Space telescope to hunt for "New Earth"

Lighting up the night sky, a Delta 2 rocket roared to life and vaulted away from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station late today, boosting a powerful space telescope into orbit around the sun for a $591 million mission to search for Earth-like planets orbiting distant stars.

http://www.spaceflightnow.com/delta/d339/

Let us hope it finds what it seeks

We live in a fairly average galaxy with 100 billion stars and there are more than 100 billion other galaxies in the observable universe alone and the univers may strech far beyond what we can observe and there could be parallel universes, prehapse infinite in number. Based on those numbers, there should not be just one or two other earth-like planets, but millions, billions, trillions or mayby even more of them. Suppose of the 100 billion stars in our galaxy, 10% have planets and of those 10% only 10% have rocky planets of appropriate size and only 10% of those exist within their star's habitable zone and only 10% of those have the chemistry nesacary for life and suppose live only develops on 10% of them. That's still 1,000,000 planets in our galaxy alone! Further suppose that only 1% of the planets with life develop complex multi-cellular life and of those only 10% develop intelligent life and of those only 10% give rise to civilizations. There would still be at least 100 civilizations in our galaxy alone!

PGK,
Those are very rational, statistically rigorous numbers (similar to the "Drake Equation"). No one can fault you for stating them in the reasonable way that you have.

This was exactly the sort of thinking behind the SETI project originated back in the 1960s when things like Project Ozma took off:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Ozma

However, the reality of extraterrestrial life, if it exists anywhere at all, and its prevalence appears to be something vastly different to the odds calculated in this way. Ultimately, this again becomes another "science vs religion" type of argument.

I tried to make the numbers I used to make my estimates rather conservative, but in reality, no one knows the exact statistics for the number of planets, planets with life, and planets with civilizations on them. As of yet, we have no way to know. In the next few decades we'll probably get a better idea of how many earth-like planets that could posably support life, but an accurate estimate of the number of civilizations in the galaxy will be a lot longer off.

Oh goodie, let's go screw up some other planet, too.


I have to say here though, that these stats for civilizations (Carl Sagan was a great one for making them sound plausible) are bunk.

You can't extrapolate from a singularity. They're staring to be pretty sure that there are other stars with planets (not true with Sagan did his first statistical malpractice back in the eigthties) but we have no way of knowing how many stars have them, how many are in a temperate orbit, etc. etc.

You can fudge this stuff up and write it off to huge numbers (a zillion monkeys writing Shakespeare, etc) until you end uip with a figure for how many planets have Starbucks...but it is not statistically valid.

It's like you're walking on a white sand beach and see a red grain of sand. You pick it up, look around and don't see any more. But the beach is vast and the number of grains staggering.

BUT that doesn't matter...you can't extrapolate one ocurrence into any sort of statistical prediciton or vector.

Sorry

From my Blog on Myspace:

Listening out for radio messages from New Earth


When the first settlers from our Earth eventually reach New Earth someday in the far distant future, what is the likelihood that they could communicate with someone still around on *this* Earth?
Or, looking at this conversely, if an intelligent species was already resident there today and capable of radio communications, can we pick up their broadcasts using our current technology?
I initiated precisely this kind of discussion a while back (2004) with science colleagues on sci.astro.seti - the dedicated 'search for extraterrestrial intelligence' (SETI) forum. Here is the thread:-

Whispers from New Earth?

(Click on the above link to view; AA Institute is my alias )

Ahad,
keep at it and don't let the skeptics deter you from your vision. Many scientists have been taunted, scorned/ridiculed and often were the subject of jokes. Lack of foresight or imagination is not conducive to advancement of learning or discovery.

It will be quite a while before we can start screwing up other planets. The closest star to our sun, Proxima Centari, which is part of the Alpha Centari system, is over four light-years away and we don't know if Proxima Centati has any planets, much less if it has any that could support life. A light-year is about 5.9 trillion miles. Proxima Centari is over 23.6 trillion miles away and it's the sun's closest neighbor.

