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NASA / JPL
An artist's conception shows an alien Earthlike planet.
It's just one data point among the 1,235 potential worlds identified by NASA's Kepler planet-hunting probe, but you can't help noticing it on a graph. The planetary candidate known as KOI 326.01 sticks out as the one object that's estimated to be the size of Earth or smaller, with an average temperature that's lower than water's boiling point.
If scientists confirm that what they're seeing actually exists, KOI 326.01 could go down as the closest analog to our own planet in the current crop of Kepler data. But that's a big if.
"It's a small object, a small candidate," William Borucki, a planetary scientist from NASA's Ames Research Center who heads Kepler's science team, said today during a news briefing at the American Association for the Advancement of Science's annual meeting in Washington. Astronomers don't even know the size of its parent star with sufficient precision, Borucki said.
These factors make the planet's existence and its characteristics "extremely difficult to confirm." He said further observations over the next few months might produce the data for that confirmation. Or maybe not.
The case of KOI 326.01 illustrates how tricky the planet-hunting business can get. MIT's Sara Seager, a member of the Kepler team, said the $600 million mission represents just one step toward figuring out the answers to the three big questions about worlds beyond our solar system: Do Earth-size planets exist out there? How common are they? Do they show signs of life? "The reality is that one telescope cannot answer all three questions," she said.
50 billion planets in our galaxy?
Kepler detects extrasolar planets by staring at 150,000 stars in a single patch of sky, centered on the constellation Cygnus, and detecting the faint dips in light as planets pass over the stars' disks.
Based on a statistical analysis of the data available so far, 44 percent of the 150,000 stars in the Kepler sample should have planets going around them, Borucki said. You could take that statistic and do some mathematical gymnastics to extend it to the entire Milky Way galaxy, which by conservative estimates has 100 billion stars. That would give you 44 billion stars in our galaxy with planetary systems — or the nice round number of 50 billion planets that was cited today by The Associated Press. That number has a high uncertainty factor, to be sure. But the bottom line is that there are almost certainly tens of billions of planets out there, including hundreds of millions of planets in habitable zones of outer space.
Borucki provided a more detailed breakdown:
- 10.5 percent of the stars in the sample are predicted to have Earth-size planets (that is, 50 percent to 125 percent as wide as Earth).
- 7.3 percent should have super-Earths (125 to 200 percent as wide as Earth).
- 20.8 percent should have Neptune-sized planets (two to six times as wide as Earth).
- 5.2 percent should have Jupiter-scale planets (more than six times as wide as Earth). All these numbers will get some additional tweaking, because they don't reflect the breakdown for multiple-planet systems.
The preliminary estimates suggest that roughly one out of every 200 stars should have a planet in the habitable zone, where life could theoretically exist. If you extend that statistic to 100 billion stars in the Milky Way, you come up with a figure of at least 500 million planets in habitable zones.
There's a lot of uncertainty about how many of those planets you could actually live on, because some of those worlds might be too big or otherwise unsuitable. For instance, on Kepler's current list of 1,235 candidates, 54 potential planets are in habitable zones, but only five of them are around Earth's size. KOI 326.01 appears to be the smallest of the five candidates. ("KOI," by the way, stands for Kepler Object of Interest. SolStation.com has the full rundown on Kepler's potentially habitable planet candidates.)
Earth-size planets and super-Earths would be considered the best prospects for alien life, but Borucki pointed out that even Jupiter-scale planets could have moons where life as we know it would do pretty well (as seen in the sci-fi movie "Avatar").
"There's a very rich ocean of planets out there to explore," he said.
A cautionary note
Seager cautioned the journalists gathered at the AAAS meeting not to expect too much from Kepler. The spacecraft was designed to provide data for a statistical survey of planet distribution, but not to point out specific targets for astrobiologists, SETI astronomers and starry-eyed space settlers. "Kepler never promised to say, 'That star has the Earthlike planet in an Earthlike orbit," she said.
The reason is that Kepler has its limits: Mission scientists want to see signs of at least three planetary transits before they add a star system to their list of candidates. That implies that it would take three years of observations for an Earth-size planet in an Earthlike orbit around a sunlike star to become a candidate. The reason KOI 326.01 is already on the list is because it has an orbit that's much closer than Earth's, around a red dwarf star that's much dimmer than our sun.
Once a candidate is on the list, more sophisticated analysis has to be done to confirm that it's a planet rather than, say, a binary star. That may require different types of observations by ground-based telescopes, to pick up the signatures of gravitational interactions. Or it may require looking for subtle variations in the timing of the transits, which astronomers can use to deduce the masses of the planets.
