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“Most promising signs yet” of alien life on a planet beyond our Solar System

(www.skyatnightmagazine.com)
417 points fuidani | 6 comments | 17 Apr 25 08:02 UTC | HN request time: 0.86s | source | bottom
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seanhunter ◴[17 Apr 25 08:59 UTC] No.43714467[source]▶
Firstly that is completely badass science. The idea that you can use observations to detect the chemical composition of an exoplanet millions of kilometres away is an absolute triumph of the work of thousands of people over hundreds of years. Really amazing and deeply humbling to me.

Secondly, my prior was always that life existed outside of earth. It just seems so unlikely that we are somehow that special. If life developed here I always felt it overwhelmingly likely that it developed elsewhere too given how incredibly unfathomably vast the universe is.

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ta8645 ◴[17 Apr 25 09:20 UTC] No.43714565[source]▶
If life is very common in the universe, then that is probably bad news for us. It means that civilizations should exist that are millions of years more technologically advanced than us; and should be leaving telltale signatures across the sky that we'd likely have detected by now. And the absence of those signs would be relatively strong evidence that life, while common, isn't long-lived. Suggesting that our demise too, will come before too long.

If, on the other hand, life is relatively rare, or we're the sole example, our future can't be statistically estimated that way.

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1. nurettin ◴[17 Apr 25 09:30 UTC] No.43714615[source]▶
Not to take away from you personally, but civilization as we understand it is our own cliche.

Organisms developed on different planets could absolutely have a different view on life and society in general. Even on earth we have highly intelligent and physically capable organisms that care naught for your conceptions of how groups should function together. There are even organisms that seem to have no intersection with our set of interests that are way more successful in terms of populating earth and invading space. Putting our understanding and interests at some panacea is just hubris.

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2. whatever1 ◴[17 Apr 25 09:46 UTC] No.43714720[source]▶
I mean game theory and equilibria are universal. I don’t see why the basic rules of civilization would not apply to any level of organism sophistication.
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3. nurettin ◴[17 Apr 25 10:21 UTC] No.43714920[source]▶
Yes, but what we live in is well beyond a decision with four outcomes and all this assumes "we are doing it right".
4. Imustaskforhelp ◴[17 Apr 25 10:53 UTC] No.43715083[source]▶
Regarding populating earth and invading space.

I was just watching the original (first) matrix movie yesterday because I was just too bored.

And there was this dialogue by Agent Smith:- ```I’d like to share a revelation during my time here. It came to me when I tried to classify your species. I realized that you’re not actually mammals. Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with the surrounding environment but you humans do not. You move to an area and you multiply and multiply until every natural resource is consumed. The only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. Do you know what it is? A virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet. You are a plague, and we are the cure.```

So yea, I totally agree with you because just as how Agent Smith compared Humans to a virus and just like we know that not every living thing is a virus, In a similar fashion, I think not every species have intersection with our sets of interests (populating earth,invading space).

I actually had just watched matrix for agent smith actually. I don't know why but the guy looks really cool to me for some reason.

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5. cmsj ◴[17 Apr 25 11:15 UTC] No.43715198[source]▶
It's a cool speech, but it's also wrong. Mammals don't "instinctively develop a natural equilibrium", reality forces that equilibrium on them. A species gets too good at breeding and/or resource consumption - that's either happy times for their predators who eat them back into balance, or they starve themselves back into balance.
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6. Imustaskforhelp ◴[17 Apr 25 15:29 UTC] No.43718285{3}[source]▶
yea but we don't have predators thanks to fire.