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February 05, 2011 Weekend Feature: "The METI Controversy" -Is the Effort to Send Messages to an Alien Civilization a Threat to Earth?
If we should pick up signals from alien civilizations, Stephen Hawking, our century's Einstein, warns: "we should have be wary of answering back, until we have evolved" a bit further. Meeting a more advanced civilization, at our present stage,' Hawking says "might be a bit like the original inhabitants of America meeting Columbus. I don't think they were better off for it."
Earth's attempts to contact intelligent, extraterrestrial life could be too disorganised or cryptic for non-human beings to decode, US physicists have reported. In a submission to the international journal, Space Policy, astrophysicists Dimitra Atri, Julia DeMarines and Jacob Haqq-Misra suggested that a protocol be developed to improve the likelihood that messages would be understood.
There has been some serious controversy over prior attempts to contact intelligent aliens, where instead of hiding in the corner and listening real hard some astronomers have beamed intense directional messages up up and away. Critics decried these actions as dangerous, though their fears reveal more about us than any eventual ETs. They assume that they would be similar to humanity, so their first response to finding a more primitive culture would be to exploit it. While such a fate might be pleasingly ironic (for anyone who isn't human, at least), others contend that any species that can make the journey here has advanced to a point where their goals are rather higher-minded than "Destroy Planet Earth".
Dr Alexander Zaitzev, of the Institute of Radio Engineering and Electronics at the Russian Academy of Sciences, doesn't think much of these worries either way. A proponent of METI (Messaging to Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence), in a paper he shows that the odds of one of the METI messages being detected is a millionth of that due to powerful radar pulses regularly used in astronomical investigation. Though whether writing a paper saying "This METI thing we're doing has only a tiny chance of working" is overall a good idea remains to be seen. An important point is that METI represents an intentional will to make contact, rather than the accidental alien interception of some random radiation from Earth - the difference between saying "Hello!" and just being a suspicious strange noise late at night.
Most of the objections to contacting aliens are weak under close examination. We can't suddenly decide to hide after fifty years of pumping electromagnetic radiation into space without rhyme or reason - in fact, we'd better hope that an advanced civilization doesn't catch an episode of "American Idol" and just vaporize us outright.
Then there's the assumption that aliens would have the same kind of technology we do - despite the extremely obvious fact that our technology can't actually get to other exo planets. Any attempt to mask radio emissions will likely look like cavemen closing their eyes to hide from satellite imaging.
Undaunted by prior controversy swirling around the METI effort, Atri and his team argued that Earth had been emitting electromagnetic signals for more than a century, mostly as "unintended leakage from television, aviation, and telecommunication".
"An advanced civilization within a radius of 100 light years could detect our television shows and already know we are here, so there is little hope in concealing our location in space," they wrote.
Since 1974, humans have broadcast the numbers one through ten, atomic numbers of elements in DNA, graphics of a human, the solar system, and Arecibo, musical melodies, text messages, photographs and drawings.
The researchers believe that messages had become increasingly "anthropocentric" and complex, which could make them more difficult for extraterrestrial listeners to decode and decipher.
"Modern technology allows for large amounts of data to be transmitted at moderate costs, but the broadcast of massive amounts of information assumes that the recipient extraterrestrials will be capable of comprehending a complex message," they wrote.
"Given that we know very little about the nature of extraterrestrial civilizations, if they exist, we are likely to increase the probability of us successfully communicating to them if we use a message that the recipient is likely to understand."
Once developed, a METI protocol could be used to test communication across human cultural boundaries, the researchers wrote.
They suggested the establishment of a website through which members of the public could create sample messages that conformed to the protocol, and retrieve and attempt to decrypt messages by other users.
"A METI protocol is needed in order for a unified and international effort to be made in messaging extraterrestrials," they concluded.
The simple fact is that certain people have always opposed progress while other, better people have driven it. "Experts" decried boiled water as unhealthy compared the vital stuff straight from the river, cursed antibiotics as a temporary placebo, and confidently declared that computers were nothing but expensive toys. As an intelligent species we must make every effort to contact anyone (or thing) we can.
posted
I say before they plan this so-called "feedback" to "visiting aliens", lay down a timetable of when to expect this "visit", and next? How about we practice on the visiting "aliens" of our planet, on how to receive immigrants from afar.
-------------------- The Complete Picture of the Past tells Us what Not to Repeat Posts: 7516 | From: Somewhere on Earth | Registered: Jan 2008
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posted
As per the topic: Why would the extraterrestrials have anything to say to us when our major activity is tribal warfare. If anything they may put a foot in our asses and say keep your bs in your own neighborhood.
On the other hand maybe imperfection is the rule of the universe.
Posts: 2118 | From: midwest, USA | Registered: Aug 2007
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I am torn on the subject if they are really out there,do we really want them here!! however it would be way kool to have a conversation with a non terrestrial species,lets see if we can have a conversation with whales,dolphins, and chimps see what they have to say about anything.
Posts: 6546 | From: japan | Registered: Feb 2009
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As I have said before, if extra-terrestrial beings existed, which is highly unlikely [just human yearning to not "be alone in the universe", while in an ironic twist, complaining about diversity on planet earth], then it would be in their best interest not to be found by humans. The first thing that will come to human attention is, to conquer them and tap into their "extra-terrestrial" resources. Better yet, take over their planet, in anticipation of the distant but almost assured eventual demise of planet earth.
