At Least 100 Billion Planets

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Message 1198074 - Posted: 21 Feb 2012, 1:48:46 UTC - in response to Message 1184787.  

Put this into your view of the Drake equation:


NASA: Study Shows Our Galaxy Has at Least 100 Billion Planets

Our Milky Way galaxy contains a minimum of 100 billion planets, according to a detailed statistical study based on the detection of three planets located outside our solar system, called exoplanets. ...

... The survey results show that our galaxy contains, on average, a minimum of one planet for every star. This means that it's likely there is a minimum of 1,500 planets within just 50 light-years of Earth.

The study is based on observations taken over six years by the PLANET (Probing Lensing Anomalies NETwork) collaboration, using a technique called microlensing to survey the galaxy for planets. ...



I suspect that the upcoming Kepler results will explode that number to something much greater...


Just heard that the "100 billion planets", in true Sir Patrick Moore style, got a brief but interesting mention on the BBC TV "Sky at Night" program. Hopefully a story and astronomy that will develop for some time yet...


Keep searchin',
Martin

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Message 1198188 - Posted: 21 Feb 2012, 11:49:05 UTC - in response to Message 1185656.  

I think Mr. Einstein would like a word with you


And I also with him, but sadly that is not possible :-) I think that in the next 15-20 years scientists will discover FTL speeds, but probably they will be restricted to laboratory conditions. I can't see that translating into spaceships with human passengers.

However what I do believe will be possible is some sort of communications technology at FTL speed. Then if we do detect intelligent life elsewhere, we could talk to them within practical time-scales.



I think that's extremely optimistic. In my opinion, it'll take hundreds of years, if not thousands.
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Message 1198348 - Posted: 22 Feb 2012, 0:51:08 UTC - in response to Message 1198074.  
Last modified: 22 Feb 2012, 1:35:13 UTC

Just heard that the "100 billion planets", in true Sir Patrick Moore style, got a brief but interesting mention on the BBC TV "Sky at Night" program. Hopefully a story and astronomy that will develop for some time yet...


If there were just a dozen requirements that a planet had to possess to sustain life as we know it and each of these turns out to be 20% likely then

(.2^12)(100^9)= 4

I happen to think that that may well be right. 4 others in our galaxy !!
Time may prove me totally wrong in my SWAG. If true then we will most likely never confirm the existence of any similar intelligence. I do think that if all the conditions are met then life will start and evolve unless it were a one in a billion lucky lightning stike that produced the first amino acids.

We can take solace in the fact that there are a 100 Billion galaxies. Sometimes when I walk through the park each morning I think that there may be many more requirements for a planet to support life. It will be interesting over the years to see how these percentages go.

It will be interesting to see if life developed o Mars and how long it lasted.
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Message 1198742 - Posted: 23 Feb 2012, 7:48:12 UTC

Another possible factor that hasn't been discussed much in the search for planets that could support life is the existence of moons around some of the extra solar gas giants that have been found and the possibility that there may be far more moons with the right conditions than there are planets.
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Message 1198835 - Posted: 23 Feb 2012, 16:35:31 UTC
Last modified: 23 Feb 2012, 16:35:59 UTC

Since we only have earth as an example I think sometimes people assume too much in their hypothesis about the factors required for intelligent life to arise. Lets face it, up to about a million years ago an investigation of earth would not have yielded positive data and some other form of intelligent life might have concluded that earth did not have the right conditions.
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Message 1198846 - Posted: 23 Feb 2012, 17:02:30 UTC - in response to Message 1198835.  

might have concluded that earth did not have the right conditions


That's right, Time is one of the conditions. Given all the other necessary conditions what is the probability on a given planet that is found that enough time has gone on for intelligent life to form. Planets that have cooled to habitable temperatures may still need a few billion years to spawn intelligent life as we would define ourselves.

The Earth would have been correctly classified as not being able to support such life back a few million years ago or perhaps you could argue 100,000 years ago.
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Message 1198988 - Posted: 23 Feb 2012, 21:15:39 UTC - in response to Message 1198348.  

I happen to think that that may well be right. 4 others in our galaxy !!



Even if you're right and there are only a handful in our Galaxy, they aren't necessarily evenly distributed throughout it.

Where there's one, there could be another close by.

Lt


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Message 1199121 - Posted: 24 Feb 2012, 3:11:14 UTC - in response to Message 1198988.  


Where there's one, there could be another close by.


Yes that's right. But in a Galaxy 300,000 light-years across, how likely is it that it would be close by.
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Message 1199146 - Posted: 24 Feb 2012, 5:54:46 UTC - in response to Message 1199121.  


Where there's one, there could be another close by.


Yes that's right. But in a Galaxy 300,000 light-years across, how likely is it that it would be close by.



