Needs critical reviews.

Status
Not open for further replies.

krishnau

Member
Joined
Oct 29, 2009
Member Type
Student or Learner
How essential is it for us to find a new planet?

Astronomers say that a ‘potentially habitable' planet is one that could sustain life,not necessarily one where humans can live. They say that habitability (environment which ability to live) depends on many factors, but having liquid water and an atmosphere is among the most important. So, scientists are taking these things as parameters while finding a new planet essentially in search of a habitat which supports intelligence life. NASA research center and NSF (National Science Foundation, USA) are jointly sponsoring a project called SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) to
search the planets that a support intelligent life has been established in Mountain view CA. This project supported by NASA’s Kepler mission (A mission to find a planet which in the size of earth especially radius).
After decades of research on terrestrial objects SETA founded a planet that has 100% chances to have life. The discovered planet is three times the size of earth of Milky-way galaxy and 20 light years away from us, in constellation Libra. They conformed that this would be the most Earth like planet discovered till now which has potentially more chances to have life. This discovered planet is at nearby star Gliese581 and the planet named as Gliese581g. Even though they say that it is most likely to be earth; still some research need to be done to confirm that to be our next earth. Moreover,
Steven Vogt professor of astronomy and astrophysics at UC Santa Cruz says “The fact that we were able to detect this planet so quickly and so nearby tells us that planets like this must be really common” (Vogt, mission news NASA)which means he indirectly says that they are many other planets in this Universe which support life. But how does that effect on searching a new planet?
Through this paper I want answer questions like why do we need to find a planet that support life? Reasons which suggests finding a new earth, why do some scientists protest finding a new habitual zone? How essential is it for us to find a new habitat to live?
Fear from asteroids:
The effect of asteroids in intelligent life has been known. We all know how
asteroids vanished giant Dinosaur’s from our habitat 4 billion years ago (Though this idea has contradictions, it is believed my many scientists). Similar kind of fear is expected to be in front of us. Recently, British space engineers revealed that in 2036, an asteroid is going to collide with earth. NASA says “if that asteroid hit the earth it would cause damage that is at least equivalent to 100,000 times the nuclear blast over Hiroshima.” (NASA) which can result thousands of square kilometers will get directly effected by thatcollision but the whole earth need to see the effect of the dust that released after collision.
In turn effects extend disturbance ecosystem resulting extinction of mankind.
The solutions that scientists found are either to change the orbit of that asteroid or to find a new habitat which supports intelligent life. Gen. Vladimir Popovkin, commander of the Russian Military Space Forces (2006) says that with our current technology we are not in a position to change the orbit of asteroids. So most feasible solution for scientists to save human is, finding a new planet that supports human life cycle.
Super volcanic eruption:
Super volcanos are the volcano’s that can cause largest eruptions. Scientists say that a Super Volcano eruption could either wipe out the whole mankind or at least make a good attempt to do so. Till now scientists found around 50 Super Volcano’s on earth out which most of them got extinct. They say that very few active volcanoes are active now.
The Discovery channel says that there are six active super volcanoes. Out of which 3 in United States, 1 in Indonesia, 1 in New Zealand and 1 in Japan. Even though we feel they are only handful in number the devastation caused by them could be immensely large.
Larry O’Hanlon geologist, science writer at Discovery News tells us how
powerful could a super volcanic eruption can be and how could it wipe out the whole civilization. He says,
In fact, the last VEI 7 eruption was in Toba, Indonesia, 74,000 years ago, and it caused such global cooling that some scientists think it nearly drove humans to extinction. The largest known eruption in the last several thousand this that years in civilization is believed to be of Tambora, Indonesia, in 1815. It was tens of times more massive an eruption than Mount St. Helens in 1980. Despite pouring out 7 cubic miles of ash and causing short-term global cooling, Tambora was small fry compared with any of Yellowstone’s big eruptions, or even the eruption of Toba 74,000 years ago ( O’Hanlon, Discovery News).
So how does the effect of Yellowstone Super volcano will be? Discovery news had made an analysis on the effect of Yellow Super volcano, Wyoming USA eruption. Their results are threatening the survival of mankind. They say that if that Super volcano erupts, the whole US will be devastated in 6months and whole mankind will be dead in 3 years from the eruption. Threatening news from Discovery news says that from 1985, 3000 earthquakes had been reported from Yellowstone Park and the volcano height has been increased by 3 feet.
Things like these Super Volcano’s and Asteroid collision cannot be able to defend by us. The only solution that most scientists say for us is to find ways to escape from it. Even recent coronal mass ejection from Sun is also threatening us. This could cause pole shift on earth whose effect is worst more than earth quakes, Tsunami or any natural disasters. So out of all these reasons the need for finding a new planet like earth has been increased immensely.