"It generally takes a year [after the] data has come down before we have any results to tell anyone about," Borucki said.
Matthew Holman, a Kepler team member from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, said the mission's first habitable planets would likely be confirmed using the transit-timing method. That's how the Kepler team nailed down the find they announced this month, a planetary system that has six worlds packed into tightly spaced orbits.
Worthy of note
Holman listed a couple of other candidate systems worthy of note:
- KOI 314, a potential multi-planet system that may include a world three times as wide as Earth in the "near-habitable zone."
- KOI 730, which appears to be a four-planet system with two of those worlds sharing an orbit. The pattern suggests a complex 6-to-4-to-4-to-3 resonance. (Neptune and Pluto co-exist in crossed orbits largely because they're in a 3-to-2 resonance that keeps them far away from each other.)
Multiple-planet systems are where the action is when it comes to the planet search. Again, Kepler has its limits. Borucki and Seager noted that if an alien Kepler were to look at our own solar system from hundreds of light-years away, it would probably detect only one planet. That's because the planets are too spread out vertically — in Seager's words, we're not "co-planar enough."
Kepler's primary mission is due to run until November 2012, but if the money keeps flowing, the spacecraft could keep going until 2017 or later. And astronomers are already talking about missions that would follow in Kepler's footsteps, such as TESS, Plato and ExoplanetSat. Seager said there's a chance that the low-cost ExoplanetSat mission could be launched in 2012.
In the meantime, you'll be hearing plenty more about Kepler. Here are a couple of links on the lighter side of the planet-hunting mission:
- Check out this video visualization, which shows the 1,235 Kepler candidates as if they were orbiting a single star.
- Give a listen to my podcast about Kepler, originally presented in Second Life under the sponsorship of the Meta Institute for Computational Astrophysics.
Update for 1:25 p.m. ET March 29: Well, it turns out that KOI 326.01 isn't as Earthlike as Kepler's scientists originally hoped. Check out this item for the slightly disappointing reassessment.
Tip o' the Log to Lee Billings, who wrote about KOI 326.01 and other goodies from Kepler for BoingBoing two weeks ago.
Join the Cosmic Log community by clicking the "like" button on our Facebook page or by following msnbc.com science editor Alan Boyle as b0yle on Twitter. To learn more about Alan Boyle's book on Pluto and the search for planets, check out the website for "The Case for Pluto."
Leave a Comment:
When are scientists going to break down and use Roddenberry's A-Z planetary classification. Is this class M or not?
Well, we couldn't say wether or not it's a class M until we analyze its atmosphere. That, however, is not for Kepler to do. We're getting closer though.
This is reality. Star Trek is science fiction. There is a difference.
Killjoy! ;-)
And as a scientist, we watch science fiction becoming reality on a daily basis. Please hand me that iPad... errr, PADD, Mr. Spock. :D
Gee, after reading the article I'm feeling pretty insignificant as a mere earth-being. I'm also trying to figure out what other planet the Kardashians came from.
Vince-545056 "This is reality. Star Trek is science fiction. There is a difference."
Yes, but it's amazing how many "science fiction" ideas presented in Star Trek have now become reality.
It will be interesting to see some really good candidates identified and some relatively inexpensive robot probes sent to investigate (even if it takes a generation to receive data). We are getting much closer to 'Star Trek' than we might imagine, and I, for one, am excited about the prospects.
It's only a matter of time (If we don't kill our species in the meantime).
Great Fiction. I like Sci-Fi stuff.
how do we have money to do this and no funding for schools??
because one day we are going to have to leave this planet.
Not too bright, Huh Clifton?
Without pure science and exploration, what do you think we will be teaching in schools? Without people looking past their own noses, we have nothing new to teach But as long as your entitlement check in in the mail... you don't care... do you?
Take a look at all the "Technology" that you see China and others showing the world. Stealth Aircraft being one example... The United States built and flew stealth technology in the 1970's in a project called "Have Blue"... 40 years ago. The reason that we still have an opportunity to stay competitive is because we have some of the smartest, most committed science people in the world. Without pure science and without space exploration, we will only fall backwards until we are irrelevant.
Thankfully, there are far more people in this great nation who feel staying competitive in science and technology is much more important then how many kids someone can have to max out their Welfare checks that it will be unlikely that will ever happen.