It seems reasonable to begin a search where one example already exists. If the conditions were favorable in the beginning over a large enough area (Galactic scale) maybe other systems in the 'favorable zone' started out just as well off.


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Message 1199640 - Posted: 25 Feb 2012, 11:42:27 UTC - in response to Message 1198348.  

[quote]
It will be interesting to see if life developed o Mars and how long it lasted.


I hope they realize that we already brought life to the planet in the form of microbes.
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Message 1199647 - Posted: 25 Feb 2012, 13:01:17 UTC - in response to Message 1199640.  

Any chance life started here on earth with either bacteria or viruses coming in from outer space, waking up from possible long lasting hibernation and starting evolving and replicating when once again waking up?

Bacteria are supposed to be one-celled organisms. What is the next second step following that? Am(o)eba?

Life is supposed to have started in water and later came up on shore evolving first into reptilian animals, later into mammals. The human race is supposed to have evolved from apes and as a result of this, we became an intelligent race.

My best guess is that birds did not evolve directly from fish, but from land based animals. This was really in the start of the dinosaur area. As far as I know, there were no birds before the age of dinosaurs. Maybe someone else knows more about this?
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Message 1199702 - Posted: 25 Feb 2012, 17:16:49 UTC - in response to Message 1199647.  

The birds evolved from dinosaurs. Scales became feathers.

Though there may still be some skeptics, the preponderance of evidence in the fossil record seems to support this conclusion.
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Message 1199705 - Posted: 25 Feb 2012, 17:26:28 UTC
Last modified: 25 Feb 2012, 18:06:09 UTC

Was this the result of a global warming? I have read an article (on Science magazine) which says that in hot climates the animals' size tends to shrink, because it is easier to cool small animals.
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Message 1199836 - Posted: 25 Feb 2012, 23:35:15 UTC - in response to Message 1199705.  
Last modified: 25 Feb 2012, 23:36:24 UTC

Was this the result of a global warming? I have read an article (on Science magazine) which says that in hot climates the animals' size tends to shrink, because it is easier to cool small animals.

Unless you're a dinosaur with big cooling fins along your spine, or an elephant with very big ears, or humans with aircon...

But yes, having more surface area compared to mass (small) does appear to give an evolutionary advantage in high heat, and vice-versa (big) for cold.


All on just this one planet!
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Message 1200229 - Posted: 27 Feb 2012, 2:32:58 UTC - in response to Message 1199735.  
Last modified: 27 Feb 2012, 2:33:38 UTC

[quote]
It will be interesting to see if life developed o Mars and how long it lasted.


I hope they realize that we already brought life to the planet in the form of microbes.


Did we do that on Mars?

Yes. The Mars rovers and other miscellaneous equipment that landed contained them. It wasn't intentional, though. Bacteria is everywhere here on Earth.
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Message 1200265 - Posted: 27 Feb 2012, 6:12:06 UTC

If Mars today can support some form of life, especially bacteria and viruses, or maybe single celled life it may be hard to prove if and when life forms are discovered whether they originated there or mutated from organisms that hitched a ride on one of our landers.
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Message 1200342 - Posted: 27 Feb 2012, 13:37:52 UTC - in response to Message 1200265.  

NASA is very careful about being incredibly sanitary when building probes and landers for the very reason you mentioned.


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Message 1200364 - Posted: 27 Feb 2012, 15:41:59 UTC

Wow, a lot of points to cover, but I think I will just make one regarding the drake equation.

As the one poster pointed out there are likely lots of variables. Some of those variables might make it more likely there is life instead of just less likely.

My main problem with the equation is we simply don't have enough data. Think about the "Dark Matter" factors. We humans are basically blind. We don't see at least 70% of the stuff in our universe. True intelligent life could be all around us and we simply don't have the ability to perceive it. I think of us as a form of slug in this context. (Granted that could be a little high on the scale of evolution) But, the point is we have a very limited understand of the true nature of the universe and likely are missing a few chromosomes that would make things clear.
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Message 1200528 - Posted: 28 Feb 2012, 4:42:20 UTC

The Drake equation was never intended to be a precision tool but mearly a means to estimate the likelyhood of other intelligent beings out there. I can remember when the variable for star systems with planets was very low and even then when all of the variables were combined the odds seemed pretty good that we are not alone. Now with the estimate for the percentage of star systems with planets has increased several fold odds wise it looking more like a sure thing.

Even so as long as there is no contact officially we are still alone.
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Message 1200805 - Posted: 29 Feb 2012, 2:39:32 UTC - in response to Message 1200528.  

The uncertanty with the Drake equation and any estimate(including any number that I might guess at) of percentages is extremeely large. I don't think that the Drake equation tried to estimate any of the physical conditions for intelligent life: Temperature, orbit, magnetic field, gravity, etc perhaps there are a dozen or more of these.

We will get a better handle on some of these in the future.
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