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NASA's Kepler Discovers 11 Systems Hosting 26 Planets

Posted by timothy on from the such-nice-hosts-they-are dept.

An anonymous reader writes "NASA's Kepler mission has discovered 11 new planetary systems hosting 26 confirmed planets. These discoveries nearly double the number of verified planets and triple the number of stars known to have more than one planet that transits, or passes in front of, the star. Such systems will help astronomers better understand how planets form."

89 comments

  1. Here we go by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1

    Cue the "we must not be alone in the universe" vs Christian fundamentalist arguments.

    1. Re:Here we go by craigminah · · Score: 5, Informative

      Christianity and belief in life outside of Earth are not mutually exclusive.

    2. Re:Here we go by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1

      cool story bro

    3. Re:Here we go by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      As much as I'm not one to defend any religion, this is certainly true. Look at official stance of the Vatican on the issue, they hold that there is nothing in the bible or any tradition of early christianity that prevents the existence of life outside Earth. (and they have scientists working towards SETI and other projects)

    4. Re:Here we go by YoungSaint · · Score: 1

      Seriously. I have asked a few of the local ministers in my area when I was a christian. The de facto answer was always "The bible says absolutely nothing about whether or not intelligent aliens exist, but personally I think if God is really infinite then there is no reason why he wouldn't have many, many children.' It seems to be mostly the Catholics who believe weird stuff like that. (just an observation, Catholics aren't common here.)

    5. Re:Here we go by Charliemopps · · Score: 1

      Actually there's an entire culture of "Christian intellectuals" that often discuss the relationship between science and God. The popes even got a physicist on staff that's also a priest. He does interviews. Anyway, the general idea on this front is this:

      Before the whole "war on heaven" business, Satan was a good guy if you remember. He was given dominion over the earth. When God decided to give "grace" to humanity (basically meaning humanity could disobey him and still receive his forgiveness) Satan got pissed and turned. Well, the idea is that the bible is very specific that Satan was given dominion over the earth... so much so that it sounds like other angels had dominion over other areas... other planets maybe?

    6. Re:Here we go by digitig · · Score: 1

      Before the whole "war on heaven" business, Satan was a good guy if you remember. He was given dominion over the earth. When God decided to give "grace" to humanity (basically meaning humanity could disobey him and still receive his forgiveness) Satan got pissed and turned. Well, the idea is that the bible is very specific that Satan was given dominion over the earth... so much so that it sounds like other angels had dominion over other areas... other planets maybe?

      The Christians are now using Milton instead of the Bible as their source???

      --
      Quidnam Latine loqui modo coepi?
    7. Re:Here we go by sqrt(2) · · Score: 1

      The Catholics actually have their own astronomy department and do a fair amount of real science. As a sect of Christianity they are by far the most progressive about such issues. Seems they're making up for lost time after their historical antagonistic relationship with science (see: Galileo)

      --
      If you build it, nerds will come. Soylentnews.org
    8. Re:Here we go by __aaltlg1547 · · Score: 1

      The same can be said of Scientology. It doesn't make either of them any more likely to be true.

    9. Re:Here we go by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And cue the atheists pre bitching about it? Really? Get over yourself...

      Congrats on your belief of nothing. Do you *honestly* think the rest of us *really* care?

    10. Re:Here we go by robbiedo · · Score: 1

      It's a great big universe, and we're all really puny.

    11. Re:Here we go by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1

      The papist cult in Vatican has nothing to do with Christianity, retard.

    12. Re:Here we go by David+Gerard · · Score: 1

      Culturally, this has long been the case! Lots of stuff people think of as "Christian" is straight out of Milton or even Dante.

      --
      http://rocknerd.co.uk
    13. Re:Here we go by master_p · · Score: 1

      Perhaps you are not aware of the fact that many big names of Orthodox Christianity have said that there are no other worlds like Earth.