I applaud the tedious and very difficult nature of the work these men and women do every day. It is them and those like them that will be giving us real answers to real problems one day. Answers that have nothing to do with a liberal agenda or a Radical conservative agenda. Only through technology will we answer the questions of energy and resources. Only in space will we find new compounds and elements that will enable us to build in the future what we cannot even dream of today. Sample #75501 from Apollo 17 and another from 11 containing Lunar soil showed us that the soil contains enough Helium 3 and other elements to supply energy we cannot nearly match with fossil fuel. All without the radioactive byproducts. Call it "Science Fiction" all you wish. Some day our Kids will look at it like we look at the internet or the Rockets and Jets that were dreams in the 18th and 19th centuries. The moment we stop looking into the future and only focus on today... we as a species are doomed.,
The LAST thing we need is more "Entitlements" to spend on our own foolishness which will cost our children later on. We have no right wasting our kids futures on our own inability to live within our means or think beyond our crazy agendas. Without investment in our future we become like those who fail to invest in the future of their Kids and their own old age... Instead waiting until it is far too late to do so, or.... blaming OTHERS for failing to fill their needs, because they failed to save for them when they could have earlier on. They will swear they could not do so, but look close and you will find they never were without a new cell phone, new LCD TV or new car... never once did "Sacrificing" the WANTS of today for the needs of tomorrow come to mind. That is what investing in science exploration is... sacrificing for the lives that will be lived tomorrow. And making the ones lives today even better then they were before. I feel they have done a fantastic job of doing that so far.
We have plenty of funding for schools. Our kids are not getting educated because of how that money is spent, a culture that celebrates slacking, and lack of educational support in the home.
Shawn we all know what you mean by M clas planet. An M Class planet is a planet that resides within a certain range of survivability factors of not being to hot and not being too cold to function in. Shawn you also know the other criteria for planets that are survivable but would require extensive facility and equipment use to shield human's from the elements. Do not listen to the one liner's whose only daily purpose in life is too spread their mental retardation of thinking that reality revolves around the various personalities that they pull from the t.v. Dont mind the mimicks Shawn and continue with your explanation of the different planet classification's so the uneducted who in the moments glory have no idea of what they are talking about.
@Clifton-3079406
Last year the U.S. spent $972 BILLION on education. Close enough that I'm going to just say "almost a TRILLION DOLLARS".
Clifton, how much more do you need? Isn't almost a TRILLION DOLLARS enough for you? How much more money shall we throw at education, and hope for a result?
@Derek - an above average post - thanks!
Cheers! ~Michael (AFM*Radio / Astronomy.FM)
Ok. lets say there is one out there that might support life. Lets say in 1 - 200 years from now we find one that does. The human race will never be able to reach such a planet to visit in the first place. Or even communicate. If there were intelligent species able to send a signal back to us after they get it 20,000 years from now, what will the human race look like after 40,000 years of signal bouncing if we are here at all. not to mention that everything we'll see is light sent to us from tens of thousands of years in the past. We will never get to see what is the present while looking for planets orbiting other stars.
I would love for life to be Star Trek but right now the brilliant minds of our times should concentrate more on buffering the problems we all share on our good young home planet Earth!!!!
To Clinton3079406:
A lot of people compare exploring space, building the LHC, going to the space station, with Schooling, housing, food pantries, etc., etc. How can we justify spending that money when so many other poor people need it.
As an example:
In, the State of Wisconsin where all the turmoil is today with the Teachers protesting they don't want to lose their Union "rights", testing shows that 8th grade students are going into high school without the reading ability they need.
Two-thirds (@2/3) are considered below "Proficient" of those, 44% are Basic and 21% below Basic. About 32% (@1/3)are Proficient with 2% being above Proficient. Wisconsin spends more per pupil than do all other midwest states.
So much for giving teachers more of our tax money so they can retire early and have paid healthcare.
This came from the National Assessment of Educational Progress tests administered by the U.S. Department of Education in 2009 information.
It is not about the amount of money anyone spends, it is about the results of that spending.
I would love to be a scientist, watching, looking for other Earth like planets, and as they're looking at a canidate, they notice small lights coming off the planet, and others coming to the planet. Spaceships my friends....And, that's when we'll have that "We are not alone moment"
I can't wait until we have a telescope that could see that amount of detail. Thing is, if we see lights on a planet, we're seeing them in the past because of the distance and the speed of light. We really can't see these things in real time. Maybe we will some day. :)
The nature of light itself prevents us from seeing things in real time. We would have to find a completely new way of observing the universe using a medium unknown to science as of now.
agree. and i think we should fine a new unit to measure the numbers related to universe. just as a human body, how many living cells we have and at the same time how many cells die? but we don't live a life count it every day...science always need philosophy & art & religions as it's imaginative wings
Hustler Magazine once said that it is science's task to ask WHAT? And religion's task to ask WHY?
