/sci/ - Science & Math

neat.

This face.

Life could literally only exist in a twilight zone from what i know

hory shet

Come at me Gliesiens. My anus is prepared.

needs more plauge marines

same as my original reaction to this
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzvijAIQEm4

Pic related. I was my face.

>>1834288
It *

MEANWHILE IN GLIESE 581 G

Beep beep /sci/'s boop bop beep boop Earth?

Looking forward to the discovery of life. Would render the entire bible false.

>>1834329

You sound like this didn't happen a thousand times already.

Happy. Maybe we'll discover aliens before I die!

old news.. they discover gilese like what 5 years ago?

>>1834329

They'll just reinterpret whatever parts of the bible it refutes, and say it was god's will or some shit that we found the planet.

Wasn't the whole "goldilocks zone" concept for identifying potentially life-supporting planets abandoned years ago, because distance from a star, while important, is only one factor in a large number of factors that determine the surface temperature of a planet?
I'm still excited we've found a planet in a nice location, but dispite its location, I still don't think we have any idea whether it's frozen solid or a ball of rock and steam.

I guess it's a good way to get the general public interested in space exploration and get them thinking about extra-terrestrial life, but the press releases seem to play more to people oblivious to the notion that life could take forms very different to those found on Earth and could arise in distinctly un-Earthlike conditions.

>>1834329
Please man, don't attract the religiousfags, I've read them all they, don't start it.

>>1834354
It was Gliese 581c, not g. Same solar system, different planet (star is Gliese 581, a red dwarf).

We're making progress. Wake me up when we find one that has a mass roughly equal to Earth and isn't tidally locked to a red dwarf.

>>1834366
Lol
They'll be like, "God is testing us... just like he did with those FAKE dinosaur fossils!!"

>>1834404
You actually give a shit about tides?

ITT: Skeptics too embittered by loneliness to BELIIIIIIIIIEVE

>>1834439
Tidally locked is when one side of a celestial body always faces inward, like the moon

>>1834455
my bad my bad

>>1834354

We just discovered a sixth planet (Gliese 581 g) around the star last month, which resides in the star's habitable zone and has the most earth-like characteristics of any extrasolar planet found to date.

As amazing as that is, we're actually more interested in the fact that it seems to be transmitting artificial signals at us.

>>1834463
Isn't 581c in the habitable zone too?

>>1834439
Please be a troll.

If it is tidally locked, that means on one side, it is always really hot, and on the other, really cold. Forever.

But this is just an assumption. It seems like it is tidally locked, but we aren't sure.

>>1834463

>> transmitting artificial signals at us.

Shut the fuck up.

>>1834485
But then the middle is juuuuuust right :3

Why the fuck should anyone even give a damn, we'll all be long dead before any ship of any kind can even get halfway there...

>>1834505
BECAUSE WE WANT 2 BELIEVE!!! THATS WHY! *RAISES SPORK 2 THE HEAVENS*

>As amazing as that is, we're actually more interested in the fact that it seems to be transmitting artificial signals at us.

Wait, what? Did I miss something?

>>1834491

Yes, but analysis indicates that it's a greenhouse hell like Venus.

>>1834484
>>1834519

sup:

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/health-science/watch-this-space/story-e6frg8gf-1225710664198

>>1834519
Yeah, you missed the joke

>>1834427
Or they'll think the inhabitants are demons. No lie, I've seen plenty of Christians who believe extraterrestrial stuff (UFO's, etc) are the work of demons/angels and that's there way of communicating with us, since it's biblically impossible for aliens to exist.

>>1834505
Why should we care for the planet for the next generations, we will be dead anyways.

Stupid faggot.

>>1834520

The fuck are you talking about?

Where does that article say anywhere about artificial signals being detected from 581g?

>>1834484

>Shut the fuck up.

Shut up.

>>1834539

Seriously, it's ideallistic nonsense and it's impossible.

We need an armada......

>>1834585
Of course today it is impossible. In the (I hope) near future it will be possible... Moore's Law, look that up. It's somewhat related.

>>1834619

I was being sarcastic, hopefully it will be possible in this century. That'd be cool, if so, I might get to live to see the launch they take that way.

The reception of a signal from Gliese 581 is what prompted them to look at that star in the first place.

http://news1.capitalbay.com/news/gliese_581g_mystery_scientist_spotted.html

They discovered 581e and it looked like the best candidate for the signal origin but the orbital position didn't quite match up. The consensus at the time was that maybe it was some kind of inner-system probe rather than a planet-based source.

Then they find 581g which has an orbit that overlaps that of 581e and matches position with the signal almost perfectly.

