Billions of habital planets in Milky Way

[Derek Smith]

Under the heading of billions of habitable planets found in Milky Way:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/space/9170683/N...

For a start red dwarfs aren't, as mentioned in the article, the most stable of stars. I'm not sure how a planet in the 'goldilocks’ zone', which would have to be quite close given its output, would fare under the bombardment of X rays and 'stuff'.

Perhaps troglodytes? The Time Machine anyone?

The most populous type of star might be the most popular for life. Interesting.

There was a report some time ago of Jupiter-sized planets around a number of red dwarfs, and multiple planets around some, but this, with the emphasis on earth-sized planets, seems new.

[Derek Smith]

98elise said:

Even on earth live exists in the most unusual (for us) of circumstances.

Hull for instance.

[Derek Smith]

Probably best if we don't find any. Think of those extra religions.

[Derek Smith]

Mr Gear said:

But... It has evolved here only once in the planet's entire history. We all have one common ancestor. Life has only sprouted once.

That is what I am led to believe.

Now, although that makes it very special, it doesn't of course make it impossible for it to start from scratch again somewhere else in the universe.

But couldn't we have had another common ancestor if certain things had occurred. If the Siberian traps had been just a little more volatile we might have had to start from scratch again. Also, did life start just in the one place or did it start in a number and the best one dominated all the others?

[Derek Smith]

Sorry, guys, it is all for nowt. It would appear that your reasoning is at fault. See.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/9194214/U...

Is there intelligent life on this planet?

[Derek Smith]

MartG said:

Maybe because they are the ones who have developed the technology to travel across interstellar distances, whereas we currently can't get more than 200Km from Earth ?

So you are suggesting that we have the technology to fake the Moon landings? That would have been much more difficult than actualy landing there. If we're that clever then we've got nothing to fear from aliens.

[Derek Smith]

MartG said:

BarnatosGhost said:

So if the moon were to be geosynchronous, it too would have to orbit at 37,000 (or whatever the figure was) km?

Yes - well its centre of gravity would be at that distance, but the surface would be nearer.

A nice distinction.

I had to create some science questions for a quiz night (as well as some general knowledge ones). They had to vary in difficulty for a sort of knock-out towards the end, which the teams were aware of. For near the end I came up with: does the Moon orbit the Earth or the Earth orbit the Moon. The answer was, of course, neither, their common centre of gravity having a lot to do with it. I thought it clever but one bloke, who thought he was cleverer, said that the answer was that the Moon orbited the Earth as the CSG was below the surface of the Moon so by any sensible definition the Moon orbited the Earth.

Just 'cause someone's got a Phd they think they know it all.

Here was another two for a Sunday morning hangover cure. This was in general knowledge and not in the maths bit.

Next one in the sequence:

11 - 8 - 16 - 7 - ?

and

32 - 22 - 16 - 11 - 8 - ?

[Derek Smith]

Bedazzled said:

The first is 11, 8, 16, 7, 19, 3, 17, 2, etc... "one hundred and eighty!!!"

And I think the second one is 32, 22, 16, 11, 8, 5.6, 4... camera apertures

Well done.

The first one I thought would be easy as there was a dartboard right behind me and the second I thought would give two teams an advantage because they were all from a camera club. When I said 5.6 I was told that I was wrong. Som out of the teams only one got both and only one other got one. I was not popular, but that's normal.

[Derek Smith]

Liked the AU question. I'll nick that one.

Other ones that caused problems.

First English captain to tour Australia? Clue: from Yorkshire.

What was Instanbul originally called?