Hustler had words, Matilda?
It is interesting that a group of people who cannot write their own language correctly canzm communicate thoughts about interplanetary travel. It is true, however, that none of these planets is within the range of interplanetary travel in which a traveler can only travel at a fraction of the speed of light and the targets are hundreds of light years away. Sure, science fiction can invent hyperspeeds to overcome Einsteins Relativity Theory, but nobody has disproven that atoms come apart at the speed of light. The essence is that we had better not look at other planets before we learn to manage the resources and the population of our own.
Of course you are not seeing them in "real time" (which Einstein would say was impossible at the distances concerned) but more importantly, some are so far away, their sun may have burned out by the time we "see" them (actually see their transits across their star) and hence the "finding" may be useless. We may be spending a lot of money and time discovering "planets" which no longer exist! It is like looking at a picture of a long dead relative, interesting but not of much real vale.
True, but - stars live for billions of years, and stars change their appearance when nearing the end of their lives. The chance that they "passed on" since their light left the star about 2000 years ago, relative to their billions of years lifetime, is pretty small. Also, we are not looking at every star - we are focused on stars that we think are most likely to host Earth-like worlds, so they should be around for a good long long time. ;-)
Cheers! ~Michael (AFM*Radio / Astronomy.FM)
No, Kepler is looking at relatively closed stars. 1,000 light years away at most. This is nothing to the scale of life or a sun. Remember that the galaxy is "only" 1,000 light year thick, and 1,000,000 light year long.
(psst - Chris - one too many zeros. The Milky Way is 1000 light years think, but only 100,000 light years wide; somewhat wider if you include globular star clusters and such... Otherwise, all good!)
Completely apart from the facts about the lifetime of stars already presented, your assertion that discoveries of potentially life-supporting planets or even life itself that might have already gone extinct is of "not much real value" is ludicrous. Such a discovery would have very profound implications on both science and philosophy for the rest of the human race's existence.
Bechtel - the finding is NEVER useless. The planet hunters are showing what is possible. 20-30 years ago everyone (for the most part) was saying we are the only planet, now they can't wait to find more. It is the process of discovery and that is never useless and always has value.
I'm no scientist, but it seems to me that the field is defining life in earth terms. We presume such alien life would need temperatures somewhat akin to earth's, plus water, hydrogen, oxygen and such. Isn't it conceivable that life forms could develop on other planets with wildly different tolerances and needs?
I'd still love to meet one, if we could agree on a meeting place that wouldn't freeze one of us to death or boil the other.
With all the speculatiuon there remains one simple truth; there is no evidience of intelligent life with exception to that on our very own planet. There is also no viable means to seek out such evidence if it exist. The logical conclusion is there is a lot of money being misdirected by a bunch of lunatic seti fools.
Logically all those resources would be much better spent improving energy resources, sustainability and viability of our biosphere, improved transportation, health care and food resources.
As Hawkins indicated, it would probably be a bad day for all of us if there were extraterestials to arrive since they would likely be imperialistic and predatory. It seems the designer has protected us through isolation and that is probably a very great blessing.
Perhaps one day, somewhere off in the future mellenia we may achieve the capability for "star travel". I suspect that withou significant changes in the leadership we are much more likely to end ourselves long before that occurs. Perhaps I am too pessimistic but I can't get the images of Easter Island out of my head. Fortunately, in the larger scheme of things all that really matters is now.
I have thinking for years that it would be a good Idea to place in space a relay system of telescopes
that could send pictures from telescope to telescope and relay them back to earth, that should, may be
give us a better view of our galaxy.
Clovis
@DaveCinNC, the requirements for life to exist keep getting rewritten based on findings here on Earth. We're finding life in places where it "shouldn't" exist. Places like deep sea vents where there is no oxygen or sunlight, just immense pressures and an incredibly hot water source. Another example would be single celled organisms found in the bottom of mine shafts. They exist on minute amounts of water, no sunlight, and very few nutrients.
I don't think the biological community has a set in stone rule about life.
A habitable planet has to have the right conditions for bacteria to grow. Intelligent life is far more unlikely to exist even if there are suitable conditions.
