Stargeek Atlantis

From the Beeb a few days back, serious coolness.

Rocky planets, possibly with conditions suitable for life, may be more common than previously thought in our galaxy, a study has found. ...

Michael Meyer, an astronomer from the University of Arizona, said he believes Earth-like planets are probably very common around Sun-like stars.

"Our observations suggest that between 20% and 60% of Sun-like stars have evidence for the formation of rocky planets not unlike the processes we think led to planet Earth," he said. ...

Mr Meyer's team used the US space agency's Spitzer space telescope to look at groups of stars with masses similar to the Sun. ...

Nasa's Kepler mission to search for Earth-sized and smaller planets, due to be launched next year, is expected to reveal more clues about these distant undiscovered worlds. ...

Excitement about finding other Earth-like planets is driven by the idea that some might contain life or perhaps, centuries from now, allow human colonies to be set up on them.

The key to this search, said Debra Fischer of San Francisco State University, California, was the Goldilocks zone.

This refers to an area of space in which a planet is just the right distance from its parent star so that its surface is not-too-hot or not-too-cold to support liquid water.

Astronomers have already found Earth-like planets orbiting other stars, including one planet which

probably has a substantial atmosphere and may be covered with large amounts of water ... and, most importantly, temperatures [which] are very similar to those on our world.

We have also learned that life is a lot more robust than we used to think and that the Earth's own Goldilocks Zone is much wider than we thought.

Scientists have found microbes in nuclear reactors, microbes that love acid, microbes that swim in boiling-hot water. Whole ecosystems have been discovered around deep sea vents where sunlight never reaches and the emerging vent-water is hot enough to melt lead.

As well as microbes, plankton, and small shrimp living in a lake three times saltier than sea water with a pH equal to that of household glass cleaner.

Of course, extraterrestrial microbes and shrimp are not going to be responding to hellos from SETI, but the fact is, the more we learn, the more we discover, the more likely it appears that, somewhere out there, there really are little green men. Or greys.