ASTRONOMER: We Think We're Close To Finding Life On Another Planet

Steve Williams

Site Founder, Site Owner, Administrator
I thought the last paragraph to be enlightening ;)

TANYA LEWIS, LIVESCIENCE

WASHINGTON — For the first time in history, humanity is within reach of finding Earth-like planets where life exists, but these extraterrestrials may not take the form of intelligent beings, experts say.
NASA's next-generation James Webb Space Telescope — set to launch in 2018 — and its larger successors will give scientists the opportunity to look for signatures of life in the atmospheres of planets outside the solar system, known as exoplanets. But these telescopes won't be capable of detecting whether the life forms are brainy beings or single-celled microbes.

"We believe we're very close to finding life on another planet," Sara Seager, an astronomer at MIT in Cambridge, Massachusetts, told a packed audience Monday (July 14) here at NASA Headquarters in Washington, D.C. Seager, who has been at the forefront of the search for a so-called "Earth 2.0," was part of a panel discussion about finding extraterrestrial life. [7 Huge Misconceptions About Aliens]

"I think everyone wants to see intelligent life — it's sort of part of our culture," Seager told Live Science. "But we're really just going to be happy to see anything at all."

However, even if humanity's first contact with alien life turns out to be single-celled organisms, that would still be "phenomenal," Seager said, because it would suggest life may be common beyond Earth. If living microbes exist elsewhere in the galaxy, it raises the chances that other intelligent life could have formed, she added.

NASA's Kepler Space Telescope, which launched in 2009, has helped scientists discover thousands of exoplanets. Astronomers now know that basically every star in the Milky Way galaxy has at least one planet orbiting it, Seager said. And as many as one in five planets around sun-like stars may possess an Earth-like planet in the so-called habitable zone, orbiting just at the right distance from its parent star where liquid water — and therefore life — might exist.

"We now know we live in a galaxy filled with planets," said John Grunsfeld, a former NASA astronaut and associate administrator of the agency's Science Mission Directorate in Washington, D.C.

John Mather, a Nobel laureate and astrophysicist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, is also excited about the possibility of finding inhabited alien worlds. Mather is the project scientist for the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), the $8.8 billion successor to the iconic Hubble Space Telescope.

Among other things, JWST will look for signs of life, or biosignatures — such as oxygen, carbon dioxide or water — in the atmospheres of exoplanets. The telescope will search for these biosignatures by analyzing the light that passes through the atmospheres of the planets as they orbit in front of their host stars.

But even with JWST, scientists would have to be "really lucky" to identify inhabited planets, because the light given off by these worlds is very faint, and the spacecraft can't collect enough light to see most of them, the panelists said. To really kick-start the search, NASA will need bigger telescopes, with mirrors that measure about 30 to 60 feet (10 to 20 meters) across — much larger than JWST's 21-foot (6.5 m) mirror, they said.

Still, if scientists find biosignatures in the atmosphere of an exoplanet, these clues will only tell them that some kind of life exists on the alien world — it won't tell them what form it takes, Seager said. For example, the extraterrestrial life could consist of simple bacteria or amoebas, instead of complex, multicellular beings.

JWST and its immediate successors won't be able to look for signals sent by intelligent life either, but if they find planets with any signs of life, other telescopes engaged in the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI) could focus on those planets and listen for radio waves or other signals that could point to a technologically advanced alien civilization. In fact, astronomers at the SETI Institute in Mountain View, California, are already making follow-up observations of exoplanets found by the Kepler spacecraft, Seager said.

Ultimately, humans may want to send probes or even manned spacecraft to planets that show signs of life — but with the limitations of current rocket technology, getting there would take much longer than a human lifetime.
 

andromedaaudio

VIP/Donor
Jan 23, 2011
8,356
2,731
1,400
Amsterdam holland
James webb has arrived in french guyana
Planned launch december this year on Ariane 5 rocket.
Live on other planets could be detected as soon as 2022


Webb_arrives_at_Pariacabo_harbour_pillars.jpg
 

thomask

Well-Known Member
Dec 9, 2018
1,604
1,508
275
64
Washington State, US
I thought the last paragraph to be enlightening ;)

TANYA LEWIS, LIVESCIENCE

WASHINGTON — For the first time in history, humanity is within reach of finding Earth-like planets where life exists, but these extraterrestrials may not take the form of intelligent beings, experts say.
NASA's next-generation James Webb Space Telescope — set to launch in 2018 — and its larger successors will give scientists the opportunity to look for signatures of life in the atmospheres of planets outside the solar system, known as exoplanets. But these telescopes won't be capable of detecting whether the life forms are brainy beings or single-celled microbes.

