Post: #1

Quote:Two Earth-sized planets with lukewarm temperatures have been discovered by NASA's Kepler space telescope. They are 1,200 light years away, orbiting a star in the constellation Lyra, and their distance from their host star, means that they exist in the zone that could potentially host life. And their temperatures are not unlike an early Spring day on Earth.

"Aristotle himself asked whether our planet Earth is unique and whether there might be other Earths," said Geoff Marcy, a professor of astronomy at the University of California at Berkeley. "And scientists and philosophers have been asking for 2,000 years since whether our Earth has a twin."

"It's exciting," he continued, "to see planets emerging from Kepler that do indeed remind us of Earth in size, orbit and temperature."

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/2013...anets.html

Post: #2

We'll find some closer soon enough

Post: #3

(04-19-2013 07:50 AM)bojangles Wrote:  We'll find some closer soon enough

Or they'll find us.

Post: #4

http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/9901322

This link is relevant. It's a hypothesis for why we haven't found the signs of intelligent life elsewhere in the galaxy yet. Very compelling. Gamna ray bursts have only recently slowed to a frequency that allows complex life to evolve.

Post: #5

The most exciting prospect in the world to me is the thought of other planets like earth being out there with civilizations and technology and their own cultures, philosophy, religion and history that evolved completely independent of ours. I would love to see just how different they are from us. And how different physical conditions spawn entirely different lifeforms that we can't even imagine.

I wish we had the technology to make it to the stars within my lifetime. I'd do anything to know what's out there.

Post: #6

(04-19-2013 07:55 AM)Thomas the Rhymer Wrote:  

(04-19-2013 07:50 AM)bojangles Wrote:  We'll find some closer soon enough

Or they'll find us.

Post: #7

Houston, did you ever read that book on Roswell I told you about?

Post: #8

There is no doubt life in many places throughout the universe. But - there is probably no intelligent life.

This planet has had about 100 billion different types of species throughout it's history. Not sure where I read that - but I remember the figure.

And only 3-4 of them ever developed any type of higher intelligence (I am thinking of the precursors to modern humans who eventually became extinct). And only one of them (modern humans) has developed sophisticated culture, science and technology.

So - it seems to me you will have to pass over billions of different planets containing life - before you find one which evolved a species as intelligent as our own. And that is if you are lucky...

Life is probably not rare in the universe. But intelligence probably is.

Post: #9

(04-19-2013 01:40 PM)speakeasy Wrote:  The most exciting prospect in the world to me is the thought of other planets like earth being out there with civilizations and technology and their own cultures, philosophy, religion and history that evolved completely independent of ours. I would love to see just how different they are from us. And how different physical conditions spawn entirely different lifeforms that we can't even imagine.

Ehh I'm not so sure. Maybe I've just seen a few too many movies and/or played a few too many sci-fi video games, but I don't know if we're going to like all that we find. My curiosity is there but I'm guarded about it.

I'm quite content to only see us master the planets/stars in our immediate vicinity (colonize the moon/mars, begin asteroid mining, etc) in my lifetime if we manage it.

Post: #10

(04-19-2013 08:24 PM)MattC Wrote:  Houston, did you ever read that book on Roswell I told you about?

No, what's it called again? I'm gonna add it to my Bookmark list right now.

Post: #11

(04-19-2013 08:39 PM)Athlone McGinnis Wrote:  

(04-19-2013 01:40 PM)speakeasy Wrote:  The most exciting prospect in the world to me is the thought of other planets like earth being out there with civilizations and technology and their own cultures, philosophy, religion and history that evolved completely independent of ours. I would love to see just how different they are from us. And how different physical conditions spawn entirely different lifeforms that we can't even imagine.

Ehh I'm not so sure. Maybe I've just seen a few too many movies and/or played a few too many sci-fi video games, but I don't know if we're going to like all that we find. My curiosity is there but I'm guarded about it.

I'm quite content to only see us master the planets/stars in our immediate vicinity (colonize the moon/mars, begin asteroid mining, etc) in my lifetime if we manage it.

