NASA: Three newely discovered planets may contain life

[BronyPony 575]

  Quote

 

 

NASA's Kepler spacecraft has discovered three new "habitable zone" planets that are close to Earth's size, even if they're not all that close to Earth.

 

NPR's Joe Palca reports, the trio of worlds is about 1,200 light years away and are thought to lie in the so-called "Goldilocks zone" — where it's not too hot and not too cold for liquid water.

 

Just as important, the planets' moderate size — less than twice the mass of Earth — bolsters the chances for life on them, scientists says.

 

So-called exoplanets that orbit other stars have become a fairly routine find since the first of them were discovered in the 1992. But, as The Associated Press notes, "In the past ... they haven't fit all the criteria that would make them right for life. And until now, the handful of planets astronomers found in that ideal zone were just too big. Those are likely to be gas balls like Neptune and that's not suitable for life."

 

Two of the three detailed in the new findings published in the journal Science are of particular interest: Kepler-62-e and Kepler-62-f. William Borucki, the chief scientist for NASA's Kepler telescope, says the planets are slightly wider than Earth, but not too big. Kepler-62-e is a bit toasty, like a Hawaiian world and Kepler-62-f is a bit nippy, more Alaskan, Borucki tells the AP.

 

"This is the first one where I'm thinking, 'Huh, Kepler-62-f really might have life on it,' " said study co-author David Charbonneau of Harvard. "This is a very important barrier that's been crossed. Why wouldn't it have life?"

 

Palca says the Kepler spacecraft detects planets orbiting distant stars by finding small dips in the light coming from those stars when an orbiting planet passes in front.

 

Update at 5:30 p.m. ET. Clarifying The Planets' Positions:

 

We initially wrote that all three newly discovered planets orbit the star Kepler-62. In fact, two orbit that star, and another one orbits the star Kepler-69.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2013/04/18/177806349/nasa-discovers-new-earth-like-planets-around-distant-star

 

This is going to be interesting. It would be fascinating if we could meet life outside of Earth; we would be able to communicate with other intelligent beings(of course this assumes that life on these planets is inhabited by human-like creatures). However, there are many things that can go wrong.

 

EDIT: For the creativity of this topic, maybe give a description or picture of what you think they will look like.

Edited June 26, 2013 by BronyPony

[Shiki 5,856]

I cannot believe how many people think life on other planets means aliens and humans. 

 

The odds are overwhelmingly in favour of the lifeforms that could be on that planet to be just abnormal carnivores that are incapable of complex thought. The odds of intelligent life forming on those planets is slim to begin with, but the fact that the universe is so very old means it'd be a straight-up miracle if the intelligent life developed during out time. Or, perhaps, maybe intelligent life did flourish on the planets, but they could have all extinct, by now. 

 

Then, of course, we're assuming these animals are also interested in us. Not all animals are as curious as we are. If a planet is really that far away, what would be the motivation to communicate? What would a non-curious being gain from the experience? Almost nothing. 

 

---

 

Of course there's life out there (it'd be stupid to try and make a guess if any is on the planets in question, since I don't know anything about such things). Any one who thinks Earth is the only planet in the entire universe to be able to sustain life is... just... I have no words. They must not comprehend how big the universe is. At all. 

 

However, this "life on other planets" isn't all that fascinating. Maybe it'll have some amoeba. Maybe a bug. Simple creatures like this are the ones that actually survive for a long time, since they are so durable. That's probably the majority of cases out there.

 

Any intelligent life out there has probably either killed itself or just died because of some other universal cause, such as a massive meteor strike, or their sun exploding or something crazy like that. The universe is 13.7 billion years old. These kinds of things happen from time to time to planets. 

Edited June 26, 2013 by Hitagi

[SwigglySwiggly 358]

we go there, we come back... nek minit.... a whole new epidemic brought back home from another world! But, I doubt there will be smart aliens or anything visible to the human eye at all, I reckon that most life (if there is any) out there are just tiny creatures of some form of bacteria. AAAAAAAAND! what better way to bring home a infectious plague to earth than bacteria/minuscule organisms! 

[~StatesTheOblivious~ 1,795]

The problem is:

 

Everytime we try to imagine contact and interactions with extraterrestical life, the only basis of comparison we have are ourselves.

You see, I'm a huge Star Trek fan, but everytime we imagine the possible reactions and psychological mechanisms of aliens, we can only alterate our own.

 

Maybe we would be the friendly ones and they are the evil invaders, or the othe way around. I don't think that it is provided by nature that different lifeforms are supposed to interact in any way with beings from outside of heir habitat. Why? Well, look what happens on earth when a species invades an area where it didn't develop. Australia is the perfect example. Some toads, wild dogs and several other species were brought there by humans and now they are a big threat to the balance of that eco system, because they have no natural enemies.

