NASA's Kepler Mission

[Ian]

At 10:49pm EST on March 6, NASA will launch its Kepler satellite into solar orbit. While several hundred planets have been discovered in the last twenty years, most have been gas giants the size of Jupiter or larger. Kepler will be able to focus on a specific patch in our part of the galaxy for three years, and should detect hundreds of Earth-sized terrestrial worlds within their stars' "habitable zones" where water might exist in a liquid state, a key prerequisite for the formation of life. It may even be able to discern atmospheric compositions of many of these planets, such as which ones have moving clouds.

Here's a couple links:
http://kepler.nasa.gov/about/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kepler_Mission

Here's some discussion points, in case anyone else besides me is dorky enough to want to discuss this stuff:
- How might people around the world react if an Earth-sized world with a similar atmosphere is found around another star?
- Give some explanations for the Fermi Paradox (if intelligent life likely exists elsewhere in the universe, why haven't we discovered any by now?).

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Q1: In every way imaginable. (See the crowd outside the VLA in "Contact" for an example.)

Q2: Distance, political issues about contacting us, lack of interest in us. (Maybe life's so common in the Universe that we're nothing special.)

[Woodbutcher]

For your first point, I think ID and Creationist people would have to gear up to explain why there is a spare planet suitable for human-type life. It would be a serious blow to the idea that humankind alone was special enough to have a planet built just for them. What's the second one? Spare? Heaven? Practice? They would probably shrug it off as a materialistic , scientist lie.
Second, distances are astronomically ( } large. If there is life out there we would only be seeing their past, and we have only been capable of showing our presence here for 150 years. It could also be that their intelligence is totally different with respect to ours; they might have no curiosity about other lifeforms, or they might not even recognize us as lifeforms, so they would have no reason to seek contact. I'd be tickled pink to see aliens, but first they would have to prove that they were indeed genuine, and not Exi in disguise.

[Ian]

My thoughts on the Fermi Paradox...

My favorite explanation is known as the "Zoo Hypothesis". The idea is that intelligent, spacefaring civilizations exist, are probably well aware of us, but are deliberately keeping themselves hidden from us because we're still far too underdeveloped. Their main interests in a civilization at our adolescent stage of development are anthropological. Once we develop interstellar technology ourselves, we'll probably get to meet them. (This is where Star Trek's "Prime Directive" idea comes from, btw)

Other explanations:
- Life in the universe is exceedingly rare and therefore difficult to detect
- Life in the universe is fairly common, but intelligent life is very rare
- Intelligent life is out there, but interstellar travel/communication is more difficult than we like to imagine
- Intelligent life tends to destroy itself through misuse of technology before developing interstellar capabilities
- Intelligent life is out there, but is so utterly alien that we don't notice it
- intelligent life is out there, but like us they only use broadcast radio-like technology for a very short period in their history before developing more advanced communications, hence we're only liable to hear other cultures at a very similar state of development (and given the sheer size of cosmic timelines, that's unlikely)

[Mysturji]

1) I'm sad to say that I think the vast majority of people honestly don't give a shit, and still wouldn't even if they understood the implications. Call me a cynic.
2) Space is big. Really big. You just wouldn't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the stree to the chemist, but that's just peanuts to space. Listen...
2b) The dominant species on this planet is psychotic enough to threaten itself with nuclear annihilation. If you were an intelligent being, would you want to say "hi"?

[Xamonas Chegwé]

1. If Earth-type planets were found that were more than 6,000 light-years away, the fundies would claim that they couldn't be there at all, as that light could not have been travelling longer than the age of the world! It is quite boggling how many I have spoken to that don't see any contradiction between a 6,000 year-old universe and light travelling for hundreds of thousands of years to reach Earth!

2.
- If we assume that our solar system is 'average' in terms of planetary distribution, then we can reasonably expect each star to have only a few roughly Earth-sized planets.
- We can rule out the possibility of life as we know it on multi-star systems, which make up a large proportion of our galaxy and are more common than single star systems. No planet could maintain a stable enough 'goldilocks' orbit in such a system.
- If we assume a random, orbital distribution of planets around each single star, the chances of an Earth-type planet residing in a roughly circular orbit, wholly within the habitable zone diminishes still further.
- Then factor in the immense distances involved, the brevity of intelligent life (probably the biggest assumption - that human life is intelligent!) on Earth and the far briefer period of technological society on Earth, the uncertainty of human, or even Earth's future, the difficulties inherent in travelling, or communicating over interstellar distances.
All of this makes it extremely unlikely that there is intelligent, alien life ready to be contacted, in our patch of the milky way unless there is something very fundamental that we have not factored in.

