re: NASA: new solar system , Trappist-1 ,where life may have evolved on 3 planets

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Life may have evolved on at least three planets within a newly discovered solar system that is 39 light years from Earth, it was announced last night.

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Astronomers have made huge leaps in extra-solar planet hunting in the past 20 years. Even as recently as the 1990's, it was pretty much consensus that earth was special and that the vast majority of stars did not have planetary systems. Now they have found thousands of such planets and it is clear that stars without planets are rare (not the other way around).

Theoretically life can be detected with certain chemical signatures given off in the planet's atmosphere, but I doubt that will convince everyone. I am not sure biologists agree on what those signatures will be.

It's pretty much a statistical impossibility that Earth is the only place in the universe containing life.

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Ok, next question. How the hell would they know if it had anything resembling capability to support life?

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That I do know. Types of civilization.

Type I: Have total control over their planet.
Type II: Have total control over their solar system.
Type III: Have total control over their galaxy.
Type IV: Have total control over the multiverse.

We are actually a Type 0 Civilization. We haven't mastered our planet yet, but are on tragectory to do it around the end of the century. And Type IV is far more theoretical than we have confirmed is possible.

To give you a better idea on what they each represent.

Type I: Buck Rodgers
Type II: Star Trek
Type III: Star Wars
Type IV: The future humans in Interstellar

Well what makes me question that there is intelligent life anywhere even remotely close to us is the fact our radio waves have reached around 70 light years away from earth and even with all the instruments we have pointed at the heavens, nothing has come back.

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Well what makes me question that there is intelligent life anywhere even remotely close to us is the fact our radio waves have reached around 70 light years away from earth and even with all the instruments we have pointed at the heavens, nothing has come back.

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This is largely a myth. Yes our radio waves will eventually hit them, but the further away they go from Earth, the more distorted and displaced they become. Our signals may very well could have hit another civilization, but it just comes across as static when you're many light years away. An advance civilization on Alpha Centauri could pick them up, but from Canopus, no way in hell.

We also could have gotten alien signals, but we just don't recognize them or have the technology to pick them up, because if they are a Type II civilization or beyond, they certainly have/need something way more advanced than radio waves.

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That part I understand, but I still don't understand how they can get any information on the planet aside from its size and density. I don't understand how looking at our own solar system from 40 light years away that you could tell much of a difference between Earth and Venus.

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They can calculate the mass pretty easily as you said. From there they can calculate the orbit and they can calculate how close the planet is to the star. Knowing the mass, orbit, and distance from the star provides a shitload of info, the most important being the temperature on the surface.

And if you know how hot the planet is, you can easily determine whether it might be hospitable to life (at least life as we understand it). Too hot or too cold and things go to shite. After you know the temperature, then it's easy to determine whether LIQUID water is on the surface (we know the freezing point of water). And we know water is essential to life on earth. So, no water and there's probably no life.

Finally, they can look at the atmosphere and determine the chemical composition. This can be another clue as to what the planet is like on the surface and whether there is any life. We know what our atmosphere is composed of and we can take that information and compare it to other planets.

For example, methane is one chemical strongly associated with life on earth and it is believed that if we find methane signatures on other planets, that life almost certainly exists there.

Yeah i get that, but if its a statistical certainty and there are hundreds of life bearing planets some much older than ours i would think some would surpass us in technology and we would be picking up radio waves or some type of space noise that would indicate intelligent life.

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Yeah i get that, but if its a statistical certainty and there are hundreds of life bearing planets some much older than ours i would think some would surpass us in technology and we would be picking up radio waves or some type of space noise that would indicate intelligent life.

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Not necessarily. The galaxy is a vast place. If you had a light bulb that could shine across the galaxy (in theory) and you flipped the switch on, it would take the light beam over 100,000 years to get to the other side. For comparison, light goes around the earth 7 times in one second and only takes 8 minutes to get from our sun to us.

Can we build big shuttles and send all the Muslims, liberals, and LGBT alphabet types there?

Or...is this a ploy to get Obama back as POTUS so he can run up enough debt such that we can build a bridge to walk there?

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the most important being the temperature on the surface.

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Does it? There's a vast difference in surface temperature between planets in our Goldilocks zone. Venus is 900 degrees, Earth is 60 degrees, and Mars is -80.

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Finally, they can look at the atmosphere and determine the chemical composition. This can be another clue as to what the planet is like on the surface and whether there is any life. We know what our atmosphere is composed of and we can take that information and compare it to other planets.

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This is the part I don't understand. How can they possibly know what the composition of the atmosphere is? From a distance it seems Venus would be much more likely to hold life than Mars for example.

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For example, methane is one chemical strongly associated with life on earth and it is believed that if we find methane signatures on other planets, that life almost certainly exists there.

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But Mars does have methane in its atmosphere... which granted makes it very possible life is there.