Distant Solar System (APOD 18 Feb 2008)

[emc]

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap080218.html
It is very very very difficult not to imagine that there are at least a few earthlike planets out there with life somewhat similar to ours.

[neufer]

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap080218.html
It is very very very difficult not to imagine that there are at least a few earthlike planets out there with life somewhat similar to ours.

<<Vogon poetry is of course the third worst in the Universe.

The very worst poetry of all perished along with its creator
Paula Nancy Millstone Jennings of Greenbridge, Essex, England in
the destruction of the planet Earth.

Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz smiled very slowly. This was done not so
much for effect as because he was trying to remember the sequence
of muscle movements. He had had a terribly therapeutic yell at

his prisoners and was now feeling quite relaxed and ready for a
little callousness.

The prisoners sat in Poetry Appreciation Chairs --strapped in.
Vogons suffered no illusions as to the regard their works were
generally held in. Their early attempts at composition had been
part of bludgeoning insistence that they be accepted as a
properly evolved and cultured race, but now the only thing that
kept them going was sheer bloodymindedness.

The sweat stood out cold on Ford Prefect's brow, and slid round
the electrodes strapped to his temples. These were attached to a
battery of electronic equipment - imagery intensifiers, rhythmic
modulators, alliterative residulators and simile dumpers - all
designed to heighten the experience of the poem and make sure
that not a single nuance of the poet's thought was lost.

Arthur Dent sat and quivered. He had no idea what he was in for,
but he knew that he hadn't liked anything that had happened so
far and didn't think things were likely to change.

The Vogon began to read - a fetid little passage of his own
devising.

"Oh frettled gruntbuggly ..." he began. Spasms wracked Ford's
body - this was worse than ever he'd been prepared for.

"... thy micturations are to me | As plurdled gabbleblotchits on
a lurgid bee."

"Aaaaaaarggggghhhhhh!" went Ford Prefect, wrenching his head back
as lumps of pain thumped through it. He could dimly see beside
him Arthur lolling and rolling in his seat. He clenched his
teeth.

"Groop I implore thee," continued the merciless Vogon, "my
foonting turlingdromes."

His voice was rising to a horrible pitch of impassioned
stridency. "And hooptiously drangle me with crinkly
bindlewurdles,| Or I will rend thee in the gobberwarts with my
blurglecruncheon, see if I don't!"

"Nnnnnnnnnnyyyyyyyuuuuuuurrrrrrrggggggghhhhh!" cried Ford Prefect
and threw one final spasm as the electronic enhancement of the
last line caught him full blast across the temples. He went limp.

Arthur lolled.

"Now Earthlings ..." whirred the Vogon (he didn't know that Ford
Prefect was in fact from a small planet in the vicinity of
Betelgeuse, and wouldn't have cared if he had) "I present you
with a simple choice! Either die in the vacuum of space, or ..."
he paused for melodramatic effect, "tell me how good you thought
my poem was!"

He threw himself backwards into a huge leathery bat-shaped seat
and watched them. He did the smile again.

Ford was rasping for breath. He rolled his dusty tongue round his
parched mouth and moaned.

Arthur said brightly: "Actually I quite liked it.">>

[emc]

Art Neuendorffer,
Your literary quoting also ties into the various other APOD’s that portray the astronauts. Some of the passages you quoted made me think of how brave they are faced by the clutches of death that surrounds them like some super gigantic darkened leach from the pits of the great abyss of space just waiting for the least crack or breakdown of molecular bonding to claim the living prize within the technological barrier we so trustingly trust.

I absolutely love the images of the astronauts… especially at work. The images help one better appreciate the divine and the danger of their work.

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap080219.html

[FieryIce]

It would be absurd and egotistic to think Earth is the only inhabited planet. I would put that right up there with quoting literature for posts.

[emc]

It would be absurd and egotistic to think Earth is the only inhabited planet. I would put that right up there with quoting literature for posts.

