April 02, 2004

50 Earth-like planets A new technique suggests that half of the 100+ planetary systems known so far may have Earth-like planets capable of supporting life. Details on extrasolar planets, and local bodies (including Sedna and all that), in case you need a refresher.
posted by Plegmund 20 years ago
  • What great links! I'm gonna be cruising around here for awhile.
  • [50 banana-like bananas]
  • To be unambiguous, this report actually shows an analysis of whether or not a so-called "Earth-like" planet is realizable, given the known trajectories of other bodies in the solar systems examined. No actual existence of such a body has been proven.
  • True enough - no proof of anything. But the mere idea of 50 inhabitable planets caused my eyebrows to head for space when I read it (albeit by only a centimetre or so).
  • Prediction: Aliens will finally come down here and say "We're out here, all right? Stop with the friggin radio waves already, you're interfering with our matter transporters and telepathy." They'll stay just long enough to buy seven million golf balls and a case of Petrus, then we'll never hear from them again. Our children will think it was all a dream.
  • Our children will think they were Gods...
  • Well, God-ish, maybe. Aliens are a petulant bunch.
  • A bit like the Greek Gods, then. As long as they have an obsession with sleeping with just about everyone on Earth, too.
  • Launch the Generation Ships!
  • If the first aliens we meet are Klingons, then I'll start to worry. Because somehow we'll have to persuade that guy from Quantum Leap to adopt a dog and get sent into space to work it out with them.
  • It's a funny thing, but it never occurred to me that the '50 planets' might have aliens on them - I had a vision of sitting with my iced zamberry cocktail while flocks of bug-eyed purple manta-ray look-alikes flapped slowly through the pink sky above the whorple trees.

    But semi-seriously I think the idea that there might be 50 other places to go, or 50 other places where there might be sane and kindly people, is sort of encouraging. Too much SF at an impressionable age, I expect.
  • If there's life out there, why aren't they here?
  • Could be 50 places where they kill outsiders using gauss weaponry for no discernible reason. Aliens are a cool idea, but if we ever meet 'em I'd hope we had the advantage in weapons. Lot easier to be friendly if you've got the firepower to back it up.
  • We don't need no weaponry. We just need germs.
  • That's assuming that the life-forms are carbon-based and can be affected by Earth germs. Projectile weaponry is a better bet - bullets don't have to be compatible with the native life-forms. But of course, I'm a proponent of peaceful negotiations first.
  • I keep wondering at the modelling - in our own solar system, only one out of nine - ten? (so behind in news) - planets is habitable. Our two closest neighbours are too close to the sun and two small respectively. It seems that even if a solar system has a planet in the habitable zone, getting it to be the right size is another issue. I am as wishful as any SF geek, but not still not overly hopeful.
  • I've looked all over the place, and I can't find any golf balls .... What's going on here?
  • I wish we could find out if there is an Atlantis first. Or a bigfoot. You know, prioritize.
  • Shhh... quiet about the golf balls. We need them for the secret energy source inside them.