NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory is preparing to launch a series of projects that will give more information about extrasolar planets.
http://planetquest.jpl.nasa.gov/missions/missions_index.html
Some of these missions may make it possible to analyze the atmosphere of other planets.
What do you think? What will happen if we find another planet with an atmosphere similar to our own?
Very exciting times!
Life on other planets outside of our solar system?
In response to the question.
Consider this, this planet is crawling with life, everywhere you look, from the wild jungles, to millions of bacteria all over your keyboard, and places we thought nothing could live. Ie Volcanic vents at the bottom of the ocean.
Life seems to be a natural state which the universe leans towards.
Mix up a soup of acids and they eventually form proteins, and them complex proteins, on and on it goes until you have us.
Now considers this, we know 1 solar system well, that is ours.
1 sun surrounded by 9 planets and 10-20 moons.
Now considers how many Stars (suns) there are in the known universe. I once read it this way.
If you were to take every grain of sand, from every beach and desert on this planet. There would still be more stars than grains.
So what does that work out to ?
100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 stars ?
Our solar system has some 30 bodies that could support life under the right conditions. If you assume that some of all these other stars may have less, more, or the same amount of bodies surrounding them.
That’s now some
30 x 100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000, bodies, moons, planets that could support life if the conditions are right….
So even if only 1 billionth of these bodies may have the right condition to support life…… That number is still more than an human brain can concive.
Now given that there are easily billions and billions of planets and moon out there that could support life…… and if there is the slightest chance in hell, life would find a way.
Based on the simple math’s of it, the universe is without a doubt teaming with life.
Given that we have been around for nothing compared to age of the universe, I would also say that there are life forms out there that are millions of years more advanced than us.
Unfortunately whether or not you believe in aliens is irrelevant…. Math’s can’t be ignored…
Thanks bamb, at least one of us other than myself understands this principal.
There are a lot of words being thrown around simply shouldn’t when talking on scales of time and space. Infinite, never and 100% right should be thrown out of your vocabulary. All you can do is make assumptions about your current observations. For example, we can assume the universe is expanding because the spectral analysis of stars in any direction is shifted towards the red side of the spetrum. According to the doppler effect, this suggests the stars are moving away from us.
As for finding life, we can not assume either way, but there are a lot of stars and a lot of planets out there. It seems likely to me that there is another intelligent species out there, but we on’t know cause we may not find the signs of their existance for another billion years. Assuming they exist an in area a billion light years from us.
Star Trek…<shakes head>
*Originally posted by Redrvltn *
but we won’t know cause we may not find the signs of their existance for another billion years. Assuming they exist an in area a billion light years from us.
What if they left a billion years ago? They should be here any minute.
They would be here any minute as long as they were silly enough to travel at x1 the speed of light.
Let’s hope they put the pedal to the metal and get here sooner.
However, if they are billions of years more advanced than us, then to them we would see like nothing more than ****roaches ….
And we all know we have no problem exterminating ****roaches, so why should they have a problem stepping on us?
“Duck…… and cover” “Duck…… and cover” ha ha ha ha ha, you have to love our stupidity.
Why bother stepping on us? Why would an alien species be so hell bent on our destruction? It’s just as possible for an alien race to be benevolent, and just aid us.
*Originally posted by bamb0006 *
They would be here any minute as long as they were silly enough to at x1 the speed of light.
Going faster than the speed of light is impossible. With a few special case exceptions. The idea of matter traveling at the speed of light has some very interesting repercussions.
p = lim (ãmu)
___u->c
where
p = momentum
u = velocity
ã = 1/sqrt(1-u^2/c^2)
If you take that limit, you come to find some rather far reaching implications of moving at c.
Special Relativity = fun
Infinite, never and 100% right should be thrown out of your vocabulary.
Going faster than the speed of light is impossible.
hmm should I pick on ya?.. nah… I think we all know what you’re saying there and already agree. I just thought it was funny. 
btw Redrvltn, welcome to the forum.
Why bother stepping on us? Why would an alien species be so hell bent on our destruction? It’s just as possible for an alien race to be benevolent, and just aid us.
I think that any race that would be capable of interstellar travel would have probably evolved beyond violence and would not be nasty.
My point was, you wouldn’t give a second thought to stepping on a ant, so why should they give a second thought about stepping on us?
As for the Math’s, I won’t pretend that I understand the Math’s behind the things I talk about.
But yes I have read about it taking more energy than there is in the universe to get a ship up to the speed of light, that as you approach the speed of light you would stretch out like a piece of string.
Regarding the speed of light. this is from another post of mine.
They used to say that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light…….
I never believed this for the simple reason of, I can’t see there being some magical force in the universe that will turn around and say “Sorry, you can’t get from a to b that fast” and put a speed break on you.
DO you still believe that the speed of light is a set limit ? They have done experiments where light has traveled faster than the “speed of light”.
I think they have also done experiments where they have stopped light and it behaves like a liquid.
I think that any race that would be capable of interstellar travel would have probably evolved beyond violence and would not be nasty.
