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Subscribe to RSSA leader of the Kepler planet-hunting team has created a slow-moving scientific stir by telling an audience at a high-tech conference that our galaxy could harbor 100 million Earths, based on the space mission's raw data. The resulting buzz focuses not only on the findings, but also on the means by which they came to light.
The conclusions drawn by Harvard astronomer Dimitar Sasselov totally make sense, based on the composition of our own solar system. If we look at the eight dominant planets, four of them are Earth-scale, two are Neptune-scale, and the other two are big gas giants. (And then there are hundreds or thousands of smaller worlds like Pluto.)
During his July 16 talk at the TEDGlobal conference at Oxford, Sasselov observed that the preliminary results from Kepler were following that pattern. So far, planetary candidates "like Earth" - those that are no more than twice as wide as our own planet - make up the largest category in Kepler's database, according to a chart Sasselov used to illustrate his talk. The proportion is significantly more than that for Neptune-sized, Saturn-sized or Jupiter-sized candidates. (These observations came just after the eight-minute mark in the video embedded above.)
"The statistical result is that planets like our own Earth are out there," Sasselov, a co-investigator for the $600 million Kepler mission, observed. "Our Milky Way galaxy is rich in this kind of planet."
If you extrapolate that kind of distribution to the entire Milky Way galaxy, there might be 100 million alien Earths out there, Sasselov said.
TED
This slide from Dimitar Sasselov's presentation shows the distribution of Kepler planetary candidates by size. The largest category comprises candidates
"That's great news," he told the TEDGlobal audience. "Why? Because with our own little telescope, just in the next two years, we'll be able to identify at least 60 of them."
Once those candidates are confirmed, follow-up observations would be conducted to study the planets' atmospheres and determine whether they could sustain life. The search for alien Earths, as opposed to alien Jupiters, naturally leads to the search for alien life, Sasselov explained. "Life as a chemical system really needs a smaller planet with water and with rocks and a lot of complex chemistry to originate, to emerge and survive," he said.
So when we're talking about millions of alien Earths, we're talking about one of the biggest stories in astrobiology.
The last word? Hardly
Sasselov emphasized that he was sharing preliminary findings, based merely on the candidates Kepler has turned up so far. The little Kepler telescope is built to gaze fixedly at a patch of sky for months, looking for the faint dips in the intensity of starlight that occur regularly when a planet crosses over the star's disk. Astronomers on the Kepler team say those detections have to be confirmed by other means. Why? It's because they want to rule out any possibility that the dips are being caused by some other mechanism, such as the mutual eclipses of binary stars.
The Kepler team has been holding onto much of its preliminary data for that purpose, with the big reveal scheduled in February. The fact that a lot of the Kepler data is still being held back has rubbed some scientists the wrong way - and the fact that Sasselov discussed an aspect of the findings that apparently had not yet been made public added to the controversy.
NASA
An artist's conception shows NASA's Kepler probe observing a distant solar system. In reality, Kepler does not make direct observations of alien planets but detects transits by looking for a characteristic dip in starlight intensity.
Once Sasselov's comments started making their way across the interwebs, NASA began facing questions over whether significant findings had slipped out of the Kepler team's net.
Some news outlets, such as the Daily Mail, fixed upon the suggestion in Sasselov's chart that 140 Earthlike candidates had been found, as well as his comment that Earthlike planets "with water and with rocks" were of particular interest. The buzz over Sasselov's remarks picked up last week when the TED website posted a video of his presentation.
New news, or new spin?
Responding to the buzz, NASA stressed that the Kepler team has confirmed detection of only five planets, not the 140 mentioned in the news reports. Sasselov, meanwhile, told Space.com that he was "simply repeating what was already announced" last month by the full science team.
"So no new news here - but more to come later in the year!" he told Space.com.
It's true that one of the research papers put out by the team goes into the size distribution question, but that paper goes only so far as to note that most of the candidates appear to be Neptune-sized or smaller. In fact, the earlier charts suggested that alien Neptunes are more numerous than alien Earths. So at the least, Sasselov's comments put a new, Earth-centric spin on the previously announced results.
ScienceInsider's Richard Kerr said Sasselov's presentation "was especially striking because it was largely based on Kepler data that team members had been allowed to keep to themselves for further analysis until next February. So, traditionally, such data would be released formally with all involved scientists onboard."