What's really going to bust peoples bubble is when they actually find a planet similar to Earth, they are going to want to travel to it and we don't have the means to sustain energy long enough for propulsion and life support systems and on top of that the time required to travel those distances.
Actually, I think most of the stars they are looking at are within 1000 light years, many closer than that. So the stars probably haven't burned out, and assuming the "lights" you hope to see on the planets some day aren't thermonuclear explosions, there's a good chance that they are still alive and well.
Stars that may have burned out by now would be more at a range of billions of light years away.
Most of the stars we observe in our own galaxy are most likely still burning.
Betelgeuse burnt out (went supernova) about 1000 AD. The Hopi and Chinese saw the flash and recorded it. That must have been a frightening sight for those people that didn't understand what was happening.
Although I would think there were scientists that knew exactly what the flash was. These people thousands of years ago were not dumb. They didn't have libraries with book from around the known world for nothing.
You can't build a structure using rocks weighing tons each with seams so tight and smooth that there is no capillary action ability for water without having a lot of knowledge. Today, we can't even come to a concensus on how they did it, let alone do it ourselves.
Hiya Del!
Betelgeuse didn't go supernova in 1000; it's still there. You can see it tonight if it's clear where you are (we're getting freezing rain, so no stargazing tonight....)
What DID go "pop" in 1054 was the supernova that created the Crab Nebula, an event that was documented by Native American and Chinese astronomers. (Interestingly there are no known observations in Europe; were the records lost, or was it not safe to point out that the sky had changed?)
I am very interested in archeoastronomy, and really enjoyed exploring the Anasazi work with tracking the skies, as seen at Chaco Canyon and surrounding communities. You may find this link interesting:
http://www.astronomy.pomona.edu/archeo/outside/chaco/nebula.html
Cheers! ~Michael (AFM*Radio / Astronomy.FM)
Ironic isn't it. We're looking into the past which may be where our future lies.
This is reality. Star Trek is science fiction. There is a difference.
Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas is a classic science fiction novel by French writer Jules Verne published in 1869. It was science fiction then too. Today it's history.
True, cellphones are much more useful and versatile than Star Treks communicators.Once we get gravity drive, I'm sure real spaceships will be faster than Star Treks too.
Science hasn't figured out how to TAKE CARE OF THE EXISTENCE of EARTH...because of their DESTRUCTIVE Creation of Behavior ...
Thinks the $$ spent should be put into CLEANING up the MESS HERE for FUTURE GENERATIONS!
Wonders if anyone in Science has PSYCHIC Capabilites!
The exploration of space can help solve our problems here. Technologies developed to live sustainably on a colony on mars or the moon would translate to cleaner, more sustainable stuff here.
I feel sorry for those of you who find stuff like this a waste of money. I blame our pathetic educational system.
ty and u see what the 13 colonies upon the Northern Continent did for the higher education of the Paradise of Original people...
laughs ... men are from mars women are from venus......
where these planets fall in your personal astrological chart will enlighten you to your personal syncronization with the heavens!
“Cut NASA - save the poor and suffering” is a fairly common sentiment. If you cut NASA, how much would you add to the federal budget? Here is the breakdown; each “$” represents 1/2% of the Federal budget:
Medicare = 21%:.............$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
Defense = 20%: .............$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
Social Security = 20%: ...$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
Safety Net = 14%: .........$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
Debt Interest = 6%: .......$$$$$$$$$$$$
Those five items eat up 81% of the Federal budget. Everything else has to compete for the 19% left over after “The Big Five” have eaten their fill:
Pensions = 7%: ...............$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
Transportation = 3%: ......$$$$$$
Education = 3%: ..............$$$$$$
Medical Research = 1%: ...$$
NASA = .5%: ....................$
All Other Science = .5%: ..$
All Other = 4%: ...............$$$$$$$$
(“All Other” funds the Departments of Commerce, Labor, Justice, Treasury, Interior, EPA, Corps of Engineers, etc, etc...)
This is how much the US Government spends on everything except NASA:
$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
This is how much the US Government spends on NASA: $
If you are serious about cutting the US Federal debt take a hard look at “The Big Five”.
it's not only the federal budget that funds Nasa ...
Try Corporations & all the STOCKS & Products...& PROFITS! Who really is in the GAME HERE?
Ha you can't even get thru the Airport Terminal to your Plane Flight!
WHO thinks they would be the PRIVLEDGED to get a new Residence on another PLANET?
