Posted on 02/17/2009 12:15:35 PM PST by LibWhacker
Alan Boss, whose new book The Crowded Universe will soon be on my shelves (and reviewed here), has driven the extrasolar planet story to the top of the news with a single statement. Speaking at the American Association for the Advancement of Science’s annual meeting in Chicago, Boss (Carnegie Institution, Washington) said that the number of Earth-like planets in the universe might be the same as the number of stars, a figure he pegged at one hundred billion trillion.
A universe teeming with life? Inevitably. The Telegraph quoted Boss on the matter in an early report on his presentation:
“If you have a habitable world and let it evolve for a few billion years then inevitably some sort of life will form on it,” said Dr Boss.
“It is sort of running an experiment in your refrigerator - turn it off and something will grow in there.
“It would be impossible to stop life growing on these habitable planets.”
Few Centauri Dreams readers would disagree with the notion that life may be common in the universe, but what about intelligent life leading to technology? That’s a far greater challenge, and Boss notes that our own civilization will be unlikely to exist in another 100,000 years. The odds on our running into another civilization at roughly the same stage of development are vanishingly small. Let’s see what Kepler finds. The planet-hunter lifts off in a scant three weeks on a mission Boss believes will find a habitable terrestrial planet within four years. How we would accomplish the unmanned mission to study this world that Boss refers to is something we continue to speculate about on Centauri Dreams.
Apropos of Boss’ comments, our man in the maritime antipodes, Paul Titze, sends along this memorable quotation from Christiaan Huygens, who wrote of these matters in 1695:
What a wonderful and amazing Scheme have we here of the magnificent Vastness of the Universe! So many Suns, so many Earths, and every one of them stock’d with so many Herbs, Trees and Animals, and adorn’d with so many Seas and Mountains! And how must our wonder and admiration be increased when we consider the prodigious distance and multitude of the Stars?
You've got to look to Creation to find numbers that exceed the numbers bandied about in the 'rats Great Stimulus Robbery of Ought-Eight and Nine.
That's just an ill-thought out statement. There's no life in the fridge natively, and just the concept of manufactuing a fridge, plugging it in and turning it on does not mean mold will grow inside it. Someone had to drop in the leftover meatloaf.
Great!!! When do we ship all the Marxist Rats to another planet???? The sooner, the better!!
With 100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 habitable planets is it too much for me to want to be the iron-fisted (yet benevolent) ruler of just one of them?
All populated with potential taxpayers? Great...their descendents can also help pay for Nobama's "trust me" spending fiasco....
Should only take...say one hundred billion trillion generations to recover....
The mere presence of a refrigerator implies the presence of a refrigerator maker ;-)
Awfully sloppy use of language for a scientist. A "habitable world" is not going to "evolve" for a few billion years prior to the formation of life. The whole question of How life starts is something science has not been able to address and which is outside the scope of Evolution (I've been told that about 10,000 times).
I don't like his cavalier use of "evolve" and I also hardly think that life will inevitably form out of nothing. We have no idea how that would happen.
With that kind of ambition, you're more likely to be the recipient of a bunch of moons.
I don’t believe this conclusion and I’ve read quite a bit on the subject...but I’ve been wrong before.
LOL!
Liberals just can’t stand the fact that there may be other living beings out there that AREN’T BEING TAXED, CONTROLLED OR FORCED INTO NATIONALIZED HEALTH CARE!
Liberals just can’t stand the fact that there may be other living beings out there that AREN’T BEING TAXED, CONTROLLED OR FORCED INTO NATIONALIZED HEALTH CARE!
I think I rather be free to go pioneering myself. Even if we shipped off the rats, the stench would still be here. They probably couldn’t survive with out some one else’s pockets to reach into. Just think of the diseases they would take into a probably pristine environment.
I’m hoping to become ruler of one of the all-female planets.
Thats only 10exp23. They need more planets, and more time before they can expect us toe believe phrases like “a universe teeming with life.”
On the other hand, maybe no other inhabited planets.
Or...
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