The ultra-cool dwarf and the seven planets

Okay, this is (apologies in advance) ultra-cool:

Astronomers have found at least seven Earth-sized planets orbiting the same star 40 light-years away ...
The seven exoplanets were all found in tight formation around an ultracool dwarf star called TRAPPIST-1. Estimates of their mass also indicate that they are rocky planets, rather than being gaseous like Jupiter. Three planets are in the habitable zone of the star, known as TRAPPIST-1e, f and g, and may even have oceans on the surface.

(More here.)

For a 'hard' (or 'hard-ish') science fiction setting -- one in which there is no faster-than-light travel -- a single solar system with 3 life-supporting planets (and four other earth-sized ones, capable of being settled) sounds ideal.

The only downside to this discovery is that it makes me worry (once again!) about Fermi's paradox. (Alastair Reynolds's "Revelation Space" novels provide a cool -- but quite disturbing -- explanation for Fermi's paradox. Well worth reading, if you haven't checked them out yet!)

Yuggoth discovered?

[Yuggoth?]

H.P. Lovecraft famously speculated that Yuggoth probably was Pluto.  Yet we now know that Pluto is not really "a strange dark orb at the very rim of our solar system."  (Indeed, Pluto's not even a proper planet!)

However, based upon recent findings by astronomers at the California Institute of Technology, there may very well be a "Planet Nine" at "the very rim of our solar system."  This "strange dark orb" seems to be exerting a malevolent influence on some members of the Kuiper Belt.

Could Planet Nine be where the Mi-Go colony in fact resides?

Edward Snowden solves the Fermi Paradox?

Over a year ago I briefly mentioned the ‘Fermi Paradox’ in a post.  It seems that Edward Snowden has a solution!  Namely: alien civilizations share a universal need to keep their communications secure. Consequently, "alien signals are simply too well encrypted to be distinguished from background noise."

This actually strikes me as an eminently plausible explanation.  And it certainly is far less distressing than the one offered by Alastair Reynolds in Revelation Space.

Scientists Dig Tolkien

Did you know:

1. There is a region in Australia called "Mordor Alkaline Igneous Complex"?
2. There are a pair of asteroids named "Tolkien" and "Bilbo"?
3. This is a 900-pound ancient crocodile named "Anthracosuchus balrogus"?

More such info here!

Shall we try to avoid an Outside Context Problem?

In today's National Post there is a 'full comment' entitled, "Lie Low, Planet Earth."

The comment refers to Iain M. Banks's 1996 novel Excession, specifically, the idea of an "outside context problem" (OCP):

The idea of an OCP reportedly came to Mr. Banks while he played the computer game Civilization, wherein players control the evolution of a society from a single group of nomads to a global superpower.
Mr. Banks had developed a successful and prosperous medieval island society that he thought was doing quite well, until another civilization showed up off his shore with steel-hulled battleships. The arrival of the technologically advanced newcomers, he realized, posed for his simulated citizens a problem so far outside their normal context that they were effectively helpless.

Based upon the idea of an OCP, perhaps prudence recommends that we not advertise our existence to alien civilizations?

Any society capable both of detecting our presence and of crossing the vast distances of space to reach Earth would be so far beyond us technologically as to leave humanity, to say the least, at a disadvantage. The first alien starship to arrive would be, to us, very much like those strange metal battleships to reach the shores of Mr. Banks’ digital kingdom.

I'm pretty risk adverse in general, so the "lie low" strategy seems sensible.  Sure, our interstellar neighbours might be like the Vulcans (RIP Leonard Nimoy).  But they also might be like the aliens in, er, Alien and Aliens.

Why Do We Seem to be Alone in the Universe?

This article on the 'Fermi Paradox' is pretty awesome.

(Fans of authors like Ian M. Banks and Alastair Reynolds especially will enjoy it, I think.)