New habitable planet discovered ?

[renormalised (Carl)]

Originally Posted by higginsdj

Yes, but you are stating the odds 'favourably'. What if there were only 1/billion, then the odds are not so favourable! The 'odds' don't actually tell us much with such an empty pool to work from so to speak. ie we might be odds on to see one, but it may take 1000 goes before we do.

Even if the odds were 1/10E9, given that they are randomly distributed, the chances of one being close by will still be quite favourable...maybe not more than a few percent, but that's better than no chance at all, or very little chance (0.001% or less).

In any case, the planet doesn't have to be any good for us to be habitable. The habitability entirely depends on what you define as being habitable, and by what is going to do the habitation.

What if it was like Pandora, in Avatar. That was essentially an Earth like planet, but some of the constituents of its atmosphere were poisonous to humans. It's water was also more alkaline than water on Earth. However, that wouldn't stop plants and such from evolving to meet those conditions and there are many plants here that can tolerate high alkalinity in the soils and water. Yet despite that, with the proper precautions and equipment, people lived quite well there (not counting angry natives)

[renormalised (Carl)]

Originally Posted by CraigS

I reckon to assume life anywhere else requires a leap of faith.

Here's a reasonably reputable article written by an (East Anglia) Professor.

Worth a quick a read .. it's not too long ..

Cheers

Well, instead of arguing over semantics and opinions on theory, there's only one way this can be solved...get off our collective rears and go out there. Find it, pick it up in our hands....eat it even, if we have to. If we say it's too much to assume that life will be everywhere given all things being equal, then we also have to be fair and state the same about the opposite. It's too much to assume that life will only be confined to one little planet and that one planet only.

Even given what we do know, the chances of life just being here and nowhere else is so small it's not even worth considering as a chance.

[Alchemy (Clive)]

Wow this thread took off..... We yearn to believe life is out there don't we...

From reading the original article, there was the assumption that a planet such as this would be tidally locked, therefore screaming hot one side frozen the other. With a supposedly habitable zone in between.... If this planet has an atmosphere and it moves around, it would freeze the water( assume it has some for a moment) on the cold side... So to our form of life its useless, id be curious to know what happens to the water vapor on the hot side??? Again useless to us, leaving supposedly "the habitable zone" to which air movement would move the water away, leaving I imagine a desert. Not much use to life either.

Just my quick musings, I could be wrong, feel free to agree or disagree, life as we know it.... And that's all we know for now, all needs liquid water to exist, I cant see liquid water existing on the surface, and that's where life first appeared here on earth .... So Houston we have a problem.

[ngcles]

Hi All,

I'd have to agree that while this particular planet holds a potential to be a habitable one, the probability is still fairly low that it would be a place that is capable of sustaining life of any sort, let alone multi-cellular life, let alone advanced life, let alone intelligent life. And for each one of those steps up the scale, you can "add" a 10^-2 or 10^-3 to the probability score.

However with the data from Kepler that will reduced and analysed over the coming several months, I think it is likely that far better prospects than this planet will be announced in the reasonably nearby future.

Getting a spectrum of this small world when it is no more than a few million km from its (by comparison) overpoweringly brilliant parent star to look for bio-markers in any possible atmosphere is fraught with technical problems that won't be solved very soon. Hopefully, over the next few months some more promising candidates will be announced that are more distant from their parent stars and will be less of a technical challenge (though still an extremely big ask) to obtain meaningful specta from.

I am perfectly prepared to have an open mind, but from what I've seen on the subject, I am still of the opinion that life is probably rare or even very rare in the galaxy, advanced life (like plants and animals) *extremely* rare at best and intelligent life (i.e self-aware, capable of making and using tools and manipulating the environment to their advantage) something like trillion-1 chance -- if not much worse.

Space-faring races I think are even rarer than that.

I'm perfectly happy to be proved wrong. If they land on the White-House lawn tomorrow, or send us an unambiguous proof of their existence I'd be perfectly happy to shake hands (pseudopodia etc) and say I was wrong. I just don't think it will happen.


Best,

Les D

[CraigS]

It is an interesting topic.

Another perspective is that without the vision of life elsewhere, or of a planet somewhere which is capable of sustaining life, there would be no reason to pursue it. Hence no reason to fund the chase.

The goal serves a purpose. Re-inforcing it, repeatedly, in the media serves that same purpose. Believing it appears to be optional, and is a matter of choice.