Posts: 7516 | From: Somewhere on Earth | Registered: Jan 2008
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''As I have said before, if extra-terrestrial beings existed, which is highly unlikely [just human yearning to not "be alone in the universe", while in an ironic twist, complaining about diversity on planet earth]''
Why do you think it highly unlikely no intelligent extraterrestrial life exists? Several astrobiologists sign onto the notion that there is; of course this represents no truth at all, just the idea and a few mathematical equations positing a Goldilocks zone, i.e., just the right stuff.
And where does the yearning come from? I've read all the world's cultures indicate some external intelligence as having a hand in human affairs. And roughly half the world's population, according to what I've read, believe in a Deity or two or three. Yet this says nothing for the other half who don't. Further, if evoluton can account for every living thing on this planet, and can manifest the mind, then how does evolution explain early humans sitting around a campfire talking about ''Gods" and not evolution?
Can you elaborate on this: ''while in an ironic twist, complaining about diversity on planet earth]''Posts: 2118 | From: midwest, USA | Registered: Aug 2007
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Why do you think it highly unlikely no intelligent extraterrestrial life exists?
Because our planet earth truly is a unique planet, and the only one in our universe, and likely any universe to sport lifeforms. There is absolutely no evidence to the contrary. Some folks simply can't seem to come to terms with this fact.
quote: And where does the yearning come from?
The yearning can come from different angles for different people. For some, not being alone in the universe, may serve as some reassurance that some supernatural worlds actually exist beyond earth, like those in the afterlife, and that life on earth may not be of happenstance [i.e. the non-supernatural product of the laws of the universe falling into place and that in relation to the distance of the earth from the sun, coming together to create conditions that are ideal for life on earth]. For others, knowing that life exists elsewhere, simply provides the attractive prospect that humans may some day have the opportunity to live elsewhere in the universe, should the earth finally go down under. In other words, it creates the potential of humans outliving earth.
quote: Can you elaborate on this: ''while in an ironic twist, complaining about diversity on planet earth]''
It simply means that humans are hypocrites. On the one hand, they yearn for extra-terrestrials to pay earth a visit, and on the other, they complain about "legal" and "illegal aliens" and brand fellow humans as "aliens" in the process. If humans can't handle diversity within their own species, how are they supposed to handle extraterrestrial beings markedly different from humans any better.
Posts: 7516 | From: Somewhere on Earth | Registered: Jan 2008
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OK!! there is this thing about whether governments should disclose information on E.T contacts especially the U.S government, some feared that if such disclosures were to be announced by lets say Obama or the U.N secretary General some folks will jump-out of widows others will start religions while others will abandon religion, I believe some cultures and individuals can handle it others will implode,So knowing the above is it wise to disclose such info if said info exist?
Posts: 6546 | From: japan | Registered: Feb 2009
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I don't believe it exists. We take the earth for granted, but from the looks of things, it is indeed unique, and the lone planet in the entire universes with life. Planet earth just so happened to be in the right place and part of the universe with just the right laws of nature. There is no reason to assume that the distinct universes all have the same governing laws of nature.
-------------------- The Complete Picture of the Past tells Us what Not to Repeat Posts: 7516 | From: Somewhere on Earth | Registered: Jan 2008
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''Because our planet earth truly is a unique planet, and the only one in our universe, and likely any universe to sport lifeforms. There is absolutely no evidence to the contrary.''
While I will agree our earth is unique both from a secular and religious point of view there is no way to know if the earth is the only habitable planet in our galaxy/universe. 'There is absolutely no evidence to the contrary.' I'm saying it may well be that but that comment represents a factual statement. Yet it can't be factual because we don't know how to arrive at that given scientists limited resources in knowledge. So this makes it a philosophical idea.
''Some folks simply can't seem to come to terms with this fact.''
I presume you men the astrobiologists I mentioned.
''It simply means that humans are hypocrites. On the one hand, they yearn for extra-terrestrials to pay earth a visit, and on the other, they complain about "legal" and "illegal aliens" and brand fellow humans as "aliens" in the process. If humans can't handle diversity within their own species, how are they supposed to handle extraterrestrial beings markedly different from humans any better.''
I agree.
Brada-Anansi:
''OK!! there is this thing about whether governments should disclose information on E.T contacts especially the U.S government, some feared that if such disclosures are announced by lets say Obama or the U.N secretary General some folks will jump-out of widows others will start religions while other will abandon religion, I believe some cultures and individuals can handle it others will implode,So knowing the above is wise to disclose such info if said info exist?''
I don't think alert and strong-minded people will panick. To some it will be a yawning type of situation--provided they don't have to defend themselves. Others may well be shocked and dismayed because of what they have been told by the religious and scientific community: that is, there is no evidence that someone else is involved besides the inhabitants of this planet.
Posts: 2118 | From: midwest, USA | Registered: Aug 2007
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While I will agree our earth is unique both from a secular and religious point of view there is no way to know if the earth is the only habitable planet in our galaxy/universe.
Yes, there is a way of knowing. There is no planet like it. Just because earth has life, doesn't mean it exists anywhere else.
quote:
'There is absolutely no evidence to the contrary.' I'm saying it may well be that but that comment represents a factual statement.
That's because it is a factual statement. There is no evidence. There's one? What is it?
quote: Yet it can't be factual because we don't know how to arrive at that given scientists limited resources in knowledge.
That's science for you. Until such information is available, the status quo is that there is no sign of another "earth" in our universe.
