Earth 2.0

[Da_Funk]

Gliese 581g mystery: Scientist spotted 'mysterious pulse of light' from direction of new'Earth planet last year | Mail Online

And so it has begun..

An astronomer picked up a mysterious pulse of light coming from the direction of the newly discovered Earth-like planet almost two years ago, it has emerged.

Dr Ragbir Bhathal, a scientist at the University of Western Sydney, picked up the odd signal in December 2008, long before it was announced that the star Gliese 581 has habitable planets in orbit around it.

A member of the Australian chapter of SETI, the organisation that looks for communication from distant planets, Dr Bhathal had been sweeping the skies when he discovered a 'suspicious' signal from an area of the galaxy that holds the newly-discovered Gliese 581g. The remarkable coincidence adds another layer of mystery to the announcement last night that scientists had discovered another planet in the system: Gliese 581g - the most Earth-like planet ever found.

Dr Bhathal's discovery had come just months before astronomers announced that they had found a similar, slightly less habitable planet around the same star 20 light years away. This planet was called Gliese 581e. When asked about his discovery at the time Dr Bhathal admitted he had been really excited about what he had possibly stumbled across.

He said: 'Whenever there’s a clear night, I go up to the observatory and do a run on some of the celestial objects. Looking at one of these objects, we found this signal.

'And you know, I got really excited with it. So next I had to analyse it. We have special software to analyse these signals, because when you look at celestial objects through the equipment we have, you also pick up a lot of noise.' He went on: 'We found this very sharp signal, sort of a laser lookalike thing which is the sort of thing we’re looking for - a very sharp spike. And that is what we found. So that was the excitement about the whole thing.'

For months after his discovery Dr Bhathal scanned the skies for a second signal to see whether it was just a glitch in his instrumentation but his search came to nothing. But the discovery of Earth-like planets around Gliese 581 - both 581e and 581d, which was in the habitable zone - has also caught the public imagination. Documentary-maker RDF and social-networking site Bebo used a radio telescope in Ukraine to send a powerful focused beam of information - 500 messages from the public in the form of radiowaves - to Gliese 581.

And Dr Steven Vogt who led the study at the University of California, Santa Cruz, today said that he was '100 per cent sure ' that there was life on the planet.

The planet lies in the star's 'Goldilocks zone' - the region in space where conditions are neither too hot or too cold for liquid water to form oceans, lakes and rivers. The planet also appears to have an atmosphere, a gravity like our own and could well be capable of life. Researchers say the findings suggest the universe is teeming with world like our own. 'If these are rare, we shouldn't have found one so quickly and so nearby,'

'The number of systems with potentially habitable planets is probably on the order of 10 or 20 per cent, and when you multiply that by the hundreds of billions of stars in the Milky Way, that's a large number. There could be tens of billions of these systems in our galaxy

He told Discovery News: 'Personally, given the ubiquity and propensity of life to flourish wherever it can, I would say that the chances for life on this planet are 100 percent. I have almost no doubt about it'.

The planet is so far away, spaceships travelling close to the speed of light would take 20 years to make the journey. If a rocket was one day able to travel at a tenth of the speed of light, it would take 200 years to make the journey.

Planets orbiting distant stars are too small to be seen by telescopes. Instead, astronomers look for tell-tale gravitational wobbles in the stars that show a planet is in orbit. The findings come from 11 years of observations at the W. M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii. The planet orbits a small red star called Gliese 581 in the constellation of Libra. The planet, named Glieseg, is 118,000,000,000,000 miles away - so far away that light from its start takes 20 years to reach the Earth.

It takes just 37 days to orbit its sun which means its seasons last for just a few days. One side of the planet always faces its star and basks in perpetual daylight, while the other is in perpetual darkness.
The most suitable place for life or future human colonists would be in the 'grey' zone - the band between darkness and light that circles the planet. 'Any emerging life forms would have a wide range of stable climates to choose from and to evolve around, depending on their longitude,' said Dr Vogt who reports the find in the Astrophysical Journal.

If Gliese 581g has a rocky composition similar to the Earth's, its diameter would be about 1.2 to 1.4 times that of the Earth. It's gravity is likely to be similar - allowing a human astronaut to walk on the surface upright without difficulty.

