Who Needs a Moon? - Jack Lissauer (SETI Talks)

[moozoowizard]

And no one thought to ask about moonless Super Earths.. /sigh.

[Dappdude]

Really awesome talk!

[theideagirlsays]

the cool thing is that Im just learning about this stuff while working on your wow signal data and your doing videos about the same stuff i'm talking about.. now that's awesome ;)

[sbergman27]

One thing I've been meaning to ask about. The can never seems to perceive a quality difference between the SETI series videos at 480, 720, and 1080 resulutions, even when running full screen on my 1920x1080 monitor. It always looks like about 360 or 480. This is not really a problem. They're certainly viewable, and it is the *content* that counts. But is there some known reason for this? Occasionally, there are times I have difficulty reading the finer print on a slide, etc.

[sbergman27]

@sbergman27 "The can never seems to perceive a quality difference between"

Oh my. You can safely translate "The can never seems" to "I can never seem". I'm studying Enceledean via an immersion course, and it's sometimes difficult to switch back to Earth English.

[Zurround100]

one of the dumbest parts of the rare Earth hypothesis is that a planet can only have well developed life if it has a large moon like Earth does. Hogwash, life can evolve just fine without a moon!

[sbergman27]

@Zurround100 It's hard to extrapolate from our 1 data point. & pragmatism argues that we look for life like our own, since that's what our knowledge & tech allows us to recognize. When it comes to the more radical hypotheses, like Si-based life, sure Si has similar chemistry to C. But it's less rich due to the relative atomic masses. Consider CO₂, vital for life here, & SiO₂, sand.

But when we start hypothesizing that conditions must be exactly like Earth, like you, I harbor doubts.

[theideagirlsays]

enjoying learning more about the planets and physics :)

[setiinstitute]

@theideagirlsays Glad to hear we're being interesting *and* educational. ;-) Thanks!

[arcitejack]

you guys are getting more and more professional in filming these lectures. thanks.

[setiinstitute]

@arcitejack Thanks! I think we're slowly getting to where we want to be - stand by for the next couple of weeks, and tell your friends!