NASA Watch's Keith Cowing said he was confused by Sasselov's seemingly significant non-news: "The Kepler folks seem to want to have things both ways," he wrote. "On one hand they want to tantalize us (and select audiences) with what they have found but yet at the same time they do not want to put their reputations on the line when people start taking their comments as fact. This project clearly needs to put some PR strategy in place."
My efforts to get comments from Sasselov or other members of the Kepler team today were unsuccessful, but NASA spokesman Michael Mewhinney did tell me that the scientists are preparing a fresh response and would provide further clarification on Tuesday. So check back here for updates as they become available.
Update for 8:55 p.m. ET July 27: Sasselov tries to dispel the "confusion" over Earth-sized planetary candidates in a posting to NASA's Kepler mission blog. During his 18-minute TEDGlobal talk, "the expected number of planets, size and Earth-like chemistry got confused, and created a misunderstanding," he said.
In the blog posting, he emphasizes that the Kepler telescope can measure the size of objects as they pass over a star's disk, but can't say much about their climate or chemistry - let alone whether they have water or rocks. In fact, he notes that the Earth-scale planets detected by Kepler so far couldn't be Earthlike in the water-and-trees sense because they circle their parent stars in such hellishly close orbits. They're nowhere near the "habitable zone" within which life as we know it can exist.
"The first data release is an encouraging first step along the road to Kepler's ultimate goals, specifically, to determine the frequency of Earth-size planets in and near the habitable zone," Sasselov writes. "However, these are candidates, not systems that have been verified sufficiently to be considered as planets. The distribution of planet sizes may also change. It will take more years of hard work to get to our goal, but we can do it."
Sasselov is looking forward to reaching those ultimate goals because of another role he plays - as leader of Harvard's Origins of Life Initiative, which tries to make connections between planetary science and biology. In his TEDGlobal talk, he sought to emphasize that "progress in synthetic biology may be accelerated by input from planetary science." That's why he made the connection between Kepler and the search for life.
Another co-investigator for the Kepler mission, William Borucki of NASA's Ames Research Center, provided yet another follow-up in a telephone interview after Sasselov's blog posting was published. He said Sasselov's TEDGlobal lecture "was a little bit disturbing" because the discussion focused on "Earthlike" planets rather than "Earth-size" planets. "Earthlike is not Earth-size," Borucki said, for the reasons we've already mentioned.
Borucki also said the now-famous graph that Sasselov used was not quite correct, because the leftmost category actually takes in everything less than two and a half times as wide as Earth, not just twice as wide. The fraction couldn't fit on the original slide, but the graph would be corrected to bring it into sync with Figure 2 on page 7 of the scientific paper released by the Kepler team last month, Borucki said.
That figure shows that "super-Earths," between two and three times as wide as our own planet, make up the peak category for Kepler's candidates so far. Neptune-scale candidates (three to four times as big as Earth) make up the second-biggest category, and not-so-super-Earths (less than two times as wide as Earth) add up to the third-biggest category. There's a quick fall-off, however, when you're looking for things less than twice as wide as Earth. "By the time you hit one and a half [times as big as Earth], you've got nothing," Borucki said.
Borucki suspects that the fall-off is merely due to the fact that "we have not yet been able to bring these small transits out of the noise," and that Kepler will eventually find plenty of candidates trending down toward true Earth size.
So if you're looking for Earth's exact twin in the current crop of Kepler data, you'll be disappointed. But if you're looking for life, you needn't limit yourself to Earth size or smaller. In fact, Sasselov is among those who argue that super-Earths are superior for fostering life. And the Kepler database suggests that astrobiologists will eventually have a juicy selection of super-Earths to choose from.
Do Sasselov's amended remarks clear up the confusion that he referred to in today's blog posting? Or does all this talk about super-Earths, "Earthlike" vs. "Earth-size" and missing fractions make your head spin? Feel free to weigh in with a comment below.
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Settlement of habitable planets that are light years away is very unlikely to be technically or politically possible, however well funded NASA might be.
What logical person didn't already know this? It's call enumeration!
and there are aliens watching their own versions of Star Wars at this very moment. The scary thing is; what percentage of those 100,000,000 earths harbor malicious aliens? Certainly not zero.
I believe that evolution follows similar paths determined by niches which are common to all earth planets. In other words; their oceans probably have shrimp and salmon with red meat that spawn in rivers. Why not?
Sounds eerily like our first Thanksgiving with the Indians - being planned all over again.
