Habitable planets, hype-able planets, what the diff?

_{Denyse O'Leary

June 26, 2013

Exoplanets}

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From Fox News, we learn,

Astronomers discovered a solar system packed with planets three of which are habitable — meaning in the zone around the star where liquid water could exist, making them possible candidates for the presence of life.

…

The Gliese 667C solar system is strikingly similar to ours and the three planets identified as habitable are confirmed to be super-Earths: planets that have more mass than Earth but less mass than larger planets like Uranus and Neptune

If the only requirement for “habitable” is a place where liquid water could exist, lots of icy comets would be habitable, wouldn’t they?

A good deal more than that goes into making Earth habitable.

Meanwhile, an article in New Scientist earlier this year informed us that Earth’s habitability rating had “taken a hit.” What? Earth’s habitability has a probability of 1, and it is hard for such a rating to “take a hit” unless all life is suddenly wiped out here.

It would be nice to find truly habitable planets or life on other planets, but we can’t conjure it.

Comments

Someone posted the below link another thread on UD, but I thought it might bear repeating:
Is there a violation of the Copernican principle in radio sky? arxiv.org Submitted on 17 May 2013 by Ashok K. Singal [abstract] Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation (CMBR) observations from the WMAP satellite have shown some unexpected anisotropies, which surprisingly seem to be aligned with the ecliptic\cite {20,16,15}. The latest data from the Planck satellite have confirmed the presence of these anisotropies\cite {17}. Here we report even larger anisotropies in the sky distributions of powerful extended quasars and some other sub-classes of radio galaxies in the 3CRR catalogue, one of the oldest and most intensively studies sample of strong radio sources\cite{21,22,3}. The anisotropies lie about a plane passing through the two equinoxes and the north celestial pole (NCP). We can rule out at a 99.995% confidence level the hypothesis that these asymmetries are merely due to statistical fluctuations. Further, even the distribution of observed radio sizes of quasars and radio galaxies show large systematic differences between these two sky regions. The redshift distribution appear to be very similar in both regions of sky for all sources, which rules out any local effects to be the cause of these anomalies. Two pertinent questions then arise. First, why should there be such large anisotropies present in the sky distribution of some of the most distant discrete sources implying inhomogeneities in the universe at very large scales (covering a fraction of the universe)? What is intriguing even further is why such anisotropies should lie about a great circle decided purely by the orientation of earth's rotation axis and/or the axis of its revolution around the sun? It looks as if these axes have a preferential placement in the larger scheme of things, implying an apparent breakdown of the Copernican principle or its more generalization, cosmological principle, upon which all modern cosmological theories are based. [entire paper in PDF]
jstanley01_{November 22, 2013
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Finding a truly habitable planet pales in comparison to the steps needed for humans to even get there.Barb_{June 27, 2013
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And although those two preceding points certainly add tremendous weight to Dr. Gonzalez's 'observability correlation' work, and dramatically underscore Gonzalez's contention that "The very conditions that make Earth hospitable to intelligent life also make it well suited to viewing and analyzing the universe as a whole.", there are two other points which also dramatically overturn the Copernican principle (mediocrity principle), two other points which go all the way down to the foundation of reality itself. One point is the finding that the earth exhibits, due to the 4-D space-time of General Relativity, centrality in the universe,,,
Centrality of The Earth Within The 4-Dimensional Space-Time of General Relativity - video http://www.metacafe.com/w/8421879
,,,the other finding is that the 'observer-centric' quantum wave collapse of photons is not restricted to micro-scale events but extends all the way to the universe at large, thus allowing that each observer in the universe is actually central in the universe from their very own unique point of observation in the universe:
Macrorealism Emerging from Quantum Physics - Brukner, Caslav; Kofler, Johannes American Physical Society, APS March Meeting, - March 5-9, 2007 Excerpt: for unrestricted measurement accuracy a violation of macrorealism (i.e., a violation of the Leggett-Garg inequalities) is possible for arbitrary large systems.,, http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2007APS..MARB33005B The Galileo Affair and “Life’ as the true "Center of the Universe" Excerpt: I find it extremely interesting, and strange, that quantum mechanics tells us that instantaneous quantum wave collapse to its 'uncertain' 3D state is centered on each individual conscious observer in the universe, whereas, 4D space-time cosmology (General Relativity) tells us each 3D point in the universe is central to the expansion of the universe. These findings of modern science are pretty much exactly what we would expect to see if this universe were indeed created, and sustained, from a higher dimension by a omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent, eternal Being who knows everything that is happening everywhere in the universe at the same time. These findings certainly seem to go to the very heart of the age old question asked of many parents by their children, “How can God hear everybody’s prayers at the same time?”,,, i.e. Why should the expansion of the universe, or the quantum wave collapse of the entire universe, even care that you or I, or anyone else, should exist? Only Theism, Christian Theism in particular, offers a rational explanation as to why you or I, or anyone else, should have such undeserved significance in such a vast universe. [15] Psalm 33:13-15 The LORD looks from heaven; He sees all the sons of men. From the place of His dwelling He looks on all the inhabitants of the earth; He fashions their hearts individually; He considers all their works. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1BHAcvrc913SgnPcDohwkPnN4kMJ9EDX-JJSkjc4AXmA/edit
Moreover this 'suspicious set up job' goes even deeper,,
The Center Of The Universe Is Life - General Relativity, Quantum Mechanics, Entropy and The Shroud Of Turin - video http://vimeo.com/34084462
Verse and music:
