Astronomy / Space Billions of Habitable Planets

[Hilight]

I'm not sure if this is the proper forum section for this but here is a very interesting article that talks about new research indicating there may be literally billions of potentially habitable planets in our galaxy: http://arstechnica.com/science/2016...table-planets-in-our-galaxy-tens-of-billions/

 

[Patrick_68000]

The extinction of the humanity is avoided

 

[CMDR MAIN SEQUENCE]

Supposedly the nearest habitable planet could be just 11 light years away, possibly less. Given that we have been sending out radio waves for over 100 years now, how comes nobody has "answered back"?

 

[CMDR Moortz]

maybe there is no one in?

 

[OriginalBadBoy]

Supposedly the nearest habitable planet could be just 11 light years away, possibly less. Given that we have been sending out radio waves for over 100 years now, how comes nobody has "answered back"?

Are you being serious?? Really are you?

Because whilst there might be billions of Earth likes out there, you then have to take all the other variables into account, and there is a lot.

The more obvious ones being:

Evolution - Not only whether life has evolved on a planet, but how long as well. It only takes one asteroid to smack into a planet and thats evolution put back millions of years.

Technology - Even if there was another planet out there with a sentient species living on it, the chances of them being at the exact same technological stage as us is basically astronomical (if you will pardon then pun). There isn't even any guarantee that they ever used / will use radio waves anyway.

And there are plenty more ranging from Supernova's wiping out life in the galaxy on a regular basis to social issues with population development and so on. Simple fact is that any other species that was technologically and socially more advanced than us by say a couple of hundred years, would have absolutely no interest in us. Just as we would have no interest in a species that were 200 years behind us.

Also there is no way of knowing what happens to radio waves once they enter interstellar space. They may simply degrade too much to the point where it would be impossible to pick anything up anyway.

Sadly the real universe is not like Star Trek or Star Wars, not even close.

 

[mls]

Are you being serious?? Really are you?

Because whilst there might be billions of Earth likes out there, you then have to take all the other variables into account, and there is a lot.

The more obvious ones being:

Evolution - Not only whether life has evolved on a planet, but how long as well. It only takes one asteroid to smack into a planet and thats evolution put back millions of years.

Technology - Even if there was another planet out there with a sentient species living on it, the chances of them being at the exact same technological stage as us is basically astronomical (if you will pardon then pun). There isn't even any guarantee that they ever used / will use radio waves anyway.

And there are plenty more ranging from Supernova's wiping out life in the galaxy on a regular basis to social issues with population development and so on. Simple fact is that any other species that was technologically and socially more advanced than us by say a couple of hundred years, would have absolutely no interest in us. Just as we would have no interest in a species that were 200 years behind us.

Also there is no way of knowing what happens to radio waves once they enter interstellar space. They may simply degrade too much to the point where it would be impossible to pick anything up anyway.

Sadly the real universe is not like Star Trek or Star Wars, not even close.

Well at some point a species would certainly use radio waves since there is not much else you can do to achieve long distance communication without some solid medium inbetween (the other options being lasers, shouting very loud or every other type or wave length of electro magnetic waves).
Supernovae are very rare and occur every 100 or so years in our galaxy (correct me if i'm wrong) so the chances are pretty small. Even high energy gamma bursts cooking entire solar systems are not much of a thread if you think about how much space there is around everything in the black.
And don't forget about those 200y+ behind species. Where else do those imperial slaves come from?
Even if our radio waves didn't make it to our insterstellar neighbours, our nuclear weapons tests sure would have since they are supposed to be very very powerfull outbursts of all kind of radiations of various wavelengths. i'm not an astronomer or the like but i bet this is something to consider.

anyways i want those slaves

 

[OriginalBadBoy]

Well at some point a species would certainly use radio waves since there is not much else you can do to achieve long distance communication without some solid medium inbetween (the other options being lasers, shouting very loud or every other type or wave length of electro magnetic waves).
Supernovae are very rare and occur every 100 or so years in our galaxy (correct me if i'm wrong) so the chances are pretty small. Even high energy gamma bursts cooking entire solar systems are not much of a thread if you think about how much space there is around everything in the black.
And don't forget about those 200y+ behind species. Where else do those imperial slaves come from?
Even if our radio waves didn't make it to our insterstellar neighbours, our nuclear weapons tests sure would have since they are supposed to be very very powerfull outbursts of all kind of radiations of various wavelengths. i'm not an astronomer or the like but i bet this is something to consider.

anyways i want those slaves

I'm no scientist but I'm pretty sure nuclear weapons testing isn't something that could be picked up across the cosmos. In the context of the entire history of the milky way there have been a lot of supernova's. And one close enough to Earth (within 30LY est.) could wipe out half of the planet (the half facing the supernova). Once you take the entire history of the galaxy into case it really isn't that bug a jump.

For reading try the Fermi Paradox ... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_paradox

And the Drake equation as well .. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drake_equation

There is only really one unexplained signal from outerspace that has never been explained, and thats the 'WOW' signal ... Again its a good read...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wow!_signal

There are of course several possibilities, we could be the first species in the galaxy to get to this point, although given the age of the galaxy that's highly unlikely. We could just be the only civilisation that is currently 'active' as well.

