One of the most ancient and perhaps the most enduring
questions that humankind has been asking since picking up the first stone and
striking fire has been around the topic of who we are and what are we doing
here. Is there a destiny or are we just result of random mutations through a
cycle which started billions of years ago.
Related to search for our place in the universe are the
questions relating to whether there are worlds out there which are earth like. At
first the whole question of whether there are any extra solar planets at all
was a huge problem for us. It was indeed a formidable question for our kind
with our primitive equipment and the ability to squint through the fog of
earth’s atmosphere and then the gaseous envelop of our solar system. Through this
foggy and often obscured picture, we used to wonder if there are any other
rocks circling other stars. Logic of course told us that formation of the solar
system shouldn’t be unique process which happened only in our neighborhood, but
our ability to experimentally and by observation prove what was common sense
was limited.
Well, not any more. For quite some time, we have been able
to at least deduce the existence of extra solar planets, if not see them
directly. An exoplanet (or extra solar planet) is a planet orbiting a star
different from the Sun (the "exo" prefix means "outside" in
Greek). Up until now, one has found mainly gas giant planets, which are easier
to detect than telluric planets. An exoplanet or extra solar planet is a planet
that does not orbit the Sun and instead orbits a different star, stellar
remnant, or brown dwarf. More than 1800 exoplanets have been discovered (1849
planets in 1160 planetary systems including 471 multiple planetary systems as
of 2 November 2014).
According to Observatoire
de Paris - The planets of the solar
system can be divided into two groups, the telluric planets and the gas giant
(or "Jovian") planets. The telluric planets are spherical bodies with
a crust of rock, and the gas giant planets are spheres composed of gas and ice
(Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune). Pluto is a solid body, whose composition
consists of a variety of rocks and ices. An exoplanet (or extra solar planet) is a planet orbiting a star
different from the Sun (the "exo" prefix means "outside" in
Greek). Up until now, one has found mainly gas giant planets, which are easier
to detect than telluric planets. However, due to the increasing sensitivity of
the detection methods, one already begins to observe the first planets of sizes
comparable to the Earth.
So, as we can see, thousands have been discovered in the
past two decades, mostly with NASA's Kepler space telescope. The first extra
solar planet discovery was confirmed in 1992, although they had been predicted
long before. Planets are difficult to detect directly because they are so much
dimmer than the stars they orbit. The Sun is a billion (109) times
brighter than Jupiter and 10 billion (1010) times brighter than the
Earth.
According to space.com - These worlds come in a huge variety of sizes
and orbits. Some are gigantic planets hugging close to their parent stars;
others are icy, some rocky. NASA and other agencies are looking for a special
kind of planet: one that’s the same size as Earth, orbiting a sun-like star in
the habitable zone. The habitable zone is the range of distances from a star
where a planet’s temperature allows liquid water oceans, critical for life on
Earth. The earliest definition of the zone was based on simple thermal
equilibrium, but current calculations of the habitable zone include many other
factors, including the greenhouse effect of a planet’s atmosphere. This makes
the boundaries of a habitable zone "fuzzy."
There are various available methods for detection of these
extra solar planets, short of visiting them with FTL ships. If one is
interested in details of various methods, then please visit website of Las
Cumbres Observatory.
But a more interesting question is – what would be the
social impact of a finding of Earth’s Twin out there? There is a lot of
interest in the study of this phenomenon across the world by both religious and
political leaders – for the same obvious reasons. Most of the apprehensions
border on possibility of chaos and widespread anarchy. Why? Well you have to
take a deep look at how our society has been structured since the birth of
formal civilization thousands of years ago.
According to Wikipedia
- The cultural impact of extraterrestrial
contact is the corpus of changes to terrestrial science, technology, religion,
politics, and ecosystems resulting from contact with an extraterrestrial
civilization. Although closely related to it, the study of the cultural impact
of extraterrestrial contact is distinct from the search for extraterrestrial
intelligence (SETI), which attempts to locate intelligent life as opposed to analyzing
the implications of contact with that life. The potential changes from extraterrestrial contact could vary greatly
in magnitude and type, based on the extraterrestrial civilization's level of
technological advancement, degree of benevolence or malevolence, and level of
mutual comprehension between itself and humanity. The medium, through which
humanity is contacted, be it electromagnetic radiation, direct physical
interaction, extraterrestrial artifact, or otherwise, may also influence the
results of contact. Incorporating these factors, various systems have been
created to assess the implications of extraterrestrial contact. The
implications of extraterrestrial contact, particularly with a technologically
superior civilization, have often been likened to the meeting of two vastly
different human cultures on Earth, an historical precedent being the Columbian
Exchange. Such meetings have generally led to the destruction of the
civilization receiving contact (as opposed to the "contactor", which
initiates contact), and therefore destruction of human civilization is a
possible outcome. However, the absence of any such contact to date means such
conjecture is largely speculative.
According to an article on The
Conversation - Habitable exoplanets
are bad news for humanity. What did
not make the news, however, is that this discovery also slightly increases how
much credence we give to the possibility of near-term human extinction. This is
because of a concept known as the Great Filter. The author hopes for a
barren Kepler-186f and argues - If
Kepler-186f is teeming with intelligent life, then that would be really bad
news for humanity.
As philosopher Nick Bostrom once said: - The silence of the night sky is golden … in
the search for extraterrestrial life, no news is good news. It promises a
potentially great future for humanity.
In my opinion, this is a way different way of approaching a
monumental question of whether we are alone in the universe, or ever have been?
Doomsday scenarios abound across the literature of our species. But I ask why
should it always be an extinction trajectory?
Well, as it turns out – according to space.com
- Announced on July 23, 2015, planet Kepler-452b is larger than Earth and
orbits a star nearly identical to the sun, but older and therefore hotter. The
planet's orbit is nearly the same as Earth's, and its year is about 20 days
longer than Earth's. Kepler-452b is 1,400 light-years away.
John Traveler in this article
- What the Discovery of Earth Sized
Exoplanets Means for the Human Race – goes on to say - To find that we are not alone in the vast cosmos will undoubtedly have
substantial impact on human cultural, socio-religious, and intellectual
paradigms. It’s safe to predict, such
a discovery might have the greatest impact on human perspectives since ancient
humans first experienced the cognitive foundations of logical thought and
reason.
I firmly believe that human society would be changed for the
better. Of course there will be some changes which a certain section of society might not like. The strangle hold that our
current political and religious organizations have upon us would be loosened a
bit. We may even suffer through a period when the faith system collapses,
forcing humanity to start believing in itself rather than a divine intervention
and overseeing. But we will pull through. We have come a long way in the last
400 years and we have survived 200,000 years of super volcanoes, earthquakes,
global climate changes, flooding of epic proportions, genetic changes, and
epidemics and have achieved, well almost, a global civilization.
