... and humans have a similarity index of 0.98 with chimps as well.
NASA announces discovery of Earth-like planet with earth similarity index 0.98
121–130 of 177 posts
Re: NASA announces discovery of Earth-like planet with earth similarity index 0.98
#122Is there any way at all for us to be able to see oceans/clouds/continents on such planets if we have a hundred billion dollars and built equipment specifically just to look at that one planet?
Or would the star near it just haze everything too much?
Is it impossible to observe a planet in more detail like that without travelling next to it?
Re: NASA announces discovery of Earth-like planet with earth similarity index 0.98
#123ELI5: until we flew next to Pluto this month all we had is blurry 16-pixel images. How can we get such precise data on something millions of times further?
Nearly all of the ways we detect exoplanets involve indirect observation. Most of them are based on observing the star(s) in the system of the planet. The two main ways we detect exoplanets are: * Radial Velocity - just as the gravity of a star effects a planet's orbit, the gravity of a planet also has an impact on the star's. It's just this impact is extremely small. By measuring variations in a star's movement due…
As an aside, there is an episode of the Cosmos reboot that talked about Photometry at a mile-high level. I had never heard of it before, but it is supremely interesting.
Re: NASA announces discovery of Earth-like planet with earth similarity index 0.98
#124Earlier quoted context omitted.
People think they are being more precise by saying "EST," but, quick, are we in daylight savings time now, or out of it? It turns out we are, and I don't meant to suggest that GP didn't know this. But what if we weren't in daylight savings time, and GP said "EST"? Would we have to change an hour? I highly recommend just saying "Eastern Time."
Or better yet, UTC or GMT since probably more people in the world know their offset relative to that, than EST.
True. We know our current offset from UTC (or legacy 'GMT'). I always use the real offset at that time. Thus, I just inform my clock saying UTC-3 (or UTC-2 when we are in daylight savings time).
Re: NASA announces discovery of Earth-like planet with earth similarity index 0.98
#125Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well, what has a value of zero?
To have an ESI, an object needs to have a mean radius, a density, an escape velocity, and a surface temperature. Gas giants and stars, therefore, don't really have a definable ESI, since they lack a 'surface' where you can take a temperature. If something has all of those properties, then because of the way it's defined, it has an ESI which is strictly > 0 and Incidentally, the formulation of the ESI is a good generi…
Then why didn't they just define it so that objects with an "undefinable surface" have an ESI of 0?
Re: NASA announces discovery of Earth-like planet with earth similarity index 0.98
#126Earlier quoted context omitted.
A few zones some think need to overlap and be dialed-in to come close to offering a habitable place: water habitable zone ultraviolet habitable zone photosynthetic habitable zone ozone habitable zone planetary rotation rate habitable zone planetary obliquity habitable zone tidal habitable zone astrosphere habitable zone
Pretty sure these all apply for Mars and Venus and they're dead planets. Not sure why everyone is assuming some exo-planet must have life when the two other examples we have don't.
The earth similarity index for venus is 0.44, and for mars is 0.70
Re: NASA announces discovery of Earth-like planet with earth similarity index 0.98
#127Whenever my imagination starts to run wild with the possibility of a huge announcement of this variety, I always like to remember what Terence McKenna said about this: "if aliens were to land on the front lawn of the white house tomorrow, it would not change the fact that the weirdest thing in the universe is DMT."
By all accounts NASA's getting ready to announce they've found an earth-like planet and you guys are like "yeah but I'm sure it won't compare the experience of taking my favorite drug." That's a sad and closed-minded way of looking at things.
It reminds me of Jon Stewart's character in Half Baked who thought everything was better "on weeeeed!" If your drug of choice prevents you from enjoying other experiences, like staring in wonder at the mysteries of the universe, that's like being in an abusive relationship.
There's no good reason the existence of a drug should prevent you from enjoying an announcement like this. There's definitely no good reason to assume that in this 16 billion year old universe which you've been part of for a negligible amount of time, which you've physically experienced only a negligible amount of, that you've already found the weirdest or most interesting thing ever.
Re: NASA announces discovery of Earth-like planet with earth similarity index 0.98
#128Earlier quoted context omitted.
Could you elaborate on what is so weird on that molecule?
It is weird because it is present in many "mundane" plants and in the human organism, allegedly released at the time of death. It lasts 10 minutes which is strange for a psychedelic substance, which after the experience you can go back as Terrence said "answering phonecalls". Apparently the human body knows perfectly well how to metabolize it completely without any taxing effects. From my personal experience in psych…
Have you actually taken (non-endogenous) DMT and witnessed said alien intelligences with your own eyes?
Re: NASA announces discovery of Earth-like planet with earth similarity index 0.98
#129It HAD an ESI of 0.98 1075 years ago. By now, the inhabitants have burned through all their fossil fuels and then annihilated each other with nuclear weapons leaving the planet in both a long-term nuclear winter and with a runaway greenhouse effect. Its ESI must be at least 1.0 by now.
I'm not sure what fossil fuels and nuclear weapons have to do with this but 1075 years isn't a very long time. There may not be intelligent life on the planet yet.
Re: NASA announces discovery of Earth-like planet with earth similarity index 0.98
#130"This content is not available in your area due to rights restrictions."