    14. Re:Here we go by rgbatduke · · Score: 1

      The only reason that this is now true is that Christianity has long since adapted to the cruel fact that the Bible, its nominal description of God, the origins of the Universe and humans in it, its accounting of history and morality, has been shown to be false everywhere that it matters. Shown long ago to be false. However, for most of the last 2000 years one would have been burned alive, hung, imprisoned, tortured, ostracized, or stoned to death for any such assertion because it is in fact the case that belief in Christianity and life outside of the Earth -- hell, belief in an "outside of the Earth" for there to be life in -- were mutually exclusive.

      Christians have responded to the troubling news (as described, for example, in Cardinal Saint Bellarmine's letter to Galilieo -- http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1615bellarmine-letter.asp -- required reading for any Christian interested in the truth as opposed to excuses for continuing to accord partial faith to a stack of myths, legends, and self-serving lies) by simply eliding all of the contradicted and self-contradictory passages in the Bible out of their mental space. They do exactly the same thing that the selfsame Catholic Church has done with pederastic priests -- tried to pretend that they don't exist, or that they are "something else", for example metaphor, not literal truth, even though the original patriarch's of the church clearly thought they were literal truth and at least in the early 1600's acknowledged that if they were not, it was frighteningly probable that the whole structure of assertions of truth that is Christian Scripture was probably false -- probable enough to convince almost anybody, unless convinced otherwise by an increasingly tangled morass of "interpretation" of scripture that says one thing into something else entirely.

      This has resulted in the shrinkage of sound core belief in Biblical scripture to the bare minimum to support Christianity -- at this point we are to believe that Christ existed, did all of these miracles, is misreported when he is asserted to have referred to Noah and the Flood as actual events, was crucified, died, rose from the dead, and will come back one day to judge humanity and bring in a golden age after a really big war against antichrists like myself where he will (one presumes) kill us for our disbelief and then condemn us all to a fiery furnace for eternity for the insult. Everything else is up for grabs as it contradicts yet another piece of science or historical analysis, but if Jesus did not exist, did not die and come back to life, then Christianity itself has no basis at all in fact.

      Fortunately (for "Christianity", the hodge-podge of Christian faiths), it is impossible to disprove this because the events in question happened 2000 years ago, safely beyond the ability of telescopes to disprove them, and the Church itself long since destroyed any historical records that might have contradicted its account of the events of that time. All one can combat this with is sheer common sense -- the assertions are absurd -- and the fact that everywhere we can actually check the miraculous assertions of the Bible, they are false. The Bible is a false witness. It has zero credibility. It endorses slavery and marriage by rape. Moses, were he alive today, would face a Nuremberg-like trial for the slaughter and rape of the Midianites and be hung by the neck until he was dead. Its morality is not just suspect, it is openly wrong. The God it portrays is a cross between a tempery three-year old child whose name is "Jealous" and an ego-bound Earthly King.
      br rgb

      --
      Even when the experts all agree, they may well be mistaken. --- Bertrand Russell.
    15. Re:Here we go by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      I like to think that after his death and re-incarnation Jesus flew to other planets via divine means.

      Unfortunately, he ran into a planet with alien life that had blood composed of acid and a nasty habit of depositing eggs into human hosts.

      It didn't look too good for our savior in the beginning, but Raptor Jesus happened to pass by the sector with the space ferrying Flying Spaghetti Monster. Through many trials and tribulations they were able to "save" the alien race.

      By save I indicate the use of heavily armed holy weapons which brought fiery wrath down upon those bastards.

      At least, that is what I was taught when growing up.

    16. Re:Here we go by RockDoctor · · Score: 1

      Giordano Bruno would like to toast you on that point, but I think he'd have preferred it if you just poured the drink on the fire to put it out.

      --
      Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
  2. USA is a country of God. by aleica · · Score: -1, Flamebait

    Lord did such a good job providing living ground for his children.

