Article by Sarah Kahle February 10, 2021 (dailyuw.com)
• Scientists know that methane is produced two ways: first by living biological microbes converting carbon monoxide into methane, and second by volcanos and deep sea hydrothermal vents. A biologically active exoplanet – the kind that astronomers search star systems for – could be detected by its abundance of methane.
• The James Webb Space Telescope (pictured above) is set to launch October 2021, and will replace the aging Hubble telescope in space. The Webb telescope is particularly adept at detecting atmospheric methane on distant exoplanets.
• A team led by UW postdoctoral student Nick Wogan set out to determine whether volcanic gas emissions on terrestrial exoplanets were abundant enough to disguise any biologically produced methane, and why an abundance of methane might be a potential indication of life. “We wanted to understand whether if we look at another planet, if we see methane there, is that because of life, or is that because of some weird volcano that also produces methane?” Wogan said. The team ran many combinations of simulations that modeled a wide range of volcanic chemistries possible for a terrestrial planet.
• The researchers found that while volcanic activity did produce methane, they weren’t capable of producing abundances anywhere near the level of biogenic methane. Further, if an abundance of methane in an atmosphere did come from volcanic activity, it would be indicated by an abundance of carbon monoxide as well, which the telescopes can detect.
• Therefore, the detection of proportionately large amount of methane in an exoplanet’s atmosphere might indeed be an indication that Earth-like organisms exist there. Large amounts of oxygen-rich gases, such as carbon dioxide and water vapor, alongside the methane would strengthen the possibility of a life-supporting biosignature. Says Wogan, “Really, our best shot of finding evidence of life on another planet is probably seeing the combination of methane and carbon dioxide.”
• Another indication of methane-producing bacteria or other similar lifeforms would be a proportionately low level of carbon monoxide which is consumed and converted by bacteria.
• The research group’s findings will be particularly helpful to astronomers analyzing exoplanetary atmospheres with the James Webb Space Telescope, and may be instrumental in finding extraterrestrial methane biosignatures.
Nick Wogan
A team led by UW postdoctoral student Nick Wogan has published a paper explaining why an abundance of methane in the atmosphere of an exoplanet (any planet orbiting a star other than the Sun) might be a potential indication of life.
Scientists typically search for molecular oxygen as an indication of life (or of conditions favorable to life) on other planets, but unfortunately, the James Webb Space Telescope, set to launch October 2021, isn’t well equipped to detect it in the atmospheres of faraway planets. The new telescope, however, intended to replace the aging Hubble, is particularly adept at detecting atmospheric methane and carbon dioxide abundances.
During the Archean, an eon early in Earth’s history, the first microbes developed and began to convert carbon monoxide into methane. This process continues today. As a result, methane began to build up in the atmosphere and has remained as an indication of biologic activity on Earth ever since.
However, life is not the only process we know of that can produce methane. Volcanism, deep sea hydrothermal vents, and meteor impacts can all generate methane as well. Wogan set out to determine whether volcanic gas emissions on terrestrial exoplanets were abundant enough to disguise any biologically produced methane.
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Article by Giovanni Mussini November 30, 2020 (oxfordstudent.com)
• The European Ariel space telescope (Atmospheric Remote-sensing Infrared Exoplanet Large-survey) has been given the go-ahead for launch in 2029. Intended to map the atmospheres and chemical environments of distant exoplanets, the Ariel spacecraft’s search range will target hundreds of planets in the hotter Goldilocks zones in order to build a standard model of atmospheres based on the attributes of its host star and planetary environments.
• Different atmospheric components imprint distinctive patterns on the starlight beaming through. While not conducive to life itself, planets having an “atmospheric cauldron” that can circulate freely allows Ariel to capture more representative spectral signatures to create a standard model.
• The presence of unique ‘biosignatures’ arise due to the unique self-organizing properties of life. But at the same time, anomalies are unlikely to be spectacular or self-evident. Take Venus for example. Venus is a planetary inferno bathed in sulphuric acid rains, with a mean surface temperature high enough to melt lead. The biosignature of phosphine – a chemical created by living organisms – was detected in the cooler high-altitude Venusian clouds. But it is uncertain whether the presence of phosphine is due to biological activity, exotic abiotic chemistries, or a blip in the data.
• Time and again, attempts to map molecular pathways to life from simple organics have failed. Promising places – such as deep-sea hydrothermal vents – have proven an unlikely starting point for biology. The necessary interdependence of proteins, membranes, and nucleic acids may require simultaneous assembly, rather than in a stepwise fashion. Across the cosmos, the least unlikely places for spontaneous life to occur might be mineral-rich ephemeral pools bombarded by UV radiation. This is bad news for life. Temperate gas giants, oceanic super-Earths, and promising icy moons would all be ruled out. Perhaps biology really needs a planet like ours to get started: rocky, temperate, and tectonically active, with emerging landmasses. Places like these probably do exist, dotting the spiral arms of our galaxy.
• If the history of the Earth is any guide, evolution may rise to the challenges of alien worlds where there is living material to work from in the first place. Even on Venus, where balmy oceans existed as recently as 700 million years ago, life may have escaped the planet’s descent into a greenhouse nightmare by migrating to the higher atmosphere. As robotic emissaries and telescopic eyes return troves of data on far-flung worlds, sensational discoveries may come. But we are probably in for a long wait.
After years in the pipeline, the Ariel space telescope has been given the go-ahead for launch in 2029. This spacecraft is the brainchild of a cooperative European endeavour to map the atmospheres and chemical environments of far-flung worlds. If all goes well, Ariel will bring planetary science out of the solar system, and into uncharted territory. However, alien hunters may have to keep their enthusiasm in check – for now.
Ariel will peer at a range of exoplanets, but its focus will be on worlds baked by their home stars at over 320 ºC. By all measures, these are extremely unlikely abodes for life. Even so, the detection technique available to Ariel makes them attractive targets.
The telescope will search for faint chemical fingerprints as planets transit in front of their star. By only soaking up particular wavelengths, different atmospheric components imprint distinctive patterns on the starlight beaming through. The closer a planet is to its star, the more frequent the transits and the opportunities to carry out observations. Another perk of closely orbiting hellish worlds is that they wear their atmospheric makeup on their sleeve. Whereas gases may sink or coalesce into clouds on cooler planets, in an atmospheric cauldron they can circulate freely, allowing Ariel to capture more representative spectral signatures.
Ariel’s predecessors had to split their focus between probing exoplanetary atmospheres and other tasks. Instead, the ESA spacecraft will be solely dedicated to this endeavour, broadening the search to an unprecedented number of targets – hundreds of them. This is a cause for excitement. By gathering data en masse, Ariel will build towards something that has been sorely lacking in the quest for living worlds: a standard model of how atmospheres arise based on their host star and planetary environments. Understanding what is in line with this model, and what is not, may help scientists home in on genuine anomalies.
