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Kevin comments on New Year's Predictions Thread - Less Wrong
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By 2020, an Earth-like habitable extrasolar planet is detected. I would take a wager on this one but doubt anyone would give me even odds.
Will anyone give me even odds if the bet is by 2015?
I think I'd give better-than-even odds for either date, and would be shocked if no one else would. How are you defining "Earth-like" and "habitable"?
At even odds I would take a loan to make the bet.
I think he just meant with liquid water, some type of atmosphere, and approximately earth sized. Given this, my guess is that they find one within the next three years. If he meant "habitable" to human beings without protection, i.e. oxygen atmosphere etc., then this is extremely unlikely (less than 2% chance) that they will find such a thing by 2020.
Is it possible to have liquid water without life? I remember reading that an oxygen atmosphere was quite impossible, but am not sure about liquid water.
There could be an oxygen atmosphere without life for a short period of a planet's history (I'm not sure how long.) It wouldn't be possible for it to remain permanently.
According to our evidence, Mars had liquid water for a very long period, but no one considers this to be proof that there was life there.
I went to check this - maybe liquid water is a short-term enough thing that its mere presence is still weak evidence for an active biosphere, but apparently one timeline puts liquid water as present in large quantities for >600 million years. Bleh.
Yes.
I'm not sure we have the technology to make that call even if such a planet does, in fact, lie within range of our telescopes.
We don't. My prediction then is only almost certainly true if we define habitable as a planet in a sun's habitable zone. However, I still think finding a habitable planet, per Unknowns's definition, is likely to happen by 2020.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=101493448
If Kepler does indeed find hundreds of planets in habitable zones, that should get the popular imagination going enough for the successor to Kepler to be very well funded. Kepler Mark II in the air by 2017?
When Will the First Earth-like Planet Be Discovered?
http://arbesman.net/blog/2010/09/13/when-will-the-first-earth-like-planet-be-discovered/
http://predictionbook.com/predictions/1676
http://www.nasa.gov/ames/kepler/kepler-186f-the-first-earth-size-planet-in-the-habitable-zone/#.U1DouvldW_U
So by 'habitable' you meant simply in the zone?
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1628822
That's a good link (maybe half-forgotten rumors of this were why I guessed so high), but I hope you're not expecting me to close the prediction as correct based on just online rumors. :)
:) Definitely not closed yet, but I figured I would put the link up just as a running update of the prediction.