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NASA TESS Observatory Will Hunt For Alien Life On "Super-Earth" Exoplanets
An anonymous reader writes "Kepler may be down, but now NASA has another planet-hunting tool in mind. The space agency is preparing the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) observatory in order to follow in Kepler's footsteps. NASA has been searching for alien planets for several years now. Learning about strange exoplanets such as enormous, hot 'Jupiters' and 'rogue planets' that actually cruise through space without a parent star certainly adds to the body of research concerning our universe. Yet what scientists are really interested in are the Earth-like planets that may hold the potential for life."
As a regular reader I ask you kindly, please do something about the vulgar AC that first post trolls this site. If you can't IP ban the troll then at least delete their posts. This is not reddit, please disrespect the "free speech" of vulgar trolls that add nothing to the conversation.
Extra-terrestrial life has been visiting the earth for 10's if not 100's of thousands of years. What do you think the ancient Hindu scrolls talk about?
In the fifties, there were thousands of reliable documented UFO sightings covered up by the US government with such ridiculous explanations as 'moonlight reflecting off of swamp gas'. Google up project blue book. We all know about the Roswell stories and there and hundreds of similar reliable situations throughout the last 50 years. Given that we know that extra-terrestrial life is and has been visiting the earth, what is with NASA still launching vessels into orbit to 'search' for extra-terrestrial beings?
It's a thinly veiled ruse to fool an unsuspecting public into believing that the US government's mis-information campaign is the truth.
Let's turn the tide and start a terrible wave of truth here. I've seen extra-terrestrial craft in the skies, how about you?
Take the red pill.
Every time Slashdot posts a story about the search for extraterrestrial life, at least a half-dozen scientifically illiterate people complain (often quite stridently) that NASA (or whoever) is too narrow-minded because they're only looking at signs of terrestrial-like (carbon-based, oxygen-metabolizing) life. And every comment of this sort gets at least another half-dozen replies, from people who actually know at least a little bit of science, explaining, very patiently, that we have no idea what other forms of life might look like, chemically speaking, no way of knowing if such life forms exist, and thus no way of detecting their presence. It's so predictable, and so inane. This is one of the most fascinating open questions in modern science, but these threads simply get clogged up by idiots upset that NASA hasn't considered their ill-informed speculation.
Are they're looking for life on planets not warmed by a star? Or just hoping to find an alien Moonbase Alpha?
From what I understand, the geothermal core is essential for our survival; without it, the heat derived from the Sun isn't capable of being able to appropriately compensate in recreating the conditions for our type of life forms. However, there is speculation those conditions may work for the reverse. (Otoh, an alien Moonbase or Death Star would be an interesting bonus.)
Yesterday's Weirdness is Tomorrow's Reason Why
Are they're looking for life on planets not warmed by a star?
Or just hoping to find an alien Moonbase Alpha?
They just mentioned those no star planets as an example of how cool it is out in space, but they will be looking for earth like planets in the habitable zone, which means a planet that orbits a star/sun.
Be seeing you...
What if we find a planet that is just like Earth; and has a thriving ecosystem; but has much more gravity than Earth? We would need exoskeleton suits to walk around until we got used to it. But I guess we will find Earth 2.0 eventually that is just right. But even a planet like Venus could have life in the upper atmosphere. And there are theories that even Neutron stars harbour life under the surface. Life will always find a way. Not all aliens are humanoid with funny things on their foreheads.
If we find a planet with life on it (ie. is habitable), our chances of getting there is slim to none. We don't need to worry about exoskeletons or genetic upgrades because we do NOT have the tech, not even close, to be able to travel to another solar system.
Be seeing you...
I'm wondering if a planet like Earth would be capable of developing and sustaining life without a sun, let's say 200 meters or so below the surface.
There is actually a huge amount of biomass beneath the seabed - all anaerobic prokaryotic microbes, as far I know. Deep sea volcanic vents are another major ecosystem. So it may be theoretically possible to develop terrestrial life without a sun (and certainly possible without direct light), but liquid water is still an absolute requirement, and geothermal heating is probably very important too.
TESS is a cheap substitute was what is really needed. Its not the real deal, earth like planet finder that is needed. It only looks at the same stars for 3 months. Which means it will only find "habitable zone" planets that orbit their stars 3 times in that 3 month period. i.e.. only red dwarf stars. The planets it finds will be tidally locked and subject to million of years of star flares (red dwarfs are typically flare stars). What we need is Nasa's dropped Terrestrial planet finder.
From what I understand, the geothermal core is essential for our survival; without it, the heat derived from the Sun isn't capable of being able to appropriately compensate in recreating the conditions for our type of life forms.
Perhaps on THIS planet the core's heat is necessary, but that certainly wouldn't hold for a planet somewhat closer to the sun.
There must be some proximity where the star's warmth is just goldilocks right.
There are far too many hard and fast rules for habitability imposed by people who do nothing but speculate, with very little imagination.
We need a moon,
We need a magnetic field.
We need a molten core.
The list goes on.
Look, its no surprise that earth is the perfect planet for humans, but that doesn't mean everything else has to be
exactly the same. We don't all live on the African savanna, even though Groog probably insisted to Ooook that
people could never live anywhere but within sight of one specific banyan tree.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
The interior of the Earth would still be warm without the sun. I'd guess a couple of miles down on average, closer where there is volcanic activity including warm spots at the bottom of the ocean where geothermal energy is escaping from the interior. Those hot spots are likely to move around so probably not much of an ecosystem would be present as life would have a hard time moving from oasis to oasis.
Life would be pretty simple and whether life could spontaneously form under those conditions is pretty questionable but if the Earth had its orbit perturbed enough by say a passing star to head into outer space there'd be life for quite a few billion years until the core cooled down. At that life would likely survive longer then if the Earth remains where it is as the Sun is heating up and in a billion or so years the oceans will boil, perhaps creating Venusian conditions which would make it very hard for life to continue.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
"And yet, across the gulf of space, minds immeasurably superior to ours regarded this super-earth with envious eyes; and slowly, and surely, they drew their plans against us."