There is potentially over 8 [b]billion[/b] planets capable of life in [b][i]our galaxy.[/i][/b]
[quote] By extrapolating Kepler’s findings, astronomers have come up with some not-altogether-unfounded estimates for these values. For instance, they concluded that about 22% of Sun-like stars has at least one planet we class as potentially habitable. Doing the math based on the latest estimates for the total number of stars in the Milky Way, that gives us a rough figure of 8.8 billion potentially habitable planets in the Milky Way. That’s a lot of rolls of the dice, assuming you believe life has any chance at all of starting spontaneously. [/quote]
That's just our galaxy people. There's hundreds of billions of galaxies in our universe. That's a lot of potential for life. We're not special snowflakes.
[url=http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/170404-kepler-20-of-sun-like-stars-have-habitable-planets-alien-life-drake-equation-finally-has-a-leg-to-stand-on]source[/url]
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3Spooky5Me
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Do you want to bury the man who seeks the truth, or bury the truth so no man can seek it!? *whistles X-Files theme*
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The problem with this is the word "potentially". For those of you who don't know, we count the number of planets round stars and discern their atmosphere by measuring the changes in light coming from the star. They count the number of planets by looking out for periodic dips in the stars light, but it's not very accurate. They have no way of knowing whether two dips of similar but differing size are two planets or one on an irregular orbit, or if a dip is a planet or a particularly dense part of the systems asteroid belt. Similarly they have no way of knowing if it's one large planet or two approaching synchrony in their orbits. They figure out the elemental content of a planet by looking at the changes in light received from the planet. Essentially, all atoms have their own photonic barcode they stamp any light touching them with. When passed through a prism this light refracts into its different colours, revealing the barcode. [url=http://www.astronomyknowhow.com/pics-res/hydrogen-spectra.jpg]Here is hydrogens barcode[/url], to make it easier to understand. Again, the problem with this method is we can't tell the difference between a large earth like planet, and a small gas giant with a Venusian moon, or two close by planets each with half the requirements for life. So whilst in [i]theory[/i] there could well be 8 billion habitable planets out there, chances are that a large amount of them will turn out to be wildly inaccurate false positives. Uneducated guess- 1 billion (generously).
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It's certainly interesting, and the potential for extra terrestrial life is there. But still, I'd rather take a more skeptical, hesitant approach lest we fall into the gambler's fallacy.
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There's got to be some other form of life out there. I have a hard time believing that Earth is the only planet in existence that has life on it...
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You see, the only problem is getting there.
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Yet we searched so hard for extra terrestrial life and have found nothing
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Capable of carbon based life forms. There may be more than one type of life form and that could create multiple habitable zones around a star
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Fermi paradox plz
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Swiggity.
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The glieses I've heard of
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75% are orange. I dont want to live on a fruit.
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I wish they'd come visit us :( I want to meet an alien race. That would be the bomb. And maybe smoke their equivalent to reefer with them? Shit yeah.
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The absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
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[b] [/b]
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Ayyyyyy [spoiler]lmao[/spoiler]
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Yeah, but there are hundreds of specific factors that contribute to habitability. While there may be some, that number is much smaller.
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Astronomers tend to put "potentially habitable" in a very big range. I agree that there are planets that can and most likely do hold other life forms but the amount of things needed in order to be completely habitable is huge. They consider certain distances possibly habitable relative to the sun but we don't know if they have water, ozone layers (considering they are similar to human needs), etc... I do agree that there are many similar Earths out there.
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Send a message in space. 1v1 me scrublord fgts. Whatever planet responds we pillage.
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I find relativity and space time a lot more interesting. Can black holes transport life? That's the real question.
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What is life but a grouping of narcissistic atoms?
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[b][/b]
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I'm going to put my brain into a cyborg so I can have "relations" on all those planets.
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It says 8.8 billion. you said 80 billion. You may want to fix that. But still, that's alot, even if they are only potential planets.
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>shouts in whining voice I am too a special snowflake!