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Extrasolar Planet Could Harbor Life
BlueMorpho writes with a link to a Space.com article about a recently discovered extrasolar planet that may be able to harbor 'life as we know it.' Orbiting around the star Gliese 581 is a small rocky ball that might have the same liquid ocean and drifting continent configuration we're familiar with. The find may be unique in all of space exploration as this planet appears to be within a habitable band of temperatures for life, and is categorically not a gas giant. "The bottom line is exciting ...The conditions for life could be there, but is life itself? As yet, there's no way to know unless the planet has spawned beings that are at least as clever as we are. As part of the SETI Institute's Project Phoenix, we twice aimed large antennas in the direction of Gliese 581, hoping to pick up a signal that would bespeak technology ... Neither search turned up a signal."
This is categorically amazing! Gliese 581 has not one, but *two* planets capable of sustaining life as we know it!
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The trouble is that despite the planet's title sounding like a science fiction title, the former residents of Gliese 581 were at least as clever as we are, and the planet is currently recovering from a complete nuclear winter...
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I wonder what we'll find fist: a) A planet as inhabitable by us as Earth. b) A way to genetically modify humans to adapt to currently inhospitable conditions. Maybe we'll be able to breath sulfurous air, like that found on XJ93832, which is otherwise a resort planet. I've been doing my own experiments with a homemade dutch oven. My subject/wife is quite an innovator. I think she's been altered at the genetic level several times.
"We twice aimed large antennas in the direction of Gliese 581, hoping to pick up a signal that would bespeak technology"
The first interspace wardriving attempt thus ended in failure. The Gliesians must be hardwired.
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Gliese 581 is, as astronomical distances go, relatively close: only 20 light-years away. It's one of the few star systems which, if inhabited, might provoke conversation. A simple exchange, along the lines of "how are you?" followed by "fine, and you?" would require a mere four decades. Tedious, but not unthinkable.
The actual exchange...
EARTH: How are you?
GLIESE 581: Sorry, we don't need Viagra. You can try the next planet over.
Well, I'm pretty sure the little green men will do one of the following:
a) Disable our colony ships main computer with a computer virus written quickly by one of their hacker geniuses and then hit it with a nuclear warhead while our colonists are waiting for Windows to boot up again.
b) Find out that a very common, harmless (to them) substance on their planet is highly toxic to us humans and douse any unwelcome visitor with it.
c) Realize that their equivalent of the common cold is a deadly plague for humans.
d) Send in the little green men in black to take care of the human invasion, then mind-wipe any innocent bystanders.
e) Travel back in time and keep Earth from forming.