    1. Re:USA is a country of God. by chill · · Score: 1

      Really? We already know there are Starbucks, Strip Clubs and Walmarts on these planets? I'm impressed with Kepler's resolution!

      --
      Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
    2. Re:USA is a country of God. by Cazekiel · · Score: 1

      I say we apply Drake's to this. If we can do it with extraterrestrial life on other planets, we can do it with anything. I've done it with the question, "How many cell phones are currently playing the ringtone 'Combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell' by Das Racist right now?" Any-thing.

      --
      You want to know how to help your kids? LEAVE THEM THE F*&K ALONE. --George Carlin
    3. Re:USA is a country of God. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Lord did such a good job providing living ground for his children.

      He sure did provide his children with this beautiful land. Then we killed 90% of them and put the rest in concentration camps (reservations).

  3. And SETI has a new project... by JoeMerchant · · Score: 4, Interesting

    http://setilive.org/ focuses on Kepler planets, and it's much more interactive than the old SETI@home

    1. Re:And SETI has a new project... by buchner.johannes · · Score: 1

      What is the "signal" we are looking at there? Any idea?

      --
      NB: The message above might reflect my opinion right now, but not necessarily tomorrow or next year.
    2. Re:And SETI has a new project... by jeff4747 · · Score: 3, Informative

      Any modulated RF that doesn't have a natural or human source.

      We're not going to be downloading plans, like in Contact. It's unlikely that we'll be able to decode the message, since we won't know what it's encoding.

    3. Re:And SETI has a new project... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      It's unlikely that we'll be able to decode the message, since we won't know what it's encoding.

      That shouldn't be a problem, as long as the aliens use XML.

    4. Re:And SETI has a new project... by scdeimos · · Score: 5, Funny

      That shouldn't be a problem, as long as the aliens use XML.

      Now we have two problems.

    5. Re:And SETI has a new project... by digitig · · Score: 1

      It would probably turn out to be a rerun of "I Love Lucy" anyway.

      --
      Quidnam Latine loqui modo coepi?
    6. Re:And SETI has a new project... by Tom · · Score: 1

      Encoding isn't the issue. Language and script is.

      If the message is encoded digitally, good luck figuring it out. First you need to find out how many bits encode one symbol, and that's already assuming that number is constant. That's the encoding part. But even if you get the symbols, how do you attribute meaning? Even lost human languages are hopeless unless you have a Rosetta's Stone or some other translation that gives you a starting point.

      The same holds true for math. We think that math transports universal truth, be still, what does a succession of 5 different, equally meaningless symbols mean to you? It could be 1+1=2 or it could be e=mc2. Or any other short formula.

      Even a long text tells you nothing if you don't have a starting point.

      --
      Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
    7. Re:And SETI has a new project... by Tom · · Score: 1

      stupid error, it would of course not be 1+1=2 but 1+2=3 etc.

      Unless, of course, their language encoded 1 different depending on circumstances. Like some human languages that use capital letters at the start of a sentence and small letters inside the sentence. And many of those letter are not just larger versions of each other (like s and S), but pretty different (like a and A).

      --
      Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
    8. Re:And SETI has a new project... by jeff4747 · · Score: 1

      Language and script are just additional encoding schemes.

      "Table" has no inherent meaning. Instead, it's our encoding for the object with a flat top and four legs.

      Heck, "1" has no inherent meaning. We just have a common understanding of what that symbol encodes.

    9. Re:And SETI has a new project... by khallow · · Score: 1

      We're not going to be downloading plans, like in Contact.

      Unless that turns out to be what happens, of course.

      It's unlikely that we'll be able to decode the message, since we won't know what it's encoding.

      Another option here is that we can decode such a message because we do figure out what it is encoding.

      In the story about predicting the effects of room temperature superconductors, several people have warned about the great errors that always occur in predictions about the future. Those concerns apply here as well. Deciding in absence of hindsight what aspect of predictions, about human/ET intelligence contact, will occur or not, is just as error-prone as the original prediction.

