NASA finds planets aplenty outside solar system

[Xplorer88]

so science is starting to find out what many astral projectors have experienced first hand. that there are way more planets then we believe and that theres a possibility of more stable planets out there that have more potential to harbor life.

heres the article:

-associated press-02/02/2011
"   WASHINGTON – NASA's planet-hunting telescope is finding whole new worlds of possibilities in the search for alien life. An early report from a cosmic census indicates that relatively small planets and stable multi-planet systems are far more plentiful than previous searches showed.

NASA released new data Wednesday from its Kepler telescope on more than 1,000 possible new planets outside our solar system — more than doubling the count of what astronomers call exoplanets. They haven't been confirmed as planets yet, but some astronomers estimate that 90 percent of what Kepler has found will eventually be verified.

Kepler, launched in 2009, has been orbiting the sun between Earth and Mars, conducting a planet census and searching for Earth-like planets since last year. It has found there are more planets that are much smaller than Jupiter — the biggest planet in our solar system — than there are giant planets.

Some of these even approach Earth's size. That means they are better potential candidates for life than the behemoths that are more easily spotted, astronomers say.

While Kepler hasn't yet found planets that are as small as Earth, all the results are "pointing in the right direction," said University of California Santa Cruz astronomer Jonathan Fortney, a Kepler researcher.

Yale University exoplanet expert Debra Fischer, who wasn't part of the Kepler team but serves as an outside expert for NASA, said the new information "gives us a much firmer footing" in eventual hopes for worlds that could harbor life.

"I feel different today knowing these new Kepler results than I did a week ago," Fischer said.  +End"

what a waste of space space is if we were really the only life out there 

[CFTraveler]

The insistence of the scientific establishment on insisting this is the only planet with life is a leftover visceral belief that we are "God's only creation" leftover from religious belief.  Most scientific establishment types declare themselves to be atheist but then go out of their way to defend notions like this that defy logic and math.
Goes to show....

[Xplorer88]

The insistence of the scientific establishment on insisting this is the only planet with life is a leftover visceral belief that we are "God's only creation" leftover from religious belief.  

agreed...i think its kind of selfish and ignorant to think we are the only ones.

[Xanth]

It certainly does defy logic and math... but... however small the chance that exists... we *COULD* be the only intelligent beings in "this physical universe".

I put that in quotes, because I know we're not the only intelligent beings in the the whole of consciousness.

I think it's very reasonable to assume that this particular universe was created by us, solely for us.  But that doesn't discount the possibility of dimensional traveling.  LoL

Which, I guess... opens another huge can of worms. 

[kailaurius]

Yes, the concept that we are the only life in the Universe is infinitely more silly than when we used to think Earth was flat.  I say infinitely because there is no word or phrase in any language that can describe the degree of sillyness.    It's like thinking there is only one fish in the entire ocean or a single ant colony on the entire planet.  It seems like mainstream science would realize by now there are no limits given what we have learned from our misunderstandings over the centuries.  Not only is there other life throughout the Universe and indeed our galaxy, but there are also other planets throughout the physical Universe with human life as well.  It's beyond mind boggling to believe there isn't.  What I also find interesting is that mainstream science still believes there is an edge to the Universe which is apparently still evident given the 2008 Summer Olympics commercial with the snow boarder shooting into outer space on his snow board and then eventually bouncing off the edge back to Earth.  This is also very similar to when we used to think there was an edge to Earth that we could fall off of into oblivion.  But as always, we learn and then move on to the next thing that blows our mind, hehe.

[Lunarvegan]

I think it's very reasonable to assume that this particular universe was created by us, solely for us.  But that doesn't discount the possibility of dimensional traveling.  LoL

I strongly disagree. Its like the mindset that other animals and plants exist for human reasons; which is blatantly untrue (why do they grow and live in places humans have no access to?). It is some sort of misplaced superiority complex that years of religious brainwashing has instilled in people. Not everything revolves around humanity, far from it in fact. Why do galaxies, black holes, stars, OTHER PLANETS exist millions of light years away when they would have no impact or benefit to us? The universe is far too vast to house solely one planet capable of sustaining life. What a sad place this universe would be, immeasurably vast, yet harbouring only a bunch of "sophisticated" monkeys who generally continue to rape the planet and blow each other up. We are a product of evolution, nothing more, as is every other species - on this planet, and beyond.

[Xanth]

Just another possibility I was tossing out there. 

That's what all of these are, possibilities.
I was pointing out that regardless of how large the universe is... the possibility *DOES EXIST* that we are the only ones here.

I'm not saying that is 100% definitely the case though. 

[interception]

It just seems so intuitively right that there are billions of planets in the galaxy with life forms on them. Even complex life forms.

However, statistically, complex "intelligent" and cognitively sophisticated life seems to be relatively rare. I read somewhere that the closest probable "intelligent" life form with which we would have any hope of communicating would be at least a 1000 light years from earth. This is of course all conjecture based in assumptions and what we think we know. Which is not much, lets be honest. ;P

Even then, that seems very optimistic, a 1000 light years.... with the billions of planets in the galaxy there must be (or have been at some point at least) millions of civilizations out there.