
'Second Earth' found, 20 light years away - pg
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2007/apr/25/starsgalaxiesandplanets.spaceexploration
======
jkush
> "We wouldn't be surprised if there is life on this planet," said Stephane
> Udry, an astronomer on the project at the Geneva Observatory in Switzerland.

I sincerely hope we find definite proof within my lifetime.

~~~
rms
The possibility excites me. I wonder what the sociological consequences will
be if we can conclude that we are not alone in the galaxy.

~~~
bluishgreen
Interesting...This possibility fills me with profound dread. People meeting
other unknown alien people has happened in this planet in the near history
_so_ many times. And not in a single one of those meetings was there anything
to feel mushy about. It was blood all the way. Pizarro and Atahualpa didn't
sit together and play chess over a hot cup of coffee and exchange notes on
their childhood crushes.

~~~
DanielBMarkham
Bonus question:

Let's say you run across an alien during a walk in the woods. How could you
ever tell whether the alien was friendly or not? Aliens might act friendly,
right up until the time they put you in the big alien stew pot. Likewise,
friendly aliens might use deadly force and extreme caution to make sure you
pose no threat. Would you want to be sending "Howdy There! We're new in the
block! Drop by for some free pizza!" messages to a civilization 20 light years
away?

~~~
bluishgreen
Long answer to bonus question has already been written and published. "Speaker
for the dead" by Orson Scott Card. I am restraining myself from giving a
summary here. I don't want to spoil your couple of weekends spent well. Be
sure to read the introduction as well.

~~~
DanielBMarkham
Thanks. It's in my stack. I gave up sometime during the second Ender book, but
I'll give this one a read.

~~~
akkartik
Speaker for the dead _is_ the second ender book. No?

~~~
DanielBMarkham
Gee yep. Sure enough (sheepish grin)

I must have stopped reading it fairly early, because looking at the cover I
don't remember any of it. I remember the first book, however -- that super guy
they brought back for Ender's training and the planet and all. It's been a few
years, though. Good thing I kept all the books.

Apologies for the poor memory.

~~~
DocSavage
I think Orson Scott Card wrote "Speaker for the Dead" first and decided he
needed another book just to set up the backstory. That book became Ender's
Game, and he found it a bit ironic that he's remembered more for the prequel
than the book he really felt compelled to write.

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bharath
A relevant quote that stuck to my mind from the movie "contact":

"Young Ellie: Dad, do you think there's people on other planets?

Ted Arroway: I don't know, Sparks. But I guess I'd say if it is just us...
seems like an awful waste of space."

~~~
BrandonM
Heh... I wonder how many people don't even know that _Contact_ was originally
a book by Carl Sagan. Although the movie was more true to the book than most,
the book was much better than the movie, as is usually the case.

~~~
akkartik
The last 2 pages is the best part, and there's no way it could get into a
movie.

~~~
Caligula
Which are?

~~~
jkush
When Ellie (or is it another scientist?) finds a message from God buried deep
inside Pi.

~~~
akkartik
_"The universe was made on purpose, the circle said. In whatever galaxy you
happen to find yourself, you take the circumference of a circle, divide it by
its diameter, measure closely enough, and uncover a miracle--another circle,
drawn kilometers downstream of the decimal point. There would be richer
messages farther in. It doesn't matter what you look like, or what you're made
of, or where you come from. As long as you live in this universe, and have a
modest talent for mathematics, sooner or later you'll find it. It's already
here. It's inside everything. You don't have to leave your planet to find it.
In the fabric of space and in the nature of matter, as in a great work of art,
there is, written small, the artist's signature. Standing over humans, gods,
and demons, there is an intelligence that antedates the universe.

The circle had closed. She found what she had been searching for._

<http://www.generationterrorists.com/quotes/contact.shtml>

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DanielBMarkham
Very cool!

I thought the technology wasn't ready for all of the claims the article makes.
An atmosphere? Rocky world? If they're able to do this now, imagine what it'll
be like with the James Webb scope NASA is putting up in a few years.

And if we ever do discover intelligent ET in our lifetime, perhaps a good way
to get to know each civilization is to hook up our internets. Or then again,
maybe that's an awful idea.

~~~
icey
Does anyone know if quantum entanglement has been proven enough to allow for
at least a glimpse of being able to make data transmission occur at "faster
than the speed of light"?

I mean, if a quantum object represents a bit, and gets flipped here; and its
counterpart is on... Mars; the counterpart should get flipped instantly, no?

~~~
Retric
There is no flipping of data it's more like you hand 2 people (Bob and Ted) a
box with the same number in it. They walk to other sides of the world and then
Ted opens his box. As soon as Ted opens their box they know what is in the
other box but that has nothing to do with the speed of light and there is no
way for Ted to use what he knows about the number in Bob's box to send Bob new
information.

