x404.co.uk
http://www.x404.co.uk/forum/

Alien life deemed impossible by analysis of 500 planets
http://www.x404.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=12209		 Page 1 of 2
Author:  Amnesia10 [ Sun Jan 23, 2011 3:45 pm ]
Post subject:  Alien life deemed impossible by analysis of 500 planets
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/spac ... anets.html

Quote:
There is no hope of finding alien life in space because conditions on all other planets are too hostile, a leading astronomer has claimed.

I doubt that. The planets that we have found so far have been very close to the central star making it easier to find them. This would make them too hot, yet there could still be smaller earth like planets in the goldilocks zone which we cannot detect yet. It is still way to early to declare life impossible in the rest of the universe.
Author:  rustybucket [ Sun Jan 23, 2011 4:38 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Alien life deemed impossible by analysis of 500 planets
Quote:
Alien life deemed impossible by analysis of 500 planets


Headline fail. Should read:

Quote:
Bloke makes up data about trillions of planets


:roll:
Author:  dogbert10 [ Sun Jan 23, 2011 4:46 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Alien life deemed impossible by analysis of 500 planets
That's a bit like plotting two points on a graph and then drawing a straight line through them and claiming there's a linear relationship.
Author:  mikepgood [ Sun Jan 23, 2011 6:03 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Alien life deemed impossible by analysis of 500 planets
It's life, Jim, but not as we know it.

Only 10% of the planets are inhabitable by our standards around here, and even that one is pretty bad over a lot of the surface.

And yes, I realise Pluto isn't a planet anymore
Author:  paulzolo [ Sun Jan 23, 2011 7:00 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Alien life deemed impossible by analysis of 500 planets
mikepgood wrote:
It's life, Jim, but not as we know it.

Only 10% of the planets are inhabitable by our standards around here, and even that one is pretty bad over a lot of the surface.

And yes, I realise Pluto isn't a planet anymore

Key phrase in bold. We are too busy looking for life like us, we seem to forget that life may well be very different elsewhere.
Author:  ProfessorF [ Sun Jan 23, 2011 7:11 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Alien life deemed impossible by analysis of 500 planets
Don't forget that we're also looking back in time.
Things could have developed quite differently in the mean time.
Author:  JJW009 [ Sun Jan 23, 2011 10:23 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Alien life deemed impossible by analysis of 500 planets
Quote:
There's absolutely no evidence for this, but it is scientific fact.

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. The universe is not only very big, it's also very old. There could be life that formed aeons ago and spread into space before it's home world died; entire empires might have come and gone out there.

We've only turned over a few rocks, and from this distance we can't even see very clearly. We don't even know what we're looking for :lol:
Author:  l3v1ck [ Sun Jan 23, 2011 10:32 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Alien life deemed impossible by analysis of 500 planets
Rubbish. There's probably millions of billions of planets. Just because they haven't found life on 500 of them......
That's like going to the seaside, filling a cup with seawater, not finding any fish in it and saying "it's imposible for fish to live in the sea".
Author:  JJW009 [ Sun Jan 23, 2011 10:42 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Alien life deemed impossible by analysis of 500 planets
I can't help wondering if he's been misquoted or taken out of context. Can anyone find the original material?
Author:  ProfessorF [ Sun Jan 23, 2011 10:50 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Alien life deemed impossible by analysis of 500 planets
A Google for 'Howard Smith life in space' brings up hits on the Daily Fail and the Torygraph, and not much else. I smell a press release.
Author:  cloaked_wolf [ Sun Jan 23, 2011 11:11 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Alien life deemed impossible by analysis of 500 planets
JJW009 wrote:
Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

I've seen you write that so many times, even I've started saying it!

But analysis of 500 planets is nothing. It's like seeing five white ducks and declaring all ducks to be white. It takes only one black duck to destroy that! But you'd need to see all ducks to say that all ducks are white!
Author:  Amnesia10 [ Mon Jan 24, 2011 9:54 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Alien life deemed impossible by analysis of 500 planets
dogbert10 wrote:
That's a bit like plotting two points on a graph and then drawing a straight line through them and claiming there's a linear relationship.

Yes I agree and the two plot points are near one end of the graph as well. :lol:
Author:  JohnSheridan [ Mon Jan 24, 2011 11:54 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Alien life deemed impossible by analysis of 500 planets
What an idiotic statement :roll:

There must be million/billions of planets in the entire universe and yet not one has life on apart from Earth? Unlikely in the extreme.
Author:  Amnesia10 [ Mon Jan 24, 2011 12:37 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Alien life deemed impossible by analysis of 500 planets
JohnSheridan wrote:
What an idiotic statement :roll:

There must be million/billions of planets in the entire universe and yet not one has life on apart from Earth? Unlikely in the extreme.

There are 100 billion stars in our galaxy say 10 planets per star makes at least a 1000 billion possible planets in our galaxy alone. A sample of 0.00000005% would not be statistically significant. :roll: And that is just one galaxy, ignoring the possibility of hundreds of billions of other galaxies.
Author:  jonbwfc [ Mon Jan 24, 2011 2:01 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Alien life deemed impossible by analysis of 500 planets
Quote:
Our galaxy itself contains a hundred billion stars.
It's a hundred thousand light years side to side.
It bulges in the middle, sixteen thousand light years thick,
But out by us, it's just three thousand light years wide.
We're thirty thousand light years from galactic central point.
We go 'round every two hundred million years,
And our galaxy is only one of millions of billions
In this amazing and expanding universe.

The universe itself keeps on expanding and expanding
In all of the directions it can whizz
As fast as it can go, at the speed of light, you know,
Twelve million miles a minute, and that's the fastest speed there is.
So remember, when you're feeling very small and insecure,
How amazingly unlikely is your birth,
And pray that there's intelligent life somewhere up in space,
'Cause there's bugger all down here on Earth.
Page 1 of 2 All times are UTC
Powered by phpBB® Forum Software © phpBB Group
https://www.phpbb.com/