Better yet WHAT PLANET do you think will Allow it to be INVADED on a Permanent Basis lol
goback, maybe you should just go back to your homeland.
you really don't know what you are talking about, those aerospace corporations are paid by the government to produce the material and the equipment, not the other way around. all that funding for those companies comes FROM either NASA or the DOD. for you to claim that they are paying NASA is just plain bizarre. try using your brain, companies don't pay to make a product, they get paid for making a product, and the aerospcae companies are who actually build the rockets and equipment under the direction of NASA
Uh, danwill - companies spend billions a year on R&D so they can make a new product. Do you think that Burt Rutan is getting paid by the government to develope private space travel? It doesn't always work out, however when it does, it usually really works out.
actually burt rutan gets most of his money from a fairly small handfull of wealthy individuals at least for the first run. once the early designs are shown to work, then the corporations get involved.
but that still doesn't affect my point, companies don't pay NASA, NASA pays the companies
While I agree with you that GoBack is probably insane, I do think that companies pay NASA a fee for satellite services rendered.
There should be some kind of life in the Milky Way other than on earth. What is tough though is intelligent life. There may be intelligent life in only one galaxy out of a million galaxies. We already have intelligent life on one in the Milky Way. Next closest is about a billion light years away on average. We can never talk to them.
Maybe...
Certinaly the only way for an actual scientist to be completley and utterly wrong is to use the word 'never'. It seemes to be the cue for somone else to prove him or her wrong. And there certainly are some interesting quantum possibilities... so I'd definitely say it's possible, with room for upgrading in the positive way.
Who says we are intelligent? LOL
Never say 'never' - you'll be proved wrong every time.
Never say 'every'.
Never say 'every'....
Unless it's foreshadowed with probably.
Yeah, somewhere out there is an alien race looking at this planet as possible prime real estate for: "It's life Jim, but not as we know it". When they see our sun's light dip they probably don't have the lastest info on the major infestation on earth in the last 100,000 earth years.
 I was thinking more like that fictional forest moon of Endor,but yea,the one in Avatar will work.
Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas is a classic science fiction novel by French writer Jules Verne published in 1869. It was science fiction then too. Today it is history.
Well now you see where i"m from
I may not understand all I read but grateful for what information I can understand. As we keep searching, the Lord will provide us knowledge and discernment for the planet He wants inhabited. We must remember that all those stars, all those planets were created by God for a purpose. The wise men followed a star to find JESUS, the SAVIOUR of the world. If God could move a star to locate Jesus , we should be ever mindful that God is in control and only He can reveal the secrets of the universe. The book of Revelations tells us about our heavenly home which is beautiful.....
Stop, stop, stop it!!!!!
Ed, it would be better to just not respond, than to do so in a manner that makes you look like an @!$%#.
Wow. Really?
Actually it's the giant magical space chicken that offers all knowledge.
No matter how far you seperate God and science someone wants to put the two back together again. I hope we find life on other planets just to prove that life exsit that your religon cant explain. We are talking about the quest for knowlage not fantasy. And acutally the book of revelations tells us of the end of our world b/c.....well they never really say why excatly, just something they like to hold over your head.
JLOVE; MY religion accepts both God and science, seeing no contradiction between the two. The next time you are tempted to dis religion, make sure you first understand what religious people actually believe and why. Would you try to explain thunder if you knew nothing about lightening? Live long and prosper !!!
It's not so much religion or even God that is being bashed.
It's an authoritative piece of literature that was used as a psychological baseball bat to suppress society and virtually keep them in the stone age for the last few thousand years.
You know, the one that teaches that all bad things are your fault (Guilt) and teaches Children that they are a worthless piece of dung that will burn in hell for eternity (Fear) unless you accept some Hebrew deity as your savior (Hope) and drink his blood and eat his flesh (Cannibalism...jk) .
If people want to make up a Science/God religion and call themselves religious..have at it, as long as it offers EQUAL HUMAN RIGHTS.
But the fact is, people were killed for saying the earth was round and revolves around the sun a few hundred years ago. Simple facts were taboo even 500 years ago.. Salem witch trials?? Woman were not treated equal till a few years ago and still aren't in a lot of places. The teachings of our natural world have been forbidden due to such religious texts. Societies have crumbled and billions have died in attempt to cover up Proof that these deities do not exist.
I think it is very important for the science community to give religion a big MIDDLE FINGER every time a new discovery is found.
Do you really believe that Tsunamis, Volcanoes, and earth quakes happen because of Atheists deny god and homos exist? Read Sodom and Gomorrah. Christianity should be exposed for the Fraud it is.
