21 replies to this topic

[bison]

Such aquatic beings, lacking the distractions of a complex material culture, might become the spiritual masters of the universe. A star-faring race might discover them, and offer to transport them wherever they might wish to go, carrying their wisdom with them.

[CrimsonKing]

I cant believe questions like this are still being asked by scientist,in a infinite universe everything is possible in millions of different combinations.We just need to work on getting our technology up to interstellar abilities then we can start to blow our own minds with what all we will find!

[Frank Merton]

There is a bias in the discovery of exo-planets in favor of large planets close to the star.  As time passes this bias will decrease and we will find more and more earth-sized planets.  There is every reason to think that they should be more common in the habitable zones of stars.

Unless for some reason they migrate inward, the big planets tend to form further out; that we have found so many close in is just a result of the bias mentioned above.  The majority are going to turn out, if the statistics we have now prove out, to be much more similar to our own system.

Therefore while satellites orbiting giant planets in the habitable zone will occur, this should probably not turn out to be the most common.  Solitary planets around the size of the earth will be more common and life forms inhabiting same should be likewise.

There are at present many unanswered questions before we can make even reasonably good guesses at how many habitable planets exist.  Do they need to be double planet systems like earth-moon?  Can a satellite gravitationally locked to its primary be habitable?  What about those where the habitable zone is much closer in (red dwarfs -- by far the most common type of star) so that any planets may be gravitationally locked and exposed to frequent solar outbursts?  Does the star itself have to be solitary?  If all of these are negatives, habitable planets may be quite rare; if not, they may be abundant.

[Frank Merton]

CrimsonKing, on 23 January 2013 - 12:35 PM, said:

I cant believe questions like this are still being asked by scientist,in a infinite universe everything is possible in millions of different combinations.We just need to work on getting our technology up to interstellar abilities then we can start to blow our own minds with what all we will find!

This is clearly true except that although the universe may be infinite (I think it almost certainly is in several ways), our abilities are limited.  We are not infinite beings, and at some point our technology may just simply run out of things to manipulate.

We already see hints of this in our physics and astronomy.  There is an absolute limit on how fast we can go in space, on how far out we can see.  The theories that describe fundamental particles are now reaching the point where there is no conceivable technology to test them.

With tremendous investment we could probably get to nearby stars, and even colonize a few.  Then a few thousand years on we might reach more stars, eventually, in a few million years, colonizing much of the galaxy.  That is a small part of the universe, and in that amount of time the various branches of humanity moving outward would diverge evolutionarily.  This is of course assuming we didn't encounter others, in which case all bets are off.

[CrimsonKing]

If only we could take the funding for militaries around the world and put it to expanding our presence galactically we could be much more advanced,much further along as a species

[Frank Merton]

CrimsonKing, on 23 January 2013 - 01:34 PM, said:

If only we could take the funding for militaries around the world and put it to expanding our presence galactically we could be much more advanced,much further along as a species

I don't know.  Of course we want to see the military funding reduced, but the money would go to other things, with only maybe a little extra going to space exploration.  In fact, it may be military things that has gotten us to do as much as we have.

I think we will require a major stimulus, such as a clear demonstration that "they" exist, to get things really going.

[CrimsonKing]

Agreed frank,and maybe its best we are stuck here for awhile till we can learn to better ourselves so we dont go out and pollute the galaxy with insanity lol