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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."
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'
Put yourself in their shoes for a moment. You're testing supersonic spy planes in an era where our largest adversary had successfully stolen nuclear weapons research from us, and you're trying to stop the local yokels from asking too many questions about the unimaginably fast, jet-black craft that keep whooshing overhead. What do you tell them that will shut them up, without saying "we're testing top-secret spy planes that will overfly the Soviet Union"?
If extraterrestrials really did visit Earth as often (and for as long) as you claim, btw, there would be actual hard evidence. There is none. The simplest explanation is that a) people freak out when confronted with rapid technological change, and b) the human brain is a superb pattern-finding machine - so good that it often finds patterns where none exist. And if we're going to treat ancient Hindu scrolls as reliable documentary evidence, why not just take the Book of Genesis at face value too, and have the government stop funding evolution research? (Or medical research, for that matter - clearly divine intervention can cure disease more effectively than modern medicine.)