RedOne77
Active Member
I thought that this was interesting: Survey Says... Earth-Sized Planets Common
Also, within our own solar system outside our tiny blue paradise: Mars volcanic deposit tells of warm and wet environment
Again IMHO, I think the evidence already suggests strongly that life is teeming all over the cosmos. We've found extremophiles on Earth that live in places we thought nothing could ever survive (Scientists even sent multi-cellular animals, "Tardigrades", into space for several days where they survived and even succesfully laid eggs that hatched normally!). We've found amino acids in meteorites, as well as nitrogenous bases. And lets not forget the abundance of water flying out in space, or the possible methane-based life on Titan.
Or this somewhat new development that have scientists confident that Titan's atmosphere has produced components of DNA! While scientists have doubts about life being produced from these molecules it can give us insights into Earth's past (as Titan's atmosphere is similar to what scientists think Earth's atmophere was like in the past) and the resiliance of life to appear.
Is Saturn's Titan Producing DNA in its Atmosphere Without Water? Experts Say "Yes"
Nearly one in four stars similar to the Sun may host planets as small as Earth, according to a new study funded by NASA and the University of California.
The study is the most extensive and sensitive planetary census of its kind. Astronomers used the W.M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii for five years to search 166 Sun-like stars near our solar system for planets of various sizes, ranging from three to 1,000 times the mass of Earth. All of the planets in the study orbit close to their stars. The results show more small planets than large ones, indicating small planets are more prevalent in our Milky Way galaxy.
“We studied planets of many masses -- like counting boulders, rocks and pebbles in a canyon -- and found more rocks than boulders, and more pebbles than rocks. Our ground-based technology can’t see the grains of sand, the Earth-size planets, but we can estimate their numbers,” said Andrew Howard of the University of California, Berkeley, lead author of the new study. “Earth-size planets in our galaxy are like grains of sand sprinkled on a beach -- they are everywhere.”
The study appears in the Oct. 29 issue of the journal Science.
A new survey, funded by NASA and the University of California, reveals that small planets are more common than large ones.
Also, within our own solar system outside our tiny blue paradise: Mars volcanic deposit tells of warm and wet environment
IMHO, I think if Mars had more mass (and thus harder for molecules to escape the atmosphere), than Mars may have continued to have environments where life (even complex life) could flourish. Also there is plenty of evidence that Mars was once filled with Oceans, and that it has a considerable amount of liquid water underneath the surface (perhaps microbes live underneath the surface now?!). If life does exist or had existed in the past on Mars, and with new studies coming out giving indications to the frequency of Earth-size planets, than that builds a strong case for life not being a one time fluke or a divine miracle, but a phenomena felt throughout the universe.
Again IMHO, I think the evidence already suggests strongly that life is teeming all over the cosmos. We've found extremophiles on Earth that live in places we thought nothing could ever survive (Scientists even sent multi-cellular animals, "Tardigrades", into space for several days where they survived and even succesfully laid eggs that hatched normally!). We've found amino acids in meteorites, as well as nitrogenous bases. And lets not forget the abundance of water flying out in space, or the possible methane-based life on Titan.
Or this somewhat new development that have scientists confident that Titan's atmosphere has produced components of DNA! While scientists have doubts about life being produced from these molecules it can give us insights into Earth's past (as Titan's atmosphere is similar to what scientists think Earth's atmophere was like in the past) and the resiliance of life to appear.
Is Saturn's Titan Producing DNA in its Atmosphere Without Water? Experts Say "Yes"
I think as we learn more and more about planetary astronomy, the more we will realize and come to the conclusion that while Earth will always have a unique place in humanities heart, Earth is one out of many worlds within the heavens where life thrives.
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