curious, so do tell me if you know anything.)
Suppose you live in a cabin in the middle of nowhere, with contact with only a few other equally isolated people. Would you be justified in declaring the French do not exist, on the premise that if they did exist they would have visited you already?
It's been less that a century since we figured out how to fly. Our little bits of space travel are akin to the first neolithic boat builder's forays up and down the shore of the local lake. My assumption is that we're still an abysmally ignorant species that has only started to scratch the surface of the Universe. It's rather arrogant to draw conclusions about the limits of possibility given how little we know now.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
It reads even better if you play the theme to Star Trek at the same time.
(* What I never quite gathered about the mars meteorite thing--we're talking about the one they made all that hubbub about a few years ago, right?--was how they could determine that any life was extraterrestrial in nature, and not just something that happened to crawl onto from here on Earth. *)
I am no geologest, but from what I gather they use typical dating methods to identify the age of the rock and fossils. There is chemistry (and isotopes) in there that are only known to exist on Mars (at least not Earth).
There is no evidence that the life-like deposites are of a different age than the rest of the rock, and the questioned deposites themselves, magnetic poop-like stuff, have the same Mars isotopes and surroundings-matching age from what I gather.
There are features of the poop that closely resemble poop from similar earth bugs. Multiple independent measurements seem to match the earth poop. IOW, the poop indicates both characteristics of the alleged bugs, and of what the bugs ate. These characteristics would not jive if newer bugs (microbes) simply ate the old rock minerals.
There's alot of stories in them there poops.
Of course, there is still nothing definite about the poop or poop-like origin and the bacteria-like fossils.
The biggest contention seems to be whether the poop-like deposites are biology-generated or natural occuring, and NOT whether they are terrestrial or not. The second does not seem to be in signif dispute. It seems to be agreed that the poop-like stuff is from Mars, regardless of who or what made it while up there. Now they just need to agree on what process made it.
It is a good thing humans don't have magnetic poop. Walking by a metal post could make premature messes. We could also not use metal jet toilets because it would keep sticking to the........never mind.
Table-ized A.I.
Given the assumption that "life as we know it" is most likely to develop on an Earth-like planet, each piece of evidence pointing to the widespread existence of Sol-like solar systems increases the odds that those Earth-like planets exist. Evidence of a large planet in the outer portion of a very young dust disk -- rather directly mirroring the presumed formation of our solar system -- increases those odds even more.
Consider how interesting it would be to detect large amounts of chlorophyll at one tiny nub in that dust disk.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
You haven't been paying much attention on this planet, have you?
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However if I would live in India, US was first choice as I learnd english in school.
Er, by that theory the UK would be the first choice (historical imperialism notwithstanding), not to mention that it's generally UK English, not American English, that is taught in other countries.
I consider it a bad place to live in relation where I live.
That's because you know nothing about it. Not to say that someone can't prefer a particular place for various reasons, but there the only way the US is a "bad place" in relation to ANYWHERE is if you wallow in your own prejudiced ignorance.
No, I'm not.
Karma: Undead.