http://www.space.com/35806-trappist-1-facts.html Ok, so like 7 earth like planets in 1 like system. Hella cool. Telescopes are getting better and better.
James Webb will be launching next fall! I can't wait. Supposedly it will be able to analyze the atmospheres of these planets if they have one. Super exciting times to be alive in my book. The only thing that sort of depresses me about all of this is that we currently live in the era where we can see things like this but that's about it. It will be many generations before we are able to actually send anything to these places within a reasonable time frame. So we're picking out some great targets to pass down to the next generation and so on to hopefully send probes or something if they can develop the propulsion necessary to get there. It's a huge tease, like yup we're finding all of these things, now hopefully our great great grandchildren will be able to send a probe out there. Makes me envious of them! Every day I keep hoping that scientists can figure out a ground breaking propulsion system by accident or something and sort of bypass the current technological advancement rate in terms of engines. At our current rate it will be many generations before such technology becomes available, if it ever does, but man I keep wishing that one day before I get too old I'll wake up and read a headline saying NASA JPL just accidentally discovered a way to propel something at 99% the speed of light. Or found a wormhole or accidentally figured out a way to warp. Just anything that will let them send something out past our solar system in a reasonable amount of time. Even if it's just to the Alpha Centauri system. That's why Project Starshot gets me so excited. They are saying 20 years to get to Alpha Centauri, so I do the quick math and hope that they can launch that within the next 20 years or so so that I can possibly see them arrive there before I die. Fingers crossed.
I heard about this on the radio. Very nice. Back when they were first detecting planets in the 1990s it was all gas giants. Now we can find earth-like planets. But at this point we can only guess whether they are life bearing planets, with liquid water, we don't know.
James Webb will supposedly be able to analyze the atmosphere's and determine whether or not oxygen exists. They should even be able to tell composition of the atmosphere and whether or not the gasses and elements in there are signatures of something "breathing". I guess when life forms breath we release CO2 and change the atmospheric composition of the planet or something like that and it's something that can be detected through spectroscopy. These science folks never cease to amaze me with how intelligent they are. The fact that they can detect something like that through light only is amazing. I can't wait for them to get their hands on James Webb and the future exoplanet telescopes launching in the 2030s.
Well, looking at stars, at least, I know that it's not just light. There are spectral lines that indicate what elements are in the star. If they can do that with planets then we really can detect the signatures of life.
We humans seem limited in our exploration, perhaps due to attention span and Earthcentric based curiosity. "Life" need not conform the what we see here on Earth in its fundamental elements and just because ours requires water does not mean others do not swim in Methane. For all we know there is "Life" farting hydrocarbons on Titan or floating beasties in the hydrogen of Jupiter....we just don't know how to see it.
I agree 100%. The problem is that if finding life outside of our own is our goal then it would make the most sense to look for life in places that are similar to the only place we are positive that life exists, Earth. Resources are limited for space exploration so we have to use them wisely. For all we know life on Earth could be an anomaly and most other life in the universe exists on gas giants or something. But to science it just makes more sense to look into places with water because we know that's required for life as we know it. That's why NASA is working on plans to send a probe to Europa to check out that ocean under the crust instead of sending a probe to land on Io or Ganymede or something. If NASA had the same funding as the US defense budget then I'm sure they would be sending probes all over the solar system just to see what they might find. But unfortunately they don't so they have to pick their targets wisely.
Hey everyone, have you heard - the earth is thousands of millions of years older than 'previously thought' (well if it had been thousands of millions of years younger it wouldn't have the same impact, would it!)? And it must be true because it was item number 2 in last night's BBC news schedule. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-39117523 The evidence was discovered in the Nuvvuagittuq Supracrustal Belt**, which I'm sure y'all have heard of? Can it possibly get any dafter? **(I wonder which so-called astrophysicist got the brownie points for dreaming that one up?) :mgreen:
