Astronamers Find a group of "Super-Earths"

[JohnnyAR]

For zhe article Click here!

This is amazing, well not exactly, but still cool. At least we know that there are other planets similar to ours, so if something bad happens to ours we know that there are other planets for us to occupy. Man, I can't for the day we meet life from other planets, it'll be so crazy.

[Mister_E]

Well good thing we have a place to go to once all the other planets in our system go KA-PUT!

[mDuo13]

I like this version of the article better, because it has such intellectually stimulating sentences as the following:

The rapid orbits make the super-Earths easier to detect -- but it also means that they are probably gaseous balls of fire inhospitable to life as we know it.

And better yet:

Earth orbits the Sun once every 365 days.

Now how's that for stellar reporting? (Pun not intended.)

I do wonder if we'll make contact (radio waves or something) with an extraterrestrial species within my lifetime. I suppose it's possible.

[JohnnyAR]

I do wonder if we'll make contact (radio waves or something) with an extraterrestrial species within my lifetime. I suppose it's possible.

If we do, it will take a few years for another planet to get it, that is if they too have the same technology as us. I wonder if theres another race like us except the difference between us and them is that they could have different types of hair color. That would be cool

[rude32]

I do wonder if we'll make contact (radio waves or something) with an extraterrestrial species within my lifetime. I suppose it's possible.

If we do, it will take a few years for another planet to get it, that is if they too have the same technology as us. I wonder if theres another race like us except the difference between us and them is that they could have different types of hair color. That would be cool

Sorta like bizarro versions of us.

[JohnnyAR]

I do wonder if we'll make contact (radio waves or something) with an extraterrestrial species within my lifetime. I suppose it's possible.

If we do, it will take a few years for another planet to get it, that is if they too have the same technology as us. I wonder if theres another race like us except the difference between us and them is that they could have different types of hair color. That would be cool

Sorta like bizarro versions of us.

yup, I would be like "Finally something not natural!"

[Lactose]

I like this version of the article better, because it has such intellectually stimulating sentences as the following:

The rapid orbits make the super-Earths easier to detect -- but it also means that they are probably gaseous balls of fire inhospitable to life as we know it.

And better yet:

Earth orbits the Sun once every 365 days.

Now how's that for stellar reporting? (Pun not intended.)

I do wonder if we'll make contact (radio waves or something) with an extraterrestrial species within my lifetime. I suppose it's possible.

also,

A light-year is the distance light can travel in one year

oh, is THAT what that means?  >_>

[mDuo13]

I just realized that this article is titled "astronamers", not "astronomers".

I'm sure the people giving names to stars would love to find a bunch of super-earths.

[Kaura117]

The probability of communications with another alien race, even if there is one out there, is amazingly low. Let's not forget that, even now, most of the civilized world's communications occurs NOT by radio, but by electronic, and sometimes photonic, package exchange. Then you factor in signal degradation over distance, how the signal's encrypted, what wavelengths are used for what sort of info... and what happens if the transhumanists are right and the natural outcome of an advanced civilization is a Singularity? How the hell do you communicate with a god-mind whose perspective is spread across trillions of trillions of floating processors spread out across an entire solar system- a mind thinking so swiftly, so vastly, that feeding it the entirety of humanity's data output might as well be tossing a drop of water into a torrential river?

Forget it. SETI's focused on the wrong thing completely. Look for zones of low-entropy and high structure. Look for abnormal infrared signals. A civilization worth contacting- ie: one that's solved its internal disputes to at least some extent- is one that's started to harvest not just their planet's, but their entire system's energy sources. THEN spit a probe at 'em. With any luck, they'll also have found a way around the pit-trap of this universe's "No FTL" clause, and can save us from our own impending doom, yeah?

[Lactose]

I just realized that this article is titled "astronamers", not "astronomers".

I'm sure the people giving names to stars would love to find a bunch of super-earths.

el oh el

[mDuo13]

The probability of communications with another alien race, even if there is one out there, is amazingly low. Let's not forget that, even now, most of the civilized world's communications occurs NOT by radio, but by electronic, and sometimes photonic, package exchange. Then you factor in signal degradation over distance, how the signal's encrypted, what wavelengths are used for what sort of info... and what happens if the transhumanists are right and the natural outcome of an advanced civilization is a Singularity? How the hell do you communicate with a god-mind whose perspective is spread across trillions of trillions of floating processors spread out across an entire solar system- a mind thinking so swiftly, so vastly, that feeding it the entirety of humanity's data output might as well be tossing a drop of water into a torrential river?

Forget it. SETI's focused on the wrong thing completely. Look for zones of low-entropy and high structure. Look for abnormal infrared signals. A civilization worth contacting- ie: one that's solved its internal disputes to at least some extent- is one that's started to harvest not just their planet's, but their entire system's energy sources. THEN spit a probe at 'em. With any luck, they'll also have found a way around the pit-trap of this universe's "No FTL" clause, and can save us from our own impending doom, yeah?