The claim that the universe is gigantic is used in some quarters to press for possibility of life in our own universe, and possibly others. However, this rationality does not make it apparent that there should be life anywhere else but earth.
Posts: 7516 | From: Somewhere on Earth | Registered: Jan 2008
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You say there is a way of knowing that earth is the only planet suitable for life in our universe. How does science know it?
But I do agree with the last sentence.
''That's because it is a factual statement. There is no evidence. There's one? What is it?''
That's what I'm asking you to explain.
Given the limited resources:
''That's science for you. Until such information is available, the status quo is that there is no sign of another "earth" in our universe.''
Then the ''status quo'' is simply that right? Some of that limited resources stuff I'm talking about...translated into they have no way of knowing if there is or isn't...other than the status quo comment that is.
''The claim that the universe is gigantic is used in some quarters to press for possibility of life in our own universe, and possibly others. However, this rationality does not make it apparent that there should be life anywhere else but earth.''
I would say it is easily possible for a layman to say that but I can't imagine any scientist making that determination simply based on the size of the universe and extrapolate from that to say there must be life elsewhere without explaining the scientific input for arriving at that conclusion.
Posts: 2118 | From: midwest, USA | Registered: Aug 2007
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quote:Originally posted by The Explorer: I don't believe it exists. We take the earth for granted, but from the looks of things, it is indeed unique, and the lone planet in the entire universes with life. Planet earth just so happened to be in the right place and part of the universe with just the right laws of nature. There is no reason to assume that the distinct universes all have the same governing laws of nature.
I haven't perused the literature on this so I can't comment on it (extra terrestial life), but do you view laws of nature as specific to planet earth?
Posts: 8785 | From: Discovery Channel's Mythbusters | Registered: Dec 2009
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^No, I view earth's peculiarity as the product of the interplay of its distance from the Sun and the governing laws of nature that is specific to our universe.
-------------------- The Complete Picture of the Past tells Us what Not to Repeat Posts: 7516 | From: Somewhere on Earth | Registered: Jan 2008
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You say there is a way of knowing that earth is the only planet suitable for life in our universe. How does science know it?
Because there is no planet like it, or evidence of it.
Present science is able to allow researchers to take a peek at clusters of nearby galaxies; none of them show signs of life in them. What does this mean? If researchers can sense whether or not life activity exists in external galaxies, wouldn't they sense it even better if it exists in some other corner of our own galaxy?
quote:
''That's because it is a factual statement. There is no evidence. There's one? What is it?''
That's what I'm asking you to explain.
I am not sure what you are asking. Are you asking me to explain my pointing out that there is no evidence of life outside of earth?
quote: Given the limited resources:
''That's science for you. Until such information is available, the status quo is that there is no sign of another "earth" in our universe.''
Then the ''status quo'' is simply that right? Some of that limited resources stuff I'm talking about...translated into they have no way of knowing if there is or isn't...other than the status quo comment that is.
That's the way science works. Only when new evidence overturns the presently known one, does the latter get thrown away into trash. You are saying that just because it hasn't come to the human radar, it is possible that there is another earth-like planet somewhere. That is an a priori assumption. This doesn't have to be the case, because the earth comes from fairly extraordinary circumstances, but ones which are the products of the interplay of its distance and laws of nature specific to our own universe.
quote: ''The claim that the universe is gigantic is used in some quarters to press for possibility of life in our own universe, and possibly others. However, this rationality does not make it apparent that there should be life anywhere else but earth.''
I would say it is easily possible for a layman to say that but I can't imagine any scientist making that determination simply based on the size of the universe and extrapolate from that to say there must be life elsewhere without explaining the scientific input for arriving at that conclusion.
Exactly!
Posts: 7516 | From: Somewhere on Earth | Registered: Jan 2008
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The Aliens are already here, arriving from Planet X. They are the ones who have no environmental adaptation anywhere on the planet, and have many dreadful genetic diseases.
Posts: 2403 | Registered: Feb 2010
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A National Science Foundation artist's drawing shows the inner four planets orbiting Gliese 581, a red dwarf star just 20 light-years from Earth. The newly discovered planet, in the foreground, has a 37-day orbit and, like Earth, is distant enough from the star for liquid water to exist.
The possibility of life on other planets has been a staple of science fiction for decades. Now that possibility has taken a step closer to reality as astronomers say they have found a planet orbiting a star a mere 20 light-years away that has the right conditions for life to exist.
All of the planets orbiting Gliese 581 are nearer to it than the Earth is to our sun. Scientists are calling it the first "Goldilocks" planet, as its temperature seems to be just right to harbor life.
"The planet has to be the right distance from the star so it's not too hot and not too cold that liquid water can exist," says Paul Butler of the Carnegie Institution of Washington. "And then the planet has to have the right surface gravity."
Butler spoke Wednesday afternoon at a news conference organized by the National Science Foundation, the organization that funded Butler's research. Astronomers have found hundreds of planets orbiting other stars in the past decade, but they have all been so far from their suns that any water would be solid ice or so close that liquid water would boil away.
The new planet, called Gliese 581-g, is different. But Butler has no direct evidence that Gliese 581-g actually has water.
"What we know is that this planet exists at the right distance for liquid water, and that it has the right amount of mass to hold onto an atmosphere and to protect its liquid water on the surface," he says. "And of course, any subsequent discussion about life is purely speculative."
But then he couldn't resist speculating: "That being said, on the Earth, anywhere you find liquid water you find life in abundance."
