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'Hundreds of Worlds' in Milky Way
Raphael Emportu writes "BBC news is reporting
that rocky planets, possibly with conditions suitable for life, may be more common than previously thought in our galaxy, a study has found.
New evidence suggests more than half the Sun-like stars in the Milky Way could have similar planetary systems.
There may also be hundreds of undiscovered worlds in outer parts of our Solar System, astronomers believe.
Future studies of such worlds will radically alter our understanding of how planets are formed, they say."
My blog
No shit that there are other planets like ours out there. The incomprehensibly massive scale of the universe dictates it to be true, statistically-speaking.
Today, children receive next to no education in the field of astronomy. Were they to have a proper understanding of what lies beyond Pluto, they'd probably grow up to realize how silly it is to believe that there is only one planet like Earth.
Now, if we only had some means of reaching it...
The speed of light is a barrier like few the humanity has ever found.
Interesting, considering that just last night I was watching a documentary, on BBC4 no less, about rare earth theory and how miraculous it was that the conditions on earth are as they are.
...
Funny but, I couldn't shake the feeling that the reason conditions here on earth are so 'perfect' for life as we know it was more to do with life as we know it evolving to fit the conditions
Invaders must die
... there may be hundreds of worlds in the solar system. In the Milky Way, expect trillions. The distinction between the Solar System and the Galaxy is a subtle one, similar to that between a grain of sand and Saudi Arabia, so it's easy for the likes of the BBC to confuse the two.
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
Wouldn't it be feasible that intelligent life could arise on a planet that is liquid?
Our own earthly cephalopods are pretty darned smart. Given the right conditions, it's not difficult to imagine a similar species attaining greater intelligence. Of course, such an intelligence, having developed in such an alien environment, would be radically different from ours. As Larry Niven says, there are brains out there that think just as well as yours...but differently.
Also, although an aquatic species could conceivably develop intelligence, I can't imagine what form its technology would take. With such elementary things as fire denied to them, it's doubtful that they could progress to any reasonable level.
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~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
As long as the temperature of the liquid is sufficiently stable, there are sufficient chemical building blocks and there is not too much current, single cell organisms and then multi cell organisms could emerge..
Depends on how you define "intelligence". Our liquids are certainly teeming with intelligent life. Life itself apparently began in our oceans. Fish are certainly very smart - they feed themselves, find mates, defend territory, build defensive structures, some species live and travel in social groups, etc. These are all signs of "intelligence". Then if you want to cheat a bit and look at the ocean mammals - seals, porpoises, whales, these are extremely intelligent aquatic beings.
Arthur C. Clarke, however, argued that CIVILIZATION, however, could not evolve in an aquatic environment, for the simple reason that you cannot have fire underwater. His interesting theory claims that fire, and our control of fire - has been a driving force in our technology. First the fire we would use for slash and burn agriculture - which while being devastating for the environment over the long term gave many short term advantages to the primitive farmer. Fire to make steam is what drove the industrial revolution. And that same power is still in use today, though we get our "fire" in the form of Uranium, or by burning fossil fuels. Then there is the "fire" from the sky - electricity. Harnessing this particular "fire" would be pretty tricky underwater.
I guess it's an interesting concept to play with, and surely there are many possibilities that we biased, land dwelling humans could never dream of, but I respect Mr. Clarke and his idea. I think it would be difficult for an aquatic civilization to arise here or anywhere else.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
First 9, then posibly 10, then back to 9, then 8.. now we have..
"Our old view, that the Solar System had nine planets will be supplanted by a view that there are hundreds if not thousands of planets in our Solar System,"
The first release of Solaris was Solaris 2. This replaced SunOS 4.x. There were a number of Solaris 2.x point releases, with the last being Solaris 2.6. Solaris 7 was released in November, 1998, followed by Solaris 8 in 2000, Solaris 9 in 2002, and Solaris 10 in 2005.
Although Sun's marketing dept. sometimes comes up with fucked version numbering conventions, the progression is actually quite linear.
Not every day or time, it all comes down to in which environment it has to survive. And we have examples of tool-compatible appendages in aquatic life here on earth: the octopus that can open plastic bottles http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wfRqYjv9QgA. And then there are other aqautic life that seems to do very well without fins such as crustaceans.
I'm all for shipping grammar nazis off to the most distant rock available.
;)
By the way, it's "later", not "latter"
The speed of light is not a deal-breaker. It means that, from *our* perspective, we'll send people to distant planets and never hear from them again. But from their perspective, it may be a few years. If interstellar travel actually happens, then the speed of light issue is just a managable logistical issue. It means that space-farers must be able to think for themselves. They already must be self-sufficient in other respects.