Colossians 1:15-20 The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross. Natalie Grant - Alive (Resurrection music video) http://www.godtube.com/watch/?v=KPYWPGNX
supplemental note:
Epistemology – Why Should The Human Mind Even Be Able To Comprehend Reality? – Stephen Meyer - video – (Notes in description) http://vimeo.com/32145998
bornagain77_{June 27, 2013
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Although most people, including Canadian astrophysicist Hugh Ross, focus primarily on the probability of any particular planet being habitable,,,
Does the Probability for ETI = 1? - Hugh Ross Excerpt; On the Reasons To Believe website we document that the probability a randomly selected planet would possess all the characteristics intelligent life requires is less than 10^-304. A recent update that will be published with my next book, Hidden Purposes: Why the Universe Is the Way It Is, puts that probability at 10^-1054. http://www.reasons.org/does-probability-eti-1 Linked from Appendix C from Dr. Ross's book, 'Why the Universe Is the Way It Is'; Probability for occurrence of all 816 parameters approx. 10^-1333 dependency factors estimate approx. 10^324 longevity requirements estimate approx. 10^45 Probability for occurrence of all 816 parameters approx. 10^-1054 Maximum possible number of life support bodies in observable universe approx. 10^22 Thus, less than 1 chance in 10^1032 exists that even one such life-support body would occur anywhere in the universe without invoking divine miracles. http://www.reasons.org/files/compendium/compendium_part3.pdf Hugh Ross - Evidence For Intelligent Design Is Everywhere (10^-1054) - video http://www.metacafe.com/watch/4347236
And although most people usually focus on the probability of any particular planet being habitable, with atheists, as News has pointed out, usually ignoring, for whatever reason, the myriad of other parameters that must be met besides liquid water being present on a planet for a planet to be habitable, there is a subtle, but very important, nuance that gets overlooked in these discussions of whether or not a planet may be habitable. That subtle, but very important, nuance is the 'observability correlation':
"The very conditions that make Earth hospitable to intelligent life also make it well suited to viewing and analyzing the universe as a whole." - Jay Richards Privileged Planet - Observability Correlation - Gonzalez and Richards - video http://www.metacafe.com/watch/5424431
Moreover, some overlap is found with Gonzalez's work on 'The Privileged Planet'. We find some overlap with what is termed the 'Anthropic Inequality'
Hugh Ross - The Anthropic Principle and Anthropic Inequality - video http://www.metacafe.com/w/8494065 Anthropic Principle: A Precise Plan for Humanity By Hugh Ross Excerpt: Brandon Carter, the British mathematician who coined the term “anthropic principle” (1974), noted the strange inequity of a universe that spends about 15 billion years “preparing” for the existence of a creature that has the potential to survive no more than 10 million years (optimistically).,, Carter and (later) astrophysicists John Barrow and Frank Tipler demonstrated that the inequality exists for virtually any conceivable intelligent species under any conceivable life-support conditions. Roughly 15 billion years represents a minimum preparation time for advanced life: 11 billion toward formation of a stable planetary system, one with the right chemical and physical conditions for primitive life, and four billion more years toward preparation of a planet within that system, one richly layered with the biodeposits necessary for civilized intelligent life. Even this long time and convergence of “just right” conditions reflect miraculous efficiency. Moreover the physical and biological conditions necessary to support an intelligent civilized species do not last indefinitely. They are subject to continuous change: the Sun continues to brighten, Earth’s rotation period lengthens, Earth’s plate tectonic activity declines, and Earth’s atmospheric composition varies. In just 10 million years or less, Earth will lose its ability to sustain human life. In fact, this estimate of the human habitability time window may be grossly optimistic. In all likelihood, a nearby supernova eruption, a climatic perturbation, a social or environmental upheaval, or the genetic accumulation of negative mutations will doom the species to extinction sometime sooner than twenty thousand years from now. http://christiangodblog.blogspot.com/2006_12_01_archive.html
But we also find some more overlap with Gonzalez's 'observability correlation' work in Michael Denton's recent paper:
The Place of Life and Man in Nature: Defending the Anthropocentric Thesis - Michael J. Denton - February 25, 2013 Summary (page 11) Many of the properties of the key members of Henderson’s vital ensemble —water, oxygen, CO2, HCO3 —are in several instances fit specifically for warm-blooded, air-breathing organisms such as ourselves. These include the thermal properties of water, its low viscosity, the gaseous nature of oxygen and CO2 at ambient temperatures, the inertness of oxygen at ambient temperatures, and the bicarbonate buffer, with its anomalous pKa value and the elegant means of acid-base regulation it provides for air-breathing organisms. Some of their properties are irrelevant to other classes of organisms or even maladaptive. It is very hard to believe there could be a similar suite of fitness for advanced carbon-based life forms. If carbon-based life is all there is, as seems likely, then the design of any active complex terrestrial being would have to closely resemble our own. Indeed the suite of properties of water, oxygen, and CO2 together impose such severe constraints on the design and functioning of the respiratory and cardiovascular systems that their design, even down to the details of capillary and alveolar structure can be inferred from first principles. For complex beings of high metabolic rate, the designs actualized in complex Terran forms are all that can be. There are no alternative physiological designs in the domain of carbon-based life that can achieve the high metabolic activity manifest in man and other higher organisms. http://bio-complexity.org/ojs/index.php/main/article/view/BIO-C.2013.1/BIO-C.2013.1
bornagain77_{June 27, 2013
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I do believe man was expected by gOd to make the universe habitable for a trillion human beings. if the fall had not happened the universe would be the eternity. Thats why its so big right now. undeveloped real estate. I don't think any planets out there, if they are there, are habitable already. Certainly no life.Robert Byers_{June 26, 2013
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