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New Report Urges NASA to Intensify Search for Exoplanets and Aliens
A new Congressionally mandated report says NASA should refine its strategy and improve its tools to foster the study of exoplanetary systems and expedite the search for alien life.
The new consensus study report, authored by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, highlights several strategic priorities that, if implemented, will go a long way in ensuring that scientists have the resources they need to study exoplanets (planets in orbit around other stars). It's called the Exoplanet Science Strategy, and it identifies specific research priorities while making recommendations on how NASA should invest its efforts.
"Over the past decade, exoplanet science has yielded many remarkable discoveries, from the direct imaging of young gas-giant exoplanets to the detection of molecules and clouds within the atmospheres of more than a hundred worlds," write the authors in the new report. "However, our knowledge of the full range of exoplanet characteristics, and that of their local environments, remains substantially incomplete."
[...] Looking ahead to the next 10 years or more of astronomical discovery, the authors are asking NASA to develop an advanced space telescope to enable direct imaging of distant exoplanets, with a particular focus on detecting Earth-like planets in orbit around stars similar to our Sun. In addition, NASA should invest in ground-based astronomy, the report says. Two future observatories, the Giant Magellan telescope (GMT) and the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT), will offer advances in the imaging and spectroscopy (measuring the absorption and emission of light) of entire planetary systems. These observatories will also be able to detect molecules, such as oxygen, within the atmospheres of far away planets. The GMT is currently under construction, but the TMT has yet to be approved.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by FatPhil on Monday September 10 2018, @03:38AM (4 children)
(a) if the hypothesis is true then we'll know to do X
(b} if the hypothesis is false then we'll know to do Y, which is different from X
And yes, even the seems-to-have-no-real-world-benefit science such as the LHC and the evidence for a Higgs does have concrete uses - it confirms theories posited 50 years ago, and helps direct future investigations that do explain what the world is, or at least seems to be, made up from. Knowing that there's no, or some, little green men on planet Zog tells us *nothing* in comparison.
I'd rather see money invested in testing (in order to disprove, this is science after all) EM drives. Were that to have a positive result, that would change how we view interstellar propulsion forever.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 3, Insightful) by takyon on Monday September 10 2018, @07:18AM (3 children)
The Hubble Space Telescope alone has taught us plenty about physics. Future gigantic space telescopes will also have unexpected side benefits.
Finding Zog could allow us to talk to Zog. Doing an exoplanet census could give us important insights into biology and geology, and let us know if there are alien civilizations nearby that have already achieved interstellar travel. Finding nearby habitable Earth-like planets or moons would give us a reason to actually pursue interstellar travel.
You'd rather fund scammy EM Drive research than exoplanet research? Here's a better idea: Fund research into mind reading and mind control, and then use it on Roger Shawyer to steal all his trade secrets. Even if you find out he is a fraud, you get to test out very useful technology.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by FatPhil on Monday September 10 2018, @08:28AM (1 child)
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 3, Informative) by takyon on Monday September 10 2018, @11:19AM
If it will cost us such a trifling amount, then we don't need to divert money from exoplanet-finding telescopes. And if it even has a tiny chance of working, we don't need NASA to fund it. DARPA or some other agency will do it, especially if the rumors of the Chinese working on EmDrive aren't propaganda fluff.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday September 10 2018, @09:25AM
FTFY.
You need some 'jigawatts' to talks to them, nature took care to put us between an unprotected fusion plasma reactor and a broadcasting gas giant [nrao.edu].
That is, unless both the ends discovers some exotic form of communication.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford