Cool New Planet with a Shitty Name

Scientists discovered a planet 20.5 light years from here that seems to have the right stuff for sustaining life.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18293978/

The scientists named the planet Gliese 581 C, evidently to showcase the reason scientists can’t get laid. Science fiction writers all over the Earth are muttering, “Fuck you very much.” No one is going to buy a book titled “Escape From Gliese 581 C.”

And if we discover advanced life on that planet, what do we call them? It won’t be something easy like Martians, or Venutians. No, they will be Gliese 581 Csians – a name that practically demands we discriminate against them.

Seriously, don’t the discovering scientists have a neighbor or a friend who works in marketing? Watch me spend all of thirty seconds to come up with five better names for that bad boy. And I won’t even use New Earth or Earth V2.0. Time me.

Vektron

Albutoral

Skype

Androgena

Heedro

Done! See? How hard was that?

We don’t know if the planet already has life. I suggest we play God and put some there. 20.5 light years is too long for human travel, but we could place some hearty bacteria and whatnot in a probe and fire it in that direction. If there isn’t already life on Gliese 581 C, the bacteria and whatnot can evolve into zebras and Creationists over time. If there already is life on the planet, our bacteria and whatnot will probably infect them and wipe out their civilization. So we might want to put a Mars license plate on the probe.

Infotainment questions for the day:

1. Do we have the technology to seed that planet with life?

2. How do we know the Gliese 581 Csians didn’t seed life on Earth?

It seems to me that we now have a falsifiable hypothesis for Intelligent Design on Earth. My hypothesis is that it came from Gliese 581 C. I call that science. We should teach it in schools.

Go.

[Update: See this link for a technology that could make space travel at vast distances feasible: http://space.newscientist.com/article/mg18925331.200-take-a-leap-into-hyperspace.html]

Comments

[miven]

i say take a probe satelite tak pics .... then nukem

[katelin]

the name is undecided the sun fir that planet is called Gliese 581 C!!! sorry but who ever wrote this is a dumbass!

[NielJ]

Well, Bekka, good to see you kept your sense of bad grammar, but I can spend 15 seconds thinking up 10:
Ambulka
Glookas VI
Hewark
Holaste
Glork
Hetachondraes
Kratos
Dlopgas
Frondli
Kloopan

[NielJ]

Well, Bekka, good to see you kept your sense of bad grammar, but I can spend 15 thinking up 10:
Ambulka
Glookas VI
Hewark
Holaste
Glork
Hetachondraes
Kratos
Dlopgas
Frondli
Kloopan

[Bekka]

hello !! miss this site is really funni lol hello fran
hu is sad enough to get up at 2:00 am in the morning and put a comment on this site!!!! dearie me i think the doctor who idea wasa good one lol keep that one
lol :D :) :D :)

[Bekka]

hello !! miss this site is really funni lol hello fran
hu is sad enough to get up at 2:00 am in the morning and put a comment on this site!!!! dearie me i think the doctor who idea wasa good one lol keep that one
lol :D :) :D :)

[radagast_the_brown]

Thinking this through;

1. It's possible that the planet has life
2. If 1 is true, then it is possible that this life is intelligent
3. If 2 is true, then it is possible that they are hostile

Granted, we don't know any of this for sure, but can we afford to take the chance?

Or do we want to wait until the smoking gun arrives in the form of forty-foot titanium alloy robots with 10 gigawatt destructor beams coming out of their eyes?

I say nuke 'em

[Bel]

Yes, alright the name Gliese 581 C doesn't exactly evoke feelings of... well, anything except for a nasty flashback to high-school algebra. But this should be regarded as a triumph, not a failing of the scientific community. It marks one of the few areas of scientific discovery where the name hasn't been messed around with so as to sound appealing to a bunch of induhviduals. No doubt if anything interesting is found on Gliese 581 C it will rapidly be renamed
Nova Americana or something equally ghastly, but for this short while we should be happy that it's not an image-concious planet.
And, of course, a much more satisfying name for it would be Gallifrey.

[Qukiti]

Hey! there are people posting on this who can't spell or be bothered with grammar! On the Dilbert Blog! Don't they realise they're setting themselves up for induhvidualism..?
Blimey, they'll let any old eejit leave posts.

[Sri]

Skype is name of some software used to make phone calls through your comp...

[Charmaine]

Hello. Vulcan. Astrologers have been saying for hundreds of years that the "yet under discovered planet, Vulcan" has always been the influence on Virgos.... hence the character Spock was created.

[Yoav]

The new plant already has a name - always had it. I'm reading the first line of the Bible, in the original, Hebrew, my mother langauge. It literally says: "In the beginning God created the Sky and the Earth.". Sky - not heaven. Well, the Hebrew word for sky is "sham-mayim", literally saying "there be water". So it's "In the beginning God created ThereBeWater and the Earth". So, plainly, we have two planets: Earth and ThereBeWater or Sham-mayim. That's the name, and at it seems that Sham-mayim literally came first. Yours. Yoav

[rodbotic]

I think we should send a probe filled with weed Seeds(black berry or Dandy lion, not the other kind).
we have enough trouble kill them here, they must be able to grow in any environment we send them to.

if they seeded the earth, would that prove intelligent design?

[Leora]

"Albutoral?
Sounds like my wife's policy on sex."

Posted by: Brian | April 25, 2007 at 10:27 AM

Leaving the name Albutanal still available? Kinda fits in with the Chair Buttocks theme...

[Dave Oblad]

Hi Scott.. I read the hyper drive article.. very interesting. But what bugs me a bit is the way we think about gravity. I think Einstein's model of a bowling ball bending a mattress creating a depression that another ball will roll into is inverted from the truth. A better analogy would be that space-time fabric is like a rubber mat plane under water. If a big bubble is released (the bowling ball) it rises and creates an upwards bend in the fabric. Any small bubble (another ball) released nearby will rise, follow the upwards curve and join the bigger bubble. Here's the obvious difference.. The big bubble did NOT attract the smaller bubble (gravity). Instead, the smaller bubble was pressured to join the larger bubble due to the pressure difference in warped space-time (the rubber mat). What this implies is that a vacuum is the true solid (I.e.: the water in the inverted model) and that matter is the less denser space (the bubbles). You and I are made of matter but, in fact, we are mostly vacuum, thus we are only slightly less dense than a solid vacuum. A black hole has most vacuum space taken out and is therefore, the least densest material. The pressure from vacuum space is tremendous around it. Another observation is that shock waves travel faster in a material that is denser. I.e.: Waves in Air are slower than waves in Water which is slower than waves in Steel. So electromagnetic waves should also travel faster in denser material. The fastest an electromagnetic wave can travel is in a hard vacuum (speed of light) and is always slower in less dense materials, I.e.: glass. This might explain why galaxies are all moving away from each other if one uses a model of a water sphere with bubbles being pressured away from the center towards the surface. The volumetric distances increases away from the center and distance between the bubbles will increase. By this model (4D hyper sphere) all matter is being pushed out to a low pressure surface. Thus; the universe will eventually end when all matter is squeezed out to the surface. By modern physics, it's like saying we live in an empty space surrounded by a black hole. The universe, thusly, wouldn't repeat... it ends when all matter is pushed out. The dark matter they are looking for... it's the vacuum! As long as we think of gravity as a force of attraction and not outside pressure, then we may never solve the riddles of our reality. Anyway, just a quick thought. Love your Blog. Best to ya from Dave :^)

[Bill]

I like the subheadline for that planet newsbite. "Planet could be "Rocky" OR "Covered with Oceans"

Wow!

