Paul Dirac  (8 August 1902 – 20 October 1984) who was a British theoretical physicist and shared the 1933 Nobel Prize for physics and predictor the existence of antimatter with his math once said: "God used beautiful mathematics in creating the world." ......and in this world made from god's beautiful mathematics..... ......Astronomers are finding planets by the dozen...... European astronomers announced Monday, October 19, 2009  .........that they had found 32 new "exoplanets" orbiting distant stars outside our solar system.....   Diagram showing how an exoplanet orbiting a larger star could produce changes in position and velocity of the star as they orbit their common center of mass. . A 1967 Soviet Union 16 kopeks postage stamp, with a satellite from an imagined extraterrestrial civilization ......EARTH CALLING ET ..... (remember movie ET) ........IS ANYONE OUT THERE LIKE US OR WITH DIFFERENT HUMAN FORM  WITH SUPPORTING  LIFE-SUSTAINING NATURAL INFRASTRUCTURE.... .......among the billions galaxies like ours with trillions of stars like our sun..... An  exoplanet, or extrasolar planet, is a planet beyond our solar system, orbiting a star other than our Sun. Extrasolar planets became a subject of scientific investigation in the mid-19th century. Many astronomers supposed that such planets existed, but they had no way of knowing how common they were or how similar they might be to the planets of our solar system. The discovery of extrasolar planets sharpens the question of whether some might support extraterrestrial life......Extraterrestrial life is defined as life which does not originate from planet Earth. The existence of life outside the planet is theoretical and all assertions of such life remain disputed. Over 400 exoplanets have been identified as of late 2009, and more are continually being discovered. Dr. Alan Boss of the Carnegie Institution of Science estimates there may be a “hundred billion” terrestrial planets in our Milky Way Galaxy alone. Dr Boss believes many could have simple life forms and there could be thousands of civilizations in our galaxy. Dr. Boss guesses that each sun-like star has on average one Earth-like planet. ....Recent work at Edinburgh University tried to quantify how many intelligent civilizations might be out there. The research suggested there could be thousands of them..... PVAF is publishing today's news story about the continuing discovery of exoplanets....because this is the type of life science knowledge that is contained in the entire corpus of the extant texts of vED in sNskRUt language...vED states in all texts of the existence of infinite number of universes with infinite diversity from each other...The texts of 18 puraaAN repeatedly states that  our own universe has 218 domains of existences...each one with different nature of time, space and life characteristics...and the domain where we humans exists is made of 7 Dv`ip (land masses) surrounded by liquid masses of different liquids - and each of them of dimensions which makes our planet earth/solar system look like a tiny spec in space......   vED has all the sciences of life and creations that the current humanity understands and has yet to understand in the continually new frontiers of all currently known sciences.... including the what Einstein has left for us and some of which we still cannot understand.... and/or quantum physics scientists of mid-twentieth century such as Paul Direk who has made us aware that the world we perceive and see is not the same world we exist in - the world we exist in is in true reality multiple dimensions of existence and each dimension of natural properties of infinite diversity than that of ours...(read biography of Paul Direk by clicking on his name...and some of the vEDik-type statements of his about life perceptions, beliefs and true reality...)..... (The above 2 paras and today's news story with its back-up writing has been contributed by Champaklal Dajibhai Mistry of Edmonton, Alberta, Canada who has now since 2007 transited from his Professional Engineer's life into life to vaan-pRshtaa-aaSHRm stage of life to self-study who he is and where he is and for what purpose with stsNg with his fellow life-travelers...stsNg in sNskRUt language is mutual sharing and learning from sharing of life knowledge and experiences subsequent to one's daily svaaDH'yaay meaning self-study of vED….stsNg EMPOWERS YOU ON YOUR SELF-CHOSEN LIFE-PATH TO MAKE BASELINE SHIFT PARADIGM INNOVATIONS TO ACHIEVE WHAT YOU WISH BUT SEEMS IMPOSSIBLE.....stsNg in western culture is roughly and partially translated as LIFCOACHING AND MENTORING... To read about the Mentoring Reward in life please click here.....) ....And PVAF is publishing this news story and the accompanying knowledge sources to expand your knowledge to understand today's news story....because to continually expand human knowledge is THE PRIMARY MANDATE OF PVAF - a mandate for empowering humanity to self-remove all types of human "poverty" that is the basic cause of human suffering, pain and inter-human conflicts....and thusly make our tomorrow happier to live and enjoy than today...... Now please click on the next line to read today's news story and acquire an excellent quick overview of exoplanets and the importance of their scientific research in human lives.....plus an overview of extra-terrestrial life theories to date....

This artist rendering shows some of the 32 new planets astronomers found outside our solar system, adding evidence to the theory that the universe has many places where life could develop. (European South Observatory via AP)

Newly found 'exoplanets' are out of this world Washington Post: Tuesday, October 20, 2009: By Joel Achenbach

Astronomers are finding planets by the dozen. European astronomers announced Monday that they had found 32 new "exoplanets" orbiting distant stars. That brings to about 400 the number of planets found since the breakthrough discovery in 1995 of the first planet outside our solar system. Most have been quite large, many times the size of Jupiter. This latest batch, however, includes modest-sized worlds that are in the category known as "super Earths." The smallest of the bunch has the mass of about five Earths. The planets cannot be seen directly because of the glare of the parent star. Astronomers detect them by studying variations in starlight. In this latest study, astronomers from the European Southern Observatory scrutinized about 2,000 relatively nearby stars over five years. They used a telescope in La Silla, Chile, equipped with an instrument known as the High Accuracy Radial Velocity Planet Searcher (HARPS). The instrument measured the slight wobble in starlight caused by the gravitational disturbance from a planet. The 32 new planets were found around a variety of stars. Some stars were circled by multiple planets.

