I don’t see why this has to be true. However, I’m not an astronomer or physicist so this is just supposition.
Couldn’t a larger planet be orbiting a larger sun thus making the circumference of orbit that much larger? Jupiter orbits the sun about every 11 years. In a system with a much bigger sun that throws it’s energy out farther, couldn’t Jupiter have developed as habitable? Thus, we’d have to be pointing at those 100,000 stars for as much as 33 years before we could make a determination.
He did say “sun-like star”, and the reason astronomers focus on those is because larger stars have shorter lifetimes than the Sun, and so are thought to be less likely to have life or civilization.
They’re waiting until we give gays equal rights to show themselves.
The anal probes should have been a giveaway on this!
Even if it could, that would only mean a 200 light year or so radius. I doubt there would be anything detectable leaving the planet prior to that.
Right. And some stars are too variable in output.
But one thing we’ve learned in the last couple of decades is that life seems to be a lot tougher than we thought, and that habitable zones can be found in many different places. For example, Europa may have a nice warm ocean, created by internal heat from the planet as it flexes orbiting Jupiter.
But when telescope and sensing resources are scarce, it makes sense to focus on major planets orbiting within the habitable zone of suns like ours. That doesn’t rule out life elsewhere - it’s just the most sensible place to look.
Gay Aliens?
That was good, sir.
Galaxy (bolding mine).
ETA: It’s an extrapolation for universe.
Probably less than that. Signals from TV and radio are not strong enough to be received at even close stellar distances by an antenna smaller than of interplanetary size, so unless an alien species has a very sensitive array of satellites specifically oriented toward Sol it is very unlikely that they’ll interpret radio signals as being anything but noise in the radio background. To communicate across interstellar distances you’d really need a high-powered, high frequency coherent beam.
Sol is a rather modest spectral type G star (G2 spectral class). Type F and K stars are also likely to have Earth-like habitable zones at various distances (depending on size) and will last long enough to have supported an Earth-like development of life. Sam Stone lucidly details the ways we would look for signs of life, so I won’t reiterate, except to point out that it is likely that extraterrestrial life may develop in ways that we would not recognize as life (and vice versa), such that merely looking for signs of terrestrial-type life (highly reactive atmosphere with diatomic oxygen, fluorine, chlorine, or other reactive species; deliberate and directed radiation like laser or gravity signals; spectral lines uniquely associated with artificial phenomena) may not be at all comprehensive.
Even if we find clear signs of the organizational structure and thermodynamic moderation inherent in anything complex enough to be called advanced or intelligent, it may not be comprehensible to us as displaying cognition and communication. In more straightforward terms, we may not recognize intelligent life even if we are face to face with it, particularly if it has no face.
As for SETI finding life in 25 years, this is clearly unmetered bombast, but frankly, it is the kind of thing you need to say, and indeed, probably believe, in order to maintain enthusiasm for a program that may go indefinitely without positive result.
Stranger
Right. And 25 years from now, or at at any given time in between, SETI will still and always be “within 25 years” from first contact, until the day when/if it does happen. Short enough that it could happen in the lifetime of someone working on it now, long enough that it’s not a failure if it does not happen during one specific individual’s career.
I’m on Stephen Hawking’s side about this stuff.
Just like the explorers of the past in our world were not satisfied with just “Cool, those Native Americans are very interesting people. Now we’ll leave them alone and go back home.” I expect that if we ever do make contact with alien life one civilization or the other will be harmed by it.
Harmed? Sure, 98% of the Native American population was wiped out a century or so ago, but now they have cable TV and the Internet and iPods! Some would call that a fair trade. 
Is there any particular reason you haven’t changed ‘will’ to ‘could’ in this thread heading?
Any particular reason you keep on replying to posts as if it hasn’t already repeatedly being pointed out to you that ‘could’ and ‘will’ are probabilities of a completely different order?
What a pointless ‘look at me, look at me’ thread.
Well, yeah, that’s a given. “We come in peace” ? Suckers ! Eat nuclear MIRVs, you freaks, and thanks for the natural resources !
Oh sure, we’ll hold memorials and have lots of guilt about it… two centuries later… but we’ll drink your milkshake today. Total no brainer.
Why drop all the way down a gravity well to pull out resources when star systems are likely to have lots of left over bits just floating around?
I have a question regarding Sam Stone’s excellent post about the Kepler mission, watching for dimming of stars to determine that planets are passing in front of them. You say Kepler has already found plenty of stars that appear to have planets in orbits too close to support Earth-like life, because the repeat dimming occurs too rapidly.
I’m sure the big brains at NASA have this figured out already, but … couldn’t the repeated dimmings come from more than one planet? You know, if the star dims three times in three months, instead of it being one planet whizzing around the star once a month, perhaps it’s three separate planets orbiting further out, closer to an Earth-type orbit?
Otherwise, that’s a pretty elegant way to figure out if there are planets associated with a star and how large their orbits might be. Don’t suppose any NASA planetary experts might drop in and tell me why I’m full of empty-headedness.
It’s possible, but the whole reason they wait for three dimmings is to make sure the period is the same. You could certainly get two or three different planets passing between the Earth and the star at different times, but they’re unlikely to be evenly distributed like that. And once they’ve established a probable planet, there’s nothing stopping them from waiting another 12 months to see if it’s on schedule again.
Neither “will” nor “could” would be an exact quote of the astronomer in the article, who used the phrases “chances<…>are pretty good” and “really good chance”. I “could” win the lottery for instance, which is why I felt it was inadequate to describe what Stranger On A Train called unmetered bombast, which was the point of my Pitting the article in question.
And you have a tiny, laughable little penis.
How else could you get punched out by Will Smith? Answer that, smart guy.
I’m confused, isn’t Star Wars a documentary made with archival footage?