Egotistic, yes... which falls in line with our history. I don't see absurd however, until there is unquestionable evidence.

Why the innuendo about posting literature quotes? I admit a link would be better but we don't have to read. This is a free post as long as we meet the rules.

[neufer]

It would be absurd and egotistic to think Earth is the only inhabited planet. I would put that right up there with quoting literature for posts.

Cyber space is a pretty big place. It's bigger than anything anyone has ever dreamed of before. So if it's just prose... seems like an awful waste of space.

[Nick]

I was just thinking the astronaut is looking at a map and musing on how the sat nav sent him there instead of Bognor Regis.

[FieryIce]

Cyber space can be undone, unplugged; space cannot, Earth is set in it.

[bystander]

It would be absurd and egotistic to think Earth is the only inhabited planet. I would put that right up there with quoting literature for posts.

I would put it right up there with stating an opinion or observation w/o supporting evidence and then implying others are stupid or ignorant when they ask for evidence or have the audacity to disagree with you.

Cyber space is a pretty big place. It's bigger than anything anyone has ever dreamed of before. So if it's just prose... seems like an awful waste of space.

In principle, I agree, but sometimes I wonder about the relevance of your quotes. And sometimes like this, you don't provide the source of your quotes. Not everyone will recognize Douglas Adams. I agree with emc that links would be better, with you providing the relevance in your post.

[Case]

Cyber space is a pretty big place. It's bigger than anything anyone has ever dreamed of before. So if it's just prose... seems like an awful waste of space.

In principle, I agree, but sometimes I wonder about the relevance of your quotes. And sometimes like this, you don't provide the source of your quotes. Not everyone will recognize Douglas Adams. I agree with emc that links would be better, with you providing the relevance in your post.

I'm tempted to reveal the origin of that last quote, but that would spoil the fun. Besides, Neufer included new words in it ("cyber", "prose").

[bystander]

I'm tempted to reveal the origin of that last quote, but that would spoil the fun. Besides, Neufer included new words in it ("cyber", "prose").

You got me there, I didn't even recognize it as a quote. I was refering to the second post in this stream. Maybe you or neufer can share with us later? I would like to join the fun.

[Arramon]

It always seems that we need to see before we believe. But if you reason things out, all functions throughout the cosmos in our 'neck of the woods' (time/space/linear place within the expansion of things) pretty much do what they are supposed to... gas, nebulae, stars, planets, blackholes. Life and death of elements that have a cycle scientists have been dedicated to learning for centuries.

We know what they are, what they can do, and even if we dont know what they can 'exactly' do, knowing the little we do tells us that our planet is not the only one out there. We're already discovering new ways to detect smaller and smaller masses that were blinded to us because of a star's brightness. And that's just visual light... Newer, faster, more powerful technologies, better resolution for capturing any and all wavelengths, chemical compositions or regional temperatures of vast areas within the universe.

Billions of stars? And we've only studied a handful to detect possible orbitting planets and find that almost all of those have the building blocks to create what we call 'living conditions' in space, and already have, seeing as how planets like our Jupiter and Saturn have already been logged.

Could life evolve outside of an environment that is limited to a rocky planet or gas one with moons orbitting a star? What extreme 'conditions' could Life arrise in that wouldnt need a 'cradle' to form within...

[emc]

The distances alone boggle my mind... the numbers of stars and galaxies boggle it even more... and it boggles my mind a lot less to "believe" there is life other than earth... out there.

[Arramon]

It's as though we are primitive humans discovering there are other areas, ravines, forests, mountain ranges, land masses on earth that also have their own populations and cultures. So we learn something new, within our collective groups, and share new ideas with those from elsewhere.

To discover life out there (not of earth), or to discover regions/planets so similar to ours, just seems like one of the next logical steps for our species as it grows and becomes more aware of its surroundings.

