How NASA Could Find Evidence of Life on Another Planet Within 25 Years (washingtonpost.com) 19
"In all likelihood, in the next 25 years, we'll find evidence of life on another planet..." begins a new essay by author Dave Eggers in the Washington Post.
"In more than a dozen conversations with some of the best minds in astrophysics, I did not meet anyone who was doubtful about finding evidence of life elsewhere — most likely on an exoplanet beyond our solar system. It was not a matter of if. It was a matter of when." [A]ll evidence points to us getting closer, every year, to identifying moons in our solar system, or exoplanets beyond it, that can sustain life. And if we don't find conditions for life on the moons near us, we'll find it on exoplanets — that is, planets outside our solar system. Within the next few decades, we'll likely find an exoplanet that has an atmosphere, that has water, that has carbon and methane and oxygen. Or some combination of those things.
And thus, the conditions for life. In a few years, NASA will launch the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, which will have a panoramic field of vision a hundred times greater than the Hubble Space Telescope. And on the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope — we'll call it Roman from here on out — there will be a coronagraph, a device designed to perform something called, beautifully, starlight suppression. Starlight suppression is the blocking of the rays of a faraway star so that we can see behind it and around it. Once we can master starlight suppression, with Roman and NASA's next astrophysics flagship, the Habitable Worlds Observatory, we'll find the planets where life might exist.
To recap: For thousands of years, humans have wondered whether life is possible elsewhere in the universe, and now we're within striking distance of being able to say not only yes, but here.
And yet this is not front-page news. I didn't really know how close we were to this milestone until I visited the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., on a hot and dry day in June...
Eggers' article is part of an ongoing series called "Who is government?" (For the series Michael Lewis also profiled the uncelebrated number-crunchers at the U.S. Department of Labor, while Casey Cep wrote about the use of DNA to identify the remains of World War II soldiers for America's Veteran Affairs' department's.) But this week Eggers wrote that the work being done at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory "is the most inspiring research and exploration being done by any humans on our planet..."
"No billionaires will fund work like this because there's no money in it. This is government-funded research to determine how the universe was created and whether we are alone in it. If NASA and JPL were not doing it, it would not be done."
Eggers emphasizes later that "doesn't mean it's intelligent life, or even semi-intelligent life. It could be bacteria, or some kind of interstellar sea cucumber. But whatever form it takes, we are close to finding it..."
"In more than a dozen conversations with some of the best minds in astrophysics, I did not meet anyone who was doubtful about finding evidence of life elsewhere — most likely on an exoplanet beyond our solar system. It was not a matter of if. It was a matter of when." [A]ll evidence points to us getting closer, every year, to identifying moons in our solar system, or exoplanets beyond it, that can sustain life. And if we don't find conditions for life on the moons near us, we'll find it on exoplanets — that is, planets outside our solar system. Within the next few decades, we'll likely find an exoplanet that has an atmosphere, that has water, that has carbon and methane and oxygen. Or some combination of those things.
And thus, the conditions for life. In a few years, NASA will launch the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, which will have a panoramic field of vision a hundred times greater than the Hubble Space Telescope. And on the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope — we'll call it Roman from here on out — there will be a coronagraph, a device designed to perform something called, beautifully, starlight suppression. Starlight suppression is the blocking of the rays of a faraway star so that we can see behind it and around it. Once we can master starlight suppression, with Roman and NASA's next astrophysics flagship, the Habitable Worlds Observatory, we'll find the planets where life might exist.
To recap: For thousands of years, humans have wondered whether life is possible elsewhere in the universe, and now we're within striking distance of being able to say not only yes, but here.
And yet this is not front-page news. I didn't really know how close we were to this milestone until I visited the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., on a hot and dry day in June...
Eggers' article is part of an ongoing series called "Who is government?" (For the series Michael Lewis also profiled the uncelebrated number-crunchers at the U.S. Department of Labor, while Casey Cep wrote about the use of DNA to identify the remains of World War II soldiers for America's Veteran Affairs' department's.) But this week Eggers wrote that the work being done at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory "is the most inspiring research and exploration being done by any humans on our planet..."
"No billionaires will fund work like this because there's no money in it. This is government-funded research to determine how the universe was created and whether we are alone in it. If NASA and JPL were not doing it, it would not be done."
Eggers emphasizes later that "doesn't mean it's intelligent life, or even semi-intelligent life. It could be bacteria, or some kind of interstellar sea cucumber. But whatever form it takes, we are close to finding it..."
No money? (Score:2)
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That is alien life on earth, this article is about ET's at their home.
Like fusion research? (Score:2)
Always going to produce the answer in 30 years time?
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Never mind that, where's my flying car? There even was one in a Bond movie 50 years ago...
Being close to having the ability (Score:2)
doesn't mean there is any to find.
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This was exactly my first thought. Now, me personally truly believe earth is not singular in this aspect, but my belief, or other's aren't proof that there must be. And the headline kind of makes the point that it's just a question of time before it is found, hence implying that it must exist and we just haven't found it yet.
I wish people could stop with the catchy phrases disregarding their validity. Example during an event in this town, they claimed that "Littering during [event] costs the city [such and
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doesn't mean there is any to find.
You noticed that, eh? He just implicitly assumes it's there to be found.
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In my opinion though.. (Score:2)
"is the most inspiring research and exploration being done by any humans on our planet..."
I think the most inspiring research is the one done right here on this one and only home we (still) have.
It's nice to learn about the origins and what's out there and all, but if we don't understand what's going on right now with what we have and what we're doing to it, it's less important.
Then again, it's less glamorous and imaginative, and it forces us to face our responsibilities and consequences.
Alien life (Score:2)
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We actually have more direct evidence for a creator god than we do aliens.
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Citation required
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Wow. They really got to you as a kid, didn't they?
Churches. Not even once.
25 years later... (Score:2)
SETI: "No REALLY! We'll find in in the next 25 years! Pinky swear!"
That still is wishful thinking (Score:2)
Unscientific statement (Score:2)
A more correct statement would be that within 25 years, we'll be in a position to detect life if it exists within an X lightyear radius. That's still speculative, but doesn't commit the sin of promising something predicated on an unknown.
Cancel it all and go back to the drawing board (Score:2)
Pie in the sky, head in the clouds stuff is fine at a small scale, but when it starts to eat billions, it's no longer fun and games, it's real money and time that comes at the expense of other things.
Pure science obviously has some value for society at large, even if it's just as a training ground for smart people who cut their teeth staring at the stars and then go on to do real things in their real lives. But throwing tens of billions of dollars on a very niche thing like resolved images of exoplanets see
Reality vs. Fantasy (Score:2)
The speed of light is a bitch. In practical terms, it means nobody on Earth will ever visit a world that orbits a star other than ours. We may find microbes living under the surface of a moon of Saturn or something, but as far as complex life goes, Earth is it for life around the Sun.
We have learned how to do remote sensing, though, and it's pretty awesome. Spectrographical analysis of starlight that has passed through an exoplanet's atmosphere can tell us a lot about the atmospheric chemistry going on t