More Planets, Old and New

More amazing science discoveries, as the the most distant single object ever detected by telescopes is pictured.

The explosion of the giant star is confirmed to be more than 13 billion light-years away, which means the explosion being viewed, is from when the Universe was only 630 million years old, a mere one-20th of its current age (estimated to be 13.7 billion years old).

And following fast on this piece of news came reports that astronomers have discovered a strange Jupiter-sized world circling a star similar to our own Sun. These reports of other planets keep coming thick and fast, and I truly live in hope that we will detect a world that has all the signatures of life, e.g. Oxygen, Carbon dioxide, and Methane, in the atmosphere.

A Galaxy Full Of Life?

I have blogged before on the possibilities of life in our solar system and in the rest of the universe, well this week two stories claim that life is teeming in the universe.

First came the announcement by an Edinburgh scientist, Duncan Forgan, who said that he believed that there are at least 361 intelligent civilisations in our Galaxy and possibly as many as 38,000. His research simulated a galaxy like ours and then subjected them to differing hypotheses.

1. The first assumed that it is difficult for life to be formed but easy for it to evolve, and the results suggested there were 361 intelligent civilisations in the galaxy.


2. A second scenario assumed life was easily formed but struggled to develop intelligence. Under these conditions, 31,513 other forms of life were postulated as existing.


3. The final scenario examined the possibility that life could be passed from one planet to another during asteroid collisions - a popular theory for how life arose here on Earth.
   That approach gave a result of some 37,964 intelligent civilisations in existence.

This research had hardly been in the news for a day, when it was followed by another story in which Dr Alan Boss of the Carnegie Institution of Science, said that there could be one hundred billion Earth-like planets in our galaxy, at a US conference. Based upon the limited numbers of planets found so far (300), Dr Boss has estimated that each Sun-like star has on average one "Earth-like" planet.

Most would likely to have simple life forms on them but obviously thousands could still have intelligent lifeforms and Dr Boss estimates that Nasa's Kepler mission, due for launch in March, should begin finding some of these Earth-like planets within the next few years.

One Is A Magic Number

This story completes my trilogy of blogs on a loose 'relationship' theme where "One is a magic number" if you are a 'Desulforudis Audaxviator' (Bold Traveller) bug, which is a recently discovered form of life which may be the the 'loneliest living species known to science', and was found 2.8km (1.74 miles) beneath the surface of the Earth, inside a gold mine near Johannesburg.

This form of life, lives in its own universe with just its compatriots for company, and lives in total darkness at 60C (140F) heat, using water, hydrogen and sulphate for its energy needs.

This discovery almost certainly means that life can, and will develop anywhere in the Universe where it can, because this is the second life form found on Earth that has developed independently from our Solar powered one.

In the last few years, we have also found that bacterium life appears to have developed independently from us, in the superheated sea vents on the deep ocean floors (where no solar light reaches and under tremendous pressures), and this now raises the possibility that life has developed elsewhere in the solar system, as well as in other Solar Systems in the Galaxy.

The fact that ice water is on the surface of Mars and is now being studied, just adds to the possibilities of life there, at least in the past .... I say that because conditions on Mars, may actually be, or have been, much better in some respects, than deep inside the planet Earth.

A sentence in Latin from Jules Verne's novel Journey to the Centre of the Earth: "Descende, Audax viator, et terrestre centrum attinges", which translates as "Descend, Bold Traveller, and attain the centre of the Earth" is the neat basis of the new life forms name, and with Vernes interest in the Deep Oceans and Space travel as well, makes a nice link for the possibilities this bug represents.