I've been focusing lately on making some major revisions to a novel that I wrote about 20 years ago. It's major character was born on an earth-like planet, learns of Earth's existence, and comes here to keep us from self-destructing.

The prologue is posted on my website under the book's title, And Adam was a Gardener. The novel contains three "books." Book 2 is set on the hero's home planet, Volara:

Quote :

DAWILAN'S STORY
Prologue
Volara 3211
Chronicles of Dainar
When Dainar, first Emlan of Volara's Landae dynasty conceived the New Order, he established first the order of succession. The Emlan, like all people in the society, would confine him/herself to two children, one male and one female. These two, along with the Emlan's sibling, be it brother or sister, would form the Triad, from which the succeeding Emlan would be chosen by the current ruler. From the beginning of his/her succession to office, he/she would keep a record of the choice, on a secret file, which he/she would be able to change throughout his/her office, until the time he/she chose to step down, or until his/her death. The code to the file would be known only to the Emlan's First Assistant, who would disclose it, if necessary, at the time of the Emlan's death. Included in the file would be the names of five Landar(members of the governing class) who would replace, in the order listed, any member of the Triad who had died before the succession was completed.
Then Dainar continued to establish the laws of the new society. The Landar, who were to be chosen by the Emlan from the general public on the basis of ability, would assist the Emlan in governing the Order. Each family, including those of the Landar
and including that of the Emlan him/herself, equal allotment from the government, to be used for the securing of their basic needs, and an additional allotment annually, from which they would be able to choose whatever luxuries that allotment would afford them. Each family was to limit itself to two children - one male and one female - in the order that the parents chose. The parents would divide the responsibilities of maintaining the home equally. Both would contribute time outside the home to the betterment of the society, using their abilities as the Landar saw fit. Education would be available to all, insofar as their abilities allowed them to continue. Children were to be considered adults upon reaching the age of sixteen, and from that time until they married, would be given an individual
allotment, their family's allotment reduced accordingly. Adults were allowed to marry at eighteen, and by the age of twenty-one, were required to chose husband or wife. Divorce was not to be allowed. Each couple was required to have its first child within five years, and to complete the family within the next five. Remarriage was compulsory in the event of one partner's death, if the correct number of children had not been conceived, and forbidden if the children had been born. Sterilization of widows and widowers was required.
It would be the duty of the Landar, headed by a Council of Seven, chosen by the Emlan, to administer the various areas of government and economy....It was of supreme importance that the Landar work to achieve an ecological balance for the planet and
the society, which would be maintained in perpetuity....Individuals within the society who could or would not work to preserve the Order would, by the order of the Emlan, be committed to the Paran, walled cities separate from the rest of the community, whose primary function was to maintain and tend the forest preserves.....

The hero believes that the reason Earth has so many problems is due to its lack of a cohesive order like the one his ancestors established on Volara (which means Will). As the book progresses, he becomes the student rather than teacher, as he learns from us that, contrary to appearances, worlds evolve naturally, according to universal patterns, and it is best when that evolution is left to develop on its own.

Ann

A mile is a meaningless distance in space. If the circumference of the world, 24,901.55 miles, was a single unit (a circum) then a light year would be approximately 23.7 billion circums away, which is still too big a number. If the distance between the Earth and the Moon (30 times the cicumference of the Earth -- a tri-dec-circum) then a light year would be less than a billion tri-dec-circums away.

The figures may be inaccurate (Abdul or Peter can do the calculation again for accuracy) but the point is that thinking in miles is okay for travelling around the world but it isn't much use when thinking about space.

Abe F. March wrote:

Ahad,
keep at it and don't let the skeptics deter you from your vision. Many scientists have been taunted, scorned/ridiculed and often were the subject of jokes. Lack of foresight or imagination is not conducive to advancement of learning or discovery.

