My mind is at odds regarding what I should write about today. On one hand, I've finished a book and started another so a book review blog is seemingly in order. On the other hand, I've got a long way to go in everything I'm currently reading so there is no risk of falling behind. So I think I'll opt for some exciting science news to liven up this lazy Saturday morning.
The news is actually from a couple days ago, and the initial discovery is from way back in February, but none of that makes it any less enticing. Some of you more keen science enthusiasts might recall back in the early weeks of 2011 when NASA scientists used the new Kepler space telescope to balloon the number of known planets in the galaxy from a paltry few dozen to a thrilling 1,235 - or maybe you don't remember since the popular media has a way of glossing over extraordinary moments in the history of science - but regardless of all that, work is now being done to narrow in on which of these planets might be the homes of super-intelligent alien life forms... or pond slime.
Either way, it's pretty exciting stuff and a new study in the journal Astrobiology has proposed two scales on which planets can be ranked with regards to their ability to support life. First there is the Earth Similarity Index (ESI) which measures exactly what the name suggests, and secondly, we have the Planet Habitability Index (PHI) which evaluates conditions that might be suitable for life. Both indexes work on a zero to 1 scale with Earth having a value of 1.00 for the ESI and 0.96 for the PHI.
None of that is in and of itself exciting until you read the results from other worlds. The planet "Gliese 581G" (not exactly a pithy name, I know) orbiting a star some 20 light years from Earth has an ESI of 0.89, and Titan (one of Saturn's moons) has a PHI of 0.64. Considering what we know about the versatility of life on Earth, 0.64 is a big number. If bacteria can thrive on the waters of an arsenic rich lake in California, we might find them in the hyrdo-carbon lakes of Titan as well.
Science never ceases to amaze me. It has gotten to the point where what we are able to detect is so incredible and so far beyond our ability to experience that it just becomes frustrating. In a decade or so, we might know with virtual certainty that planets we can see with our most powerful telescopes are fully forested with vibrant oceans, even though we are nowhere near having the capability of ever getting to these places. In one sense its infuriatingly humbling; but, looking at it in another way, it might be nice to know that there exist ecosystems that are totally safe from human hands.
The universe is awesome.
-Steve
Image courtesy of http://madmikesamerica.com/2010/11/alien-planet-discovered-in-milky-way/
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