ncsuDuncan
Member
I thought Earth was the first Earth-sized planet in a habitable zone.
This changes everything.
This changes everything.
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NASA's Kepler telescope discovers first Earth-size planet in 'habitable zone'
- Thread starter GK86
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Geologically speaking. The planet doesn't change one bit without someone actively changing it in 500 years. So the fact we see it 500 years "late" is kind of irrelevant. And since we don't have enough resolution/data to determine much else than "Earth-sized, probably rocky"... well, until proven otherwise, we don't need to think but its geology and other stuff, we don't need to think whether it has life changing it.
(If we can determine its atmospheric composition, if it has oxygen.. that's when the fun starts. Free oxygen is almost certain proof of presence of life.)
Maybe we're looking at ourselves. What if that earth 500 light years away is a 1:1 copy of our earth? :O
No arguing about underfunding, which is why it's important that NASA spends wisely. There are fair arguments that the Keplar program was not money well spent. There were significant delays and the spacecraft still has technical problems which has limited the mission success.
Plus the goals have been questioned. There's really nothing that can be done when these exoplanets are found, and the ground based equipment and the SETI program is already doing an adequate job. NASA is being criticized for PR hunting by spending on a publically popular topic like a search for aliens instead of sticking to more scientific goals and exploration missions.
It's real easy to think everything NASA does is wonderful. Others think the Keplar program was a waste of limited funding that should have been spent elsewhere. I certainly wish NASA was better funded so that it wouldn't be necessary to question every buck spent. Until that happens, it's a valid criticism that NASA should not be involved in SETI programs and focusing on more valid projects.
Kadayi
Banned
Have they got a flag?
BWhaharwhahabrraggglglbblbebllleblbel
I enjoyed this reference
Bedameister
Member
This is huge news but damn 500 light years, we'll never be able to go there.
Orbis Tabula
Member
This is the best.
A lot of these results are from people sifting and processing the data it took while it was operational. There is still tons more to go.
OT: That is some awesome news. Hope the day that we actually contact alien life is going to happen in my lifetime.
Probably not. 
NASA in its entire history has had a higher return on investment ratio compared to just about any department of the government.
At their worst, NASA is still better then the majority of the government on 'spending wisely'
Red Liquorice
Member
Hidely-ho, neighborinos!
Nameless
Member
Right around the cosmic corner!
Didn't the US Army have some issues with being forced to buy tanks it doesn't need nor want (something something contracts)? And then there's the Air Force wanting to replace A-10 with F-35...
I would argue SETI is pointless research though. Looking for exo-planets is better, but SETI is, IMO, pointless. Sending radio signals more or less randomly everywhere, with no guarantee they are intercepted, not to mention being even understood... And whatever else SETI does.
Now, first finding something interesting like this new planet, and then starting focused SETI on it, that sounds more useful to me. But perhaps there are good arguments for a bigger project like SETI.
Hmm. Need to read about it more actually, been a long time since i last googled it.
smokeandmirrors
Banned
I'd be okay with a NASA coup
Hale-XF11
Member
Is it wrong that my first thought is that I wonder what their alien weed is like?
Oh...nm.
Oh...nm.
Yeah, well, however it works. What are the chances we actually catch something that is actually sent (either at us or merely... spilled over, so to speak), yet alone realize it is from artificial source? I'd imagine in case we actually get something from artificial source, it would be something we don't need SETI to hear...
I have to admit, unfortunately stupid reporting about SETI doesn't really help its image in my mind. Articles like "SETI's been active 50 years, why haven't we heard anything?" And yes, i've actually seen article like that somewhere. Really really makes want to /headdesk, i'd start wondering why we haven't heard anything at 5000 year mark at earliest...
Anyway, as i noted, i need to get myself up to date about SETI.
More likely after Chinese officials.
Nothing NASA can do about the army spending. They can only decide on what to do with the chicken scratch thrown their way.
Apparently everything that Kepler can do could have been incorporated into the Webb telescope, but they didn't want to wait and I imagine there would be usage concerns like they had with the Hubble.
The Keppler criticisms probably would be less if the thing worked properly, but it seems to be doing well enough to extend the mission and justify the $18M/yr annual cost. It's up there. Might as well make the best of it now, but it doesn't stop people thinking that the initial $600M for the Kepler project could have been better spent elsewhere.
It's just extra frustrating when the US military pisses away that much money on a regular basis.
Apparently everything that Kepler can do could have been incorporated into the Webb telescope, but they didn't want to wait and I imagine there would be usage concerns like they had with the Hubble.
