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.
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.
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