Go Science!!! Go away religion. It had it's time and Place 2 or 3k yrs ago
It has worn out it's welcome in my opinion.
Among the zillions of unanswered questions about our universe, the one about whether any life out there will be"intelligent" is a good one. For a large segment of the Earth's history of life, the dinosaurs "ruled". 165 million years and not one used a cell phone, built a condo, flew an airplane or even wrote a diary! What a waste of time. Still, it's good to look for the answers to all those questions.
Hey Tarc, you and other lazy minds so spoiled by video games and contrived Hollywood sci-fi junk, need to think: There is a difference between Hollywood physics and REAL physics! Get an education!!
really? you have all the answers for physics? you must be some kind of super genius, since REALscientists don't make the claim that they know everything about physics or even what is truly possible and impossible. we only know what is possible and probable based on our current knowledge.
yet some theory (just barely, maybe) allows that some things may yet still be possible. which may or may not eventually be the same as practical. remember experts said that airplanes could "never" work explosives experts stated that the A-bomb would absolutely "never" work.
we don't have all the answers yet, it may well be that we will never travel FTL, but physicists can't be certain yet, and neither can you.
About twelve years ago, a lady scientist from Columbia University announced the discover of a new substance, which, when a laser was fired through it slowed the speed of light to 35 miles an hour.My first thought at the time was, that covering a space ship with this substance would allow the ship to travel faster than the speed of light.Oddly enough, after the first announcement, the discovery seems to have been hushed up.
Light travels at different speeds through different media. It travels slower through water than air, and travels slower in air than a vacuum. It also travels slower through gravity wells.
Even if you had a substance that slowed light to a dead stop (a photon trap or some such), that doesn't mean you'd alter the speed of light for everyone everywhere. You'd just have a substance that slowed light down, like water and air already do.
Why do you think there's some kind of cover up or conspiracy here?
remember, E=Mc2.
c=the speed of light in a vacuum
an electron in the vaccuum of a radars magnitron exceeds the standard 300 mmps. so maybe the secret is based somewhere in gravity?
as i think gravity controls all aspecks of the universe as we know it. any thought given to that?
condor, if the speed of something that has mass (an electron) actually exceeded the speed of light in a vacuum, that would be earthshaking news.
the speed of the radar EM pulse within the vacuum of the magnetron will be faster than the same pulse once it enters the air. again the speed of light in a vacuum is the fastest thing we know of.
one thing that IS allowed for in physics is quantum entanglement, (also known as "spooky action at a distance")that can be effectively instantaneous. but has real-world limitations that prevent it from being usable (as far as we know, yet)
Radio Operator on KOI 326.01, "Hey you guys, Earth's calling again!"
Radio Operator's Supervisor, " Tell them, the same thing, you always tell them."
Radio Operator to Earth, "Sorry, I can't understand what you're saying. I'm going into a tunnel." Crackle, crackle.
Radio Operator talking to his black husband. All we need is those trouble making humans, visiting here, on KOI 326.01, our peaceful, clean, green, multicultural, world? They're stilllooking, for the President Obama's birth certificate. What a bunch of idiots!
that alone is enough to demonstrate the lack of intelligence on this planet.
Talk about irony. Our Big Blue Marble, turns to a Big Glob Of Slim. Earthlings know about KOI and now it is inhabitable by humans. Of course, our egos are so inflated, we fly to KOI and hop out of the spaceship.
We're here! We're here! We have some trinkets for you KOIans. All you have to do, is give us your land.
The beings on KOI reply, We believe you earthlings, have used that line before. See those people over there? They are American Indians. They told us, all about you "white" folks. So here's the proposition, they recommended, for you. "Fool us once shame on you. Fool us twice shame on us!" Here's you tea bags, go back to Earth. Besides you are illegal aliens and using your own words, "We don't want you useless bums sponging off of us. We are not about to provide you with health care, a decent living or an opportunity to live here. You bring your drugs here. You're nothing but criminals. Go back to Earth!"
The Earthlings make another attempt to plead their case but the KOI beings refuse to listen. They walk toward the American Indians and ask them, "How on Earth, did you let those greedy sycophants, ever take your land?"
The American Indian Chief replies, " We didn't know what Republican meant, until it was too late. By then the Mayflower had already set sail!"
Hey, josenighthawk, maybe if you put forth the effort, you could give tarc some educating. Beats talking down to him.
Why would a vastly more evolved race of peace perfected beings capable of traversing the universe like a drive to the mall want us to know they even exist?