That's some incredible scientific brainery that must have been used to figure that one out. Having absolutely no science skill or devices whatsoever, I, myself, Bill Tkach, could probably predict with 99% accuracy that the planet they discovered was either "Rocky" or "Covered in Oceans".

[Sam D]

Well, I'll have to score around the clock to populate a planet, but send me there with 20 supermodels and a case of German beer and I'll do my best.

[Alex]

All of those names are taken
Vektron - a corporation that makes ceiling panels
Albutoral - Albuteral a medication for quitting smoking)
Skype - a popular free voip program
Androgena - a testosterone replacement medication
Heedra - I'll give you that one but it's too much like Hydra

[Mike Bennett]

All inhabited planets are called "Dirt" in some form or another. What people outside the planet call it is another matter.

[latsot]

regardless of whether we find life there, we should definitely declare it an enemy planet.

[latsot]

regardless of whether we find life there, we should definitely declare it an enemy planet.

[Richard]

Sounds like Majipoor to me - they are only guessing at the surface gravity - the planet might have a really dense core (as piloted on this very blog) and nearly Earth-normal gravity. OK so the planet surface would be as soft as balsa wood, but heck, you never buy the first planet you see anyway . . .

[wanderer]

What if we sent out a huge spaceship with various species (Noah's ark, anyone?) that will one day make it to this new planet?
Then a strange thought entered my head...
What if Earth itself was originally a huge spaceship, sent out to explore the universe, somehow lost its bearings and is now spiralling slowly but inexorably towards the sun?
Then I looked out my padded cell (actually my tiny cubicle), through the small window towards the horizon and had this creepy feeling... (*shivers*)

[Kevin Kunreuther]

You've had aliens in Dilbert before, apparently they weren't successfully sustainable characters. So, little chance for a C-bert to show up and spread mirth around Dilbert's domain.
Still, turning the tables around, you could do series of strips as an homage to Wallace & Gromit's "A Grand Day Out", and have Dilbert and Dogbert build a warp drive space vehicle, or for bigger laughs a matter transporter (on arrival on planet, their heads would be on the other guy's body), that lands them on this new giant Earth-like planet.
Feel free to use idea.

[giselle]

If Gliese 581 Csians seeded life on earth, who, then, seeded life in Gliese 581 C? If inhabitants of another planet seeded life in Gliese 581 C, who, then, seeded life in that planet? And so on. So who was the first to seed life and where did this person/thing come from? Beats me. But I bet some Bible thumper will insists on the convenient way out by explaining all these away in the name of God.

[kingwerewolf]

Indeed, why don't these scientist with no social life not come up with krypton? that'd be awesome. and if we did do that, we should see if we can speed up the explosion of the sun to see if a super child will land in Kansas, 'cus that will make so many nerds' dreams come true. but not me. I hate superman.

and I'ma geek...

[Star_King]

I hate to burst everyone's bubble, but Gliese 581 is a variable star, it's "Golden Zone" is not always all that golden.

[Dar Dudley]

I don't know if anyone else has already suggested it, but since this planet is much more massive than the Earth and it orbits a red sun there can only be one name for it; KRYPTON!!!!

[Andrea]

at gliest I didnt name it

[Andrea]

at Gliesest I didnt name it

[Andrea]

at Gliesest I didnt name it

[Ned Yeung]

To the last poster who asked why it took so long to find it, if it's so close. 20.5 lightyears is not close. We only just developed a telescope strong enough to view planets at that distance, from what I understand. So really, we lucked out on discovering a planet like this, so soon after developing the technology to see it!

[Stomper]

Because planets are very small, on a cosmic scale. And planets don't give off light, the way stars do. If I understand the reports correctly, they still haven't actually seen it. They have only deduced its existence from circumstantial evidence. That evidence can be hard to gather and interpret.

--Stomper

[cheetch5]

so if it so close,why did it take them so long to find it?

[Curt]

I vote for "Dilbearth" to replace Gliese-whatchamacallit...GO DILBEARTHIANS!!!!

[Fáránlegt Skilyrði]

Will you stop ending every fucking article with the word "Go"?

[admiral krunch]

The cooler planet names are the ones that have a signifigance besides sounding b-movie-ish. Like Dune from the novel "DUNE" by Frank Herbert or Path from "XENOCIDE" by Orson Scott Card.

[Kent Morwath]

Scientist have already too many items to name - they have to use some schema to avoid to get lost. Once bright stars had a name (Polar Star, Betelgeuse, Vega, etc.) and that was enough. Then some started to make maps, and giving a name to 6,000 stars was a bit difficult, and they started to use greek letters, latin letters, numbers. Telescope enters - ouch - a lot of them! Catalogs started to appear, and stars were named catalog + progressive numbers. Some stars may have more than one name. Gliese is a catalog of nearby stars. Usually interesting object get a "standard name" just after discover, so everybody can use it - and if it is proper the discoverer can later submit a name of his or her choice - and the IAU has to approve it.
Sorry if they're not sexy... if they could put up a business and sell starts they will got much more money and chicks..

[Joe C]

Scientists have no choice how they name things. There is no free will.

[yamagatana]

My physics classes were a while, back, but I remember enough to be seriously intrigued by Heim theory. Despite my poor memory, I can respond to Kevin's post:

"I may or may not have missed this, but does the ability to travel in hyperspace as described by Heim, (my understanding of German is very minimal, though some Babelfish translator engines help a little) circumnavigate the problem of the closer you travel to light speed, time slows down for you?If not, a round trip excursion to and from Mars spent at a luxurious two days in your personal time, may find on your return that anywhere from six to ten years have passed on Earth. Hoping that a capitalist civilastion continues with no major downturns, you could make a few shrewd safe minimal investments, take a five light year trip around the galaxy, return to Earth to a fat ripe nest egg - or at least pay for the trip in space!"