    10. Re:And SETI has a new project... by Tom · · Score: 1

      They are by far not the same.

      Language includes a change in the levels of abstraction, encoding does not.

      I had a lot more written here, but then I realized it all logically follows from this one point. You might need to have read Korzybski to understand, though. I can't explain it in a few sentences.

      --
      Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
    11. Re:And SETI has a new project... by jeff4747 · · Score: 1

      When people are speaking, yes.

      When you're talking about radio communication, "table" or "101100001000" (Table in Morse code) are encodings that then allow people to speak.

      The literal words or bits transmitted aren't language. They contain language.

  4. USA is not a country of God. by bmo · · Score: 1, Troll

    Fixed.

    --
    BMO

    1. Re:USA is not a country of God. by bmo · · Score: 2

      >Truth marked as troll

      As if the Treaty of Tripoli means nothing.

      As if the Letter to the Danbury Baptists means nothing.

      As if the Letter to the Touro Synagogue means nothing.

      As if William Penn and Roger Williams never existed.

      As if the Rhode Island Charter of 1663 granted by Charles II never existed.

      As if the Lively Experiment never happened.

      Right.

      --
      BMO

    2. Re:USA is not a country of God. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      >troll cries because his troll was marked troll

      cry yourself to sleep about it, retard.

  5. Depends on the Christian by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Christianity and belief in life outside of Earth are not mutually exclusive.

    I would say the same about accepting the fact of Evolution and the we have evolved on this planet.

    As with both, it depends on the Christian being asked. But as the GP said, he mentioned Christian Fundamentalists - you know, the ones who believe in the literal truth of the Bible.

    1. Re:Depends on the Christian by jroysdon · · Score: 0

      As one who believes in the literal truth of the Bible, I don't have any conflict with life on other planets. I tend to doubt that there is, but it would not be earth-shattering for me if there was.

      C.S. Lewis even has a series, The Space Trilogy, with life on other planets and addresses the issue of Christianity - if there was no original sin on the other planets, do they need Salvation?

      Christian fundamentalists are not as backward as you may think, and we do put on our thinking caps.

    2. Re:Depends on the Christian by LanMan04 · · Score: 0

      Do aliens have original sin?

      How may angels can you fit on the head of a pin?

      Where is Russell's teapot?

      There and other retarded questions answered LIVE tonight.

      --
      With the first link, the chain is forged.
    3. Re:Depends on the Christian by digitig · · Score: 3, Funny

      How may angels can you fit on the head of a pin?

      That one's easy. As many as want to be fitted on the head of a pin. Even the atheists agree.

      --
      Quidnam Latine loqui modo coepi?
    4. Re:Depends on the Christian by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      How may angels can you fit on the head of a pin? One, a very angry Hells Angel

    5. Re:Depends on the Christian by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Literal Bible Reading of the Book of Enoch pretty much confirms all sorts of crazy shit about space aliens visiting earth, and there are plenty of other references in the old testament about shit that sounds like it came out of close encounters of the third kind as well.

    6. Re:Depends on the Christian by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      No. All Christians (no matter how fundamental you are) are fucking idiots. Worshiping invisible men and voices in your head actually makes you crazy as well.

      Religion is a mental illness. You are sick in the head. Now that you know whats wrong with you, the next step would be trying to fix it.

      Have fun with your insane rationalizations about how you are not an idiot and not crazy!

    7. Re:Depends on the Christian by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'm sure you have plenty of experience with those rationalizations yourself...

    8. Re:Depends on the Christian by jgoemat · · Score: 2

      The more interesting thing to think about is why God allowed original sin to occur in the first place. If he knows everything that will happen, he knew that placing Adam and Eve in the garden with the tree would end up with their stomachs full of apples. If I placed my cat in a cage with a canary, I wouldn't hold my cat responsible for the inevitable conclusion.