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Article by Jamie Carter November 25, 2019 (forbes.com)
• The Habitable Exoplanet Hunting Project is a global attempt to discover potentially habitable exoplanets within 100 light years, involving a network of over 25 amateur astronomy observatories around the globe. It will focus on ten stars within 100 light years of Earth, all of which have confirmed transiting exoplanets within the so-called “habitable zone”.
• The exoplanet known as Kepler 442b, which orbits a K-type star and could be even more habitable than Earth. M-type stars, or ‘red dwarfs’, are small, cool stars that are impossible to see with the naked eye, but they are by far the most common type of star in our region of the Milky Way. G, K and M-type stars are “the stars that are most likely to host exoplanets with water on their surface because they don’t flare,” says Alberto Caballero, an amateur astronomer at The Exoplanets Channel and the coordinator of the ‘Habitable Exoplanet Hunting Project’. “If a star flares, it can damage the atmosphere of the exoplanets.”
• The ideal exoplanet is a dense and rocky “super Earth” planet, almost seven times bigger than Earth, called LHS 1140 b, orbiting within the habitable zone of the red dwarf star LHS 1140 about 40 light years distant in the constellation of Cetus. Three other prime candidates would be:
Proxima Centauri b – an exoplanet orbiting an M-type red dwarf star 4.24 light years away in the constellation of Centauri;
Tau Ceti e – an exoplanet orbiting an M-type red dwarf star 11.9 light years away in the constellation of Cetus;
Teegarden b -an exoplanet orbiting an M-type red dwarf star 12 light years away in the constellation of Aries.
• Tau Ceti e is a “super Earth” exoplanet almost four times the mass of Earth. It is so massive that you can see Ceti in the constellation Cetus with the naked eye, level with Orion’s Belt in the northern hemisphere.
• The Project has been careful to ignore stars that have Jupiter-sized gas giant exoplanets in their habitable zones unless the star is so big that it may not adversely affect other exoplanets in the star’s orbit. “We’re trying to monitor the stars 24/7 for about two months,” says Caballero, “so it’s easier for us if we focus on M-type stars because any exoplanets would have really short orbital periods. But the most ideal ones are K-type stars.”
• NASA’s orbiting space telescope, the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite or ‘TESS’ has already found 29 confirmed exoplanets. Caballero says, “So far (TESS has) not detected any potentially inhabited planets, but it’s only just starting on the northern hemisphere.” In the long term, Caballero thinks that studying an exoplanet’s ‘biosignature’ from its light spectrum with better instruments will yield the most potentially habitable exoplanets. Says Caballero, “[I]t’s all about having better technology.”
• [Editor’s Note] The Habitable Hunting Project might need to strike Proxima b off of their list. In March 2018, the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in the Chilean Andes, reported that the red dwarf star, Proxima Centauri, fired off a powerful “superflare” which could be seen from the Earth. (see Space.com article here) It briefly boosted the star’s brightness by a factor of 68. The astronomy team noted that “life would struggle to survive in the areas of Proxima b exposed to these flares.”
The search for extraterrestrial life is easily the most profound question in modern astronomy, but it’s hampered by a lack of both technology and time.
Is life possible beyond the solar system? If we’re ever to find out, we must study and categorise the stars to answer this one, simple question: if we had a spaceship we could send to the nearest Earth-like planet, which one would we send it to?
Alberto Caballero
When astronomers find exoplanets, they put them on a list marked “potentially habitable” or else use them as clues that habitable exoplanets may lurk in their star system. Most of them are exceptionally far away. So far we’ve found three close exoplanets that orbit within a star’s so-called “habitable zone” where liquid water could exist on its surface.
If astronomers had to choose a planet in another star system to send a spaceship, these three would be prime candidates:
• Proxima Centauri b: an exoplanet orbiting an M-type red dwarf star 4.24 light years away in the constellation of Centauri.
• Tau Ceti e: an exoplanet orbiting an M-type red dwarf star 11.9 light years away in the constellation of Cetus.
• Teegarden b: an exoplanet orbiting an M-type red dwarf star 12 light years away in the constellation of Aries.
Where will we most likely find others? Though the vast majority of star systems remain unexplored, we know of plenty that contain planets not in the star’s habitable zone. These star systems are surely the best places to look.
Cue the Habitable Exoplanet Hunting Project, a global attempt attempt to discover potentially habitable exoplanets within 100 light years, and involving over 25 observatories.
What is the Habitable Exoplanet Hunting Project?
It’s a network of amateur astronomy observatories around the globe—from the U.S. and Uzbekistan to South Africa and Australia—that is studying 10 stars within 100 light years for signs of new, as yet unfound exoplanets. All of the stars that will be studied already have confirmed transiting exoplanets outside the so-called “habitable zone”. “We’ve chosen observatories in deserts or high regions or mountains because weather is always the main problem with projects like this,” says Alberto Caballero, an amateur astronomer at The Exoplanets Channel and the coordinator of the Habitable Exoplanet Hunting Project. “But we will need to find more observatories in the southern hemisphere.”
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Article by Sarah Kaplan October 8, 2019 (washingtonpost.com)
• On October 8th, the Nobel Prize in physics was awarded jointly to James Peebles of Princeton University who theorized the existence of ‘dark matter’ and ‘dark energy’ to explain what makes up the 95 percent of the universe that we do not yet understand, and Michel Mayor along with Didier Queloz of the University of Geneva who in 1995 discovered the first extra-solar ‘exoplanet’ orbiting around a sun-like star.
• When astronomers stumbled upon a cosmic radiation that suffuses throughout space, fifty years ago, it provided a road map of the history of the universe since the “Big Bang”. In short, in one-millionth of a second, “lumps” of matter were created which would evolve into galaxies.
• Crediting the research of his contemporary Soviet astronomers in the 1960s, Peebles theorized that something must exist – an invisible force – that drives the expansion of the universe while holding the galaxies together. Yet everything ever detected by a scientific instrument and everything that has yet to be found makes up only 5 percent of the universe. Thus dark matter/dark energy was born to fill the void. However some argue that it was Carnegie Institution astronomer Vera Rubin who proved the existence of dark matter but was never credited with an award.
• Mayor and Queloz are credited with finding the first exoplanet outside of our solar system in 1995. They did this by measuring the wobble in a distant star by the shifts in light it emitted. From this they could determine the size and distance of a companion planet, both orbiting a common center of mass. The planet they found, dubbed 51 Pegasi b, is large, gaseous and hot like Jupiter, but is so close to its star that it takes just four days to complete an orbit. Queloz was a graduate student working with Mayor, a Professor Emeritus.
• “New science is very rarely done by just one person … and there were a lot people who made important contributions before and since then,” said Johanna Teske, an exoplanet astronomer at Carnegie Observatories. But Mayor and Queloz’s discovery “was really a turning point for the field.” Once the method was devised, astronomers across the globe were looking for the telltale wobble of a planet-hosting sun. Over 4,000 exoplanets have been found to date.