What if they have seen we've trashed our own earth and heard about the Indians, too? Oh dear.
and this is just our own galaxy.....there are so many earth like planets that it becomes moot because the vast majority of them are too far away to make their presence known. But it is cool to think about; there is someone out there that may look just like you.....
It took me a while to make sense of this, in part because based on the title I was expecting a report on the surprising results of an otherwise obscure experiment in quantum physics that appeared to verify the curious hypotheses (a) that there are multiple parallel universes and (b) that there are multiple parallel flavors or instances of Earth, which certainly would cause a "stir", even though intuitively it should not be the least surprising, really . . .
Really!
However, since I began by watching and listening to the video presentation made by Dimitar Sasselov, I was quite puzzled about what he might have said that would cause a "stir", so with my interest piqued considerably I continued reading toward the goal of determining two things:
(1) Which statement actually caused the "stir" . . .
(2) Whose feathers were ruffled by the "stir" . . .
Although it took a minute or two to connect the dots, it was not so difficult to answer both questions by engaging in a bit of focused inferencing, for sure . . .
For sure!
And while neither of the two questions actually were answered, there are important and quite sufficient clues, which is all that I need to connect the dots, really . . .
Really!
To the point, these are the important and quite sufficient clues, as well as definitive evidence that the new NASA has picked-up where Michael Jackson left-off with respect to doing a different type of "Moonwalking":
By carefully analyzing and studying this stellar paragraph, we learn three facts:
(1) This is a NASA project . . .
(2) NASA wants to make the number of detected and confirmed "planets" as small as possible and specifically does not want any of the "planets" to be called "Earth" in singular or plural forms of the word. . .
(3) By apparently focusing on science--as contrasted to focusing on politics, public opinion, and the foremost mission of the new NASA--Dimitar Sasselov (a) said a few of what comedian Frank Caliendo calls "inside words", (b) most likely has been given an underpants "wedgie" by NASA, and (c) is working diligently to undo it toward the goal of not becoming a permanent soprano in the new NASA liturgical boys choir . . .
In other words, these are the correct answers to the two questions:
(1) The statement that caused the "stir" is the possibility that NASA's Kepler Project actually will prove beyond a reasonable doubt that there are other Earths in the universe . . .
(2) The folks whose feathers were ruffled are all the Muslims on our wonderful little planet . . .
And the only logical conclusion one can reach is that the combination of (1) and (2) violates the foremost mission of the new NASA, which to be specific is to make Muslims feel good about themselves . . .
Hence, I think that the following recommendations need to be addressed by NASA and the Kepler Project Team posthaste, since ipso facto if one does not understand something fully, then there is no way to know for certain whether one's actions will produce desired results, or as I like to explain it using the colloquially paraphrased words of Sir Francis Bacon in the 17th century, "If the mountain will not come to Muhammad, then Muhammad must go to the mountain", which until recently I was quite convinced applied equally to the moon, such that, "If the moon will not come to Muhammad, then Muhammad must go to the moon", but apparently this is not the case at the dawn of the early-21st century:
(1) Every NASA employee and contractor needs to be provided in their primary language, with translations readily available as needed, a copy of the Qur’an . . .
(2) There needs to be a deep and rich set of readily available training materials to help NASA employees and contractors understand the Qur’an, as well as individual tutoring and instructing where needed or requested . . .
(3) A panel of imams needs to be established to review every current and future NASA project to ensure that it is consistent with Sharia, the sacred law of Islam . . .
(4) Once established, the panel of imams needs to issue fatāwā for purposes of guiding NASA employees and contractors in their official duties and daily lives . . .
(5) All purported "scientific facts" that might be discovered or suspected by NASA employees and contractors need to be reviewed carefully by the panel of imams for approval and revision as necessary before being released to the public . . .
Overall, I think this will solve all the likely problems that NASA employees and contractors might encounter in their foremost mission, which as we now know is to make Muslims feel good about themselves, which in the grand scheme of everything is almost as spanky as having a personally autographed pair of Angela Gossow's underpants, which is fabulous . . .
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ecAFV-6rQ7Q
Fabulous! :)
Just keep this earth of ours going a few more decades and we'll see that that number will be increased 10x at least.
If we should be able to analyze enough evidence that amounts to a virtual direct observation of an earthlike planet, I'll tell you what we'll do next: Continue to observe and analyze it. That's it, and that's all the human race will ever be able to do. Unless we break the current laws of physics or discover new ones, we have virtually no way of ever traveling to one of these planets. If technologies are possible yet undiscovered, we are likely thousands of years or more from practical application, if not discovery. That is, if that intelligent part of humanity that would strive for such accomplishments will even survive that long. But in any case:
a) Half of the human race will reject or refuse to allow belief in any substantial findings and,
b) I could be wrong, which is the beauty of it all.