The distances between galaxies is pretty much our limit as far as communication goes. We can't reach that far even if we knew how, because it would take far too long to get there, or for us to even become aware that it was received. Concentrating on our own local neighborhood of star systems could really help us prove once and for all if 'life', any kind of life, could exist elsewhere.

Funny how we know so little and think we know so much, and still the unanswered questions seem to make us think twice about how things should function or work, or if its even a possibility. Baby steps through the cosmos.

Explore the backyard, explore the front yard, explore the neighbor's yard, explore across the street, around the corner, another block away, in the next city, state, country, expanding outward. We tend to look as far away as we can to hopefully distinguish something we may recognize, not realizing that there are forces and elements right under our nose that we have no clue about.

New technologies should harness the power of the sun (our battery for the next million years), and point that collective analytical advancement right into the heart of space around us, surrounding our solar system and bringing the local group of stars into a focus that may help explain how it all interacts. Micro, macro, even smaller... even deeper into what creates the smallest of elements.

One thing I'm curious about is if the location of our sun in the Milky Way has anything to do with life forming here, us being in the 'suburbs' and all. And if a planet does exist that is the same as ours, would life really form as it did here, or would life take on another route and become a different form of matter other than what we figure it should be, based on our 'earthly' experimental analyses.

[Cherie]

bystander: Right on with the response to FieryIce. Now Google "Arthur Dent".

neufer: The literary references are great...when I get them. When I don't, I feel left out of the fun. It's not as unkind as when we are made to feel stupid and ignorant, but why not include everyone by providing links or sources? Thanks.

Cherie

[bystander]

Right on with the response to FieryIce. Now Google "Arthur Dent".

I understand Arthur Dent, Ford Prefect, Vogons, and Douglas Adams. I've been a Hitchhiker fan since the early '80s PBS airing of the BBC TV series.

It's the paraphrase of Ellie Arroway I didn't get. Took some time but I found it. Thought I recognized it after Case jogged my memory (movie trailers).

Dr. Ellie Arroway: [to a group of children] I'll tell you one thing about the universe, though. The universe is a pretty big place. It's bigger than anything anyone has ever dreamed of before. So if it's just us... seems like an awful waste of space. Right?

CQ, CQ, this is W9GFO. Is anybody out there?

Carl, you were a true visionary. You are missed among the Cosmos.

BTW, Case: You are correct, the context is extremely amusing.

[Andy Wade]

I often wonder what an infinite number of monkeys might look like.

[Arramon]

We may find that planet one day....

[bystander]

An infinite number of monkeys with typewriters (Monkius typeriterus) is a discovery made in the late 1984 by the famous Guatemalan explorer Cher, after her plane crashed in the New Jersey and she accidentally discovered the gates of hell, which were surrounded by monkeys (it is said that these monkeys were the inspiration for Dante Alighieri's famous romantic comedy: Harry Potter and the Journey to the Center of the Earth). The monkeys, which were later recruited by the US government to re-write the constitution, had been underground since the 12th century, when they were created by Shakespeare to write his complete plays.

The inspiration for using monkeys is said to have come from Shakespeare's brother, Charles Darwin, who had previously invented monkeys to support his far-fetched theories on typewriting...

http://uncyclopedia.org/wiki/An_infinit ... ypewriters

[Arramon]

An infinite number of monkeys with typewriters (Monkius typeriterus) is a discovery made in the late 1984 by the famous Guatemalan explorer Cher, after her plane crashed in the New Jersey and she accidentally discovered the gates of hell, which were surrounded by monkeys (it is said that these monkeys were the inspiration for Dante Alighieri's famous romantic comedy: Harry Potter and the Journey to the Center of the Earth). The monkeys, which were later recruited by the US government to re-write the constitution, had been underground since the 12th century, when they were created by Shakespeare to write his complete plays.

The inspiration for using monkeys is said to have come from Shakespeare's brother, Charles Darwin, who had previously invented monkeys to support his far-fetched theories on typewriting...

http://uncyclopedia.org/wiki/An_infinit ... ypewriters

oh wow.... *goes to website to completely rewrite history*

omg..

