Planets Like Earth May Be the Rule, Not the Exception based on new research

a reply to: JadeStar

Starred and Flagged

If this is the case, doesn't it mean some U.F.O.'s are more likely to have an extraterrestrial origin in the forms of probes and even some kinds of crafts?

We're in the very early stages of planet hunting and look how we're progressing. We will send satellites and probes to look at other planets and try to detect signs of life, why wouldn't a civilization from another planet do the same thing?

When you look at the research, it doesn't look like detecting signatures of life will be a very hard thing to do. A civilization that's just 20 to 40 years ahead of us will most likely know that we're here. A civilization that's 100 to 200 years ahead of us would easily spot us and may have advanced A.I. probes they send here that can evade capture and behave as though they're intelligent and we call them U.F.O.'s. A civilization that's 1,000 to say 1 million years ahead of us in terms of technology, forget about. We may call the things they can do magic or supernatural because we can't comprehend their technology.

I always thought the universe was teeming with life because I think it's fine tuned for life to exist just like it's fine tuned for stars, comets, planets and moons to exist. This fine tuning can come from a mind if you believe in God or maybe it's the laws of physics and we're just taking on the characteristics of a parent universe.

So.... Pulp & Digest Science Fiction Writers of the 20s 30s 40s 50s & 60s Were Right ! then... ??

it just that Earthen's have to figure out if there is any Sentient Life On them !

you Know what we call... Civ Type.. 0, 1, 2, 3's ..

Old or Younger...



Who's to say that they are Looking Back On Us... or seeing Us Evolve...


SOL ( Our SUN ) In Case for some that didn't know

I just remembered, I never actually posted the scientist's paper. It's technical of course but it goes into much finer detail than the media reports about it.

You can find it at the link below in .pdf form.

Using the Inclinations of Kepler Systems to Prioritize New
Titius-Bode-Based Exoplanet Predictions - T. Bovaird, C. H. Lineweaver and S. K. Jacobsen - ArXiv

AFAIK the Titus-Bode Law is based on no theory except coincidence. A recent analysis of Kepler data applying the "Law" produced less results than expected. Which trounces the OP's post. Not good science or reporting.

From wiki

Recent astronomical research suggests that planetary systems around some other stars may fit Titius–Bode-like laws.[13][14] Bovaird and Lineweaver[15] applied a generalized Titius-Bode relation to 68 exoplanet systems which contain four or more planets. They showed that 96% of these exoplanet systems adhere to a generalized Titius-Bode relation to a similar or greater extent than the Solar System does. The locations of potentially undetected exoplanets are predicted in each system. Subsequent research managed to detect five planet candidates from predicted 97 planets from the 68 planetary systems. The study showed that the actual number of planets could be larger. The occurrence rate of Mars and Mercury sized planets are currently unknown so many planets could be missed due to their small size. Other reasons were accounted to planet not transiting the star or the predicted space being occupied by circumstellar disks. Despite this, the number of planets found with Titius–Bode law predictions were still lower than expected.

See the last sentence. So I'm not sure how the article quoted by the OP came to its conclusions. We can't even generally detect the occurence of small bodies like Earth.

Cool thread. It would be great to think that the galaxy is actually teeming with life.

We should be praying that we don't find other civs at our level. What we want is non-itelligent life and / or super-civs. But not our level. That would be bad news.

originally posted by: JadeStar

originally posted by: Semicollegiate
The Earth has a moon and Plate Tectonincs. Possibly none of those other planets have the same.

And current research shows a large moon is probably not needed for a planet to develop life.

Plate Tectonics is unique to Earth, as far as my layman knowledge goes. The moon might have something to do with that. Maybe the moon keeps the surface of the planet stressed enough that it cant fuse into a single shell. I think the tides might have an important mixing effect upon the initial stages of chemical pre-life. On the other hand, a gentler sea shore might allow a completely different biochemical regime.

According to the article you linked, having no moon could cause extreme temperatures and wild climate shifts. that would have a lot of the same effects as the continental plates moving around. Species would get stranded a lot.

Higher life forms on a stable planet could be all invertebrates. I suspect that there would be life, but not as much evolution. Only bacteria and algae.

a reply to: JadeStar

Space is just mind blowing in every facet. With the Milky Way being an estimated 100 billion solar masses, if only 1/10 of the potential solar systems are a potential to be Earth like, that would still put the possibility in the realm of 1 million potential habitable planets in our Milky Way alone.

And with science, we are, unfortunately confined to a very VERY small sample size (more so our solar system at it's largest) so we have extremely limited data points to really understand the complexity of other universes until we explore more and more exoplanets.

It will take one discovery, however, to change every theory we have in place on how the universe works which I'm ecstatically waiting for.