Eh, I don't entirely agree - mostly because I prefer not to be beholden to what's currently thought as "most likely". Do you think that a "singularity"/"God mind" is really something with which it would be useful for us to communicate? I don't see how a society that has solved all its problems, as you say, would have any reason to help us. I mean, there's no guarantee that such an existence would believe in charity. More likely, a society that's only somewhat advanced would have more ideas or goods that they'd be willing and able to share with us.

And signals may degrade over distance, but there's no way you can know what alien technology that's beyond our comprehension can do. (Gee, aren't I clever for pointing that one out.)

Another thing I wonder is - will we find intelligent, or unintelligent life first? I suppose it depends on whether you think it's more likely that other civilizations would develop ways to send information or probes or something to different stars, or that all kinds of random planets could develop microbial life.

[Kaura117]

The probability of communications with another alien race, even if there is one out there, is amazingly low. Let's not forget that, even now, most of the civilized world's communications occurs NOT by radio, but by electronic, and sometimes photonic, package exchange. Then you factor in signal degradation over distance, how the signal's encrypted, what wavelengths are used for what sort of info... and what happens if the transhumanists are right and the natural outcome of an advanced civilization is a Singularity? How the hell do you communicate with a god-mind whose perspective is spread across trillions of trillions of floating processors spread out across an entire solar system- a mind thinking so swiftly, so vastly, that feeding it the entirety of humanity's data output might as well be tossing a drop of water into a torrential river?

Forget it. SETI's focused on the wrong thing completely. Look for zones of low-entropy and high structure. Look for abnormal infrared signals. A civilization worth contacting- ie: one that's solved its internal disputes to at least some extent- is one that's started to harvest not just their planet's, but their entire system's energy sources. THEN spit a probe at 'em. With any luck, they'll also have found a way around the pit-trap of this universe's "No FTL" clause, and can save us from our own impending doom, yeah?

Eh, I don't entirely agree - mostly because I prefer not to be beholden to what's currently thought as "most likely". Do you think that a "singularity"/"God mind" is really something with which it would be useful for us to communicate? I don't see how a society that has solved all its problems, as you say, would have any reason to help us. I mean, there's no guarantee that such an existence would believe in charity. More likely, a society that's only somewhat advanced would have more ideas or goods that they'd be willing and able to share with us.

And signals may degrade over distance, but there's no way you can know what alien technology that's beyond our comprehension can do. (Gee, aren't I clever for pointing that one out.)

Another thing I wonder is - will we find intelligent, or unintelligent life first? I suppose it depends on whether you think it's more likely that other civilizations would develop ways to send information or probes or something to different stars, or that all kinds of random planets could develop microbial life.

Singularity/Godmind: Let's put it this way- massive, massive data storage capabilities, an eternal hunger for more raw resources to convert to computronium, and the secrets of the universe long since cracked open. We give it the resources it wants- because no weakly godlike entity is capable of violating thermodynamics- it gives us the solutions we need to survive.

Civilizations and Charity: Singularity or not, the macroeconomic principles of comparative advantage still applies. It isn't charity- it's an overlapping of interest instead of conflict. Furthermore, a civilization much more advanced than ours would have less conflicts with us- less competition over the same resources. Theoretically, they'd care for raw real estate- mass and volume- more than, say, copper (which we will eventually run out of), fissionables (which we will eventually run out of) or industrial metals (which we will eventually run out of- unless somebody figures out how to macroengineering entire landmasses into smelting factories and crack open a volcano. Don't hold your breathe).

Signal Degradation and Tech As Magic: We do have a fairly firm grasp on the physical mechanics of the universe. We also know that thermodynamics is a right bitch. Signal degradation is an inevitable outcome of entropy- and minus a time machine, entropy is absolute. While you can temporarily reverse entropy in a specific system, you do so at the cost of massively increasing entropy in another. This universe is, after all, a closed system. Hyperadvanced alien technology may find a way of more efficiently trading off one system's entropy for another- we may find a way of increasing mechanical efficiency by untold margins someday. But the only physically plausible way to counter radio signal loss over cosmological scales is to build a receiver capable of doing so- and we're talking about a receiver that is, itself, cosmological in scale. Which, while plausible in the sense that if you build such a thing, it'd work, is impossible to actually construct. The mass of the thing, no matter how ephemerally thin you'd make it, would cause it to implode upon itself.

Or it'd be a swarm configuration- in which case, you'd then lose the resultant signal to the fact that you're trying to sync thousands of trillions of satellites across lightyears' span. It'd take whole decades to process a kilobyte's worth of coherent data- if you can even find coherent data amongst the background noise. And even THEN you'd have to contend with the fact that having enough satellites in close enough orbit to each other to pick up a single civilization's radio signals- if they're even using radio- would itself have enough gravitic force to disrupt any signal that passes through or near them ANYHOW. Might not implode, but good luck trying to hear anything!

