Struggling what to write today. Labour's continuing failure to realise they have five years in which to establish a new social contract based on fair play or the new Planet 'Earth', found a mere 1,400 light years away and 1.5 billion years older than our own dear ball of mud and water.
Settled on the latter as more realistic than the former.
So (sorry other pedants) , this possibly amazing discovery emphasises only too well the problems of seeking other life in the universe. Isaac Asimov wrote a book that included the facts (Only a Trillion, sadly out of print). Those of the right age will know that apart from being a great sci fi writer Asimov was a mathematician of some renown. So here is the conundrum...
Dealing solely with this new planet let us suppose it did develop life that behaved like us (i.e. allegedly intelligent). And that it took about the same length of time as on earth to reach a technological standing. This would have happened about 1.5 billion years ago... enough said.
Now let's suppose it took a lot, lot longer and the resultant creatures survived long enough to be interested in other worlds (like us). And that sometime in the last 1,500 years they discovered radio transmission. The resulting signals, if strong enough, might be arriving any time soon. Sadly, assuming we spot them and de-code them our response will take 1,500 years to get back. Bit like BT then. This will make conversation difficult.
But Asimov realised another problem with the possibility of life elsewhere in the universe. It is not just distance that is against us - time is a bit of a bugger too.
It has taken us about a million years to get to the point where we can either destroy ourselves or avoid catastrophe. That is a matter of one 4,500,000th part of the life of our planet and less then one 15,000,000th part of the alleged life of the universe - so far. Let us be generous and assume we can hang in for another million before evolution or catastrophe overwhelms us (that asteroid with our name on it is out there right now). For us to find even the beginnings of life that we can recognise it will need to be around during our tenure of this bit of the universe. Likely? Not terribly.
Indeed, on a par with the Labour party getting back in the saddle and winning the hearts and minds of the British electorate...
References:
Asimov - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Asimov
The book - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Only_a_Trillion
Earth 2.0 - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-33641648
SETI - http://www.space.com/29990-stephen-hawking-intelligent-alien-life-initiative.html
Labour's chances - among many - http://labourlist.org/2015/06/is-andy-burnham-most-likely-to-boost-labours-election-chances/
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