New technique for detecting vegetation on exoplanets

I saw this article. I hope they might be able to find vegetation on an exoplanet soon. It sounds great if it would work.

The team studied both the colour and the degree of polarisation of light from the Earth after reflection from the Moon, as if the light was coming from an exoplanet.

They managed to deduce that the Earth's atmosphere is partly cloudy, that part of its surface is covered by oceans and - crucially - that there is vegetation present. They could even detect changes in the cloud cover and amount of vegetation at different times as different parts of the Earth reflected light towards the Moon.

VLT rediscovers life on Earth

reply to post by cloudyday


I don't get it. We just saw the far-side of the moon for the first time fairly recently.

We still can't say 100% for sure if the moon has water or not.

We don't know what the bottom of the oceans look like.

But NASA is telling you they can determine if a planet 500,000,000 miles from Earth has a plant on it.

I mean really...

Really.

REALLY?

It's just more things to keep you occupied from what is going on with this planet. The more you have to read on the internet about other planets, the less you think about the messed-up situation this one is in.

Edit: Just wanted to point-out that I am not bashing on you for posting this. I am bashing NASA for telling people fairy tales. Wanted to make sure you didn't think I was being an ass to you.

reply to post by YouAreLiedTo

IWe just saw the far-side of the moon for the first time fairly recently.

If you consider 1959 recently.
nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov...

Of course, there have been much better since.
lroc.sese.asu.edu.../archives/345-Farside!-And-all-the-way-around.html

And it has been quite well established that there is frozen water hidden in craters at the lunar poles and smaller amounts in its soil.

But yes, we continue to learn. And I too have doubts about the ability of this technique to detect vegetation on exoplanets.

Now if they could only get some of Earth's vegetation to the millions of starving people.

They got plenty of funding to study and play with things outside our own planet, but just can't seem to solve the easy issues here. No profit in being a decent human being though.
I am tired of hearing about exoplanets' atmospheres, temps, sizes, etc., I want to hear about how we fed the hungry and sheltered the homeless before we spend money on outer space.

Then again, that kind of world mentality makes sense. We aren't about that though.

Originally posted by Phage
reply to post by YouAreLiedTo

 

IWe just saw the far-side of the moon for the first time fairly recently.

If you consider 1959 recently.
nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov...

Of course, there have been much better since.
lroc.sese.asu.edu.../archives/345-Farside!-And-all-the-way-around.html

And it has been quite well established that there is frozen water hidden in craters at the lunar poles and smaller amounts in its soil.

But yes, we continue to learn.

Considering we have been studying the sky since the dawn of man...

Yes I would say that 1959 is fairly recently.

Quit being a condescending ass.

And watching an explosion and telling us there is ice vapor does not prove there is water.

It's a pretty good chance of a true hypothesis, but 100% evidence it is not.

news.discovery.com...

Here is your precious water on the moon...

"We really need to sort out the 'flavor' of the water. We need to do the math," Colaprete said. "There's a lot of interesting stuff in there."

We aren't talking about icy deposits from passing comets...

Scientists still don't know if the Moon has it's "own" water supply.

We know that "water" is deposited all over the place by icy comet debris...

That doesn't answer the question whether the Moon has it's own hydrosystem or not.

I call semantics.

We still don't know.

Edit: Not trying to be an ass here... just stating that what we take as fact aren't always fact at all.

Originally posted by JibbyJedi
Now if they could only get some of Earth's vegetation to the millions of starving people.

They got plenty of funding to study and play with things outside our own planet, but just can't seem to solve the easy issues here. No profit in being a decent human being though.
I am tired of hearing about exoplanets' atmospheres, temps, sizes, etc., I want to hear about how we fed the hungry and sheltered the homeless before we spend money on outer space.

Then again, that kind of world mentality makes sense. We aren't about that though.

Of course there are always exceptions, but none of this would be solved by cutting science budgets. I do agree that we need to do everything possible to help other humans, but many times throwing money at the problem doesn't solve it.

Pretty amazing if they can really do. I've always heard that Nasa, just like the military, is several years in advance of what they lead the public and media to believe in terms of tech. I'm not quick to believe what a government funded agency says. Doing it from light reflected by the moon is one thing. Analyzing light that has been traveling for thousands of years is another thing altogether.

So what they are basically saying is... Instead of reading reports of new earth sized exoplanets discovered , we will see reports of new earth sized exoplanets with large amounts of what might be vegetation. In other words...LIFE. I don't think the puppetmasters of this country will allow that kind of news to just come out. They like us to be in the dark.
I wish it weren't so.
TXML

Originally posted by txMEGAlithic
Pretty amazing if they can really do. I've always heard that Nasa, just like the military, is several years in advance of what they lead the public and media to believe in terms of tech. I'm not quick to believe what a government funded agency says. Doing it from light reflected by the moon is one thing. Analyzing light that has been traveling for thousands of years is another thing altogether.