Quote:Hawking said it is likely that alien life exists, but a visit from extraterrestrials might be similar to Christopher Columbus' arrival in the Americas.

"If aliens visit us, the outcome would be much as when Columbus landed in America, which didn't turn out well for the Native Americans," he said. "We only have to look at ourselves to see how intelligent life might develop into something we wouldn't want to meet."

In the new program, "Into the Universe with Stephen Hawking," he speculated that aliens' capabilities "would be only limited by how much power they could harness and control, and that could be far more than we might first imagine."

/thread-22206.html

Post: #12

(04-19-2013 08:55 PM)houston Wrote:  

(04-19-2013 08:24 PM)MattC Wrote:  Houston, did you ever read that book on Roswell I told you about?

No, what's it called again? I'm gonna add it to my Bookmark list right now.

Houston, we have a problem.














It's called "The Day After Roswell" mate. Just do a google search for "the day after Roswell pdf" and you can download the top link which is a pdf in 2 seconds.

Post: #13

Hey Matt, did you do some research on UFO books and discover that one? There's so much shit out there, it's hard trying to find actual good ones.

Post: #14

I genuinely can't remember how I came across it as it was about 5 years ago. The guy who wrote it got a fair bit of criticism as you can imagine but there're sites out there debunking the criticism he received. Personally, I think it's a solid book. It may not be all true, who really knows, but he has gone into a lot of detail and effort whilst name dropping people which makes me think it's not just some cheap words bundled together to get some sales. I read it again last week whilst I was off work, the last time I'd read it was 5 years ago and I still got the same impression as I did back then: the guy is legit.

Post: #15

If it didn't give away me or my dad's identity, I'd post his website. He's a fairly prominent astrophotographer and does some pretty cool shit.

A while back he got a pair of stargazing binoculars, similar to these:


Shit was incredible. I was looking at the Andromeda and some other spiral galaxies through a telescope, shit that's millions of light years away. With my naked eye. It kind of puts a lump in your throat and puts things in perspective real quick.

Carl Sagan theorized that intelligent life has most likely existed many, many times, and that speculated that it's a natural progression that intelligent life eventually kills itself off through technological advancements in warfare and civil war. Once you start thinking about humans as a singular species it changes your perception of things.

Post: #16

(04-19-2013 07:50 AM)bojangles Wrote:  We'll find some closer soon enough

They already have. There are some as close as 10 light years, but some of these are unconfirmed.

It should be mentioned, not to patronize, that the image in the OP is computer generated...

For anyone looking for some serious do a little online reading of the Sloan Great Wall

Post: #17

(04-19-2013 08:29 PM)cardguy Wrote:  There is no doubt life in many places throughout the universe. But - there is probably no intelligent life.

This planet has had about 100 billion different types of species throughout it's history. Not sure where I read that - but I remember the figure.

And only 3-4 of them ever developed any type of higher intelligence (I am thinking of the precursors to modern humans who eventually became extinct). And only one of them (modern humans) has developed sophisticated culture, science and technology.

So - it seems to me you will have to pass over billions of different planets containing life - before you find one which evolved a species as intelligent as our own. And that is if you are lucky...

Life is probably not rare in the universe. But intelligence probably is.

"Rare" is relative. Keep in mind that there are 200 billion stars in the Milky Way, and it's pretty much a given at this point that there are more planets than stars. Let's say the average star has 5 planets in orbit around it. That's a trillion planets in this galaxy alone. And there are hundreds of billions of galaxies in the observable universe. That's observable, there are probably more beyond what we can image with current technology. Now multiply one trillion by 200 billion observable galaxies. You'd get this number of planets: 200,000,000,000,000,000,000,000. If only one in a million planets were earth-like worlds, you would have this many earths out there: 200,000,000,000,000,000, and if only 1 in thousand earth-like planets had intelligent life you'd have: 200,000,000,000,000 intelligent alien races. Yeah, there's definitely gotta be something out there.