Once this discovery happens, our entire universe and the way we think will change. Humans will take another massive leap.

originally posted by: Semicollegiate

originally posted by: JadeStar

originally posted by: Semicollegiate
The Earth has a moon and Plate Tectonincs. Possibly none of those other planets have the same.

And current research shows a large moon is probably not needed for a planet to develop life.

Plate Tectonics is unique to Earth, as far as my layman knowledge goes. The moon might have something to do with that. Maybe the moon keeps the surface of the planet stressed enough that it cant fuse into a single shell. I think the tides might have an important mixing effect upon the initial stages of chemical pre-life. On the other hand, a gentler sea shore might allow a completely different biochemical regime.

According to the article you linked, having no moon could cause extreme temperatures and wild climate shifts. that would have a lot of the same effects as the continental plates moving around. Species would get stranded a lot.

Higher life forms on a stable planet could be all invertebrates. I suspect that there would be life, but not as much evolution. Only bacteria and algae.

Actually, there are new theories that Mar's has/had active plate tectonics.

newsroom.ucla.edu...

a reply to: JadeStar

You just blew my mind with all that math you just did.

Star and flag!

-SAP-

originally posted by: neoholographic
a reply to: JadeStar

Starred and Flagged

If this is the case, doesn't it mean some U.F.O.'s are more likely to have an extraterrestrial origin in the forms of probes and even some kinds of crafts?

While possible I think it is very unlikely though I would not be surprised if a probe sent eons ago were hanging out somewhere in our solar system because Earth, from afar has looked interesting from an astrobiological perspective well before humanity existed. (for about 2.5 billion years.)

We're in the very early stages of planet hunting and look how we're progressing. We will send satellites and probes to look at other planets and try to detect signs of life, why wouldn't a civilization from another planet do the same thing?

When you look at the research, it doesn't look like detecting signatures of life will be a very hard thing to do. A civilization that's just 20 to 40 years ahead of us will most likely know that we're here. A civilization that's 100 to 200 years ahead of us would easily spot us and may have advanced A.I. probes they send here that can evade capture and behave as though they're intelligent and we call them U.F.O.'s. A civilization that's 1,000 to say 1 million years ahead of us in terms of technology, forget about. We may call the things they can do magic or supernatural because we can't comprehend their technology.

I agree mostly.

The only point I would beg to differ on is that UFOs represent such alien probes. I have very good reasons for saying this.

#1 - Most UFO reports have plausible explanations and study after study, whether from academy, UFO groups or government finds that 90%-95% of UFO reports are explainable.

#2 - Of the remaining 5% there is either not enough data to make a determination or in the cases of high credibility there is low "strangeness" and in the cases of high strangeness there is often low credibility.

#3 - Even if a true unknown with a lot of data and credibility were found among the UFO reports, that would not necessarily mean it had an extraterrestrial origin. There have been plenty of secret projects which looked weird at the time which were reported as UFOs.

#4 - There are networks of very wide field video cameras pointed at the sky for capturing meteors and other transient events in the sky. The cameras are often installed and maintained by amateur astronomers, colleges and universities.
These cameras routinely record meteors as well planes, birds, bugs, RC aircraft, balloons, and sprites but no UFOs. One would think if UFOs had an extraterrestrial origin and were coming here in the numbers UFO devotees allege, then these networks would pick them up making right angle turns and doing all sorts of things people claim they do. But they don't.

I always thought the universe was teeming with life because I think it's fine tuned for life to exist just like it's fine tuned for stars, comets, planets and moons to exist. This fine tuning can come from a mind if you believe in God

Actually the universe most of the time is trying to kill us. I am not a religious person and don't really believe in anything but if I did, I'd be highly suspect of that reasoning as a proof of God.

or maybe it's the laws of physics and we're just taking on the characteristics of a parent universe.

Yep, it's selection bias. We're here so some naturally assume the universe was tailor made for us to be here. The fact of the matter is there are so many ways the universe could be better for life than it is.

originally posted by: SloAnPainful
a reply to: JadeStar

You just blew my mind with all that math you just did.

Star and flag!

-SAP-

Lol, that's nothing. Just basic algebra/geometry and stuff.

You should see me work differential equations.

originally posted by: ScreenBogey
We should be praying that we don't find other civs at our level. What we want is non-itelligent life and / or super-civs. But not our level. That would be bad news.

You're in luck because the chances are that any nearby civilizations would be either younger than us or far older than us based on the ages of the stars their planet would orbit. Even for stars with a similar age to our sun there is still like a 500 million year difference in most case.