Much was clarified after the first translation of the 31st book of the Bible, How to Cook an Infinite Number of Monkeys and Their Typewriters: An introduction to Quantum Physics. The book was met with considerable protests from typewriter activists in 2007, when their leader Chewbacca declared that monkeys were "ROOOOAAAAAWWWWWRRRRROOOORRRRR".

i'm dying over here...

[Czerno]

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap080218.html
It is very very very difficult not to imagine that there are at least a few earthlike planets out there with life somewhat similar to ours.

The above unqualified statement (and similar ones; no personal attack on anyone) look to me as pertaining more to the realm of Faith than Science.

Attempts at making the belief more "scientific" generally fail but to make it more ridiculous; usually they go like : there are N (very large but finite number) galaxies in the Universe, each with N' stars (other very large ad hoc number, 200 billion for instance).

Then it goes on trying to evaluate and compose the minuscule "probabilities" that a "random" star among the (N times N') lot has rocky, earth-like planet(s), at a good distance from the central star, and the planet has had conditions on it similar to what the conditions on primitive earth (are supposed to) have been, and "therefore" life "must" have started on that planet (or did it come from interstellar space ? And what were the probabilities again?), and then life evolved exo-darwinianly over the course of billions of years, and then...(I'm omitting many steps here)...

One completes the argument by multiplying the numbers together, some hand waving, and, behold, (the Universe is sooo large...), one finds that there must be definitely a significant number of earthes revolving around friendly suns, with billions of extraterrestrials eating pop-corn or bathing in billions of blue lagoons.

The *big* problem however, beyond that of a half-credible estimation of the minute numbers or probabilities... is even if the probabilities were better defined, the final "numbers" are obtained by *multiplying* together *very large* numbers (stars, galaxies, clusters...) and *extremely small* ones ("probabilities" that things turned out favurably)... As everyone knows from elementary analysis courses, multiplying out zero by infinity is an *indeterminate* - which translates here that the final result on the number of inhabited planets has no meaning (no significant digit, not even an order of magnitude). By manipulating the various numbers involved (especially, the very minute probabilities, ten-to-the-minus-something...) one can obtain exactly any result one wanted. Of course these results are meaningless.

Whether presented as a scientific argument or not, ISTM the belief in the existence of extraterrestrial life is of a quasi-religious nature and not amenable to real science, at the moment and possibly for long foreseable times...

I'm fully open to learn about flaws in my sketchy reasoning, however

[emc]

Czerno,

If I understand your sketch, you are right... and please understand that I am not attacking you but through your post you may have sparked a friendly debate.

There is no argument here as to whether there is life on other planets... the answer is no... (since there is no scientific proof).

What is referred to when speculation is given regarding life on other planets is the (dare I use this word) 'logic' involved in deductive reasoning that for me indicates possibility and due to the numbers you mentioned... probability.

Some aspect of science has to have 'faith' or else... for example, we wouldn't have light bulbs. And I believe that Mr. Edison at least had faith that he wouldn't 'blow up' based on his obvious drive to accomplish... although he nearly succeeded in doing so.

You yourself had to have just a little faith that the internet would be working, this forum would still be 'on the web' and that someone would read your post...

Respectfully,
emc

[Andy Wade]

OK this is a little OT but I'm now wondering about life we may have taken 'off Earth'.
Did the lunar modules still contain a breatheable atmosphere and would it still be sufficient to support microbial life left aboard by the astronauts?
I wonder if there's a little bit of green mould sitting on the control panel of The Eagle module?

[emc]

Andy Wade,

Good point. I should have clarified 'life in distant solar systems'.

[bystander]

There is no argument here as to whether there is life on other planets... the answer is no... (since there is no scientific proof).

I think the proper answer is "We don't know!" There is no proof either way.