>>1834653

>>1834653

Be wary of strategically-worded articles. The incident that's refered to as a pulse of light only the first time in this artical and as a "signal" every following time, conjures an image of a vast laser beam comunications array, trying desperately to get our attention. But the real event is much plainer. They are talking about the glare of the star illuminating a planet they didn't know was there. That's all. Not knowing a planet is there makes it a light source with unknown origin. Now that origin is known.
But to take that incident and try to spin it as a communication attempt gains attention at the cost of credibility. It's not a good trade. Crying "alien" hurts the long-term interest of SETI, and if there's any program that needs to be concerned with the long, looooooooong term, it's the search for extra-terrestrial intelligence.

>>1834329
wait...wut?

>>1834535
>communicating with us, since it's biblically impossible for aliens to exist.
someone explain this... being a biblical scholar myself, I seem to have missed this part.

scientists are so stupid... why they are looking for another planet like earth?
EARTH ISNT GOOD ENOUGH FOR YOU GUYS?

I remain skeptical.

>>1834869
nope, this planet is only temporary

>>1834463
>it seems to be transmitting artificial signals at us.
[citation needed]

>mfw they had a fantastic and complicated culture... that died out millions of years before we could find it

>>1834869
No. Where is my purple grass?

Fuck earth.

>>1834918
If we don't find intelligent life, I hope THIS is it. Imagine exploring a world were an alien civilization lived. Awesome stuff.

>>1834825
You know those religiousfags you said would come?

Well listen to this!
>>1834386

>>1834936
fuck no. I would... I would feel horrible.

I'd rather find a bunch of flourishing Cretaceous-period life. Then, I could go to bed and earth could be hit by a comet before I woke and I would feel ok, knowing that somewhere there is life, and we're not just the single occurrence of it... and they'd have a long time to get to our stage.

heck, one day, maybe they'll discover OUR ruins.

or in this situation, maybe we're them. They let US be, because in a few million years we'd find them.

in that case...
>mfw they have a message waiting for us, congratulating us on going beyond our planet, that they did the same, and had a history too, and that ....they were sorry they weren't there to make contact, but even though we would never meet, we'd still have thought of eachother, and they knew we had to make it on our own.

:(

can we please pour all of our money into this, so we can fucking go to this planet with a fucking probe or some shit? Please? Please god.

My reaction.

I don't see what the excitement is all about, there should be billons of planets that reside within the habitable zone.

Also, they can't even tell what the planet is mostly made off.

We've found a place to store those extra humans.

>>1835010
Beer, lots and lots of beer.

with patches of scotch and pop.

>>1835000
>fuck it, let's find a corpse and clone it

>and then fuck it

It doesn't really matter, we can never travel fast enough to get anyone there in time to exploit it anyway.

>>1835025
Just stuff some breeders on there, let their great-great-great-grandkids enjoy it

>>1834404

They're only assuming it's tidally locked because most small planets that close to a star would become tidally locked. There's really no way to determine the rotational velocity of a planet.

Read the article, it's really interesting.

http://arxiv.org/abs/1009.5733

Exoplanet guy here. I read Steve Vogt's paper. It looked horribly rushed and his residual periodograms didn't back his claim at all. The RV curve of Gliese 581 is very difficult to evaluate. All of the planets but "b" seem to impart a K of ~ 5 m/s. Also, the initial published orbital elements of "d" had to be retracted and modified. I'm not calling bullshit, but I wouldn't be surprised if this gets debunked.

>>1834404
Then I'll wake you up in May 2011.

http://arxiv.org/abs/1009.2212

>>1835010
It's exciting because it's the first of its kind.

Earth is most likely the only intelligently inhabited planet we'll ever find. Still likely, it's the only inhabited planet period. We'll never find alien life. We're all alone.

Stop dreaming.

>>1834329
> implying the Bible indicates a lack of life on other planets

You people really need to think about what you're saying. You can't just say "lol the bible is wrong" after every scientific discovery. The book doesn't mention life on other planets, but that doesn't mean that the authors' beliefs are incompatible with the existence of extraterrestrial life. Saying that alien life refutes the Bible, just because the Bible doesn't mention aliens, is like saying that the existence of molecules refutes the Bible since the Bible didn't mention God putting those atoms together.

>>1835362
> Earth is most likely the only intelligently inhabited planet we'll ever find.

Considering the long distance to other planets and the difficulty in traveling fast enough to reach those planets, you're probably right. However...

> Still likely, it's the only inhabited planet period.

That statement is absurd, unless you're religious. If life forms naturally -- i.e., not as a result of divine intervention -- then it is statistically impossible for Earth to be the only inhabited planet in the universe.