So what they are basically saying is... Instead of reading reports of new earth sized exoplanets discovered , we will see reports of new earth sized exoplanets with large amounts of what might be vegetation. In other words...LIFE. I don't think the puppetmasters of this country will allow that kind of news to just come out. They like us to be in the dark.
I wish it weren't so.
TXML

Maybe 10 years from now they will be able to approximate the number of planets with vegetation within a certain distance from Earth. I always assumed we would find extraterrestrial life in our solar system first, but maybe we will find it around some distant star. It would be interesting to know how much life is out there.

Originally posted by YouAreLiedTo

Considering we have been studying the sky since the dawn of man...

Yes I would say that 1959 is fairly recently.

Quit being a condescending ass.

Originally posted by YouAreLiedTo


I don't get it. We just saw the far-side of the moon for the first time fairly recently.

We still can't say 100% for sure if the moon has water or not.

We don't know what the bottom of the oceans look like.

But NASA is telling you they can determine if a planet 500,000,000 miles from Earth has a plant on it.

I mean really...

Really.

REALLY?

VLT is operated by the ESO, NASA is not involved.

ESO; the European Organisation for Astronomical Research in the Southern Hemisphere, is an inter-governmental organisation with 15 Member States*.

Maybe things are hard for you to understand due to your research skills, I'm not going to speculate on your science understandings. First of all tell us what seeing the other side of the moon has to do with astronomy, I'm not sure I see a causation between telescopic space observation and space travel. If by 'we' you mean mankind 'we' very well know what the bottom of the ocean is like, even Challenger Deep, but maybe not as well as we know every life form in the middle of the Amazon. Now I know you just 'threw out' a number, but 500,000,000 from earth won't get you to the orbit of Saturn, you'd be short some 300,000,000 miles.

It's the tone set by this post that begs for ridicule, so don't cry to other posters that call you out, don't toss the first proverbial stone if your so sensitive.

Originally posted by JibbyJedi
Now if they could only get some of Earth's vegetation to the millions of starving people.

They got plenty of funding to study and play with things outside our own planet, but just can't seem to solve the easy issues here. No profit in being a decent human being though.
I am tired of hearing about exoplanets' atmospheres, temps, sizes, etc., I want to hear about how we fed the hungry and sheltered the homeless before we spend money on outer space.

Then again, that kind of world mentality makes sense. We aren't about that though.

Well here is how you can, YOU close your broadband account and the money you save you can give to charity bonus for us one less person on here moaning about NASA and advances in astronomy!!!!

Originally posted by Illustronic

VLT is operated by the ESO, NASA is not involved.

ESO; the European Organisation for Astronomical Research in the Southern Hemisphere, is an inter-governmental organisation with 15 Member States*.

Maybe things are hard for you to understand due to your research skills, I'm not going to speculate on your science understandings. First of all tell us what seeing the other side of the moon has to do with astronomy, I'm not sure I see a causation between telescopic space observation and space travel. If by 'we' you mean mankind 'we' very well know what the bottom of the ocean is like, even Challenger Deep, but maybe not as well as we know every life form in the middle of the Amazon. Now I know you just 'threw out' a number, but 500,000,000 from earth won't get you to the orbit of Saturn, you'd be short some 300,000,000 miles.

It's the tone set by this post that begs for ridicule, so don't cry to other posters that call you out, don't toss the first proverbial stone if your so sensitive.

I'm not sure I see a causation between seeing a reflection in the moon (what this article is about... Telescopic astronomy) and space travel, so what is your point?

And we have seen and mapped, visually, the ocean floors?

I would love to see proof of that. I never said we don't know what "it is like", to use your words.

And what does the distance I posted have anything to do with your argument? I said we can't tell if a planet 500,000,000 miles away has plant life...

So if your example is over 3 trillion miles away, how does that change the information?

Now I can't help that you like to nit-pick posts for things such as NASA vs VLT...

But that still does not change the fact that what they are saying is possible is still simply not possible...

If I said German unicorns don't exist, and your response is that unicorns were actually from France, it doesn't change the fact that unicorns still don't exist.

Not taking anything sensitively at all... Just pointing out where science is exaggerating and some don't like to hear it.

Originally posted by YouAreLiedTo...
But that still does not change the fact that what they are saying is possible is still simply not possible...

If I said German unicorns don't exist, and your response is that unicorns were actually from France, it doesn't change the fact that unicorns still don't exist.
...

Now I have a picture in my head of a unicorn with a beret on his head.

I'll agree that often scientific discoveries are blown out of proportion due to media hype. In some cases the scientists themselves might hype the results to help with funding.

But 20 years ago, I don't think anybody was certain if exoplanets even exist. The closest exoplanet is apparently 50 light years which is 300 trillion miles. It's mind boggling that we can learn so much about something so far away. If the light from Earth has signatures that indicate vegetation, then that same signature must be available to an alien astronomer 50 light years away - if the telescope was powerful enough.

Imagine if our astronomers can actually find an exoplanet with signs of vegetation. Maybe there is no life on Mars or anywhere else in our solar system but there has got to be life on one of these exoplanets and now we might be able to confirm it.