From the good ol' BBC
Planet shine 'gives clue to life

They are looking for "life markers" from planets and using earth to establish a method.

They include signatures for water, and gases such as oxygen and methane.

"This gives you some information on habitability," said Wesley Traub, chief scientist on the US space agency's (Nasa)

The idea is to look at the light reflected off the planet to determine it's contents.

This is a NASA project, so there is probably more info at their website.

---

TEAM
LL

Well wouldn't we have a much better resolution for small rocky planets from space? We need to get the heck off this planet and switch space exploration, exploitation (of things like asteroids) and colonization into high gear!

---

Never Forget a Friend. Or an Enemy.

Man I'm sick of being right all the time:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5070476612863849446&q=case+for+nasa&pl=true




.

---

"Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind." - Dr. Seuss

Great film. lot's of meteors. Trippy sound track.

---

TEAM
LL

Try listening to the dialogue next time and thinking about the physics involved.


.

---

"Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind." - Dr. Seuss

I'm still watching it. Halfway through now. He spent time on an object that appeared to change direction rapidly. If you watch closely, the camera is moving when the clip starts and then the camera stops moving and the object only appears to change direction because of this. The second object then enters the view at a convient time and traces off straight. The reality is that the first object (satellite) was always moving in a straight line, it was the camera that stopped moving.

The reflective water was not complete. Why would the water be destroyed? The worst thing radiation can do to a molecule is to rip an electron off momentarily and that would be in the UV spectrum like he said. So what, you ripped off an electron. Formation of water from O2 and H2 has negative enthalpy of -527 kJ/mol which means, it forms readily and release energy. So, if you do bust water it apart to O2 and H2, it'll immediately collapse back.
The energy per atom is equivelent to 68,800 deg Kelvin which entering the atmosphere won't do. The solar radiation outside the atmosphere is 5,900 K... Not quite enough. The EM energy works out to be, i believe, ~200 nm which is actually outside the suns spectrum. So, the EM light won't do it. So basically, you can only knock electrons off and they are definely coming back and just retransmitting the light. So, I don't know what is point is about the water. Light just adds momentum to objects. Energetic particles would destroy a spacecraft by unevenly adding momentum to bits of the device. So, ice has a "skin" on it such as gaseous water or such and acts as a reflective surface. A molecule gets hit, bounces off the comet, gets hit, bounces off the comet, gets hit, bounces.... It's gas. Basiscally, I have no reason to doubt water could travel here from distant cooler places without dissociating or being destoy. Thus, I failed to be amazed by this point. I assume this is leading up to a space ship.

Now he's talking about the low level object (satellite) that appears to be going 900,000 by his estimates. I'm still on that part but it's fishy. It's time for some sleep now, though.

---

TEAM
LL

Nice work, Sleestak.

I agree with you about the trajectory change as being a possible camera move. The problem I see in it is that because of the angle change of the object and the stability of the surrounding objects, (Earth and the stars.), it really didn't matter that the caera was moving seemingly on a flat, left to right angle. There are several that I noticed through out the first half that could have been explained by other explanations. Many remained as UFO's in my mind. I love the long pauses between transmissions by NASA as they tried to figure out what to say about their filming targets while the entire atmosphere seems to be teaming with activity. I love the explainations he received about the tether objects. Brought back memories of swamp gas excuses. I sometimes wonder if space exploration should be moved into the private sector. Either ay we lose I suppose.

I'd love to hear your thoughts on the remainder of the program. I'm still watching it myself and should finish part 2 in about a half hour. Thank God it's Friday.

:)

I'm really beginning to doubt SETI's ability to find a meaningful signal searching in it's current RF range. Love to hear your thoughts on the visibility of these objects in the higher RF ranges, yet not on IR, and about the theory the good doctor presents about E=hf regarding the propulsion of the tether objects and higher than speed of light travel/black holes being perceived as, well, black holes.

Good night, Sir.

---

"Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind." - Dr. Seuss