Discovered beyond the sun: Solar system with seven planets

Mail Online, ^ | 8/25/10 | Daily Mail Reporter

[Nachum]

A solar system containing up to seven planets orbiting a sun-like star has been detected 127 light years from Earth.

The planetary system is believed to be the largest ever discovered beyond the sun.

Astronomers have confirmed the presence of five planets and have tantalising evidence of two more.

And it comes as Nasa has said that it plans to make an announcement about an 'intriguing' planetary system that it has discovered using the Kepler space telescope Kepler looks at the telltale 'wobble' as planets pass in front of distant stars and, earlier this year, astronomers announced that it had discovered more than 700 possible planets. The conference is scheduled for 1pm EDT (6pm BST).

[B.Lyle]

I say we push some nukes in their direction now. Even if they aren’t a threat now they will be by the time the missiles get there.

[bunkerhill7]

NASA can`t go there because its job is to appease muslims, and the muslims haven`t reached the 7 heavenly planets yet.

[fso301]

It appears that these ‘visitors’ have been visiting for centuries, millenia perhaps! Could it be that they are waiting until we develop some societal system similar to their own before they make official contact? ... Think about it: we humans aren’t likely to go ‘hive style’, so what if that is the system the visitors use? What religious or societal systems approach a hive mentality in our day? ... Islam anyone?

Think about your immune system and the implications of coming in contact with life forms your immune system has no evolutionary protection against.

[null and void]

taxtruth ~ Can we tax it?

aquila48 ~ I believe the answer is YES, if it moves.

...or doesn't move.

[DB]

Point a radio telescope in that direction and take a listen.

[JRios1968]

[RandallFlagg]

That said, how long would it take to get there?

Well, one light year is about 5,865,696,000,000 miles.
127 light years is about 744,943,392,000,000 miles.
The fastest spacecraft ever was the Helios 2 that reached about 150,000 MPH, and that was while it's orbit was falling into the sun.

And now my head hurts from all this math. I'm going back to work.

[txhurl]

I dunno, ‘Texas Style’ seems to have worked for anyone who’s tried it.. promise us free land and five generations later we’ll be running the whole planet we find ourselves on.

[The Cajun]

.....hive mentality.......

Don't know if they'll have a naturally developed hive mentality, but be willing to bet they will have an artificially developed hive mentality, highly computer aided (not Borg but close).

[MHGinTN]

Step ahead, beyond just the primitive immune system, to think about having a DNA transplant, which grows the ‘societal style’ you want to ‘evolve’ in the species.

[txhurl]

Except then the Californians would follow us there and ^uck it all up yet again.

[AlexW]

“It appears that these ‘visitors’ have been visiting for centuries, millenia perhaps!”

Well, I love listening to Kook to Kook AM, I still, however, remain an extreme skeptic about being, or ever have been visited, by ET.
A trip of 127 light years, even at the speed of light, would be a bit exhausting to say the least, and not many gas stations along the way.

I remember back in the fifties there was a buzz about
listening for radio signals from a star that is 11 light years away.
The thinking was that the then new TV signals (not reflected by the ionosphere) that had originated 22 years prior would have reached this system and it would be time to look for any reply.
SETI was established to look for radio signals from other stars.
Of course, we have picked up only static.
Most of the kooks can not even imagine what a light year is.

[Little Pig]

Honestly, I believe that we are looking mainly for carbon-based life because that’s the kind we’re most likely to be able to interact with. They’ve been able to show that silicon-based life is feasible, as are a couple of other kinds, but at least for silicon-based, there’s every possibility that their life is measured in milllenia as we understand time, and therefore any attempts we might make to contact them would be so short they wouldn’t notice. A carbon-based, water-dependent life form would be more likely to have some similarities with us, based if nothing else on similar chemical necessities, and we would therefore have a better chance of interacting with and understanding them. It’s not that we assume all life will be like us; it probably won’t, but for right now, the only kind that we have any chance of understanding would be life based on chemical interactions similar to our own. Let’s get contact with one or more of them under our belt before we go trying to talk to hydrogen breathers, silicon-based, or even energy/machine life.

[txhurl]

Well, one light year is about 5,865,696,000,000 miles.
127 light years is about 744,943,392,000,000 miles.
The fastest spacecraft ever was the Helios 2 that reached about 150,000 MPH, and that was while it’s orbit was falling into the sun.

---

Did you factor in the wormholes our transportation ‘progressives’ preserved with Eminent Domain?
Could cut the transmutation time in half.

[vigilante2]

Can we tax it?

No but the democrats will tax us so don't give them any ideas!

[BAW]

We are beaming them reruns of Mork and Mindy as an example of life on Planet Earth!

[MHGinTN]

This is a topic which fascinates me ... and as a writer I spend a lot of time thinking about the vagaries.

Because we have examples of how a special class in a species can hold technological secrets from the masses (eletric batteries in ancient times, for instance), we can surmise that some intelligence could withhold certain behavioral enhancements or utilize certain behavior enhancements. What one generation decides to make it's ultimate goal may be 'programmable' if enough of a gulf exists between the ruling class and the ruled.

Mostly because of Christianity, we in the West tend ot believe God wants us to have individual freedom, at least to the extent that we may cxhoose to believe or not believe what God offers to us in very limited doses. We have developed this insight due to what we believe is a spirit component of our human souls, a component not in the animal soul of our closest mammalian relatives. If Earth is the only planet where God has placed a spirit component tied to dimensional realities beyond our perceived spacetime, then what would an intelligent, benign species on a planet become without a spirit component to develop the concept of right and wrong? Would such a species even evolve long enough to become space travelers? ...

So many questions to ask when I see Him face to face ...

[MHGinTN]

Mork and Mindy would not have reached them yet, at light speed. Perhaps our first primitive radio transmissions are getting there by now ... btut think of how our planet is literraly bathed daily in porn! What does that say to anyone who might be monitoring our electromagnetic spittle?

[MHGinTN]

You are making the common mistake of assuming these visitors are not dwelling already in our solar system, so they don’t have to come each century from so far away. Yes, if they live in our solar system and didn’t originate on Earth, they had to make a long journey soem where/when now in our past, but they may have made a probe journey two million years ago, and the descendants of the probe are now monitoring us to choose when to take us into their ‘advanced civilization’. BTW: We tend to think of ‘advanced’ as applied merely to technology, and forget that Jesus was so much more advanced than his smartest disciples that we know Him as God with us.

[Psalm 144]

I beleive there’s life across this galaxy. I also believe the intelligent life won’t save us from Barack Obama.

**************

I have always been intrigued with C. S. Lewis’ notion, that the universe teems with life, but that our fallen world is under quarantine.