[Ian]

- If we assume that our solar system is 'average' in terms of planetary distribution, then we can reasonably expect each star to have only a few roughly Earth-sized planets.
- We can rule out the possibility of life as we know it on multi-star systems, which make up a large proportion of our galaxy and are more common than single star systems. No planet could maintain a stable enough 'goldilocks' orbit in such a system.
- If we assume a random, orbital distribution of planets around each single star, the chances of an Earth-type planet residing in a roughly circular orbit, wholly within the habitable zone diminishes still further.
- Then factor in the immense distances involved, the brevity of intelligent life (probably the biggest assumption - that human life is intelligent!) on Earth and the far briefer period of technological society on Earth, the uncertainty of human, or even Earth's future, the difficulties inherent in travelling, or communicating over interstellar distances.
All of this makes it extremely unlikely that there is intelligent, alien life ready to be contacted, in our patch of the milky way unless there is something very fundamental that we have not factored in.

This is a rough statement of the Drake Equation, which gets a brief rendition in the movie Contact. Basically, out of X number of stars you'll have a average of (??) number of planets. Of all those planets, a percentage of (??) will be capable of generating and sustaining life. Of these life-capable planets, (??) percent will actually generate an intelligent civilization.
The Drake Equation is perfectly logical formula, but we just don't know the numbers to plug into the variables. The universe could be sparsely populated or teeming with life. The reason the Kepler Mission is so exciting is that it will help us gain a much better estimate of some of the variables in that equation.

[Xamonas Chegwé]

- If we assume that our solar system is 'average' in terms of planetary distribution, then we can reasonably expect each star to have only a few roughly Earth-sized planets.
- We can rule out the possibility of life as we know it on multi-star systems, which make up a large proportion of our galaxy and are more common than single star systems. No planet could maintain a stable enough 'goldilocks' orbit in such a system.
- If we assume a random, orbital distribution of planets around each single star, the chances of an Earth-type planet residing in a roughly circular orbit, wholly within the habitable zone diminishes still further.
- Then factor in the immense distances involved, the brevity of intelligent life (probably the biggest assumption - that human life is intelligent!) on Earth and the far briefer period of technological society on Earth, the uncertainty of human, or even Earth's future, the difficulties inherent in travelling, or communicating over interstellar distances.
All of this makes it extremely unlikely that there is intelligent, alien life ready to be contacted, in our patch of the milky way unless there is something very fundamental that we have not factored in.

This is a rough statement of the drake Equation, which gets a brief rendition in the movie Contact. Basically, out of X number of stars you'll have a average of (??) number of planets. Of all those planets, a percentage of (??) will be capable of generating and sustaining life. Of these life-capable planets, (??) percent will actually generate an intelligent civilization.
The Drake Equation is perfectly logical formula, but we just don't know the numbers to plug into the variables. The universe could be sparsely populated or teeming with life. Why the Kepler Mission is so exciting is that it will help us gain a much better estimate of some of the variables in that equation.

I know - I can't wait!

[Xamonas Chegwé]

Launch photo.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Launch photo.

I would kill to see another night lauch.

[BrettA]

Images: NASA's Kepler to seek Earth-like planets (Earth-bound ones, that is, plus diagrams.)

[owtth]

I've been wondering about something for a while, with the advent of digital TV and radio, a lot of the blurb hyping these technologies has been concerning the fact that they use less bandwidth and less power than "traditional" technologies, if this is the case would it not be less likely for an alien civilisation to be listening for the few decades when our radio emissions are at full strength than they will be in the foreseeable future when more advanced processing methods require less well-powered methods of broadcast?

[Gawdzilla Sama]

I've been wondering about something for a while, with the advent of digital TV and radio, a lot of the blurb hyping these technologies has been concerning the fact that they use less bandwidth and less power than "traditional" technologies, if this is the case would it not be less likely for an alien civilisation to be listening for the few decades when our radio emissions are at full strength than they will be in the foreseeable future when more advanced processing methods require less well-powered methods of broadcast?

The "regular" radios are still in full swing. AM and FM stations are trying to get the attention of creatures some 70 light years or more from here. And the first waves haven't slowed down.

[Horwood Beer-Master]

...
- Life in the universe is fairly common, but intelligent life is very rare...

That.

[natselrox]

What's the current status of the mission?