"""If technologies are possible yet undiscovered, we are likely thousands of years or more from practical application, if not discovery"""
Then it wouldnt be a never, sure we are far from being able to do anything outside of the orbit of our moon. but give it time, just think on what was considered a "It can never and never will happen" 50 years ago.
So what does the future hold for us in technology 50 years from today, how about 100?
Never say Never or its impossible, history has constantly proven that statement wrong.
Pirate C, you are blessed with hopeful and optimistic enthusiasm. Very true, what is possible today was the stuff of Buck Rodgers fantasy 50-60 years ago. However, the leap from interplanetary travel in our own solar system (which is still not feasable or practical today except by unmanned probes) to interstellar travel by humans is still exponentially huge and in many ways beyond human comprehension. I do not know your levels of knowledge in physics or astronomy, but I will share some grist with you.
Note in my post that I did not use the word "never", however I did qualify the ever with the condition that we break the laws of known physics (like the speed limit of light), find a way around them, or discover new ones. We essentially would have to discover how to get from point A to point B faster than traveling in a straight line.
Consider that if we pointed the space shuttle at the nearest star to us, 4.2 light years away, and it traveled as fast as our technology would allow, it would take some 98,000 years to get there. Maybe if we could find a nearby black hole and shoot it through a wormhole. Never mind what a black hole does to any matter that gets near it.
The upshot is that if we discover an earthlike planet, oh say, 50 light years away, will humans from earth eventually set foot on it? Likely never (yes, an oxymoron with irony). At such a distance, even if humans did go, it would be a one way trip, a colonization. What would they come back to, or why? The humans that sent them would never even know their fate.
So what does the future hold for us in technology 50 or 100 years from today? Certainly not interstellar travel. 1000 years? Your guess is as good as mine, but if you're guessing that we can jump through hyperspace by then, you are also assuming that the countries interested in space travel will continue to be blessed with the funding necessary to pursue such projects. By the looks of things these days however, it doesn't appear that we (or anyone else) are heading in that direction.
Ironically, it actually may become necessary to the survival of the human race if we continue to foul and overpopulate our environment at the current rate. With this scenario in mind, I picture us (or what's left of us) in 1000 years if we don't find some way out of here - and shudder.
One can only hope that any other Earth like planets with intelligent life on them, are not as stupid as the human race is!
The approximate age of the universe is believed to be 13.7 billion years old. The Earth has been sited as being a middle aged planet of 4.6 billion years of age. I believe that in February 2011 that the world will find out from these scientist that after further preliminary test (ongoing during this interim period) that specific Earth-like planets have been identified and are the focus of testing. Additionally, that some of the Earth-like planets may be in the first two billion years of development. That these planets have shown indications that point to some very basic Earth-life indices. The presence of methane gas (methanogens) and the possibility of additional carbon based life forms.
First we thought the sun and the rest of the stars circled around us. Wrong!
Until today we thought we're so special that only a very small amount of earthlike planets exist in the universe, WRONG!
We humans are naturally born as self-centered, egocentric species. What do you guys think?
The above statement was in response to questions raised in earlier writings.
If life exists on other planets how will we ever know in our lifetime? Any planet around another star would be so far away that travel in a lifetime would be impossible. I know that by the theory of relativity, or is it the special theory, that the person traveling through space at near the speedof light would not age as fast as someone on earth, but it would still be more than a lifetime on earth. If life bearing planets were around near stars, they would have been discovered long ago, that means that any life bearing would be hundreds if not thousands of light years away.
you charaters tickle me. youre into the belief our existants is a science only but not the possiblity of god. if all those things exist out there..well god put it there for your amusment. so you can will have something to discover. Hes been around before all those things because he put them there. why are those of you are so afraid. you put more effort into believing he doesnt exist than he does. But then it takes all kinds to make up this world. us who knows god is real and those always trying to prove he doesnt. so how did you come to exist. did a piece of sand fly in and poof there you were. so your existants is just accidental. your life and your families is not meaning other than you live you die. I truely feel sorry for you. do you love your family. if so then why. what is the point of it. really, never to believe you will be with them again. I just dont understand how you couldnt believe but you people believe in another person with a telescope. hes only now discovering what god has already made..
