New planet

[naomi24]

A planet very similar to earth and thought to be capable of sustaining life has been discovered. Despite it being 5 billion light years away, if it could be proven that life existed there, how would the discovery affect your faith?

[luna-tic]

Good morning Naomi, I think if governing bodies found the planet to have had occupants they would do their most to keep it secret and those that have beliefs whether from a scientific background or religious will not sway too much from the idea that we (humans) are the one and only ruling, know all, petty minded individuals that really want to keep the power within certain fields to sustain a grip on society, faith being one of those fields.
Personally I welcome the idea of wanting to see or meet beings from other planets unless they had sinister intentions of course, Could they be that much more sinister than what we've already got?

[tompaine]

its only 20.5 light years away:

http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/070424_h ab_exoplanet.html

That's very close.

[reachesme]

Just tell the Yanks it has oil and they will be there quicker than you can pronounce the Arsenal fc back four.

[Octavius]

It wouldn't.

[Loosehead]

It wouldn't effect mine as I'm an atheist. Even if it does have life it would be all but impossible to communicate, I mean you send a message and get the answer 41 years later!

[naomi24]

Tom, Sorry about the mistake in the distance - I knew it was only 20.5 light years away, but I misquoted today's Times.

Luna, I'm convinced there are others in the universe, and I find this discovery very exciting. However, if we do eventually discover intelligent life on another planet, I hope they prove to be a bit more civilised than us.

Octavius: Don't you believe as other Christians here, that the earth is the only inhabited planet and the universe was created just for us, or do you think there could be life in space?

Loosehead, that's no time at all really. Just think if this new planet had been discovered in the 1960s and we'd sent a message immediately, assuming the recipents answered right away we would by now have received their reply.

[tompaine]

I think that there must be life on other planets and finding a viable planet so close to home increases our chances of finding it in my life time. I share your excitment Naomi.

[naomi24]

Tom, I too hope we'll have positive evidence fairly soon - and I think we will.

[Octavius]

It is probable that ours is not the only planet with unique life sustaining capabilities or evolutionary properties. It is doubtful though that any extra-terrestrial life is likely to be that similar to our own, and even less likely to be at the same level of biological and evolutionary development as humans.

If there is any life form then it could be a �being� we might correlate as having evolved to somewhere between primordial slime and the earth worm or plant matter, or too far advanced for us to even comprehend.

Would the proven existence of a life form on another planet affect my faith, no.

[naomi24]

Octavius, it's my belief that there are planets out there sustaining life at all stages of evolution. On some we may find the most primitive lifeforms and on others we may find beings billions of years more advanced than ourselves both biologically and tehnically. Some may look like us, some may not - we can't say - but I find the prospect of discovery absolutely enthralling.

[jake-the-peg]

Given that life arose so quickly on the Earth it's pretty likely that you'll find life on other planets where conditions are similar.

However that life remained little more than bacteria for nearly half the age of the Earth. That's 2 billion years of nothing more than slime.

It's much harder to be certain about the probability that advanced life forms will arise - we could be a very rare fluke.

Having said that I would imagine that a common reaction would be similar to what happened when Europeans first started to discover non-abrahamic religions in the far East.

Some would belittle them and ignore them as benighted fools, some would try to convert them, some would see deep Wisdom in their philosophies and convert to them.

Oh and a bunch of people would find evidence for their existance in some obscure verse in Genesis and post on Answerbank how it was all explained so clearly in the Bible

[Octavius]

Naomi, I agree. Although potentially frightening, the prospect of �other� life forms in existence outside of our own reality, is indeed enthralling.

Sometimes I do wonder though how �real� these press releases are. Not to be cynical or anything, just slightly sceptical. Those newly released pictures from NASA and ESA could often be mistaken for CGI and vise versa. Those astrological computer blaggards!

It is a fanciful notion that there is something out there, but perhaps in our own lifetime this might be proven. How exciting!

[naomi24]

Octavius, I don't think it's a fanciful notion at all. In fact I believe earth has been visited in the past by people from space - and, horror of horrors, I think the god of the bible was one of them. OK, I know what's coming. She's finally flipped!! Off to the loony bin with her!!

[Loosehead]

Sorry to burst the bubble guys: it is statistically certain that life exists all throughout the Universe. It is also certain that the distances involved means that communication is impossible let alone travelling. Consider this, imagine the whole earth was a transmitter and we transmitted a radio message at a distance of 4 light years there would be one photon per cubic 1000km that means that the message would dissipate totally before it reached even the closest star and that's using the whole Earth as a transmitter. In summary the Universe is teeming with life and we will never see it or comminicate with it. If LGM land tomorrow I'll eat my words ok!

[naomi24]

Loosehead - science has proven that it's a big mistake to say anything is impossible. At one time it was 'impossible' for a train to travel at more than about 20 miles an hour for fear the passengers would die - just like it was 'impossible' for a heavier than air machine to fly. We can have no conception of where science and technology will take us in the future - and if we don't know we can only keep an open mind and say we don't know.

You may well wait a while for your meal - but when it comes I wish you bon appetit.

[tompaine]

It depends what you mean by advanced jake. Free oxygen enabled the evolution of evolvability through more expensive mechanisms that led to complex forms such as animals and plants this was a direct result of the right conditions plus the evolution of photosynthesising bacteria. Complexity may be more probable than we credit. You could say with the right conditions it is almost inevitable. We may seem primitive to others, who knows? In a universe of improbable vastness improbable events become probable, probably. What is certain is that if they are out there they will have to obey the same physical laws as us so communication does seem truly improbable. Even if they have improbably advanced communication technology.

[jake-the-peg]

Of course Loosehead (along with SETI it must be said) assumes that radio communication is the way that advanced aliens would communicate.

It may be possible that a technique revolving around something like quantum entanglement exists that gets around all of these ugly distance issues.

A bit like a tribe of undiscoverred amazonian indians blissfully unaware of the wealth of television programs flying over their heads!


We don't no any better so we're still looking for "smoke signals" because it's all we can do!

[Loosehead]

I agree generally that's it's temting fate to describe things as "impossible". It's just that assuming that c is the limit for speed then what I said is true. I suppose if we later discover that star trek style "warp" speed is possible or we discover stable worm holes etc then I suppose all bets are off but at the moment I'm pretty confident of my previous statements. Not withstanding the amount of US people that seem to see aliens regularly!

[naomi24]

Jake, exactly!

[luna-tic]

Naomi, there's plenty of room in the looney bin. I've been here for quite a while and the cutains could really do with a dry clean. Anyway where else would the centre of operations be for The Looney Cult?