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160 billion planets in the Milky Way?!
MSNBC ^ | January 11, 2012 | Alan Boyle

Posted on 01/11/2012 11:05:37 AM PST by presidio9

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To: dragnet2
Considering the number of planets in the universe, there are probable planets with vast oceans of chocolate, with clouds of whip cream, and tangerine trees...wait....

Now you're talking! There was a Simpson's cartoon where Homer was in an alternate reality and it was raining donuts. I could go for a planet like that!

61 posted on 01/11/2012 1:28:43 PM PST by roadcat
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To: Our man in washington

All those potential habitats for life and nobody has bothered to say hello. That’s the Fermi paradox.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The distances are of far greater magnitude than is our entire existence so far.


62 posted on 01/11/2012 1:31:21 PM PST by mamelukesabre
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To: dragnet2

By what method can they observe *things* before light from the *things* is detected?


63 posted on 01/11/2012 1:41:55 PM PST by mamelukesabre
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To: discostu

“and void is really hard on any and all forms of transmission.”

Yup. I remember reading a paper that basically said any information in a radio signal is basically washed out within a few parsecs. That’s not even accounting for whatever effect vacuum energy (proven to exist recently by turning a virtual particle into a real one) would do to that information.


64 posted on 01/11/2012 1:52:16 PM PST by piytar (The Obama Depression. Say it early, say it often. Why? Because it's TRUE.)
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To: piytar

That means its hopeless. If a vacuum degrades a radio signal that much, what does it do to the visible spectrum? This is like trying to use a flashlight to see the bottom of a muddy pond.


65 posted on 01/11/2012 2:13:30 PM PST by mamelukesabre
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To: mamelukesabre

“That means its hopeless. If a vacuum degrades a radio signal that much, what does it do to the visible spectrum? This is like trying to use a flashlight to see the bottom of a muddy pond.”

Dunno. Please note though that even with radio signals, the carrier wave is still there. The information content is at a much lower frequency and has a much lower magnitude. That’s the “information content” that gets washed out.

For example, the information on a 100,000,000 (100 MHz — that’s 100 on your radio dial) Hertz radio signal has a frequency of only a few thousand Hertz at most. That’s the part that gets washed out.

Visible light has a frequency of hundreds of terahertz (e.g., 500,000,000,000,000 Hertz) — another million times higher of a frequency. I don’t know if information encoded in light would be washed out the same way as it is with radio signals.


66 posted on 01/11/2012 2:24:33 PM PST by piytar (The Obama Depression. Say it early, say it often. Why? Because it's TRUE.)
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To: presidio9

3 planets found that are smaller than earth.

http://www.space.com/14201-smallest-alien-planets-kepler-telescope-aas219.html

none are remotely habitable but finding them at all is a big deal.


67 posted on 01/11/2012 2:39:15 PM PST by cripplecreek (Stand with courage or shut up and do as you're told.)
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To: mamelukesabre
Good question. It's all about observation, analysis and lots of speculation.

Here is a site that helps explain.

Famous Space Pillars Feel the Heat of Star's Explosion

A new, striking image from Spitzer shows the intact dust towers next to a giant cloud of hot dust thought to have been scorched by the blast of a star that exploded, or went supernova. Astronomers speculate that the supernova's shock wave could have already reached the dusty towers, causing them to topple about 6,000 years ago. However, because light from this region takes 7,000 years to reach Earth, we won't be able to capture photos of the destruction for another 1,000 years or so.

Astronomers have long predicted that a supernova blast wave would mean the end for the popular pillars. The region is littered with 20 or so stars ripe for exploding, so it was only a matter of time, they reasoned, before one would blow up. The new Spitzer observations suggest one of these stellar time bombs has in fact already detonated, an event humans most likely witnessed 1,000 to 2,000 years ago as an unusually bright star in the sky.