But why some scientists say searching for new earth could cause more problems compared to not finding it at all?


Are we alone in this universe?
Stephen Hawking, one of the world’s leading scientists, known for solving the greatest mysteries in the world believes that the aliens are out there and Earth had better watch out. He says “extraterrestrials are almost certain to exist but that instead of seeking them out, humanity should be doing all it that can to avoid any contact” (Hawking, 127) from this he says that there is most probability for the occurrence of alien life in this vast Universe. He supports his point by using a fact those there more than 100 billion galaxies in this universe; each of them may contain millions of stars in it. In such a case the probability for occurrence of planet like Earth in those galaxies is really more. So he says
that we are not alone in this Universe, there should be Earth like planet in the Universe where life has evolved. He says that life in that system can be in form or microbes or simple small animal to the creatures which could dominate the mankind. Hierarchically, Hawking says that intelligent forms of life in extraterrestrial planets could cause damage
to mankind if we contact them. Stephen concludes that “If aliens ever visit us, I think the outcome would be much as when Christopher Columbus first landed in America, which didn’t turn out very well for the Native Americans” (Hawking, 126 ). From this Stephen conveys his fear of searching for terrestrial could result in colonizing Earth by Aliens if they are more intelligent than us. Even Vogt, says that “The fact that we were able to detect this planet so quickly and so nearby tells us that planets like this must be really common” (Vogt, mission news NASA) which means he says life is possible in some planets which indirectly supports Hawking’s idea of existence of aliens.

But why some geographical scientists feel its better to save our own planet instead of finding other?
Some geologists believe that Global warming and terrorism are the most
destructive reasons for our planet. If we think for a while both of them came from human activity only. Geologists state that the most amount loss for our humans is done human actions only. A perfect pin point proof to represent this is, the havoc caused in World wars. No record shows that a natural disaster causing around 60 million people dead but the human action did that. Similarly, the only common threat for all the nations in the world is terrorism. Things like these need to uproot from our society first in order to save our mankind.
Climatic Scientists say that more devastating things developed by our civilization are green house gases, plastic causing unpredictable changes to our climate. These changes in climate may result to unfavored conditions for the survival of human. These things made geologists to believe that it’s better to save our planet first instead of searching for another.

Conclusion:
Even though researchers say that nearest earth like planet is 20 light years far which is a small number cosmologically, it is not near in real practical world. Because, it is about 117 trillion miles from earth which means it takes one civilization time or at least thousand years to go there. Instead, I believe that every country should try to save their people from all the possibilities of extinction of earth like natural disasters, global warming. I think that every country in the world should try to build a defense for natural disasters instead of spending billions and billions on Military and Navy defenses. Even though we cannot stop natural disasters, we can at least reduce the amount of loss. So that
peace propagates around the nations.
 

chandraraj

New member
Joined
Jun 9, 2006
Member Type
Interested in Language
Native Language
Tamil
Home Country
Malaysia
Current Location
Singapore
Conclusion:
Even though researchers say that nearest earth like planet is 20 light years far which is a small number cosmologically, it is not near in real practical world. Because, it is about 117 trillion miles from earth which means it takes one civilization time or at least thousand years to go there. Instead, I believe that every country should try to save their people from all the possibilities of extinction of earth like natural disasters, global warming. I think that every country in the world should try to build a defense for natural disasters instead of spending billions and billions on Military and Navy defenses. Even though we cannot stop natural disasters, we can at least reduce the amount of loss. So that
peace propagates around the nations.

Though its too long to analyze, I will review your conclusion for a start. Your conclusion is that, instead of looking for the other world, countries should thrive to protect themselves. That sounds logical to me. But isn't spending money on defense is also a way of protecting ourselves? So rather than suggesting a complete stoppage, you should have suggested that more efforts are taken to reduce the damages of natural disasters so as not to self destruct ourselves.

Than again, your last sentence talks about something entirely different. Why are you talking about peace since it wasn't mentioned anywhere else!

cheers.

chandran
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top