In the hyperspace Heim-Drochner theory describes, the speed of light is higher than in normal (Newtonian? Einsteinian?) space. As a result, even if special relativity holds (and it should), time dilation might be no more an issue for a hyperspace traveller than it is on a flight from Denver to Seattle.

I'm glad my wife doesn't read this blog, or I might be in danger of proving experimentally that scientists don't get laid.

[Dave1-20-2009]

really dont understand why, outside of scientific curiosity, it would be good to find life on other planets. ...IMHO We as a species are not ready to meet any new intelligent beings should there be any out there. Our fear would cause destruction of either them or us.
Posted by: Mike | April 26, 2007 at 06:40 AM

a) Because knowledge is a good thing in and of itself. Also, maybe it would put the fundamentalist notion of "God created the universe just for us" garbage to rest.

b) Good thing it's too far away to get there.

P.S. I vote for C-berts to show up and talk to dog/cat/bert kind of like the aliens who bought the earth from Calvin for a few leaves.

[Stomper]

Colin:

Your question about "Christian evolutionists" shows that you must be new here. First, because Scott rarely tells us what he really believes, and it is difficult to know whether he is serious when he does proclaim an actual opinion.

Second, according to Scott's prior posts, he appears to be an agnostic who does not believe in "invisible friends" (deities), but would not go so far as to deny the existence of a deity without some proof. Scott has not explicitly said so, but it does not appear that he has much use for faith, or much respect for the whole concept of believing things which cannot ever be proven.

Third, Scott questions some of the evidence commonly cited to support evolution, and he has explicitly said that he eventually expects evolution to be replaced by a better theory. But was he serious when he said it? Did he really understand what "evolution" means and encompasses when he said that? Did he understand that the theory of evolution is itself evolving, as it is still being refined and improved with new data? So hard to tell . . .

Scott would probably be willing to concede (and may have conceded) that evolution is the best explanation so far. As one who has been reading and posting since Scott began blogging here, I've certainly never seen him show any respect for Creationism, and I'm confident he does not believe in Creationism. I strongly suspect he does not believe in Intelligent Design, either, given his reluctance to accept anything which cannot be proven.

Moving beyond Scott's opinions, most of the people who post here appear to be agnostics, though some of those agnostics misuse the labels and erroneously call themselves "atheists." Many of the people who react to those posts appear to be Biblical literalists. A few of us, however, have identified ourselves as Christians who are not Creationists.

I call myself a Christian (a label that covers an extremely wide range of beliefs). I even teach Sunday School to teens in a mainstream protestant denomination, but I do not believe the Bible (including BOTH creation stories found in Genesis) is literally true.

Jesus taught with stories. So long as the point of the story is true, does it matter if the facts of the story are true? As long as I understand that Jesus wants me to consider everyone my neighbor, does it matter if there really was a good samaritan? I'm not saying there was no good samaritan, but I am saying that whether there was (or was not) a good samaritan is irrelevant to the lesson or to my faith.

I am comfortable applying that same standard to the entire Bible, not just the parables in the canonic Gospels. I don't believe in the literal truth of the creation stories, because the science shows overwhelmingly they are not literally true. That doesn't mean we cannot glean truth about God from those stories, and it certainly does not mean that we should abandon our faith. Disproving the literal truth of some Biblical passages is not the same as disproving the existence of God.

On the flipside of that same coin, I wonder if Creationists and other literalists who dispute or rationalize facts contrary to the Bible aren't looking for a way to bolster their faith. Of course, concrete proof of God's existence would undermine the very concept of faith.

Evolution makes sense to me, but there are some gaps (not the alleged "missing links" in human evolution, but e.g., an explanatiion with evidence showing how the eye evolved in stages). Even if science eventually fills in these gaps, I am comfortable with the idea of an Intelligent Designer who guided the process.

However, the concept of an Intelligent Designer is also a matter of faith, and it certainly should not be taught in schools as science. ID is not science.

So yes, Colin, there are rational, scientifically-minded people who are also willing to believe in things that can never be proven. The trick is to avoid confusing the two.

There are lots of different flavors of Christianity. If you have not yet found the right flavor, please just keep looking. If your home church isn't meeting your needs, ask your minister or a minister at a local college campus to recommend other churches you could visit.

And if you are ever going to be in Houston, Texas on a Sunday morning, email me.

--Stomper

[NotNasser]

I'd have named the planet "Jerry Lewis." Then we could as a species have had some collective seeding it and directing evolution in such a way that the planet would produce weird telethon-hosting beings considered humorous in France.

[Will]

Yeah sounds like a pretty silly name to me, too, though probably promoted by some arcane taxonomy decipherable only by astrophysicist nerdy types ;-)

Aside from that this prompted my to refresh my aged desktop wallpaper from HubbleSite.org. I now look at the Majestic Sombrero Galaxy (m104) periodically throughout the day. It's great to be a geek !!

[Wild Bill]

I think you need to add a being from Gliese 581 C as a character in Dilbert. You could call him (it?) Gliese 581 C-bert.

[Roland]

"The scientists named the planet Gliese 581 C, evidently to showcase the reason scientists can’t get laid."

Brilliant! Thanks for brightening up a dull afternoon...

[Mike]

I really dont understand why, outside of scientific curiosity, it would be good to find life on other planets. We already cant get along with eachother as a species on this single planet. What makes us think that we could get along with any other life form? I'm fairly certain that we would do as we always have done. If it is new or hard to understand...kill it. If you cant kill it control it. To us humans it will always be the other guys fault. God save them if they have something that we need. Say like Gold or Plutonium or some other thing. Even if they needed it to live we would want to take it all.
IMHO We as a species are not ready to meet any new intelligent beings should there be any out there. Our fear would cause destruction of either them or us.

[Joshua]

"...And here we are, once more, confusing evolution with biogenesis. Telling them apart is not hard.
Really.
Please learn the difference between these concepts.

Unless, of course, we are here supposing that the intelligent life on 581C has guided the development of life on this planet as well, as opposed to just seeded it.

A hypothesis, for those who might not know, is a concept about something that is supported by evidence of some sort. Please either note your evidence, or stop calling this a hypothesis.

Thanks!"

Wow, what a dork. Sounds like the rantings of a guy who would name a planet Gliese 581 C.

Well, here you go:
hy·poth·e·sis /
1. a proposition, or set of propositions, set forth as an explanation for the occurrence of some specified group of phenomena, "either asserted merely as a provisional conjecture" to guide investigation (working hypothesis) or accepted as highly probable in the light of established facts.

