Planet found in the "Goldilocks Zone"

This.

edited 29th Sep '10 4:04:12 PM by GethKnight

Fuck yeah, Seaking!

Wow! Just fucking awesome! I've been waiting for this, but... they actually found it. Needless to say, this is huge! Now someone should somehow look at some spectral lines, or something that could tell us whether there is any indication of life in the atmosphere.

And it's close too.

^Baby steps

I'd love to trade a video game console for one of their strange alien stuff. C'mon America; make it happen!

Life, (maybe) yes!

There's good reason to think that life is required to make the atmospheric conditions for other, more complex, life. If life can only exist around the meridian between it's dark and light sides, they might not exist in large enough quantities to make the conditions for complex multicelluar life.

Well, let's hope I'm wrong.

Still. Even microbial life is great news. If bacteria can exist on other planets then the chances of sapient life goes up.

@Geth Knight

Sure, baby steps. But if there's life there that will give us a whole lot to think about. Especially considering Fermi's paradox.

Edit: Because if life's abundant then either intelligence is a rare genetic leap, or intelligent species don't tend to last long. (There are some other possibilities too.) In the second case we should be quite careful with new technologies, I guess.

edited 29th Sep '10 4:24:05 PM by Hauptbahnhof

And, if somehow we could get our asses there, we could help "populate" that planet.

^^Can't remember Femi's Paradox

^If the planet isn't already a colony world.

That's fascinating. I wonder what kind of life would live there.

Alien: Shit, dude, c'mere. This weird pink fuck is staring at me through a giant stick! Suck my proboscis; we're dining in hell.

The war of the worlds begins!

edited 29th Sep '10 4:24:39 PM by Flamer

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_paradox

^^ The Other Wiki

Edit: I was a bit late with the linking.

edited 29th Sep '10 4:28:23 PM by Hauptbahnhof

Ooooh, this is exciting! Regardless of whether anything comes of it, it's really cool that people have found this.

Me no likey the Rare Earth.

Thanks Zam and Hauptbahnhof. Forgot that Femi's Paradox was one about if they existed, then where are they.

If they can analyze the planets atmosphere they should look for methane. Most of the methane in Earth's air began as cow farts , so i think that would indicate complex life.

But if there's life there it might be completely different from ours.

Can they analyze atomosphere in extrasolar worlds?

I'd start with carbon and oxygen.

This is really cool.

Always thought planets would be too small compared to background elements.

Can they analyze atomosphere in extrasolar worlds?

To some extent, yes.

Or we could at least take water samples.