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Earth-Like Planet with Intelligent Life? Why 400 Years? Paul H. Carr, Ph. D. In 1584, Dominican monk Giordano Bruno envisioned the stars as "countless suns with countless earths, all rotating around their suns.” Searching for intellectual freedom, he fled his native Italy to Protestant Switzerland and Germany, but in 1600 the Roman Inquisition condemned him for heresy. He was burned at the stake. Fast-forwarding to 1995, the Swiss astronomers Michel Mayor and Didier Queloz announced the discovery of a planet orbiting a star similar to our sun (51 Pegasi). In 2010, 500 planets had been found orbiting 421 stars. On Feb 2, 2011, NASA announced that the Kepler space telescope had identified 1200 planet candidates. It took 400 years for telescope technology to advance and for Copernicus, Galileo, Newton, Bradley, and Foucault to establish heliocentric cosmology, culminating in today’s astrophysics with digital imaging and processing. Here is your opportunity to learn about the progress we are making towards discovering an earth-like planet with the possibility of intelligent life. Contrasting with Bruno, in 2010 Dominican Francisco Ayala, who had been president of the Sigma Xi and AAAS, won the $1.6M Templeton Prize for affirming life’s spiritual dimension.
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EARTH-LIKE PLANET WITH INTELLIGENT LIFE?
WHY 400 YEARS?
Paul H. Carr, IEEE Life Fellow AF Research Laboratory Emeritus www.MirrorOfNature.org
• In 1584, Dominican monk Giordano Bruno envisioned the stars as "countless suns with countless earths, all rotating around their suns.” • In 1995, the Swiss astronomers Michel Mayor and Didier Queloz announced the first discovery of a planet orbiting a star similar to our sun (51 Pegasi). On Feb 2, 2011, NASA announced 1200 planet candidates.
• Why 400 years?
ASTRONOMY MILESTONEs 300 years.1543 Copernicus: Heliocentric solar system1584 Bruno: “Countless suns with countless earths”1609 Galileo: First astronomer to use the telescope.1687 Newton’s Laws of Gravity and Motion.1725 Bradley measured stellar parallax of earth’s orbit.1851 Foucault's Pendulum proved the earth rotates.
IEEE ELECTONICS MILESTONES: 100 years1910 Vacuum tube invented.1947 Transistor invented by Bardeen, Brattain, & Shockley1958. Invention of Integrated Circuits by Kilby & Noyce 1972 Texas Instruments patented a electronic camera making digital image processing possible.
1995 Discovery of large gassy planet orbiting a star.
When Bruno found that proceedings were being initiated against him for new ideas such as these, he fled from his native Naples, Italy to Protestant Geneva.
Bruno’s search for intellectual freedom led him to France, England, and Germany. Homesick, he accepted a patron’s invitation to return to Italy. Their relationship soured shortly thereafter, and Bruno was imprisoned for seven years during his lengthy trial.
The Roman Inquisition finally condemned Bruno for heresy; he refused to recant and was burned at the stake in 1600.
Bruno had published about 20 books.
PTOLEMY 150 A. D. COPERNICUS 1543
From The Bones of Copernicus by Dennis Danielson, “American Scientist,” Jan-Feb 2009
Photo, Prof. Owen Gingerich's Book, “The Book Nobody Read,”
• Canon of cathedral in Frauenberg, East Prussia. •"The sun, seated on its royal throne, governs the family of planets going around it. For in this most beautiful temple, who would put this lamp in any other or better place than that from which it can illuminate all the planets?” De revolutionibus orbium coelestium (1543)
NICHOLAS COPERNICUS 1473–1543.
Through the newly invented telescope, Galileo (1609) observed craters & mountains on the moon and spots on the sun. He thereby challenged ancient cosmology, where heavenly bodies were thought to be perfect spheres made of “ether,” in contrast to the imperfect and corruptible earth.
Galileo’s Sunspots Craters & Mountains on Moon
Galileo (1632) published his DIALOGUE ON THE TWO CHIEF WORLD SYSTEMS, Ptolemaic & Copernican
The DIALOGUE, written in Italian, was a “best seller.”
The Copernican, Salviati, and the Ptolemaic advocate, Simplicio, tried to convince Segredo, originally neutral, of their respective positions.
The Jesuits convinced Pope Urban VIII that he was satirized as Simplicio, who supported earth-centered Ptolemaic astronomy. The Pope believed he had been double-crossed because: (1) Galilo betrayed their former friendship & (2) had not kept their agreement that Copernican cosmology was only a hypothesis.
This plus the Protestant Reformation in Germany led the Church to bring Galileo to trial.
Galileo’s discoveries led him to advocate the new heliocentric Copernican cosmology.
