Scientists discovered what they believed to be either a rock like planet or covered in water. The fact that it has water gives them reason to believe there's life on this planet.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18293978/page/2/ :o

w00t!

Pretty exciting. I just love when they make discoveries like that. I'm pretty convinced there is live elsewhere in the Universe. I hope they keep us informed of further researches about Gliese 581 C.

Me too, I love the thought of that. Any smart person knows there is life outside of earth, the question is simply, how far away from us.

It orbits a red dwarf.

Hmmm....

I wonder. What if we brought lifeforms from that planet to the earth with our yellow sun?

I don't see what the color of the sun has to do with anything...

But even if we manage to reach this planet and bring back lifeforms (not anytime soon), we better be pretty careful. There could be some bacteria we have no ways to defend against...

Maybe life is entirely different on other planets. It's not necessarily carbon-based, for example.

You'd be abosultley right, and the gravity differences and all that would have a major effect. If we ever do reach that planet, even traveling at the speed of light it would take 500 years! Then once someone actually makes it there, it would take another 500 years! That means it would take 1,000 years for the whole process. Of coarse actually getting someone there would mean taking a whole community and hoping that the great great great great great grandchildren make it.

Nope, this planet is "only" 20 lightyears away.

:(

Oh come on! It's a superman reference.

Way to make me look like an ass.


A quick question. Does the color of the light matter in regards to photosynthesis?

Sorry... I really don't know much about Superman. I've never been a comic book guy.

I don't think so.

I wonder if "life" forms on other planets like this one, have DNA...if so that might create really good basis, for universal development of life. And if they don't have DNA, and evolve and develop by some other means, that'd be freakin' amazing to, something we could also study.

Then again we probably won't know this anytime soon, 20 light years is 20 light years, and we aren't that close to light-speed travel. Still though really interesting to ponder...

Technically the planet could have been destroyed 10 years ago. Remember, any image we get from the planet is 20 years old. :P

In theory, we could almost reach lightspeed using the technology of magnetic levitation, but it would take a huge (and extremely costly) orbital accelerator to achieve this. And there would be no way to slow down the object we sent, unless we can somehow use the star's gravity to control the speed once we've reached the other solar system. It would require very precise calculations, though...

Yeah, but Earth is like 4 Billion years old, whose to say this planet doesn't exist in the present.

No one is saying it doesn't exist. I was simply making a point that it's very, very far away.

I know, you're absolutley right and I never even thought of that point you brought up but I was just saying theres still a possibility it exist too.