• Nobel Committee member Ulf Danielsson noted that ‘somewhere in the vast and inscrutable universe, on one of those strange and distant worlds, it’s possible that some other form of life exists’. “Our view of our place in the universe will never be the same again.” It might take years, or centuries, or even millennia, Danielsson said. But he holds out hope that one day humanity will find evidence that we are not alone.
A cosmologist who revealed that the universe was made mostly of invisible matter and energy, and two scientists who detected the first planet orbiting an alien star, were jointly awarded the 2019 Nobel Prize in physics Tuesday.
Michel Mayor
By studying the earliest moments after the birth of the universe, James Peebles of Princeton University developed a theoretical framework for the evolution of the cosmos that led to the understanding of dark energy and dark matter — substances that can’t be observed by any scientific instruments but nonetheless make up 95 percent of the universe.
Didier Queloz
Fellow laureates Michel Mayor and Didier Queloz of the University of Geneva revolutionized astronomy, the Nobel Committee said, when in 1995 they announced the discovery of a large, gaseous world circling a star 50 light-years from our sun — the first extrasolar planet found around a sun-like star. In the decades since, scientists have detected thousands more of these exoplanets, and astronomers now think our universe contains more planets than stars.
“This year’s Nobel laureates in physics have painted a picture of a universe far stranger and more wonderful than we ever could have imagined,” Ulf Danielsson, a Nobel Committee member, said at a news conference Tuesday. “Our view of our place in the universe will never be the same again.”
James Peebles
For almost a century, scientists have theorized that the universe began with a big bang, growing from a hot, dense particle soup into the current collection of dust, stars and galaxies flung across a vast and still-expanding space. Fifty years ago, a pair of radio astronomers stumbled upon the signature of those earliest days of expansion: the cosmic microwave background, a faint form of radiation that suffuses the entire sky.
This radiation is a “gold mine” for physicists, the Nobel Committee said. By analyzing tiny variations in this ancient afterglow, scientists can peer back in time to understand how the universe evolved. Peebles studied the temperature of the cosmic microwave background to understand the matter that was created in the big bang.
“It was, conceptually, a door-opening event,” said observational cosmologist Sandra Faber, a staff member at University of California Observatories. “It showed that known laws of physics could explain the universe when it was only 100 seconds old. Isn’t that amazing?”
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by Bob Allen September 13, 2018 (nonpareilonline.com)
• As of September 1st, there have been 3,823 confirmed exoplanets discovered in our galaxy, and rocky temperate worlds are plentiful. With the likelihood of extraterrestrial beings inhabiting our galactic neighborhood, Earthlings go about their daily lives in detached complacence.
• If we Earthlings make open contact with a superior civilization, would we be able to accept and adapt? Or would we panic as we did 80 years ago when a radio dramatization of a supposed alien invasion convinced thousands that another life form had, in fact, landed in New Jersey.
• The general conception in the scientific community is that it is highly unlikely that environmental conditions on other exoplanets would be similar to that found on Earth, and therefore its inhabitants, if any, would be nothing like we humans here on Earth.
• The older generation is so completely accustomed to regarding ourselves as the supreme beings in the universe, that the discovery of highly advanced beings and civilizations might be a shattering revelation. Still, older folks are somewhat jealous of younger generations who have amazing technological advances ahead of them. Perhaps even “meeting” a bona fide ET is in the stars for them.
• While there has been no official verification of the existence of intelligent extraterrestrial life, such a discovery – and open contact with them – would bring a true awakening and acceptance of the fact that we have never been alone in the universe.
• [Editor’s Note] Indeed, our ultimate meeting with technologically and spiritually advanced extraterrestrial beings is currently being planned. What can we expect? Insiders such as Corey Goode and Emery Smith (supported by David Wilcock’s other insiders) relate that the vast majority of the beings in our galaxy follow the “star” pattern, i.e.: a head at the top, a torso, two arms and two legs. Corey goes further to say that our star system of 52 stars (including our own Sun) all contain habitable planets, and these planets are dominated by human-like beings that appear very similar to Earth humans. The only real difference, besides their relative progress in technology and consciousness, is that the human civilizations in our locality come in a wide diversity of colors and sizes, depending on their respective environments. But Corey and Emery also relate that there are many types of species that are ‘humanoid’ – having the star body template – but contain the dominant genetics of any type of animal, insect, aquatic fish/mammal, and even some plants found on Earth. So ours is a universe absolutely teeming with intelligent civilizations that include insectoids, reptilians, aquafarians, bird people, and virtually any type of creature or humanoid dreamt of (or appropriated) by science fiction writers.
As of Sept. 1, there had been 3,823 confirmed exoplanets discovered in our solar system, and we have learned that rocky, temperate worlds are extremely numerous in our galaxy. Perhaps the next step will involve asking even bigger questions. Could some of these exoplanets host life? And if so, will we be able to recognize life elsewhere if we see it?
With the exception of ongoing projects by the Search for Extra-terrestrial Intelligence (SETI), earthlings have, for the most part, gone about their daily lives in complacence when it comes to thoughts of extraterrestrials and whether they do indeed exist.
But, again, will we be able to recognize life if and when we see it? Even more important, would we be able to accept and adapt to it?
In a radio presentation 80 years ago, the dramatization of a supposed alien invasion was so realistic that thousands believed another life form had, in fact, landed in New Jersey. People rushed into the streets only partially clothed or struck out aimlessly across open country. Cars raced wildly through crowded streets.
Such a scenario could very well manifest itself if we were successful and made contact with what turned out to be a superior civilization. Although there is no certainty or any way to confirm the sightings, many people believe we have already experienced close encounters of the first kind: the viewing of a UFO.
I am sure there are hundreds, even thousands, who hold a strong belief that Earth has been visited in the past by ETs, but like the unverified UFO sightings, trying to reach a close encounter of the second kind — obtaining and/or verifying its existence — has not yet been accomplished.
If such a discovery were validated, it might make it easier for us to accept the fact that we have never been alone in the universe, and the true awakening will arrive with an encounter of the third kind: actual contact with an ET.
Because we have acquired information on only one form of intelligent, technological life, ourselves, it is not out of the question that we tend to think of extraterrestrial beings as resembling us and being as intelligent. A majority of astronomers and scientists consider that thought process nothing more than wishful thinking.
Considering the number of stars in the heavens and the probability of innumerable exoplanets in orbit around them, it is highly unlikely that their environments are equal to our own here on Earth, and their inhabitants, if any, would be nothing at all like those here on Earth.
As I’ve written before, so completely accustomed are we to regarding ourselves as supreme beings that to discover we are no more an intellectual match for beings elsewhere than our dogs are for us would be a shattering revelation.
Although they probably won’t admit to it, there are members of the older generation (including myself) who are jealous of the younger generations who have technological advances ahead of them that would no doubt astound us older folks. Perhaps “meeting” a bona fide ET is in the stars for them.
