AP - NASA finds planet that's just about right for life

[KDawg]

Secondly the planet may not even exist, because the image that was taken was an image at least 600 years old.

This, right here, makes my head hurt like a mother ****er.

[Sacks N Stuff]

this **** makes my head hurt.

and consider me in the crowd that doesnt want to make contact with the outside world...I dont want to become some alien's slave :pfft:

I for one, welcome our new alien overlords. I'd like to remind them that as a school teacher, I can be helpful in rounding up small children to toil in their underground sugar mines.

[gchwood]

Planets don't just disappear in a span of 600 years. The star for this sun is similar to ours, meaning that it's still in a very stable stage and will stay so for another couple billion years.

They haven't analyzed the planets composition yet because the Kepler telescope doesn't have that power so we don't know for sure if this planet even has liquid or rocky terrain. we do have other telescopes that can do that and we will eventually know soon what the composition is.

There could have been a catastrophic asteroid event within the last 600 years though. Not saying it did happen, just saying that it could happen.

---------- Post added December-6th-2011 at 09:05 AM ----------

This, right here, makes my head hurt like a mother ****er.

How about this then, when you look up at the sky at night it is all a lie, there are stars up there that have burned out, even the image of the moon is a full second old.

---------- Post added December-6th-2011 at 09:07 AM ----------

This, right here, makes my head hurt like a mother ****er.

How about this then, when you look up at the sky at night it is all a lie, there are stars up there that have burned out, even the image of the moon is a full second old.

[mjah]

You never dreamed of dating a hot alien girl with 4 eyeballs and 8 ears ?

When I think of hot alien girls, I tend to envision duplicate parts that are neither eyeballs nor ears.

[KDawg]

How about this then, when you look up at the sky at night it is all a lie, there are stars up there that have burned out, even the image of the moon is a full second old.

---------- Post added December-6th-2011 at 09:07 AM ----------

How about this then, when you look up at the sky at night it is all a lie, there are stars up there that have burned out, even the image of the moon is a full second old.

Not only did you go and make my head hurt even more... But you repeated it. Jerk.

[z0eboy]

I love this kinda stuff, thanks for sharing. I read this article this morning that made me want to add to your thread.

Black Holes Billions Of Times Bigger Than Sun Discovered (IMAGE)

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/05/black-hole-scientists-discover-huge_n_1129727.html

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- Scientists have found the biggest black holes known to exist – each one 10 billion times the size of our sun.

A team led by astronomers at the University of California, Berkeley, discovered the two gigantic black holes in clusters of elliptical galaxies more than 300 million light years away. That's relatively close on the galactic scale.

"They are monstrous," Berkeley astrophysicist Chung-Pei Ma told reporters. "We did not expect to find such massive black holes because they are more massive than indicated by their galaxy properties. They're kind of extraordinary."

The previous black hole record-holder is as large as 6 billion suns.

In research released Monday by the journal Nature, the scientists suggest these black holes may be the leftovers of quasars that crammed the early universe. They are similar in mass to young quasars, they said, and have been well hidden until now.

The scientists used ground-based telescopes as well as the Hubble Space Telescope and Texas supercomputers, observing stars near the black holes and measuring the stellar velocities to uncover these vast, invisible regions.

Black holes are objects so dense that nothing, not even light, can escape. Some are formed by the collapse of a super-size star. It's uncertain how these two newly discovered whoppers originated, said Nicholas McConnell, a Berkeley graduate student who is the study's lead author. To be so massive now means they must have grown considerably since their formation, he said.

[PiLfan]

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- Scientists have found the biggest black holes known to exist – each one 10 billion times the size of our sun.

A team led by astronomers at the University of California, Berkeley, discovered the two gigantic black holes in clusters of elliptical galaxies more than 300 million light years away. That's relatively close on the galactic scale.

"Black holes are objects so dense that nothing, not even light, can escape. Some are formed by the collapse of a super-size star. It's uncertain how these two newly discovered whoppers originated, said Nicholas McConnell, a Berkeley graduate student who is the study's lead author. To be so massive now means they must have grown considerably since their formation, he said.

Regarding the above, I always kind of wondered how close was "too close" when it comes to our planet and solar system and one of these black holes? Obviously the size of 10 billion suns is pretty freaking huge, and considering it sucks everything in, including light, into a presumably crushing and smothering demise, how close would one of these things have to swerve by us before scientists go "Oh fudge no!" and declare we only have X number of days/hours left before we too get smashed like teeny tiny twiddle bugs on the front bumper of a semi doing 85mph?

