They are not expecting large-headed, lanky humanoids with oval-shaped black eyes hiding behind a crater on mars; instead they fully expect to find microbial life very soon for a number of reasons. Mainly, we finally are starting to "know where to look, we know how to look, and in most cases we have the technology."
From the article:
[Jim Green, director of planetary science at NASA] also described another recent study that used measurements of aurora on Jupiter's moon Ganymede to prove it has a large liquid ocean beneath its icy crust. The findings suggest that previous ideas about where to find "habitable zones" may have been too limited. "We now recognize that habitable zones are not just around stars, they can be around giant planets too," Green said. "We are finding out the solar system is really a soggy place." He also talked NASA's plans for a mission to Europa, another moon of Jupiter with an icy ocean. "I don't know what we are going to find there," he said.
NASA associate administrator John Grunsfeld, said part of what excites him most about the search for life beyond our planet is to see what that life looks like. "Once we get beyond Mars, which formed from the same stuff as Earth, the likelihood that life is similar to what we find on this planet is very low," he said.Grunsfeld said he believes that life beyond Earth will be found by the next generation of scientists and space explorers, but Green said he hopes it is sooner than that.
(Score: 5, Funny) by hamsterdan on Thursday April 09 2015, @08:01AM
"NASA's plans for a mission to Europa, another moon of Jupiter with an icy ocean. "I don't know what we are going to find there," he said."
Didn't they get the warning to not attempt landings there?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 09 2015, @08:43AM
No, they didn't. If only because they didn't send a manned space ship to Jupiter.
(Score: 3, Informative) by K_benzoate on Thursday April 09 2015, @08:10AM
Given the size of the universe and a random distribution, intelligent life will be so far spread apart that we will never make content with each other. The speed of light is absolute. You'd break reality itself on such a fundamental level to go faster than light that it's just unthinkable. So give up the idea of contact with anything capable of conversation.
Still, I run SETI@home (I'm in the top 5% contributors!) and am hopeful beyond hope. Even discovering bacteria would be incredible. It would be shocking in all the right ways to our parochial and insular mindset. It would be the kind of perspective-expanding news that even a layman would understand.
Climate change is real and primarily caused by human activity.
(Score: 2) by SlimmPickens on Thursday April 09 2015, @08:24AM
The Milky Way is only 100,000 light years across. If Ray Kurzweil turns out to be right you might get to see it yourself!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 09 2015, @08:41AM
That's a very big if.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by FatPhil on Thursday April 09 2015, @09:45AM
IFYPFY
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 4, Insightful) by wonkey_monkey on Thursday April 09 2015, @09:46AM
Given the size of the universe and a random distribution,
We don't know that the distribution is random. And if it is (which it might well be) we don't know anything about how densely populated the universe is. So the galaxy could be randomly populated and teeming with LGMs, or randomly populated and mostly empty. No idea.
intelligent life will be so far spread apart
Could. Could be so far spread apart. There could be life within 50 light years. That's not so long as to rule out meaningful contact.
There could even be just one other intelligent species capable of interstellar contact in the entire galaxy, yet still within contact distance.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk
(Score: 1) by Rickter on Thursday April 09 2015, @01:01PM
My bet is on there being very little other intelligent life in the Galaxy. Consider the needs of life on this planet. I understand we only know of one particular combination of conditions that give rise to life, and we don't know what other conditions might do so. But giving what we do know, it seems important that we have a significant amount of water, carbon, oxygen, iron (to protect us from radiation and maintain our atmosphere), a stable start and planet, and the presence of Jupiter to prevent significant bombardment by asteroids without also disrupting the orbits of the inner planets (I saw an article last week that said Jupiter probably formed near the sun, and migrated out to it's current location), a relatively circular orbit, the rise of symbiotic types of life forms (plants and animals) who maintain the atmosphere by breathing in what the other exhales and exhaling what the other needs, not to mention all of the different calamities that have struck in history to not completely destroy life if it does begin, or just wipe out the intelligent life.