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• On April 18th, NASA launched the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, or “TESS” from Cape Canaveral, Florida. (It was delayed two days to tweak the Falcon 9’s rocket’s guidance, navigation and control systems.) TESS’ two-year, $200M mission is to hunt for alien worlds in our local star system. The satellite will focus on the nearest and brightest stars, using its four cameras to look for worlds that may be close enough to be studied in depth by other instruments.
• TESS principal investigator George Ricker says, “TESS is going to dramatically increase the number of planets that we have to study… “It’s going to more than double the number that have been seen and detected by Kepler.” (The Kepler satellite previously mapped 2,650 nearby Exoplanets.) These satellites locate Exoplanets using the “transit method,” by noting tiny brightness dips these worlds cause when they cross their host star.
• TESS will zoom around our planet, on a highly elliptical 13.7-day orbit that no spacecraft has ever occupied before. This orbit will take TESS as close to Earth as 67,000 miles and as far away as 232,000 miles. TESS will arrive in its final orbit in mid-June, if all goes according to plan. The science campaign will start shortly thereafter.
The agency’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) launched today (April 18) from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, rising off the pad atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket at 6:51 p.m. EDT (2251 GMT) and deploying into Earth orbit 49 minutes later.
TESS will hunt for alien worlds around stars in the sun’s neighborhood — planets that other missions can then study in detail. And the spacecraft will be incredibly prolific, if all goes according to plan.
“TESS is going to dramatically increase the number of planets that we have to study,” TESS principal investigator George Ricker, of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said during a pre-launch briefing Sunday (April 15).
“It’s going to more than double the number that have been seen and detected by Kepler,” Ricker added, referring to NASA’s Kepler space telescope, which has spotted 2,650 confirmed exoplanets to date —about 70 percent of all the worlds known beyond our solar system.
And the Falcon 9’s first stage came back to Earth less than 9 minutes after liftoff today, touching down softly on a robotic SpaceX “drone ship” stationed in the Atlantic Ocean. SpaceX has now pulled off two dozen such landings during Falcon 9 launches — part of the company’s push to develop fully and rapidly reusable rockets and spacecraft, a breakthrough that SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk has said will revolutionize spaceflight.
SpaceX has re-flown 11 of these first stages to date, but the tally didn’t increase today: This Falcon 9 was brand-new.
Today’s launch was originally scheduled for Monday evening (April 16), but it was delayed by two days to give SpaceX time to investigate a potential issue with the rocket’s guidance, navigation and control systems.
Looking for nearby worlds
Like Kepler, TESS will find alien planets using the “transit method,” noting the tiny brightness dips these worlds cause when they cross their host stars’ faces. But there are some big differences between the missions.
During its prime mission from 2009 through 2013, Kepler stared continuously at a single patch of sky, monitoring about 150,000 stars simultaneously. (Kepler is now embarked on a different mission, called K2, during which it studies a variety of cosmic objects and phenomena, exoplanets among them. But the iconic telescope’s days are numbered; it’s almost out of fuel.) Most of these stars are far from the sun — from several hundred light-years to 1,000 light-years or more.
But TESS will conduct a broad sky survey during its two-year prime mission, covering about 85 percent of the sky. The satellite will focus on the nearest and brightest stars, using its four cameras to look for worlds that may be close enough to be studied in depth by other instruments.
Watch this 4:10 minute NY Times video on the TESS mission
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by Sequoyah Kennedy March 13, 2018 (mysteriousuniverse.org)
• When gathering light signal data from various online mega-telescopes in their search for exoplanets, astronomers drew-the-line at a certain level of signal-to-noise ratio that they were able to monitor. This still left a lot of “noise” below that threshold to sift through. So Google is making the search code available to the general public, so that ordinary folks can monitor these feint signals on their computer.
• In a March 8th blog post senior Google software engineer Chris Shallue detailed the “machine learning code” and how it can be used by anyone to help search for alien planets.
• If the feed indicates an anomaly such as a conspicuous dip in the signal, it could indicate a planet moving in front of its Sun. An algorithm calculates the probability of it being an exoplanet. If it is confirmed by a professional astronomer, you have just found a new planet.
• In fact, a new satellite called the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite will launch April 16, 2018 on a two-year mission to observe potential exoplanets. This will provide still more data for the public to sift through using the Google code. Instructions on how to download and use the code can be found at GitHub.
Have you always wanted to explore space and find strange new alien worlds? Are you too lazy to leave your comfortable chair and the warm, reassuring glow of your computer screen? Google has some good news for you armchair star-ship captains out there. The machine-learning code responsible for the discovery of two exoplanets back in December has been released to the public, so you can now join the ongoing search for exoplanets and help uncover the strange secrets of our universe.
In a blog post published Thursday, March 8, senior Google software engineer Chris Shallue detailed the machine-learning code and how it can be used to help search for alien planets. To detect planets outside our solar system using tools like the Kepler space telescope, astronomers look at the light and other cosmic radiation that hits the telescope’s photometer. When there’s a conspicuous dip in an otherwise stable amount of light being detected by the telescope, there’s a chance that a planet, star, or something else may be responsible for blocking out some the light. There’s a chance, too, that it might just be instrumental noise. Once an anomaly in the signal is noticed, an algorithm makes a calculation as to the probability of an exoplanet’s existence. It’s not confirmed, however, until an astronomer manually looks through the data and can make an informed decision about what is causing the anomaly.
Because of the immense amount of data being analyzed, astronomers had to develop a way to avoid being overwhelmed by false positives caused by instrumental noise. A signal-to-noise cutoff ratio is applied to the data and any signals below the cutoff point are deemed too likely to be noise to warrant further review. While necessary, such a practice means there may be a number of actual exoplanets who’s signal was below the cutoff ratio, most likely smaller Earth-sized planets, the planets most likely to harbor alien life. That’s where Google’s code comes in.
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The state of the world “Switch on the news and you see record-breaking protests, historic uprisings and riots on once-calm streets – there’s no doubt that growing income inequality is an issue of central importance.”
This is not a quote from a recent article in a magazine for social change, but the opening statement of chapter 2 in the recent Outlook on the Global Agenda 2014 report from the World Economic Forum, best known for its annual meeting of the global elite in Davos. World leaders are finally becoming more aware of the dangers of the enormous, and widening, gap between rich and poor, and that this trend cannot be allowed to continue unchecked was also reflected in President Obama’s State of the Union speech of January 2014: “Today, after four years of economic growth, corporate profits and stock prices have rarely been higher, and those at the top have never done better. But average wages have barely budged. Inequality has deepened. (…) The cold, hard fact is that even in the midst of recovery, too many Americans are working more than ever just to get by – let alone get ahead.” He then went on to outline policies meant to address the dangers inherent in the growing disparity in income and opportunity.
