Mountain View, CA – Astronomers say a bit of science fiction is now reality. They’ve spotted a planet orbiting two suns.
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The discovery was made by NASA’s planet-hunting telescope Kepler. Scientists describe the find in Friday’s issue of the journal Science.
They are calling the new planet Tatooine (tah-too-WEEN’) after the fictional body in the “Star Wars” films that boasts a double sunset.
The alien world, about the size of Saturn, is frigid and inhospitable. It orbits two stars 200 light-years from Earth.
Though there have been past hints of the existence of other planets that circled double stars, scientists said this is the first confirmation.
Kepler was launched in 2009 to find out how common other planets — especially Earth-like planets — are in the universe.
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Online:
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/kepler/main/index.html
I am curious. How do all these recent discoveries of planets outside our solar system jive with traditional jewish wisdom? What will chance if/when, life is discovered on other planets/
#1 ,
The Yaavitz says that the Torah is for our world, and if there is life on other worlds, Hashem could have given them a different Torah.
There are several other places within rishonim and achronim that mention other worlds with people on them. The passuk itself says in Ovadiah that Edom will be judged, even if they live between the stars.
Rabbi J.B. Soleveitchik in the book “in his own words” which was printed from audio tapes recording his word for word answers on many subjects said that the possibility of life on other planets does not conflict with Jewish views of creation and would not detract from klal yisroel being the am hanivchar.
if we had a farm would we have to give maaser?
if there are new animals how would we know if they were kosher?
“If there is a bright center to the universe, it is the planet that it is farthest from”…
Also the zohar says there are people who are not descendants of Adam harishon. He says they are short and don’t live so long. They live in different layers of the earth. This is found in vayikra amud 10 where he chastises rav hamnuna for thinking the world is round and circles the sun.
Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch in a letter called ‘trusting our torah’s sages’ printed in a pamphlet called two giants speak says that chazal addressed modern scientific discoveries of their time without actually checking into whether or not the discoverer was mistaken or not. They merely explained what such a find would mean if it were true. This is how he explains chazal telling us that the human spine turns into a snake after death, an idea he maintains was clearly taken from Pliny. Rabbi Hirsch says they took this fact as a mussar lesson.
His idea carries much weight especially when you come across a gemara like in bechoros 8a which discusses mermaids. The shaas just discusses if they and humans can crossbreed or not. We can assume they weren’t testifying to the existence of such beings.
Of course distinction must be made between between teachings of chazal which we had through all generations and other works which have found their way into our religion, no matter how popular they’ve become. Especially when they attest against what we find to be scientific truth, something chazal never did. Chazal only worked with popular ideas, never saying you can or can’t believe any.
Interesting. Unless it’s very, very close to its primary the orbit would be unstable.
To those who say science confirms religious teachings, well, no. It doesn’t. It tends to deal bloody gaping wounds to them. There is no “firmament”. The sun doesn’t travel behind a rigid dome at night. There are no waters beneath the Earth, no fixed stars. The Earth goes around the sun, not the other way around. There was no universal flood. The universe is billions of years old, not thousands.
You don’t want to get started on biology or physics. You really don’t.
Scientific methodology is pure poison to emes. If Daas Torah, yichus and the words of Prophets are in conflict with the facts it’s not the facts that are discarded. Everything is open to question, and if the data and sound reasoning support a conclusion the authority and piety of the opposition don’t matter.
It’s inconvenient. It’s disruptive. But it works and its results can be verified and repeated. The truths it exposes are open to anyone.