[z0eboy]

There could be life in our solar system... well maybe not but this is another cool article!

http://www.nature.com/news/2011/111003/full/news.2011.569.html

Saturn's moon has never-ending winter

Millions of years of snowfall on Enceladus boost promise of subsurface ocean.

Jets of water vapour and ice shooting from the south pole of Saturn's moon Enceladus have been active for up to 100 million years, boosting the odds that the moon harbours a liquid ocean beneath its icy surface, a study suggests. If the existence of such an ocean is confirmed, Enceladus will become one of the most promising places in the Solar System in which to search for signs of extraterrestrial life.

[Unforgiven]

Regarding the above, I always kind of wondered how close was "too close" when it comes to our planet and solar system and one of these black holes? Obviously the size of 10 billion suns is pretty freaking huge, and considering it sucks everything in, including light, into a presumably crushing and smothering demise, how close would one of these things have to swerve by us before scientists go "Oh fudge no!" and declare we only have X number of days/hours left before we too get smashed like teeny tiny twiddle bugs on the front bumper of a semi doing 85mph?

The nearest Black Hole to Earth (that we know of) is about 1,600 light years away, close by space standards, but it's of no concern to us. The super massive variety of Black Hole that make things like our Sun look like a marble are generally found at the center of galaxies. It's their unimaginable gravitational pull that holds the galaxy itself together, just like the gravity of our Sun keeps us orbiting and the gravity of Earth keeps our Moon orbiting. As far as I'm aware (I'm no expert obviously) the nearest Black Hole of that type we're pretty sure it's going to eventually run into us and cause some serious problems (by problem I mean it will reshape the entire galaxy) is the expected collision of the Milky Way and Andromeda galaxies, which they estimate to take place in 3-5 Billion (yes with a years.

[PeterMP]

There could be life in our solar system... well maybe not but this is another cool article!

http://www.nature.com/news/2011/111003/full/news.2011.569.html

Saturn's moon has never-ending winter

Millions of years of snowfall on Enceladus boost promise of subsurface ocean.

Jets of water vapour and ice shooting from the south pole of Saturn's moon Enceladus have been active for up to 100 million years, boosting the odds that the moon harbours a liquid ocean beneath its icy surface, a study suggests. If the existence of such an ocean is confirmed, Enceladus will become one of the most promising places in the Solar System in which to search for signs of extraterrestrial life.

I think a good number of people believe there is life elsewhere in this solar system. There seem to be several possible sources of water. It just likely is very basic life.

[PokerPacker]

Also, for those of you familiar with Star Trek, if you suddenly had a ship that went Warp 7, despite that planet basically being right on top of us at a mere 600 light years away (that's super super close as the universe goes...hell our galaxy alone is over 100,000 light years across), it would still take nearly a year to get there.

yeah, but how long would it take in transwarp?

[Bang]

Imagine this conversation happening a few hundred million years ago, somewhere else, with their eye trained towards Earth...

~Bang

[gchwood]

Imagine this conversation happening a few hundred million years ago, somewhere else, with their eye trained towards Earth...

~Bang

Which is where Bang came from...

[grhqofb5]

Imagine this conversation happening a few hundred million years ago, somewhere else, with their eye trained towards Earth...

~Bang

If the speed of light is the interstellar speed limit, they probably said, "ahhh, **** it."

[mcsluggo]

but would you like to make an alien your slave?

i pick THIS one

[gchwood]

i pick THIS one

What? not a Ballchinian?

[mcsluggo]

Q: what do you call nuts hanging on a wall?

A: walnuts

Q: what do you call nuts hanging on a chest?

A: chestnuts

Q: what do you call nuts hanging on a chin?

A: I used to have a different answer than Ballchinian....

[RichmondRedskin88]

Yeah when the Milky Way and Andromeda galaxies collide everyone ****ed. If something doesn't hit Earth then the gravity pull of things flying by will destroy the Earth's atmosphere. That or the gravity pulls from all direction sends Earth off its orbit and spiraling away.

As far as black holes I wouldn't worry. Funny enough here's a huge belief among astronomers that black holes formed the galaxy actually. Of course the new experiments being done on Earth with black holes could eventually screw us all.

[China]

Yeah when the Milky Way and Andromeda galaxies collide everyone ****ed. If something doesn't hit Earth then the gravity pull of things flying by will destroy the Earth's atmosphere. That or the gravity pulls from all direction sends Earth off its orbit and spiraling away.