      Even more interesting for me is trying to figure out how it is moral to hold one's descendants responsible for the sins of their ancestors. If your father kills someone, should you go to jail for it? Personally I would deny any responsibility for something that happened before I was born and I would hold no one accountablle for the actions of their distant ancestors.

    9. Re:Depends on the Christian by David+Gerard · · Score: 2

      The literal truth of the Bible is that the sky is a firmament with water above it (Genesis 1:6-8).

      --
      http://rocknerd.co.uk
    10. Re:Depends on the Christian by jpapon · · Score: 4, Insightful

      You put on your thinking cap, and yet believe, literally, myths written thousands of years ago? Flimsy cap, that.

      --
      -- Let us endeavor so to live that when we pass even the undertaker shall be sorry. -- M. Twain
    11. Re:Depends on the Christian by someone1234 · · Score: 1

      Only Christians have this craziness? This is unfair.

      --
      Patents Drive Free Software as Hurricanes Drive Construction Industry
    12. Re:Depends on the Christian by jorgevillalobos · · Score: 1

      He never said only Christians. The GP would probably agree that this applies to most if not all religions.

    13. Re:Depends on the Christian by RockDoctor · · Score: 1

      The GP would probably agree that this applies to most if not all religions.

      As a Minister in the CoTFSM, I naturally have complete faith in the FSM and utterly believe it to be a true description of the universe. (However I also have faith in the FSM's sense of humour in having created a universe that appears to follow the laws of physics, and see no contradiction in both proselytizing my religion, and being a working geologist operating in the "real world".)

      And when I get my Rapture, the Beer Volcano WILL be a real Volcano, and it WILL gush forth beer (GOOD beer!), and it WILL be next to the Stripper Factory. And I WILL be in the land of the Eternal Field Trip. And there shall be NO HANGOVER.

      I don't believe that I suffer from the same sorts of delusions as the deranged followers of other religions. They're mad ; I'm not.

      --
      Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
    14. Re:Depends on the Christian by vandamme · · Score: 1

      Well, who cares about how many boiling hot super-gravity planets are around stars thousands of light years away?
      How can we get cheap gasoline, and stop the glaciers from melting??

    15. Re:Depends on the Christian by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      How may angels can you fit on the head of a pin?

      Eight if they're skinny and four if they're fat.

  6. Piratebay in space? by Snaller · · Score: 1

    Hosting in space? Is that their next move?

    --
    If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
  7. Earth-like planets by Statecraftsman · · Score: 2

    Does anyone know how many of the 2000+ they've found have been in the "comfort zone"?

    1. Re:Earth-like planets by iggymanz · · Score: 4, Informative

      54 candidates in habitable zone, at least five roughly earth-sized (but note even gas giant in habitable zone is significant because it might have habitable moon)

      http://kepler.nasa.gov/news/nasakeplernews/index.cfm?FuseAction=ShowNews&NewsID=98

    2. Re:Earth-like planets by murphtall · · Score: 1

      yes.

    3. Re:Earth-like planets by Daniel+Dvorkin · · Score: 2

      yes.

      Great, who let the Vorlons onto Slashdot?

      --
      The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
  8. Not as backward.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The 99% of you that are backward give the rest of you a bad name.

    If your thinking cap is not broken, run this by it:

    God is benevolent, all knowing, doesn't make mistakes, and so on. Humans are evil, largely stupid, screw everything up, and so on. Therefore, it makes perfect sense to put one's faith in God, and no sense at all to put one's faith in other men.

    HOWEVER....

    How do you actually go about putting your faith in God, without putting your faith in other men? If your pastor tells you what God wants you to do, and you believe him, then you are actually putting your faith in your pastor, not God. Maybe when God comes down from the sky and tells you what he wants you to do, maybe THEN you can really put your faith in God. But so long as you are hearing it from another human (be it a pastor, or a mystic nut, or a book written by either), then you are actually just putting your faith in men.