[niCk(mem beth)]

Just saw today's strip.

So you're having someone else write your blog posts?

That explains much.

What's the "Go." signify at the end of your posts, Is that some kind of shorthand?

Fi.

[Jim]

20 lightyears away? Maybe the planet doesn't even exist anymore. If we have to rely on this antigravity, dark energy nuclear gravity theory to work...this will be the heighth of this planet - a cool news story.

[Carl]

Ah! Another grandious American scheme

[Jerry]

Scott, are you sure about that "Venutians" name? Darn, I thought it was Venerians. You know, they get sick from that hot, thick atmosphere and get venereal disease. Or maybe it was Venetians. I hear that venetian go blind. Or something like that. I can't bother to look it up.

[Joy Forever]

I couldn't read through all the comments to find out if this has already been said... but suppose we manage to seed life on Gliese-whatever, then millions of years down the line they will find out Earth through their technology and may name it something like Froam 420 Q.

Maybe their's intelligent(?) life there and they have already done it!

[Pete]

If they can make "THX 1138", why not “Escape From Gliese 581 C?”. Although some induhviduals might think it is a metric version of "Fahrenheit 451".

[daloon]

Yes we have the technology.

No we don't have the technology to make a feasible attempt... it might very well bankrupt us.

If we have a hyperdrive- well its still a lot further than mars but then sure.

[DL From Heidelberg]

Believe Skype is already taken; VOIP.

[Marxist]

What are we going to do with other planets(Mars, Moon[s], asteroids...), anyway?

[Marxist]

Nice, can't wait to get there.

[Lynn]

I can imagine some people thinking, "Ooh yeah! Another planet to kill!" Then maybe they would go off to Gliese and finally leave the Earth alone.

[oliver]

I think that Gliese 581 C send their convicts to earth long long ago. Basically the same way we started Australia.

Trust a South African to take every opportunity to get one over the Aussies...

National sports on Gliese 581 C:
Rugby
Cricket

Oh yes, you asked 2 questions: maybe.

[Ajay Mishra]

The fucking Scientists. Someone needs to probe who seeded :

A: Dick Cheney

B: Al Gore ( sorry, internet)

Scientists dont get laid.. no wonder ( its past 60s anyway). I do think that their close cousins [Scientologists - those who dont need drugs] do get laid. They have a better name - Theton.. or whatnot..

[Seth]

Ooh, Scott, I know it's not your fault but I suspect you have rather more pull at Typepad than I do. They really need to check their scripts out, I was credited for a post by someone who spelt Iraqi with a k. This hurts me in the collection of electricity and chemicals in my head that is doing such a solid job of convincing seventh day adventists that I have a soul to save.

[DM]

Well, no-ones been there or seen it yet, it might be quite a shithole. In fact the current name may be too grand for it, although I agree we shouldn't unnecessarily upset the local residents by pre-empting it's shittieness in case they got something nice we want or they need a nice friendly regime change.

[Seth]

Umm, necessarily incomplete evidence Anri. Or else it's not a hypothesis, it's a fact. And one needs very few facts and incredibly weak evidence to create a hypothesis, just look at all the creationists.

[ShaunL]

The only problem with this planet is that it appears to reside in the "Goldilocks zone" - the only life that could be successfully seeded there would be talking bears.

[Lindsay]

Scott
How about Elbow-Nyah (get it???)

Bad jokes- never apologize , never explain (courtesy- Dogbert)

[ShirtBloke]

Thanks for pointing out the work of Burkhard Heim.
Never heard of him before this.
Interesting stuff.
Your work is done.

[Ben]

The new planet should be called ben and bob's discount donkey-o-rama, if for no other reason than it sounds funny.

[Kalle Mero]

"...can evolve into zebras and Creationists over time."
You crack me up!

[T.G.]

Hahaha, nice try, but imho IDers don't believe what they believe based on reason, they choose whatever reason that can make up with what they want, hehe ... yes ... they are like lawers (i know, nothing new).
I agree that the planet thing is more a media exageration than anything else, as ussual, so to choose a unique, nice name (or alias) is a great idea, hehe, any name used on SF would do, like Corelly, Trantor, Tatooine ... not that one, that is for a planet in the Alpha Centauri system ... hehehe.

[Kevin Kunreuther]

As much as I can understand the hyperdrive principal (not the Star Trek version), we will be able to travel great distances at great speeds without fuel, just build machines that manipulate all the different forces at work in universe. I may or may not have missed this, but does the ability to travel in hyperspace as described by Heim, (my understanding of German is very minimal, though some Babelfish translator engines help a little) circumnavigate the problem of the closer you travel to light speed, time slows down for you?If not, a round trip excursion to and from Mars spent at a luxurious two days in your personal time, may find on your return that anywhere from six to ten years have passed on Earth. Hoping that a capitalist civilastion continues with no major downturns, you could make a few shrewd safe minimal investments, take a five light year trip around the galaxy, return to Earth to a fat ripe nest egg - or at least pay for the trip in space!

[Gerard McGarry]

Hey Scott - My mother is Gliese 581 Csian. How dare you!!! (shakes fist)

[Zaphod]

Here's a thought, although highly unlikely to be original. We could build a big spaceship to house 100 families and send it off to Gliese 581 C (well obviously we couldn't, but humour me). With our technology the ship would take several hundred years to get there, so many generations of families would pass on the ship before they arrived.

Now during that time, what with the rate of technological advance on Earth, we will have invented black hole transporters. I imagine they will be roughly the size of a Mr Coffee drip coffeemaker, and possibly a little cheaper. The thing is, the people back on Earth would have long ago transported themselves to Gliese 581 C and by the time the spaceship arrives there will be a Starbucks on every other corner - and the people of Gliese 581 C will say to the spaceship people, "well where the hell have you been".

So my point is, there really is no reason to jump in a spaceship and head off to another planet because by the time you get there someone will have beaten you there and you'll just feel silly.

[heynoni]

Okay, here's what we do:

Stick L. Ron Hubbard's DNA in a vial, shoot it off to Glisbik (Well done, MattyD) so that it crashlands in a swamp and mixes with all the bacteria and evolves into lifeforms that will eventually become archaeologists who uncover the evidence of the crashed spaceship many millenium later, come up with the totally plausible theory of their own flying-saucer ancestry and finally give Scientologists a legitimate reason to exist.

[imponderable amanda]

not that anyone will actually read this because of the 5 million other comments. the coolest name is and always will be "RATHE"! or "THERA". does anyone read "books" anymore?

ha ha jk, i do!

[jerry w]

Name the planet?

I hope the spelling is o.k. as it's been years since
I read my first Kurt Vonnegut novel, but:

Is there any other choice besides Tralfamadore?

It will echo through time.......

http://boskolives.wordpress.com/

[Sheetal]

Scott - HILARIOUS post. Was laughing all throughout it.

[Sheetal]

Scott - HILARIOUS post - was laughing all throughout it.

[Eric]

Instead of putting bacteria on the planet... lets just put Rosie O'Donell on it.

by the way... as far as commenters go... no need to get technical and bash the writer for his lack of knowledge. they're just a normal person putting out thier feelings. people who aren't as educated as some of you aren't beneath you. just be entertained and laugh... why take blogs so seriously...

geeze

[George Brickner]

Let's call it "Mongo" and hope Ming the Merciless doesn't live there.

Or call it "Rufus" as there's never a planet Rufus.

[Curious]

Good one!
By the way, what happended to your achives? All wiped out? What a shame if that is indeed the case.

[Bytesage]

These comments are SO INSPIRING !! WHAT IF on Gliese 581 C God created Adam and Steve?! Instead of Adam and Eve?!

I think I've out done myself now, I'm going to bed. :-p

[Bytesage]

Magrathea, its only in the Horsehead nebula if you look at it from the wrong angle.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Places_in_The_Hitchhiker's_Guide_to_the_Galaxy#Magrathea
or http://tinyurl.com/2wonm5

Now my question is are we the original that's about to be demolished for a hyperspace bypass, or are we the backup??

[Bytesage]

You know :) this reminds me of a REALLY FUNNY explanation for "why grass is green" by Aunt Nettie http://www.dearauntnettie.com/archives/archives-0105.htm

I can almost guarantee that will traumatize young kids who are annoying you by asking stupid questions.

Maybe we should call it Fat Earth, or better yet FatWorld.

Oh yeah its a heavy place the planet is 5 to 8 times the mass of Earth, I'm reasonably sure that means the following:

1) things will weigh 1.5 to 2.5 times what they do here (think sagging body parts and wheezing when you walk more than a dozen yards ... or much worse if you're already this way)

2) lots more land/ocean area

3) the "year" is only 13 to 14 days long, that's the kinda seasons that give crops whiplash!

4) think RED ... deep red (and smaller) "sun" red skies, red red red ... probably blood red, I bet its depressing.

5) since the star is smaller and burning fuel MUCH slower than one the size of our sun it has a life expectancy of between 20 and 70 billion years (not the short 10 to 12 billion that our sun will last)

[Milan]

"No one is going to buy a book titled “Escape From Gliese 581 C.”

I might.

[aloha]

LOL the evolution of Creationists
the Creation of evolutionists
I'm a Creationist and I that's funny!

[bengrimm99]

I've got a hypothesis for the previous post.

Based on the entirety of Scott's blog (the evidence), I'm going to hypothesize that he could be yanking your chain.

[kmacyoyo]

Do we have the technology to seed that planet with life? Sure, just send Pee Wee Herman with a DVD player full of porn: NASA's one-man hydroseeding operation.

[Joe Blow]

Steve, trademarks only count for widgets having the same, or similar, intended purpose. No one is going to confuse a planet with a drug ... well, except for those who might be on certain drugs, business types, lawyers, the majority of kids who can't find most countries on a world map (even with the names printed on it, sigh ): ... oh, yeah, that pretty much sums up the 99.9% of humanity that doesn't read these kinds of blogs! Makes you depressed, doesn't it? Hey, how about the planet "Depresstor"?

All the Best, anyway,
Joe Blow

[Christine]

Scott --

This is strictly irrelevant to today's post, but you might like to have a look at this article, published yesterday in The Guardian:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,,2064157,00.html

[Bulbboy]

1. Do we have the technology to seed that planet with life?

An intergalactic sneeze should do the trick.

2. How do we know the Gliese 581 Csians didn’t seed life on Earth?

Unfortunately we erased the evidence: whole rainforests arranged in the letter formation "Gliese 581 Csians Woz 'ere". They thougth we would see it when we evolved to GoogleEarth times.

Also if they seeded us, did they do it of their own free will, and who then seeded them?

[Dave Chesebrough]

...Skype?

[D. Mented]

Stephen,
when a little kid goes to the doctor to get a shot, if he (or she) cries, the doctor gives him a lollipop to make him feel better (or at least shut up)
The implication is that what the doctor said about getting a square ass must have hurt -therefore the lollipop to distract from the hurt - but a lollipop is sugar, which is fattening, so it would make the square ass bigger, which is not an improvement by today's standards.
Not screamingly funny, but sort of a fact of life.
D. Mented

[Bromond]

The late, great Kurt Vonnegut was ahead of you by about 30 years on this, Scott. "The Big Space Fuck" is a classic!

http://www.phpsolvent.com/wordpress/?page_id=388

Speaking of Vonnegut, perhaps the panet could be named "Tralfamadore" in his honor.

[Blogger]

Can someone please explain today's strip? With the lollipop?
Posted by: Stephen | April 25, 2007 at 07:24 AM

---------------------

And Then he voted... Posted by steve April 25, 2007 08:49AM
-------------------------

Stephen, I’ll bet a few other people were wondering the same thing and were glad that you posted that question. And that Dogbert the conquerer chose to answer it (7:49 AM).

steve, “and then he voted” works best when the question or statement doesn’t make sense, is illogical or a prime example of cognitive dissonance in action.

[D. Mented]

I understand a planet has to have a magnetic field to hold its atmosphere. It's now believed that Mars once had an atmosphere, but then it cooled, its core solidified, so the magnetic field gave out, and the atmosphere blew away.
Being the right temperature is a good thing, but does the G spot have a magnetic field?
(and the natives would be the Great Golden Gee's...If anybody gets that reference, they're as wierd as I am!)
D. Mented
(personally, I believe if we spent a tiny fraction of the resources, money and time needed to seed another planet on improving the conditions here, we'd have paradise in the living world. then all we'd need is birth control to keep it nice.)

[Paul]

Hi Scott,

The star is named after Wilhelm Gliese, who cataloged gobs of stars.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilhelm_Gliese

Perhaps astronomers should be given cool nicknames before they start discovering things.

[nico]

Now, let's find 5 funny names for each of the 50 000 new planets scientists discover every day.

Go.

[Joy]

oh gosh, this entry is hilarious. you really made my day!

[Blah]

A planet populated entirely by zebras and Creationists. There's a thought. Of course, the zebras would kill off the Creationists, leaving the planet a perfect world of zebras.

Check out freewebs.com/supercoolio

[sambobly]

Christian evolutionist? A contradiction in terms if I ever heard one. I don't quite get how someone could believe in one part of the bible (say, Jesus is God or what not) but not the other parts (Adam and Eve, creationism etc.). How do you decide what is real and what is just "a story".

[Tim Shepard]

2. How do we know the Gliese 581 Csians didn’t seed life on Earth?

I don't know why panspermia is such an interesting idea to so many people. It doesn't resolve any conceptual problem with the theory of the genesis of life, all it does is relocate the problem to another planet while adding a monumental amount of superfluous assumptions.

Why do I keep hearing about this meme from so many perspectives? To Me, it seems unnecessary and therefore, uninteresting.

[bob]

I am not touching the creationist vs evolutionist boxing match with a 100ft latex covered poll.

1. Do we have the technology to seed that planet with life?

No. We humans are too spastic to do it. Even if we have the technology, some jerk at NASA will screw up and the rocket will end up in their sun.

2. How do we know the Gliese 581 Csians didn’t seed life on Earth?

DON'T BE STUPID. We are decendant of the people from Sirius. Anything to indicate otherwise are lies born forth from the 7th layer of hell hence it is HERESY. Believe me ... I know ... I AM THE MESSIAH.

Heretics deserve to be burnt at the steak. It makes them tastier.

[W F Davis]

Gliese 581 C probably has one side locked toward it's host star. As a result, there's probably a really hot side, and a potentially frozen side. Being bigger, it will likely churn up a thick heavy atmosphere retaining all of it's primitive greenhouse gasses. Face it, this place is a hell-hole!

I would rather look for a gas giant in the so-called habitable zone. Then I would look to see if has a moon about the size of earth. Red dwarfs, like Gliese 581, typically burp out solar storms that make ours look like a flea hiccup! Having a host gas giant with a large magnetic field may be more likely to protect it's earth-like moon from such a huge solar storm. Also, the moons swift orbit around it's host planet will assure that the moon gets some sort of day and night conditions which may help provide for a stable weather distribution on that moon.

If, in all unlikelihood, there's advanced life on Gliese 581 C with consideration of it's likely hellish environment, I would imagine that such a being would evolve toward a rather nasty requisition. I wouldn't want to mess with them!

Earthlings, you gave us a stupid name and will pay... Weapons Commander Zjorfnooz, FIRE AT WILL!

[Paul O]

When the IAU revoked Pluto's planetary status, they left no official term for such objects outside of our solar system. All we can say for certain is that this object does not fit the IAU's definition of a "planet".

As for naming the thing, shouldn't we ask the folks on the thing what they want us to call it? Seems rather arrogant of us to just go ahead and name it, doesn't it?

[Sammi]

Jeremy.
I like the name Jeremy for a planet.

[Anri]

...And here we are, once more, confusing evolution with biogenesis. Telling them apart is not hard.
Really.
Please learn the difference between these concepts.

Unless, of course, we are here supposing that the intelligent life on 581C has guided the development of life on this planet as well, as opposed to just seeded it.

A hypothesis, for those who might not know, is a concept about something that is supported by evidence of some sort. Please either note your evidence, or stop calling this a hypothesis.

Thanks!

[Ky Andersen]

We should call the planet FRTK! Seriously Its a new heaven and a new earth! It's name is new jerusalem!!!

[locomotivebreath1901]

"No one is going to buy a book titled 'Escape From Gliese 581 C'."

Huh? Dood! Have you seen all the crap available on TV??!

And according to science, you are correct. Not true, but correct.

[someloony]

Pluto (This time, it's a planet!)
Rosie O'Donnell
Optical Illusion
Alice's posterior (Well, that's what today's Dilbert is about...)

[MattyD]

It's all the rage to substitute letters for their similar-looking numbers. Using a little creative licence, we can abbreviate this new planet to GLI-581C. Or 'Glisbic'.

How 'Dr Who' is that?

After I get a couple of wines into my wife tonight, I'll casually drop the new name and suggest one or both of us gets laid over it. Big time.

I call it "doing my bit for science".

[Gary]

Your blog post reminded of the good old days when they comics were full of good comic strips.

Scene: Calvin is shown standing behind a box with “SCIENTIFIC NAMES: $1.00” written on it.

Hobbes: "Scientific names?"

Calvin: "Sure. Scientists think up all these cool, wacky theories, but then give them dull, unimaginative names. For instance, scientists think space is full of mysterious, invisible mass, so, what do they call it??? Dark matter! DUUHHHHHH!!! I tell you, there’s a fortune to be made here!"

Hobbes: "I like to say ‘Quark!’ Quark, quark, quark, quark!"

Calvin: "Instead of making a fool of yourself, how about going and finding me some scientists?"

http://imgred.com/http://picayune.uclick.com/comics/ch/1993/ch930323.gif

[Incognito]

There is a company that sells stars for a fee and does quite well with their "unofficial" registry.

IMHO it's now time to start one that sells planets.

You just wait. It'll happen.

[Gustaf Sjöblom]

Colin wrote: "Anyway, one question: What's your view of Christian evolutionists?"

Only 50% deluded.

Hopefully you will soon turn agnostic as you start to seriously question the Christian Church/God-package and see it for what it is, an old control mechanism by people for people.

After that comes the realization that there is no God and that beliving in one is as corny as belief in wizards and witches. The fact that existence cannot be disproven isn't proof.

[Marc]

I'm going to start calling the new planet Kudzu (tm).
Screw the '''Scientists'''.

I have a whole set of books planned now with my new name:

Ice Planet Kudzu
Journey to the Center of Kudzu
Kudzu Kills
Escape from Kudzu
Kudzu Strikes Back

[mendel]

To Amaso Amos: Trademarks are for specific uses; i.e. if you trademark a name for food, someone else can still use it for shoes. Who trademarks names for planets? Is that even possible?

Scott, most of your names get cooler, more alien-sounding, when you reverse them:
Nrtkev (or possible Nrtvek, to lose the Slavic ending) - Larotubla - Epyks (that sounds like a video game company) - Anegordna - Ordeeh

Personally, I'd go with Anegordna.

[mendel]

If you want a cooler name, have a look at your phone dial:
581 could map to LUI, for example.

[Jeff]

even better - faster-than-light travel seems to indicate that you could, potentially, travel back in time as well. Let's travel back in time and seed Earth.

[Jon]

I have Albutoral in my pocket.

And yes, I am happy to see you!

[Colin]

I'm a 16 year old Christian Evolutionist, who goes to a Christian high-school, and it is plagued with creationists, most of which still believe the earth is 6000 years old! Unfortunately, most of them are absurdly stupid, so logic won't help me argue.

Anyway, one question: What's your view of Christian evolutionists?

