BBC Horizon - Are we Alone in the Universe?

This video has just been aired on the BBC and is for UK TV licence holders, although I think users from outside the UK can use proxies to view the video on the BBC's iPlayer although this may be illegal.

A bit of info
Science series. The search for alien life is 50 years old, but there's been a break through. A planet has been discovered that could support life.

Duration: 50 mins

URL: www.bbc.co.uk... b0094cvw

I haven't watched it yet (doing so now) but thought some other readers may be interested.

The file can be downloaded.

File Size: 500MB

I happened to watch the airing of this last night on BBC2

It was a mighty interesting documentary (As horizon's docu's always are)

They mainly talk about the origin of the Drake equation,
and the other part was mainly about the specially constructed telescope/satellite "Kepler" who will hunt the cosmos for "Wobbling" stars and the planets that pass in front of them) the main goal of this project is to search and find Earth-like planets, so that SETI can do a more targeted search on possibly inhabited planets.

Very interesting stuff to say the least.

Yep watched it too! What I found intriguing is the question: what if earth like planets are very rare? This question was posed because of the 260 exo planets they have found till now they only have found two earth like planets. One does not rotate around its axis and has one side always turned to the red dwarf (I forgot its name, it is in the constellation Libra yet not visible for the eye) and one side is always in the dark. They did not have that much info on the second earth like planet except that it was in the outer region where water is fluid yet it might have an overall good climate because of water vapor working as a greenhouse gas. They did not comment on it rotating around its axis or not.

In the end there was the ever present Mr. Shostak/Seti, because in the future SETI will probe only regions in the Milky Way that contain earth like planets.

The ending was interesting: what if indeed we are the first space exploring creatures in our own galaxy?

reply to post by QueenofWeird


I to watched it, though it didn't really say anything we don't already know here. Horizon used to be much better in previous years IMO! Let's hope Kepler is sucessful in findinf those other Earths. I'm sure they're out there...

[edit on 5-3-2008 by timelike]

reply to post by timelike


Well I would be highly surprised if anything BIG would be presented in such a lovely yet mainstream show as Horizon

I think the purpose of the show is in collecting information and presenting it in a nice way so that interested people can absorb it without having to look for the bits and pieces.

I for one was very impressed with planet C not rotating around its axis. I wonder what kind of life could develop on such a planet....Mothers scaring their children not with the boogey man but with: Be warned....Or else...to the dark side!

reply to post by QueenofWeird


the smaller the planet the harder it is to detect,hence why earth sized planets are not discovered at the same rate as larger planets.that second earth was 5 times the size of earth.

to me large moons are just as equaly probable to support life.the many moons of a gas giant in the habitable zone will have a high chance of supportiing life compared to a singular planet.

secondly we assume the conditions for life are unique to earth like planets and conditions.what of subsurface life?,the surface is just a fraction of any planet.what of life that exists permenantly airborn in the atmosphere of a lower gravity planet or moon?.why only liquid water?,why not liquid methane etc?.what of the dark side of geosynchronous orbit of a planet close to the its sun?,sure one side will be baking hot,yet the other side will be much cooler?.

If gravity gets much lower it's difficult for a body to keep an atmosphere. The moon, though at 1/6th our gravity, doesn't have one, as it would just float off.

I find the idea that we could be the first intelligent life very interesting. I guess it has to start first somewhere, even if life begins on many planets independently.

If life exists out there, who knows what it's made of? It might not be carbon, which would be very interesting.

We can only assess other planets according to what we know. And what we know is how life has evolved on our planet. We simply do not know what could have evolved on other planets with other conditions. Of course there are "logical" assumptions like it is much more efficient for a creature to have four legs instead of three. But maybe there is a planet out there where having three legs has benefits we can not imagine.

The new Kepler telescope is so powerful it can detect small planets passing before there sun, so no doubt more earth like planets will be found.

Regarding living in or on a planet, it is all about energy. Our planet is "fueled" by sun light. Vents deep in our oceans leak gasses (if I am not mistaken containing sulfur) that replace the role the sun plays in starting of the food chain. So yes one can imagine life under the surface.

Originally posted by liamsquire
This video has just been aired on the BBC and is for UK TV licence holders, although I think users from outside the UK can use proxies to view the video on the BBC's iPlayer although this may be illegal.

A bit of info
Science series. The search for alien life is 50 years old, but there's been a break through. A planet has been discovered that could support life.

Duration: 50 mins

URL: www.bbc.co.uk... b0094cvw

I haven't watched it yet (doing so now) but thought some other readers may be interested.

The file can be downloaded.

File Size: 500MB

why does everyone assume that a planet has to have water and be terrestrial in order to support life . . . life as we know it needs water. Perhaps alternative life forms have other methods of survival and nutrition.

kepler will only tell us if there are any earth sized planets in the hz of sol like stars, it wont tell us anything on the chemical composition of such planets. Future space or high atmosphere telescopes are needed to get that info.

still kepler is the best so far and will give us a clue to whether other worlds like ours in size/distance from the star are common or rare. Which in turn may give us an idea of our true place in the universe

kepler could return a null result or it could turn up many planets.Either way the results will be interesting.

p.s where are all the folks who claim nasa are a big coverup operation? why would they spend millions on instruments like kepler to search for worlds like ours if that were true?

[edit on 6-3-2008 by yeti101]

What I found intriguing is the question: what if earth like planets are very rare? This question was posed because of the 260 exo planets they have found till now they only have found two earth like planets.

Habitable planets are generally much smaller (and therefore more difficult to detect) than virtually all of the "exo planets" discovered to date.

Yes but now with the Kepler telescope that problem is going to be tackled. Would it not be fascinating if actually the Universe is NOT teeming with life....just a thought

Because any discoveries like these would be totally "Safe" its not like its on our door step (Mars or Moon) so it wont stir the applecart TOO MUCH, there's no real way of knowing if there is life on such planets-YET- which gives them time to ever slowly crawl towards admitting it via other sources they're hiding-UFO data and /or contact

p.s where are all the folks who claim nasa are a big coverup operation? why would they spend millions on instruments like kepler to search for worlds like ours if that were true?

[edit on 6-3-2008 by yeti101]

Yea it would be more shocking than it being hugely populated, the odds of it being so are growing favorable with every new discoverie though! It'd be an aweful waste of space to be completely lifeless..given the infinite size of the universe!

Originally posted by QueenofWeird
Yes but now with the Kepler telescope that problem is going to be tackled. Would it not be fascinating if actually the Universe is NOT teeming with life....just a thought

Yes. For example...

Rocky planets are probably quite common. We just haven't found too many yet.

www.space.com...
news.yahoo.com...

From the Yahoo article...

University of Arizona astronomer Michael Meyer, working with NASA's Spitzer space telescope, said his research shows that between 20 percent and 60 percent of stars similar to our sun have conditions favorable for forming rocky planets like Earth.

It basically means lots of planets like Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars.