Tuesday, February 22, 2011

50 BILLION---REALLY

       There was an article that I received in an E-mail about the Kepler space telescope,published in Discovery News.The chief scientist for the Kepler telescope said in a speech to the American Association for the Advancement of Science,in Washington,D.C. that the Kepler as search about 1/400th of the Milky Way galaxy and that they have discovered 1,235 exo-planets around distant stars,of which 53 were in the habitable zone,or as it is commonly call the goldie locks zone.Neither too hot nor too cold,the zone were water can exist in its liquid state. With these figures as a starting point,he estimates that there could be as much as 50 billion exo-planets in our galaxy,which futher means that their could be 500 million planets in that goldie lock zone.500 million planets that could have liquid water the basic building block that is needed to support life as we know it.That's a little high,but Dr.William Boruck say that figure could be on the low end.So ok,that's 500 million so if we posulate just 1% of these planets are fully capable of supporting life that is 5 million planets.At 1/2 of 1 % that's 2.5 million,at 1/4 of 1 % it's still 1.25 million planets.So maybe the vision of Star Trek is not that far off .Pablo Picasso,the painter was once quoted as saying,"Everything that you can imagine is real."However my favorite quote is from Jodi Foster in the movie Contact who when ask if she thought that there was other intellegent life in the universe,said,"Well,if we are the only intellegent life that's a lot of wasted space."Great answer, for it says, if you believe in God,The question becomes,Do you Really think that in the entire cosmos he would limit himself to creating only 1 intellegent lifeform.How could anyone reply ,No he only created us and no one else.The vast cosmos is there for our enjoyment. Now remember we were only talking about the Milky Way Galaxy.There are literally millions of galaxies.You do the math. So are we unquite in the universe?
     I know that I did an earlier post call "Are We Alone?" which basiclly covered this same topic but using the mathematical Drake Equation,but any time the question makes the news I will in all probably do another post on the topic.Don't let it be said that you were not warned. I'm a geek at heart.I will end this with a quote by Groucho Marx,"Those are my principals and if you don't like them......Well I have others."Wait, for some reason I am into quotes and useless facts tonight.So here are two others.Useless fact 1) Your right lung takes in more air than your left lung. Useless fact 2) An adult human head weights about 12lbs (5.4 kilograms0 or about the same as a light bowling ball. Had enought I could go on all night,if you don't believe me ask my friend JL,she has had to suffer this fault of mine for years.Sorry JL.love ya.
 

1 comment:

  1. If we are alone in the universe it is because everthing else has discovered faster than light travel, taken one look at Planet Earth and left for an alternate reality before we can get out and do more damage out there.

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