So far, over 350 planets have been discovered, all in the Milky Way * The planet was discovered thanks to the phenomenon of gravitational dimming - a star that passed between us and increased its light
Astronomers believe they have discovered the first ever planet in another galaxy. This new world has momentarily emerged into our field of vision in the nearby giant galaxy Andromeda (also known as M31). It is about 2.5 million light-years away from us - too far to show normally, but it revealed itself thanks to a phenomenon known as heavy microlensing in which the gravitational field of a near-Earth object acts as a magnifying glass.
Amazingly, it took astronomers five years to realize they had caught a planet outside our galaxy. They observed a microlensing event when they studied the Andromeda galaxy - which can be seen, albeit dimly, even with the naked eye - in 2004.
The international team that used the British Isaac Newton Telescope on the Canary Island of La Palma thought at the time that they were capturing a pair of stars orbiting each other, but computer simulations and other calculations convinced them that they were actually observing a star and a smaller companion, the size of a planet six times larger than Jupiter. .
The team includes scientists from the National Institute of Nuclear Physics (INFN) in Lecce, Italy, together with scientists from Switzerland, France and Russia.
Over 300 planets have been discovered around other stars in our galaxy, and NASA recently launched a $600 million spacecraft named Kepler whose goal is to observe one hundred thousand stars in order to locate worlds similar to Earth.
For information on the Scientific American website
More on the subject on the science website
23 תגובות
Chen T:
I guess you laughed too 🙂
Chen T, the obvious conclusion is that if the intelligent beings you mention in your words, found a way to bypass or climb the dimension where the light moves, they really won't be afraid of us, their maximum fear would be the fear of a group of skilled warriors against cows grazing in a meadow. It makes sense that they would have the technology to make us and the entire human culture disappear in the blink of an eye, the analogy which is not the most pleasant but is required is the comparison to pest control in plots and another more important conclusion is that we are not interested in them on the level of creating cultural contact, maximum research, like a naturalist who follows the migration of birds, Even if he starts talking to them, society will think he's gone crazy, in any case he can admire the nature of creation without turning into a cuckoo himself.
In order to be a healthier and happier person I suggest you also focus on the spiritual aspects of the soul and not only on the material dimension, this will benefit you and balance you and your desire to know more, the extremism of one side does not help, physical and material fruits are created in a moment of balance between the different dimensions of the spirit and of the material together.
Michael
You're talking about a simple calculus that intelligent life is unlikely to predate us.
Now you are completely clear. Thank you for your patience and the very reasoned answer.
Apparently my words were still not clear enough.
The calculations I made did not refer to this or that galaxy, but to the age of the entire universe (which is estimated today at about 13.5 billion years), to the fact that several billion years passed from that moment to the formation of the chemical substances that make us up (which were necessary for the first generation of stars to produce super nova events), that since Once the necessary materials were created, it took a few more billions until the formation of solar systems (such as ours) that have such materials and from the moment such solar systems were created, it took a few more billions until the appearance of intelligent life in them.
I must have misunderstood you before. Now that you put it that way, it seems like the only option for intelligent life to have formed before us is only from other galaxies, right? Galaxies formed millions of years before the solar system?
Chen T:
The earth is about four and a half billion years old (as the age of the entire solar system).
It is estimated that life originated there about four billion years ago.
This means that on Earth - from the moment it was created - it didn't take long for the first life to form (about half a billion) - which of course was a very simple single-celled life - but from the moment it was created, it took another four billion years to reach intelligent life.
I did not understand what "attack" your comment was referring to.
Very convincing arguments, but there are no big numbers here. After all, not only the Earth did not undergo such an attack, and the Earth experienced three periods of dinosaurs before intelligent life began to develop here. It's about tens of millions of years, isn't it?
Chen T:
No. I mean a long history.
I have no idea about the statistical distribution of the age of the stars.
All I tried to argue is that since the heavy elements were not created in the big bang but in super nova events, chemistry based on such elements could only develop after stars from the first generation experienced - at the end of their lives - after a few billion years from the day of their formation - a super nova explosion.
Presumably, even after these materials were formed, they took more time to cluster and form new stars.
From these facts it appears that in the first few billion years since the Big Bang, life based on the chemistry of heavy elements could not have formed - and this fact limits the age to which life on any planet could reach.
