NASA's Kepler Discovers more planets in 'Habitable Zone'

LateX'Dog

LateX'Dog

LateX'Dog

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MOFFETT FIELD, Calif. -- NASA's Kepler mission has discovered two new planetary systems that include three super-Earth-size planets in the "habitable zone," the range of distance from a star where the surface temperature of an orbiting planet might be suitable for liquid water.

The Kepler-62 system has five planets; 62b, 62c, 62d, 62e and 62f. The Kepler-69 system has two planets; 69b and 69c. Kepler-62e, 62f and 69c are the super-Earth-sized planets.

Two of the newly discovered planets orbit a star smaller and cooler than the sun. Kepler-62f is only 40 percent larger than Earth, making it the exoplanet closest to the size of our planet known in the habitable zone of another star. Kepler-62f is likely to have a rocky composition. Kepler-62e, orbits on the inner edge of the habitable zone and is roughly 60 percent larger than Earth.

The third planet, Kepler-69c, is 70 percent larger than the size of Earth, and orbits in the habitable zone of a star similar to our sun. Astronomers are uncertain about the composition of Kepler-69c, but its orbit of 242 days around a sun-like star resembles that of our neighboring planet Venus.
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http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/kepler/news/kepler-62-kepler-69.html

Regardless of whether or not people think they've flew over and abducted there next door neighbour, it has to be getting harder to dismiss the increasing likelihood that aliens do exist when we are finding things like this?
 
LateX'Dog said:
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/kepler/news/kepler-62-kepler-69.html

Regardless of whether or not people think they've flew over and abducted there next door neighbour, it has to be getting harder to dismiss the increasing likelihood that aliens do exist when we are finding things like this?
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Not really, it tells us nothing about the commonality of life, let alone intelligent life.

It does however give us an estimate value to one of a very long list of verables in something like the Drake equation.
 
LateX'Dog said:
Regardless of whether or not people think they've flew over and abducted there next door neighbour, it has to be getting harder to dismiss the increasing likelihood that aliens do exist when we are finding things like this?
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It's fascinating work but before getting too excited it does just show planets where life might be possible based on the one planet we know life exists - they not unreasonably can't even tell if there is water there or what the atmosphere is like yet. The rest is still in the realms of probabilities but just because the probability increases doesn't mean that there must be aliens, it's possible that despite the conditions being amenable on thousands or even millions of other planets that no life would arise - unless you ascribe to the theory that life is inevitable given certain conditions.
 
LateX'Dog said:
Well considering the conditions life can thrive in, it wouldn't surprise me if the abundance of life is widely spread.
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The difficulty is not on what life can thrive, it's that initial spark. That is something we are very clueless over. We know some of the pre-requisite compounds needed and the process for that, but to actually tern them into a living thing, is still unkowen. Life could be everywhere or it could be in one tiny corner of the galaxy all from the same seed.
 
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Glaucus said:
The difficulty is not on what life can thrive, it's that initial spark. That is something we are very clueless over. We now some of the pre-requisite co pounds need and the process for that, but to actually term them into a living thing, is still unkowen. Life could be everywhere or it could be in one tiny corner of the galaxy all from the same seed.
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Please don't take this the wrong way but, have you been on the beer dude? I know you have issues with writing so I mean it in the nicest possible sense :)
 
100 - 120000 light years in diameter. 200 - 400 billion stars. Likely hundreds of billions of planets. That's the Milky Way alone and is one of millions of known galaxies. Probability suggests we are not alone.
 
ajones32 said:
With the discussion of life on other planets, yes it does exist, fact.
Given that life is older than the earth itself and the origin of life on Earth being extra-terrestrial in source is testement to other life in the universe.
We are more than likely the most advanced life form, and I wouldn't be surprised if humanity became the resource seeking planet destroyer aliens we see in the movies :)
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It's a hypothesis that life is older than the Earth itself, what is shown there doesn't necessarily prove that to be the case and linked to that it's a possibility that some genetic matter came from extra-terrestrial sources to kick-start life on this planet. Again though you're into probabilities - we can debate the likelihoods (or people cleverer than me can) but to state baldly that it's factual seems a shade certain when we're dealing with something that is not yet known in any definitive sense.

It may later be proven absolutely factual that life on this Earth was started by genetic matter from elsewhere and if it is that's great, I'd be delighted to find out more about this infinite (and infinitely interesting) universe of ours but I'd be cautious about putting too much emphasis behind any given theory without more information.
 
Glaucus said:
The difficulty is not on what life can thrive, it's that initial spark. That is something we are very clueless over. We know some of the pre-requisite compounds needed and the process for that, but to actually tern them into a living thing, is still unkowen. Life could be everywhere or it could be in one tiny corner of the galaxy all from the same seed.
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Not to mention, that even if that 'spark' was found to be quite commonly produced, there's still the numerous variables that take the initial 'spark' to what we would consider as intelligent life (which in itself is limited by our own perceptions of intelligence and the way we measure it against other life on our planet).
 
semi-pro waster said:
It's a hypothesis that life is older than the Earth itself, what is shown there doesn't necessarily prove that to be the case and linked to that it's a possibility that some genetic matter came from extra-terrestrial sources to kick-start life on this planet. Again though you're into probabilities - we can debate the likelihoods (or people cleverer than me can) but to state baldly that it's factual seems a shade certain when we're dealing with something that is not yet known in any definitive sense.

