[Gort]

"Above a calm, dark ocean, a huge, bloated red sun rises in the sky - a full ten times the size of our Sun as seen from Earth. Small waves lap at a sandy shore and on the beach, something stirs...

This is the scene - or may be the scene - on what is possibly the most extraordinary world to have been discovered by astronomers: the first truly Earth-like planet to have been found outside our Solar System.

The discovery was announced today by a team of European astronomers, using a telescope in La Silla in the Chilean Andes. If forced bookies to slash odds on the existence of alien beings.

The Earth-like planet that could be covered in oceans and may support life is 20.5 light years away, and has the right temperature to allow liquid water on its surface."

Full Article Courtesy the Daily Mail
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- Tom Carter

"You can't stop the waves but you can learn to surf" - Jack Kornfield

[Francis]

I was just reading about that. Pretty interesting and exciting news!
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Francis Tsai
TeamGT Studios

[Impaler]

What really amazes me about extrasolar planet discoveries is that they can figure out size, orbit speed, atmospheric and geological composition (and arguably the presence of organic matter), and probably a dozen other criteria without ever actually seeing the planet.

They deduce all of that information just from how much the parent star dims and its spectrum shifts when the planet passes in front of it.
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QED, sort of.

[Max]

Yeah, I heard about it too. It is really amazing. I am pretty excited about what will follow,....

[Drunken Monkey]

Thats pretty incredible.

I always wonder that too, Impaler. I just hope they don't discover a major flaw in that particular process that sends all these results back to the drawing board. "Oh nevermind, we made a mistake - its just a giant ball of rocks covered by sulfuric acid."
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"A fear of weapons is a sign of retarded sexual and emotional maturity" - Sigmund Freud

[Gort]

If it's true then it's incredible. What is our future? Will we ever learn to to travel great distances in short times and outside the existing Euclidian mathematical constructs?

How my mind roams . . .
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- Tom Carter

"You can't stop the waves but you can learn to surf" - Jack Kornfield

[Impaler]

Astronomy is one of my deeply secret and altogether consuming passions. If people just ditched that bullshit astrology, world peace would ensue. There is no more humbling thought than to place oneself in the grandeur of the universe. Our most serious problems as a species, or even as an entire 3.7 billion year biological phenomenon, seem trite when compared to the inscrutable drama of the universe. Who cares if some jerk cut you off in traffic? The odds of the entire universe are stacked against our existence. I'm dead serious here. Go outside, look at the stars right now, and try to feel important.

Don't feel important? Good. What you should feel is an incredible sense of luck. Life, fluke or not, is possibly the rarest thing in the universe. What's more, we're the only species (again, ostensibly in the history of the universe) with the capacity to probe the mysteries of our own origin and our surroundings. For whatever reason, we were also gifted with the ability to see beauty in random circumstance. The pure chance of all this happening is beyond consideration, beyond all human reckoning. If that doesn't make you happy to be alive and with all these other wonderful accidents, I don't know what would.

Also, I've noticed that I write a lot of my more pointed posts in second person. I don't know who I'm actually talking to when I saw "you". Realistically, it's no one. I should work on that.
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QED, sort of.

[Sumaleth]

All I need to know is, does it have internet access?
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Art Links Archive -- Artists and Tutorials

[Gort]

Good one!

I too love astronomy and was close to minoring in planetary geology, but I couldn't deal with the extra academic load at the time. What was amazing for me was when I first grasped celestial mechanics; I never saw the night time sky the same, for suddenly I saw myself as this miniscule extension off the face of the earth, with the earth being nothing more than a small gear in the mechanics of an orbital interstellar engine, which was part of a bigger engine and . . . so wondrous.

Astronomy is fascinating.
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- Tom Carter

"You can't stop the waves but you can learn to surf" - Jack Kornfield

[gLitterbug]

I think I'd rather go with Lovecraft. If we knew everyting that lurks out there we'd probably all just go crazy.

@Impaler - I think you forget that it is important for people to feel important. To focus on their direct surroundings rather than the big picture of the universe. If everyone would truly realize just how small and "lucky" they are once they gaze upon the star-filled sky, I'm pretty sure a big part would lose their will to do anything much anymore due to being such a small grain in the hourglass of time and space.

[Max]

Very interesting point you have there Impaler. One thought tho (and many people don't quite get this) I often have is: Everything out there wouldn't exists if I wasn't here. Since I can only speak of myself, reffering to "existence" itself, everything is because of me. So the big, great universe out there, is pretty much everything there is = Me. There is no "beyond". I am not saying that makes me important, I am saying, that what you see out there is because of you, not the other way round ; )

At the same time, I sometimes feel, just like you, the sheer endlessness of the space itself. It is absolutely amazing. What I actually feel tho is myself,...my existence,...and this existence is pretty much what I see and experience, the universe, everything - yes, that's very mind twisting ; )

[Gort]

Terrestrial Planet Finder
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- Tom Carter

"You can't stop the waves but you can learn to surf" - Jack Kornfield

[Capt. Fred]

[Tomasis]

capt fred is right. Egos dont exist actually. It is easy to see how humans turns out of dust while the earth remains still a milions years after. Like as leaf falling from tree. Sorry for off topic

[Jabo]

[Jimmyjimjim]

The way I know that existence is not entirely in my mind?

People would never do even HALF the stupid shit they do even in my wildest imagination.