8.8 Billion Earth-like Planets in the Milky Way

http://news.msn.com/science-technology/study-88-billion-earth-sized-just-right-planets

 

It's very interesting to think with those odds that we haven't had any interaction with other life.

It would seem that with that many life-supporting planets, there would be many civilizations much more advanced than ours with the technology to visit us.

 

You wouldn't understand. They're much more intellectually advanced than you.

 

that could mean a lot of things. it could mean even if life is common, intelligent life is extremely rare. it could mean long-range interstellar space travel is effectively impossible regardless of technological advancements. or as was noted that an advanced civilization wouldn't want to interfere with us.

 

Yes, but we're talking about at least 8.8 billion planets just in our solar system. That starts to approach being beyond "extremely rare".

However, you could imagine a species that has the time, patience and desire to travel hundreds or thousands of years to explore. I am pretty confident we could find many volunteers to travel through space for the rest of their lifetime.

Or an advanced civilization could want us gone since they see we're going to ruin our own planet and move on to the next. Obviously all hypothetical guesses.

I'm not sure I understand your response. Are you saying that it isn't interesting that we haven't been visited because one of those three possibilities must be true, and case closed?

 

I know.

 

there are other factors involved obviously. earth had life but no intelligent life for 3.8 billion years. modern humans have only been around a few hundred thousand, and the evolutionary branch that led to us probably goes nowhere if not for a fluke asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs. if the earth happens to be in any way typical it would not be surprising if life were common in the universe but intelligence was rare.

I was referring to the possibility that it might be fundamentally impossible to travel anywhere near the speed of light, which would make even short-range interstellar explorations impractical for civilizations. also long distance space travel is very dangerous (impossible for us with current technology) due to radiation.

I'm saying as far as we know the fact that we haven't been visited means absolutely nothing. it doesn't indicate either way what life may or may not be out there.

 

The study narrowed the 200B stars to 8.8B using only 2 constraints, planet size and temperature. More important to Earth life have been a magnetic field, oceans, and a very large moon.

Add those constraints and the 8.8 gets a lot smaller. The study couldn't because astronomers haven't figured out how. Wait another generation.

 

Perhaps no one else can figure out how to travel at light speed (Warp), I don't think we will. Until that happens, no one can live long enough to get anywhere worth checking out. Pretty hard to attract venture capital to project like we could mount or maybe any alien can mount.

err, that is If the creator dabbled at all beyond this little atoll.

 

Pfft Deep Blue..Earth has the venture value in this Galaxy that The Isle of Ate u has on Earth..just not worth the effort unless it had a military value

 

http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2...ract?sid=d7bacb1a-5937-4541-ad28-1d94dbb115a7

This new study says 22% of the stars in the galaxy have planets with similar temperature and size. There are 300-400B stars, so that's 66-88M Earth-like planets. Give them 20 years and they'll have better estimates.

None of them are profitable anyway with their high capital gains rates, so who wants them.

 

Probably a bunch of welfare boozers. Another burden on the shoulders of rich American conservatives.

 

naw man, you have it backwards this planet would be the drag on an advanced society

 

Resources are finite. The distances are incomprehensibly vast. The technology required is just insurmountable. Are there other life forms out there? Almost certainly so. Intelligent ones, too. Most likely they will die off never knowing if they are alone, as we will.

 

True, true I think I have never been to Ateu but I have to Attu.

The worth is one thing then there is the mechanics when you consider E = MC\2
Finding E when S=C and M>0 has never been done.

 

There are only 8 planets in our solar system, and 4 dwarf planets including Pluto.

There are possibly ten trillion planets in the Milky Way Galaxy, which is what they're talking about. So 1 in 1,000 is still pretty good odds for other beings to exist. Actually bumping into them in such an enormous galaxy seems unlikely.

 

I think it is pretty obvious that intelligence is rare. But identifying over 9 billion possibilities in our galaxy alone provides a lot of chances to offset that rarity.

You're assuming that some other intelligent life form has a similar length of life as we do. If another life form has an expected lifespan of 1000 years, then it isn't necessarily impractical to travel for 10,20, or 100 years.

How do you know it is dangerous to these hypothetical life forms?

It appears you want to fit other intelligent life forms into the same set of rules that our bodies have, and I don't think that is necessarily reasonable.

I don't think anybody claimed otherwise.