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NASA's Kepler Telescope Launched Successfully
Iddo Genuth writes "At precisely 10:49 p.m. EST, NASA's 'Kepler' telescope was successfully kicked off into space, embarking on a mission that the agency says 'may fundamentally change humanity's view of itself.' The telescope will search the nearby region of our galaxy for the first time looking for Earth-size planets, which orbit stars at distances where temperatures permit liquid water to endure on their surface — a region often referred to as the 'habitable' zone."
...but it's generating it's own power and is communicating. From http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2009/mar/HQ_09-052_Kepler_launches.html
I've always wanted to travel to other worlds.
It's an appealing thought. But is also works in reverse.
Do we really want the other worlds' explorers coming here? Let's see what we humans have done to new lands: genocide, penal colony, battleground, food resource, or tourist trap. I vote we use Kepler to watch out for the scumballs, so we can prepare to zap them before they arrive.
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
Another way to look at this is:
When in human history has encountering a more advanced civilisation ever been good for a less advanced civilisation?
Check out my sci-fi book "Lacuna" at http://goo.gl/MVxX8
Nasa needs to get the facts:
You take the good, you take the bad,
you crash billions of dollars of equipment into the ocean,
The Facts of Life, the Facts of Life.
There's a time you got to go and show
You're growin' now you know about
The Facts of Life, the Facts of Life.
When the world never seems
to be livin up to your dreams
And suddenly you're finding out
the Facts of Life are all about you, you.
It takes a lot to get 'em right
When you're learning the Facts of Life. (learning the Facts of Life)
Learning the Facts of Life (learning the Facts of Life)
Learning the Facts of Life.
Ahh, I never get sick of that old Alan Thicke jingle.
Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!
It's a mixed metaphor. Don't throw the blender out with the bathwater.
If it really is near-light-speed, then to the traveler, only a small amount of time has passed:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_dilation#Time_dilation_and_space_flight
I know this is obvious to most people but the "habitable zone" is awfully generous. It's hard to gauge the exact amount of heat given off by a star from as far away as we are. Plus, the atmosphere content is extremely important. Our moon is basically the same distance away from the sun as us and with no atmosphere it goes from like -180 to +200 F or something like that. So yeah, it kinda needs to have an exact amount of certain gases to keep water from boiling and freezing repeatedly, which would probably kill everything organic in it. And how are be supposed to tell if it's 40% as opposed to 50% CO2 in the atmosphere from all the way out here? It's impossible and that could mean a huuuuge temperature difference. So even if they find one that's supposedly perfect from what we can detect, it's still extremely likely that it's not.
Google's Super Secret Search Algorithm: SELECT @search_results FROM internet WHERE @search_results = 'good'
Instead of a low Earth orbit like Hubble, Kepler is going to use an "Earth-trailing heliocentric orbit with a period of 372.5 days.": http://kepler.nasa.gov/sci/design/orbit.html
If you RTFA you'll see they are after statistics, not detailed data. They want to estimate the number of planets that have approximately the same characteristics as Earth.
The Kepler will keep monitoring the same 100000 stars during five years. The number of planets detected around those stars will give a rough idea on how likely it is to find earth-like planets.