Galileo Galilei
1584 - 1642
GALILEO TRIED by the CHURCH
Galileo believed that God had written 2 books:• NATURE &
• “THE BIBLE.”
Paradoxically, the Church was scientifically correct that Galileo had no proof that the earth was rotating on its axis while moving around the sun. The Church supported the great astronomer Tycho Brache’s cosmology, who did not observe the stellar parallax of the earth’s orbit. Galileo courageously argued:“The Bible tells us how to go to heaven, not how the heavens go.”
He was nevertheless convicted at age 69.
Johannes Kepler (1571- 1630) in Germany adopted the heliocentric system. 1. planetary orbits were slightly elliptical.
2. Square of the period proportional to the cube of the radius
Before Kepler (1571- 1630) , astronomy was mainly observational. Kepler therefore made a unique contribution in postulating that a magnetic force kept the planets in orbit about the sun.
Kepler was on the right tract.
But it was Isaac Newton (1642 – 1726) realized that the gravitational law of attraction between a terrestrial apple and the earth was the same as that between the celestial moon and the earth. As the moon orbited the earth, the force of gravity caused it to continually "fall towards the earth." In contrast to Greek cosmology, Newton believed that celestial and terrestrial bodies had the same properties, as well as obeying the same laws of motion.
The synchronized performance of the moons and planets can not be explained by “mere mechanical causes” “This most beautiful system of the sun, planets, and comets could only proceed from the counsel and dominion of an intelligent and powerful Being.”
SIR ISAAC NEWTON (1642-1727)
Discovered laws of gravity & dynamics
Poet Alexander Pope wrote:"Nature and Nature's laws lay hid in night; God said, Let Newton be! and all was light."
The Newtonian synthesis of celestial and terrestrial motion is one of the great intellectual achievements of all time. Isaac Newton's laws of motion and gravity led to the acceptance of the Copernican system. The massive sun in the center was the source of gravity which kept the planets in orbit.
Newton had no "proof positive" that the earth moved, but his gravitational theory made no sense without a massive, comparatively immobile sun near the gravitational center of the solar system.
In 1725 James Bradley measured the small stellar aberration, which does demonstrate the earth’s orbit.
Foucault's pendulum was "proof positive." This proof in 1851 was anti-climactic, however, as the Copernican system had already been accepted.
FAUCAULT’S PENDULUM 1851
The plane of the pendulum's swing, like a gyroscope keeps a fixed direction in space, while the Earth rotates under it.
Over the centuries, telescopes got better and better…
Galileo and his Refractive Telescope, 1609 Herschel’s Reflecting Telescope, 1789
The Hooker Telescope - Mount Wilson, ca 1920
In 1995, a breakthrough:the first planet around another star.
A Swiss team discovers a planet – 51 Pegasi –48 light years from Earth.
Artist's concept of an extrasolar planet (Greg Bacon, STScI)7
Didier Queloz and Michel Mayor
ASTRONOMY MILESTONES 300 years.1543 Copernicus: Heliocentric solar system1584 Bruno: “Countless suns with countless earths”1609 Galileo: First astronomer to use the telescope.1687 Newton’s Laws of Gravity and Motion.1725 Bradley measured stellar parallax of earth’s orbit.1851 Foucault's Pendulum proved the earth rotates.
IEEE ELECTONICS MILESTONES: 100 years1910 Vacuum tube invented.1947 Transistor invented by Bardeen, Brattain, & Shockley1958. Invention of Integrated Circuits by Kilby & Noyce 1972 Texas Instruments patented a electronic camera making digital image processing possible (CCD).
1995 Discovery of large gassy planet orbiting a star.
The star & its planets rotate about a common center of gravity, resulting in a wobble in the orbit of the star and Doppler Shifts.
SPECTROMETER for MEASURING the DOPPLER SHIFTS of WOBBLING STARS
”Are there other planets in space similar to our own that contain living beings?"
Soon, for the first time in history, we will have the technology to find more of them.
Feb 2010, Stars with planets: 362Number of planets observed: 429 ttp://planetquest.jpl.nasa.gov/
17
Most of new discoveries are gas giants like Jupiter or Saturn and in the wrong location.
The right location in our solar system.
Most of them have highly elliptical orbits, or are too close to their parent stars.
Many of the new planets get too hot or too cold to support life.
Too hot! Too cold!Just right!
Tiny Area of Milky Way Yields Six-Planet Solar System and 1200 Exo Planets (58 in Life-Zone Orbits)February 2, 2011
* NASA’s Kepler telescope has found more than 1,200 extrasolar planet candidates.* Smaller worlds, like Earth, appear to be more common than gas giants, like Jupiter.* One six-planet system is unique in that the planets orbit very close to their sun.