The European team thinks the findings indicate that planets are common in our galaxy. Planets were found, for example, in orbit around "metal-poor" stars -- those lacking elements other than hydrogen and helium -- which until now had been considered unlikely places for planets to form. Astronomers hope someday to find signs of a rocky, Earth-mass planet in an Earth-like orbit -- moving around the star in the "habitable zone" where water could, in theory, be liquid at the planet's surface. But such hypothetical planets would have such a slight perturbation on starlight that they are difficult to detect with current instruments. Astronomer Stéphane Udry of Geneva University said by e-mail that a new instrument under development, known as ESPRESSO (Echelle Spectrograph for Rocky Exoplanet- and Stable Spectroscopic Observations), "should allow us to detect Earth twins around solar-type stars, within 5 to 10 years." "Personally, I am convinced that planets are everywhere," Udry said. "Nature does not like void."

An artist's conception of extrasolar planet HD 189733 b ......AND NOW MAKE YOURSELF A LITTLE BIT MORE FAMILIAR WITH  EXOPLANETS WHERE WE MAY SOMEDAY MEET FELLOW HUMANS AND LIFE FORMS EVEN MORE ADVANCED THAN US EARTHLINGS.....

An  exoplanet, or extrasolar planet, is a planet beyond our solar system, orbiting a star other than our Sun. As of 19 October 2009 (2009 -10-19), 403 exoplanets are listed in the Extrasolar Planets Encyclopaedia. The vast majority have been detected through radial velocity observations and other indirect methods rather than actual imaging. Most announced exoplanets are massive gas giant planets thought to resemble Jupiter, but this is a selection effect (bias) due to limitations in detection technology. Projections based on recent detections of much smaller worlds suggest that lightweight, rocky planets will eventually be found to outnumber extrasolar gas giants. Extrasolar planets became a subject of scientific investigation in the mid-19th century. Many astronomers supposed that such planets existed, but they had no way of knowing how common they were or how similar they might be to the planets of our solar system.   The first confirmed radial velocity detection was made in 1995, revealing a gas giant planet in a four-day orbit around the nearby G-type star 51 Pegasi. The frequency of detections has tended to increase on an annual basis since then. It is estimated that at least 10% of sun-like stars have planets, and the true proportion may be much higher. The discovery of extrasolar planets sharpens the question of whether some might support extraterrestrial life. Currently Gliese 581 d, the fourth planet of the red dwarf star Gliese 581 (approximately 20 light years from Earth), appears to be the best example yet discovered of a possible terrestrial exoplanet that orbits within the habitable zone surrounding its star. Although initial measurements suggested that Gliese 581 d resided outside the so-called "Goldilocks Zone", additional measurements place it firmly within......

......AND TO CONTINE GETTING MORE INFORMED....  PLEASE CLICK HERE TO READ AN VERY INFORMATIVE OVERVIEW OF EXOPLANETS WITH POTENTIAL FOR EXTRA-TERRESTRIAL LIFE.....

........WHAT IS EXTRATERRESTRIAL LIFE???!!!!....

Extraterrestrial life is defined as life which does not originate from planet Earth. The existence of life outside the planet is theoretical and all assertions of such life remain disputed. Hypotheses regarding the origin(s) of extraterrestrial life, if it exists, are as follows: one proposes that it may have emerged, independently, from different places in the universe. An alternative hypothesis is panspermia or exogenesis, which holds that life emerges from one location, then spreads between habitable planets. These two hypotheses are not mutually exclusive. The study and theorization of extraterrestrial life is known as astrobiology, exobiology or xenobiology. Speculated forms of extraterrestrial life range from life with the simplicity of bacteria to sapient or sentient beings. Suggested locations which might have once developed, or presently continue to host life similar to our own, include the planets Venus and Mars, moons of Jupiter and Saturn (e.g. Europa, Enceladus and Titan) and Gliese 581 c and d, recently discovered to be near Earth-mass extrasolar planets apparently located in their star's habitable zone, and with the potential to have liquid water. To date, no credible evidence of extraterrestrial life has been discovered which has been generally accepted by the mainstream scientific community. All other proposals, including beliefs that some UFOs are of extraterrestrial origin (see extraterrestrial hypothesis) and claims of alien abduction, are considered hypothetical by most scientists. UFO sightings are sightings of unidentified flying objects that may or may not be connected with extraterrestrial intelligent life. Most of these sightings can be dismissed as sightings of Earth based aircraft or known astronomical objects or perpetration of hoaxes. However some sightings have gone unexplained, having been reported in some cases by police and airline pilots. In 2006, New Scientist published a list of ten controversial pieces of evidence that extraterrestrial life exists,[4] but scientists do not consider them credible since no direct observational evidence has been encountered. However, many scientists, such as Carl Sagan, believe that it is nearly impossible that no other intelligent life exists in the universe.

.....AND NOW CONTINUE LEARNING ABOUT WHAT HUMANS KNOW ABOUT THE POTENTIAL OF EXTRA-TERESTRIAL LIFE CLICK HERE .....