If that is what makes you happy then good for you, but you should stop and read your bible because your flaunting of your pity for all us damned sinners is in direct violation of your supposed faith.
You judge and condemn because people dont follow your beliefs. You need to remove the plank in your eye before you can focus on the dust in your brothers.
Perhaps you are the one in fear not us sinners, I dont believe in hell or your vengeful God of anger and doom you to hell if you dont join the JC club.
Take yourself off your pedistal and humble yourself and keep your pity and judgements of others not of your faith to a religious forum and not a scientific.
Dear Sandy,
According to many , many surveys and psychiatrists, lots of people don't WANT to be with certain family members, in this life or any other....and many for very good reason. Just ask Dr. Phil!
All I know is, that when I arrived here some 46 years ago,,,, I was totally amazed at how you earthlings, treat each other with such dis-respect its pathetic,,,, I'll soon be leaving to go back home to my Original Planet with my findings,,, I come from a distant Galaxy many light years away from you Earthlings, laugh as you may,,, I don't expect you to believe any of it, I don't even think you believe in yourselves anymore for that matter !! Upon my return with my findings, they will decide what to do with you all next, the Orions as they all called, may decide to do away with this planet shortly and use it for nothing more than an Experimental planet, for our Solar Ships to land and refuel,,, We will only take a few of you with us however - please be at the pick up destination point on 12-12-2012 at 01200 hrs. Here ----} ""N 44.59054 and W -104.71552"" - Be there- only a select few will be chosen ~! Transmission sent to Earthlings - â€Ââ“
N 36.832836 and W -92.29016. Arrival Destination point - 12/12/2012
To Sandy and Crazy Clown,
Sandy, spell check and grammar check. Please.
Crazy Clown. Dude, take your medication, please.
PEACE
One thing that no one talks about is how important our relative position is in the Galaxy, out on the fringes of one of the arms, to us even existing as we do. As one gets closer to the center, the planets get bombarded with more light and radiation. How does sentient life survive that and do these statistical models take this into account?
Gotta love them scientist... just make-up whatever you want... even without a SINGLE PIECE of evidence of ANY KIND. Now I know where Obama gets the direction for his administration.........
Ane there it is, straight out of right field, the much anticipated sorry shot at the President complete with poor grammar and spelling. Devolution in action. Thanks for demonstrating once again, far more eloquently than I could, just how STUPID the far right truly is.
Ignorance can be corrected through education, but you can't fix stupid.
Steve, watch NOVA and NATURE and stop watching faux news. It's rotting your brain, really.
PEACE
Kind of like creationists, yes? Poof God waved his magic wand and we came into being. By the way I saw a real Unicorn the other morning on my way to work. Must be the work of them there scientists making up stuffs.
"The conclusions drawn by Harvard astronomer Dimitar Sasselov totally make sense, based on the composition of our own solar system."
It would be more sensical to say that there are billions of "Earth-sized" planets, not "Earth-like" planets. which makes sense because the Earth is not unique in size at all. However, size alone does not make a planet Earth-like. Raw data and statistics also are pointless when studying life, particularly extraterrestrial life, because science has admitted that in its search for extraterrestrial life it is hesitant to describe what can be constituted as living and set requirements for living things.
His talk does not mention the fact that there are so far, no known solar systems like ours. Earth comparisons need to start with star size and behavior first, distance from the star to the planet next and then atmospheric composition of the planet. Such sensational media feeding sessions only rehash the same line that "maybe there's more life out there" without giving any more information. Playing old science fiction movies could give you the same result.
Lol really? No - We humans are the "god" as we created him and I'm pretty confident that other civilizations would NOT have a picture of Jesus hanging in thier ship.
But what if Jesus were PILOTING the ship? Huh? Did you ever consider that?
Here's how I see it. Jesus was dropped off in Palestine around 2100 years ago to do some research and determine if we could be "saved" from ourselves. What'd we do? Killed him, of course.
So his fellow star-farers came and got him and revived him with their advance technology and off they went back to the home world to discuss this with the ruling counsel. Now he's on his way back with the verdict. Maybe the believers get to go back to the home world with Jesus and the non-believers and republicans get nuked.
I take comfort in my beliefs.
PEACE
Gee Mr. Sky Wizard, tell us more!!
Let us remember that a habitable, Earthlike planet would be extremely valuable from an economic point of view, but only if the planet could be reached.
