Search for alien life about to step up a gear

[Audio]

(Reuters) - It remains in the realm of science fiction for now but the discovery of a new planet just four light years away will reignite a race to find a twin of planet Earth that may host extraterrestrial life.

The step change comes as the most powerful telescopes ever built are about to enter into service and as ideas about where life could exist are being turned on their head. At the same time, scientific discussion about the possible existence of alien life is becoming more mainstream.

When completed in 2024, the SKA radio scope will comprise 3,000 dishes, each 15 meters (50 feet) wide, together with many more antennae that together will be able to see 10 times further into the universe and detect signals that are 10 times older.

Among those signals could be radiation given off by military radar from the nearest million or so stars. "So," said Nichol, "if there are advanced civilizations on planets around those stars, we could see them".

"The ELT should also allow us to study the atmospheres of extra-solar planets and look for ‘bio-markers' such as water, carbon dioxide and oxygen molecules in their spectra," she said.

With the right equipment, Hook said the ELT may be able to use spectroscopy, the study of the particular wavelengths of light reflected by an object, to detect signs of vegetation on distant planets.

Search for alien life about to step up a gear | Reuters

Such an exciting time we live in.

 

[veekysingh]

yes. 21st century is gonna be full of wonders.

 

[Abingdonboy]

I have no problem in looking out there but we must refrain from attempting to communicate with them otherwise we as a planet could be in for some dark days. It would be like Columbus and the Indians or the Whites and the Aborigines or any example of an external group with superior technology moving into a land inhabited by relatively primal people. I am not alone in this though many scientists and astronomers agree (even Stephan Hawking). The chances of a Omnibenevolence alien race finding us or us finding them is remote, we only have to look in our own past to see how a species acts when exploring and colinising.

 

[Audio]

I have no problem in looking out there but we must refrain from attempting to communicate with them otherwise we as a planet could be in for some dark days. It would be like Columbus and the Indians or the Whites and the Aborigines or any example of an external group with superior technology moving into a land inhabited by relatively primal people. I am not alone in this though many scientists and astronomers agree (even Stephan Hawking). The chances of a Omnibenevolence alien race finding us or us finding them is remote, we only have to look in our own past to see how a species acts when exploring and colinising.

Yeah, i dont believe in the theory of "if they have faster then light travel they are peaceful, if not they would destroy each other long before".
It's total BS lol, they could have just enough self-restraint between themselves and go ape shit on anyone else.

http://news.discovery.com/space/infographic-alpha-centauri-earth-sized-exoplanet-121017.html

 

[JonAsad]

Rover eyes ‘man-made’ objects in Martian dirt

LOS ANGELES: NASA’s Mars rover has swallowed its first scoopful of dirt from the Red Planet’s surface — and found some bright-colored objects that experts briefly thought might be man-made, the US space agency said Thursday.
In an update on Curiosity’s two-and-a-half month old mission, NASA said its Chemistry and Mineralogy (CheMin) instrument, deep in the car-sized rover’s belly, will analyze the soil to learn more about its make-up. Some experts wondered if one of the bright-colored objects — seen on a photo of a scoop hole in the Martian soil — could be man-made, like an object seen earlier this month thought to be plastic from the rover itself.
“We began to see some bright flecks in the scoop areas,” Curiosity’s project scientist told reporters in Pasadena, California, adding: “The science team started calling them schmutz.” Some suggested they could be man-made, but following discussions between scientists and engineers, there was a “strong consensus” that they were indigenous to Mars.
This conclusion was backed by the fact that the objects were left visible at the bottom of holes left by the rover’s scoop, meaning they were normally underneath the planet’s surface. “We can’t rule out that they’re something man-made but we don’t think that they are,” he said.
Last week, NASA determined that a bright object observed on the ground near the robot several days previously was a bit of plastic that may have dropped from the rover itself, and did not jeopardize the rover’s operations. “The rover team’s assessment is that the bright object is something from the rover, not Martian material,” the mission said at the time. “It appears to be a shred of plastic material, likely benign.”
But for the scientists, the first use of the CheMin device, to analyze the mineral make-up of the Red Planet’s soil — is a major milestone.
“We are crossing a significant threshold for this mission by using CheMin on its first sample,” said Curiosity’s project scientist, John Grotzinger of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.
“This instrument gives us a more definitive mineral-identifying method than ever before used on Mars: X-ray diffraction. Confidently identifying minerals is important because minerals record the environmental conditions under which they form.”
Curiosity is on a two-year, $2.5 billion mission to investigate whether it is possible to live on Mars and to learn whether conditions there might have been able to support life in the past.