    It turns out that all of Christianity is built on faith in other men. The Bible is a book, written printed and distributed by humans. The notion of "divine inspiration" is perpetuated by men. Did God tell you, himself, that He inspired the Bible, or did some other human tell you? Did God tell you, himself, that Jesus was his son, or did another human tell you?

    Use your thinking cap and you will see: all religious teachings come from humans. And humans, as we already established, are unworthy of faith.

    If you really want to put your faith in God, you are going to have to make a leap. You will have to reject every human idea about God. Every one. All that is left is the simple living of your life to the best of your ability...figuring things out as you go along...like the rest of us do. It is really scary living without absolute moral justification for your actions, or the comfort of knowing that you are doing exactly what God wants you to do. But the fact is...you have always lived this way, you have just been deluded (by other men) into falsely believing otherwise.

    1. Re:Not as backward.... by tbird81 · · Score: 1

      I'd mod you up if I could. It's always good to see interesting angles about religion.

      I always see a lot of good that comes from humanity, and I see a lot of bad that comes from chance (which a Christian might call God).

      God gives us disease: other humans research ways to fix it and spend time fixing it for us. God causes earthquakes: humanity forms groups to save the trapped. God causes floods: humans arrange safe accommodation.

      Personally I have a lot of faith in humanity. It seems to have overcome a lot of hardship that God cruelly forces on us.

    2. Re:Not as backward.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I always thought convection currents caused earthquakes. Unless God is secretly a lava monster. Uwaga!

  9. YAWN by 93+Escort+Wagon · · Score: 1

    Wake me up when they discover Risa.

    --
    #DeleteChrome
  10. Get over it by electrosoccertux · · Score: 2

    the only thing more annoying than the fundamentalist arguments are the people who complain about them.
    Seriously, it's why reddit has an Atheism section where all that shit goes, so that people can remove it from their list of subscriptions. People are tired of hearing you're pissed off. You don't matter that much. Get over it.

    1. Re:Get over it by danbeck · · Score: 2

      Is it safe to answer you with an "AMEN"?. Seriously though reddit.com/r/atheism/... there are a *lot* people are are just as angry about Christians as you people at slashdot are and instead of subjecting the rest of us to your blind hatred and bigotry, you can go there and post stories, pictures, 4koma and all sorts of fun lolz. Let's talk about computers and science here, why don't we?

  11. trashing Christians is your only comment on this? by danbeck · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The Kepler mission makes this very interesting scientific find and the only thing you people can do is trash Christians? That is your response to FINDING 11 PLANETARY SYSTEMS IN OUR GALAXY, that Christians are lolstupid?

  12. This doesn't solve the problem by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1

    of the fact we're losing our asses in national debt. All resources need to be addressed to this.

  13. Re:trashing Christians is your only comment on thi by electrosoccertux · · Score: 4, Insightful

    this is one of the reasons slashdot doesn't garner the traffic it used to. People don't care if you're pissed off at christians, in fact they find the incessant complaining quite obnoxious.

  14. mod 0P by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1

    numb3rs c0ntinue

  15. Re:trashing Christians is your only comment on thi by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1

    Aw shucks, someone mocked your stone-age fairy tales.

  16. Re:trashing Christians is your only comment on thi by tbird81 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I have to agree with what you've said, but it's not just bagging Christians that is the problem.

    Often in Slashdot there are people knowledgeable about certain branches of science. They can often provide insight that hits the sweet spot between the pop-science ad-filled blog that stories link to and the original uninterpretable specialist and dry journal article. That's what I come here for.

    Generally, the first 40 comments are people trying to make obvious jokes or trolling, followed by 20 or so dickheads like you and me complaining about the jokes. Fortunately reading the story late in the piece gets the few interesting comments up-rated - which is why I keep coming back.

