100 billion planets - we are surely not alone (photos)

by Andy Smith  |  January 13, 2012  |  Image 9 of 10

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An international team of scientists using the CoRoT (Convection, Rotation and Transits) space telescope, operated by the French space agency CNES, last year discovered 10 new planets including one that's just 10s of million years young (for planets), a Saturn-like planet, and two others that resemble Neptune.

Read the full story on SmartPlanet.

Credit: NASA

Image 9 of 10

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Indeed the odds are so much FOR...
Intelligent life evolving on other planets that we are insane to not realize this...

and the chances they look like homo sapiens sapiens is ALSO very unlikely...

but the fact they are sentient does carry with it questions, mindfulness and the ability for us HUmans to realize we ARE NOT ALONE...
Posted by melriser
13th Jan 2012
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Sorry, but...
even granting your assumptions, we ARE alone. Actually, it is quite likely that EVERY sentient life form that exists is alone. The distances between them will almost certainly be too large even for discovery of each other. The distances will be way too large for contact, way way too large for conversation, way way way too large for collaboration, and WAY WAY WAY WAY too large for visits. (That's assuming nobody discovers totally unanticipated physics that allows warp drive or worm holes or some such. It makes for fun sci fi, but don't get your hopes up.) PLUS, who's to say that every sentient life form will develop science and have an interest in other worlds? PLUS, societies might self-destruct, or use up all their fossil fuels (or never have any), or might have started a million years after us, or a million before (in which case we'd have nothing in common with them).

Of course, as a Christian, I believe we are NOT alone. But that's a whole different discussion! happy
Posted by dmm99
13th Jan 2012
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