NASA: Finding a Second Earth Could Happen Anytime Now

www.dailygalaxy.com:

Astronomers may be on the brink of discovering a second Earth-like planet, a find that would add fresh impetus to the search for extraterrestrial life. Astronomers from six major centers, including NASA, Harvard and the University of Colorado, agreed at a conference last year that advances in technology suggest scientists are on the verge of being able to detect the presence of small, rocky planets, much like our own, around distant stars for the first time. The planets are considered the most likely habitats for extraterrestrial life.

Read the whole story: www.dailygalaxy.com

Comments

[AppleJuiceJunkie316]

1) Any planet we find would probably be too far away to ever get excited about in the first place because we'd never reach it with our current technology.

2) Who really wants to find a bunch of sucky aliens? If they find another planet lets just colonize it and spread the human race across the cosmos. And for all you hippies out here complaining about how we treat this planet, give me a break. This planet could repair itself from our damage in no less than 10,000 years (see the National Geographic special After People), which is nothing in cosmic terms. I'm not saying we need to populate the new world, but come on, its a brand new planet, let's not whine, let's procreate ;p

3) About new propolusion. One person below had a theory about warping space-time to travel to distant lands. Well there was this movie called Event Horizon were a scientist created a machine that could create black holes allowing the spaceship to travel to distant locales. Of course, it disappeared around Neptune and resurfaces seven years later after it had spent that time in Hell. It was just a movie, but then again it kinda throws a bit of ice water on that theory, at least for me.

[HeWhoReads]

haha excellent comment!

[RedDogBear]

Saying we couldn't reach a new planet with "current technology" is vastly understating the problem. Any earth like planet we find will be at least 100 light years away. Probably much further but for the sake of argument say 100 light years. The best technology we can conceive of in theory would travel less than the speed of light. This says nothing about new developments in fusion drives or any kind of drives. This is a THEORETICAL limit. Even the most advanced technology we can think about (not build) in our wildest dreams still has to go slower than the speed of light. So at best a round trip would take over 200 years.

Of course never say never. Science is filled with examples where people thought some limit had been reached and then some new development helped us exceed it. People used to think that heavier than air (non-balloon) air travel was impossible. The head of IBM once said that he saw at best the need for 4-5 computers in the world (this was when less than the computing power of your iPod required a massive air conditioned room to house). For anyone who is interested I suggest "Physics of the Impossible" by Michio Kaku. A wonderful book where he talks about the scientific realities behind things like faster than light travel. But for the foreseeable future we won't be going faster than light. So we better stop f*ing up this planet.

[ILuvBubbles]

Hopefully it will remain completely void of humans and thrive for billions more years. Before we get a chance to F it up.

[janehenry]

Darn, I was hoping we could sent the teabaggers and their heroes there.

[CoconutLime]

I have a good idea. Send all Democrats and Republicans there. LOL

[JohnFromCensornati]

I wonder if it will be flat as well.

[AppleJuiceJunkie316]

Good one. LOL

[PlanoBlue]

Or 6,000 years old

[bccmeteorites]

The headline should read.

After spending billions of dollars we could find what we are looking for, an Earth like planet. But for another couple billion we may find several Earth like planets.

[AtheistUS]

"billions"?

Such a grand project as supercollider in Texas was interrupted and never build only because it has cost of several billions. Now Europe has one, and we don't.

The cost of these really important projects is nothing compared to waist like a month of war in Iraq or money that went to 'Star Wars' 'defense'.

[BlackbirdHighway]

Yes, that money would fund the war in Iraq for nearly a week! We need to set our priorities!

We wouldn't want to have to stop killing people a week early just to find out that there is other life in the universe, the most groundbreaking fundamental discovery in all of human existence.

[grandma58]

Interesting

[zanzig]

I thought we had already found one on January 20 this year, when the GOP and other right wingers appear to have started inhabiting a different one.

[cliffhammond]

ROTFLMAO! That was so unexpected it took me by surprise. But just think on it: Halliburton and the other big members of the military industrial con-plex could make "billions and billions" by sending an expeditionary force to genocide any aliens they find and infect yet another planet with pollution spewing industry.

[dnegri]

Think there will be a species there as intellectually under-developed as are our Wingnuts?

[PlanoBlue]

Only in the case that the alien species are paramecia.

[ancientmarinader]

If only we didnt cut funding for the TPF scope in 07 then we might be able to see these things in visible light. Once you image the light, you can see what the atmosphere is made of.

[grainofsalt55555]

Yeah the human race is just so wonderful.... *chokes* we REALLY need humans on another planet traveling around space......

[davism97]

Actually yeah we do. I feel sorry for anyone who hates their own species though ...

[ulatec]

Good luck getting there any time soon , unless we master time - space -gravity propulsion (or the aliens decide to let us in on it ) we're not going anywhere . And if the population explosion on this planet continues at the present rate the only place humanity will go anywhere is hell on earth

[ReaganSucked]

man, that's a downer...

thanks...

[AtheistUS]

Nobody really intend to go there, except Hollywood-educated lunatics.

[robotfog]

I like your style, kid.

[ConservativeAcademic]

All I know is, the next time the Jupiter 2 is launched with a view toward colonization of deep space, the mission will go a whole lot more smoothly if they leave Dr. Smith at home.

[urnumbersix]

{Waving robotic arms} Danger! Danger!!

[ancientmarinader]

Dr. Smith was creepy at the beginning but by the end he was Wills friendly buddy.

And he seemed to keep his alternative lifestyle well under wraps.

[SamKnause]

If we did find another planet that was like earth that we could survive on, the only people who would be able to afford a ticket to get there are the rich, greedy, and corrupt. If they would all leave this planet, maybe the masses of the poor left behind could repair this earth, that the rich, greedy, and corrupt have destroyed.

[DivineDNA]

You are more correct than you even know. And by the way, that is exactly the plan of the 'super rich.'

[SamKnause]

Thanks for your reply. I am all for the rich, greedy, and corrupt leaving this earth. I think those of us left behind would do just fine without all of their destruction.

[armchairprotester]

Good, because the way things are going here, we are going to need it.

[sufi66]

Until we learn how to treat this planet, we should be banned from going to others.

[minimalist syntax]

good point.

[SamKnause]

Individuals can only do so much. When our government is allowing our planet to be poisoned, polluted, and destroyed, by passing laws that favor the very corporations that are doing the majority of the destruction, how do we the people fight back?

[sufi66]

I've been fighting since the first Earth Day, not that it's made much of a difference.

I do it because I feel better trying, but I have no expectations about the results.

[Kamenskiy]

If we don't learn how to treat this planet, we will not be around long enough to invent the technology to go to others.

[robotfog]

I'm thinking we should have been banned from this planet to begin with

[exhale09]

I'll start passing the hat to collect $$ for one way tickets for Conservatives.

[Kamenskiy]

Why bother getting them an interstellar flight? Just launch them into the Sun.