PROPOSED DEBATE ON
LIFE in the UNIVERSEBetween
Cosmologist, CARL SAGAN (1934 – 1996)
Believed the Drake Equation suggested that many kinds of intelligent life could form, but that the lack of evidence suggests that intelligent
beings destroy themselves rather quickly.
And
Evolutionary biologist, ERNST MAYR (1904 - 2005, Bedford, MA) Single cell life in the universe is very likely,
but intelligent life very rare.
Figure from “Cosmic Dawn” by Eric Chaisson
EMERGENCE OF LIFE ON EARTH
LIFE on EARTH Single celled life for billions of years.
Cambrian Explosion of Multicelled life, 600 million years ago.
The earth and our solar system began 4.5 billion years ago
This monument to Bruno was erected in 1889 at the place he was executed, Campo de Fiori in Rome.
• In 1992, Pope John Paul said the Roman Catholic Church had erred in condemning Galileo.
• He expressed "profound sorrow" and acknowledged error in Bruno's condemnation to death.
In contrast to Bruno, Dominican monk Francisco Ayala was born in Spain in 1934 and ordained in 1960. The next year he came to the US where he earned a Ph. D. at Columbia University in evolutionary biology. He has been President of Sigma Xi and the American Association for the Advancement of Science and was recently awarded the $1.6M Templeton Prize for progress in spiritual reality. Ayala believes that religion and science offer complementary windows for viewing the world.
AMERICAN SCIENTIST, July-August 2011
ALONE IN THE UNIVERSEDespite the growing catalog of extrasolar planets, data so far do not alter estimates that we are effectively on our own Howard A. Smith
This artist’s impression shows the planet HD 189733b, about 63 light-years from Earth, which is known to have water and methane in its atmosphere, although at temperatures over 1,000 degrees Celsius. However, data from extrasolar planets so far do not alter estimates that we are probably alone in the universe, for all practical purposes.
“…Life on earth is precious and deserves supreme respect. Even if we are not unique in the universe-though we may not know one way of another for eons-we are fortunate. We have a responsibility to act with compassion toward people and our fragile environment.” Howard Smith
Long-Term Life on Earth vs. Near-Term Economic Gain: President Obama’s Decision on building a Pipeline from the
Canadian Tar Sands to the US Gulf Coast
Dr. James Hansen, NASA: phasing out coal burning in 20 years will result on CO2 emissions decreasing. If Tar Sands are mined, C02 emissions will increase and “the game will be over.”“We have to figure out how to live without fossil fuels someday…
Why not now?” Hansen
Fires Are Increasing World-Wide
Source: Westerling et al. 2006
Western US area burned
Wildfires in Western US have increased 4-fold in 30 years.
Dr. Hansen has joined Bill McKibben’s demonstration outside the White House http://www.tarsandsaction.org/
The IEEE can contribute to a long-term solution: renewable energy from solar, wind, biofuels, and nuclear.
INNOVATE or EVAPORATE!
Innovative SOLAR UPDRAFT TOWERAug 2011, a contractor was selected to build two 200 MW Solar
Updraft Towers in Western Arizona. Construction Cost $0.15/Watt
SOLAR ENERGY FROM OUR STAR IS FOREVER (5 B YEARS)
ASTRONOMY MILESTONEs 300 years.1543 Copernicus: Heliocentric solar system1584 Bruno: “Countless suns with countless earths”1609 Galileo: First astronomer to use the telescope.1687 Newton’s Laws of Gravity and Motion.1725 Bradley measured stellar parallax of earth’s orbit.1851 Foucault's Pendulum proved the earth rotates.
IEEE ELECTONICS MILESTONES: 100 years1910 Vacuum tube invented.1947 Transistor invented by Bardeen, Brattain, & Shockley1958. Invention of Integrated Circuits by Kilby & Noyce 1972 Texas Instruments patented a electronic camera making digital image processing possible.
1995 Discovery of large gassy planet orbiting a star.
To Learn More
BEAUTY in Science & SpiritChapter 3:
“From the 'Music of the Spheres' to the Big Bang's Whisper.” http://mirrorofnature.org/BBookCONTENTS.html
Atmospheric CO2: Principal control knob governing Earth's temperature. Science 2010:, 330, 356-359, doi:10.1126/science.1190653. byLacis, A.A, G.A. Schmidt, D. Rind, and R.A. Ruedy.
http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/abstract.cgi?id
=la09300d
Dec 5, 2011, Kepler 22b. Best candidate for life. 600 light years away, orbiting sun-like starTemperature 72F, Year 290 days. Is it rocky like our earth? Does it have an atmosphere?