 

So, to have contact at all would have to be a shared goal. And then we still have the problems with the distance, not to mention communication issues. But if these species would have a similar level of development like ours, they would be also aware of these problems, I think. That would at least be a good basis to start from.

 

And life can also mean that there are much less developed oraganisms than us. And I think we should avoid to interfere with the natural development of some kind of cave-aliens or waste our time with some microbes or destroy the potential of an eco system with our intervention.

[Skye Starlight 223]

Face it. Humans aren't going to be the greatest beings in the universe. We fight, a lot. If we find life on another planet, we'll probably want to study it. Kill a few of each species to dissect them, study the others and possibly not realize the creatures are intelligent because they speak another language. On earth, it took us thousands of years to spread and reconnect. These creatures may look extremely different to us. I know that even though I try not to be racist, I don't tend to trust people who don't look anything like me. How would we react to an entire species which may not be able to speak like humans, and humans unable to speak their language. It would be nigh impossible for us to connect, and they might decide that we're a threat to their lives and declare war on us without knowing...

 

There are a lot of ways things could go wrong when dealing with life on another planet.

[Concord 1,982]

Hello!

 

Ohhh, this could get interesting! I'd love to see something major happening in the near future, and discovering new life forms out of our solar system would be just it!

 

I wouldn't want to start speculating the idea too much though, as it's always better to wait and actually see what will happen, without putting your hopes up too high.

[GuerrierCosmique 146]

Just because those planets are in the habitable zone of their stars does not mean they provide enough water, air, carbonide etc. for Earth-like life and that the in fact have life evolved or been created on them (life on Earth likely came into existence by evolution, but why should it do that on other worlds?). I think intelligent design is a possibility, maybe there are human-like beings living there.

 

I believe there are many sentient species in this universe (I also think more universes, other dimensions and parallel worlds exist), except if we are the first ones or this universe is some sort of anomaly. Because, if there are any other sentient species in the Milky Way galaxy, it is likely some of them evolved a long time before mankind, millions of years. So they could colonize the galaxy in a matter of several dozen million years by slower-than-light travel and with faster-than-light speed in some hundred thousand years, then it'd be likely they discover and colonize life-friendly Earth long before humanity evolved here. Maybe humans (dolphins could be intelligent, too) are just the first sentient technology-using species in the universe or at least the galaxy. Now, TERRAFORM AND SETTLE ALL THIS WORLDS. Another possibility is, that our universe is just some sort of strange anomaly with only one planet containing life while others are impossible to reach, because this universe is just one of many and others, well, are other. Or exactly the same.

 

If those new planets are ~1200 light years away, a slower-than-light spaceship would need ~5000 years, if able to reach 20-25% c (just a guess, it could be slower or faster). Maybe some sorts of faster-than-light travel is possible.

 

Still, there are some risks. The astronauts could bring back a highly-dangerouse plague back to Earth from the new Kepler worlds or contaminate them with an Earth virus, but the starships can be sterilized when landing and returning. If those aliens are evil and want to conquer Earth while able to do this they could search for new star systems to enslave for themselves and wouldn't need us to be naiv enough to tell them the location. Also, before visiting a 1,2K ly away planet humanity must make a lot of new delopements (technological, social, politica, economical, ecological) and can colonise many new planet much nearer to Earth. In such a case it's more likely the human star empire will conquer those three Kepler planets.

 

Sentient life wiping itself out is a bad concept in my eyes. Humans for will die out, when Earth is rendered inhabitable for all forms of higher life by nuclear warfare or the sun exploding, not before such an event.

 

My final guess is, life there is possible, sentient life unlikely, but possible, too. Still, they must not provide native life, they can have been terraformed and settled by aliens thousands of years ago. Who knows?

 

Maybe aliens are here on Earth, living together with humans. Or humanity is "alien" to Earth itself, maybe the colonised it millions of years ago. Or those Annunaki from planet Nibiru, Reptiloids, Greys, Nordics, whatever, secretly rule this world together with the Comitee of the 300, Trilateral Commission, Bilderberg Group, Iluminati, Freemasons, Rothschilds, Rockefellers, FED, financial companies and other participants in "New World Order", while humanity is enslaved by now, working for offshore-banks, ruled through shadow governments, controlled by aliens...

 

Meh, that's just a silly conspiracy theory.

