GALAPAGOS EARTH by Ufonalyzer 2/28/2010

GALAPAGOS EARTH by Ufonalzyer

As you may know, there have been nearly 450 planets discovered so far circling other suns.* As of January, 2010, 45 stars have been found to have more than one planet. The first non-Sol planet was detected 18 years ago. One method of discovery is the star wobble caused by a planet circling its sun making it (the sun) wobble back and forth. Even our own earth causes the sun to have a yearly wobble roughly equal to an infant’s crawling speed.** This wobble is too slow for us to detect, but it has been calculated. The most common method of discovery is caused by the planet’s sun getting closer and then receding from the earth as it is tugged by its planet orbiting around it; this causes a Doppler shift in the light from the star as it moves back and forth with respect to the earth, creating a “spectral wobble”. Another newer method is the planet transit where the planet crosses over its sun while we are looking at it, and this causes the star’s received light to dim. Still another method is gravitational microlensing in which a planet and its star may have its light pass close by another star, and the gravity of star bends the light in accordance with the combined gravity of the planet and its star. The other day, the Ufonalyzer was listening to National Public Radio and accidentally heard a talk entitiled “The Fruitless Search for Solar System Like Ours.” This was on a broadcast on 4/1/2010, hosted by Robert Krulwich and Mike Brown, astronomy professor at Cal Tech. This show can be listened to at the NPR website.

Here’s the “problem” revealed by the hosts of this broadcast. The overwhelming majority of the discoveries are of big Jupiter-like gas giants which surprisingly always orbit close to the sun. We’re talking really close here, like inside the orbit of Mercury close. This placement of gas giants close to the sun violates the theory of planetary formation long accepted by astronomers. In this very nicely reasoned out theory, rocky planets should form close in to the sun, next should be gas giants, and last should be ice ball planets. So far, we are finding that this is not the case. Many astronomers like our planetary formation theory so much that they want to keep it intact, so they subsequently theorize that these gas giants must have formed farther out where the theory said they should be formed and then for some reason migrated in towards their sun. If that is the case, then why hasn’t our Jupiter done that? If it did do that, rest assured that would be the end of life on earth and even the earth itself, not to mention Mercury, Venus, and Mars.

By now, you must be thinking the following: the reason we’ve discovered only the close in gas giants near their suns is because the bigger they are and the closer in they are, the bigger the star wobble, and the faster the planet’s orbit. This means a planet can be detected faster and easier. Jupiter’s orbit takes 12 years, so we would have to watch our sun for 12 years to get a complete Sol wobble caused by Jupiter. Professor Mike Brown said that time is running out to detect a long term wobble at another star. If one is detected, it will mean that solar systems do exist where gas giant planets are farther out where they are “supposed to be” just like in our solar system. This leaves room for the rocky planets to be closer in where water based life could emerge. If nothing like that is detected in another year or two, astronomers are going to begin to revise their beliefs about how common earthlike planets may actually be in the galaxy (as well as how the solar system formed, to be sure.) Instead of ordinary, earth may be extraordinary in that our solar arrangement is uncommon, even rare.

However, based on the study of UFOs we can conclude that we are not so rare that we are the only beings around. As you know, the Ufonalyzer has counted at least 48 different races visiting us, and a the Kevin Smith talk radio show had a recent guest who says the government has counted 70 such races and has photos of most.

So maybe we are a rare find in our galactic region, as would be each of the other 70 races’ origins as well. Based on UFO activity here, we could very well be the Galapagos of our region: rare enough to be interesting, full of enough life to be worthy of study, and isolated, not by distance, but by our overt hostility. How rare is rare? Let’s do a gross estimate. Based on the Ufonalyzer’s own study and other studies as well, there might be about 48-70 separate species visiting us. Let’s say it’s 60. Now let’s go with our common sense and assume that they are all from within our region of the galaxy. How big is “our region” of our galaxy? Let’s say these races come from within 300 light years of our sun. Why 300? Read Ufonalyzer’s blog article entitled “You Can’t Get Here From There.”Given that there are 2000 stars within 50 light years from earth, it can be estimated that 300 light years would contain 432,000 stars. This calculates out to 1 starfaring race for every 7200 suns in our neighborhood. This is pretty rare, don’t you think? By the way, this estimate looks like a solution to the Frank Drake equation.

* The Economist Magazine, April 17, 2010, “A Trick of the Light”, page 90

** National Geographic Magazine, December 2009, “Are We Alone?”, page 92
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