    Anyway, speaking of Christians and exoplanets: Giordano Bruno, one of the first people recorded as speculating that other stars might have planets, was executed by The Catholic Church in 1600.

  17. Re:trashing Christians is your only comment on thi by martin-boundary · · Score: 1

    Bah, they're only planets in metric units. In imperial units, it turns out those are only dwarf planets, and who cares about those? ;-)

  18. Had to browse at -1 by aepervius · · Score: 1

    Had to browse at -1 to understand your complaint. I am an atheist and I conccur with you. That egregerious religious bashing when the story does not mention religion at all is beyond stupid and make all taking participation in it , look stupid.

    Reserve that bashing of christianity for the next tenessee bill on "evolution is only a theory" or the next stupid things the current pope do, or the next priest diddling choir kids being shifted between parish. THis story OTOH is not about religion at all this is about exoplanet.

    Message to all those people at -1 : religion is crass stupid enough to show itself for the retrarded iron age myth it is in another story. GTFO of this story.

    --
    C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
    http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
    visit randi.org
  19. Not news anymore by FormOfActionBanana · · Score: 1

    Come on, Kepler has been operating for years and keeps identifying a trickle of additional planets. It's not news every time the total changes.

    --
    Take off every 'sig' !!
    1. Re:Not news anymore by jgoemat · · Score: 1

      It's not just 26 new planets, it's 3 times the number of previously found stars with multiple planets. I think that's newsworthy.

  20. Can't help but feel like.. by Sigg3.net · · Score: 2

    We're pre-tracing oue steps towards the ending of the Foundation novels..

    --
    Defining Statistics and Social Research
  21. Re:trashing Christians is your only comment on thi by Tom · · Score: 1

    Anyway, speaking of Christians and exoplanets: Giordano Bruno, one of the first people recorded as speculating that other stars might have planets, was executed by The Catholic Church in 1600.

    And that is why we should mock them. Because you really, really don't want us picking any of the more "adult" alternatives. Be happy that we're a bit childish and just mock them.

    --
    Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
  22. Have to ask by Zubinix · · Score: 1

    Can I have one?

  23. Re:trashing Christians is your only comment on thi by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Quite frankly I don't care about your comment either. Slashdot always had tons of shitty comments, but they were just below a certain threshold so they were basically invisible. The top comments were very relevant. Now I'm seeing some dude complaining about some others dude shitty response.

  24. Re:trashing Christians is your only comment on thi by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Take a good look around, virtually all news websites with comment sections are of a similar retarded crap. Mostly this is because Americans (and I've seen it elsewhere, but, here, we're talking mostly Americans (but the world is hell bent on following us)) have become a base, selfish, ignorant people. Just like our political and corporate leaders.

    Those people who said the internet would balkanize the populace won, over those who preached the cyber commons. All religions, too, are bent to political ends. How can they not be, when their gods haven't appeared in twenty centuries, and the innocent are slaughtered so easily without so much as a thunderclap from the clouds?

    It's not just Christian leaders, mind you. How many Imams have some good scotch stashed away for a nip or two? How many priests are still fondling little boys? How many evangelicals keeping a hot little number on the side while they demand your dollars on television?

    If you want to believe in the supernatural, fine. But you'd be money ahead creating your own religion rather that signing on to any of the corrupt selection you have before you now.

    I speak only for myself, not for all of Slashdot, as you appear to. You may dismiss me with a wave of your hand and a blurted 'fucking cynic'. It's the popular method these days, and I won't mind at all.

  25. Dch v nhn tin SMS Thng Hiu - SMS Brandname by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Contact us: www.apectech.vn

  26. Missing the point by gottabeme · · Score: 1

    The literal truth of Genesis is that God created. Genesis was not written for the purpose of providing a literal or scientific account of Creation. To read it looking for such is unwise, because it ignores the authorial intent and misses the meaning of the text.

    Remember that the Israelites had no concept of modern science nor modern historiography. It simply makes no sense to read their works by such standards. Any such attempt is doomed to fail to understand the text's intended meaning.