[~Muffin of Chaos~ 184]

 

 

If there really is other life out there (which I wouldn't be surprised), then wouldn't humans:

A- Take over planet as an alternative place to live if Earth becomes super unsafe

B- Kill said aliens to dissect

[Princess Periwinkle 3,775]

It is possible for life to exist on other planets, but I don't believe the life would be as intelligent as humans.

 

Plants? Sure. Microorganisms? Sure. Animals? Maaaaybe... Humans or humanoids? No.

[GuerrierCosmique 146]

  On 2013-06-26 at 2:46 PM, Sky Chaser said:

It is possible for life to exist on other planets, but I don't believe the life would be as intelligent as humans.

 

Plants? Sure. Microorganisms? Sure. Animals? Maaaaybe... Humans or humanoids? No.

Why? What's the reason to believe this, besides the Fermi Paradoxon (assuming life on other planets did not have enough time to evolve)?

[Princess Periwinkle 3,775]

  On 2013-06-26 at 2:51 PM, Tahirih said:

Why? What's the reason to believe this, besides the Fermi Paradoxon (assuming life on other planets did not have enough time to evolve)?

 

I'm going to assume you're an evolutionist (I'm a creationist), so I'll answer your question from both standpoints.

 

From a creationist standpoint, I don't believe God would make more human life on other planets. Of course, that's debatable, but I just  don't see it happening.

 

From an evolutionist standpoint, the chances of life as advanced as humans is so incredibly small that it's a crazy miracle that it even happened once. The chances of it happening twice is... well, twice as slim.

[BronyPony 575]

  On 2013-06-26 at 2:56 PM, Sky Chaser said:

I'm going to assume you're an evolutionist (I'm a creationist), so I'll answer your question from both standpoints.

 

From a creationist standpoint, I don't believe God would make more human life on other planets. Of course, that's debatable, but I just  don't see it happening.

 

From an evolutionist standpoint, the chances of life as advanced as humans is so incredibly small that it's a crazy miracle that it even happened once. The chances of it happening twice is... well, twice as slim.

There are the possibilities. We do not know God's intention or creation besides the Bible, which gives a glimpse of his Universe at the very beginning. There are the possibilities.

[Prince Midnight 817]

I only have a few words for this, while it is plausable, how do we know (assuming there is life) their not hostile, or something like that, or mabey their super advanced and will conquer earth make us their slaves or something.

 

and then they come here and we beat them with a WW2 battleship (har har see what i did thar, though come to think of it....that would be kinda badass)

 

[GuerrierCosmique 146]

@Sky Chaser: As I mentioned before, I think it is likely life on Earth came into existence by changes happening over a very long time, something like evolution through adaption to the environment, maybe "intelligent design" because guided by higher, transzental beings. But I don't know from where life on other planets could originate from. Maybe there's a planet or universe where sentience comes from "quantum fluctuations" in an extension of space.

 

If a higher entity created life, it is possible he/she/it did it on more than one planet. Or maybe he created the universe for humans to occupy it. The bible states we shall fill the Earth, this has been done by now, the next step can be the solar system, the galaxy and the universe. During medieval age European theologists discussed if God could have created an infinite number of worlds.

 

According to Fermi Paradoxon, it can be likely that we are only the first ones, because by now the universe isn't old enough to give other sentient species enough time to evolve. Because if others did, some may have came into being long before humans, so they could have settled Earth before we evolved here.

 

You're right that the chances for sentient life are very slim. But, there are 100 billion (planets in galaxy) * 100 billion (galaxies in observable universe) chances for that happening. If humanity is the alone in this galaxy (explaing Fermi Paradoxon), still dozen billions civilizations can exist.

Edited June 26, 2013 by Tahirih

[Nerdy Luigi 2,065]

Intelligent life can easily exist on a planet. I don't know what these planets were (whoops) but I believe the conditions for a planet to contain life aren't very strict. Just need plenty of oxygen, water, and (of course) time. But Earth has contained life about 3.5 billion years, and Mars actually was suitable for life, but it's passed that now.

 

 

But to get back on topic, would the aliens be hostile? More than likely. Why? Because of competition. It is naturally occuring in many organisms. (even duos like this scenario) We and They will both want control, and that will get OUT of control.

Edited June 26, 2013 by Rainbow P.F. Sparkle

[aoEAF2FBvC0MIo2Q 3,673]

Well, we're looking at Earth-like planets. We don't know a whole lot about those planets' energy balances, do we? It's the energy balance that'll ultimately determine the temperatures on there. Things like albedo and greenhouse effect come to mind. If we were to pump enough CO2 into our atmosphere, we would eventually end up like Venus.

