Unfortunately every single one of them is unreachable within several lifetimes. We're going to be pretty much trapped in our solar system until we try to solve some of the more difficult problems.
Tens of billions of potentially habitable, Earth-size planets in our galaxy
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Re: Tens of billions of potentially habitable, Earth-size planets in our galaxy
#12I look forward to the discussion revolving around the concept of ten billion inhabited worlds colliding with the prevailing HN wisdom that the only place to do tech in the known universe is SV. That's nice that you want to do tech, but if you stay on flyover Tatooine you'll never work on anything more modern than a moisture vaporator, better boot up the x-wing and fly to SV back on old Earth if you want to get paid t…
Yes, Tatooine under Pootine really sucks, doing even jquery in the Valley beats it by orders of magnitude.
Re: Tens of billions of potentially habitable, Earth-size planets in our galaxy
#13In my mind, Fermi's Paradox looms very large.
Re: Tens of billions of potentially habitable, Earth-size planets in our galaxy
#14>One in five stars in our galaxy like the Sun have planets about the size of Earth and a surface temperature conducive to life That is a considerable claim that jars with most of the astronomical data I've seen. 1 in 5 is far more probable, perhaps an order of magnitude more probable than I've previously heard. Does anyone have studies that corroborate their claim? [EDIT] Later in the article data is cited that more…
> astrological
UGHH. Astronomical.
The previous studies have mostly been lower bounds, not attempts to estimate the most likely count. We are still essentially terrible at locating earth-sized planets in earth-like orbits, we are much better at finding larger planets in closer orbits. Because of this, most of the planets that we do find are larger and/or closer, however, this obviously should not be used to deduce that most planets are larger and closer.
This study is using honest statistical analysis to estimate the likelihood of earth-like planets from the data available.
Re: Tens of billions of potentially habitable, Earth-size planets in our galaxy
#15I'm only surprised that astronomers haven't concluded this long ago... Speaking of which, there has been a lot of these new astro sightings this year. Did they do something to the Kepler? I thought that spacetelescope was abandoned due to technical problems. What am I missing?
Re: Tens of billions of potentially habitable, Earth-size planets in our galaxy
#16Unfortunately every single one of them is unreachable within several lifetimes. We're going to be pretty much trapped in our solar system until we try to solve some of the more difficult problems.
We're (other people, not me) at least working on it.
http://www.nasa.gov/centers/glenn/technology/warp/warp.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/100_Year_Starship
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faster-than-light
If they're successful and you warp to a planet that's 100 light years away then warp back, I don't know how much time would have passed on Earth though.
Re: Tens of billions of potentially habitable, Earth-size planets in our galaxy
#17But let's say what we really hope for is true. What if we somehow discover that a large number of these planets are teaming with life ? What then ? How would that help us ? Spiritually, economically ? Wouldn't that make us feel even less significant ? I'm just wondering, why are we hoping there is life out there and what would we do if we find it ?
"Spiritually, economically?"
Community norms would be an interesting dynamic. Some groups of humans like to conform more than others. What does equal rights for beings with different numbers of tentacles mean to us? Humans think its hilarious good time to fight and kill each other over multinational corporations "owning" teams of grown men playing childrens ball games, so if you think humans aren't going to kill each other over "equal rights for unequal tentacles" from some alien culture, you're a little over optimistic.
Looking at politics, many humans behave as quislings and support groups that basically exist to ruin the groups the quislings are members of. What happens when the same type of quisling susceptible personality meets space aliens is so weird I can't even think of a sci fi story about it.
Also assuming light speed communication is more realistic than light speed transportation, something along the lines of internet trolling behavior is unfortunately highly likely. If you thought your mom browsing 4chan would be uncomfortable, wait till the space alien sociologists start reading /b/ and related. Or even worse, watching televangelist TV shows. Or reality TV. If they discover us by watching honey boo boo and decide to photon torpedo the whole planet, can we really blame them?
Does venture capitalism work across light speed delays? It would probably screw up exponential growth if the bubble has already popped before the IPO news even reached the other side. Can you do a bitcoin like protocol as a concept with multi year light speed delays between 3+ civilizations? What if latency is so long that it increases the likelihood of factoring attacks?
I would be most interested in learning about space alien UI fads. Our own fads are somewhat slow paced compared to faster paced ladies clothes/shoes fashions.
Re: Tens of billions of potentially habitable, Earth-size planets in our galaxy
#18I'm only surprised that astronomers haven't concluded this long ago... Speaking of which, there has been a lot of these new astro sightings this year. Did they do something to the Kepler? I thought that spacetelescope was abandoned due to technical problems. What am I missing?
Confirming a Kepler planet requires observing multiple transits of the planet, so it takes several years if it's an Earth-like orbit. On top of that, the analysis and confirmation and peer review take time.
Incidentally, Kepler's been partially revived - they're going to point it somewhere else that doesn't require the reaction wheels to stay stable.
Re: Tens of billions of potentially habitable, Earth-size planets in our galaxy
#19I'm only surprised that astronomers haven't concluded this long ago... Speaking of which, there has been a lot of these new astro sightings this year. Did they do something to the Kepler? I thought that spacetelescope was abandoned due to technical problems. What am I missing?
data mining, paper writing, and peer review are inherently slow. We'll be seeing new Kepler papers for quite a few more years, I think.
Re: Tens of billions of potentially habitable, Earth-size planets in our galaxy
#20I'm only surprised that astronomers haven't concluded this long ago... Speaking of which, there has been a lot of these new astro sightings this year. Did they do something to the Kepler? I thought that spacetelescope was abandoned due to technical problems. What am I missing?
The data from these observatories can take some time to analyze. As for the spacecraft, they are currently investigating whether there is other science, or other methods to hunt for exoplanets, that can be performed despite the loss of half of the reaction wheels.