"We believe we're very close to finding life on another planet," Sara Seager, an astronomer at MIT in Cambridge, Massachusetts, told a packed audience Monday (July 14) here at NASA Headquarters in Washington, D.C. Seager, who has been at the forefront of the search for a so-called "Earth 2.0," was part of a panel discussion about finding extraterrestrial life. [7 Huge Misconceptions About Aliens]

"I think everyone wants to see intelligent life — it's sort of part of our culture," Seager told Live Science. "But we're really just going to be happy to see anything at all."

However, even if humanity's first contact with alien life turns out to be single-celled organisms, that would still be "phenomenal," Seager said, because it would suggest life may be common beyond Earth. If living microbes exist elsewhere in the galaxy, it raises the chances that other intelligent life could have formed, she added.

NASA's Kepler Space Telescope, which launched in 2009, has helped scientists discover thousands of exoplanets. Astronomers now know that basically every star in the Milky Way galaxy has at least one planet orbiting it, Seager said. And as many as one in five planets around sun-like stars may possess an Earth-like planet in the so-called habitable zone, orbiting just at the right distance from its parent star where liquid water — and therefore life — might exist.

"We now know we live in a galaxy filled with planets," said John Grunsfeld, a former NASA astronaut and associate administrator of the agency's Science Mission Directorate in Washington, D.C.

John Mather, a Nobel laureate and astrophysicist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, is also excited about the possibility of finding inhabited alien worlds. Mather is the project scientist for the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), the $8.8 billion successor to the iconic Hubble Space Telescope.

Among other things, JWST will look for signs of life, or biosignatures — such as oxygen, carbon dioxide or water — in the atmospheres of exoplanets. The telescope will search for these biosignatures by analyzing the light that passes through the atmospheres of the planets as they orbit in front of their host stars.

But even with JWST, scientists would have to be "really lucky" to identify inhabited planets, because the light given off by these worlds is very faint, and the spacecraft can't collect enough light to see most of them, the panelists said. To really kick-start the search, NASA will need bigger telescopes, with mirrors that measure about 30 to 60 feet (10 to 20 meters) across — much larger than JWST's 21-foot (6.5 m) mirror, they said.

Still, if scientists find biosignatures in the atmosphere of an exoplanet, these clues will only tell them that some kind of life exists on the alien world — it won't tell them what form it takes, Seager said. For example, the extraterrestrial life could consist of simple bacteria or amoebas, instead of complex, multicellular beings.

JWST and its immediate successors won't be able to look for signals sent by intelligent life either, but if they find planets with any signs of life, other telescopes engaged in the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI) could focus on those planets and listen for radio waves or other signals that could point to a technologically advanced alien civilization. In fact, astronomers at the SETI Institute in Mountain View, California, are already making follow-up observations of exoplanets found by the Kepler spacecraft, Seager said.

Ultimately, humans may want to send probes or even manned spacecraft to planets that show signs of life — but with the limitations of current rocket technology, getting there would take much longer than a human lifetime.
I think that Alien had been in Earth and maybe still around.

Man in Black could be documentary film ;)
 

andromedaaudio

VIP/Donor
Jan 23, 2011
8,356
2,731
1,400
Amsterdam holland
I certainly believe Aliens ? / Ufos / space visits are real , hence the latest Pentagon releases and they hide a lot more info .
But their technology is so far ahead that we cant detect it with our usual material / radar etc .
They choose to be seen once in a while( radar / visual ) , but then simply disappear

The James webb can detect organic live via the atmosphere , quit exiting
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: MRJAZZ

spiritofmusic

Well-Known Member
Jun 13, 2013
14,608
5,415
1,278
E. England
Please PLEASE let them not find...tube rolling, footers, stylii profiles, cables, fuses, vintage gear, hot stampers, problems w acoustics, ditto w power.
 
  • Haha
Reactions: andromedaaudio

K3RMIT

Well-Known Member
Sep 4, 2020
390
139
113
My one and only compound question is what is life and how did life start ? until this is answered I don’t see why looking for life is possible.
 