If there is a deal-breaker, then it is contruction and propulsion of such a craft. The vaster the craft, then the more unlikely it's construction. We might be able to fire ourselves off in a single direction, but how do we slow down, and what if we need to change course. If we need to come home, then we've doubled the energy required!
Then there are complex issues with people - our fragile minds and bodies. How do we react to the stress of space-travel, can we do it?
The speed of light seems like a comparatively simple issue.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
There are plenty of volcanoes under the water here on Earth. Could those serve as a source of fire?
Perhaps primitive marine creatures would realize that some sort of algae-like food source grows better in the warmer waters around these "glowing liquid not-water" sources and start building walls around them to hold in that temperature. Sort of like farming - but with algae instead of regular "crops". This would give them a stable food source and they could get to thinking about other things.
Reading code is like reading the dictionary - you have to read half of it before you can go back and understand it.
I disagree. I understand the argument you are trying to make, but your "1 in a million" suggestions are really more akin to wild stabs at the biggest number you can think of, than they are reasonable guesses. 1:1000000 is really an unusually small ratio, and not as common as you intimate. It certainly has no actual relation to the situations that present themselves in the formula.
You can't simply spout a bunch of hyperbole and expect to be taken seriously. Especially in reply to an article that attempts to actually determine those numbers and percentages based on facts. This kind of talk is really no different from the comedy statement that "90% of people know that you can prove anything with statistics." It's meaningless.
While we will likely have to wait a whole lot longer for meaningful answers to the Drake equation, attempts at putting fact-based numbers on the variables should be applauded, and discounting them with what amounts to emotional hyperbole should be discouraged IMO.
Except, we are in the midst of people arguing about exactly how intelligent cephalopods and sea based mammals are.
The truth of the matter is that we have no real way to gauge the intelligence of other alien life forms. Almost all tests are based on a set of assumptions. It is only fairly recently that we have even defined classes of intelligences within humans (Linguistic, Spatial, Musical, Body-Kinesthetic, Interpersonal, Intrapersonal, Logical/Mathematical). It is entirely possible that intelligent life could evolve in aquatic environments that score extremely high in multiple categories there and we would have no real way of knowing. We know that there are a number of species that have highly evolved linguistic characteristics. But, what are they saying? Is it "See Spot Run"? Is it something profound? Is it elaborate fart jokes? It is entirely possible that the social structures are subtle enough that we have no means of determining how complex they are. When whale song can be heard from thousands of miles away, how do you determine the society that hears it and responds and the relationship between the one singing and the ones listening?
Someone once said that either we are alone, or we are not. Either answer is mind boggling.
My view is that we don't even know if we alone here on Earth, much less the universe.
Arthur C. Clarke, however, argued that CIVILIZATION, however, could not evolve in an aquatic environment, for the simple reason that you cannot have fire underwater. His interesting theory claims that fire, and our control of fire - has been a driving force in our technology. First the fire we would use for slash and burn agriculture - which while being devastating for the environment over the long term gave many short term advantages to the primitive farmer. Fire to make steam is what drove the industrial revolution. And that same power is still in use today, though we get our "fire" in the form of Uranium, or by burning fossil fuels. Then there is the "fire" from the sky - electricity. Harnessing this particular "fire" would be pretty tricky underwater.
I always thought that was a pretty uncreative comment from such a create fellow. If you eliminate the need to breathe (artificially) underwater, it's pretty easy to come up with a basic concept of civilization.
Algae farms wouldn't be hard to manage with the most basic of technology. Power could be generated from currents turning water wheels. Heat based power sources could also work, such as sea floor hot spots or something using the differential between the warm sea surface and the cool sea bottom. Hard metals might be all but unworkable, but fabric and bone could be made easily with plant and animal life. That would then allow a relatively firm fabric based cage/pen for herding animals. Transportation obviously wouldn't be in the form of a locomotive, but perhaps a system of rapid current tunnels could be worked out. Or maybe the harnessing of larger sea animals.
I don't know enough to determine the rest, but I think the rudimentary civilization is there; tool use, farming/herding instead of hunting/gathering, and the basics of transportation.
The explanation for the "write" vs. "write to" distinction, at least, is pretty simple. The nouns taking the verb "write" are dative case. That's not obvious in English, but it's there, and it underlies the apparent form.
German is useful here because 1) it's the root language for English and 2) its sentence structures can be perfectly analogous. Take the German sentence Schreib deiner Mutter einen Brief which is translated word-for-word as Write your mother a letter. In German, the deiner is a clear marker that Mutter is dative. The exact same thing is happening in English, but since we don't decline our articles or possessive adjectives and rely instead on word order, it's not obvious to the typical native speaker.
So you can laugh all you want to...