For much more:

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/spitzer/news/spitzer-20070109.html

68 posted on 01/11/2012 2:52:53 PM PST by dragnet2 (Diversion and evasion are tools of deceit)
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To: mamelukesabre

It’s not hopeless, it just means we’re looking in a way that’s very limited. Nobody really figures we’d get an actual message over SETI, we’re just hoping for some sort of regular modulation that implies deliberate action, thousands of years ago. Part of exploring will be to find a better way to communicate, much like we’ll have to find a better way to travel. Astronomical distances are... well astronomical. Hopefully there’s a short cut, there’s plenty of theories, sadly we aren’t putting much work into verifying them. One of them might work, and then the whole game changes.


69 posted on 01/11/2012 3:02:03 PM PST by discostu (How Will I Laugh Tomorrow When I Can't Even Smile Today)
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To: Leep

“If there are any semi-tropical locations with a earth atmosphere ..beam me up!”

The good news is that there’s a tropical planet of fifteen-foot blue women. The bad news is that they are liberal ecofeminists.


70 posted on 01/11/2012 3:48:12 PM PST by BlazingArizona
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To: BlazingArizona

nuke it from orbit!


71 posted on 01/11/2012 4:12:05 PM PST by mamelukesabre
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To: discostu

It comes back to what I posted earlier

We need more computers and more telescopes(by an order of magnitude)

And I suppose more particle accelerators and more physicists.

Somebody needs to figure out a way to transmit a measurable nothingness across a space composed of nothing and make it arrive before it left...and be able to observe and prove that it happened. It will require manipulating something that is neither matter nor energy to achieve it.


72 posted on 01/11/2012 4:26:27 PM PST by mamelukesabre
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To: presidio9
That's amazing. If the number of stars and planets in the Milky Way are indicative of how many there are in the other 11 galaxies, we are talking 1.7 trillion planets in the universe!
73 posted on 01/11/2012 4:50:48 PM PST by SamAdams76 (I am 29 days away from outliving Marty Feldman)
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To: jimmygrace
All those millions of planets and not one are sending out radio waves proclaiming intelligent life.

We've only been "listening" for a few decades and haven't even begun to come close to scratching the surface considering the sheer numbers of planets out there.

And then there's the Wow! Signal so maybe we have heard something...

74 posted on 01/11/2012 5:08:19 PM PST by Drew68
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To: mamelukesabre

Actually it’ll probably be easier to figure out how to transmit stuff, a ship, in a way that cheats the light speed problem first. Transmitting stuff is almost always easier than transmitting nothing, when there’s stuff we can include measuring devices to figure out the thing we’re transmitting in. That’s why submarines came before sonar, sonar seems easier, but you have to understand how things work underwater first, and the best way to find that out is to be underwater.


75 posted on 01/11/2012 5:26:36 PM PST by discostu (How Will I Laugh Tomorrow When I Can't Even Smile Today)
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To: publius321
I want a President who doesn’t believe he’s going to be god.

Normally I would agree with you, but it seems the one we got thinks he's a god already.

76 posted on 01/11/2012 5:48:08 PM PST by thulldud (Is it "alter or abolish" time yet?)
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To: cripplecreek

Excellent job! I’m working on perfecting a night sky for a video I’m making and it is not easy.


77 posted on 01/11/2012 7:29:28 PM PST by Inyo-Mono (My greatest fear is that when I'm gone my wife will sell my guns for what I told her I paid for them)
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To: Inyo-Mono

Personally, I think a starfield is about the toughest thing to create on a computer. Computers just don’t do random very well.


78 posted on 01/11/2012 7:33:01 PM PST by cripplecreek (Stand with courage or shut up and do as you're told.)
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To: Inyo-Mono

BTW a great starfield tutorial here (as well as some other good space themed tuts.)

http://naldzgraphics.net/tutorials/30-photoshop-tutorials-for-creating-space-and-planets/


79 posted on 01/11/2012 7:36:06 PM PST by cripplecreek (Stand with courage or shut up and do as you're told.)
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To: cripplecreek

You’re right. It is very difficult to create a starfield on a computer-it must be done by hand, one star at a time.


80 posted on 01/11/2012 8:53:38 PM PST by Inyo-Mono (My greatest fear is that when I'm gone my wife will sell my guns for what I told her I paid for them)
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