Hold a grain of sand at arms length......

There's a huge difference between suspicion and proof. Theories are not evidence.

 

That doesn't align with your first statement. You said the community claimed there were no exoplanets until there was proof. That's just not true.

 

Seriously? The scientific community at large has been convinced of the non-unique nature of our solar system since the days of Isaac Newton (in the 1600's, by the way). Science fiction for hundreds of years has followed on the heels of these theories to write of alien life not only on the planets in our solar system but to conjecture about those on the planets orbiting stars throughout the galaxies. In 1950 Enrico Fermi began wondering how it was possible considering the billions upon billions of planets that would be orbiting stars in our galaxy alone that we had never heard or seen evidence of any extraterrestrial intelligence. This became formalized as the Fermi Paradox with the famous "Drake Equation," (circa 1959) a key component of which was the question of how many of the billions of stars in our galaxy were orbited by planets in the "habitable zone" conducive to the development of life.

Sure there are always outliers, the equivalent of flat earthers who have held fringe theories such as the uniqueness of our solar system, but the vast preponderance of astronomical science for the last 400 years leans solidly in the other direction.

 

There are so many contradictions in that post I have no idea what you’re trying to say.

 

People all focused on finding life on other planets when it's the moon's around gas giants they need to be looking at.

Which brings up an interesting question: have we spotted an exomoon yet? Are transit or stellar wobble methods even capable of such? Why does every f*****g documentary about the search for exoplanets always say something like "Hot Jupiters are the most common planets in the universe" while ignoring the fact that the current exoplanet search methods are ridiculously skewed towards finding Hot Jupiters?

 

Because tv science is crap.

 

As is newspaper 'science'. I was at a launch once that the newspaper reported as going in reverse.

 

You're right. My statement was misguided.

 

A theory is an hypothesis that has been proven. How, exactly, was this exoplanet hypothesis proven? Was it when visual confirmation said, "Whoomp! (There It Is)"?
When was that?
Just askin' for clarification's sake. You know, so we're not led astray by false facts and shit based on assumptions, however well SWAG-ed they might be.

 

Fwiw, I don't disagree with the principal of some of what you said. As humans we tend to think our assumptions really have things figured out...right up until we realize we're wrong.

 

Aren't they going by the star's regular light intensity fluctuation as the planets pass and block the light?

 

Aliens exist. It would be pretty arrogant to think otherwise. Out of the trillions of galaxies out there, we are the only planet with life? No fuckin way. But will we ever meet these other life forms? That is the question.

 

Our methods for finding exoplanets are extraordinarily limited.

The transit method requires that we just happen to be in the tiny slice of space in which an exoplanet will cross directly in between us and its host star.

Go outside and look up at the sun, and you can see that it occupies a very small space in the sky: about one half of a degree. This directly correlates to the slice of space in which the earth will occult the sun from a distant viewpoint. (Yes, the diameter of the earth adds to the angle, but 8000 miles vs 93000000 miles is a rounding error). Even close-up Mercury transits for less than 2 degrees of space, and Jupiter for about 0.1 degrees, and only every 29 Earth years.

https://calgary.rasc.ca/sun_and_transits.htm

For a distant civilization to find Jupiter, they would have to be observing from within that 0.1 degree slice, have a sensitive enough telescope to notice the less than 0.1% difference in the amount of light from the sun as Jupiter transits, and the time to observe at least 4 transits to rule out the noise. 126 years. They're hosed if there are sunspots during the transit.


But... This is the best we have right now.

 

I hope these “scientists” realize that as they develop bigger and bigger lenses to peer farther in the universe, they are forcing “nature” i.e. the simulation, to render more and more content. If they crash the system the whole universe disappears. But carry on.
- internet meme

 

there are other ways.

 

Besides transit and stellar wobble?

Such as?

 

This is incorrect. If you're using the word "Theory" as applicable to scientific methodology it is not (and never is) considered "proven." Scientific theories can never be proven, they can only be disproven. As but one example, Newton's Theory of Gravity held firm for centuries before observations of the orbit of Mercury demonstrated flaws in Newton's theory and Einstein came along and rewrote things from scratch with spacetime and relativity. And even Einstein's theories fail to encompass everything we know about black holes, so at some point it's going to have to be reworked as well.

Scientific theories gain acceptance through their ability to accommodate all observations and gain bonus points if they offer predictability that can be substantiated through experimentation. Nobody has ever provided visual confirmation that an electron exists but application of the Electron Theory is what allows us to communicate today over the Internet.

For centuries the generally accepted theory has been that the observed laws of physics operate the same in all places in the universe and our solar system is not special. That theory implies that most stars will have planetary bodies orbiting them.

 

Sure, say it enough times and it becomes fact. The only real fact concerning our understanding of the universe is that our knowledge is mostly hypothetical.

 

That would be an absolutely spectacular way to go out. I guess. None of us would have any recollection of it afterwards.

 

I missed your mention of red shift wobble previously... did you edit that post m'fer?!

Lens effect and direct image. I suspect that direct imaging will start playing a very large role moving forward!