    "How did God create the universe?" is the wrong question. Any being powerful enough to do such a thing could do it any way he wanted to, and in ways likely incomprehensible to us. The meaningful questions are, "Did God create?" and "Why did God create?"

    --
    "Those who consume the bulk of goods are those who make them. We must never forget this secret of our prosperity."
    1. Re:Missing the point by David+Gerard · · Score: 1

      "Genesis was not written for the purpose of providing a literal or scientific account of Creation. To read it looking for such is unwise, because it ignores the authorial intent and misses the meaning of the text."

      Jesus thought Adam and Eve were real, as did Paul. Indeed, the whole point of Christianity is that Jesus redeems the original sin of Adam and Eve. You can't have a real Jesus and a metaphorical Adam.

      You're not a real literalist, you're just pretending to be one.

      --
      http://rocknerd.co.uk
    2. Re:Missing the point by gottabeme · · Score: 1

      I didn't say that Adam and Eve didn't exist. You're attacking a strawman.

      The point is that people err when they read Genesis attempting to figure out how Creation happened, when they go looking for scientific evidence that the author never intended to provide.

      --
      "Those who consume the bulk of goods are those who make them. We must never forget this secret of our prosperity."
    3. Re:Missing the point by David+Gerard · · Score: 1

      That's just sophistry to try to deny your backsliding. There's a whole science of how precisely the Genesis creation and flood occurred.

      --
      http://rocknerd.co.uk
  27. Re:trashing Christians is your only comment on thi by gottabeme · · Score: 1

    It's ignorant to equate Catholicism with Christianity. Real Christianity doesn't condone executing anyone. (cf. John 8:1-11)

    --
    "Those who consume the bulk of goods are those who make them. We must never forget this secret of our prosperity."
  28. This is news from January. by RockDoctor · · Score: 1
    The papers were published back in January. Just look at the ArXiv links : http://arxiv.org/abs/1201.5424 from the source page http://kepler.nasa.gov/Mission/discoveries/ .

    I thought these had been discussed back then.

    Back to the god-squaddie baiting!

    --
    Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
  29. Re:trashing Christians is your only comment on thi by tirerim · · Score: 1

    Yeah, I'm pretty sure most of the population of, say, Texas is not Catholic, still consider themselves "Christian", and is pretty obviously in favor of executions. When you've convinced an overwhelming majority of the people who self-identify as Christians to share your beliefs, then perhaps you can make claims about "real Christianity". Don't get me wrong, I know a lot of liberal Christians who seem to be pretty good, but "Christianity" as a whole is defined by its self-identified adherents, and the overwhelming message I get from them is one of intolerance and ignorance.

    (As an aside, I believe that the Catholic church is now pretty solidly against executions in general, though I don't know how well that's followed by majority Catholic jurisdictions.)

  30. Re:trashing Christians is your only comment on thi by vandamme · · Score: 1

    Most "Catholic" politicians are adamantly pro-abortion, a subset of executions, despite a biblical commandment against it. It's easy to see how some guy who went afoul of the establishment in 1600 could get burned at the stake as a heretic and the Church take the rap. In case you wonder how many Catholic scientists did NOT get burned at the stake: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Roman_Catholic_scientist-clerics

  31. It's like Godwin's Law. But for God. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Yeah, but seriously? Why do all astronomy news comments end up becoming about religion?

  32. Re:trashing Christians is your only comment on thi by gottabeme · · Score: 1

    Real Christianity is not defined by those who claim to be Christian. Real Christianity is defined by Christ.

    You're generalizing millions of people into one, "intolerant", "ignorant" whole. That strikes me as hypocritical.

    Not to mention your generalizing the entire state of Texas. Your arguments aren't logical at all.

    --
    "Those who consume the bulk of goods are those who make them. We must never forget this secret of our prosperity."