Planet search mission cancelled

The European Space Agency (Esa) has cancelled its space mission that was to look for planets circling other stars.

Over 400 astronomers had written to Esa asking it to keep the 2008 mission.

But, budget problems caused by delays in the troubled Ariane 5 rocket have killed the project, as well as the lander segment of a mission to Mercury.

Esa's Dr David Southwood said that cancelling such a mission really hurts.

news.bbc.co.uk...

This is very sad because finding other planets and learning about them may very well be the best way to save our own planet.

Well....tecknically...we have already found other planets. I"m not sure, (and didnt read the article) but was this supposed to be the launch of a telescope that could detect planets the size of Earth? If so, all i have to say is "#!!"

Originally posted by Langolier
Well....tecknically...we have already found other planets. I"m not sure, (and didnt read the article) but was this supposed to be the launch of a telescope that could detect planets the size of Earth? If so, all i have to say is "#!!"

It was basically trying to find other Earth-like planets that can support life.

Eddington had two aims, both remarkable and very pertinent to front-line astronomical interests. The first was to look for Earth-like planets outside our solar system - one of the key goals in the search to understand how life came to be, how it is that we live where we do in the universe and whether there are other potential life-supporting environments 'out there'.

www.esa.int...

They cancelled what had the potential to be the single greatest discovery in the history of the world...over BUDGET problems?!

Yeah...Unfortunately, Earth has a finite amount of resources & so they decided to turn their (also finite) budget concerns away from the less important things (like planetary survival & interplanetary colonization) towards the *really important* things (like genocide & reducing our only home planet to ash & rubble)...


...Go figure...