Star Trek Comes One Step Closer to Reality

By: Lowell
Published On: 5/18/2006 3:52:55 PM

Well, maybe not Star Trek per se.  But today, the probability we will discover life on other planets just jumped sharply.  According to CNN, tomorrow's edition of Nature magazine will report that "three medium-sized planets of roughly the same mass as Neptune have been discovered around a nearby sun-like star."  Here's what is so cool (bolding added for emphasis):

"For the first time, we have discovered a planetary system composed of several Neptune-mass planets," said study team member Christophe Lovis of the Geneva Observatory in Switzerland.

The setup is similar to our own solar system in many ways: The outermost planet is located just within the star's habitable zone, where temperatures are moderate enough for liquid water to form, and the system also contains an asteroid belt.

That's right, we've discovered a planet that has falls within the parameters needed to support life ("habitable zone" and "liquid water" do the trick!).  And the amazing thing is, our search is just beginning.  As Carl Sagan used to say, there are BILLIONS and BILLIONS of stars out there, and we've already found one with a planet that could support life. 

My big question is this: if there are thousands if not millions of planets that support life out there, then how come we haven't encountered any aliens yet?  I mean, except for the abductions by hot alien babes with anals probes, of course.  Ha.

Comments



M class planets in the neighborhood (Josh - 5/18/2006 4:05:18 PM)
nice.  Hopefully they're intelligent enough not to have evolved a republican party.


I was going to suggest colonizing other worlds with Republicans (JC - 5/18/2006 4:30:11 PM)
But then I realized that this would simply lead to an intergalactic war.  They'd find someone to attack.


How long? (Virginia Centrist - 5/18/2006 11:25:16 PM)
How long before the Borg find us?


timing of other life forms (msnook - 5/19/2006 1:17:16 PM)
The universe is, what, 15 billion years old? Life emerged here 3.5B years ago, and now we're maybe a few hundred years away from serious intergalactic travel (if it's even possible).  We're dealing with a 15B year long timeline here; the aliens we're looking for could be a billion years ahead or behind us in technology. Even if the difference is only a few thousand years of technological prowess, given the exponential nature of advancement, there's no way we run into a race that's within a few generations of space travel and nuclear power (where we are).

If they found us they're probably a million years ahead, and if we find them they're probably a million years behind. If we find each other... maybe we're within a few hundred years of each other (on the technological timeline), but given the vast amount of time we're talking about, I don't see that happening.



Not to mention the vast distances involved... (Loudoun County Dem - 5/19/2006 1:32:12 PM)
Theoretically we should be able to discover ways to see each other well before we could meet each other (hundreds of years? thousands? millions?). This also assumes we could develop a way to travel at even a significant fraction of the speed of light.