[Steve]

Just because a planet has 5 times the mass of Earth, doesn't mean it exerts 5 times the gravitational pull at it's surface. It depends on the distance from the center of mass to the surface (radius of the planet).

Gravitational pull drops by the square of the radius.
The new planet's radius isn't well known, because the planet hasn't been imaged directly.
If we assume it's composed of stuff like the earth, the radius can be estimated at about 1.7 times that of Earth (cube root of 5, since we're talking volume).

Now divide 5 by 1.7 squared (Gravity depends on the square of the distance between the object's centers), we'd weigh about 1.7 times what we do on Earth (1.7G).

Some scientists speculate 581C could be basically an ice-ball, with chuncks of other stuff mixed in and plenty of liquid water at the surface. That would make the density much less, the planet bigger, and gravitational pull correspondingly smaller.

It might just be a warm, wet, tropical paradise. Especially for intelligent species like dolphins.

I had to somehow give some hope to the poor Sci-Fi writers.

[Amasa Amos]

Those names are nice, except that at least three of them are trademarked. Which means that if you actually gave one of those names to a newly discovered planet, you would be stealing. Especially if you then paid the planet's inhabitants one cent an hour to make shoes.

[basselope]

Sorry, I posted a link to the crappy picture of Sandia Lab's "Z Machine". Here's the good one.

http://zpinch.sandia.gov/Z/Images/z.jpg

[Bryan P]

I have the perfect way of funding a manned mission to the new planet. We convince the mormons that there are beings on the planet that need to hear about jesus and the need to pay an 11% tithe to the church. The mormon church will then fund the entire space probe to explore the new planet. The only catch is we would have to include a few copies of the book or mormon on the space probe.

[zardoz]

Terrific! We finally find someplace that just might hold life, and our first thoughts are to colonize it, pollute it, and infect it.

Agent Smith was right: humans ARE a disease, a virus!

[Tom]

Great

We send bacterium to the new planet and wipe it out. They wonder what the hell happened to their world.

People are freaking out about Genetically Modified foods and you think the governments of the world could send something across space and time?

LOL

We might be better off sending an Elbonian.

[concatenator]

a) No. First we must use technology to name that planet - Using the bot-filter of your blog that asks us to type random letters, the lucky charm today is "Uslijsf".

b) No. If they did seed us, they'd be harvesting us by now. As a crop, we're past the Harvest Now date - I think its all downhill for us from here on.

[concatenator]

a) No. First we must use technology to name that planet - we've proved we don't even have the technology to name that planet.
b)

[Monstah]

Come on, we all know we are a byproduct of protoplasmic experiments conducted on a desolate Earth by the Elder Things, eons ago. Then Cthulhu came.

Did I mention there were no Creationists back then?

[Indian Techie]

Scientists are pretty smart to name it Gliese which is hard to write or pronounce.

Their idea is in future it will just be called the G or
the G spot.

Then the guy who claims that he who discovered the G spot or other scientist who say they know where it is located will get laid as this will make them irresitable for women.

Great plan i say. Go Tigers !!

Cheers from silicon valley.

[LA Clay]

Wow, I can't belive this hasn't been said...

ELBONIA!

[Dave1-20-2009]

1. Do we have the technology to seed that planet with life?
Of course. But we should send the phone booth sanitizers and lawyers instead of the germs and cockaroaches.

2. How do we know the Gliese 581 Csians didn’t seed life on Earth?
Three things: Sanjaya, Paris Hilton, and Fox News.

[bb]

Isn't "Albutoral" an asthma drug (or some kind of drug)?

Maybe the scientist's lawyers ran a copyright search and "Gliese 581 C" was the best name not already claimed. Wasn't there a Dilbert cartoon with that very theme like 2 weeks ago?

[Ouch]

I also like Beltran and Varitek as planet names.

[Ouch]

Strap 500 Ford Pinto's to a uranium enrichment tube, then just have an Audi rear-end one of them, and off you go at near light speed!

I have a better name for the planet: Myanus. Hey, it's not pronounced like that, the 'a' is a short vowel.

[Mishlai]

Could we seed Gliese 581 C? Seems possible, though perhaps not easy. A biological payload that can survive the long trip, harsh conditions, and re-entry/deployment would need to be sent out on a craft that could successfully reach Gliese 581 Csians and deploy the payload safely onto an area of the planet most likely to support the seeding, or perhaps distribute the payload for even better chances. There would probably need to be a great deal of automation & AI, and perhaps a few decades after we sent it we might be slapping our foreheads and sending another. SeedProbe5 might even beat SeedProbe1 to the planet.

Would we want to?
1 - We might make it harder to determine whether or not life evolved their independantly.
2 - We might destroy some very interesting xenodiversity before we have a chance to check it out.
3 - If there is advanced life present already, then there would be other concerns, both ethical and survival. We may wish to slingshot it around Gliese 582 before approaching the Gliese 581 Csians so that it looks like bacterial death came from a different direction.

How could we tell if we'd been seeded? Well, that depends on some things:

What would they send? You'd want it to be simple enough to survive and evolve, but the further back you go in the chain of evolution, the less environment specific life may be. Life on Gliese 581 C would be adapted to higher gravity, different light, different seasons & temperature fluctuations, etc. At some point life might evolve to be so Gliese 581 C specific that it wouldn't surive on Earth.

If you go back far enough and send life that would have a decent chance of thriving and evolving further on either planet, is that distinguishable from 2 separate sparks of life evolving. How many ways can life spontaneously start? 1? A billion? Is life that started in one location in anyway uniquely identifiable from other evolutionary chains? Will we find the Gliese 581 Csians have similar dna? Different dna? They don't use dna at all? Would any of these results allow us to reach any conclusion at all? Life here probably didn't use dna at 1st. It would be difficult to say I think.

Would we feel differently about the Gliese 581 Csians if they'd seeded us? Would there be an intergalactic poltical advantage to creating that illusion? Could we believe the Gliese 581 Csians if they produced sophiticated records of the seeding of earth?

How would you distinguish a seeding from just a *similar spark*? We might conclude seeding if we found life in many places, and also found the basics of life to be very different in all of these places except 2, where they were extremely similar. That would be an argument for one seeding the other. Proving or disproving would be somewhat difficult.

"If life has evolved so as to be indistinguishable from humans but under different environmental conditions then doesn't that just about kill off evolution as a theory?"

Not necessarily, though it would certainly raise eyebrows. For alien life to be actually indistinguishable seems wildly improbable, but just very similar would not be as difficult to explain. It may be that symmetric bipeds with forward facing eyes and appendages with opposable phalanges are so effective/efficient that they're a common result of evolution in many environments that are *different* (actually extremely similar when compared to most other planets)

Here on earth - eyes, for example, seem to be a very common evolutionary result. The advantage given to a species with some sort of eyes against those without is enormous, so this makes some sense.