The Keppler criticisms probably would be less if the thing worked properly, but it seems to be doing well enough to extend the mission and justify the $18M/yr annual cost. It's up there. Might as well make the best of it now, but it doesn't stop people thinking that the initial $600M for the Kepler project could have been better spent elsewhere.
It's just extra frustrating when the US military pisses away that much money on a regular basis.
dr3upmushroom
Banned
:O! Firaxis=illuminati!
You might be disappointed in that its focus is in the infrared band rather than the visible one. For science purposes this is still extremely useful, but it won't produce the same kind of pictures that Hubble did.
Really not so much of a problem for those travelling, as long as you can reach high enough velocities. A healthy dose of time dilation and length contraction can take care of 500 lightyears as if they're nothing, but obviously only for those on board. The rest of us poor suckers would still have to wait the regular time for them to arrive, plus again as much time for confirmation of their landing to reach us.
Awesome!I am a man of science
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/21/books/21book.html?_r=0
One of my favorite books on the subject of SETI.
"Its mildly batty to search for radio signals, sent intentionally or not, from what may be a very advanced civilization, he writes, because even Earths own radio output is already beginning to fade. Radio signals are outdated technology, nearly as sun-bleached as an old issue of Omni magazine. (E. T. surely has cable by now.) And because even a nearby alien civilization would probably be some 1,000 light-years away, conversation is just about impossible. Even if this distant civilization could spy on us, heres what theyd see right now: Earth about 1010, long before the Industrial Revolution.
Mr. Daviess arguments in The Eerie Silence are multiple and many-angled, and difficult to summarize here. But among other things, he thinks we need to pay as much attention to Earth as we do to the cosmos. If we can find evidence that life began from scratch more than once on our own planet a second genesis it would vastly increase the odds that the universe is teeming with life. Whats more, because its as likely that alien civilizations visited Earth a million years ago as last month, they might have already been here, and weve missed the signs."
Phoenix
Member
As soon as we can amass FTL transports we'll probably build a generation ship and send it there - no doubt about that.
Yeah, there will be a lot of fabricated photos based on the infrared shots.
The science potential is outstanding though. I would argue that the Hubble was the most significant scientific tool ever created. It's provided so much and changed the way we think about the universe. The Webb telescope will most definitely exceed Hubble's accomplishments.
Yeah, it's in our galaxy, really close by in the grand scheme of things (the milky is about 100,000 light years. Regarding other galaxies, we don't have the ability to detect planets in other galaxies.
And you're absolutely right about the like the odds, we're learning that planets are pretty damn common, and between over a 100 billion planets in our galaxy and 100 billion galaxies, damn, life will have to be something extremely unlikely to only have happened once.
Chie Satonaka
Member
This made me laugh.
It sucks that I'll never see this planet. Or any other. I want to go to space.
Schattenjäger
Gabriel Knight
Planet Planet Fitness
So we can ruin that place too? ):
AngmarsKing701
Member
That didn't matter to this America either
Oxygen has a funny habit of being highly reactive. You leave it with stuff it can react with, and soon you don't have it as gas anymore. Unless you replenish it.
Earth's atmosphere didn't always have free oxygen, only after life started freeing oxygen from other gases and ground did the atmosphere start becoming like it is today (and since the early life was anaerobic, the oxygen in air actually killed a lot of it...).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Oxygenation_Event
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geological_history_of_oxygen
Of course, i said "almost certain", didn't say "certain". For example, Ganymede, a moon of Jupiter, does have oxygen in its very, very thin atmosphere. This oxygen is apparently formed from radiation freeing it from water on its surface. And then it escapes the thin atmosphere.
So, yeah, finding an exo-planet with oxygen atmosphere would be a huge find. Either it would indicate presence of life, or some other interesting cause.
EDIT this is, naturally, very much simplified explanation. But correct at its core, as far as i know.
Ampersands
Member
Humans or aliens, pick a side.
Whoever is sexier.
Rebel Leader
THE POWER OF BUTTERSCOTCH BOTTOMS
Fuck them
BinaryPork2737
Unconfirmed Member
Soon they will find us, the race of giant space ants. There is no stopping them. The ants will soon be here.
And I, for one, welcome our new insect overlords. I can be helpful in rounding up others to toil in their underground sugar caves.
And I, for one, welcome our new insect overlords. I can be helpful in rounding up others to toil in their underground sugar caves.
Black Door
Banned
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