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NASA Teams Scientific Experts To Find Life On Exoplanets
coondoggie writes: As the amount of newly discovered planets and systems outside our solar system grows, NASA is assembling a virtual team of scientific experts to search for signs of life. The program, Nexus for Exoplanet System Science (NExSS) will cull the collective expertise from each of NASA's science communities, including earth scientists, planetary scientists, heliophysicists, and astrophysicists. They'll work with key universities to better analyze all manner of exoplanets, as well as how the planet stars and neighbor planets interact to support life.
I remember a LONG time ago, before we'd found any exoplanets and largely it was a theoretical exercise.
Gravitational lensing was theoretical, finding a black hole hadn't yet happened, and planets were thought to be quite uncommon.
And 25 years or so later, now we're here. Sometimes, the mind just goes "holy crap, really?" about some of this stuff.
The universe just seems bigger, cooler, and wackier than we ever though it would be.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
The quest for life in the universe is perhaps one of the more important endeavors of our time... I wish this search would take on more emphasis then the say the next weapon system. Collectively humans spend more on carnival cruise ship or Hollywood movies then we do in searching for life and intelligence beyond earth. The thought (as noted by Arthur C Clark) that either we are the only intelligence in the universe or we are not and there are other forms of intelligence out there - are equally powerful motivating forces towards an expansion beyond this little fragile womb.
2) There is no such thing as 'a scientific curiosity with little practical value.' So called scientific curiosities routinely turn into extremely valuable science. Einstein's relativity time dilation effect is routinely used in GPS technology.
3)In fact, examining exo-planets, is most likely to directly affect Earth's climate, by showing us what happens without human interference .
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
The study of many exoplanets will inform work here on climate. Planetary scientists have studied Mars, Venus and Jupiter's weather for many decades and you can be certain this has lead to many insights into Earth's climate.
For example if you write 3 computer programs to predict weather and one of them works also on Mars and Venus, then you know it has a better understanding of weather.
Just imagine when they find 100 Earthlike rocky planets orbiting at 1AU and discover what weather is like in such systems - that will massively inform earth climate http://www.space.com/2071-stor.... This makes Jupiter a test case of climate change prediction software. If the software can explain what happened on Jupiter it can inform what is happening here.
or http://astrogeo.oxfordjournals... (cosmic rays affect climate)
Really? They're going to "cull the collective expertise from each of NASA's science communities"? Seems a bit harsh.
Some signs are pretty obvious; you don't need experts:
http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap03...
Table-ized A.I.
NASA will use all sorts of experts, but they will of course ignore the discoveries of the first expert they hired to help find life on Mars, James Lovelock.
Hired to build machines to search for life on Mars, he investigated biology and quickly realized that over geologic time, extremophiles such as bacteria found in hot springs or in the arctic could not survive without all the rest of life creating the free oxygen and other elements and compounds necessary for life. NASA ignored The Gaia Hypothesis completely yet that was a discovery they paid for.