Kepler Telescope finds Earthlike planet

[Guthorm]

interspecies breeding, you know you want it. Now we just need Mordin to tell us what to do!

[K4ylan]

interspecies breeding, you know you want it. Now we just need Mordin to tell us what to do!

 

We'll probably get super AIDS or something. The kind where the itching just never stops.

[baalboy5]

Wonder what we'd do when we actually find life out there? Freak out and kill it? Freak it out and be killed by it?

50/50

That or convert them to christians.

[Seraphi]

I'd love to find intelligent life on other planets, but let's face it, the chances are insanely low of anything. The Drake Equation is the biggest mathematical and astronomical load of crap ever, I wouldn't trust it with anything but people still seem to jump at the prospect of attaching a numerical probability to a chance at intelligent life on other planets. And no one seems to take into account that if they were intelligent, they could still be lightyears behind on technology OR incredibly hostile, and thus little use to us anyway.

Before the kepler telescope was finished, we had a great deal of trouble finding rocky planets, since we can't use the same technique we use to find gas giants. The very first time Kepler was used, it found a rocky planet.

 

A rocky planet is more or less required to sustain life, and if we found one on the first check, that must mean the probability of rocky planets around stars is fairly high, which, in turn, raises the chance of there being other life out there.

 

I don't care if it's hostile or not, it doesn't really know we're looking at it, and I don't care if it wouldn't be of any use to us. It would be reassuring to know that we aren't alone in the endless nothingness that is 99.(stupid number of 9s)% of the universe.

[Alg]

Wonder what we'd do when we actually find life out there? Freak out and kill it? Freak it out and be killed by it?

50/50

That or convert them to christians.

I would laugh so hard if they tried converting us too. Space Jesus approves.

 

Or maybe I play too much Mass Effect.

[Pinkbullet3]

:ph34r: I couldn't imagine if it'd be possible to travel between galaxies and visit other Earths. Perhaps 5,000 years from now? Holy [cabbage], someone make me a time-travel machine so I can see this technology!

 

:anxious:

[warri0r45]

I'd love to find intelligent life on other planets, but let's face it, the chances are insanely low of anything. The Drake Equation is the biggest mathematical and astronomical load of crap ever, I wouldn't trust it with anything but people still seem to jump at the prospect of attaching a numerical probability to a chance at intelligent life on other planets. And no one seems to take into account that if they were intelligent, they could still be lightyears behind on technology OR incredibly hostile, and thus little use to us anyway.

Before the kepler telescope was finished, we had a great deal of trouble finding rocky planets, since we can't use the same technique we use to find gas giants. The very first time Kepler was used, it found a rocky planet.

 

A rocky planet is more or less required to sustain life, and if we found one on the first check, that must mean the probability of rocky planets around stars is fairly high, which, in turn, raises the chance of there being other life out there.

 

I don't care if it's hostile or not, it doesn't really know we're looking at it, and I don't care if it wouldn't be of any use to us. It would be reassuring to know that we aren't alone in the endless nothingness that is 99.(stupid number of 9s)% of the universe.

 

To play devils advocate, this is only one planet. That's a pathetic sample size. I'm sure someone could find one smoker who lived to be 90 and never got lung cancer and then concluded lung cancer was rare in smokers...

[l0rd]

almost every star may have a habitable planet

No.

[Alg]

almost every star may have a habitable planet

No.

Probably not every star but the chances of many stars having planets is probably on the high end.

It's that little word "habitable" that kills it.

[das]

This post made me think of this video at the end of the post

 

Carl Sagan would of shed a tear at this discovery today.

 

I hope we for one, are not alone

 

"How lucky we are - to live in this time, the first moment of human history when we are infact visiting other worlds"

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSgiXGELjbc

[1230abcz]

From XKCD

 

 

Interesting find no doubt, but I fail to see the purpose... I support the search for life, but aiming a telescope at something only raises questions. It's doesn't even provide halfway decent answers. The best the Kepler Telescope can do is see how large the planet is, how close to its star it is, and what its average density is (Only if the planet is relatively close. Don't know the specs on this with Kepler). If all those answers match up with the numbers related to Earth (huge error, btw, since the technology isn't perfected), then we can only assume that it can support life. There would be no clue as to if there's a huge asteroid cloud bombarding the planet 24/7, if the planet has an active core, or if it's actually a dense gas planet with a dense rocky core, which produces an average density close to that of Earth. So many questions... But I suppose it's a decent venture into the abyss. Hopefully technology gets better at it.

[Saru Inc]

TO SERVE MAN: ITS A COOKBOOK@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@

 

 

 

 

we're doomed.