Abe,
The fifth post on that thread was my BURNING question back then to the radio astronomers who run the New Mexico VLA (Very Large Array) (Joseph Lazio - who replied to the thread) and the Arecibo radio dish in the jungle on the Carribbean island of Puerto Rico:-

My question:

"If you have an Arecibo style dish stationed on Pluto, the outermost
planet in our solar system, and you pointed the antenna toward our
inner solar system at each of three sources in turn: Mars, the Earth
and then the Sun. At a given frequency in the radio waveband, Mars
would be deadly silent. The Earth would give you a signal, due to
intelligence on our planet. The Sun would give you a strong, "natural"
noise signal. Would that sound about right?

Now, if you repeat this listening process over and over with Mars,
then the Earth, then the Sun again, each time tuning your receiver to a
different frequency. At a certain frequency of 'X' GHz, the signal
from Earth would outshine all three bodies in strength - including the
Sun!? What is that "magic" frequency 'X' I wonder? "

To this day, I don't have an answer

If we knew what this 'X' GHz was, and we tuned into *that* particular
frequency when listening for inteligent signals from "another Earth",
then the results might *just* show something!

This is a pretty cool route of conjecture, Ahad. And some great areas for SF. Are you a Vernor Vingh fan?

I can't say I have even heard of Vernor Vinge, but now that you mention it, he has a rather large conjecture:

"Within thirty years, we will have the technological means to create superhuman intelligence. Shortly after, the human era will be ended."

Let's hope it happens - NOT.

Ahad,
I'm been trying to figure out the frequency of "X," not related to space, but to running to the John. I have a theory/formula but don't think it would help with your question.

I remember sharing the drive from my neighborhood to work with a neighbor who worked at the same school. We lived about 15 miles from the school, and the drive could take anywhere from 25 to 45 minutes, depending on traffic. We discovered that the later we left, the less time it took to make the trip. I suggested to my friend that if we waited long enough, we could arrive before we left. My friend replied that we might be affected by the law of diminishing returns.


Ann

It is not true that nature abhors a vacuum.


Who abhors a vacuum is cats.

And the tail end of long curtains.

Ann

Marie Pacha wrote:

I thought sound couldn't exist in a vacuum?

When you are talking about reception of sounds through space you'd not only be fighting those areas of vacuum between planets, but you'd also have to compute using the speed of sound and incredible distances.

In radio astronomy, when we talk about "listening" or getting a "noise" signal from a far away planet or a star, we're not necessarily talking about sound in the everyday sense of the word. You're right that space is a vacuum and that sound waves cannot travel through a vacuum.

But like when you talk into your cell phone, the sound of your voice is first encoded into a modulated carrier wave, which is an electromagnetic radio wave at a particular frequency, which then gets transmitted over large distances. Radio waves are part of the electromagnetic radiation spectrum, and they can travel through vacuum, which is how the astronauts on the moon, for example, were able to talk to mission controllers back here on Earth.

hi

Hello

Earth calling New Earth. Received your "hello" loud and clear.

It's actually a very interesting point to think about how one could communicate between this earth and possibly another one orbiting around Alpha Centauri (if indeed such a planet actually exists there).

For starters, a one way "hello" from here would take 4.3 years for it to reach the recepient at Alpha Centauri. Then a "hello" back would take another 4.3 years to reach us here. There will be a round trip light-time of 8.7 years between here and Alpha Centauri - which is the closest of any stars out there.

There is unfortunately no short-cuts in these matters, and one also wonders about the scale (size) of any radio telescope dish that would be needed to communicate a feeble radio "whisper" across such immense distances of about 25 trillion miles...which is 4.3 light years translated into every day distance measure, in miles.

Ahad,
I'll try not to let you wait 4.3 years for my next hello, unless you prefer waiting.

So we need a new earth eh?
I hope we get one with a guarantee.
The one we got is broken. Oh yes we broke it didn't we?

Hey, I don't even like the idea of disposable razors.  Much less disposable planets.