NASA's discovered hundreds of planets where aliens might live
The Kepler spacecraft, which is rooting about outerspace checking for habitable planets has apparently discovered 706 possible candidates by monitoring for subtle changes in brightness. Up next astronomers will run the results through a battery of other tests, identifying the most likely candidates. After that? A reality show featuring seven NASA astronauts in a competition to find the first actual ALF, or Cylon, Yoda or E.T. We're there, dude.























I would love actually see some hard data on this, otherwise it's just rumor/speculation.
@Jeremiah
That's what she said
@Jeremiah
Read the source link.... still ways to go I guess.
@WastedxYears
fail
@Jeremiah This would be awesome if they found aliens and they gave us ice cream
@Jeremiah
It's really not surprising, ever since planet finding technology made strides in the 90s, it seemed like everywhere we look, we find them, so we already know that planets aren't a rare phenomenon, now obviously big and bright gaseous planets are the easy ones to find so that's been like 99.9% of them so far, the Kepler was meant to bring as toward the next question; are smaller, rocky & watery, habitable planets a rare phenomenon, and it's really not too surprising that the answer to that is no as well
@That guy 2 think of the possibilities. we could make intergalactic peace... by giving them magical inventions like the iPad.
assuming their fingers get picked up by the capacitive screen.
@brrip : God help the poor buggers if they have oil.
@JeremyBenthem
Whos to say though that alien lifeforms would require an earth like planet in the goldilocks zone of a star to survive? We only assume that because those are the conditions necessary to sustain human life -- but shit, there could be other lifeforms that live places that we can't even imagine :)
@Jeremiah
Are you suggesting that you would understand that "hard data" if you saw it? It's probably about a million pages of raw numbers and calculations. Have fun with that!
@DoctarPeppar
that is possible, but of course we always go with what we know first, and the fact that we've realized our star system not to be so unique means that life may work in a similar fashion, after all the laws of science stay the same across at least this universe
@Loonie ... or if they ARE oil.
@Jeremiah anyone know if these planets are found in outerspace away from us or inner space closer to the big bang. You know how the theory of us slowly going further away from the big bang? That's what i mean because if theyre farther away, they could be more intelligent than us or closer to the big bang means we're probably more advanced.
@(Unverified)
The big bang only 'banged' once, and everything 'banged' out of it at the same time, I doubt you have to be a specific distance from the middle before life can begin. They could be just as intelligent in either direction. The big bang was just an event, you can't be any physical distance from it at this point, and in time everything is the same 'distance' from it.
@brrip What if they're from an advanced technology that has a lot of Flash web pages?
@RJMajestic That was a great explanation, but i might add he was right in a way to an extent: we could be looking at planets extremely far away which would be an image from the past meaning that the civilization (possibly) there has either advanced farther or become extinct.
@DoctarPeppar Higher life forms certainly would. Bacteria however could be quite ubiquitous. Anyhow, we will never get to see them unless we master FTL travel, and even then the distances are so far it is nearly incomprehensible.
@DoctarPeppar
jupiter could be like bespin...beneath what we ignore there could be this amazing civilization living in the clouds. hahaha
@Unverified User Not necessarily. Life's evolution on other planets doesn't have to follow our evolutionary time line. Some planets will still have primordial ooze while others may have flying cars and wireless iPad syncing....
@(Unverified)
i don't think it makes any sence to look outside of our galaxy (i guess it's not even possible), and compared to the size of the universe, all the stars are just on one spot, so it shouldn't make any difference...
also, intelligent life could have evolved much earlier... there is life on earth for several 100million years (just think of dinosaurs which lived 65 million years ago) , the evolution of humens just took like 1 or 2 million years...
@Jeremiah
Glad to hear Kepler's "No, This Isn't a Fairy Tail" mission is going well.
I blame Jesus Christ for not scaring our ancestors into a space age right from the get go.
"If you do not build ladders to the sky My father will squash you all like bugs, you have ten seconds."
Bingo/Presto
Go Kepler!
@Jeremiah
Why is it that people always look for ways to deny things they are afraid of, everybody with an intelligent mind knows "aliens" are all around us pleidians, arcturians, reptilian, etc etc how do you think our technology has evolved so greatly in the last fifty years, wake up youngster there is things actually out there you could never even imagine.
@DoctarPeppar The goldilocks zone allows for the presence of water. That is the standard scientists use because carbon based life forms require liquid water to survive. That being said, there are some things that can survive without ever seeing liquid water. The chemical properties of carbon allow for the building blocks of life as we know it. There is another element that shares the same unique properties as carbon, silicon. But, no one knows if liquid water is required for silicon based life.
@Jeremiah We must summon Dr. Michio Kaku to dumbfound us all! All hail Dr. Michio!
Money for Hollywood movies!! ;)
@iPodPhone And Hollywood has brainwashed everyone into thinking that aliens are evil and will try to kill us all for some resource that would be available on any other planet in our solar system. I swear, there hasn't been a good science fiction movie since 2001: A Space Odyssey.
@wemustcontrolpeople Oh, and Contact. Plots that go along the lines of War of the Worlds are utter garbage.
@wemustcontrolpeople
Event Horizon was pretty good.
@wemustcontrolpeople
Actually, Hawking and other notable scientists have said things along similar lines -- that we should try to avoid contact with intelligent alien species, because they would probably wouldn't be peaceful and would try to own us or something.
Personally, I don't buy that -- if there was an intelligent species who had the technology to travel through interstellar space..wtf would they want from us? I would love to be alive if \ when we make first contact :)
@wemustcontrolpeople
oh they told you we'd all be fine if we just submit? yeah, they told me that too. don't believe them...
@Frogboy
I especially liked the part where they go from "we got a transmission but our thousand scientists can't tell what it means" to the random tech guy saying "sounds like latin to me, let me translate it real quick". lol
@DoctarPeppar They would want our "insert rare resource" that lies underneath Home Tree. *insert e-tear*
But seriously, we know for one that life and just plain H2O are extremely rare in planets, so there is a possibility we could have something that they can use, and might decide to take by force.
After all, you didn't ask the ants to move their anthill before laying the foundation for your house.
@iPodPhone Independence Day 2/3 coming out in a couple years...
@DoctarPeppar
Genetic material for their Reaper-like race ?
@iPodPhone
And one step closer to the return of the reapers.
@DoctarPeppar They would force their way to the front of the iPhone 4 queue!
@Ducman69
Water is not rare in comets, which would be a much more accessible resource to a space-faring race than hauling it out of a gravity well like Earth.
I'd prefer to meet Mork's mob than Alf's
Apparently there may be intelligent life out there after all
@CooterLightman
Not much on Earth anyway...
Apple's iPhone 5 will have Alien detector ;)
@iPodPhone
I feel like eating McDonald's.
@iPodPhone Makes sense, since they would have sucked all the Earth consumers dry with their mostly overpriced products. :D
How about trying to find life on earth first ? intelligent life that is...
@Stormstrike
Agreed
@Stormstrike
Impossible.
We've already looked.
Nothing.
@Stormstrike You're so clever. Your grammar proves you are one of those mentioned.
@Ninjakid4
I'm right here. No no need to keep looking.
Fake and gay.
@palomosan
nobody likes a poser
raywilliamjohnson is laughing at you right now!