Other Solar Systems

[ShotoJuku]

The worst of all scenarios is that we find unintelligent life living in a communal society and when they see our progress and productivity they guilt trip us into sharing our wealth with them.

Don't we have that on Earth already?

[ryoder]

Yeah we do but imagine it on a galactic scale!

[dcan]

Yeah we do but imagine it on a galactic scale!

Annihilate them and redistribute their wealth. hilarious

Really though, any contact would likely have both sides having this exact same discussion.

Hopefully sane heads would prevail. But that assumes an alien race has a concept of "peace" that is more than "temporary cease fire".

[ryoder]

Maybe we could put a Golan-III defense platform in low earth orbit?
Or maybe we could build Centerpoint Station?

[bkahuna]

I disagree that life sustaining planets are rare.

Based on the planets we know the most about (those orbiting the Sun), its a 10% chance.

The other planets discovered outside our solar system are as large or larger than Jupiter because we cant yet see the close orbiting, water rich planets.

The key is not just finding other life sustaining planets, but finding planets which we can reach and explore.

Based on our ability to explore other planets, its feasable that life can even exist on moons within our own solar system. "Intelligent" life? maybe not, but even moons like Jupiter's Io, have heat generated by Jupiter's gravity. Though in Io's case its too much heat, its feasable that a moon orbiting a distant planet at the right orbit could have enough heat to generate life similar to that found in Earth's oceans.

What I find fascinating about astronomy is the "dark matter" concept -- there exists matter which we cannot see whose gravity is holding the universe together. Recently we found another planet in our own solar system that is FOUR times the mass of Jupiter, which has been named Tyche. (pronounced ty-kee). We cant see it but it pulls on the other planets' orbits. I'm starting to think that 'dark matter' may really not be 'dark' at all, its either black in color or so distant from a star that it cant be seen. If there are 10 planets for every star plus the associated moons, that can be a pretty significant amount of matter out there in the universe which we can't see today.

And yes i'm not counting Pluto as a planet, but of its type, its one of several plutoid objects beyond Neptune (At last read I think they've found four of them), which may be orphaned moons.

Remember when Voyager II passed Neptune, they turned the craft back toward the sun for a photo of our solar system. Earth from that distance was two blue pixels on the image. TWO BLUE PIXELS. Using traditional telescopes it would be very difficult to locate any planets like us.

The Kepler telescope should be able to observe planets similar to earth, but in order to do so it takes a few orbits of a planet to detect. basically it detects how much a star 'wobbles' based upon the gravity of the planet pulling on it. The first few discoveries have been large planets with short orbit cycles (years), because they are easiest to detect. Within the next few years we should see even more planets emerge. Using the method of the Kepler telescope, if we observed the Sun, it would be a few years (earth's orbit time) before we could even detect ourselves.

I know its the off topic forum so i think this was fair game, i've thought about this a lot and had nobody to share it with.

[ryoder]

How come nobody wants to talk about Uranus???

[ryoder]

BTW I am officially on vacation...

[skybirds]

Would extraterrestrial invaders tax us? That's my worry!

[ryoder]

You know what they say. If it moves tax it. If it keeps moving tax it more. If it just wont quit, regulate it!

[columbia]

I disagree that life sustaining planets are rare.

Based on the planets we know the most about (those orbiting the Sun), its a 10% chance.

The other planets discovered outside our solar system are as large or larger than Jupiter because we cant yet see the close orbiting, water rich planets.

How do you know that our solar system is a typical solar system? I think that's a big assumption. We have found hundreds 'hot Jupiters' and our solar system doesn't have any. The Nebula Theory says large amounts of gasses (Like oxygen & hydrogen for water) wouldn't have time to condense close to a star in the 'green zone'. Even if you have another earth you may not get intelligent life.

The topic of 'hot Jupiters' is a fascinating one.
According to the Nebula Theory gas giants couldn't form that close to their parent star so they had to form farther out and migrate inward. And then what? How did they stop and park in a stable orbit? Probability and orbital mechanics are against it.

Uranus is an amazing topic. I might put something together on it later.