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If ET phones home today, his long distance charge might not be as much as people believed when Steven Spielberg's classic film came out three decades ago. That's because recent data from NASA's Kepler space telescope suggests that billions of Earth-like planets are much closer than ever before imagined.
"The information we presented today will excite the general public because we now know that the nearest potentially Earth-like world is likely within 13 light years of the sun," astronomer Courtney Dressing said in an email to The Huffington Post.
"Future missions, such as the NASA James Webb Space Telescope (the successor to Hubble) and proposed extremely large ground-based telescopes, like the Giant Magellan Telescope, will be able to probe the atmospheres of nearby habitable planets," Dressing said.
"Those missions will be able to search for biosignatures, like oxygen, and possibly lead to the first announcement of life on another world."
It feels incredible to realize that the answers to some of life's greatest questions are within the grasp of our current generation.
Originally posted by Creep Thumper
I doubt the scientific community can present such claims with absolute certainty. In fact I think their claims are a lot of hooey designed to ensure they continue to get research grants.
We spend outrageous amounts of money on examining space and get very little for the investment. Why do we need 20 missions to Mars when we learned very early on that it's a barren rock?
The Pioneer, Voyager and Cassini missions were worth it because they did more than look at just one body. Hubble is worth it. There are a couple others that are worth it.
Don't get me wrong. I love space. I just hate seeing money wasted on pointless endeavors like looking for habitable planets. We not going there anyway.
We should be investigating Jupiter, Neptune, Uranus and Pluto, not looking light years across galaxies at unreachable targets. Such telescopes are better used for close examination of our neighbors. Why aren't we taking high-res photos of what is near us? Why haven't we gone back to the moon?
I really question the wisdom of people who think it's more important to look hundreds of light years away for habitable planets when there is so much so close to explore.
No more Mars!
Habitable planets? What is the point? We're stuck where we are.
Originally posted by soficrow
Nah. It's just a back-door strategy to promote asteroid mining.
Monumentally stupid without hugely comprehensive medical insurance...
Originally posted by Creep Thumper
We spend outrageous amounts of money on examining space and get very little for the investment. Why do we need 20 missions to Mars when we learned very early on that it's a barren rock?
We should be investigating Jupiter, Neptune, Uranus and Pluto, not looking light years across galaxies at unreachable targets.
Such telescopes are better used for close examination of our neighbors. Why aren't we taking high-res photos of what is near us? Why haven't we gone back to the moon?
Originally posted by LightAssassin
reply to post by iamhobo
I hope another war-like species far superior to us come here from another planet and ravage us so we can forget our differences and realise we are one species.
Originally posted by Creep Thumper
reply to post by SaturnFX
We can't even take care of the planet we're on let alone its people.
We haven't earned space.
The data has also been used by scientists to predict that the Milky Way could contain up to 17bn Earth-sized planets orbiting stars.
Originally posted by Zcustosmorum
Possibly 17 billion, that's BILLION possible earth-like planets in our system
Originally posted by skalla
reply to post by Monts
the possibility of finding biosignatures is particularly exciting, now we just need to hurry the heck up and sort out warp drives.
and phasers
and hot space chicks in uniforms!
but i digress, thanks for sharing