Thank you, Shimrod. I hope that someday circumstances may work out that we can meet.

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Josep, this is pretty heavy going, but there is lots of information here:   CLICKY.

Then, you might take a good, long look at THIS. And THINK about it.

A recently discovered terrestrial planet orbiting Gliese 581 shows great promise as a possible habitable planet. It is in the temperate zone, in which liquid water may exist, and although it is somewhat more massive than earth, this does not preclude the possibility of life developing and evolving there.

Steven Vogt, professor of astronomy and astrophysics at UC Santa Cruz, and Paul Butler of the Carnegie Institution lead the Lick-Carnegie Exoplanet Survey. The team's new findings are reported in a paper published in the Astrophysical Journal and posted online at http://arxiv.org. "Our findings offer a very compelling case for a potentially habitable planet," said Vogt. "The fact that we were able to detect this planet so quickly and so nearby tells us that planets like this must be really common." The report goes on to say that there are at least two possible planets in that system.

Finding extrasolar planets is particularly difficult because any body within a star's vicinity is lost in the glare of the star itself. So indirect means have to be use. One of these is miniscule perturbations of the star's motion, indicating another body in its vicinity. It is no wonder, therefore, that the first extrasolar planets that have been found are massive gas giants, like Jupiter, or planets even larger

But—within the last few (very few) years, smaller terrestrial (rocky, perhaps earthlike) planets have been found, including the planet orbiting Gliese 581, cited above.

And as I said before (and this is not just MY idea), a planet does not have to be an exact earth analog for life to develop and evolve. For life as we know it (and not necessarily humanoid life), one needs liquid water, some manner of energy input (light for photosynthesis easily provided by the central star or heat from volcanic activity) and organic compounds. AND organic compounds are rife throughout the universe, as is proven by the fact that they have been found in meteor fragments, and spectroscopic analysis finds them practically everywhere, such as in interstellar gas and dust.

But, Josep, you would know all of this if you had taken the time to read more that one book on the subject.

I never said flatly that there is humanoid life on extrasolar planets, but given the right conditions—and they exist all over the galaxy—life would most certainly develop, and some of it might very well evolve into a humanoid form. In the same way that two plus two equals four both on earth and at the very edge of the universe, the same laws of biology that operate on earth will operate throughout the universe, with the minor details of implementation modified, of course, by local conditions.

I don't know that there is life anywhere else than on the earth—nor can you say with any certainly that there is not, but all scientific things considered, it would be most peculiar if there were not. And that includes the possibility that some of it might tend to resemble humans at least in superficial ways (bilateral symmetry, arms, legs, and head attached to a central torso, complete with sense organs such as eyes and ears, although the whole assembly may be quite different from our own).

Nor to believe in "flying saucers." I have read up on the subject and I have met and talked to reasonable, rational people (NOT kooks!) who claim they have seen them clearly. Nevertheless, I remain skeptical, having never seen one myself.

I have, indeed, seen "unidentified flying objects." I live under one of the approaches to the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport (which, fortunately, is far enough south so that the incoming aircraft are at a fair altitude and noise is not a problem), and planes fly over all the time, one after another. I once worked for the Boeing Airplane Company, and I can easily identify the 707, the 727 and the 737, and I actually did some of the engineering drawings on the 747, so I have no problem identifying them when they fly over. I am also quite familiar with the appearance of the Douglas DC-10. But quite frequently a plane flies over that I can't identify. An "Unidentified Flying Object." And when in the wilds, I have often swatted a flying insect that I couldn't put a name to. A "UFO?"

But apart from the time a large jet flew over at dusk with its landing lights on, in the fading light it looked for all the world like the Klingon battle cruiser that Kirk and his cohorts were using in the movie Star Trek: The Voyage Home, have I ever been tempted to claim that I've seen a space ship from some planet other than earth.

Josep, unless you are completely locked into your prejudices, or, for that matter, bound by your faith if you are in sync with the Discovery Institute, which uses Ward's and Brownlee's Rare Earth as a basis for much of their propaganda when they advance their contention that the earth and all life thereon HAD to have been "intelligently designed" by some superior being, i.e., God (as I said, "Creationism in a lab smock"), then I suggest that you google words like "exobiology," "astrobiology," and/or "habitable planets" and you will come up with a host of reading material on the matter.

Educate yourself before you start getting snotty with people for disagreeing with your flat and ill-informed statements.

Don Firth