Have you ever looked at the Drake equation? It's not perfect, but it's an algorithm that gives you some framework for predicting the amount of intelligent life in the galaxy. By the most conservative numbers, there could be as many as 1,000 civilizations in the Milky Way. If that's the case, that would make civilizations staggeringly rare relative to the number of planets, but 1,000 is still a lot of civilizations in the absolute sense. I believe without a doubt there's both primitive and more advanced civilizations out there.

Post: #18

I'm absolutely certain that there is life somewhere out there [comes down to numbers really] and I'm inclined to believe that some of it may be intelligent.

If they're smart enough to travel here safely and faster than light, then they're smart enough to check out our broadcasts etc first and know that know we're probably not ready to chat peaceably quite yet

Post: #19

(04-19-2013 10:29 PM)TheMan Wrote:  I'm absolutely certain that there is life somewhere out there [comes down to numbers really] and I'm inclined to believe that some of it may be intelligent.

If they're smart enough to travel here safely and faster than light, then they're smart enough to check out our broadcasts etc first and know that know we're probably not ready to chat peaceably quite yet

if they're smart enough to get here they're smart enough to destroy us with one flick of the finger.

Post: #20

(04-19-2013 10:32 PM)NY Digital Wrote:  

(04-19-2013 10:29 PM)TheMan Wrote:  I'm absolutely certain that there is life somewhere out there [comes down to numbers really] and I'm inclined to believe that some of it may be intelligent.

If they're smart enough to travel here safely and faster than light, then they're smart enough to check out our broadcasts etc first and know that know we're probably not ready to chat peaceably quite yet

if they're smart enough to get here they're smart enough to destroy us with one flick of the finger.

or tentacle

Post: #21

(04-19-2013 10:32 PM)NY Digital Wrote:  

(04-19-2013 10:29 PM)TheMan Wrote:  I'm absolutely certain that there is life somewhere out there [comes down to numbers really] and I'm inclined to believe that some of it may be intelligent.

If they're smart enough to travel here safely and faster than light, then they're smart enough to check out our broadcasts etc first and know that know we're probably not ready to chat peaceably quite yet

if they're smart enough to get here they're smart enough to destroy us with one flick of the finger.

That's why I don't really believe in hostile aliens coming to take over the world. Any advanced civilizations in this galaxy with faster than light travel probably already know about us and have known about us for a very long time. We first started broadcasting radio signals about a century ago. So that the signals are within reach of any civilization within a hundred light years. They may have even tweaked our DNA and created us from apes, who knows? It's one of those things I wonder about.

Another thing that makes me thinks aliens aren't hostile is that if they are that advanced, they have probably solved all their social needs like resources and don't need anything here. And there are billions of lifeless worlds with elements on them that they could mine, so there's no real reason they'd have to come here for resources. I think at worst, aliens might be indifferent to our sensibilities and may treat us the way we treat animals that we poke with instruments and examine. But I doubt they will be outright hostile to us because they could likely just release some pathogen or virus into the atmosphere that could wipe out humanity and we wouldn't even know what happened.

Have you guys ever heard of this dude named Bob Lazar? The story could easily be complete bullshit, but supposedly he worked for the government and was part of a team that examined a crashed UFO with the hope of understanding the technology and possibly reverse engineering it. Supposedly he has been given many lie polygraph tests and passed them all. And has given all kind of details about what happened at the base in Nevada. Take it for what you want, I'm not saying I totally believe it but it makes me wonder:





This gets really interesting as he describes the alien technology in detail:

Post: #22

1200 light years away = the image reaching earth is 1200 years old. Not to mindfuck anyone, but we better find a way to make sure they didnt meltdown back around the viking age.

Post: #23

I still wouldn't be surprised if we're an alien's ant farm. Maybe they left psychedelics for us to feel "closer" to them


Has anyone seriously researched aliens, Area 51, abductions and everything else we always hear about? So much shit out there, I wouldn't know where to start.

Post: #24

(04-19-2013 08:29 PM)cardguy Wrote:  There is no doubt life in many places throughout the universe. But - there is probably no intelligent life.

This planet has had about 100 billion different types of species throughout it's history. Not sure where I read that - but I remember the figure.

And only 3-4 of them ever developed any type of higher intelligence (I am thinking of the precursors to modern humans who eventually became extinct). And only one of them (modern humans) has developed sophisticated culture, science and technology.

