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Re:Costa Rica has gone 76 days using 100% renewable electricity by maxerickson on Friday September 09, 2016 @11:53AM (#12463350)
Earth being the only habitable planet is incredibly improbable.
Re:Costa Rica has gone 76 days using 100% renewable electricity by JoeAltmaier on Friday September 09, 2016 @12:15PM (#12463580)
We hardly have enough data to say that. In fact we've found nothing remotely similar to Earth in all the thousands of samples we've taken. So if there are any others at all, they number in the dozens?
Re:Costa Rica has gone 76 days using 100% renewable electricity by maxerickson on Friday September 09, 2016 @12:28PM (#12463729)
Estimates say there are ~100 billion planets in the galaxy.

I'm also not sure that In fact we've found nothing remotely similar to Earth in all the thousands of samples we've taken. is reasonable.

Take Proxima b. It orbits the Sun's closest neighbor, is in the habitable zone (doesn't mean it is habitable, necessary but not sufficient) and is roughly earth sized. Sure, we don't know a whole lot more about it, so it is quite likely to not be a nice destination for humans, but it seems to be at least remotely Earth like.

Re:Costa Rica has gone 76 days using 100% renewable electricity by JoeAltmaier on Friday September 09, 2016 @12:54PM (#12463982)
So many, many things can be wrong and make a planet uninhabitable. Earth is probably unique in being - Earthlike. Such a delicate balance.
Re:Costa Rica has gone 76 days using 100% renewable electricity by maxerickson on Friday September 09, 2016 @01:02PM (#12464057)
Okay, but now we've gone from habitable to sufficiently Earth-like to meet an unspoken definition of Earth-like.
Re:Costa Rica has gone 76 days using 100% renewable electricity by CountSessine on Friday September 09, 2016 @02:39PM (#12464917)
No, he really didn't - he said specifically, "So many, many things can be wrong and make a planet uninhabitable".

What if Proxima B has chlorine in its atmosphere? Uninhabitable.

Proxima B is a tidal-locked eyeball planet - what if the equatorial stable zone still shifts enough to not provide a stable environment for life? Uninhabitable.

What if Proxima B encounters too much ionizing radiation? Uninhabitable.

Use your imagination.

Re:Costa Rica has gone 76 days using 100% renewable electricity by maxerickson on Friday September 09, 2016 @02:43PM (#12464965)
You've managed to ignore the sentence in the post that I did reply to. You know, the other one.

You've also apparently not payed much attention to Sure, we don't know a whole lot more about it, so it is quite likely to not be a nice destination for humans, but it seems to be at least remotely Earth like. that I said above (surely my making that statement implies some use of my imagination prior to your suggesting it).

Re:Costa Rica has gone 76 days using 100% renewable electricity by JoeAltmaier on Friday September 09, 2016 @04:38PM (#12465880)
I think we're all on the same page here. Just because something is in a fortuitous orbit, there are still a thousand things that can make it miserable or uninhabitable. Even earth, aeons ago, we would have found uninhabitable. Its very likely we have evolved for exactly the earth we have. To find another anything like it is astronomically unlikely.