Slashdot Mirror
Distant Planet Imaging Project Gets More Funding
It doesn't come easy writes "NASA's Institute for Advanced Concepts has chosen a proposal by the University of Colorado (UC) at Boulder to image distant planets around other stars for a second round of funding. Known as the New Worlds Observer, the UC project is for an orbiting, soccer-field sized "starshade" shaped like a daisy that would funnel light from distant planets between its petals to a second spacecraft trailing 50,000 miles behind. If the concept proves feasible, it could 'identify planetary features like oceans, continents, polar caps and cloud banks, and even detect biomarkers like methane, water, oxygen and ozone [...]'"
...we can see them building the invasion fleet in time.
Genius is one percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration, which is why engineers sometimes smell really bad.
But did they really have to shape it like a giant flower?
...I can see my house from here! ;-)
libertarianswag.com
University of Colorado goes by CU.
But cool project. It would be interesting to see what other worlds look like, not just know that they are there.
How will the religious establishment react to such discoveries? Suppose a distant planet with many of the features of earth (oceans, deserts, mountains, etc.) is found. But let's not go so far as to say that plant life (or something like it) is found.
How would the religious establishment react? Such discoveries would, in effect, refute many of the religious claims.
We have already seen pseudo Christians going to extreme lengths to ban the teaching of evolution in places like Kansas and Tennessee. Would they take a similar route were discoveries that didn't mesh to well with their teachings to be found?
Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
NWO? Really?
Zoom Player Lead Dev.
Clearly we are unable to function without Their Googly Appendages, so I don't know how NASA is going to pull this off. Although a soccer-field-sized Space Daisy observatory does sound like something eBay would acquire, and that might get Google interested in a competing Cricket-Pitch Space Tulip.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
Google plans to unveil their new software aptly named 'Google Solar System', which sews the surface maps of the planets together for an interactive flythrough.
Colonel Cranium this is Rectal Reconnaissance, we are on a collision course sir, Abort Abort!
> it could 'identify planetary features like oceans,
> continents, polar caps and cloud banks, and even
> detect biomarkers like methane
The bad part will come with version 3.0, launched in the later part of this century, when we zoom on on their alien babes on beaches, and see if they have silly laws regulating nudity, too. Or churches.
Quite frankly, I'd be way more scared if they had churches than if they did not.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Having recently watched Independence Day, I can say that I'm relieved that NASA is finally getting around to that RFDEW (Really F#*king Distant Early Warnings) system I've been proposing for years.
Paul Grosfield - the quicker picker upper.
Very cool. However, there's one little problem --- how the hell do you turn it? If the sensor's got to be 50'000km away from the lens, then to turn it 90 degrees (why does Slashdot block Unicode?) you're going to have to move the sensor some 70'000km, which means a lot of hydrazine.
Or do they have something more cunning up their sleeves?
and even detect biomarkers like methane, water, oxygen and ozone
I hope I live to see the day when this thing detects a faint glow on the planet's continents that are facing away from the planet's sun at that moment. *shudder*
Technoli
*
_
During the recent comet impactor mission, the accuracy needed to strike the probe onto the comet seemed to be at the limit of our abilities.
Can we really move a pinhole shaped opening directly in front of the target at 50,000km?
Google "Not" Earth then.... Or maybe GoogleGalaxy.
"The first thing to do when you find yourself in a hole is stop digging."
Seriously, why did you even bother typing?
Heh kind of reminds me of the book titled "Blind Lake" (sorry can't remember the author) Basically they had a super telescope getting more and more detail, hooking it up super computers for further analysis of the data, and more and more data starts pouring in from the computers in greater and greater detail...even after the original telescopes stop working!
The NAIC website has a smidgen more info on it -- namely that there were four other research projects funded as well.
There's a PDF on this project that may contain more info, but my copy of Acrobat (6.0) declines to render the entire thing (or the PDF is junk, dunno which).
There's also an article on Astrobio.net that gives little more detail than the CU link... but it does have links to other sources that may be informative. Really though, this concept seems to be in such an infancy stage that "simple" questions like "so how do you turn it?" haven't been answered yet (in fact, in this NASA link how to keep the two craft in alignment is listed as a "main technological hurdle").
With technology like this, we could even determine if the inhabitants of distant planets are so mindbogglingly primitive that they're still driving SUVs!
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
... an orbiting, soccer-field sized "starshade" shaped like a daisy ...
Let's just clue the entire galaxy in to the fact that so many hippies live here.
Is your terror cell living in terror? Is your safe-house not so safe? If so, read the New York Times, the jihad journal.
Not the best picture but you get the idea... http://www.physorg.com/news7177.html
It's probably shaped that way because to get it into space you have to fold it up into a shape that will fit into a launch vehicle fairing. A BIG fairing only gives you about a 5 meter diameter, so a lot of folding is required. Some kind of unfolding truss would make sense to me.
"The impossible often has a certain integrity that the merely improbable lacks" - Dirk Gently
What they don't tell you is that it can focus sunlight into a tiny dot. Ah, the smell of burning aliens!
Don't get me wrong. I am a big fan of NASA. Some of my code controls the MGS camera (at least it did).
.5 trillion before GWB is out of office. Likewise, we still have not captured OBL or even slowed down Al Qaida. In fact, Iraq has made it much easier for them (simply read the parts of the letter that GWB was willing to share). So all in all, we can not cut the military.
The problem is that we are going to have to make budgetary choices again. Poppa Bush and Clinton did that to balance the budget that Reagan ran up. Now, GWB has made Reagan look positively responsible. No doubt that the next admin will have to raise taxes, but they will also have to cut spending. And since we have only made ourselves more dependent on Middle east oil and Chinese products, we will have to cut huge. problem is, where?
The Iraqi Invasion has meant that the Army is unable to recruit. We will have to offer larger and larger incentives to get good recruits (ppl do not like being cannon fodder). This invasion will costs more than
Shortly after GWB is gone, his senior drug plan really kicks in. It is one of the worst plans going and yet, I doubt that the dems will have the spine to stop it.
Currently, we have NOLA issues which is going to cost 10's of billions.
The highway bill that was passed will almost certainly have to be recended and the next admin will almost certainly try to roll back much of the energy bill that GWB has passed.
Finally, we will have no choice, but to undertake a crash program in moving to Nukes. Big mistake, though. Something like that, is better being done slowly. This should be done, but it should be done at a measured pace. The problem is that we have expensive labor. Therefor, we require energy to automate the manufacturing. In addition, since we have one of the lowest population densities, we require more energy just to get around. Finally, we will need to clean up our act. We can not remain the number one polluters and not suffer from it. All of this means that we MUST get off oil. And GWB is trying hard to keep us on it.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Detection biomarkers like methane is pretty easy if you can isolate the light from the planet and can get a decent number of photons. (Either through a large collection area or long integrations.) You just look for the distinctive spectral bands for the molecules like methane or ozone. (Oxygen, alas, leaves little mark in the spectrum since it's a homonuclear diatomic molecule and light tends to ignore it.)
Imaging the surfaces will be tougher. You'll need a damn wide apeture (long integration don't help and the resolving power goes linearly with apeture). Remember, we've only imaged a few stars so far, and most of those are larger (in angular size) than these planets. Crud, look at Cassini: we're only getting good images of moons in our own solar system now because we have a spacecraft flying close to them.