I for one, choose to support the goal.

The chase to achieve it makes it worthwhile.

The technologies & knowledge that will develop as a result, are likely to benefit everyone, which I view as the real justification.

Cheers

[xelasnave]

Every planet I have been to has life...
It would be hard to accept there is no life anywhere but on Earth..
If we consider the Universe to be of only finite size ..and thats is about..80 billion light years across...Carl did mention the correct figure but its huge..and beyond human comprehension ....but what if an infinite universe then there must be life, one could reasonably think, other than only on this planet...in fact if infinite we each could be replicated to an infinitely...mmmm and the probability of life more grand than us could be so...
alex

[CraigS]

Originally Posted by xelasnave

Every planet I have been to has life...
It would be hard to accept there is no life anywhere but on Earth..
If we consider the Universe to be of only finite size ..and thats is about..80 billion light years across...Carl did mention the correct figure but its huge..and beyond human comprehension ....but what if an infinite universe then there must be life, one could reasonably think, other than only on this planet...in fact if infinite we each could be replicated to an infinitely...mmmm and the probability of life more grand than us could be so...
alex

The converse is equally valid .. until life elsewhere is discovered.

There is only choice separating the two.
(IMHO).

Cheers
PS: G'Day Alex where ya been ?

[xelasnave]

I had a mate die and I have been helping his lady with the boat they just bought and were about to move onto the day he died... life is so short.
alex

[CraigS]

Originally Posted by xelasnave

I had a mate die and I have been helping his lady with the boat they just bought and were about to move onto the day he died... life is so short.
alex

Sorry to hear that. Pass on my best wishes.

Cheers

[Ro84 (Roberto)]

Anyway, it is also interesting to see if this planet - so close to its star - is or is not tidally locked, (I mean, if this planet shows ever the same face to its sun, as well as the Moon shows the same face to the Earth). This problem may be very common on planets too close to their stars, like Gliese 581c (in the same planetary system) and other planets around red stars that lie on habitable zone. If this is true, Gliese 581g may have a hemisphere in wich never is night and a hemisphere in wich never is day.

[mswhin63 (Malcolm)]

Being only 20 light years away it would be interesting if there is any intelligent radio-emissions from the planet. Seeing what we see is 20 years old worth a try.

[renormalised (Carl)]

Well, here's the long and the short of GL581g (and related material) from a few better sources...

http://keckobservatory.org/news/keck...cks_exoplanet/

http://arxiv.org/abs/1009.5733

http://www.sciencedirect.com.elibrar...9&searchtype=a

http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0609799 (pick v1)

[renormalised (Carl)]

Originally Posted by mswhin63

Being only 20 light years away it would be interesting if there is any intelligent radio-emissions from the planet. Seeing what we see is 20 years old worth a try.

They've already sent a signal there...remember they did, in 2008.

[higginsdj]

Just have to wait till 2028 to get a response

[renormalised (Carl)]

Originally Posted by higginsdj

Just have to wait till 2028 to get a response

Yep

"People of the planet Earth, you will now be assimilated into the Galactic Empire. Submit your government or governments to the will of the Emperor, or face immediate take over by the forces of the Imperial Army" <<<scratchy breathing noises...Imperial March playing in background>>>

[Ro84 (Roberto)]

Lol

[CraigS]

Originally Posted by renormalised

Yep

"People of the planet Earth, you will now be assimilated into the Galactic Empire. Submit your government or governments to the will of the Emperor, or face immediate take over by the forces of the Imperial Army" <<<scratchy breathing noises...Imperial March playing in background>>>

…. Ah believe in exo-life .. I'm a believer !!
…. Take me to your leader !! ….

[drsimmo (Simon)]

Originally Posted by higginsdj

Just have to wait till 2028 to get a response

Or 2048 even...

[drsimmo (Simon)]

Some very interesting opinions and ideas in here.

I'm not quite sure where the notion that the probability of life on this planet is low though? Surely we don't know one way or the other? The key point is that this is the first planet to really be in the habitable zone of a star. That makes the probability that there is life a hell of a lot higher than any other planet we know of outside the Solar System.

[renormalised (Carl)]

Precisely, Simon. Even if it is tidally locked, a planet in close orbit about an M class star (despite flares from some) can be eminently habitable.

We need starships