NASA Telescope Likely to Find Many More Alien Planets

NASA Telescope Likely to Find Many More Alien Planets

www.space.com

On Monday (Dec. 5), scientists announced that Kepler had detected 1,094 new exoplanet candidates, bringing the telescope's total discovery tally to 2,326 possible alien worlds. And it wouldn't be a shock if Kepler delivered more big numbers before the end of its prime mission in November 2012, researchers said.

(visit the link for the full news article)

It is really fascinating that we are starting to discover more and more planets. Not that it means much, as we probably will not be able to reach them in the near futre, but it is always fun for the imagination to theorize about what may lie on those planets. Surely, out of those 2,326 possible planets there has to be some form of life, be it intelligent or not.

NASA does state, however, that out of the 2,326 plantes, only 30 have been confirmed (Kepler 22-b being one of them). It is their belief that at least 80% of these candidates are in fact the real deal though. This would mean an approximation of at least 1,860 are believed to be real.

Interestingly enough, while there of course a vast amount of planets out there, these particular ones meet the criteria of Earth-likeness; ones that have an ideal environment for the possibility of life.


www.space.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

Interesting indeed!!

I will forever be fascinated by this topic!

However.....I disagree with the notion that a planet has to be "Earth-Like" to harbor life....

just because we can't live very close to a star (Venus, Mervcury) doesn't mean that no other civilization can

just because we can't live too far from a star (Neptune, Pluto) doesn't mean that no other civilization can

I always say and I'll say it again, 'We are NOT the center of the universe, physically or figuratively"

Originally posted by ButterCookie
Interesting indeed!!

I will forever be fascinated by this topic!

However.....I disagree with the notion that a planet has to be "Earth-Like" to harbor life....

just because we can't live very close to a star (Venus, Mervcury) doesn't mean that no other civilization can

just because we can't live too far from a star (Neptune, Pluto) doesn't mean that no other civilization can

I always say and I'll say it again, 'We are NOT the center of the universe, physically or figuratively"

Very true! I suppose it was a little arrogant for me to make that claim but I was simply going by the notion of NASA's requirements! However, I have to completely agree with you. If we, as humans, can adapt on just our planet alone to different conditions, there is no telling what other species may be abel to adapt to.

All that aside, I think looking for Earth-like planets is a great place to start!

DUPLICATE POST

Originally posted by ErroneousDylan

Originally posted by ButterCookie
Interesting indeed!!

I will forever be fascinated by this topic!

However.....I disagree with the notion that a planet has to be "Earth-Like" to harbor life....

just because we can't live very close to a star (Venus, Mervcury) doesn't mean that no other civilization can

just because we can't live too far from a star (Neptune, Pluto) doesn't mean that no other civilization can

I always say and I'll say it again, 'We are NOT the center of the universe, physically or figuratively"

Very true! I suppose it was a little arrogant for me to make that claim but I was simply going by the notion of NASA's requirements! However, I have to completely agree with you. If we, as humans, can adapt on just our planet alone to different conditions, there is no telling what other species may be abel to adapt to.

All that aside, I think looking for Earth-like planets is a great place to start!

Don't get me wrong tho, this type of news ROCKS!!

I love it because it at least make people start to think about other lifeforms besides their own.

It makes them start to see their 'perspective place' in the universe. With most people, I've noticed that showing them the images of the our star (the sun) compared with other stars of the universe, and our planet compared to larger ones makes them start to see that they are not the 'center'...

By the way, can anyone tell me how much media coverage this is getting? I'm in school and this is finals week, so I've been missing a lot of tv.

reply to post by ErroneousDylan


I always say that, referring to our beloved 'goldielocks zone' that if there are inhabitants on Neptune, they feel that they are in the goldielocks zone too, because they are located in the best place for THEM to live..

same for Saturn, Venus, etc...

The inhabitants of Neptune probably look at Earth and say, "No way life could ever exist there...too much water...not enough (whatever mineral abundant on Neptune)....plus they are waaaay too close to the sun....its too hot."

We must remember to look at through those type of lens.

This is great news, and while we can go to these planets, i wonder if we could one day soon have the technology to find out if these planets do have life.

Originally posted by Jay-morris
This is great news, and while we can go to these planets, i wonder if we could one day soon have the technology to find out if these planets do have life.

Well, according to this post:
www.space.com...

"The task at hand is to spread this news to our colleagues so that they will recognize that if Kepler doesn't get an extended mission, exoplanet science is going to suffer a setback of decades," Natalie Batalha, deputy leader of the Kepler science team here at NASA's Ames Research Center, said Monday (Dec. 5).

So, it would be awesome if they could continue their research after the scheduled time of the mission end (which is November 2012). They claim they would like to continue up to the year 2016 at least, to further our knowledge of these planets. The only thing is... it cost $600 million just to launch the project and they say it will cost another $20 million per year just to sustain it (costs include research), and while $20 million pales to the fact of $600 million, it is still quite expensive.