Howard Smith, a senior astrophysicist at Harvard, made the claim that we are alone in the universe after an analysis of the 500 planets discovered so far showed all were hostile to life.
Dr Smith said the extreme conditions found so far on planets discovered outside out Solar System are likely to be the norm, and that the hospitable conditions on Earth could be unique.
“We have found that most other planets and solar systems are wildly different from our own. They are very hostile to life as we know it,” he said.
He pointed to stars such as HD10180, which sparked great excitement when it was found to be orbited by a planet of similar size and appearance to Earth.
But the similarities turned out to be superficial. The planet lies less than two million miles from its sun, meaning it is roasting hot, stripped of its atmosphere and blasted by radiation. ...
"Extrasolar systems are far more diverse than we expected, and that means very few are likely to support life.
"Any hope of contact has to be limited to a relatively tiny bubble of space around the Earth, stretching perhaps 1,250 light years out from our planet, where aliens might be able to pick up our signals or send us their own. ...
via Alien life deemed impossible by analysis of 500 planets - Telegraph.
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
Alien life deemed impossible by analysis of 500 planets
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I doubt that a sample of 500 planets is enough to disprove the possibility of alien life.
Of course, my logic would make it impossible to disprove alien life. Even if there was an "end of the universe", and we had disproved alien life in the universe, how could we tell that there wasn't another universe? Etc.
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