>>1835373

The bible not describing molecules IS a significant weakness if it was authored by someone who wasn't a desert nomad or roman citizen.

>>1835420

The same could be said of the Bible not mentioning aliens. Since they were desert nomads, it's not a weakness.

>>1835376
>statistically impossible

nooooooooot quite

It's 120 trillion miles away. Even if we figure out more, nothing will result. That's an unimaginable distance-- _completely impossible_ to probe with our current (or likely ever possible) technology.

If we somehow happen to discover life, the only result would be being able to say that there's life outside of our planet.

>>1835480
>implying this in itself would not have vast implications on the science and philosophy of mankind.

We can't make a good estimate of the likelihood of life elsewher in the universe because we don't know precisely how it began here.(Yes, we have have clues about how (Abiogenesis http://www.poetv.com/video.php?vid=38555 if you're curious) but nothing anywhere near solid OR expansive enough. Without knowing this process is even is we can't predict how likely it is.

But even if we did, that only describes the kind of life we know on earth - carbon and DNA stuff. It may be possible for life to have a different chemical basis and a similarly different manner of forming

Finally, even if we did know everything above there is still the meaningful question of how likely intelligence and communication are to occur (probably need both in order to be interesting to us).

I would guess the formation of life is pretty dang rare, and the development of intelligence (not to mention a successful culture and civilization) to be orders of magnitude more rare. But the universe is big, so, hey.

Room for hope at the very least.

>>1834329

You speak of that which you do not know. So many of you don't understand the purpose of the Bible or even what is in it, yet you speak like you do.

>>1835479
Given the extremes life can be found in on Earth and the trillions of planets in the complete universe that are kinda like Earth it's safe to assume this is not the only inhabited planet. Although you are right. The probability that Earth is one of a kind in the complete universe is 0.0...some zeros...01 or so. But that is soooo damn close!

Stupid bright eyed kiddies who want to BELIEVE

>>1835558
A recent study found atheists can answer more questions about religions correctly than christians can. Amish and Jews were better than the atheists. So as for christianity... it was a nice idea back then to promote morals but besides that it should shut it's mouth.

>>1835362
Maybe tomorrow some yellow monster ants step out of an artificial wormhole (for lack of a better word) they created to connect their world with others instantly and incinerate Washington DC? Could happen.

A tide locked world,
with all water frozen out on the dark side,
with it's atmosphere likely frozen out too,
and crushing gravity.

Who would want a package holiday to that place?

Anyone who thinks that there is no extraterrestrial life or intelligence is greatly underestimating the vastness of the universe. It's unlikely that we'll find it in the near future, yes, but does that mean we shouldn't look?

We don't exactly have a large enough sample size to produce any meaningful statistics yet anyway. Any conjecture at this stage is just that, conjecture, and nothing more. The fact that we've found an extrasolar planet that could potentially hold life already is a good sign. Even if this one doesn't hold any, we've only just begun.

>>1835626
>but does that mean we shouldn't look?

Yes.

Somehow I know idiots will fuck up when we find intelligent life by causing war.

It will be to late, it is to late..

>>1835631
Even if we find intelligent life on this one, it's gonna be a heck of a long time before we manage to get close enough to wage war.

>>1835631
Somehow I am convinced it'll be the religious American middle-class -just wanting a better world for their kids- who will chip in for the first space-destroyer.

>>1835710
That doesn't even make any sense. At most they'll want to convert them and it'll be proof of god's grandness to them. NASA and all of America has had hardon for aliens since forever. It's the Chinese and Russians we should be worrying about.

Just wait until we find an alien religion that is as close to identical to an earth religion as a religion designed for another species can be. Just you wait.

A planet with water is BOUND to exist out there. A planet with an earth-like composition.
The issue, though, is how likely complex life is?
I dunno, honestly.

>Hear about how it's square in the middle of the habitable zone
>Oh fuck that's pretty nea-
>Hear it's tidally locked to the star
>Well, fuck...

>>1835831
What defines life?

>>1835839
Not what, who.
Philosophers do.

Why don't we just send out signals in random directions constantly?

Even if it won't benefit us, it could very easily benefit any other civilization out there that receives the signals.

>>1836337
But isn't that exactly what we do with our radio signals from TV's and radios?

>>1836502

But I Love Lucy and Sanford and Sons aren't especially "useful" to those civilizations.

>>1836502
We don't focus out signals at places, our signal just bleeds out to affect them

>>1837292

>>Implying that Sanford and Son is unimportant
>>Implying that there isn't a humanoid civilization who speak in 1970's black slang because of our radio signals

Uhm... How would discovering aliens disprove God? God created aliens too.