A Solar System Like Our Own
There are six planets orbiting around star Gliese 581. And even if planet 581-g doesn't have life, Steven Vogt, a professor of astronomy and astrophysics at the University of California, Santa Cruz, says the solar system around Gliese 581 has an eerie resemblance to the one around our sun.Posts: 2118 | From: midwest, USA | Registered: Aug 2007
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By Lynette Cook/NASA This artist's conception shows the inner four planets of the Gliese 581 system and their host star.
An international row of astronomical proportions has sprung up as some researchers now question last year's discovery of a planet dubbed Gliese (GLEE-zuh) 581g, orbiting a nearby star. The announcement drew wide attention as one of the first exoplanets, a world outside our solar system, in a so-called "habitable" zone — not too hot for liquid water, and not too cold for life, as the discoverers wrote in the Astrophysical Journal. "This is the most Goldilocks planet yet found," discovery team co-leader Paul Butler of the Carnegie Institution of Washington (D.C.) said of the September announcement, But the argument also touches on broader disputes over new planet discoveries announced over the last two decades. In that span, astronomers have reported more than 500 planets orbiting nearby stars, a gold rush sparked by the 1995 discovery of a large planet orbiting the star 51 Pegasi, some 51 light years away, by members of a Swiss team. However, mistakes happen in the planet hunting world where detection is often determined with indirect observation methods. The Paris Observatory now has a catalog of controversial or withdrawn planets listing 122 dubious reports, typically discredited after follow-up observations fail to confirm a claim. Gliese 581g turned up in 11 years of observations of the red dwarf star Gliese 581, some 120 trillion miles away, by a team headed by Butler and Steve Vogt of the University of California, Santa Cruz. The U.S. team detected it through gravitational wobbles induced by orbiting planets on its small star, pointing to a world perhaps 3.1 times heftier than Earth with a "year" of about 37 days. Astronomers have long believed a planet in a habitable zone like this one may have the ingredients to support life. But criticism of the find came in October from astronomer Francesco Pepe of Switzerland's Geneva Observatory, home to a rival planet-hunting team. Pepe, a member of the team that reported four other planets orbiting Gliese 581 in 2009, said he saw no sign of the Goldilocks planet in his team's data. Since Pepe's complaint, two other reports critical of the Gliese 581g find have been released. One was led by Rene Andrae of Germany's Max Planck Institute for Astronomy suggesting the U.S. team relied too heavily on assumptions about the planets following circular orbits. Another, submitted by Philip Gregory of the University of British Columbia, used different statistics than the planet discoverers to re-analyze the U.S. and Swiss team's data, finding no signal of Gliese 581g, instead concluding the star likely possesses four planets following elongated orbits, instead of six following circular ones. "Sadly, as of today, we have no hint for an additional planet in our data," adds astronomer Xavier Bonfils of the Swiss team, who has collected more observations, still unpublished, of Gliese 581g since the 2009 study. "The question is therefore settled," Pepe says by e-mail. "The only fact is that there is broad consensus in the whole community on the wrong conclusions by (the U.S. team)." Not so fast, Vogt says. First, none of the critiques have made it past review by outside scientists, he notes, standard practice in science. Second, his team members did consider elongated orbits in their analysis. Third, he says, Gregory's analysis did not include gravitational interactions between the planets in the Gliese 581 solar system. "At the end of the day, only more data will definitively confirm or refute our claim," Vogt says. "We stand by our data and results." On top of that, a third unreviewed study by Guillem Anglada-Escude of the Carnegie Institute of Washington (D.C.), who is not a member of the U.S. team, "finds the existence of GJ (Gliese) 581g remains well supported."Posts: 2118 | From: midwest, USA | Registered: Aug 2007
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1)How is it positively identified that Gliese 581 has planets revolving around it? If this star is just a dot, how does one get to see the planets?
2)All of the planets orbiting Gliese 581 are nearer to it than the Earth is to our sun. Scientists are calling it the first "Goldilocks" planet, as its temperature seems to be just right to harbor life.
Something is not right about this piece. First it says that "all the planets orbiting Gliese 581 are nearer to the star than earth is to the sun", and then this:
Scientists are calling it the first "Goldilocks" planet, as its temperature seems to be just right to harbor life.
If the planets involved don't meet the conditions that the earth meets, how then can the conditions resemble earth? This would be like looking at Venus or Mars at great distance and speculating that they could have life, because they are somewhat closer to earth.
But importantly, the keywords in the entire article, is that outside of speculation, there is no concrete evidence of another earth-like planet.
Posts: 7516 | From: Somewhere on Earth | Registered: Jan 2008
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That's why I posted both articles. Yes there is confusion isn't it.
However...
The Explorer:
''You are saying that just because it hasn't come to the human radar, it is possible that there is another earth-like planet somewhere. That is an a priori assumption.''
No. It has nothing to do with a priori. You said you knew there is no life other than earth. I wanted to know how you and scientists know that. You essentially said the status quo tells you that. That says nothing about how scientists know this.
''because the earth comes from fairly extraordinary circumstances, but ones which are the products of the interplay of its distance and laws of nature specific to our own universe.''
...and you don't think there is anything unusual about that? And what specific ''laws of nature'' can explain these ''extraordinary circumstances? I admit I don't know. I don't know how it occured.
Religious fundamentalists will tell everyone God did it. But they don't need proof, just faith. Yet you seem like you know what these laws of nature are since you've mentioned these a couple of times. Are you suggesting these laws of nature need no explanation as to how they became natural? I take it you're a scientist. Doesn't that mean you operate in the category of empiricism? The scientific method...and not faith...based on a priori assumptions?