Of course, even from the moment life was created, it is likely that a few more billions of years will pass before this life becomes intelligent and starts producing technology.
From this I conclude that it is definitely possible that we (you and I 🙂 ) are among the first intelligent beings in the universe.
Hi Michael,
Thanks for the complete and reasoned answer.
If my understanding is correct, by the phrase significant history, you mean the history that is statistically uncommon among many of your stars?
Linon - The question is not who will get there, but who will stay here when they return
Chen T:
I don't usually engage in this type of predictions, so I will limit myself to a few comments:
I tend to believe that movement or even communication at speeds exceeding the speed of light will never be possible. This is what the theory of relativity tells us. Although some ideas have been described based on the distortion of "space time" that might allow movement of this kind but I don't believe you will find a practical way to do it.
This - as mentioned - is only an estimate because I cannot really know what will happen in the future.
The Earth is indeed young, but it turns out that in order to allow complex chemistry like the one thanks to which we live, a significant history of the creation of heavy materials in super nova explosions is necessary.
This means that life of the kind we are able to describe could not have developed in the earliest systems.
Therefore, life support systems as we know them can indeed be older than us, but less than one might think.
The human race started emitting electromagnetic radiation less than two hundred years ago.
This means that intelligent aliens could only fear a conflict with us if they decided to travel less than two hundred years ago (at a distance of less than two hundred light years, because even if they could move and transmit faster than light - they can only know about what is happening here through the light coming from here)
Avi,
You can delete these two comments, since I put it under the article "reducing the possibility of life on planets outside the solar system" because the discussion name is more appropriate. Thanks in advance, Chen 🙂
2.5 million light years?
That is, if we invent a spacecraft that can fly at the speed of light, it will take 2.5 million years to get there.
Michael and my father, I would appreciate your opinion regarding my theory:
If we assume for a moment that Earth is a young planet relative to other planets in our galaxy and in general (as I think I read in some article here) then our technological progress here could be a million or several million years behind other intelligent life in our galaxy or another galaxy.
At an initial stage, an intelligent race that set out to explore other stars in its environment, must have already developed the ability to fly fast and cheap enough to be able to import raw materials - at a reasonable price - to the mother planet and also build colonies on stars
Relatives who allow it.
In the second stage, in order to maintain effective communication between the stars, technology is required that allows the transfer of information faster than the speed of light. Such a breakthrough would be the basis for moving matter at a speed beyond the speed of light and then for interstellar flight at this speed or higher.
When there are such options, the ability to explore the stars of your galaxy using high-quality telescopes in the middle of space (like relays that allow interplanetary communication) is easy and cheap, so it doesn't have to be very difficult to locate life on Earth.
My opinion is that after locating life here, locating the raw materials that exist on our planet, those neighbors came to the conclusion that there is no economic potential in trade relations with Earth, not to mention the possibility of losses due to military opposition to any unusual visit.
What is your opinion?
The worst thing is that the astrologers will find a compatible star like Earth, but it sucks because it will be billions of light years =] Who will get there?!
first h,
I mean my half brother's grandmother... 🙂
I liked Noam's response 🙂
have you seen The whole thing in a short story (and one bit of sense).
What's more, "my brother's grandmother" is also your grandmother, so I would replace it with "my grandmother's brother".
Tarot card readers, palm readers, mystics, and astrologers are just bullshit. They cash in on innocent people who think the mystics are telling the truth. What proof do they have that they are right?
BDS
Again the words of Toeva instead of the words of wisdom and Torah.
Scientists - you are wasting your time - the truth is found in the Holy Torah.
Arnon,
My uncle, a tarot card reader, told me that numerology is just nonsense.
My brother's grandmother always claimed that you should listen to the crystals, and the astrologers do not understand anything from their lives.
Hugin thinks, actually **knows** in the inner sense of the pinecone, that everyone is equally right.
Arnon and Lahab:
Maybe close things between you before you come to confuse our minds?
And what about good looking eyes? No picture?
My numerologist friend predicted the aforementioned discovery a long time ago (according to the Anromeda value), but a deeper examination by an astrologer (according to the date of the above-mentioned telescope's establishment) showed that it was a measurement error. I assume that soon we will also hear from the members of the scientific team.
Father, maybe this will convince you that there are things beyond?
I mean it's only in "Cailo"?
Or as if?