Posted on 02/06/2007 9:08:20 AM PST by SunkenCiv
Presently, 200-plus known extrasolar planets have been found -- mostly huge gas giants like Jupiter within our own solar system of Sun-orbiting planets. Given these discoveries -- just within the last 10 years or so -- under what conditions can we expect terrestrial planets to crop up? Moreover, just how common are habitable planets in the universe? Planet scouting scientists met here January 26-28 at a media workshop sponsored by the University of Colorado's Center for Astrobiology to share theories as well as new observational information... What's now taking place is that extrasolar planet researchers are shifting into high gear given ground and space-based tools. That being the case, will theories on spotting Earth-like worlds be overtaken by actual observation? ...Boss said that the focus of the debate right now is on giant planets -- because those are the ones that have been found to date in greatest abundance... "Theorists truly are parasites ... and derive their sustenance from the growing body of observational evidence about other planetary systems," Boss concluded... "Both theory and observations are key," concurred Sean Raymond, a NASA postdoctoral researcher here at the University of Colorado's Center for Astrobiology and Center for Astronomy and Space Astrophysics... Theory is what probed the origin of hot Jupiters, he said, and came up with the idea of planet migration, the current model being that these planets form father out and migrate in to their current locations.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
Ya, I'm no expert and I've been way wrong before but I don't think we'll meet ET or find any wierd animals anytime soon. I wouldn't be surprised if we find some sort of evidence of ET single celled organisms or "chemical" selection/evolutionary processes in our own solar system but we won't get past the heliosphere for decades or centuries and the ET's we want to meet would have to have lifespans in the hundreds of thousands of years per individual to get close enough for us to notice them.
Your background is similar to mine in that respect. Rumsfeld said something about knowing what we know, knowing what we don't know, not knowing that we don't know. I check my yard for space aliens every day, but so far nothing. Some day though, who knows.
...the ET's we want to meet would have to have lifespans in the hundreds of thousands of years per individual to get close enough for us to notice them....assuming our knowledge is complete -- and it never is.
Very true, there may be ways to move we don't know about yet, hell we're still unable to describe or see 2/3 of the material that makes up the universe!
So as we currently understand the nature of time and space and life the likely hood of 2 intelligent civilizations from different worlds coming into contact is virtually impossible.
"But I am not really willing to accept your premise, because it may well be that the means of communications they have are of a kind that we do not know how to receive, and that they would not have the means of communicating with sufficiently powerful radio or optical signals. That is something which, technologically, is too difficult for them but they would have some other means we would not recognize." -- Thomas J. Gold, 'Communication with Extraterrestial Intelligence' (Sagan, ed)
BFLR
I think they would be able to communicate with us since we use EM waves to transmit data and we are using optical transmission systems so they would be able to at least detect the patterns and formulate some response. They'd never get off of thier world without a strong understanding of the EM spectrum.
I just think that distance, time, and the violent nature of the universe in generalare the limiting factors.
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