~~~
hugh
That's not quite the right analogy -- it misses the point a bit. In that
analogy the two numbers have definite values right from the start -- they're
just ordinary boxes with ordinary numbers written in them. In a more quantum
mechanical analogy, the numbers inside the boxes would be undetermined until
the observation was made, and yet you would always find that the boxes had the
same number inside, even if they were opened simultaneously and many light
years away from each other.

Under the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics, there is in fact
some kind of spooky "instantaneous" communication going on between the
particles -- one of them needs to tell the other "oh no, my wavefunction has
just collapsed in such-and-such a basis and your value now has to be |X>".

Complicating this even further is the fact that relativity tells us there's no
such thing as "simultaneity" when we're talking about things happening at
different points in space, and so while it looks to one observer like the
faster-than-light signal must have gone from Ted's box to Bob's box, to an
observer moving relative to the first observer it might look like the faster-
than-light signal actually went from Bob's to Ted's.

Some other interpetations of quantum mechanics (in particular, no-collapse aka
"many worlds" interpretations) this faster-than-light signalling doesn't
occur... though these interpretations have other counter-intuitive features
instead.

Even if there _is_ faster-than-light signalling between particles, though, you
still can't use this to send a message, because the information you get is
always just a random string of bits -- there's no way to actually send useful
information.

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euccastro
There is no way that planet can ever support any kind of civilization. With a
13 day year, in less than 300 days they can drink legally!

Or maybe I'm confused about where to draw the line with chauvinism. (shrug)

~~~
iamwil
That's an interesting point. Then depending on the tilt of their planet,
seasons go full cycle in about two weeks. I wonder what implications that has
for the equivalent of photosynthetic life there. Are they "awake" and soaking
up the sun for about a week before "sleeping" the second? Or do they just
kinda ride it out?

That would also influence the "animals" (i.e. non-photosynthetic life) there
and its behaviors.

That's all assuming they get energy from the sun. Maybe they can produce
energy in other ways.

~~~
sspencer
Vernor Vinge had an excellent novel named "A Deepness in the Sky" that dealt
with the development of intelligent life on a planet whose star would
extinguish and re-ignite itself predictably. Something like 3 decades of
ignition and then 7 or 8 decades of darkness. The dominant life form was a
spider-like being that could hibernate and ride out the darkness by creating a
"deepness" (essentially a den).

Great book, with interesting insights about unusual planetary configurations
with life. I highly recommend it to anyone who likes hard science fiction.

~~~
bct
The on-off star spent 215 years off, according to Wikipedia.

A Fire Upon the Deep, set in the same universe, is excellent too.

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a13x
Why do people (sci-fi writers and scientists alike) generally seem to assume
that extra-terrestrial life would be Earth-like life in Earth-like conditions?

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npk
You know, it's funny, I work with one of the competing teams (the best one.)
Every time I hear about planet-hunting in the news, I think to my self, "screw
startups." :)

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ptn
I really don't want to crash this party, but has anyone taken a look at the
date of the new? It isn't exactly..."new".

~~~
DaniFong
That's crazy. I used to think if anything like this happened, I'd be one of
the first to be aware. I guess not. O.o

~~~
npk
Well,

To be fair, there's a huge PR machine behind these kinds of discoveries. In
other words, there's fuzz associated with a planet being an "earth analog."
There will be more and more "earth like" planets discovered in the future.

I mean, we've only discovered 212 extra-solar planets so there's plenty more
to find :)

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npk
BTW, if you have $1M to donate (or some fraction greater than 10%) I can put
you in contact with the right people.

Seriously, depending on how much you give, your name might go on one of the
most important telescopes in the world.... maybe you could even name the first
true earth analog :)

Pretty good deal.

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ivankirigin
If we're accepted to their YC clone, that would be a sign of intelligent life.

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german
It would be awesome to discover intelligent life, I think that realizing that
we are not alone in the universe will make us all think about being part of
the world and not just being some country's citizens.

~~~
euccastro
If it takes that to get us to that mindset, then we'll be in real trouble when
we need to all think about being part of the universe and not just some
planet's citizens.

~~~
german
Maybe when we discover intelligent life in another universe. :P

~~~
ptn
I hope aliens know the trick to cheat death, because I'd sure love to see that
discovery.

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DaniFong
I was gasping. I'm in shock. I used to dream about something like this. =)

------
rokhayakebe
I know I am moving. I am almost sure that there is less evil, hatred,
jealousy, envy and competition anywhere outside this world.

------
henning
Clearly God is testing our faith with such tantalizing discoveries.

What will those Satan-worshipping scientists think up next?

