
Astronomers have found a planet like Earth orbiting a star like the sun - signa11
https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/06/05/1002831/kepler-160-koi-456-04-earth-sun-exoplanet-habitable/
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ajuc
3000 light years away...

Can we detect if it has life without going there? Even just an yes/no answer
would be immensely important.

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JoeAltmaier
Perhaps, if gasses produced by life could be detected?

But we've detected life in volcanic vents, in arctic ice, in the upper
atmosphere, in pretty much every niche on our own planet. Apparently life is
pretty adaptable. So we have some clues already.

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ajuc
Detecting (or not-detecting) life on a planet similar to Earth would be
groundbreaking. Currently we know of only 1 instance where life arose, and
only 1 planet where it's reasonable to expect it to arise.

If we detect life on Mars or Europa it would likely be related to our own, so
that's not an independent data point.

But if we detect that there's definitely life on a planet 3000 light years
away, or if we exclude that possibility - that's a massive change in our model
of universe, understanding of Fermi paradox and our origins.

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JoeAltmaier
Still, life on Earth are of a baffling variety. It seems it rose up in every
environment possible for stable carbon.

Yes, I'd like to learn of life elsewhere. But life here is amazing too.

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unnouinceput
Quote: "Three thousand light-years from Earth sits Kepler 160.."

To put some thing in perspective. If we get an instant teleport technology to
go there tomorrow, it will be a planet that had passed 5 times more time then
we know since our humanity almost went extinct 60k years ago.

If we get technology to go at speed of light we'll get there in 300k years,
again 5 more times then our modern humanity as we know it.

Yeah, space is vast.

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ejolto
>If we get technology to go at speed of light we'll get there in 300k years

Light takes 3000 years to travel 3000 light-years, not 300k years

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drapred7
He means relativistic speeds which is optimistically .01c making the trip take
300k years. He doesnt actually mean violating physical laws.

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ejolto
I don't think he does. He says "If we get technology to go at speed of light",
"at speed of light" the speed of light is 1c.

His previous sentence also makes no sense

> To put some thing in perspective. If we get an instant teleport technology
> to go there tomorrow, it will be a planet that had passed 5 times more time
> then we know since our humanity almost went extinct 60k years ago.

The light we see from the planet is 3000 years old not 5 times 60k. Space is
big, but not as big as OP seems to think. The diameter of the Milky Way is
only 150,000–180,000 light-years light years. All the exoplanets we have
detected are within the Milky Way.