It may later be proven absolutely factual that life on this Earth was started by genetic matter from elsewhere and if it is that's great, I'd be delighted to find out more about this infinite (and infinitely interesting) universe of ours but I'd be cautious about putting too much emphasis behind any given theory without more information.
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While its a fact that organic, i.e carbon-based molecules including amino acids are commonplace in the universe, they're far from being genetic material. Its like saying that sand and clay are commonplace in the world but that doesn't necessarily mean that bricks and mortar are common over the surface of teh earth, never mind buildings.

Gackt said:
Not to mention, that even if that 'spark' was found to be quite commonly produced, there's still the numerous variables that take the initial 'spark' to what we would consider as intelligent life (which in itself is limited by our own perceptions of intelligence and the way we measure it against other life on our planet).
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People seem to think "intelligent life" when what they really mean is "life".

Life has been on this planet for 3.5 billion years at least and almost certainly longer, or nearly a third of the age of the universe. Yet intelligent life probably around only a 100,000 years, and civilisation, never mind technological civilisation, only a few thousand.

The odds against intelligent aliens are staggering. The fact that SETI has heard no background noise in the universe at all, nothing apart from the purely natural, perhaps we really are alone.
 
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Glaucus said:
The difficulty is not on what life can thrive, it's that initial spark. That is something we are very clueless over. We know some of the pre-requisite compounds needed and the process for that, but to actually tern them into a living thing, is still unkowen. Life could be everywhere or it could be in one tiny corner of the galaxy all from the same seed.
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We aren't clueless at all? We have a good idea as to how it could have started and have demonstrated the same scenario in a lab. As to what form life might take on another planet, who knows.
 
Life -- at least from Earth's history -- is incredibly common. It seems to be, if there is any possibility for life to exist, it does so. That said, our entire genetic code is shared with everything on this planet, except for I believe one bacteria they found a couple of years ago? I believe it was an extremeophile, but please feel free to correct me.

Glaucus is right in the sense, that it's not about the proliferation of life so much as how it initially got started. However, given the right conditions (which are plenty) and the time to establish itself, life seems to be an entirely inevitable conclusion. Lab experiments have shown just how easy given the right conditions it is for life to get going. Obviously, we've had a very long time of evolution with RNA/DNA and mitochondrial collaboration within our cells, etc. and I'm not assuming this will be the same for other life.

Life most certainly, in my view, exists elsewhere in the universe. The question is more, if how much complex life there is, and indeed, are they ever close enough in time and distance that we will ever find out?
 
Blackjack Davy said:
Extraterrestrial life would have to be in fact extrastellar, or outside our solar system. The chances of such viable material travelling intact and then fortuitously landing on a fertile Earth must be colossal. Even the most long distance travellers in the solar system, the long period comets that come from halfway between the Sun and the next stars, are Stellar in origin i.e. they all originate from teh solar system, not one extra-stellar comet has ever been observed and nor do I believe that any material, even dust, has been been identified as anything other than stellar in origin.



People seem to think "intelligent life" when what they really mean is "life".

Life has been on this planet for 3.5 billion years at least and almost certainly longer, or nearly a third of the age of the universe. Yet intelligent life probably around only a 100,000 years, and civilisation, never mind technological civilisation, only a few thousand.

The odds against intelligent aliens are staggering. The fact that SETI has heard no background noise in the universe at all, nothing apart from the purely natural, perhaps we really are alone.
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That suggests to me you cant grasp (and neither can i btw) how big the universe really is.

Id say the chance of other life in the universe is high, just going by the number of galaxies.
 
CaptainRAVE said:
We aren't clueless at all? We have a good idea as to how it could have started and have demonstrated the same scenario in a lab. As to what form life might take on another planet, who knows.
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They've synthesised amino acids, the building blocks of proteins in the lab, the same stuff as are common the universe but thats far from being genetic material, much less have anything alive crawl out of a test tube at the end of a session. In fact DNA/RNA biology is complex that that chances of it originating purely by chance is so astronomically small as be non existent, its thought that it originated from earlier, pre-DNA/RNA life, no trace of which exists today.

Nix said:
Life -- at least from Earth's history -- is incredibly common. It seems to be, if there is any possibility for life to exist, it does so. That said, our entire genetic code is shared with everything on this planet, except for I believe one bacteria they found a couple of years ago? I believe it was an extremeophile, but please feel free to correct me.
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All life is closely related, even the extremophiles so they must come from a common ancestor, but genetic code varies with species, i.e. we share 98% with a chimpanzee but also nearly 50% with a banana.
 
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The universe is said to be over a 100 billion light years in diameter, containing 100s of billions of galaxies and trillions upon trillions of planets within them.

And some people continue to question if there's life or intelligent life outside our solar system?

Comon..

Personally I think there's loads of planets out there teeming with life and intelligent life, but the universe is just so uncomprehendingly massive that no one can find anybody.
 
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