Go through each of theses conditions, and it seems exceedingly unlikely for life on other worlds in our galaxy to be common even if some of the attributes above are not common, the coinciding of all of them is probably extremely rare.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 09 2015, @09:01AM
The Law of Futurology [smbc-comics.com]
y - t = 0
y = approximate number of years left in the life of a futurist
t = years futurist thinks it will be until immortality is discovered
Man: "Things are gonna change in 60 - 70 years."
Man (older): "Things are gonna change in 30 - 40 years."
Man (even older): "Things are gonna change by 3PM tomorrow."
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Thursday April 09 2015, @12:31PM
That formula is incomplete, because there's another important rule:
t > r
t = years futurist thinks it will be before whatever it is they're predicting happens.
r = the length of time that the audience will remember that the prediction was made and go back and check to see if it was right.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 4, Funny) by maxwell demon on Thursday April 09 2015, @05:54PM
OK, so we have y − t = 0 and t > r.
From that it mathematically follows that r < y.
In other words, the length of time that the audience will remember that the prediction was made is always smaller than the approximate number of years left in the life of a futurist.
Or in short: Listening to an ageing futurist causes amnesia.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2) by nightsky30 on Sunday April 12 2015, @01:41PM
Man (even older, Soylent kind): "Things are gonna GET OFF MY LAWN!!!"
(Score: 2) by sudo rm -rf on Thursday April 09 2015, @09:52AM
Nobody expects large-headed, lanky humanoids with oval-shaped black eyes hiding behind a crater on mars. Until they get poked with soft cushions [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 2) by looorg on Thursday April 09 2015, @03:34PM
Nobody expects large-headed, lanky humanoids with oval-shaped black eyes hiding behind a crater on mars. Until they get probed by them.
(Score: 3, Funny) by maxwell demon on Thursday April 09 2015, @09:34PM
Fortunately there's a simple way to avoid being probed by large-headed, lanky humanoids with oval-shaped black eyes hiding behind a crater on Mars. Simply don't visit Mars. Even if you get probed anyway by large-headed, lanky humanoids with oval-shaped black eyes, at least they cannot hide behind a crater on Mars.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2) by mrcoolbp on Thursday April 09 2015, @11:14PM
I may have gotten a little carried away with that description; I admit, I am tired of seeing "little green men" = )
Did I go overboard with that one?
(Score:1^½, Radical)
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Friday April 10 2015, @05:54PM
I actually enjoyed that description. An I'm sure the large-headed, lanky humanoids with oval-shaped brown eyes hiding behind a crater on Mars are not too upset that you've got their eye colour slightly wrong. ;-)
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 09 2015, @10:47AM
ah, yes, the aliens are X years away. the hindu god statue paused in a dance is a hint of what's to come.
reject all blue colored aliens.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by morgauxo on Thursday April 09 2015, @01:28PM
Maybe NASA will manage to send something to an icy moon within 20 years. They aren't going to get anything that can drill down to the moon's ocean in that time period and obviously that's where the life would be. Maybe they will see some sort of evidence of the life below at the surface but I am skeptical about that. The geological time it probably takes for unfortunate microbes which get frozen into the ice cap to work there way up to the surface followed by exposure to space, radiation, etc once it gets there... I doubt there is much to find at the surface.
Will they find fossils on Mars in 10 to 20 years? That's what, 2 or 3 robot missions from now? The last several robot missions haven't even been designed to find life, extant or fossilized. They have just been looking for signs of water. It's awesome that we know for sure that Mars once was wet now. But... every time NASA finds another piece of evidence for this.. the press releases go out as though it were a novel discovery all over again! I don't think the Mars team will have changed gears quickly enough to be actually looking for life yet 20 years from now.
And then there is extra-solar life. They are doing pretty good at finding extra-solar planets. I am willing to believe that there might be a telescope capable of performing some level of analysis on alien atmospheres in 20 years. Maybe it will even find signs of life. But will that be enough to anounce a definitive discovery? I don't think so.
(Score: 2) by melikamp on Thursday April 09 2015, @02:29PM
(Score: 3, Funny) by Translation Error on Thursday April 09 2015, @03:10PM
(Score: 2) by Zinho on Thursday April 09 2015, @10:04PM
According to a documentary I watched [imdb.com], this procedure was tested on earth in 1965. It didn't turn out so well for the people involved...