By the way you have suggested multi universes a couple of times now. How much faith are you willing to place in that?
Posts: 2118 | From: midwest, USA | Registered: Aug 2007
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No. It has nothing to do with a priori. You said you knew there is no life other than earth. I wanted to know how you and scientists know that.
I've been telling you why several times now: No evidence of it. Nada!
quote: You essentially said the status quo tells you that. That says nothing about how scientists know this.
Lack of evidence tells you what scientists know about this. How many ways do I have to tell you this, before it registers?
quote:
...and you don't think there is anything unusual about that?
Nope. Otherwise, the galaxy would be teaming with earths, and you'd have evidence of another earth.
quote: And what specific ''laws of nature'' can explain these ''extraordinary circumstances? I admit I don't know. I don't know how it occured.
1)The materials abundant in our universe, that has made it possible for earth to come into being. 2) the properties inherent in these materials [gravity, mass, inertia, interplay of order and disorder in our universe and what accounts for this, etc]. 3)The material elements of earth itself. 4)Earth's distance from the Sun, its rotation on its axis and revolution around the sun. I'm sure there are many more properties about the universe that can be pointed out, which may not necessarily be the same either in magnitude or nature in different universes.
quote: By the way you have suggested multi universes a couple of times now. How much faith are you willing to place in that?
It's based on the Big Bang theory. I think it is a reasonable one.
Posts: 7516 | From: Somewhere on Earth | Registered: Jan 2008
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''By the way you have suggested multi universes a couple of times now. How much faith are you willing to place in that?''
The Explorer:
''It's based on the Big Bang theory. I think it is a reasonable one.''
Then the idea about earth-like planets, as per the two above articles represent unreasonableness to you? Yet your multiverses aren't? You don't recognize the supernatural and science fiction component in that?
Posts: 2118 | From: midwest, USA | Registered: Aug 2007
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I think the Big Bang theory and its potential for multiverse nature of its end product is reasonable, as it is empirical that our universe is expanding. Celestial bodies are in gradual ways, drifting apart. According to this assessment, the end products of the Big Bang will experience varying progressions, and we happen to be experiencing just one aspect of this. In that direction, our earth exists and likewise, we as living beings, because our universe or our end of the consequences of the Big Bang contains all the elements and conditions [inherent laws] that has allowed us to exist. Had it not been for this, we wouldn't. That is reasonable to me.
I doubt there is any planet like earth, because it is unique and there is no evidence of multiple-earths. I mean, I can say that I am open to the possibility that there are millions of earths floating around, but that is not going to make it so. Why would this possibility be supernatural to you? To be open to the possibility of the existence of something that I have not seen evidence of, would be precisely like the supernatural intervention you speak of. You don't see the omnipresent God, but who is to say this personality doesn't exist? I can give you the same reason you are giving me, in that it is "possible", even though I have no concrete evidence of it. As far as I can see, there is nothing supernatural about saying that there is no evidence of another earth-like planet? Do you have evidence? Because if you do, I'd like to be filled in on it.
Posts: 7516 | From: Somewhere on Earth | Registered: Jan 2008
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Kepler spots five new alien planets in the 'habitable zone
NASA has announced that their planet-hunting spacecraft, Kepler, has discovered 1,235 potential new planets around alien stars. Of these, five of them are about the right size, and in about the right place, to potentially support life.
The Kepler spacecraft was launched specifically to search for planets around other stars, and so far, it seems to be doing a bang-up job. While it can't see other planets directly, it watches their stars for little dips in brightness that occur when the planets pass between the star and Kepler. From this data, Kepler can tell about how big the the planet is, where it orbits, how hot it is, and even what it's made of.
Discovering inhospitable gas giants around other stars is old news nowadays, but five of these new planets are in the habitable zone, meaning that they're located a comfortable distance from their star, they're not too hot and not too cold, and liquid water could be stable on their surfaces. Also, they're about the same size as Earth, implying a friendly sort of gravity. Of course, we have no idea (yet) what the surfaces of these planets are actually like, but so far, all signs point to class M.
Kepler has also found a pretty wild multi-planet system, consisting of six planets, five of which somehow manage to orbit their star (a yellow dwarf) closer than Mercury orbits the sun. Astronomers didn't know that such a system was physically possible until they found one. It's not likely that any of these planets support life, but it's the first indication that solar systems like ours may not be entirely unique.
So what's the next step? Well, Kepler is going to keep looking for planets, and as soon as we can figure out a way of telling whether the promising ones have breathable atmospheres and friendly aliens who just want to help you have a good time, we can send an interstellar scoutship out there to make first contact.
Via NASA, 2
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Not proof of life but I think we will detect life in our life time.
When you do, keep me posted; I'd be more than happy to change my tune then. I noticed how these articles speak of the "habitable zones", only to follow them up with this sort of line:
we have no idea (yet) what the surfaces of these planets are actually like
Or something like this:
It's not likely that any of these planets support lifePosts: 7516 | From: Somewhere on Earth | Registered: Jan 2008
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quote:''I doubt there is any planet like earth, because it is unique and there is no evidence of multiple-earths. I mean, I can say that I am open to the possibility that there are millions of earths floating around, but that is not going to make it so. Why would this possibility be supernatural to you?''
Correction. Your response in that paragraph had nothing to do with my supernatural comment. It was based on your multiverse outlook. That's supernatural; also known by the name of Quantum Mechanics.
quote:''As far as I can see, there is nothing supernatural about saying that there is no evidence of another earth-like planet? Do you have evidence? Because if you do, I'd like to be filled in on it.''
quote:In the May 2003 issue of Scientific American, physicist Max Tegmark puts forward an elaborate model of four different levels of multiverses. The simplest and most popular cosmological model today predicts that you have a twin in a galaxy about 10 to the 10/28 meters from here. This distance is so large that it is beyond astronomical, but that does not make your doppelganger any less real.... In infinite space, even the most unlikely events must take place somewhere. There are infinitely many other inhabited planets, including not just one but infinitely many that have people with the same appearance, name and memories as you, who play out every possible permutation of your life
This is a level 1 multiverse mind you. That is, the one we can see 14,000,000,000 years to the edge of, our universe, not the next one...which will be in your multiverse. So, since you say our earth is unique and there aren't any more like it, and you affix yourself to mulitiverses which says yes there is , then what say you to this physicist's comments. He's not agreeing with you at all. Or flipping that around you don't agree with him. Expressed another way, from this physicists interpretation he sees many of your ''unique earths'' in those mulitverses. But you don't because the earth is unique (to the Milkyway Galaxy). Now do you still subscribe to multiverses? Well of of course you can because how does Tegmark know he's right.
Posts: 2118 | From: midwest, USA | Registered: Aug 2007
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Tegmark's perceptive on the multiverse is not the only kind out there. And even if I agree with his version of the multiverse concept, I don't have to agree with his notion that there are infinitely many earths.
Posts: 7516 | From: Somewhere on Earth | Registered: Jan 2008
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Yup. That's why I said this at the very end: ''Well of of course you can [agree to multiverses] because how does Tegmark know he's right.''
Posts: 2118 | From: midwest, USA | Registered: Aug 2007
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We are not alone in the universe, says NASA astrobiologist Dr. Richard B. Hoover. And he claims to have the extraterrestrial fossils to back it up.
Aliens exist, and we have proof.
That astonishingly awesome claim comes from Dr. Richard B. Hoover, an astrobiologist at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, who says he has found conclusive evidence of alien life — fossils of bacteria found in an extremely rare class of meteorite called CI1 carbonaceous chondrites. (There are only nine such meteorites on planet Earth.) Hoover’s findings were published late Friday night in the Journal of Cosmology, a peer-reviewed scientific journal.
“I interpret it as indicating that life is more broadly distributed than restricted strictly to the planet earth,” Hoover, who has spent more than 10 years studying meteorites around the world, told FoxNews.com in an interview. “This field of study has just barely been touched — because quite frankly, a great many scientist would say that this is impossible.”
Hoover discovered the fossils by breaking apart the CI1 meteorite, and analyzing the exposed rock with a scanning-electron microscope and a field emission electron-scanning microscope, which allowed him to detect any fossil remains. What he found were fossils of micro-organisms (pictured below), many of which he says are strikingly similar to those found on our own planet (pictured above).
Explorer you may wanna keep an I eye on this development I know you are a skeptic but also scientific by nature which is required by science.
Posts: 6546 | From: japan | Registered: Feb 2009
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I'm not sure how this is supposed to serve as unequivocal proof of "extraterrestrial fossil". As soon as the rock was exposed to the earth's elements, it could just as well have picked up microbes that way.
Suppose, just suppose, I were to entertain Hoover's claim as unequivocal evidence of "life being more broadly distributed", then where from did these lifeforms come? It certainly hasn't been found on the planets in our solar system. No proof has brought to light, of lifeforms on distant "planets" which have been so-called "Goldilocks". One would expect that other planets in our own solar system would have been hit by meteorites at some point or another. If it can happen to earth, why can't it happen to other planets within our own solar system? If so, how come no signs of life in rocks or meteorite remains in the other planets that have been inspected so far? How is it that this only happens with meteorites that have landed on earth? A coincidence may be?
Posts: 7516 | From: Somewhere on Earth | Registered: Jan 2008
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Well Explorer most scientist agree with you for the time being here is an update
e: NASA scientist finds evidence of alien life « Result #1 Today at 1:41am » WASHINGTON – The gaps and stringy fibers in these space rocks sure look like bacteria, and a NASA researcher has caused a stir with claims that they're fossils of alien life. But as NASA found 15 years ago, looks can be deceiving.
Top scientists in different disciplines immediately found pitfalls in a newly published examination of three meteorites that went viral on the Internet over the weekend. NASA and its top scientists disavowed the work by noon Monday.
Biologists said just because it looks as though the holes were made by bacteria doesn't make them fossils of extraterrestrial microbes. The meteorites could be riddled with Earthly contamination. And both astronomers and biologists complained that the study was not truly reviewed by peers.
There are questions about the credentials of the study's author, Richard Hoover. And the work appeared in an online journal that raises eyebrows because even its editor acknowledges it may have to shut down in June and that one reason for publishing the controversial claim was to help find a buyer.
"There's a lot of stuff there, but not a lot of science," said Rosie Redfield, a microbiologist at the University of British Columbia, who publicly dissected the paper over the weekend. "I looked at it and shuddered."
The Associated Press talked to a dozen scientists, and none of them agreed with the findings. There was none of the excitement that surrounded a similar claim that NASA announced with fanfare in 1996 — but was forced to back away from later — that a meteorite from Mars found in Antarctica showed evidence of alien life.
