Kepler Finds Ancient Solar System!!!

Hello ATS'ers!!

I have looked but I couldn't find another topic about this, so here we go.

This is BIG news!!!

BBC NEWS

Please leave me you views. this is soo exciting.

a reply to: BloodSister

How about you giving us your views on it to get the discussion going..

Personally i believe we are in the infancy of this round of mankind and i wish i wasnt born yet for another few thousand years.
We might by then have populated another planet

a reply to: BloodSister

First of all, there is already a thread on this:

www.abovetopsecret.com...


Secondly, while this is certainly very interesting, I'm not sure why you say it is "Big News". What do you mean by Big News?

11 billion year old solar systems are not that surprising. I suppose we should have expected to find some (although it is still exciting when we actually do find some).

Considering that our solar system was built from the remains of ancient stars that went supernova in the past, it wouldn't surprise me if some of those ancient exploded stars that gave birth to our solar system included planets -- maybe even ancient earth-like planets.

10 billion years ago, there were still solar systems with 2nd generation stars -- which are the systems that could include the heavy elements required for rocky planets similar to Earth. 2nd generation stars are required for this, because it is those stars that had other 1st generation stars come before it. It is the death of these 2nd generation stars (in supernova explosions) that create the all of the elements from iron to heavier ones.

We already know that most of the atoms in our bodies (other than Hydrogen and and some helium) were created inside these stars, but maybe some of those atoms were also parts of long-gone planets.

Heavy elements beyond Iron can only be created through intense neutron bombardment caused during the few minutes of a supernova. Then they can break down through fission back into lighter elements. Strange to think that all those metals like copper, mercury, tin and zinc all were formed at some point when a star exploded.

a reply to: stormcell

Yes. As the late Carl Sagan once so poetically put it:

"We are made of star-stuff"

And when he says "we" he means everything we see, including our own bodies.


It is really amazing to think that the oxygen and carbon atoms in my body were once deep in the middle of stars billions of years ago, and the iron atoms in my blood were fused in the blast of a long-dead stars that went supernova.

Materials in my body were once part of a supernova. Incredible.

a reply to: BloodSister

It's important because it's the "proof" all the supposed naysayers and debunkers need to further push the inevitable conclusion that the Universe is #ing teeming with life, and is not the sole playground of humans.

originally posted by: 1Providence1
a reply to: BloodSister

It's important because it's the "proof" all the supposed naysayers and debunkers need to further push the inevitable conclusion that the Universe is #ing teeming with life, and is not the sole playground of humans.

That's a very very minor percentage of people who think we are alone in the universe.

It has been my experience that almost all of the people on ATS feel there is a high probability of life elsewhere. Practically all scientists feel the same way. In fact, I think most people with even just a moderate enough education (enough to understand the size and scope of the universe) would say that ET life -- even intelligent ET life -- almost surely exists.

Sure -- you will always have a few fundamentalist religious-type folk, such as those who believe in a strict interpretation of the bible, but there is nothing that will convince them, anyway.

I've always found the statement...

"this is more evidence to show that the naysayers are wrong about there being no possibility of other life in the universe"

...to be a straw man, because I'm not sure if those naysayers really exist in any number worth worrying about.

a reply to: BloodSister

So like...

What does a planet's size have to do with its ability to support life? I don't see a correlation...

The fact that these planets ( as I've read it... ) orbit their star in ten days; says to me that the proposition of life there is a slim chance... Not overly impressed by the find myself.

"We found an old planet roughly the same size as earth! Uh... Yeah!!!"

=_=