NASA's New Telescope Finds Exoplanet Atmosphere

celticryan writes "NASA's new telescope has made a promising discovery. 'As NASA's first exoplanets mission, Kepler has made a dramatic entrance on the planet-hunting scene,' said Jon Morse, director of the Science Mission Directorate's Astrophysics Division at NASA Headquarters in Washington. 'Detecting this planet's atmosphere in just the first 10 days of data is only a taste of things to come. The planet hunt is on!'"

Hot Jupiter, yawn

[QuantumG]

The public's attention for exoplanets is already waning.

One day I expect Kepler to discover an Earth-like planet with an Earth-like atmosphere and the public won't even care. Getting funding to image the surface of that planet will be an uphill battle and even if the returned images show undoubted proof of intelligent life, people still won't care.

Can you imagine that?

Re:Hot Jupiter, yawn

[uvajed_ekil]

I am not in any way affiliated with this or any other planet finding project, so I am "the public," and I certainly will care. I hope this happens in my lifetime. Imaging the surface of an exoplanet may be more of a challenge than finding an interesting one, given the distance. But I suppose you think no one anywhere cares about anything, the future will be worse than the past, and our society is heading downhill at even ever-increasing speed. People have thought that for thousands of years and we still get by, so I'm not worried. Bring on tomorrow.

Re:lame

[Anonymous Coward]

Science proceeds one step at a time. When in 10 years we are able measure the composition, make sure you come up with something else you would like to know, and remember to make a sarcastic comment about it.

What's not atmosphere on this planet?

[tjstork]

With a day side temperature of more than 4300 degrees, I'm trying to think of what on the planet would not actually be flat out molten or even vaporized.

Re:Hot Jupiter, yawn

[MichaelSmith]

The public's attention for exoplanets is already waning.

The public don't know what exoplanets are. They aren't interested in them at all.

Re:Hot Jupiter, yawn

[Nyeerrmm]

No, I really can't imagine that.

Imagine the headline "Life Discovered on Earth-like Planet 25 light years away". Your typical newspaper-reading/internet-news-scouring/cable-news-watching connected person will know of it immediately. They may not understand the details, they may not have followed the whole saga, but they'll know and they'll find it interesting, because its clear-cut, easy to understand, and impressive.

After that, the last connected folks will hear about it through discussion. "So did you hear about that planet they found with life?" makes a much better conversation than "So what about this weather?", yet is something you might say to someone in the elevator.

Think of how much the general public cared about the non-issue of re-classifying Pluto. Discovery of extra-terrestrial life is much more important and just as easy to understand, and is such a leap beyond our current knowledge. That's not say that it would be the existential, world-changing discovery that I believe proof of intelligent life would be, but people would care.

Re:Hot Jupiter, yawn

[mahmud]

Sorry, but you are an idiot. The fact that we need more sustainable sources of fuels doesn't mean we should stop all research that is not "practical" here and now.

In fact, science is cheap, comparing to the lumps of money we waste on:

• Wars
• Unhealthy habits
• Retarded causes like creationism
• etc

Re:Go The Fuck Away

[feder]

fuck you faggot (yeah i fed the troll, sue me)