WeAreTheKey

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25350155/?GT1=43001

Interesting story about modern science detecting ever more planets out there, including "earth-like" planets. They are quite unclear about what that means, however.

I kept wondering how they could state so boldly in the headlines that it is essentially "going" to be found, but then they followed it up with no real proof or information..

Sounds to me either they are trying to spark hope in an escape route,out of the earth we have taken for granted OR trying to make you more interested in space OR just talking out their arses for no reason OR know something that the public does not..

Though I beleive it is quite possible for multiple earth like planets to exist, I do not know if I could beleive that we could be so lucky as to find it, at least not untill we as a society grow up a bit.. I guess you could say I dont beleive earth residents deserve to find a new earth, not yet. Not until we start taking better care of the toys we have. You dont go buy your kid a fancy new toy if he treats all the other toys like crap.. its not woth the money... you know?

depends on how much money you have.

I think this story is a case of some really smart space scientist dudes making new discoveries about space with new technologies and an "average" reporter that doesn't fully understand what they're talking about trying to report on it, so it comes across as more than a little confusing. I read the article again after I read your response and I see no political agenda implied anywhere, either within the quotes or by the reporter. Having a few of the seven billion people on this planet dedicating themselves to looking for planets and potential life on planets seems a worthwhile occupation of time to me.

"Such a twin would be rocky, with a similar chemical composition to Earth, and would orbit within the habitable zone of its star."

Sooooo, they're calling them "twins" of Earth because they're made out of ROCK, and they're at the appropriate distance from their sun to theoretically have liquid water.....
Huh...so what's exciting about this again? If the evolution of life is as statistically improbable as science says it is, then the chances of there being any life there are extreeeemely small...
I don't fault astronomers for looking, and I'm sure they enjoy speculating, but...."Earth's Twin"? Really?
I can't imagine being on a spaceship, flying past a dead sphere of rock, and going "GASP! Look everyone, it's like....Earth's TWIN!"
People would slap you for such a ridiculous stretch.

But hey, if they end up finding intelligent life thriving there, awesome...

I can't tell if they're so set on finding Earth's twin to try and find other intelligent life (because they must require the same conditions as ours), as potential migratory planets, or because we are so self centered as a species that it's of some special significance that the planet has similar (not even identical, but similar) mass, orbit, rock, atmosphere ect. as pure novelty. I mean if it WAS identical than I could see some serious hubbub, but these seem fairly lenient stipulations to justify an article about a 'twin'


edit: sorry transfixed, must have been posting as you were, you beat me to it

Yeah, that was my confusion as well. The "Earth's twin" phrase did not match the descriptions of what they were finding, or even what they were looking for in the text of the article. They noted that there is that specific "zone" of possibility they are looking for (right size of star, plant, and distance between them), and that they have never actually found a planet that fits within that zone, just some that have been close. I think the reporter was trying to hook the reader on the concept that these scientists believe that with the enormous amount of stars in the Milky Way galaxy, there is almost a sure probability that there are planets with atmospheric conditions similar enough to Earth's that there is a potential for life to exist.

well my speculations for reasons why they would post this article werent based off of anything in the article persay, more of speculation based off of the question "why" i would like to see more actual information, rather than hype with little to no info.. maybe it would be boring or confusing but i would rather be confused and bored than left in the dark to speculate on why...(i would rather do that informed:Hurk!: )

i do see the reasongins for looking, and have no problems in that but practically garunteeing there will be something found.. that is a bit much..

And Wease: even if you have all the money in the world, your kid would learn nothing from getting a new toy, when it cant respect and appreciate the ones it has...

I dunno, I thought the article had a decent amount of information, it wasn't all hype. It's just that most of the technical babble was further down the page. But still, they didn't approach the story very well, it was kinda like they expected you to read the whole thing going " Neat-o!! A new Eearf!!"
Yeahhhh....

Okay I have been feeling bad about everything i have said on this topic for a while now and am going to admit that i let suspicion and cynicism take over me. I do see there being the possibility of there being more earths. Though the headline(like most headlines) irritated me and because of that suspision and negativity reared its ugly head. So I apologize for not being rational and not having facts to back up my suspicions. It was mainly based off of reactionary impulses and not actual thought.


As for the reasoning of other earths being sought out, i see the desire to know the unknown, but because of human's seeming nature to seek out dominate use and abuse the amazing creations of existence, i do feel it may not be the best idea for humans to discover a new untouched earth twin. Not until we do some serious evolving..otherwise we will most likely not fix the mistakes we have made as a species but rather continue them on another planet, which would in my opinion be a serious travesty.

I dont mean to be so negative towards "humanity" I dont think all people are like that, but the people who would be incharge of this "next" earth would most likely be the same people who are incharge of this one, and those people havent done too much to change things (though there are a few, maybe more I dont know)

So the moral of the story in my view, earths twin should remain hidden until after the consciousness of humanity has shifted and we are massivly moving in a more harmonious direction. Not just with fellow humans but all of the creatures and creations of earth and the like. Then and only then should this "doppleganger'' be revealed..

but maybe due to the latest discoveries on Mars, we wont even get there before the space people come out from underground and enslave our planet hahahhahahahahahaahha

Uh oh honesty. shite.. now you know.. i am not perfect hahahahahha.

We would have to do some "serious evolving" no matter what before moving to another Earth, because our science is nowhere near capable of allowing us to travel that far. We would need some great breakthroughs on how to fuel such a trip, how to build such a life-sustaining spaceship, how to ensure our reproduction on a large scale during the trip (it would take longer than a human lifetime to get there) etc, etc...

Even if we discovered that a much closer planet like Mars could sustain human life, moving our existence all the way there is so un-feasable at this point, the engineering of such an operation is still a loooong way off from being possible.

I think the concept behind this search for a 'new Earth' is more one of scientific curiosity and the search for other life in the universe, intelligent or otherwise. It teaches us more about how prevalent life may be in the cosmos, and whether or not we stand much chance of ever communicating with another race and learning from them, etc.

The implications are much more than mere curiosity. Evidence of life other than on earth would have major social and religious implications. We would have to re-evaluate our "uniqueness" in the universe. Religious groups would have to re-evaluate their dogma and devise new, more outlandish explanations for old biblical passages. More people would look up and question their preconceptions. It would be awesome.

Oh I definitely agree that the implications would be extreme, and they would be pretty awesome, I said that the concept behind the search was based mainly off of curiosity, our desire to simply know...
Unless of course these scientists are desiring to bring about such radical social and religious re-evaluations, but then that would play right into Alluscion's initial suspicions.

Oh, I think the people creating these technologies and looking to the stars have an idea of the implications of what they could potentially find way out there. I just don't see why we would automatically assume they have sinister predispositions.

I don't assume anything about sinister intentions.... I was making a lighthearted reference to Alluscion's initial suspicions, to which she gave a lengthy explanation above and admitted it wasn't really based on anything.
But even then, suspicion about intentions doesn't necessarily imply that you think those intentions are 'sinister'...
I think we got off topic here

Nice evolution there...