Not all eyes are the same or equal however, so what we see is a very valuable goal being reached via many different evolutionary routes. This sort of thing speaks strongly in favor of evolution and raises some questions about the likelihood of design.

If you're still with me, thanks for reading this long post.

[RPK]

I'm all for seeding it with life, but what type of life? It depends on the time frames we are dealing with. If we can get there quickly, and can bring everyone from here to there, then Gliese 581 C could be our emergency escape plan in case of a disaster, (such as global warming being half as bad as everyone says, or a meteor the size of Alaska hitting the earth). In that case send up seeds for fruits and veggies, along with cattle, chickens, and the secret recipe of 11 herbs abd spices that the Colonel uses.

If we have more time, (lots more), send up dinosaur DNA, let them grow and plod around for a few million years, then die and turn themselves into massive amounts of new oil for us to use when we finally get there.

[Derek Campbell]

I'm such a sucker for articles like the link Scott supplied here re: faster than the "speed of light" travel theories (though presumably that's the minority in this chat group at least).

Even as I'm reading that this is an article that was proposed 50 years ago then discarded, I can't help but think "God this would be awesome. Let's see, I have 50 years left alive maybe for this theory to be confirmed and used... yeah this could happen for me"

Yeah right. Ahh well - more's to pity I wasn't born a few hundred years later.

[Y]

I reckon they should have called it Ted. Or possibly Frank.

[matt]

Now I remember, Steven Jay Gould. is the guy's name

[igor]

You can name a planet as soon as you discover one... think about that :)

[Sebastian]

Mars plates are an excellent idea. If human history teaches us anything it is that more advanced civilisations have the technology (and often the will) to subjugate and/or destroy weaker societies. I wouldn't advertise to anyone that we are here (bit late I know with all the radio waves and nuclear fission emf that has been blasting from the planet for 80 years) but we need plausible deniability in case nasty aliens ever visit. "What, Alf, Welcome Back Kotter, Superman...? No they were not shows produced on Earth."

[Matt]

A clarification for lemark:

Right, beaks. The theory postulates that over time animals will develope tendencies or traits that better help them survive. I used the finch beaks as a cliche example. One could have used any thing else.

I gather the question is, "what evidence, if discovered would render the theory of evolution demonstrably false." The answer would be the spontanious creation of a new species without recognisable for-bearers. If by examining the fossile record we discover a critter had NO similar ancestors, that would hurt evolution rather badly. Likewise, if we found evidence that animals did not adapt to their enviroment and still survived, that would hurt it as well. There is a well known case where due to polution, the trees in which a certain moth lived turned black. The moths, over several hundred generations, also turned black. It was a case of evolution in front of us.

Lamark is generally right however, but given A) my limited understanding of the subject and B) the necessary brevity of a post such as this, a more complete answer can be found by reading any of that Harvard biologist named Steve (I forgott his last name) so if someone remembers it, let me know. The "steve" project was named after him

[Eric D]

This is it, Scotty boy - time to start thinking outside the box. It's going to be up to AI with vastly superior intelligence to "brainstorm" the technology necessary to travel such distances within the single lifespans as well as solving other problems. Thankfully, what we do know about the universe isn't even notable compared to what we don't - it's a reason to stay optimistic and hopeful! We are approaching the event horizon, what is beyond is the stuff of dreams and imagination!

As far as naming the planet, I love the planet names of the 12 colonies and birth planet in Battlestar Galactica. Why not call it Kobol?

[Steve]

In middle and high school we tend to stick with teaching the theories (facts as we know them) and avoid teaching hypotheses, especially wild ones.

I found in amusing that during the Dover trial the defendants stated they wanted to teach their crazy idea in middle and high schools because otherwise their idea wouldn't catch on. What we do teach are things that have already "caught on" for a good while. I was not taught about quarks because they had only been discovered a few decades earlier, i.e. it was too new and hadn't "caught on" for a long enough time.

[car free since '93]

It's a super dense lump. Let's call it Bushco.

CFS '93

[Gleetnorx]

Panspermia

Many paleontologists are coming to believe that there is a strong possibility that our DNA life forms may have drifted into our gravity well.
The evolution from simple nucleotides to deoxyribonucleic acid would be a greater jump than all of the subsequent evolution of life forms on earth from that point to now.

Certain spores are quite capable of enduring interstellar drift and arriving intact at far destinations.

But that's just us "carbon based units."
Sentient life could conceivably arise out of any entropy decreasing dissipative system; that is, sentience may arise out of any dynamic system that displays a critical level of complexity.

There are probably life forms out there, beings so weird we can't imagine them.

Long term survival of the human race depends on our ability to establish our civilization in places beyond this planet. The more baskets we can get our eggs into the better.
We may not ever make it out there, though, could be a fizzle the way things are currently going.

[Rick Miller]

I think the name sucks too, but it looks like at least they were following some sort of naming scheme. If it turns out to be a popular vacation spot, I'm sure folks will come up with a nickname for it.

Interplanetary seeding is an interesting question. It's perfectly reasonable to speculate that it could happen naturally if a planet with life already on it were involved in a collision with another large object.

[Chris]

Doesn't matter what they call it now. When you have a lot of beings who live there and have to refer to their own planet on a regular basis, it will get it's real name. We may even wish for Gliese 581 C back.

[Adam]

We have the technology to seed it, but it would have a greater chance of success once we know more about it. The only thing we really know about this new planet is that it's there. Everything else is speculation.

[Carter]

Vektron - the most original of the bunch, but still a combination of Vector and Electron

Albutoral - the name of a perscription inhaler

Skype - the name of a popular VoIP program

Androgena - name of various things. google returns 42,000 unique hits. also sounds close to the name of the closest galaxy and androgynous.

Heedro - a mispronounciation of Hydro.

Why don't we stick to deity names? I propose Rhiannon.

[Sean]

To "LA Clay"

Re: "Think OOTSIDE the box for once people?"

I don't think anyone has ever ruled out any of the things you've said, but if in searching for life we went with the premise that life could be anything, we would have no criteria to search by.

(remember Scott's thought experiment where he showed the whole Universe is intelligent?)

By looking for temperatures and elements that we know can support life it gives us a good starting place. When/if we have faster than light travel available it may be worth our time to start investigating every possibility. For now the only things we are looking for outside our solar system are those we know life could exist on.

[David]

Scott your pro-terraforming agenda has been apparent for quite some time now.

[Lise]

Albutoral is a prescription medication for asthma.

Plagurism, eh?

Scott may have fiendishly