Why wouldn't they? We have and always may do some really evil and messed-up things, but the vast majority of us, and as a whole, we're actually pretty neat peeps.
Don't be too hard on humanity. :)
why do humans ask humans why aliens do what they do? Isn't there a "Scientific" rule saying we would need an alien to compare to?
the thing about aliens is that they're alien.
trying to atribute human motivations to them could very well fail.
Looking at the night sky is like looking at the suface of the ocean,it seems deserted but when you go deep,life is abundant,life in places we never would have thought possible,under extreme pressure and extreme temperatures and lack of oxygen.Just because they dont come here and save us with their advanced technologies does'nt mean there is no life elsewhere in the universe,on the contrary,it points to an abundance of life,just not what we expected,and if there are huminoids they are probably technologically limited as we are.By the time we become intellectually and spiritually advanced enough to acheive space travel we'll discover we did'nt need to.
That's a very interesting way to look at it. As they say, life will always find a way. I believe there is life out there, somewhere. I hope I'll live to see the day when we discover it.
Lets hope that whoever we meet out there in the cosmos comes from a society that knows peace better than we do. So far, our own history is plagued with many instances where a more advanced society meets a less advanced one and the outcomes are disasterous for the lesser advanced society (Slave trade using Africans, then the destruction of natives of the Americas).
I believe our world will know peace when nations and peoples trust one another and we aren't fighting over resources any longer.
"The ocean is a desert with its life underground, and a perfect disguise above"
America - 'A Horse with No Name'
The only way we can survive, is to become Borg, then we are not even we any more, wweee, wweeee, all the way home.
May we find intelligent life somewhere else and smile.
Skimed right past the three years verification for an earthlike planet, went back and reread it, thought about it, could possible be like nine years!!....like when our sun was bigger, the goldilocks zone was further out, putting mars in a much more habitable zone, for a sun not like ours but larger, it is concievable that the orbit is 3-5 of our earth years...making it a moderate nine to fifeteen years for a given probability of something in a goldilocks zone, it is now apparent to me that the purpose of kepler IS a survey, not an in depth analysis.....in a way, this was a sad realization, and yet in another way, it is kewl, kewl, kewl!!!..that means amatures and less well funded ground based observatories don't have to worry about competing against kepler for scientific discoveries, BUT turely can use the kepler data to supplement, guide and even instigate more discoveries!!...I understand a 30m ground based mirror would be required to compete against it, but new and interesting networks of amaturers have joined in cooperative efforts to form long baseline observation techniques giving virtual baselines theoretically equilavent to the diameter of the earth, even if in reality multiple observing sites are only hundreds of miles apart, GREAT THINGS can be discovered by such a technique, and most importantly, kepler can tell us what distant points are most promise-ing to look at!!...I am certain that other techniques await further exploitation by the citizen scientists and clever grant wrangling public institutions (and a lot of others who feel they are in neither category completely). I have been considering the many optional accesories I might want to add to my self built telescopes...not so much the infrared cameras and such, perhaps more like a concept I was toying with last year, adding some fiber optics and a spectrometer....in light of what I said about networked scopes above, perhaps it is a more productive option than some of the other designs I have been sketching on the backs of napkins lately..like directional rf antennas for listning to jupitors moons or ghz dishes for more esoteric things or x ray etc scintelators...or a tuff one that is a real puzzle a gravity wave detector (had to throw that one in there for the readers on the bleeding\phantom edge of current theory).....yes, I may not do it, but if six sigma works, someone is going to tell someone what they just read, who tells someone who tells someone....yep, nice article, I feel better knowing kepler can be a tool to build on, not a big bully squeezing the poorer science programs off the planet...I hope congress can keep the funding going TILL we get something bettter OPERATIONAL....a mistake I fear they have already made with the space shuttle.
thanks for bearing with me.
There's also a project using the old six and eight foot satellite dishes as radio telescopes.You hook your old dish up to your computer, which synchronizes your dish with dishes all over the country, over the internet, and uses them all together like one giant dish.I believe SETI is involved.
You can also get with SETI on their website, and help by going through some of the data they've collected, on a volunteer basis.
Who says that other beings would be so much more vastly improved over our current situation. Who says they couldn't be less evolved, say around an equivalent intelligence level as that of the mid-evil era. It is an interesting thought, however.
put that in your pipe and smoke it....
We will never know for sure. All we really know is this impossible earth that is real. The history of this planet
and what was produced over immense time points to some basic order ..in this circumstance , in this solar system.