"There has been no one in the scientific community, certainly no one in the meteorite analysis community, that has supported these conclusions," NASA Astrobiology Institute Director Carl Pilcher said Monday of the latest work.
Hoover, of NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., claims he found fossils that look like remnants of bacteria in a handful of meteorites. His research, published online Friday in the Journal of Cosmology, concludes these must have come from outer space. It is based on three specimens of a rare type of meteorite — thought to come from comets — found in France in 1806 and 1864 and Tanzania in 1938.
Hoover's pictures look like microscopic versions of flattened tubes and tangled strings. Hoover didn't return phone calls or e-mails from the AP. Rudy Schild, a Harvard astronomer and editor-in-chief of the journal, said the study was reviewed by scientists, but he wouldn't identify them. Schild said the idea was to garner attention and generate debate, which happened after it was first reported over the weekend by FoxNews.com.
"We thought the purpose of the exercise here is having it released and having it discussed," Schild told the AP. He acknowledged the journal's imminent demise was "a factor in play, but there are other factors as well" in the decision to publish Hoover's research.
The year-and-a-half-old journal champions a disputed theory that life started elsewhere in the universe and was seeded on Earth by asteroids and comets. Schild said criticisms of Hoover's paper "are legitimate" but that he agrees with Hoover's conclusion. Other scientists say Hoover, who has worked for NASA in solar physics but now bills himself as an astrobiologist, doesn't have the proper expertise. "Anyone can call himself an astrobiologist. That doesn't make it so," said Pilcher, the astrobiology institute director.
And while Hoover's paper in the journal lists him as a "Ph.D.," NASA's solar physics website does not mention a doctorate. A colleague of Hoover's said he acknowledges that he doesn't have the advanced degree. Schild said someone at the journal — he doesn't know who — may have inadvertently listed Hoover with the doctorate title. Top planetary scientists, including those who study meteorites, are at a conference in Houston this week and this was the talk — albeit mostly in a can-you-believe-this-stuff way, said Harry "Hap" McSween, one of world's foremost experts in meteorites. "I don't think anybody accepts this idea," McSween said. "Nobody thinks they are extraterrestrial." McSween has studied one of the meteorites cited — the one that fell to France in 1864. He said it was in "atrocious" condition at a Paris Museum with noticeable contamination. There was a vein in the rock that hadn't been there in old photographs, a sign of creeping moisture. That makes sense because even NASA moon rocks, hermitically stored, have been contaminated with Earthly microbes, he said.
McSween and other scientists said they had hoped the public would ignore reports about the study, but they didn't. It was on the top of Yahoo News much of Monday. "It looks like it's kind of viral," McSween said. "It's extraterrestrial life, that's why." For biologist Redfield, it was just another case of a scientist who's not a biologist tinkering in a field he doesn't know. One of the first rules for biologists is just because one thing looks like another doesn't mean the two things are the same, she said. "These guys make some stupid announcement completely ignoring all the rules of biology and then get all the publicity," Redfield said.
For McSween and Redfield it's deja vu. McSween criticized the 1996 discovery, which had been announced by then-President Bill Clinton on the White House south lawn. Over the years, scientist after scientist chipped away at the basis of that Mars meteorite finding and now it's not generally accepted as proof of alien life.
And that study had stronger peer review and more supporting lines of evidence, Redfield and McSween said. Seth Shostak, an astronomer who searches for intelligent alien life, desperately wanted to believe the reports. But when he read the Hoover study, he ended up disappointed.
"It looks very, very doubtful, which is a shame from several points of view," said Shostak, a senior scientist at the SETI Institute in California. "But that's the way science is. People make claims that often don't hold up. That's the nature of science."
Yeah the story kinda fizzled but still keep an eye out and an open mind. But one thing though whether the story pans out or not it was significant that many trashed the findings without even a preliminary examination.
Posts: 6546 | From: japan | Registered: Feb 2009
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That's what I do, keep an open mind towards convincing evidence.
You have to understand what is going on here; people are going out and searching for evidence to support an a priori idea, instead of explaining evidence that came to attention first before any explanatory idea. In proper protocols of science, it doesn't work that way; evidence comes first, and then an idea(s) is formulated that explains the evidence, rather than an idea(s) coming first, and then searching for evidence to explain that idea.
I'm not clear on why you are of the mindset that the findings were gratuitously criticized in the absence of verifying whether it had scientific merit, in light of this for example, from your article:
There was a vein in the rock that hadn't been there in old photographs, a sign of creeping moisture. That makes sense because even NASA moon rocks, hermitically stored, have been contaminated with Earthly microbes, he said.
And this:
Seth Shostak, an astronomer who searches for intelligent alien life, desperately wanted to believe the reports. But when he read the Hoover study, he ended up disappointed.
I don't think it is fair to say that Shostak trashed the findings prematurely, do you, given that he so desperately wanted it to be true?
BTW Shostak's described desperateness reinforces the point I was making, about this need out there to look for evidence in support of an a priori idea that has been out there for a fairly long time, and developed without consideration to concrete evidence, rather than having the evidence first and then explaining it away with the most plausible idea or theory. There are people who desperately want to believe that the earth's living are not alone, and hence, are constantly in search of evidence to support this belief. It's almost like searching for physical evidence of God, in that a lot of people already believe in God without that empirical evidence.
