Inside the Milky Way

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I'd already commented after another poster raised an objection about the content, back here: http://www.wrongplanet.net/postp4469555.html#4469555 and since kxmode hasn't been back to spread more of the same in this forum, I hope the message was read and understood.

I agree. I enjoy learning about the Milky Way, and consider it a special creation for us

Actually, the Milky Way isn't that special. Barred spiral galaxies turn out to be quite common. As do G-class "yellow" stars like our Sun; one of its chief oddities seems to be the fact that it's a G-class star that isn't part of a multi-star system. (Even that doesn't render it unique - Tau Ceti, a tad over eleven lightyears from here, is in the same boat.)

It's very hard, using current techniques, to determine how many stars have roughly Earthlike planets around them. We've detected a handful so far that occupy their parent star's "Goldilocks zone", the zone most conducive to life (not too hot, not too cold); so far, those have been K- and M-class stars, cooler than our Sun, so the planets concerned are quite likely tidally locked, with one face forever presented to the star, much as the Moon is tidally locked to Earth.

There are wonders beyond imagining, beyond belief, out there in the deeps. You can see it as proof of God, or proof that randomness can produce awesome beauty; beliefs are not subject to proof or disproof, beliefs are not knowledge. The one thing it isn't, however, is proof that we, the human race, are necessarily all that special, just because we're here to comment on it.

Doesn't matter very much because until humans complete the near-impossible task of interstellar travel we'll never get to see any of those planets firsthand.

Exhibits A:

Exhibit B:



Or perhaps - and this is just my observation - people are free to post whatever they want as long as it conforms with your point of view. As a moderator you do have the power to enforce your viewpoint on others. Perhaps what WP should do is ask people who believe in God to monitor this forum that way if someone posts something about the universe, from a purely spiritual view point, there's a counterbalance to the anti-religious bias moderators seem to possess.

The point being, the existence of Earth need not be taken as evidence of Divine Providence providing us with the one world in all the universe where complex life can exist; while thus far we can't directly prove the existence of Earthlike worlds orbiting Sunlike stars, given what we have learned about our own galaxy implies that our being "alone in the universe" is staggeringly unlikely.

And interstellar travel is only near-impossible, not completely impossible; I'm holding out for a refinement of Alcubierre's theories, but even without FTL, generation ships are a matter of engineering and determination, not new science. We could build them using off-the-shelf tech (advise waiting for asteroid mining to become a going concern, as shipping that much metal up out of Earth's gravity well would be horrendously expensive, and besides, a hollowed-out asteroid might make for a good hull).

kxmode, please don't waste your time trying to turn this around so people with differing views are seen as biased - you've tried that too often in PPR and it didn't work there either.

I would rather we simply stayed on topic here: Computers, Math, Science, and Technology.
Like it or not, faith has no place in this forum.

I agree. I think this thread should be moved to the Politics, Philosophy, and Religion forum.

Actually faith has no place on this entire website. That's been made abundantly clear by moderators and non-moderators alike throughout many visits to this site.

And this is more or less what you say as you walk away from every discussion, leaving many questions unanswered.

This: http://www.wrongplanet.net/postt189095.html was set up for the reasons stated.
If you like it's a protected area, set up especially for theists.

If that was true you probably would've been banned long ago. So it's obviously tolerated.