View Single Post
Old 07-14-2007   #8 (permalink)
Jesus
Commentator
 
Join Date: Jun 2007
Posts: 52
Default Re: Scientists Urge a Search for Life Not as We Know It

What is it, like 4 lightyears to the nearest star?
And resent discoveries found a planet with a surface temperature at an average of 30 degrees, just about 100 lightyears from here. And we haven't seen that many planets yet, so there are probably more planets in the 100 lightyear vicinity of our planet, with that temperature.
But even if there only where a planet every 100 lightyears, with a temperature that we know could hold life, there are about *estimating*

100000*\pi ~ 314159 ( circumference of the milky way )
314159/100 ~ 3142 ( the planets on the circumference )
50000/100 ~ 500 ( planets across the radius of the galaxy )
102 ~ 100 ( two layers of planets )
Finaly: 2 * 3142 * 500 ~ 3 000 000 ( assuming more planets in the center of the galaxy, since the star density is larger )

It's a shitty estimate, but you get the magnitude of the planets. And since all planets are made out of dead stars, they have similar composition, and a planet of that temperature should be so close to the star that it should have about the same magnitude of mass as the earth (astronomical fact/estimate). So, the likelihood that one of these planets should be able to sustain life, as we know it, is huge!
Then there are a lot more galaxies too, so there should be extremely many (~10^10) planets that should satisfy our needs.
Jesus is offline   Reply With Quote