Ps: The report on the findings immediately struck me as suspect, because one has to consider several variables in light of what is being said. One that should immediately jump at anyone, is the fact that any meteorite has to be exposed to the earth's atmosphere before an impact, and then, upon impact, further contact with earth -- its solid elements. These all provide opportunities for microbes to infiltrate the meteorite. Not to say it is impossible, but it would be a rather difficult task to handle extraterrestrial rocks on earth, without absolute contamination. Even in cases, wherein the rock is on some other planet or satellite, the instruments used to examine such rocks have to absolutely be decontaminated from earth's elements.
Posts: 7516 | From: Somewhere on Earth | Registered: Jan 2008
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“The exciting thing is that they are in many cases recognizable and can be associated very closely with the generic species here on earth,” said Hoover. Some of the fossils, however, are quite odd. There are some that are just very strange and don’t look like anything that I’ve been able to identify, and I’ve shown them to many other experts that have also come up stump.
That's the part that jumps out at me the unidentified!! but you are correct maybe the problem and criticizism were from the fact they were looking to prove a theory rather than discovering a find.
Posts: 6546 | From: japan | Registered: Feb 2009
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LOL, but your citation also claims that there are "recognizable" examples that can be "closely" associated with "generic species" on earth. Are we to assume that these too came from outer-space, wherein there was some parallel evolution going on there between that extraterrestrial habitat and planet earth? Has it occurred to Hoover that there are microbes out there on this very planet that he has never set eyes on?...which may explain a mixture of familiar strains and the not-so-familiar ones. This is why some observers were pointing to the limitations set by his lack of credentials and possible inexperience in the field he was dabbling in.
Heck, there are living non-microbe creatures that have only been discovered fairly recently on planet earth; before then, nobody [at least in the 'west'] knew about their existence, let alone microbes, which warrant high resolution microscopes to be seen.
BTW to correct you, I was not talking about the people criticizing Hoover, with regards to harboring an a priori idea and then searching for evidence. Rather, I was talking about this whole idea of people not wanting to be alone, and have this need to look for evidence of life outside of earth. This type of thinking is largely a priori. Rather than it being based on evidence, people are on constant search for evidence for it.
Posts: 7516 | From: Somewhere on Earth | Registered: Jan 2008
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A boulder-strewn field of red rocks stretches across the horizon in this self-portrait of Viking 2 on Mars' Utopian Plain. (3 September 1976) Image: NASA
(PhysOrg.com) -- In 1976 the NASA Viking landers took samples of soil on Mars and tested them for signs of organic carbon. A reinterpretation of the results now suggests the samples did contain organic compounds, but the results were not understood because of the strong oxidation effects of perchlorate, a salt now known to be found in Martian soils.
In the Viking tests the Martian soil was heated sufficiently to vaporize organic molecules in the soil and the resultant gases and vapors were analyzed by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry. Chlorohydrocarbons were found at landing site 1 and 2, but they were dismissed at the time as terrestrial contaminants, even though they were not found at the same levels in blank runs. Then, in 2008 the Phoenix lander discovered perchlorate in the Martian arctic soil. Perchlorates are well known as powerful oxidizing compounds that combust organics, but their presence in Martian soils was not suspected in the 1970s.
After the Martian soils were found to contain perchlorates, scientists from Ciudad Universitaria in Mexico City, and NASA’s Space Science Division at Moffett Field, California, decided to test the soils of the Atacama Desert in Chile, which is considered more like Mars than anywhere else on Earth.
The research, reported in the Journal of Geophysical Research, found that when soil samples containing organic carbon were mixed with magnesium perchlorate and then heated, the same kind of combusted chlorohydrocarbons were found as had been detected on Mars by the Viking lander and dismissed as contaminants.
Reinterpreting the Viking results in the light of the new findings suggests the samples from landing site 1 contained 1.5 to 6.5 ppm organic carbon, while those from landing site 2 contained 0.7 to 2.6 ppm organic carbon.
The presence of organic material does not provide evidence of life or past life on Mars but only of the presence of organic compounds. NASA is now planning a new mission for November 2011 to have another look for organics and other chemicals on Mars in an effort to better understand the chemistry of Martian soils.
More information: Navarro‐González, R., E. Vargas, J. de la Rosa, A. C. Raga, and C. P. McKay (2010), Reanalysis of the Viking results suggests perchlorate and organics at midlatitudes on Mars, J. Geophys. Res., 115, E12010, doi:10.1029/2010JE003599
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...and I see these guys are still trying to figure out what it is they think they see, or thought they saw 34 and a half years ago.
But I see the topic of the thread is talking to extraterrestrials instead of looking for microbes in the dirt.
Posts: 2118 | From: midwest, USA | Registered: Aug 2007
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You are right; "looking for" microbes is of little importance. Findingextraterrestrial "microbes" would have more buzz in terms of the ongoing discussion.
-------------------- The Complete Picture of the Past tells Us what Not to Repeat Posts: 7516 | From: Somewhere on Earth | Registered: Jan 2008
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Do I sound like Calabooz, or is it because he/she has selected the same avatar? I have no control over whom else uses the same avatar, nor do I care really.
-------------------- The Complete Picture of the Past tells Us what Not to Repeat Posts: 7516 | From: Somewhere on Earth | Registered: Jan 2008
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Calabooz seemed to have your style at times but then I thought about other events and decided it wasn't the case. But I lingered too long I see. But you are right about no control over avatars nor do you care. In other words I should have known considering the past differences with the other two issuees(?). My bag.
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