 

But let's assume that the conditions for life as we know it are just right where plant life has evolved to reduce CO2 and water into glucose and oxygen so you have the same chemical cycles as on Earth. We'd be more likely to see simple herbivores and carnivores. Intelligent life might be more likely to have evolved if life has had enough time, as well as having had enough calamities. Evolution doesn't move in a gradual way but more in step functions which occur in "brief" moments of great stress on species. If it's a planet where nothing ever happens; no meteor impacts, no super volcanic eruptions, no gamma ray bursts hitting the planet, no ice ages, etc. we could expect to see the evolution of life to be relatively behind for its age.

[Gigapony 650]

I always find these kinds of articles very interesting, but just a little depressing as well. For one, because of the very huge distances, it's unlikely I'll ever get to see whether or not they have life (or if so, what kind of life) during my lifetime, all I get to see is speculation.

 

But also because it's more likely that if we do find planets with life on them, it'll almost certainly be generic microorganisms. Which is interesting in its own way, but I have to admit I'd find it rather boring.

 

Though I do have to lol at the inevitable comments in alien life threads where there's two distinct camps of people who either are dedicated misanthropists who think all humans are assholes who will inevitably exploit and destroy alien life, or think "alien life" immediately equates to "oppressive evil intergalactic empire who will enslave us".

Edited June 26, 2013 by Gigapony

[YALL ARE FUCKING GAY 505]

i have to came at this speaking logically 

 

look up that the night sky yes see the stars they are suns. how many of those are surrounded by planets how many of those planets could or do have the necessary climate and or qualities that "could" support carbon or silicon based life forms ( two elements that can support life forms) 

 

and then ask yourself  how many of those billions and billions of planets could contain life

 

and then ask yourself how many of the millions upon millions could contain intelligent life forms as advanced or more so than our own

 

it is just logical that we are not the sole intelligent life forms that inhabit this universe  

[Zygen 6,066]

I think its possible theres life on these planets, I find it hard to believe earth is the only planet that has any life.

 

Now whether its sentient life like humans, we don't really know. And it is alot less likely, of course not impossible.

 

Whether we should make contact with them depends on their sentience or not. And i'm not sure if we should or not, it depends really, if they seem to be deadly and not interested in befriending us.

 

So I guess if we're safe from harm it might be good, especially if they have resources and stuff, and as long as they're not aggressive.

 

If they're not Sentient then I doubt theres a need for contact with them.

 

Besides it'll be a while before we can probably contact them that far away anyways .

[Sugar Pea 2,682]

Even if we did find life outside earth, knowing our so called government they would probably take them to slice and dice.  Probably wouldn't even tell us if they did, anyhow. -_-
But omg new life
Yay! Now I can befriend an alien!

[Meirno 550]

Ever since I was a young little colt, I've ALWAYS loved astronomy. It's such a fascinating topic, and I love thinking about what kind of alien life exists beyond our solar system. So I always get a good giddy feeling when NASA puts out these announcements of possibly hospitable planets. 

 

It's unfortunate some people disbelieve in aliens. I am very certain that they exist, intelligent and simple life forms combined. There are possibly millions of different planets with life flourishing out there somewhere. It's way too impractical to say we're the only ones. 

 

As far as guessing what they look like, I would be thinking more of a quadraped style creature. Considering the way we're built, being bipedal creatures is clumsy. Possibly with 4 legs and 2 arms with similar hands to ours. 

Actually, if any of you remember the books Animorphs, the way Ax was built. 4 eyes, two normal like ours, 2 built up tall on stalks for good 360 degree coverage. 

But there are far too many possibilities. But I think it'd be awesome if a species of alien was like that. 

 

 

Something I forgot to add, what sucks big times about all this is; these planets are so far out that if we ever built a telescope to see that far out with a chance of lookig for life, we'd be seeing the planet millions of years ago.... For those who don't know, the further out in to space one looks(Once you start getting into the distance measurement of light years) You start, technically, looking back in time. Because, it takes time for light to travel. 

So what we see now took place a massively long time ago. What is happening at this very moment on this alien planet, it will take us a couple million years for us to see that because of the time it takes that light to travel here. Very unfortunate.

Edited June 28, 2013 by Meirno

[GuerrierCosmique 146]

  On 2013-06-28 at 8:26 AM, Pandah-Sama said:

Even if we did find life outside earth, knowing our so called government they would probably take them to slice and dice.  Probably wouldn't even tell us if they did, anyhow.

Some believe that the goverment (at least the American) is actually controlled by aliens, a reptiloid species called Annunaki from the planet Nibiru. Maybe aliens are here since long ago to conspirate with the government to enslave humanity.

 

No, that's just a silly conspiracy theory.