Personally I really don't know, I don't think the lack of radio waves necessarily means anything in of itself, as stated there are several possibilities and you cannot assume that all civilisations will end up using that technology, thats a bit of a stretch. I just think the signals are just too week or distorted by interstellar space to be detectable once they get to earth. Even if we did receive signals, it could easily be from a long dead civilisation from the other side of the galaxy.

As Carl Sagan once said ''The universe is a pretty big place. If it's just us, seems like an awful waste of space.'

Personally I don't think the universe is that badly designed, and I do use the word designed, even though I am an atheist.

 

[Othniel]

Not one habitable planet has been found, and I am leaning towards that none ever will. Why does everyone consider Bio and Chemical Evolution to be true even when most of it is based upon more fiction than science? I'll tell you, because that is the only theory taught. The others, like ID aren't even considered because having a Creator would be too unthinkable- and they would lend credence to The One True God as that Creator, causing everyone to reconsider what it really means to live this life we are given and not live in a false reality created by man's flawed imagination.

 

[Patrick_68000]

Supposedly the nearest habitable planet could be just 11 light years away, possibly less. Given that we have been sending out radio waves for over 100 years now, how comes nobody has "answered back"?

Our planet violent, corrupt and polluted does not attract the aliens, probably

 

[metatheurgist]

Supposedly the nearest habitable planet could be just 11 light years away, possibly less. Given that we have been sending out radio waves for over 100 years now, how comes nobody has "answered back"?

They destroyed themselves with climate change 1000 years ago?

 

[Miko_Stargazer]

Not one habitable planet has been found, and I am leaning towards that none ever will. Why does everyone consider Bio and Chemical Evolution to be true even when most of it is based upon more fiction than science? I'll tell you, because that is the only theory taught. The others, like ID aren't even considered because having a Creator would be too unthinkable- and they would lend credence to The One True God as that Creator, causing everyone to reconsider what it really means to live this life we are given and not live in a false reality created by man's flawed imagination.

Hi, I saw you were a bit confused and wanted to help. No habitable planets have been found because we don't currently have the technology to find most planets that are habitable. Currently exoplanets tend to be found by looking at gravitational wobbles of stars and occlusion of intensity when planets partially obscure a star from our view. Both of these techniques tend to find extremely large planets, which tend to be much lower on the habitable probability scale.

Evolution is entirely based in science and I'm not sure what fiction you're referring to. Evolution is a model that matches observed behavior of species and is backed up by DNA tracking that can show the genetic heritage of one species compared to another. In addition there have been fascinating examples of evolution in action, such as samples of E coli bacteria that evolved to be able to use the chemical citrate as a food source, which was formerly impossible for them. Evolutionary theory is important for it's predictive properties as well, such as models to determine how quickly the flu is changing and what new strains need to be included in each annual flu vaccination.

Intelligent design isn't taught in school because it has been ruled by a federal judge in the US to be another form of religious creationism. More importantly, it's not a theory at all because it does not provide any predictive abilities. It is not a model that attempts to explain observed behavior, it is simply the practice of saying "God did it" and then going home. As a religious belief, that's fine, but science requires theories that are falsifiable, that is, there are definite ways to prove or disprove them.

For example,, evolutionary theory predicted that creatures like bears, wolves, humans, cats, and other mammals would share common ancestors. When DNA testing arrived, this became a solid way to test if this common ancestor prediction was true. And lo and behold DNA was able to track ancestry very well, showing where different species branched away from each other. If bears and wolves and people all had remarkably different DNA, it would have disproved the common ancestor theory and a different model would have to be found. But evolution has passed every test science has presented for it, and remains the strongest theory available for this area of biology.

 

[Patrick_68000]

They destroyed themselves with climate change 1000 years ago?

Or a meteorite fall ?

 

[mls]

Or a meteorite fall ?

or thargoids

 

[mls]

I'm no scientist but I'm pretty sure nuclear weapons testing isn't something that could be picked up across the cosmos.

You are totally right in that. Found this paper which is a very interesting read about the matter: http://arxiv.org/abs/1507.08530

 

[Godnamedthor]

Not one habitable planet has been found, and I am leaning towards that none ever will. Why does everyone consider Bio and Chemical Evolution to be true even when most of it is based upon more fiction than science? I'll tell you, because that is the only theory taught. The others, like ID aren't even considered because having a Creator would be too unthinkable- and they would lend credence to The One True God as that Creator, causing everyone to reconsider what it really means to live this life we are given and not live in a false reality created by man's flawed imagination.

At least we know one Planet wich pretty sure is habitable.
But unfortunately it a few billion years older than 6000....
So what story is more fictional?

 

[OriginalBadBoy]

You are totally right in that. Found this paper which is a very interesting read about the matter: http://arxiv.org/abs/1507.08530

Yeah thats fair enough, you could certainly tell if something has been going on with exoplanet spectroscopy. I guess I meant that you wouldn't be able to pick up 'weapon's fire' in a general sense regarding gamma ray bursts and the like.

Once the James Webb Telescope goes up we will be able to do spectroscopy with far more sensitivity.

I reckon within 10 - 20 years we will have detected in the atmosphere of another planet at least some sort of life there, even if its just plant life. There would also be signs of industrial processes going on as well so it's entirely possible in the near future that we could get some sort of confirmation.