 

[Prize Gotti]

I did a bit of reading then and noticed this was interesting;

Radio signal sent from Earth

A Message From Earth (AMFE) is a high-powered digital radio signal that was sent on 9 October 2008 towards Gliese 581 c, a large terrestrial extrasolar planet orbiting the red dwarf star Gliese 581. The signal is a digital time capsule containing 501 messages that were selected through a competition on the social networking site, Bebo. The message was sent using the RT-70 radar telescope of Ukraine's National Space Agency. The signal will reach Gliese 581 in early 2029

 

[S O F I]

lawl @ 2029

 

[Ristol]

Space is mad weird.

 

[Prize Gotti]

lawl @ 2029

2029 isnt all that far away if you think about it, sure its 19 years, but considering the distance, I think thats pretty quick.

 

[masta247]

I have no idea why assume that they will understand that signal. Close to impossible. They won't be even able to see it.
But it's indeed interesting and a nice try, even with such low odds.

 

[Da_Funk]

It has nothing to do with them undestanding the signal and everything to do with them recognizing it as an artificially produced radio signal.

 

[masta247]

It has nothing to do with them undestanding the signal and everything to do with them recognizing it as an artificially produced radio signal.

Yes that's the point. They will most probably not recognize it. Any technology anywhere would be probably totally different than ours.

Their technology would have to be both: very similar to ours, based on same concepts and they would have to be at a similar stage of development. About 1/100000 or so of our existence as a thinking kind ago we haven't been able to pick up an artificial signal from space. Not far from now we'll probably abandon radio transmission in its current form. What are the odds that a different civilization will be able to pick it up?

 

[tHuG $TyLe]

19 years? I know a guy that get send a signal to my dish illegally in less than 10 seconds. I'll give him a call. brb.

 

[Da_Funk]

Yes that's the point. They will most probably not recognize it. Any technology anywhere would be probably totally different than ours.

Their technology would have to be both: very similar to ours, based on same concepts and they would have to be at a similar stage of development. About 1/100000 or so of our existence as a thinking kind ago we haven't been able to pick up an artificial signal from space. Not far from now we'll probably abandon radio transmission in its current form. What are the odds that a different civilization will be able to pick it up?

Well, the laws of physics and math are universal. The characters we use to represent them are the only thing that changes in the universe, so far as we know. What that means is, any device they (assuming there is a they) build capable of picking up radio signals will pick up each and every signal we beam at them. Now all of this is assuming there is a technologically advanced species on the planet, the odds of which are debatable. That being said, what hurt is there to at least try?

It seems the majority of people out there are concerend with finding only "intelligent" life. I'd be satisfied with finding even single celled bacteria anywhere other than Earth.

 

[dilla]

Well, the laws of physics and math are universal. The characters we use to represent them are the only thing that changes in the universe, so far as we know. What that means is, any device they (assuming there is a they) build capable of picking up radio signals will pick up each and every signal we beam at them. Now all of this is assuming there is a technologically advanced species on the planet, the odds of which are debatable. That being said, what hurt is there to at least try?

It seems the majority of people out there are concerend with finding only "intelligent" life. I'd be satisfied with finding even single celled bacteria anywhere other than Earth.

The force of gravity varies by planet, or the distance from the sun, right? Which is why we weigh more on other planets. Stars are no different. I feel evolution took place on Earth has humans and other animals designed for the physics of the Earth. If we move to another planet, we'd have mutants after a few thousand years since they would develop to fit the physics of that planet.

 

[Da_Funk]

The force of gravity varies by planet, or the distance from the sun, right? Which is why we weigh more on other planets. Stars are no different.

No, the force of gravity is a constant 6.61x10^-11 N or something close to that no matter where you go in the universe. You feel different accelerations due to gravity depending on how much mass is in a certain area. Weight is the product of acceleration due to gravity by mass. Therefore, weight will change whenever you experience a different accleration due to gravity, while mass stays constant. This is why I've always been confused when people try and interchange their weight in lbs to their mass in kg.

I feel evolution took place on Earth has humans and other animals designed for the physics of the Earth. If we move to another planet, we'd have mutants after a few thousand years since they would develop to fit the physics of that planet.

This is true.

 

[S O F I]

Let me be the first person to say, before some other liberal gets the chance, that if we don't know how to live on this planet and take care of it, we don't deserve another one.

 

[Da_Funk]

^Seeing as how the nearest one is 20 light years away, that point is moot

 

[EDouble]

that shit doesnt make sense 2 me

how the fuck could we ever discover life on another planet if any body that goes for the ride will die because it takes millions of years

same shit 4 the aliens on their way here how many cars full of dead aliens r there floating in space?