 

  On 2013-06-28 at 8:34 AM, Meirno said:

Ever since I was a young little colt, I've ALWAYS loved astronomy. It's such a fascinating topic, and I love thinking about what kind of alien life exists beyond our solar system. So I always get a good giddy feeling when NASA puts out these announcements of possibly hospitable planets. 

 

It's unfortunate some people disbelieve in aliens. I am very certain that they exist, intelligent and simple life forms combined. There are possibly millions of different planets with life flourishing out there somewhere. It's way too impractical to say we're the only ones. 

 

As far as guessing what they look like, I would be thinking more of a quadraped style creature. Considering the way we're built, being bipedal creatures is clumsy. Possibly with 4 legs and 2 arms with similar hands to ours. 

Actually, if any of you remember the books Animorphs, the way Ax was built. 4 eyes, two normal like ours, 2 built up tall on stalks for good 360 degree coverage. 

But there are far too many possibilities. But I think it'd be awesome if a species of alien was like that. 

 

 

Something I forgot to add, what sucks big times about all this is; these planets are so far out that if we ever built a telescope to see that far out with a chance of lookig for life, we'd be seeing the planet millions of years ago.... For those who don't know, the further out in to space one looks(Once you start getting into the distance measurement of light years) You start, technically, looking back in time. Because, it takes time for light to travel. 

So what we see now took place a massively long time ago. What is happening at this very moment on this alien planet, it will take us a couple million years for us to see that because of the time it takes that light to travel here. Very unfortunate.

I think those who disbelieve in extra-terristrial life are just ignorant and/or arrogant, if they don't realize how many worlds are out there or arrogant if they believe humanity is the most advanced species (still, it can be possible according to the Fermi Paradoxon, then we are the first ones).

 

Land-living creatures need legs like those on Earth to wald and hands if they're sentient to use tools and manipulute their environment. I believe the quadraped stature with arms is a bit to complicated compared to the bipedal one. But with so many planets a lot of diversity should be found.

 

Those new planets are 1,200 light years away which means we see them like they were 1200 years ago. But, just with current technology it is possible to build a telescope consisting of hundreds or thousands of mirrors with that we'd be able to locate artificial structures on exoplanets.

[Meirno 550]

  On 2013-06-28 at 8:59 AM, Tahirih said:

Some believe that the goverment (at least the American) is actually controlled by aliens, a reptiloid species called Annunaki from the planet Nibiru. Maybe aliens are here since long ago to conspirate with the government to enslave humanity.

 

No, that's just a silly conspiracy theory.

 

I think those who disbelieve in extra-terristrial life are just ignorant and/or arrogant, if they don't realize how many worlds are out there or arrogant if they believe humanity is the most advanced species (still, it can be possible according to the Fermi Paradoxon, then we are the first ones).

 

Land-living creatures need legs like those on Earth to wald and hands if they're sentient to use tools and manipulute their environment. I believe the quadraped stature with arms is a bit to complicated compared to the bipedal one. But with so many planets a lot of diversity should be found.

 

Those new planets are 1,200 light years away which means we see them like they were 1200 years ago. But, just with current technology it is possible to build a telescope consisting of hundreds or thousands of mirrors with that we'd be able to locate artificial structures on exoplanets.

 

  On 2013-06-28 at 8:59 AM, Tahirih said:

Some believe that the goverment (at least the American) is actually controlled by aliens, a reptiloid species called Annunaki from the planet Nibiru. Maybe aliens are here since long ago to conspirate with the government to enslave humanity.

 

No, that's just a silly conspiracy theory.

 

I think those who disbelieve in extra-terristrial life are just ignorant and/or arrogant, if they don't realize how many worlds are out there or arrogant if they believe humanity is the most advanced species (still, it can be possible according to the Fermi Paradoxon, then we are the first ones).

 

Land-living creatures need legs like those on Earth to wald and hands if they're sentient to use tools and manipulute their environment. I believe the quadraped stature with arms is a bit to complicated compared to the bipedal one. But with so many planets a lot of diversity should be found.

 

Those new planets are 1,200 light years away which means we see them like they were 1200 years ago. But, just with current technology it is possible to build a telescope consisting of hundreds or thousands of mirrors with that we'd be able to locate artificial structures on exoplanets.

 

You, sir, get a brohoof just for your first paragraph right off the bat. 

 

Not too true. There be serpent style bodies just the same, even though less likely. Or there could even be another way of movement all together. Maybe something even as useless as tumbling around. No legs, just an abdominal region so they might be able to worm around. And yes, my envisionment is more than likely not possible, but the creator asked us to be creative so I just picture what I thought would be a perfect species, and that just happens to be the creatures from the old book series.