Note to the humor impaired: check out the movie in that link, seriously. It's a great candidate for bad movie night; one of my favorites.
"Space Exploration is not endless circles in low earth orbit." -Buzz Aldrin
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 12 2015, @01:52PM
Wouldn't that kill the life we intend to find? And a second question... Do we NEED to break the ice crust? The crust was deposited / moved there over time. Perhaps the ice at the top holds frozen microbes from a time it wasn't the frozen crust. And we have already seen frozen microbes from thousands of years ago thawed and returned to life on our planet. Just scrape some ice samples and insert under a microscope to beam images back to earth.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Thursday April 09 2015, @02:38PM
Finding exoplanet atmospheric evidence of biology would count. Any discovery of microbes would be count. It can happen within 20 years.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by morgauxo on Thursday April 09 2015, @02:53PM
"Finding exoplanet atmospheric evidence of biology would count."
No it wouldn't. That would just mean they found a ratio of gasses that is normally produced by biology. Or.. maybe gases they can't explain in any natural way, maybe it's pollution from a society of intelligent life. That's the only evidence of life we have any hope of finding over interstellar distances given curently forseeable technology and especially within 20 years.
The problem is that that is only circumstancial at best. A huge claim (like alien life) requires huge evidence. There would be all sorts of speculation that different non-biological processes may be the actual cause. Or.. maybe even non-biological processes we have never seen before given our limited experience in a single solar system.
For example.. just look at the discussion around methane plumes on Mars. It has scientists excited because microbes MIGHT be the cause. But then it could also just be volcanos! Don't get me wrong. Such a discovery would be exciting. It would also help motivate scientists to come up with more definitive tests for life and politicians to pay for it. It wouldnt actually prove anything though. IE no "discovery of life".
"Any discovery of microbes would be count. It can happen within 20 years."
Of course that would count! I think I explained why I think exactly that will not happen within 20 years. Feel free to disagree but it would be more interesting if you responded with specific reasons why you disagree or rebuttals to my reasons why I think it will not happen. You are just stating the opposite with no supporting evidence!
(Score: 1) by SanityCheck on Thursday April 09 2015, @07:13PM
Why drill? Wouldn't it be easier to melt downwards?
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Friday April 10 2015, @05:13PM
Probably not... [xkcd.com]
(Score: 2) by MrGuy on Thursday April 09 2015, @02:44PM
Coming from a chief NASA scientist, a statement of "belief" like this with a vague timeframe is grossly irresponsible.
I'm not saying he's wrong. But if life is discovered, it will be by some kind of NASA (or ESA or other agency) mission. So which missions do you think have a chance of discovering life? Put another way - what do you think will happen in the next 10-20 years that we think might plausibly discover life? Obviously, we can't know what missions actually WILL discover life until they do so, but at least we can predict which ones have a plausible chance. To borrow his phrase, now that we know where to look, when and how will we actually be looking?
Are there existing, functioning missions (Hubble? Opportunity?) by NASA or others that you think might plausibly discover life? If so, what are some of the scenarios where you might envision that happening?
Are there currently planned missions that are being sent to places where you think they can plausibly discover life? If so, what missions? Where are they going? How do you envision they might find them?
Or are these new missions that have been proposed but not planned yet? If so, what has been proposed and what will it do?
If you don't have answers to these questions, how could you make such a statement? If you're the chief scientist at NASA, your job is to know these missions and their goals. And as a scientist, it's your job to make predictions based on facts, not personal belief.
(Score: 3, Informative) by fishybell on Thursday April 09 2015, @09:33PM
Small stab:
Man, looking at this list you'd think maybe NASA had some sort of "we're searching for life" fetish...or at least a strategic plan [nasa.gov] (see Objective 1.6: Discover how the universe works, explore how it began and evolved, and search for life on planets around other stars.).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 10 2015, @12:51AM
but held off announcing it. They very slowly release the news and technology to avoid panic.