Other solar systems.

[wrightme43]

Bad Astronomy Blog » Astronomers find 5 planet system!

This is very cool. Proof that our system is not a aberation but could be more of the norm. Sol like sun, at least 5 planets in circular orbits.

[Botch]

That's cool!

One website I visit every day is the Astronomy Pic of the Day, Astronomy Picture of the Day, am fascinated with the pics and just how small we really are.

[wrightme43]

Its saved in favorites.

[craig007]

I was reading a book about the universe and our unique place in it. Even though there are 10^10 stars in our our galaxy (that's 10 to the 10th power), and there are about 10^10 galaxies, the odds of beings like us riding FZ6's around on another planet are pretty slim. Although 10^20 possible stars is a lot of stars, this book argues that it took 4.5 billion years for us to get to where we are now and we were almost wiped out many times in the past. So, while I know that the sun is not unique, and the solar system may not be unique, I'm starting to believe that we are!

[wrightme43]

But see it didnt take 4.5 billion for us to get to where we are.
Mass extinctions happen, but life comes right back.
I have a book called the Runaway Brain, (the evolution of human uniqueness) it has some very interesting things in it.
Like there is life on earth down in the bottoms of ocean near seavents completely apart from the sun. They will live untill the earth stops having plate tetonics. Now were they here first? Or did life adapt to live there after? Does it matter. They are able to survive almost anything that would wipe out all life on the surface. Even then say the ocean is boiled off, they are wiped out too.

What about the life inside the diamond mines miles below the earths surface. There is life in the freaking rocks. This place if teaming with it, if it is this hard core here, isnt it likely that it will be elsewhere as well?


It only took a couple hundred thousand from tooless, to walking on the moon, and exploring our solar system.
1903-1969 from first flight to first humans on the moon.

[sportrider]

yea!!!!!!!!! that means after I destroy this planet I can go to a new solar system and pillage that one too!!!! thats it the cat is coming off!!!

[craig007]

The argument is not that life can't exist on other planets (odds are that it can), it is more that life like us probably does not exist anywere else. So, even if the same starting ingredients were on earth and another planet 4.5 billion years ago, this book argues that unique events on earth combined to get humans were they are today. If these events had been slightly different, we would have either never evolved or would have gone extinct. Not sure that I buy all of it, but it made a pretty good case for human uniqueness.

[Bo67]

I can agree with Craig's point on this. To bring it down to more real terms- What has happened in our individual lives that make us who we are? If I hadn't have joined the military and been based overseas I never would have met my wife and had 4 kids with her. Maybe I'd be a millionaire right now if I hadn't, maybe I'd be a bum on the street. The randomness of it all is mind-boggling. We are the result of an infinite number of circumstances be it religious, evolutionary, whatever. If there is someone like us out there though they'd better have a Yamaha plant around.

[wrightme43]

Oh hey Craig I didnt mean to come across like it reads when I read it now. I agree we are pretty unique, I just think self aware tool users might be more likely, than no life at all.

[craig007]

I just think self aware tool users might be more likely, than no life at all.

I can't argue with that...