Ideal solar system for SECOND EARTH found – and it's just 186 light-years away There are hundreds of known exoplanets - worlds in orbit around other stars than our own Sun. The trouble is, because of the means used to detect them, that they tend to be big and very close to their faraway suns - and thus, sadly, not potential Earthlike habitable worlds. But that may have changed today. Excited astronomers …
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"according to current theories of planetary formation - that HIP 11915 is likely to have smaller rocky planets closer in"
But let's not forget that these theories are presumably only backed up by a single verifiable occurence. One in which Gas Giants do indeed exist further out and an Earth like planet sits slap-bang where we would like one to be.
There's some good long-term science going on here, but isn't it a little early to be drawing conclusions like this?
I know there is a need to expand the human race as we thoughtlessly breed ourselves into starvation and continuous war. Another planet would only provide more killing fields, I' thinking.
As I was thinking about us, humans, in all our variety and wondering when we'd get around to talking about our horrific blood lusting, killing, inhumane psychopathic needs to exterminate other humans. We have too few of us not living with rage and aggression and great capacity to hurt others either emotionally or physically to create change.. .
Then I thought "I hope no extraterrestrials ever come here to welcome us to our own galaxy because I am sure we will shoot them on sight." Then I wondered what percentage of us wouldn't do that.
Then I really thought about what was going on world wide right now. Perhaps the muzzle blasts will warn our interstellar neighbors to stay away.
Finally, I thought "Maybe the reason we humans are stuck away almost at the end of one of the arms of our galaxy is just because we are so uber bestial. No animals I am aware of have ever done to each other what we do to each other.
In the end, my admiration of "us" is overwhelmed by my disgust. I wouldn't want to be a neighbor of Earth and its people as corporations and madmen would be waiting at the gates plunder and pillage as they are doing on earth. Sigh.
I think you'll find that any culture that dominates it's planet/ food chain is going to be agressive. If it is space faring of heading that way, then it is a fair bet that carnivorous or other aggression is or has been driving it. If there are other world dominating species out there it will be well to assume they have or have had simbilar destructive histories to us.
Intelligent does not mean cuddly wuddly and friendly, it just means ( in our case) clever more aggressive monkies.
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@ Chris G: You're advancing a hypothesis based on a single example, which is poor science. There is insufficient evidence for either case until we have met at least one alien species. Once a species reaches a certain level of intelligence and communication it could choose to build a planetwide civilisation based on altruism; the human race has already passed this point but is too tied up with outdated visions of nationalism and imaginary friends to have done so. It is possible, even probable, that a species that could co-operate on such a path would become non-aggressive over time.
Or you could be right.
At the moment the only thing we can say for certain is "we don't know".
I typed my earlier comment on my phone, irritating to say the least.
My point is not that others should not visit us or that we don't play well with others, it is simply that any species that is at the top of it's food chain and intelligent will not necessarily be fully enlightened and peaceful and will be competeive by nature.
At minimum they will have the potential for violence,nothing can be dominant over other species through neutrality or submission, not even grass.
Trees that dominate forests and jungles use chemical warfare via their roots to ensure other tree species and/or weeds don't overcome them.
Humans may be aggressive and highly dangerous but they also have a genetic propensity for cooperation and even nurturing family and tribal members that may be weak in some way so we are not all bad just don't piss us off, something that based on what we know about ourselves and evolution here on Earth that we should at least consider in dealing with anyone from another planet.
Totally agree - the human race has never got past the "me first, and damn the rest of you" mentality, the end results of which are the massive and increasing over-population, and our utter disregard for the dwindling finite resources, of our planet and you get the reason for our ever-increasingly more efficient ways of killing each other en masse.
The spiral we are in is unsustainable and can only end well (at least for us, probably not for any aliens we meet) if we develop FTL travel (if indeed such a thing is possible). If we don't then it most definitely won't end well, the only question will be as to whether we go quickly as a species (all out nuclear war, nuclear winter and eventual extinction) or slowly - exhaustion of resources, Elysium style enclaves for the super-rich, global poverty, starvation, disease and eventual extinction. I doubt the universe will miss us.
Were not that bad, I'm sure that the majority of your friends don't have the ideals you state in your reasons for us not to be visited by our alien overlords.
Now if you apply that logic then for the world to be a really shitty place there would be large groups of narcissistic evil people which there isn't (well outside of politics anyway)
So it can't be all that bad.
