/sci/ - Science & Math

With the Kepler Space Telescope finding something in the area of 1,700 planetary candidates since it got sent up, estimates put the amount of alien worlds at 50 billion, with around 500 million sitting inside the habitable zone of their stars. So while Gliese 581c might not be a good candidate, there are still around 50 we've found in our stellar neighbourhood.

http://news.discovery.com/space/milky-way-stuffed-with-50-billion-alien-worlds.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kepler_%28spacecraft%29

>On 2 February 2011, the Kepler team announced the results from the data of May to September 2009. They found 1235 planetary candidates circling 997 host stars, more than twice the number of currently known exoplanets. The Kepler results included 68 planetary candidates of Earth-like size and 54 planetary candidates in the habitable zone of their star. The team estimated that 5.4% of stars host Earth-size planet candidates and 17% of all stars have multiple planets. As the mission continues, additional longer period candidates continue to be found - as of September 2011, there were 1781 candidates.[15]

We've had some great discussion in the last one, lets do another.

(and lets hope ANGRY SIMIAN guy doesn't show up again)


To start things off:

Personally, I think that any planet that develops with a certain composition (IE, liquid water, oxygen, methane and other trace chemicals and exists for more then 10,000 years will inevitibly, maybe even sooner develop at least some form of life, and then depending on the gravity of the planet and warmth and solar stability it is inevitable that after a certain time (proabably around 2 billion to 6 billion years) some form of intelligent species will be developed.

Then you have to factor in those who don't kill themselves or those who get raped by an asteroid or gamma ray burst or sun fluctuations.

Personally, there's most likely around a 25,000 to 400,000 civilizations that are at around our level of intelligence. Which is reasonable since the FARTHEST possible detected thing we know of (narrow band radio signals) we can only detect them in around an 80 light-year radius (www.faqs.org/faqs/astronomy/faq/part6/section-12.html)
, and the milky way is 100,000 light-years around, we're on the end of the spiral, so we're much farther from the average stars then the ones closer to the middle, even if we were looking for them and listening to that particular place in the sky it would have to be broadcast from their planet right at the technological level we are at, 80 years back in time, to coincide with just now when we've started looking.

There's most likely a form of intelligence within 60 light years away.
At least 5 of the 54 Kepler found solar systems with earth planets (or ones with gas giants) in the habitability zones will have some form of basic life on them, or moons of the gas giants.

It's only a matter of time before we advance enough to explore them.

This is just Gliese 581 all over again. I'm not getting excited until they confirm the abundance of hydrogen and oxygen on that planet.

Make a presentation about how hyped up it is. Seriously. There will be far better candidates.

Tbh, I think Gliese581g is for more interesting than Tres-4 or Fomalhaut b. This planet is within its star's fucking habitable zone. Seriously. Here is an image of the Gliese system.