Nearby Solar System Could Be Habitable

Wired:

A nearby solar system bears a striking similarity to our own solar system, raising the possibility it could harbor Earth-like planets.

Epsilon Eridani, located about 10.5 light-years from our sun, is surrounded by two asteroid belts that are shaped by planets, astronomers at SETI Institute and Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics announced today.

Read the whole story: Wired

Comments

[billsmile]

That picture makes me want to play some records.

[sociocanuck]

Imagine if there are intelligent (but unrecognizable) inhabitants of the Epsilon Eridan system looking back at our system, their frame of mind (and body) so different that they don't comprehend the possibility of life on our world. Now Imagine they have an as-yet young society that's still grappling with a dichotomy between ruling class monarchy and feudal class "socialism". To their mind virtually all modern Earthbound political structures would seem totally alien (no pun intended) and probably frightening.

I'm sure funding advanced science and technology research would suddenly become very very important to the same Right that is currently ragging on it, just so they could get out there ASAP and convert them to a more ideal capitalist economy.

[thefooligan5]

Luckily for them they are still watching the CLinton administration play out. They won't know what hits them in a few years.

[Ares1]

I think we are in the era of a new golden age in astronomy, we have discovered over 300 extrasolar planets and we have observed many star systems. As it turns out many solar systems look quite different from ours and many of those planets have erratic orbits that no other planet in this solar system has. NASA is planing to launch the Kepler Telescope to help search for earth like planets and the James Webb Telescope to replace Hubble and look even deeper into space, so the discoveries will continue on.

[SiriusMrE]

Indeed. I will predict that astrophysicists will continue to be "surprised" or "stunned" by the "mysterious" or "anomalous" discoveries that will result from those great engineering feats.

Our current model for the formation of the cosmos was first developed before in the gas-light era more than 100 years ago. Scientists have continuously patched up a failing paradigm over the years, especially since the days that we have been able to "see" all the high energy (x-rays, gamma rays, etc.) seething throughout the Universe. Rather than accepting that their pet "theory" has been falsified, scientists continue to make ad hoc adjustments to their magical math equations to make it all look right. If astronomy were a true science, ridiculous sci-fi ideas like "dark matter" and "dark energy" would be on the trash heap--or even a comic book--where they belong.

[nirek]

You mean we are not the center of the universe?
Go figure !

[fcsakes]

Could we send mccain/palin there now - they could start - and star in - their own countries. After all, in a week they will have nothing to do.

[Steambomb]

Well if McSame wins, I'll take the beam up.

[olephart]

The Republicans in Congress have introduced a measure to allow drilling on any Planet in that system. A series of tax breaks were also included that allows Exxon and other companies to exclude today's earnings to help pay for potential costs of this "deep oil".

[DMcD]

Alas; a place to house these crazy Rethuglicans and all other wild-eyed extremist.

[SiriusMrE]

The whole premise of this article ASSUMES that we have the story of our solar system right to begin with. (Actually, the problem goes farther back than that--are they right about the so-called "big bang?" Probably not.)

The rampant speculation that gets passed off as fact in articles such as these is stunning, especially this title (on the Wired site): "Nearby Solar System Looks Like Our Own at Time Life Formed". Really? How can they be sure of that? Who REALLY knows what the system looked like when life formed on this planet? It all ASSUMES a gradual series of speculative events driven only by the PUNY force of gravity. What if things did not happen that way?

And this: "Back then, the Kuiper Belt of space objects beyond Neptune was much larger. Over time, many of those objects fell into the inner solar system during a period about four billion years ago known as the Late Heavy Bombardment. The barrage of large asteroids pockmarked the rocky planets and possibly created our moon when a large object collided with Earth, expelling a huge amount of material into space."

Wow. Pure science fiction, folks, masquerading as science fact.

There is another way to look at all this. Assembling the Solar System: http://www.thunderbolts.info/thunderblogs/thornhill.htm

[Mort]

Interesting thoughts. I've always wondered... if the moon was a chunk of earth ripped out by an asteroid, why is it so round?

[hillpill]

It was molten and malleable then.

[SiriusMrE]

Most planets and moons were "born" by being electrically ejected from the centers of larger gas giants--not unlike cell mitosis or even biological birth. Stars, planets and moons are spherical for the same reason that ball lightning is spherical.

Planet Birthing: http://www.holoscience.com/news.php?article=rbkq9dj2

[bob8788]

Thats some cool stuff man, imagine an alternate universe where John McCain is Barack Obama and Barack Obama is John McCain, WOOOOO

http://barackobamacans.blogspot.com/2008/10/obama-mccain-dance-off.html

[Norge]

They have for sure been studying earth for thousands of years as we study the bacteria of earth and fruit flies.

[rikki52b]

Where do I buy tickets?

[billofgoods]

ACORN is already there with forms

[Doofus]

Ok, after the moon (again), after Mars, we're heading for E-E, maybe find
some Vulcans. At 10% of 'c', it'll only take a 100 years, then another 10 to
get a tv signal back. Worth the wait? What could it cost? What's another $1T?

[StandUpAmerica08]

That nearby solar system is not NEW! Try to envision the DNA/RNA model and that's what you have.

We are in a multi verse. They are not side by side but overlay each other. One is more advance as well as their technolgy.

WE are the ones who are behind if WE just discovered this other solar system.

[Overd0g]

Tin foil hat getting a little tight?

[ZenJu]

Wouldn't it be nice if Episilon Eridani is actually home to a real planet Vulcan, inhabited by billions of rational beings sworn to logic and peace, like on "Star Trek"? It would be nice if such a world were really there and ready to help us to pick up the pieces of our own emotionally-driven mismanagement of Earth...
Then again, we DO have the beginnings of such a philosophy and way of life on our own world, it's just been largely overlaid with religious trappings and mystical mumbo-jumbo. It's the core teaching of the Buddha, of a path of meditation, reason, peace, and compassion based in logic. Maybe Earth is ready for its own "Surak."