I’m not saying that you’re wrong… but keep in mind that America’s greatest leaps in technology were due to wars, not peace. We expand to take resources, and have killed plenty of native organisms along the way, if we felt they were a hinderance to our aquisition of those resources.
maybe you’re right… I hope so. I have a feeling you are only half right. That out of any intelligent races, you’ll have some who expand by war, and some who explore passively.
Upuaut, I never said anything about the word impossible, but I will take it back. I should say it is very improbable, because physical laws are rather difficult to break. I did acknowledge the fact that there are exceptions. If anyone else has taken classes on Special Relativity, and can tell me that c is no longer a limit, I’m all ears.
Thanks for the warm welcome 
As almost always upuaut I agree with you.
Some aliens wanting our resources would just take them, although some wouldn’t.
If anyone else has taken classes on Special Relativity, and can tell me that c is no longer a limit, I’m all ears.
I don’t know if you realize this, but scientist are coming out with new theories and changing old ones all the time.
Given that we are still in an infant stage of understanding physics, Quantum physics, and relativity. I wouldn’t take anything that you learned in class as set in stone.
Indecently, if you are capable of doing and understanding the Math, I wish I was, it’s a shame you are so narrow minded.
The way you come across, you would stick with Isaac Newton’s first theories and hold them up as the be all and end all.
With attitudes like this, we would never make any advances. Since you can supposedly do the math, I’d like to see you come up with your own new theories rather than just accept what other people have done.
But it’s good to have another scientist in the ranks
nah bamb… it’s just a trick of the words he chose to use. He’s talking relatively impossible. It was just the way he said it that sounded funny to our ears.
I think that it will be very unlikely that we will be able to excellerate a human past the speed of light (or even close to it) without damaging the person beyond a living condition. Doesnt’ mean I wont accept it when science proves me wrong… it just means that I chose the default possition that it is less likely than the alternative. Possibilities are fun, but it’s a double edged sword. If anything is possible, then it’s true as well that anything can be impossible. As well… if there is a 1 in 1000000000 chance that we could do something… sure that means that there is a chance… but it also means that it’s highly unlikely.
As for science proving itself wrong…that’s just the nature of science. If it didn’t do that, it wouldn’t be a viable logical system of analysis.
*Originally posted by bamb0006 *
**Indecently, if you are capable of doing and understanding the Math, I wish I was, it’s a shame you are so narrow minded.
The way you come across, you would stick with Isaac Newton’s first theories and hold them up as the be all and end all.
With attitudes like this, we would never make any advances. Since you can supposedly do the math, I’d like to see you come up with your own new theories rather than just accept what other people have done.
**
This isn’t narrow mindedness. Do you think it is a coincidence that all electro-magnetic waves move at the same speed, regardless of frequency? The speed of light seems to be just another of natures constants. There is a gravity constant, but you do not question that? There is just as much reason for matter to attract with the constant it does, as for all light to move at the speed it does. Relativity has been experimently proven. It is not perfect, and does need to be tweaked a little but the fundamental principles are all we have to work with until the grand unified theorem comes. Just because Isaac Newtons first theories were not entirely correct doesn’t mean you can ignore Conservation of Momentum, or you can find a way around gravity. I would definitely try to find a way to move as fast as light, and create my own theories, if I were that smart. I could use the cash. There is a tremendous difference between understanding math, and inventing it.
Pretty much no matter how you cut it the speed of light is the universal speed limit. Now we see ways to move a given distance in our Space-Time in an amount of time that would make Velocity=Change in Distance/Change in Time, yeild a result over 1x speed of light. But you are not actually traveling that fast because you are moving through a worm hole or another way around our conception of Space Time. Meaning you would be moving in a way that we do not have the ability to measure the change in Distance you are actually traveling, only change in time and change in distance in our percieved SpaceTime.
This would result in Velocity = Unknown/Change in Time.
Think of it like this: You have a ball and travel from a point on the surface of the ball to a point on the opposite side by traveling through the ball. But instead of measuring the balls diameter to ge the distance traveled, you measure the distance around the surface. Thus you are plugging a much larger number into the Velocity equation than you should and getting a falsly high Velocity.
Nice example of this in the movie “Event Horizon” where he folds a piece of paper and pushed a pen through it.
The fact remains, that we measure speed based on the time it takes to get from point A to point B.
I doesn’t matter how you get there.
We once thought that the earth was the center of the evidence. We also once thought that earth was flat. There are many things that we once believed, and now do not. It is the poeple that challenged old ideas and came up with new one’s who we now put on pedastels and call them genuises.
If somebody wants to say that the speed of light is not the fasted thing ever, great. Tell me why.
If somebody wants to tell me that aliens exist, great. i want to hear it.
Be open. Free your mind.
Aliens do exist: http://www.realufos.com/wtc.shtml 
The video is pretty cool also.
As far as we know, everything we base a lot of our measurements on are based on light. The speed of light continues to be a limiting constant in almost any study of energy, travel, time, etc.
There maybe something faster than the speed of light, but I am skeptical about it :rambo:
I may be way out of line asking this in this thread, but I’ll do it anyway. What is light? Is it a physical thing and if not why can we see it? Is there invisible light?
Here ya go blind: http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761579230/Light.html :beam:
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