The Uniqueness of Planet Earth

Originally posted by Theyarelying
This is funny... Cause I JUST read an artical on a science news website about one of the space probes searching for exo-planets.... It said they have looked at over 156,000 stars and not found to many planets that can be considered earth like. Most planets are yes very large and full of danger, like saturn and jupitor...

They find mostly big planets, because they're easier to "see". Depending on the tech used they either measure the wobble of the star (massive objects cause noticeable wobble) or change in star's luminosity (as planets pass by). The whole system is biased towards finding big/massive jupiter-like planets.


[edit on 27-8-2010 by rhinoceros]

i agree with what the poster above me said. and regarding the OP, i lean towards the assumption that the poster is a person of learning and yet i find myself bewildered by the observation that this person seems to have forgotten one thing about learning/knowledge. it is that all knowledge can be rendered obsolete by discoveries in the future, and while saying that there is no other planet quiet like ours may be true. we shouldn't discount the possibility that if ever we do find life out there, it might not be the kind that's familiar or similar to us and ours.

We discovered Pluto in the 1930's. In 2006 they decided it wasn't a planet. We're still debating the amount of water on our own Moon. Arguing certainties about galaxies and other solar systems is completely absurd. We launched a satellite to look for Earth-like planets one year ago, we already have a potential solar system for life with a planet 1.4 EMU's and sun similiar to ours, HD 10180. The chances of hitting something that close in that short of a period of time is either amazingly lucky or they are not that rare. I tend to believe the latter. So, obviously, I completely disagree with your assumption.

Originally posted by toreishi
i agree with what the poster above me said. and regarding the OP, i lean towards the assumption that the poster is a person of learning and yet i find myself bewildered by the observation that this person seems to have forgotten one thing about learning/knowledge. it is that all knowledge can be rendered obsolete by discoveries in the future, and while saying that there is no other planet quiet like ours may be true. we shouldn't discount the possibility that if ever we do find life out there, it might not be the kind that's familiar or similar to us and ours.

Everything stated here is all based on future assumptions. What I wrote about was what is known. As for my forgetting what learning/knowledge and the quest of it is, look at my profile and read what I have to say about that. It sums it up quite nicely, and explains my view of things.

Everyone here that has disagreed with the statements in the OP have made false assumptions, accusations, such as I plagiarized what I wrote, that false accusation actually got a few stars, then stating that the assertion were wrong, even though all I did was quote from various scientific textbooks, nothing I stated was my own. And I do recall quoting several of those sources all though I have more I didn't add in. So they are in fact arguing with the scientific community at this point, and not myself. Yet they bring no valid arguments to explain their standing.


Then there has been the broad use of assumptions that well this is because of that, for example, 'well of course life on earth is unique to earth because we adapted to life on earth because we live on earth' sort of statements.

The facts remain. Will the future change them? Perhaps, perhaps not. It is easy to speculate one way or the other. And I believe that this post irks people most who believe that earth must not be unique, or that mankind is nothing special and that there must be other life out in the universe like or unlike our own.

To say there are other worlds out their like our own is a fact, it cannot be done with any evidence provided. True like you pointed out, mankind knows very little about anything, and they like to puff themselves up about the very little they actually indeed do know, and then that knowledge changes later and they realize they had it all wrong to begin with. And then later revise what they have later revised, etc. etc.

The fact is that the earth is unique in the known cosmos has not been disputed by known scientific study.

I don't think there is anything special or unique about Earth, there are millions of solar systems in our Galaxy alone which have planets that may very well be organic and also harbor life, that life may be different but life nonetheless. In fact some of the planets in our own solar system may be organic and have life which could very well be similar to ours.

Life is unique... The fact that we are here and there isn't much around like us or even close to a self-aware species let alone intelligent is unique.

I agree though the technology being used would more then likely see the larger planets over the smaller seeing as earth itself is shielded by our larger planets. I do believe there is more life out there but to conclude that it's a common thing based off the fact of the amount of galexies.

There is going to be alot of controversy over this... Just because of how limited the information is... So this will be my last post on this subject I believe others should do the same.

reply to post by Calender


Well...I cannot argue that the earth is unique in some ways but most of what you say depends on life as we know it. Did life as we know it progress and adapt to survive within our unique environment or were we placed within an environment that satisfies our life form? Is our environment unique to us or are we unique to our environment? Can life in a different form exist under conditions that we think is impossible? Did life originate because we had a moon and at a proper distance and what will happen to life as we know it after the moon drifts away from earth? Was the timing just right? Does that in itself make it and us unique?

I'm not intending to tear your thread apart but instead putting it in a different perspective.

You should watch the documentary Earth:The power of the planet by Iain Stewart..it really is unique and mind boggling how many factors had to be just right for life to evolve on earth. Doesn't mean that life 'has' to evolve in such conditions, but so far it's the only ones we do know it must, logical to follow that line of thought until we find evidence otherwise rather than looking at ifs and maybes.

[edit on 28-8-2010 by Solomons]