George Adamski with,Venusian Orthon
One way that people with a heart and some common sense often express their disbelief about humanity’s dysfunctional ways of relating to itself and the planet is by taking the perspective of an outsider: “If a Martian were to visit our planet…” followed by an observation of the way humans have complicated life for themselves or other creatures that makes no sense on any level beyond a profit motive. Perhaps it is not surprising, in this context, that it has taken world leaders so long to recognize the dangers engendered by these social inequalities. While many readers of these pages will be aware that we have been visited and are being visited by people from other planets, many might not know that these same visitors have repeatedly voiced their concerns about the way we have chosen to organise society around the need to earn money for daily living and pursuing the “dream” of limitless wealth, no matter if it kills the planet. For instance, in 1954, during his sojourn on a mothership, George Adamski was told by his hosts from space: “If man is to live without catastrophe, he must look upon his fellow being as himself, the one a reflection of the other.” After many years of sustained contact with the people from other planets Adamski added in December 1964: “[T]o have a healthy and prosperous society, that which causes the most trouble must be removed. As we all know, this stigma is poverty in the midst of plenty. It is the cause of sickness, crime, and the many evils that we know…”
Encounters with people from space
Daniel Fry
A civilian consultant with the military in the late 1940s, Daniel Fry was contacted July 4, 1949 by a saucer pilot who landed in front of him in the desert after Mr Fry had missed his bus home. At some point during his contact, which he claims included a ride in the saucer from California to New York and back, Mr Fry was told, “With freedom from want comes freedom of fear and your civilization would be safely past the critical point in its development.”
Likewise, Truman Bethurum, a road worker from California, was contacted late July 1952. His contact did not involve a trip in the ‘scow’, as he called the saucer, but he was invited aboard for discussions with its captain on seven or eight occasions. Of these, he said he “got the impression that cooperation among all of their people is an inherent feature of their lives, and that poverty is unknown. Also, that what we call riches or wealth is certainly more evenly distributed than on our earth.” As a result, the captain tells him, there are no criminals or conmen on their planet (identified as ‘Clarion’). “Not even speculators. (…) If we had them on Clarion it would soon be of small worth; we’d have mansions and slums, as you do.”
Buck Nelson, a farmer and saw mill owner from Denver who was first contacted late July 1954, wrote after having visited some of the planets in our system: “Some of our commonly used methods of making a living would be absolutely unacceptable to them. One of these methods is our practice of making money from money in so many different ways.”
Finally, Brazilian contactee Dino Kraspedon (pseudonym for Aladino Félix), who had his experience around the same time that George Adamski had his famous encounter in the California desert in November 1952, was told quite unequivocally even then: “…wars take place against the wishes of most people, because poor people do not fight easily. Carnage has become the perquisite of the rich and powerful… Abundance blinded them, gluttony clouded their vision. Strife is the product of egoism.”
In the event, governments and the military managed to discredit the experiences and information that these men were asked to share with the world in the midst of the Cold War. Yet, in the 1960s one contactee was given unprecedented insights into the social organisation of the home planet of his contactors.
The story of a businessman
Stefan Denaerde (left) Wendelle Stevens (right)
Dutch businessman Ad (short for Adrian) Beers and his family were sailing the Oosterscheldt, a large estuary in the south west of Holland, one summer evening, when his yacht’s compass seemed broken. While sailing back to the harbour, he was suddenly staring into a strong blue-white searchlight. Switching the engine into reverse, full power, could not prevent the boat hitting something solid. Upon closer inspection it seemed as if Mr Beers’ boat had hit the hull of an overturned ship and he saw a body floating in the water nearby. As he jumped overboard with a lifeline, he landed on a hard surface at a depth of just three feet. Shortly after he had secured the lifeline to the floating body someone in a similar outfit as the drowning person, which looked like a space suit, came wading through the water to assist him in his rescue efforts. He then describes how the sight of an “animal-like face, with large square pupils in the eyes, which were both hypnotic and self-assured” struck him like a thunderbolt.
It was only then that he realised they were visitors from another planet who, out of gratitude for his rescue efforts, went on to offer him detailed information about their world. Over the course of two days he was shown vivid images of the way society on ‘Iarga’, as they called their planet, was organised accompanied by detailed explanations of the underlying philosophy.
Being the director-general of the Dutch importer for Swedish lorry manufacturer Scania, Mr Beers presented his story as science fiction under the pseudonym of Stefan Denaerde (‘Steve of Earth’), in the hugely successful book Buitenaardse beschaving (‘Extraterrestrial Civilization’) in 1969. In 1977 the first English edition was published as Operation Survival Earth, while an expanded edition was published five years later by the late Wendelle Stevens as Contact from Planet Iarga.
With his own background as a business executive Mr Beers was immensely impressed by the, what he considered terrifying, efficiency of the planet’s social organisation: “This must be a universally governed planet, but seemingly so strictly governed that everything was streamlined and standardized. What a terrible thought!” Yet, in deploring what he perceives as a lack of the characteristic that lies at the core of the ills of present-day society, at the same time he witnesses to some degree of perfection what the participants in the Italian Friendship Case were taught by their contacts from space, and which seems to be the aim for humanity as we respond more and more to the Aquarian energies of unity and synthesis: “Their weak point is the development of their individuality. They do almost everything in groups, they think collectively and they obey the laws of their society to the letter. They live for and through the friendship and love within the group.”
Planetary governments and social systems About the level of attainment of his hosts the writer says: “Their definition of the word civilization or culture has nothing to do with the scientific or technological development level, but with the manner in which the community takes care of the handicapped or weaker beings. The word superculture defines the situation that arises when through individual effort, a group structure has arisen which abolishes any discrimination against any individual.”
Reminiscent of the findings in the Brandt Commission’s 1980 report North-South: A Programme For Survival, that the only way out of our problems on Earth is a recognition of our mutual interdependence and the need for global policies to ensure the basic needs of every human being, Mr Beers’ contacts from space tell him: “Our cosmic universal economic system can be compared to both communism and the capitalist Western economy. One can also say that our cosmic economics can’t be compared to either. (…) It is only through this system that a race can achieve a cultural level of social stability.”
While the people on Earth at present are caught in a grossly skewed system that reduces them to servants of ‘the economy’ and where austerity measures that cut deep into social services are justified by politicians as “necessary to stimulate the economy”, the strictly regulated economic system on ‘Iarga’ serves the needs of the people and even helps the author, as an exponent of the free market system, to see how a system based on justice also helps freedom to flourish: “The universal economic system shows itself in practice to be an efficient production system of goods and services, placing prior importance in the sectors housing, nutrition and transport. (…) The aim of this system is to free the individual as much as possible from non-creative, servile work.” Indeed, “the universal economic system that exists by a great many intelligent races, does not concern itself with money, possession, or payment. The aim of this system is to free the people from material influences and motivation”.
Iarga
In response to questions about the means of exchange and systems of governments on other planets, George Adamski wrote in October 1957: “Their means of exchange is a commodity and service exchange system, without the use of money. All production is for the benefit of everyone, with each receiving according to their needs. And since no money is involved, there are no “rich”; there are no “poor”. But all share equally, working for the common good. (…) The needs of the people are considered impartially by [a body of representatives elected from every district and every walk of life], and problems are solved for the common good of all.” This sounds like the advanced system of barter that esotericist and futurologist Benjamin Creme has foretold as the means of distributing resources on a global scale after the economic meltdown that is about to hit humanity, and it can also be found in the accounts of several other contactees.
Likewise, Ad Beers is told: “…we have no money, but everyone can go on holiday (…) if they wish.” And: “Nothing is paid for on Iarga, only registered. What a consumer uses is registered in the computer center (…) and this may not exceed that to which he has a right.” His contacts from space explain to him that on ‘Iarga’ two worldwide consumer organizations “stimulate the [production] trusts to produce the goods that are needed. The trusts are not permitted to advertise or exert any influence on the consumer, as this could never be objective” because “[i]n a socially stable society, you would have not only freedom of speech, but, even more important, freedom of thought. Propaganda, repeated one-sided information, damaged the freedom of thought…”
When Mr Beers asked the visitors from space for more specific technological knowledge to advance Earth’s civilization, the reply could not have been clearer: “The last thing that you need is technological information to increase the gap between your intellectual development and your almost non-existent social development. Carry on playing with your Mars probes for the moment, as half of your world’s population lives in poverty and hunger. The only information you need lies in the field of societal standards.”
Based on the descriptions that Mr Beers gives of the information that is shared with him, the current writer, whose previous research indicates that the ET presence on Earth originates from planets in our own solar system, would speculate that the crew of the ship that Mr Beers sailed into were actually from the planet Mars, which Truman Bethurum described as “a great manufacturing planet”. Benjamin Creme has said that Mars is at the same level of evolution as Earth, but “Mars has not made as many mistakes as we have, which is why it has a technology unbelievably ahead of ours. They are masters of space, masters of energy. They make most of the spacecraft we see and call UFOs, from small scout ships to gigantic motherships. Even some of the Venusian craft are made on Mars to Venusian specifications.” (Readers who are still under the illusion that Life can only be carbon-based and express itself exclusively in dense-physical form are referred to Chapter 5 of my book Here to Help: UFOs and the Space Brothers for an explanation of the concept of life on the etheric (subtle) physical planes of matter, which science is looking for as “dark matter” or “dark energy”. Another interesting clue as to the reality of the etheric planes was reported early July 2014 when astrophysicists announced that their research shows there is 400 per cent more light in intergalactic space than could be attributed to known sources.)
Exopolitics redefined
Iarga
Despite the focus in Ad Beers’ story being on the more mundane aspects of life on ‘Iarga’, his exchange with the space people included some ‘philosophical’ points that will ring a bell with readers who are familiar with the teachings on detachment of, for instance, J. Krishnamurti: “Happiness is being at peace with oneself and one’s surroundings. This is determined to a large extent by one’s success in achieving self-set goals, in other words, by a ruthless appraisal of oneself. This individual striving to reach a self-chosen goal [as opposed to competing with others; GA] is the creativity in man.” And: “The body with all its selfish demands is just a shell. We are only concerned with the creative intellect, the soul that is capable of unselfish thought. How do we educate children for freedom and happiness? Freedom is the absence of the effect of compulsion on the individual’s behaviour. Freedom cannot be obtained with a weapon in the hand. It can only be obtained by the parents’ careful mental forming of their children, by the correct conception of good and evil.”
So, while the world is poised, even unknowingly, for the final act in the planetary drama that is being played out as the collapse of our defective systems erodes any semblance of democracy and forces humanity to once again face the spiritual realities of life and join hands to demand justice and freedom for all, it is interesting to note that not only Life and the human kingdom are universal occurrences throughout Cosmos as I have documented elsewhere, but so apparently are the Laws that govern their expression in right human relations as the foundation for a sane social system that ensures the survival of the race and the safe progress of its civilization.
With much more information along the same lines from these and other contactees, which I will be presenting in my upcoming book, a new definition of exopolitics presents itself. The simplest definition of ‘exopolitics’ at the moment goes something like: “The study of the political actors, processes and institutions associated with extraterrestrial life.” For some this presupposes the existence of extraterrestrial life, for others merely the possibility of such. Readers who are familiar with my books will know that I take the extraterrestrial presence on Earth as an indisputable fact, based on a triangulation of correspondences between the information from the original contactees of the 1950s, humanity’s shared wisdom of the ages, and the experiences of dignitaries and officials in recent decades, against the background of the changes engulfing our world today.
Based on the information in this article, and its pertinence to the state of the world today – which has also been pointed out by Paul Hellyer in his 2010 book Light at the End of the Tunnel – A Survival Plan for the Human Species – a much more practical definition of the term ‘exopolitics’ seems appropriate, which goes back to the original meaning of its constituents, with ‘exo’ meaning “(from) outside” and ‘politics’ meaning “matters concerning the state or its citizens”:
Exopolitics [noun, uncount]: People from other planets showing humanity alternative, saner ways of organising society, without imposing their views.
This makes ‘exopolitics’ at once a much more urgent concept, as it places the ET presence on Earth solidly in the context of the crises facing humanity today – political, economic, financial, social and environmental.
By Gerard Aartsen M.Ed.
Sources and references: Gerard Aartsen (2011), Here to Help: UFOs and the Space Brothers George Adamski (1964), Cosmic Bulletin George Adamski (1957-58), Cosmic Science for the Promotion of Cosmic Principles and Truths. George Adamski (1955), Inside the Space Ships Truman Bethurum (1954), Aboard a Flying Saucer Willy Brandt (ed.; 1980), North South: A Programme for Survival Benjamin Creme (2010), The Gathering of the Forces of Light – UFOs and their Spiritual Mission Stefan Denaerde (1977), Operation Survival Earth Michael Franco (2014), ‘Universe’s missing photon sources baffle scientists’ Daniel Fry (1954), The White Sands Incident Paul Hellyer (2010), Light at the End of the Tunnel – A Survival Plan for the Human Species Dino Kraspedon (1957), My Contact With Flying Saucers Buck Nelson (1956), My Trip to Mars, the Moon and Venus
Adapted for ExoNews from an article that was first published in Share International magazine, Vol. 33, No.6, July/August 2014.
Gerard Aartsen has been a student of the Ageless Wisdom teaching for over 30 years and his research in this area resulted in a comprehensive online catalogue of teachings. He also writes regularly about the extraterrestrial presence on Earth and is the author of two books on the subject, which have both been published in various languages. He has been a member of the Exopolitics Institute’s Advisory Board for Research and Education since 2011, is a regular guest on international radio shows about UFOs and related phenomena, and has lectured in Europe, America and Asia.
Gerard Aartsen (1957) has a Master of Education degree from the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences, the Netherlands, where he has held a teaching position in the department of secondary education since 2001.
UFO illumined during a contact experience in Talampaya, Argentina (2013)
F.R.E.E. (the Foundation for Research into Extraterrestrial Encounters) is being launched. It is being organized to bring together psychotherapists, hypnotherapists and other dedicated researchers in the field of general “experiencer” (contactee and-or abduction) research. It also gathers natural scientists and lay researchers under the aegis of astronaut and cosmologist Dr. Edgar Mitchell, PhD.
F.R.E.E. is a step forward toward legitimizing not only UFO research but also the recognition of the possibility that there may actually be interactions with extraterrestrial intelligences ocurring under ways that have not been seriously considered by most academics.
F.R.E.E. is also open to the contributions of academics like social scientists and its explorations and exchanges would benefit from the sincer, well- informed input of philosophers and theologians. Exopolitics and capable exopoliticians are also welcome in a field that requires open-ended but compatible and healthy integrative collaboration.
F.R.E.E aims at understanding “encounter experiences” in their multiple aspects; a class of human experiences which – due to multiple layers of evidence acummulating over several decades – cannot be simply tossed aside anymore either from a scientific or from ethical point of view. As a unique, real phenomenon experienced by human kind it is significant and the scientific, cultural, ethical and political implications also are quite significant.
F.R.E.E. aims at providing psychological & community support for those individuals that may need it.
F.R.E.E. is open to consider a wide-range of perspectives on a variety of encounter experiences. Moreover, F.R.E.E. also aims at shedding new light into physics (a physics which includes consciousness, ufological “high strangeness” and other “classical reality-challenging” phenomena associated with alleged contacts with extraterrestrial intelligences). This more complete physics is needed to understand how might technologically advanced intelligences reach and interact with us overcoming space-time limitations. Regarding it, the concept of a “quantum hologram” is now being particularly explored by physicists at F.R.E.E. as it begins to provide an explanatory mechanism that connects non-locality with macroscopic structures as well as quantitative and qualitative aspects of experience.
F.R.E.E. can be considered a “think tank” and acollaborative space for scientists, lay investigators and first hand experiencers to learn from each other more about the nature of the various kinds of contact experiences which have been reported in earnest for several decades – if not for centuries – around the world. It is a space where individuals unable to speak openly about their experiences and-or interests may find a receptive environment.
The mass of unconventional, yet well-researched, experiencer evidence (in addition to objective UFO research plus whistleblower and documentary evidence) indicates that contact experiences through methods transcending conventional astronomical and radio astronomical means are quite likely taking place. Evidence should trump over our pet theories about how this should take place. The psychic and reality-modifying aspects of these experiences are meant to be understood by responsible, ethical scientists, researchers as well as by cultural and political leaders willing to reassess their premises about reality if need be. Something unique, real and life-changing to individual humans (albeit different and strange from a conventional perspective) is taking place. These (sometimes information-laden) experiences may be reaching segments of humanity as a way of announcing a vaster reality ahead of the discovery (and official announcement of) exoplanets with detectable organic molecule signatures in their atmospheres or of intelligently coded radio astronomical signals.
F.R.E.E. is about improving our understanding about who we are as a species in relation to the Cosmos. A greater understanding of the Extraterrestrial Encounter Experience – achieved through serious research standards combined with an open-minded attitude– may contribute (along with other compatible integrative efforts) to generate more inclusive, politically harmonizing cultural foundations useful to develop a more intelligent coexistence in a highly interdependent planet.
NASA astronomers yesterday released a paper announcing the discovery of an additional 768 exoplanets using a new validation technique for data from the Kepler Space Telescope. This has nearly doubled the number of confirmed exoplanets from the previous tally of 941 to 1710. Most dramatically, the number of earth sized exoplanets increased by a factor of five, now making it clear that rocky earths are pretty common throughout the galaxy. Importantly, four of the exoplanets were confirmed to rotate in the habitable zones of their suns – zones where liquid water can exist and extraterrestrial life can flourish. The rapid increase in exoplanet discoveries has come from analysis of only two years of data supplied by the Kepler Mission. Analysis of an additional two years of available data is expected to increase the number of confirmed exoplanets even more dramatically than the latest NASA release. The new confirmation method used by NASA astronomers means that the likelihood of eventually finding exoplanets with extraterrestrial life becomes far greater than previously thought.
NASA astronomers adopted a two-step process for detecting exoplanets using data gained by the Kepler Space Telescope and 11 other currently operating space telescopes. A new generation of space telescopes along with Earth based telescopes promise to provide even more data about exoplanets and their atmospheres. The world’s largest optical telescope is scheduled to begin construction this year on the summit of the Mauna Kea volcano at the Big Island of Hawaii – an hour’s drive from where this article is being written. The new 30 meter telescope is designed to examine exoplanets and their atmospheres for tell tale signs of life. The detection of large amounts of oxygen, for example, would be confirmation for the existence of extraterrestrial life.
When an exoplanet is first detected as it either passes in front of (the transit method) or near enough to its sun to cause detectable wobble (the Doppler effect), it becomes a “candidate” until further data confirms its existence. Currently, there are more than 2500 exoplanet candidates. The length of time need to confirm exoplanets depends on the period of an exoplanet’s rotation around its parent star. As the exoplanet makes its second or subsequent passage in front of or near its sun, astronomers gain the additional data to learn whether or not a candidate exoplanet has been confirmed. So far, only two years of a four year data pool from the Kepler Space Telescope has been analyzed. As more data becomes available, additional exoplanet candidates are likely to be confirmed.
Out of the 768 exoplanets just confirmed, 106 are less than 1.25 times Earth’s diameter. Previously, the data from Kepler and other telescopes had only confirmed 20 earth sized worlds. The four newly confirmed exoplanets orbiting in the habitable zones of their suns were roughly twice the diameter of Earth. This almost doubled the total of exoplanets confirmed in habitable zones from five to nine. What the NASA astronomers didn’t consider, however, was a new way of defining what constitutes a habitable zone for extraterrestrial life.
In January this year, Scientists at the University of Aberdeen and University of St Andrews, Scotland, released a paper titled “Circumstellar habitable zones for deep terrestrial biospheres,” in the journal, Planetary and Space Science. In the paper they redefined the “Goldilocks Zone”, the optimal zone for life to exist on planets. They have found that life can flourish beneath a planet’s surface where liquid water can be found at varying depths. This is how the abstract described this new way of locating extraterrestrial life:
We introduce a new term, subsurface-habitability zone (SSHZ) to denote the range of distances from a star within which rocky planets are habitable at any depth below their surfaces up to a stipulated maximum, and show how SSHZs can be estimated from a model relating temperature, depth and orbital distance. We present results for Earth-like, Mars-like and selected extrasolar terrestrial planets, and conclude that SSHZs are several times wider and include many more planets than conventional surface-based habitable zones.