As far as black holes I wouldn't worry. Funny enough here's a huge belief among astronomers that black holes formed the galaxy actually. Of course the new experiments being done on Earth with black holes could eventually screw us all.

It'll be at least 3 billion years before the Andromeda galaxy collides with the Milky Way. In that time I imagine a lot more natural disasters will have occurred and people and/or the Earth may not exist at that point. At 5 billion years our own sun will begin turning into a red giant anyway, so we'll be toast either way.

[Unforgiven]

Yeah when the Milky Way and Andromeda galaxies collide everyone ****ed. If something doesn't hit Earth then the gravity pull of things flying by will destroy the Earth's atmosphere. That or the gravity pulls from all direction sends Earth off its orbit and spiraling away.

As far as black holes I wouldn't worry. Funny enough here's a huge belief among astronomers that black holes formed the galaxy actually. Of course the new experiments being done on Earth with black holes could eventually screw us all.

Yeah I've read all sorts of cool/crazy theories on black holes. Things like black holes are wormholes to other universes, the matter that falls into a black hole and exits it's twin 'white hole' in another universe. This idea leading to the notion that our universe was created by a black hole in another universe. In that case every black hole in our universe could be a gate way to separate and unique universe....and each of those universes has black holes of their own leading to universes you cant reach from ours and so on. So you basically end up with infinite universes.

Obviously we're so far away from understanding or testing any of this stuff, but it's neat to think about.

[The Brave Little Toaster Oven]

guys....seriously....will you stop hurting my head. :pfft:

[No Excuses]

Yeah I've read all sorts of cool/crazy theories on black holes. Things like black holes are wormholes to other universes, the matter that falls into a black hole and exits it's twin 'white hole' in another universe. This idea leading to the notion that our universe was created by a black hole in another universe. In that case every black hole in our universe could be a gate way to separate and unique universe....and each of those universes has black holes of their own leading to universes you cant reach from ours and so on. So you basically end up with infinite universes.

Obviously we're so far away from understanding or testing any of this stuff, but it's neat to think about.

Have you read Life of the Cosmos by Lee Smolin? It's a really interesting book on this same topic of universes forming through black holes while following a 'Darwinian' kind of natural selection process.

Although apparently some of Smolin's claims have been falsified now, it's still a pretty interesting book.

[grhqofb5]

I think I speak for most of us when I say that I hate aliens, and I don't understand why we keep trying to let them know where we are. Sounds like one of the top 5 things you might do prior to getting taken over and enslaved.

[z0eboy]

Somewhat unrelated but its cool if they can figure out how all this stuff we call life may have started.

Higgs Boson Search: CERN Releases New Data Said To Narrow Hunt For 'God Particle'

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/13/higgs-boson-cern-god-particle_n_1145593.html?icid=maing-grid7%7Cmain5%7Cdl9%7Csec1_lnk2%7C119665

GENEVA — Scientists hunting for an elusive subatomic particle say they've found "intriguing hints" – but not definitive proof – that it exists, narrowing down the search for what is believed to be a basic component of the universe. The researchers added that they hope to reach a conclusion on whether the particle exists by next year.

The latest data show that the mass of the Higgs boson – popularly referred to as the "God particle" – probably falls in the lower end of the spectrum of mass that can be produced by smashing protons together in the huge Large Hadron Collider, researchers from two independent teams said Tuesday.

The two teams said their data indicates the particle itself may have a mass of between roughly 114 and 130 billion electron volts. One billion electron volts is roughly the mass of a proton. The most likely mass of the Higgs boson is around 124 to 126 billion electron volts, the teams said.

Until Tuesday, the most likely mass was seen as between 114 and 141 billion electron volts. There is still a small possibility that the Higgs could be much more massive and found above 476 billion electron volts, physicists said.

The revelations Tuesday were heavily anticipated by thousands of researchers who hope that the particle, if it exists, can help explain why there is mass in the universe. British physicist Peter Higgs and others theorized the particle's existence more than 40 years ago to explain why fundamental particles – building blocks of the universe – have mass.

Both of the research teams work at CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research near Geneva. CERN runs the $10-billion Large Hadron Collider under the Swiss-French border, a 17-mile (27-kilometer) tunnel where high energy beams of protons are sent crashing into each other at incredible speeds.

Collisions between protons smashed in the collider produce energy that in turn creates other particles. On rare occasions, this energy could produce the Higgs particle – if it exists.

[grhqofb5]

Can someone attempt to explain what the Higgs particle is in layman's terms, and why it's so intriguing? I know its a tall order, but without an explanation I feel left out of the party.