So yeah, it's very unlikely that another civilization at or near our level (say within 1000 years or less of where we are) would be nearby.

a reply to: wasaka

finally some one gets it

its what the stars are for.... no evidence is necessary only common sense , these questions frustrate the hel out of me, because its so obviouse to work out that all and most ready stars in our galaxy and others will b providing earth like life in the habitable zone... ive known this since i was 7 years old looking up at the stars.. .. its the rule - depending on the sze and age of the other stars wil determin the size, age and evoloution of its planets... i rekon there are people out there that dont even know what we call the sun is just a star! why burn all that energy if nothing is going to come from it!! Nature wastes nothing! done with intent end of


and also heres a thought - depending on the size of their star - will surly govern how big everything is in comparison to us.... for example a star 100 times bigger than ours would suggest human type origin being 100 times bigger than us.... which begs the question of the ancients and their huge #ing stone buildings - mayb just mayb there was a race that came down men of giants from another star system just to make a point.... who knos.

a reply to: JadeStar

yeh thankyou for realising this,,,, have u ever wondered that the use of certain psychedelic's could make contact to these other civilizations to provide insight and knowledge - abit like a wireless router apart from the brain becomes infinite awareness and is able to make contact to the being that is wired into the same light you are using...

basically to help this planet out of the # hole it is in due to our ignorance

originally posted by: JadeStar
While possible I think it is very unlikely though I would not be surprised if a probe sent eons ago were hanging out somewhere in our solar system because Earth, from afar has looked interesting from an astrobiological perspective well before humanity existed. (for about 2.5 billion years.)

True, but then again there may be billions of worlds that looked "interesting from an astrobiological perspective" to those prospective aliens well before humanity existed, which again raises the question "what makes Earth unique enough among those billions of potential worlds to send probe?"

I suppose you could argue that hey may send out multiple probes (thousands?) to some of those billions of "astrobiologically interesting worlds", but Earth would still just be one of may "anonymous" worlds they could have been studying, and even if they found life on Earth (pre-human life), that still may have made it one of thousands of planets where they found life, again making Earth not necessarily interesting enough to them -- at the time -- to warrant further study. It may have been "just one of many planets with life" in their eyes.

originally posted by: Soylent Green Is People

originally posted by: JadeStar
While possible I think it is very unlikely though I would not be surprised if a probe sent eons ago were hanging out somewhere in our solar system because Earth, from afar has looked interesting from an astrobiological perspective well before humanity existed. (for about 2.5 billion years.)

True, but then again there may be billions of worlds that looked "interesting from an astrobiological perspective" to those prospective aliens well before humanity existed, which again raises the question "what makes Earth unique enough among those billions of potential worlds to send probe?"

Nothing.

We know nothing about alien budget concerns nor their longevity but I'd think given enough time even a civilization like us which does not place space exploration as a high priority would eventually send a probe to a nearby solar system containing an interesting Earthlike planet. It all would depend on proximity and that of course would depend on density of civilzations. How dense or sparsely populated is our galaxy?

We don't know.

Also keep in mind the Sun and our solar system including the Earth have made several journeys around the galaxy in a wide orbit about the galactic center in that 2.5 billion year time span (around 10 orbits total) so while we not be near anybody at the moment there might have been times when we were right next door to a spacefaring civilization.

I suppose you could argue that hey may send out multiple probes (thousands?) to some of those billions of "astrobiologically interesting worlds", but Earth would still just be one of may "anonymous" worlds they could have been studying, and even if they found life on Earth (pre-human life), that still may have made it one of thousands of planets where they found life, again making Earth not necessarily interesting enough to them -- at the time -- to warrant further study. It may have been "just one of many planets with life" in their eyes.

Well think about it, it would make sense to get a large sample size of planets with life to get a complete picture of all the ways it could evolve, develop and grow.

We used Kepler to look at a field containing about 100,000 stars for the same reason, there was nothing special about any of them before we looked at them.

However, we looked at them because that large a sample containing different types of stars roughly in the same proportions as most of the Galaxy could tell us a lot about the frequency and distribution of different types of planets.

So our hypothetical alien probes would be similar, they'd be sent to any place of astrobiological interest as part of an overall survey, not because there was anything that special about the Earth other than it was giving off spectra indicating photosynthesis was taking place and that plant life was here.

a reply to: JadeStar

lets say tomorrow , they find out that the universe is timeless in both directions ,..? how will this then add to the drake equation ?

and could we expect to see Wowbagger type civs, endlessly spreading their bottomless wisdom of 'how great the universe was back in the day when they were endlessly bragging about how good the universe was back in the earlier days when bragging about how great the universe was, was way better than it ever was before that time when reminiscing was something done by the 'backwardly projected' and was far better in the earlier days than when.., ad infinitum

the tedium of immortality in a timeless universe

funbox