What is Digg?45 Comments
- xero040486, on 10/11/2007, -6/+64Why would the average person care about newly discovered planets? Paris is in jail!
- one1plus1one, on 10/11/2007, -1/+41@carpespasm:
Actually the reason that the newly discovered planets may seem "uninteresting" to you is simply because we know very little about them thus far.
For now, all we really know is that they are there.
But for every planet and moon in our solar system that we study, we find a unique world onto itself, with suprises and anomolies that we still can not fully explain.
Why is Venus' axis so tiltled? Why are Saturn's rings so "new", and how did they form? How did our Moon get there? Is there an ocean under the ice of Jupiter's moon Europa? Why is Mercury so unusually "heavy"? Why is Titan so hazy?
Those are just the scientific questions. But then comes the human aspect of wondering:
imagining what it would be like to set foot upon those distant worlds. What would a sunset look like on such a planet? What would it be like to stand on Mar's Mount Olympus, which literally towers towards space? Are there hidden caves on Mars? What would the view of Jupiter be like from the vantage point of IO? What would it be like to slide down the vast "snow" mountains of Tritan?
This is just the beginning of endless wonder and amazement that lies before us to discover. - thedarkrabbit, on 10/11/2007, -1/+29We're pretty cocky to think we're alone out here...
- totorototoro, on 10/11/2007, -0/+22I regret that Carl Sagan died before seeing all these new discoveries :(
- finista, on 10/11/2007, -2/+20I wish they find a planet and send all spoiled celebrities there.
- carpespasm, on 10/11/2007, -3/+20the universe is a big place, there's a lot of planets out there (an understatement), when one has something interesting to it i'd like to know, but most of them would be similar to ones we already know about i would imagine. still, nice to know they're finding more and more of them
- Ngai, on 10/11/2007, -1/+16"There is a myth about such highs that the user has an illusion of great insight, but it does not survive scrutiny in the morning. I am convinced that this is an error, and that the devastating insights achieved when high are real insights; the main problem is putting those insights in a form acceptable to the quite different self that we are when we're down the next day. Some of the hardest work I've ever done has been to put such insights down on tape or in writing. "I am convinced that there are genuine and valid levels of perception available with cannabis (and probably with other drugs) which are, through the defects of our society and our educational system, un-available to us without such drugs." ~Carl Sagan
I do as well... - revenge7, on 10/11/2007, -0/+15...yet.
- swavalier711, on 10/11/2007, -1/+14"The surest sign of intelligent life in the universe is that none of it has tried to contact us."
-Bill Watterson - Spidey99, on 10/11/2007, -1/+11xero...that was the funniest thing i read all day...thanks
- kazamx, on 10/11/2007, -0/+7While we may never see them, think of future generations. We can only do what we can today thanks to their hard work. Future generations will build on our discoveries and maybe your son/duaghter or their kids will be able to do and see things that we can only imagine.
- carpespasm, on 10/11/2007, -1/+6screw another planet, they're not worth the effort, how about just loading them up and sending them to the sun? it's only 8 light min. away and easy to get directions to.
- Ngai, on 10/11/2007, -3/+6well if the universe is ever expanding... and this works just like putting 2 dots on a rubber band and expanding the band farther and farther apart. This is what happens to us and the next galaxy... and they're are a lot of planets; well then we have to figure a way to get there that beats the the expanding by (x) fold...
otherwise we'll be here for a lonngg time... - inactive, on 10/11/2007, -1/+4It's just that our ability to "see" these planets, which tend to give off almost no indications of their presence, has increased in orders of magnetude.
- Vanderdecken, on 10/11/2007, -0/+2I still maintain that Daniel Jackson should hurry up and discover how to work that damn Stargate. Then we can meet the Asgard and Tok'ra. and finally get to explore this damn galaxy. Given a big enough budget, we should make it to Atlantis by 2020.
- finista, on 10/11/2007, -5/+7Ok, they find an Earth-like planet. Fine. But then what?
You still can't get there. - ollj, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1no, not if you waste money in creationists museums.
- SimianSamurai, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1Right, but not Michael Shanks - Daniel Jackson, we want James Spader - Daniel Jackson!
- johnnyrocket, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1"don't even get reported outside scientific circles"
Yeah, because there's missing white women and Paris is in jail! - revenge7, on 10/11/2007, -4/+5The chance of their being other intelligent life in the universe? Very high.
The chance any of them have visited our solar system? Very low. - Negyxo, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1I'm pretty sure if we identified a livable or seemingly livable planet it would not be a "so what?" scenario. If would herald a boom in interest for long distance space travel and would challenge people to consider their place in the universe. The idea of life outside of earth would no longer be dismissed as sci-fi and could possibly begin a new age in humanity. An age where we unify in our likeness when faced with the enourmous diversity and expansiviness of our univserse. An age where people would go on star treks of sorts....
- ollj, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1I am working on an overview of all extrasolar planet systems on a map that is 4 pixel per degree, aequatoreal.