There's also gravitic lensing. The problem with this? A civilization capable of harnessing gravity wouldn't even freaking bother trying to pick up radio signals. Macroscale gravitational control would, to my mind, lend more to a diaspora- generational ships, whole ideologies and movements and civilizations unbound by gravitational wells, making pit stops around stars and planets in what seems to them like every few years and what seems to everybody else like whole centuries. Why would they bother trying to pick up a few weak radio signals? They can just pop by and see if there's any survivors left to trade with. Or enslave. Or completely ignore, as the poor fools are still terrestrially bound and there are gas giants ripe for the plucking.

Intelligent or Unintelligent: Microbial life is probably very, very common out there in the void. Intelligent life... hell, there's only one symbol-using species on this planet, despite billions of years of experimentation. ...though, it has been noted that if there were intelligent life in earlier epochs, the time scale involved would be sufficient to eliminate the gross majority of evidence of their existence by now. Metal rusts, ceramics dissolve and fossils are really quite rare. Paleontologists are all too aware that we've only brushed the surface of what used to exist back then.

[AnimeEmperor]

Good to know that we're the shrimps of the universe.

[Kaura117]

Good to know that we're the shrimps of the universe.

Give us time. We've not even had petroleum power for more than a couple of centuries, after all.

[JohnnyAR]

I wonder, if there are planets similar to earth, then there would probably be beings similar to us that would maybe have the same technology as us. If so then they too would have internets, then they would probably have things like forum boards, and they would probably be having a discussion like the one we're having.

Imagine if there were something like a another being that is just like you, except for minor differences.

[Kaura117]

I wonder, if there are planets similar to earth, then there would probably be beings similar to us that would maybe have the same technology as us. If so then they too would have internets, then they would probably have things like forum boards, and they would probably be having a discussion like the one we're having.

Imagine if there were something like a another being that is just like you, except for minor differences.

Minor differences my arse. If they even looked remotely like an earth animal, it'd instead suggest that the panspermists were right, and at least some life in the universe managed to hitch a ride across interstellar voids. Heck, if they were at all HUMANOID, it'd suggest that a few cro-magnons got kidnapped by flying saucers ages hence.

[JohnnyAR]

I wonder, if there are planets similar to earth, then there would probably be beings similar to us that would maybe have the same technology as us. If so then they too would have internets, then they would probably have things like forum boards, and they would probably be having a discussion like the one we're having.

Imagine if there were something like a another being that is just like you, except for minor differences.

Minor differences my arse. If they even looked remotely like an earth animal, it'd instead suggest that the panspermists were right, and at least some life in the universe managed to hitch a ride across interstellar voids. Heck, if they were at all HUMANOID, it'd suggest that a few cro-magnons got kidnapped by flying saucers ages hence.

That'd be crazy.

What do you think the possibility of us being peaceful with another race if we eve meet one? Like why would they want to destroy us in the first place, if something like that were to happen.

[Kaura117]

I wonder, if there are planets similar to earth, then there would probably be beings similar to us that would maybe have the same technology as us. If so then they too would have internets, then they would probably have things like forum boards, and they would probably be having a discussion like the one we're having.

Imagine if there were something like a another being that is just like you, except for minor differences.

Minor differences my arse. If they even looked remotely like an earth animal, it'd instead suggest that the panspermists were right, and at least some life in the universe managed to hitch a ride across interstellar voids. Heck, if they were at all HUMANOID, it'd suggest that a few cro-magnons got kidnapped by flying saucers ages hence.

That'd be crazy.

What do you think the possibility of us being peaceful with another race if we eve meet one? Like why would they want to destroy us in the first place, if something like that were to happen.

Wars are fought over competing resources. Initial contact would not be overtly hostile- it would depend on how desperate either of us would be to colonize the other, whether or not ours or their religious fanatics hold influence at the time (ideological territory is a resource, in a way- limited by geography and the number of individuals available to control), and a hundred thousand other factors. My own prognosis on the subject is fairly optimistic- there are more reasons to work together, at least initially, than there are to stab each other in the back.

Mind you, that first assumes that communication is at all possible. How the hell do we communicate with a hyperintelligent shade of blue?

[Sunara Ishi]

Thinks of the one orbiting in 4 days... whooo! A amusement park ride~ Round and round and round we go.... ~throws up~
I wonder how that would impact us... time going faster...

I can't stop thinking of Aqua. -.-;
Maybe we will take one of those planets and make a place like Aqua. XD;

Or maybe (on those planets) they have giant versions of us. XP

[G.I.R]

Thinks of the one orbiting in 4 days... whooo! A amusement park ride~ Round and round and round we go.... ~throws up~

Daaaaamn!  It takes the moon 27 days just to go around the Earth!  :o