 

[dilla]

No, the force of gravity is a constant 6.61x10^-11 N or something close to that no matter where you go in the universe. You feel different accelerations due to gravity depending on how much mass is in a certain area. Weight is the product of acceleration due to gravity by mass. Therefore, weight will change whenever you experience a different accleration due to gravity, while mass stays constant. This is why I've always been confused when people try and interchange their weight in lbs to their mass in kg.



This is true.

...and they would probably turn on us and declare war, thinking that they were superior and evolved from us.

There was something that Christine O'Donnel said the other day that I couldn't quite answer. If we evolved from primates, why are there still primates?

 

[Da_Funk]

There was something that Christine O'Donnel said the other day that I couldn't quite answer. If we evolved from primates, why are there still primates?

I don't know enough about biology to give you a hundred percent response but I think its along these lines: the monkeys, chimps, and baboons around today are not the ones we evolved from. Same group of species yes, different family of species however.

 

[masta247]

However all "inferior" species are there because we allow them to. Not long ago we wouldn't even allow other people (that we considered "different" or "inferior) to live. In some cases we still don't. However there are no massive wars because our planet became more united. The fact that someone is from a different country doesn't seem like a barrier anymore. We don't consider a different country to be a an entirely different, potentially hostile territory because our technology allowed us to assimilate over all those years.

The differences between us and any other species from the galaxy might be so big that it's unimaginable and it's hard to tell what they might do. If they're more advanced then there's a high risk that we're screwed.

About Radio signals then yes, our technology is based on maths and physics from our world. Even a much more advanced species might not have ever used or picked an "earthy"-like radio signal. We are using them because someone on earth came up with that idea not long ago. My point is that even a hundred of years from now or so we'll probably have more advanced technologies.
There's nothing wrong about sending a signal if there's any chance that it'll succeed. It's just that it's very slim while that article almost made it seem like we're about to contact the aliens within 20 years.

And I would also be very happy if someone found any kind of species somewhere in the space.

 

[Da_Funk]

that shit doesnt make sense 2 me

how the fuck could we ever discover life on another planet if any body that goes for the ride will die because it takes millions of years

same shit 4 the aliens on their way here how many cars full of dead aliens r there floating in space?

To be quite honest the possibility of advanced life on this planet is slim to none. It doesn't rotate on its axis, meaning it won't have a magnetic field. With no magnetic it would very difficult for an advanced species to develop. To look for life on another planet, we should be looking no further than Europa (one of Jupiter's moons) or Enceladus (one of Saturn's moons).

However all "inferior" species are there because we allow them to. Not long ago we wouldn't even allow other people (that we considered "different" or "inferior) to live. In some cases we still don't. However there are no massive wars because our planet became more united. The fact that someone is from a different country doesn't seem like a barrier anymore. We don't consider a different country to be a an entirely different, potentially hostile territory because our technology allowed us to assimilate over all those years.

I don't quite understand what exactly you are trying to say here. Inferior species exist because we allow them to? Well that is just not true, if it were not for the "inferior" species, as you call them, we wouldn't be here.

The differences between us and any other species from the galaxy might be so big that it's unimaginable and it's hard to tell what they might do. If they're more advanced then there's a high risk that we're screwed.

I take it you mean they might exterminate us? If so I think you should reconsider. We as humans tend to assign human like qualities to aliens when we imagine them, which is just well, stupid.

About Radio signals then yes, our technology is based on maths and physics from our world. Even a much more advanced species might not have ever used or picked an "earthy"-like radio signal. We are using them because someone on earth came up with that idea not long ago. My point is that even a hundred of years from now or so we'll probably have more advanced technologies.
There's nothing wrong about sending a signal if there's any chance that it'll succeed. It's just that it's very slim while that article almost made it seem like we're about to contact the aliens within 20 years.

And I would also be very happy if someone found any kind of species somewhere in the space.

There is no such as thing as math and physics from our world. Nor is there such thing as an Earthy like radio signal. The key to beaming a radio signal into space is to send it in a repeating mathematical pattern at continous intervals, if you are looking for ET.

A hundred years from now we won't be able to beam any higher energy signals into Earth, such as x-rays or gamma-rays. Why? Because those require enormous amounts of energy, such as an exploding star.

I guess what I'm trying to say is this, wherver you go in the universe, the fundamental laws of physics are the same. Which means that the four fundamental forces behave in the same manner wherever you are in the universe. Therefore any instrument an alien species builds capable of picking up radio signals, no matter how differently it is constructed, will pick up radio signals we beam them. If it were not this way, SETI wouldn't exist.