There may be millions of habitable planets in our galaxy

Discussion in 'Science' started by (original)late, Nov 13, 2020.

  1. WillReadmore

    WillReadmore Well-Known Member

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    Yes, the size of this universe presents limits that are not surmountable today when it comes to searching for life.

    Astronomers believe we can receive electromagnetic signals from a lot of our galaxy.

    We've found a bunch of exoplanets now. And, there are space based telescopes being designed and built today that will be able to capure light coming from the atosphers of some of those planets.

    It would take many generations of humans to sit in a spacecraft in order to travel to those exoplanets. So, sensors are the answer.

    Within our solar system there is a lot more than that being done, obviously. We're bringing back materal from asteroids. There is a plan to bring back Mars material without spaceman involvement. We have a bunch of moon rocks returned from an Apollo mission. We have landers on the Moon and Mars. We've visited all the way out to Pluto and beyond. We're sending a 1 ton nuclear powered drone to Jupiter's largest moon so we're not limited to what a rover can do. China is building a giant telescope on the far side of the Moon so it can collect signals not polluted by Earth. Europe has several missions designed to find and analyze exoplanets - the most advanced search by visual methods when it launches.

    It's not all focused on finding life, of course. But, all these missions do have that in mind. And, none of it would be helped by spacemen.
     
  2. OldManOnFire

    OldManOnFire Well-Known Member

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    From human's perspective, realizing our knowledge and capabilities, the infinite vastness of space/time is insurmountable. Unless there exists new physics that can greatly reduce this vastness, that can truly allow communications and travel between solar systems and galaxies, even with our future technological advances, I suspect we will remain alone in our speck of the Universe. We might discover a tantalizing signal or anomaly, allowing us to guess there are others out there, but we'll never visit or communicate with each other. I suppose just discovering there are others out there, even if we can never meet and greet, would be a big fricken deal!
     
  3. WillReadmore

    WillReadmore Well-Known Member

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    I agree with all of that!

    It would be seriously exciiting to find that there is life somewhere out there even if we can't ever communicate due to distance or level of advancement.

    Maybe it would be even more exciting to figure out how to reconcile quantum mechanics and Einstein gravity. Who knows what that might mean. And, careful examination of our universe seems like one of the very few ways to advance in that direction.
     
  4. politicalcenter

    politicalcenter Well-Known Member

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    Or, if we could move our minds where we can't physically go. Maybe there is a communication through some form of mental telepathy. We could exchange experiences through virtual reality. Just putting stuff out there.
     
  5. Siskie

    Siskie Active Member

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    Or just waiting for us to achieve globalization. Something I imagine is needed to get over that space travel bottleneck.
     
  6. OldManOnFire

    OldManOnFire Well-Known Member

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    The more we know the better off we will be...
     
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  7. OldManOnFire

    OldManOnFire Well-Known Member

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    There would be no need for iPhones...better sell my stock...
     
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  8. politicalcenter

    politicalcenter Well-Known Member

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    What? Buy VR stock? ...... don't know nuttin bout that?
     

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