From a practical point of view, the key issues are: distance, the time required to traverse distance, and human lifespan. As we understand the fundamental laws of physics, matter cannot be made to move faster than the speed of light. While no one can exclude the possibility that a workaround (based on physics that are completely unknown at this time) might be found, faster-than-light travel is currently nothing more than a science fiction plot device. The speed of light is approximately 186,000 miles per second (or 300,000 kilometers per second). This sounds fast from our terrestrial point of view; however, the nearest star system (Alpha Centauri) is approximately 4 light-years away, meaning that it takes light approximately four year to travel between our Solar system and the Alpha Centauri system, even though the light is traveling at 186,000 miles per second (or 300,000 kilometers per second). Because it is theoretically impossible for matter to travel at the speed of light (or faster), it would take somewhat more than 4 years for a vessel traveling at 99% of the speed of light to reach the nearest star system from Earth. Of course, we have no idea how to makes engines powerful enough to make a vessel travel that fast. Indeed, a speed of 10% of the speed of light is nowhere near current capabilities.
Thus, as a practical matter, even if there are Earth-like planets in the star systems closest to Earth, it would probably take several human generations for an Earth-built vessel to travel to even the closest star systems. Given that reality, it would be necessary to construct very durable vessels, large enough to contain a self-sustaining population for an indefinite period of time. One requirement would be artificial gravity, because terrestrial biology appears to require the presence of gravity for normal growth and development (e.g., of children). One way to achieve that would be to have the vessels designed to travel with constant acceleration of 9.81 meters per second per second, which is 1G, or the Earth's gravity at sea level. This acceleration can be assumed to be a design limitation, since human beings could not tolerate accelerations at substantially higher speeds. Thus, the maximum practical time it would take to reach any particular star system can be calculated using the distance and assuming that the vessel would accelerate at 1G for the first half of the trip and then decelerate at 1G for the second half of the trip. This results in very long trips, because it is only at great distances that this acceleration rate begins to approach the limiting speed of 186,000 miles per second (or 300,000 kilometers per second). (Time dilation may be a factor in such long trips of this; however, that may not be a practical concern when the vessel takes generations to reach its destination.)
Actually I've done this calc. before.
d=1/2 at^2 where d = 2.15 lt.yrs or 1/2 the distance to Proxima Centauri or 2.034e16 m.
a (due to gravity) = 9.81 m/s^2.
I arrive at 6.440e7 s or 2.041 yrs. for 1/2 the distance or 4.081 yrs. to Proxima Centauri.
Using v=at. a = 9.81 m/s^2 and t = 6.440e7 s.
therefore v = 6.317e8 m/s or 2.1 X the speed of light.
It's too bad, but I guess you could accelerate and decelerate a number of times to avoid breaking the light barrier and maintaining 1g of gravity.
P.S. I would appreciate if someone could check my math on this one.
Our communication with another civilization if we find one:
Us: "Hey, we're alive over here! Here's some advanced (for us) mathematics to prove it!"
Them: "Hey, we can hear you! We're alive too and here's some simple (to them) math to prove it! (Doubtful they would send us spacefaring technology information until they knew our intentions?)"
Unfortunately the time between these two responses will be measured in tens of years, maybe generations... I guess you have to look at the big picture though and be glad of what the future will hold for your grandchildren.
How high does the sky go - how far does it extend? How small does small get - does smallness have an end? That anything exists eliminates all doubt whatever forms dimensional is a latent form without. That nothing became something to evolve a brain into self explanation goes for insane. That's compelled to reproduce itself through sensual stimuli - That continues learning for mind expand in a total reason absence as to why! Man cannot create or be creative - He can - at best - invent or be inventive with what is a given for him to use. (Excerpt from my copyright poster "Earthings") Charles III
Science by it's very nature constantly rewrites it's theories based upon new discoveries and often questions those until it can be proven. Religion, on the other hand never questions their own faith and never updates it either. If "god" was supposed to have done or said something thousands of years ago, it is never questioned but accepted as the absolute gospel (pun intended).
I beg to differ...How else would you explain my predicament? Im a jolly green tentacled alien (well ok, purple) spinning around your little planet. What, you thought you were the ONLY king of the jungle? what, you thought you would find a civilization EXACTLYi n your stage of development, 200 years in a 15 billion year old universe and use radio waves? Wake up..We are watching you closely...
Think man think!!! (shakes you uncontrollably then evaporates into hyperdimentionality and dematerializes into 4 d space, flips you over in your space, you are now your mirror image, laughs, farts, goes to sleep).
im the little ghost in your closet.