LenWhite

Well-Known Member
Feb 11, 2011
424
72
375
Florida
systems.audiogon.com
Fascinating story. I watched the CBS 60 Minutes episode on it last Sunday. A lot of things need to go right for this to be successful, but the scientists said they've looked at every possibility. If they do find aliens I certainly hope they don't consider humans a threat:D

Looking back in time with the James Webb Space Telescope
Scott Pelley reports on the James Webb Space Telescope, due to launch December 22. Scientists hope it will be able to see the universe's first stars and galaxies.
https://www.cbsnews.com/video/james-webb-space-telescope-60-minutes-video-2021-12-12/
 
  • Like
Reactions: andromedaaudio

Gregadd

WBF Founding Member
Apr 20, 2010
10,517
1,774
1,850
Metro DC
Just in time
We have some billionaires looking to relocate
 

andromedaaudio

VIP/Donor
Jan 23, 2011
8,356
2,731
1,400
Amsterdam holland
Mirrors have been aligned , resolution is apparently even better then expected .
Only instrument commissioning remains , 2 months max .
Its gonna be awesome what they will discover

 

andromedaaudio

VIP/Donor
Jan 23, 2011
8,356
2,731
1,400
Amsterdam holland
They re searching for a hornfree planet with the JWST to establish a longterm peacefull society
 
Last edited:

andromedaaudio

VIP/Donor
Jan 23, 2011
8,356
2,731
1,400
Amsterdam holland
JULY 12 first pics.
I personally think they will have proof of other extraterrestial life existing elsewhere based on planet atmosphere analysis by the end of 22 .
 

astrotoy

VIP/Donor
May 24, 2010
1,547
1,017
1,715
SF Bay Area
Glad you aren't getting your equipment from the Andromeda Galaxy. Even at the speed of light, delivery would take 2 million years. Larry
 

andromedaaudio

VIP/Donor
Jan 23, 2011
8,356
2,731
1,400
Amsterdam holland
Travelling to is indeed another story

But with the resolution of the James Webb they will be able to analyze the atmosphere of planets many light years away .
Life / Agriculture results in a certain gas mixture which they will be able to detect , quit exciting afaik

 

astrotoy

VIP/Donor
May 24, 2010
1,547
1,017
1,715
SF Bay Area
Travelling to is indeed another story

But with the resolution of the James Webb they will be able to analyze the atmosphere of planets many light years away .
Life / Agriculture results in a certain gas mixture which they will be able to detect , quit exciting afaik

Yes, the spatial resolution of the James Webb should be able to detect the spectral signatures of various organic molecules in planet atmospheres. Way back in the mid 20th century, Nobel prize winner Harold Urey and his then student Stanley Miller developed an experiment that synthesized amino acids from the simple gases and water found in the early earth and many planets with energy from lightning. More recent experiments with different variations of simple gases and other forms of energy (like cosmic rays and even ocean waves) have confirmed their findings. Once you get to amino acids, then you can get to various structures that are very DNA like in the laboratory (Arthur Kornberg won the Nobel Prize in 1959 for this work). So given hundreds of millions of years or longer, it is not a big stretch to see how DNA or similar self replicating molecules could form from random combinations of these building blocks. (Interestingly, I lived across the hall from Kornberg's oldest son, Roger, in college. Roger went on to win the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2007 for discovering how DNA creates messenger RNA. Kornberg's middle son Tom was a professor at the University of California San Francisco and a colleague of my wife - they played chamber music together - Tom, the cello, and my wife, the piano.)
 

jandl100

Well-Known Member
Mar 6, 2018
23
18
85
Forest of Dean, UK
JULY 12 first pics.
I personally think they will have proof of other extraterrestial life existing elsewhere based on planet atmosphere analysis by the end of 22 .
Proof?
I think that is incredibly unlikely.
The problem with this is that it is really hard to categorically rule out alternative explanations, even if we haven't come up with any yet.

If credible observations are made of possible life or techno signatures, the next 10 or 20 years will probably be spent investigating possible alternative explanations.

... I'd like to be proved wrong, though!
 

Klonk

Well-Known Member
Mar 4, 2012
120
72
933
I hope, if aliens are found, they won't turnout to be like the ones in "Mars Attacks". by Tim Burton. Great movie though, if you like a laugh.
 

About us

  • What’s Best Forum is THE forum for high end audio, product reviews, advice and sharing experiences on the best of everything else. This is THE place where audiophiles and audio companies discuss vintage, contemporary and new audio products, music servers, music streamers, computer audio, digital-to-analog converters, turntables, phono stages, cartridges, reel-to-reel tape machines, speakers, headphones and tube and solid-state amplification. Founded in 2010 What’s Best Forum invites intelligent and courteous people of all interests and backgrounds to describe and discuss the best of everything. From beginners to life-long hobbyists to industry professionals, we enjoy learning about new things and meeting new people, and participating in spirited debates.

Quick Navigation

User Menu

Steve Williams
Site Founder | Site Owner | Administrator
Ron Resnick
Site Co-Owner | Administrator
Julian (The Fixer)
Website Build | Marketing Managersing