This early inaccurate version shows only the extrasolar planet known till the end of 2000bce, which is only 49 of 236:
http://img480.imageshack.us/img480/231/ccccxo9.jpg
I need help with finding errors and a constellation map with the same projection. - nufoto, on 10/11/2007, -1/+2How about some pictures, real Pics not CGI stuff!?...NASA better get moving on the new Space based Telescopes.
- krinthekuz, on 09/16/2008, -0/+1@ finista... and then we can leave them there for 50 years, and the wonder what they'll say when we go back?
- interiot, on 10/11/2007, -1/+2And visa-versa... when European settlers began spreading across the globe for the first time, Eurasia received as many good and bad things as they gave: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbian_Exchange#Table_of_comparison (though ultimately a lot more american/australian/hawaiian native people died than europeans... if we discover life out there, there's a pretty big chance that one or the other is going to be much more technologically advanced than the other)
- ollj, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1http://img79.imageshack.us/img79/7780/allextrasolarjune2007natx5.gif
Is much more accurate. Every red dot is a sun with extrasolar planet(s), discovered till June 2007. All suns with planets discovered till the end of 2002 (roughly half of them) are named. - ahsanfarhan22, on 10/11/2007, -2/+2i am bringing PLUTO back!!!
- Vanderdecken, on 10/11/2007, -0/+0I'm afraid I'm going to have to bury that comment. We so want Michael Shanks... James Spader is good, Shanksy's better.
- messiah420, on 10/11/2007, -3/+2I would like to lead an expedition to colonize the first human friendly planet we find. Whos with me!
- xedd, on 10/11/2007, -5/+3Is it cockiness, or is the human race in a state of denial: a denial induced by the current domination of ego-centric religions that worship weirdly almost-psychotic, egotistical "Gods", (i.e. the whole I AM THE TRUE GOD, WORSHIP ME OR BE PUNISHED FOREVER! BELIEVE THIS SILLY ILLOGICAL THEOLOGICAL FORMULA AND YOU WILL BE SAVED FROM ETERNAL DAMNATION AND DESTRUCTION, AND, BTW: I LOVE YOU! ...kind of *****...)
- kazamx, on 10/11/2007, -3/+1Thinking about Mars.
Does anyone else think that while finding some form of life there would be a world changing event, it would also be a little sad. If we find some form of life Humans may never be able to go there for fear of distroying that life with our bacteria etc.
Without the (relativly) easy first step of building a Mars base, Human exploration of space will be increasinly difficult. Mars is pretty much the only viable planet for Humans to expand onto in the future. - modelcadet, on 10/11/2007, -5/+2We're also pretty dumb to think that investing resources in SETI is worthwhile...
- patsfan456, on 10/11/2007, -12/+9They must be hiding WMD's out there.
- 3leggedHorse, on 10/11/2007, -5/+2But we still are the most intelligent species in existence and no aliens do not exist and have not payed us the odd viking visit.
(Sarcasm a universal language, you don't even need a bable fish.) - aaronleland, on 10/11/2007, -3/+0I imagine there is some form of life out there, but I doubt it is anything very advanced. I could care less whether or not we are alone. I'm more worried about finding places we can colonize, just in case this planet goes KABLOOEY for some reason.
- vawksel, on 10/11/2007, -5/+2Shes not in a 8x11 cell though, she's in a nice happy hospital area probably playing cards all day with her new found friends.
Of course she gets special treatment, DUH. - g0nzilla, on 10/11/2007, -6/+31 ah-planet, 2ooo ah-planet, 3eee ah-planet more! ah ah ah ah ah
- CogitatorX, on 10/11/2007, -5/+1Did Jeebus create them planets too? Pat Robertson said space is full of balls of gas and is of the devil.
- baldwin90, on 10/11/2007, -4/+0i wonder what else the scientific world is "hiding" from us...
- xpose, on 10/11/2007, -6/+1ill find a planet and call it jo0ranus.
- Asianwaste, on 10/11/2007, -6/+1If they are not teeming with life or are habitable, then who gives a crap?
- inactive, on 10/11/2007, -8/+3That's because in the words of the great Dolly Parton
"Plastic surgeons are always making mountains out of molehills."
And astronomers due the same about hunks of rock in space.
reference for quote: http://www.digg.com/offbeat_news/This_is_by_far_the_best_comeback_line_in_the_history_of_one_liners (scroll down for quote) - MagicToenail, on 10/11/2007, -6/+0How is it, then, that we now know about them?
- mstoneburner, on 10/11/2007, -10/+3If there's no chance I'll ever get to visit it or even see a picture of it, what do I care? Really, there's nothing particular exciting about yet another group of eggheads discover some "wobble" in a star. Build a telescope bad assed enough to actually image an extra-solar planet then I'll care.
- vroom101, on 10/11/2007, -28/+1breaking!!!...alien world...spotted from space...H2O...hot...colorful...creature-ized...what to do???
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/NewImages/Images/spring_iko_2001229_lrg.jpg (pic)
http://chamorrobible.org/gpw/gpw-20041023.htm (more pictures)
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