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'Giant leap in search for alien life . . .'
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Dr. C.E.T.I. Send message Joined: 29 Feb 00 Posts: 16019 Credit: 794,685 RAC: 0 |
> would like to hear some Dialogue in the Cafe regarding this - 'Giant leap in search for alien life . . .' Friday, February 23, 2007 © PAUL SUTHERLAND 2007 Skymania.com more . . . © PAUL SUTHERLAND 2007 Skymania.com Copyright 2007 USA TODAY |
Darth Dogbytes™ Send message Joined: 30 Jul 03 Posts: 7512 Credit: 2,021,148 RAC: 0 |
Chairman Mao said the same thing once...the jury's still out on this one. Account frozen... |
John Clark Send message Joined: 29 Sep 99 Posts: 16515 Credit: 4,418,829 RAC: 0 |
If the telescope sensitivity is sufficient, and the number of atmospheric gasses wide enough. Then a technological and industrialised culture can be identified by the pollution, and how this is made up. It's good to be back amongst friends and colleagues |
GalaxyIce Send message Joined: 13 May 06 Posts: 8927 Credit: 1,361,057 RAC: 0 |
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Michael Roberts Send message Joined: 20 Aug 99 Posts: 2588 Credit: 791,775 RAC: 0 |
The big giveaway on the Earth is 20% oxygen - far, far away from static equilibrium or an currently-plausible inanimate planetological process. It will be interesting to see how fast they can extend the measurements to smaller, cooler planets. The further from their stars the planets orbit, the smaller the chances of finding transits, which this method relies on. Even with the current rather close-orbiting planets, there are only 14 out of 200 transits. The answer is partly to have an automated search of many stars for planetary transits - step up please the Corot mission which should discover, in addition to a large number of giants (hot Jupiters), a few tens of rocky planets (exoEarths). |
mikey Send message Joined: 17 Dec 99 Posts: 4215 Credit: 3,474,603 RAC: 0 |
The big giveaway on the Earth is 20% oxygen - far, far away from static equilibrium or an currently-plausible inanimate planetological process. Doesn't this also indicate though that the planet may be too cool to support life as we know it? I mean a really huge sun could support warmer planets further out, but those closer in would be too Mercury like. Aren't we basically looking for 3 to 5 or maybe 6 planets out for Earth like planets? |
Michael Roberts Send message Joined: 20 Aug 99 Posts: 2588 Credit: 791,775 RAC: 0 |
The big giveaway on the Earth is 20% oxygen - far, far away from static equilibrium or an currently-plausible inanimate planetological process. We won't really know what to expect until we find it. I don't think anyone had predicted the possibility of any of the planets we have found so far in advance. The techniques need to be refined for 'our' sort of planet, for reasons including those you mention. Exoclimatology is also advancing, with strong indications that there may be stable water-friendly climates in unexpected places. We would also not find other exotic environments such as Europa might offer by this technique, but it is a tremendous step forward. There is no way of predicting an alien ecology in any sort of detail, but at least some are likely to be generally carbon-oxygen-nitrogen-hydrogen based, because (a) we know that works quite well and (b) all those atoms are relatively common. |
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