Also, Stop watching fox news or at least realise it's a comedy channel and Think happy thoughts, Think happy thoughts.
>>No animals I am aware of have ever done to each other what we do to each other.
You obviously don't get out much. Every single living thing on this planet engages in some type of warfare with it's neighbors.
Viruses find hosts and attack their cells.
Plants use all sorts of techniques to entice others to do their bidding (ie: spread their spore) on up to being poisonous in order to be left alone. You should read up on the life cycle of forests. Each the trees and grasses fight each other.
Animals establish dominance within their own "tribes", usually through physical altercations, while having no issues with hunting down and ripping out the throats of their prey. Yes some are herbivores, but isn't that just enacting violence on plant life? (side note, there's a reason for the phrase "jungle law")
Then we have humans. Creatures which possess all the same qualities of the rest of the species that we share this planet with. We hunt, we kill, we establish dominance and pecking orders. Some are vegetarians, others like steak. That said we also exhibit the best traits as well. We love, share and help each other.
I think your view of what an "advanced" society would think of us is way off. At this point every single living creature that we've found has shown that life is both incredibly brutal and shockingly beautiful. There is zero reason to think that "life out there" doesn't follow the same patterns.
Then we have humans. Creatures which possess all the same qualities of the rest of the species that we share this planet with. We hunt, we kill, we establish dominance and pecking orders. Some are vegetarians, others like steak. That said we also exhibit the best traits as well. We love, share and help each other.
Although we are still a long way from world peace with every human being co-operating for the good of all we are still the most co-operative species on the planet. No other species has such large groups of pretty much unrelated individuals as embodied in our nation states which work co-operatively together and which although falling short have at least attempted to put in place organisational structures to provide for peaceful co-operation between those states.
This might partly be down to our having self domesticated ourselves and partly because over time our wars themselves may have weeded out the most agressively reckless from our gene pool.
If true that together with the fact that a technological civilisation has to successfully survive without its agressive tendancies killing it off as its knowledge provides it with ever more powerful weapons suggests that an alien technological civilisation capable of interstellar travel would likely be no more agressive than mankind. That doesn't mean that they would necessarily be much less agressive than mankind since the other driver of our civilsation has undoubtedly been our competitive instincts.
The human race knows of hundreds of exoplanets, is I think using the word "know" in an absurd way. What is more accurate is that we have hundreds of PhD's, who need desperately to justify their research grants. Publish, anything will do. No one can disprove what you say that is 100's of light years away. No one has "seen" anything at those distances. Each pixel on a digital telescope recording plate, at those distances, represents an area large enough to contain many objects, except "imagined" huge ones. And the result of the status of that pixel then is a possible combination of the net result of many individual sources. To assert, therefore that a "slight" variation in "light intensity" of any individual pixel means the existence of an individual planet and no other reason, I suggest is illogical. It is well known. It is called a "boot" strap argument. I assert, without proof that " a slight variation in light" MEANS A PLANET EXIST. Therefore, if I establish I have found a slight variation in light .....I am justified in asserting I have found a planet!
Depends what ancient text we read but many seem to have no problem describing "other worldly" beings, visitors on flying craft (virmana?), intelligent help from oversize, undersize or other-formed individuals.
Imagine a race had mastered genetics and had no reservation in manipulating some small copies of themselves, send them out in craft capable of travelling great distances with enough supplies for mini-me's to last years, have them land on some planet supporting life, dig in to the rock to avoid the worst local predators then get teaching the most promising wildlife. Ideally if you could get the local monkeys to keep you in fresh water by inventing a sacred rock "lingam" above your living area that needs constant fresh water. Keep teaching various religions and help the monkey move on.
Ellora caves was quite a good back in the day, they left loads of illustrations in carvings but the monkeys got so full of their own importance they could no longer see the meaning.
Scientists found a second earth just like they found out there would be no arctic polar ice by 2014. Its too easy to project into the future using computer models and distant photographs. This second earth they may have found - could it have similar life as we know it, just the right mixutre in atmosphere of oxygen and nitrogen? Its temperature is perfect for human life? Why if atoms could appear out of a big bang and accidentally form through cosmic evolution a primordal soup which would again accidentally collide to form life through biologic evolution on earth, why couldn't it happen many times again?
American and U.S socialism will also work if its done just right, or maybe perfect government and people will just evolve into becoming perfect. Until then watch behind you for certain ethnic people to take your head off.
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