from the search-for-alien-life-is...looking-up dept.
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.
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Hawaii top court approves controversial Thirty Meter Telescope
Hawaii's Supreme Court has approved construction of what will be one of the world's largest single telescopes, on the controversial site of Mauna Kea.
Work on the $1.4bn (£1bn) Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) had paused in 2015 after protests from some native Hawaiians, to whom the land is sacred.
The state's top court ruled 4-1 in favour of the scientists on Tuesday.
Mauna Kea already has 13 telescopes; activists say their construction has interfered with cultural practices.
For years, protesters - including some environmentalists - have said building what is planned to be the world's biggest telescope on a site already saturated with observatories would further desecrate and pollute the sacred mountain.
On Tuesday, Hawaii's Governor David Ige thanked the top court for its ruling in a statement, saying he believes the decision is "fair".
Previously: Protests Temporarily Halt Thirty-Meter Telescope's Construction in Hawaii
Hawaiian Court Revokes Permit for Construction of Thirty-Meter-Telescope
Thirty Meter Telescope Considering Move as Hawaii Officials Open Hearing
Related: National Academies Report Urges Increased Study of Exoplanets in Order to Search for Alien Life
(Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 09 2018, @11:01PM (2 children)
This is perfect example of pork barrel politics. Congress wants to spend billions so universities in their districts can get some moolah and the end result will be nothing. Better to spend the money on something useful like anti-terrorism, where at leadt you get a few dead muslims for your money.
(Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 09 2018, @11:17PM (1 child)
No let's continue attracting the attention of alien life. Hopefully some helpful aliens will visit Earth and destroy all humans. At least then we get billions of dead humans.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Unixnut on Monday September 10 2018, @07:08AM
> No let's continue attracting the attention of alien life. Hopefully some helpful aliens will visit Earth and destroy all humans. At least then we get billions of dead humans.
Don't worry, based on the current world situation, we don't need need helpful aliens to get billions of dead humans, we seem well on the way to doing it to ourselves.
I for one, am happier that if the USA is going to waste money on "pork barrel" projects, it be for something other than bringing death and destruction to humanity for a change. Maybe after wasting it on science projects, it can waste it on roads and transport infrastructure as well.
(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
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 10 2018, @04:07AM (3 children)
I think the priorities are not well placed.
Suppose that tomorrow we know that there is alien life in alpha centauri, then what? Do we give hand signals? Light signals? Send a gift to some point in time 1 light year late?
Personally I think it's just better to find a good propulsion system/space bending or whatever, this would have the double function of planet conquest as well as trying to find other life forms.
And with that it would then be easier to setup some remote giant space telescope or whatnot for better universe observation.
Just my 2 cents.
(Score: 4, Informative) by takyon on Monday September 10 2018, @06:48AM (2 children)
Communicating with Alpha Centauri or observing exoplanets would be a lot easier than going there. It would be better to expand within our own solar system first where things are orders of magnitude closer than the nearest stars. Even the 550+ AU location for a gravitational lens telescope is less than 1% of the distance to Proxima Centauri.
Fast forward 50-100 years, and we will have better materials, radiation shielding, anti-aging, and yes, propulsion, that could be used for a possible interstellar mission. But venturing out blindly would be stupid. We should at least look for an "Earth twin" orbiting the nearest 100 or so stars before we mount an expensive mission to nowhere.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday September 10 2018, @09:31AM (1 child)
Your proposition sounds to me as 'travelling agency window shopping' - see those awesome destinations... posters and that's about it, 'cause we can't afford yet even a picnic in our own backyard.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 1) by Sulla on Monday September 10 2018, @08:21PM
Right now the general population lacks the incentive to put the iron to the feet of the politicians on both sides. If the Soviets had been able to keep up with us without collapsing think of where we would be technologically wise today, we only got to where we are because of the competition. I would like to see billions wasted on space instead of war, but we need an incentive to do it. People like to fall for the grass is always greener meme, think about what the population would do if Mars were unpopulated (or sparsely populated) and covered in flora? We are a curious and aggressive species, we would want to possess it and be able to possess it as soon as possible.
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam