Monday, January 24, 2011

We're All Alone

Alien life deemed impossible by analysis of 500 planets - Telegraph: "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."

6 comments:

Seepy Benton said...

If there is no alien life in flying saucers, then just who has been doing all those anal probes? Huh? That is the probing question that is before us!

mybillcrider said...

Or possibly behind us!

Gerard said...

How is 500 planets a statistically significant sample when the universe is so big?

Each time I read a comment by Seepy I think of Crider's fictional version and smirk.

Jerry House said...

I picture the real Seepy as handsomer and able to get more women than you portray him, Bill.

mybillcrider said...

So does he.

Brent McKee said...

It strikes me that the planets that we've found so far are ones that we've been able to locate because they were unusual: too large, outside the "life zone," having strange orbits etc. Therefore to assume that there can be no extraterrestrial life because all the planets that we've found have been unusual is something of a circular argument.