So - it seems to me you will have to pass over billions of different planets containing life - before you find one which evolved a species as intelligent as our own. And that is if you are lucky...

Life is probably not rare in the universe. But intelligence probably is.

The barrier to advanced life is more likely the jump from prokaryotic to eukaryotic and perhaps to multicellular. Once you get complex multicellular animals running around interacting with their environment it could only be a matter of time before one species hits a runaway natural selection process on brain development and becomes technological. Chimps or wolves would almost certainly evolve into intelligence within a few million years if we weren't around, they both have complex social structures and are apex predators.

Post: #25

(04-20-2013 01:34 AM)houston Wrote:  Has anyone seriously researched aliens, Area 51, abductions and everything else we always hear about? So much shit out there, I wouldn't know where to start.

Yeah, I've been into UFOs since I was in elementary school. I would go to the library when I was 10 and check out books to read on UFOs and space in general. I've always loved this shit. I totally believe the UFO phenomena is real and I'll go out on a limb and say that I saw one myself with a friend when I was about 13 or so. Still remember what it looked like perfectly to this day. There's no way in hell it was a balloon or anything.

I would say the most interesting UFO case I'd ever read was the story of Barney and Betty Hill. That's a good place to start. It happened in the 60s. They didn't know they had even been abducted until long after. For some reason people who get abducted often report the "missing time syndrome" where they may have been out in the woods or driving somewhere isolated then all of a sudden find themselves on the side of a road and have no idea how they got there or why it's instantly 2 hours ahead when they look at their watch. The woman, Betty kept having nightmares so she decided to go to a psychologist. She was put under deep hypnosis and then started recalling what happened in those few hours that went missing when she was driving in the countryside with her husband. Her husband was put under hypnosis and corroborates the story. I won't go into all the details as I don't remember everything, but the aliens examined them and probed their bodies with strange technology. As usually with these abductions, the aliens don't actually speak, they just communicate ideas through their mind.

Now here is the part of the story that blew me away. Betty asked the aliens where they were from. One of them showed her a star map and asked if she knew which star was the sun. She didn't and the alien never explained anything more beyond saying that the heavy lines represent frequently visited stars, the thinner lines were less visited routes. She also said that even though the "map" was flat, when she looked at it, the stars were in 3 dimensions, like she could see depth even though it was a 2d surface and they were also luminous, like actually shining. Under hypnosis, Betty was able to draw the star map she was shown. This is the actual map that she drew under hypnosis:



Years later an astronomer found out about the story and was particularly interested in the star map. Since it was assumed that the sun was part of this photo, she began constructing a 3d scale model of all stars in the solar neighborhood and began looking at it from all angles until she found a perfect match. Keep in mind, Betty drew her map before we had these stars cataloged so there's no way Betty could've seen such a map. The astronomer identified the stars and here is the actual map and compare it the one she drew under hypnosis:



She had said that the two big stars at the bottom right were closest from her perspective when looking at the map(they appeared with depth even though she was looking at them on a flat surface which is why she drew them big). It was concluded that this map was likely drawn from the perspective of the alien's home system. Those two stars are actually called Zeta Reticuli 1 and Zeta Reticuli 2. These two stars are almost identical to our own sun and would be great candidates to look for extra-solar planets. Not only that, every star that has a line drawn between it is a sun-like star, which are stars most likely to host planets with life. There was no way Betty knew this because we didn't have those stars cataloged at the time, yet alone knew they were sun-like. So in all likelihood one of those Zeta Reticuli stars is the home of some of these alien visitors. She and her husband passed all lie detectors too, but the map thing makes me really believe it.

There's other fascinating stories out there, check out the movie Fire in the Sky, about the Travis Walton abduction. Check out that guy I mentioned up above, Bob Lazar, his youtube clips are really fascinating. I don't know if I believe him or not, but it's just one of those what if he's not bullshitting things. If he's not, then just wow...

Edit --

Yes, it's Friday night, I'm home, not getting any poon tonight and I'm talking about space aliens.