Why do scientists and others fixate on the "Goldilocks" zone. We know only of the life forms that exist on earth. There could easily be countless other life forms in hotter or colder environments and with a very different mix of gases in the atmosphere. And why could it not be possible for intelligent life, very different from us humans, to have arisen and been successful on a very different planet. Thinking that earth-like life forms are the only possibility is akin to expecting all alien life to read, write and speak English.
6
All life as we know it uses liquid water. All life as we know it uses carbon. The scientific search has to start with what we know, not with what we don’t know (hard to design a study on what we don’t know). Thus the “Goldilocks zone” is targeted for habitable worlds- ones that could have liquid water on the surface. The question of ET intelligence is a bit different since if there is intelligent life beyond Earth it would most likely be more advanced than us by millions of years (and that’s young)- that’s just statistics given the age of the universe and where we are in radio communication. So it could have colonized other worlds with technology unknown to us know. But the fact that we don’t see any evidence for this suggests it’s either not there or, more likely given the plentitude of molecules and planets- very, very far away.
10
As a Species, at this time from now until tomorrow...
We have only just begun the journey to the stars and the planets that orbit them.
2
I always liken our current state of existence as being, in terms of how far outside the cave we have ventured, to be, relatively speaking, about half a step, if even ...
We should never ignore the importance of "there are things we know we don't know", and "things we don't know we don't know".
Humans, all of us, are foolishly ignorant and presumptuous, hilariously so ...
10
I love articles like this but feel compelled to inject a note of realism.
NASA is about to launch the fastest spacecraft yet. It will attain a maximum speed of 430,000 mph (D.C. to Tokyo in 1 minute).
With the nearest potential planet of interest at 10 light years from us that spacecraft would require around 15,600 years to reach it.
5
@J Jencks,
What you say is true but 114 years ago the first human piloted powered flight flew just 120 feet for 12 seconds at a top speed of 6.8 mph.
65 years later, Apollo 10 returning from Man's landing on the Moon reached a speed of 24,791 mph.
48 years later as you say, we are about to launch a rocket that can attain a speed of 430,000 mph.
Despite the need to inject a note of realism as you have in relation to the vast distance the nearest possible planet of interest is and the huge amount of time this fastest rocket would take to reach it, given the exponential progress we have made in just 114 years (or 48 years even!) imagine the speeds we might attain in the next 200 years!
I think we can afford to be optimistic of our progress in this area sooner , rather than later.
And immensely proud of what has already been achieved in such a short time from that day in 1903 at Kitty Hawk.
14
@Loomy ~ Hiya, Loomy. I agree with you to a point. There is one thing that I have begun to wonder about: does traveling amongst the stars really require speed? My query, absolutely entirely hypothetical, is that perhaps, in order to travel these distances (which are so vast as to stagger the imagination when we stop and soberly consider them, and not just blithely bounce numbers around, as I know I do) we don't need to use 'speed' per. se., or any such brute force method of travel. Is it possible there is a sort of interstitial method? A knack to it? Is such travel something very elegant waiting to be coaxed from nature that we are only vaguely conscious of, perhaps? If the notional Einsteinian rules regarding lightspeed really do apply and are not amenable to loopholes, then it would seem sheer speed would still require very long periods of time to get anywhere. Maybe we are looking at the problem in the wrong way? I suppose I should simply say that I have a nagging feeling that we are looking at the issue from an ingrained point of view, and that perhaps we are missing the key which could be hiding in plain sight. I have no, repeat, NO idea what this might be; my mind is open to any ideas. I'll just finish by saying that I do believe our future is in the stars. May we survive to realise that future peacefully, cleanly and decently. Cheers.
1
@Tim Weatherill,
Gidday mate!
You ask an interesting question and there are some looking for answers , but our progress in areas such as FTL travel, Wormhole short-cutting and Tachyon /warp drives remains mostly theoretical.
The one area that we are looking into and developing in another area is Quantum State Technology and right now researchers in a few countries are racing to develop the world's first functional Quantum Computer that takes advantage of the Quantum State of particles where quantum particles seem to be in two places at once and also seem to be able to communicate with each other over vast distances.
A very "small" quantum computer has already been made but to fully access the unlimited computing power that a quantum Computer could achieve, we need to build one that can hold a larger number of "Qubits" to allow the full potential a Quantum Computer could provide.We are perhaps 10 years away from reaching this goal.
In regards to using Quantum Mechanics for a more efficient way of getting from A to Infinity might be in some way relate to a recent discovery in regards to Quantum Effects being the process of interactions between our Universe and other hidden Universes via the quantum effects we already observe and are beginning to understand.
Read this article to whet your appetite in regards to places further away than ever thought possible and the possible link to them!
https://phys.org/news/2015-06-strange-behavior-quantum-particles-paralle...
2
Absolutely, mesmerizingly wonderful. Thank you.
Now all we have to do is keep president 'Space Force' from reading this article or Starship Troopers (although there isn't much danger of these.)
Hurray for TESS and all the star voyagers behind it! To infinity and beyond!
11
And these spacecraft only find planets whose orbital planes have a very small inclination from a line to us, so that we see them crossing their suns. There must be many more that don't satisfy this condition.
23
was thinking the same thing. increases the number of planets many fold
5