New Planets Found

Did you say that we have discovered other planets? Yes. Not long ago, Swiss astronomers from the University of Geneva detected a planet which is, 0.6 M JUP, comparable to our largest planet, Jupiter. It was found circling 51 Pegasi in the constellation Pegasus (Bothun 1). This exciting discovery has led researchers to discover many other planets hosted by nearby stars (which will be discussed later). This brings us to the next question:

"If there are hundreds of billions of galaxies, each with hundreds of billions of stars, and some stars have been proven to included orbiting planets, what makes you think we may one day find life on these planets?"

Again, consider the words of Carl Sagan: 'This impatientce with ambiguity can be criticized in the phrase: absence of evidence is not evidence of absence' (Demon 213).

If there may be planets in our galaxy that hold life, why have we not made contact? When trying to explain time and distance on a Cosmic scale, for most it is an uneasy task. In comparison with our own galaxy, Earth distances, such as miles and kilometers, seem extremely small, much less on a universal scale. To accept the theory of other life in our galaxy and the universe, one must first begin to inderstand the scale of the Cosmos. When asked why we have not made contact, one can make a fair argument with the time and distance factor. Take, for example, Alpha Centauri- our nearest neighbor.