Using computer simulations, the scientists found that if one goes to a depth of 5km below the surface, then the habitable zone in space increases by a factor of three. If one goes to 10km below the surface, then the habitable zone extends by a factor of 14 which would extend the habitable zone beyond Saturn. Thus several of the moons of Jupiter and Saturn, could have life thriving in habitats kilometers beneath their surfaces.
Using the idea of subsurface-habitability zone, many more than only four of the 768 newly confirmed exoplanets could be suitable hosts for extraterrestrial life. As astronomers continue to develop new techniques for confirming the existence of exoplanets, a new understanding for what constitutes a habitable zone is needed. Liquid water can exist either on or beneath the surface of an exoplanet, thereby making it possible for extraterrestrial life to flourish on many more exoplanets than previously thought possible.
In previous announcements of the Kepler Mission data, astronomers confidently predicted that it was only a matter of time before an exoplanet in the habitable zone of its sun would be found to host extraterrestrial life. New techniques for confirming exoplanets and new ways of defining a habitability zone make it even more inevitable that extraterrestrial life will eventually be detected on exoplanets using advanced space telescopes.
Subsurface habitability zones in proportion to distance from sun and depth from surface. Credit: Sean McMahon
Scientists at the University of Aberdeen and University of St Andrews, Scotland, have concluded that extraterrestrial life is far more prevalent than previously thought. In a paper titled “Circumstellar habitable zones for deep terrestrial biospheres,” released in the journal, Planetary and Space Science, they have redefined the “Goldilocks Zone”, the optimal zone for life to exist on planets. They have found that life can flourish beneath a planet’s surface where liquid water can be found at varying depths.
Planets in our solar system where the surface is too frigid for liquid water to exist, may be teeming with life below the surface where liquid water can exist in abundance. Planets such as Mars and moons such as Europa and Ganymede may be teeming with life under their respective frigid surfaces. The scientists’ findings is likely to revolutionize the way in which extraterrestrial life is thought to exist, and where it may be found. Perhaps more significantly, their paper gives support to claims that extraterrestrial life can exist inside worlds with extreme surface conditions such as rogue planets in interstellar space, and extremely hot planets such as Venus.
The Goldilocks zone is currently defined as a region in space where liquid water can exist on the surface on a planet without boiling or freezing. For our solar system, this is roughly the region in space from Venus to Mars. However, as one goes beneath the surface, the temperature increases due to the internal heat generated by the hot cores of a planet or moon. This means that while water may instantly freeze on the surface, thereby making life difficult to establish itself there, liquid water may existence in abundance below the surface.
This is how one of the scientists involved in the “Circumstellar habitable zones” paper, Ph.D. student Sean McMahon, described in the abstract this new way of locating extraterrestrial life:
We introduce a new term, subsurface-habitability zone (SSHZ) to denote the range of distances from a star within which rocky planets are habitable at any depth below their surfaces up to a stipulated maximum, and show how SSHZs can be estimated from a model relating temperature, depth and orbital distance. We present results for Earth-like, Mars-like and selected extrasolar terrestrial planets, and conclude that SSHZs are several times wider and include many more planets than conventional surface-based habitable zones.
Using computer simulations, the scientists found that if one goes to a depth of 5km below the surface, then the habitable zone in space increases by a factor of three. If one goes to 10km below the surface, then the habitable zone extends by a factor of 14 which would extend the habitable zone beyond Saturn. Thus several of the moons of Jupiter and Saturn, could have life thriving in habitats kilometers beneath their surfaces.
In response to questions from the International Business Times, McMahon also opened up the possibility that rogue planets that drift in interstellar space may even harbor life:
Rocky planets a few times larger than the Earth could support liquid water at about five km below the surface even in interstellar space (i.e. very far away from a star), even if they have no atmosphere because the larger the planet, the more heat they generate internally.”
The scientists findings give surprising support for the radical theory proposed by Zecharia Sitchin that a rogue planet called Nibiru spends most of its 3600 year orbit in interstellar space. According to Sitchin, the Sumerians believed that Nibiru was the home world of a race of beings called the Anunnaki. The University of Aberdeen scientists paper makes it possible that the Anunnaki, if the Sitchin’s interpretation of the Sumerians is correct, established themselves in underground colonies to survive the long periods in interstellar space.
Furthermore, McMahon pointed out that subsurface conditions protect life from extreme conditions on the surface, and this may be the norm on most habitable planets:
The surfaces of rocky planets and moons that we know of are nothing like Earth. They’re typically cold and barren with no atmosphere or a very thin or even corrosive atmosphere. Going below the surface protects you from a whole host of unpleasant conditions on the surface. So the subsurface habitable zone may turn out to be very important. Earth might even be unusual in having life on the surface.
The scientists’ findings makes it possible that worlds such as Venus, with very hot surface conditions may have a “subsurface-habitability zone” that support life. This gives support to the claims of several extraterrestrial “contactees” that the planet Venus hosts life in underground civilizations. For example, Luis Fernando Mostajo claims to have been taken to an underground civilization on Venus via a stargate device he calls a “Xendra”.
The Goldilocks zone in space is being radically redefined as scientists find more ways in which liquid water can exist in abundant supply on different planets or their moons. The new idea of “subsurface-habitability zones” will dramatically increase the number of exoplanets and exomoons deemed suitable candidates for extraterrestrial life. It is also likely that in the future, we will find that our own solar system harbors life hidden in subterranean regions of different planets and moons.
An artist's concept of 55 Cancri e, a hot "super-Earth" that orbits its sun every 18 hours. Credit: NASA
For the first time, NASA has been able to detect infrared light from a rocky “super-earth†variety of exoplanets. The Spitzer Space Telescope detected infrared light from the exoplanet “55 Cancri e†which has a rocky core and is nearly twice the Earth’s diameter, and eight times its mass. While 55 Cancri e is much too close to its sun – 55 Cancri A – to sustain life as we know it, the detection is a historic first for NASA. The detection of infrared light on the super-earth category of exoplanets, prime candidates for finding extraterrestrial life, makes possible the discovery of alien cities in distant solar systems.
On May 8 NASA announced: “NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope has detected light emanating from a “super-Earth” beyond our solar system for the first time. While the planet is not habitable, the detection is a historic step toward the eventual search for signs of life on other planets.â€Â According to Dario Borghino from Gizmag: “This marks the first time that light has been detected from a planet of such a small size, and the find is telling astrophysicists where to look in their search for signs of life on planets beyond our own.â€
The plot shows how the infrared light from the 55 Cancri system, both the star and planet, changed as the planet passed behind its star. Credit NASA.
The Spitzer Space Telescope was launched by NASA in 2003 and studies the universe in infrared light. In contrast to the Kepler Space Telescope that studies how distant stars dim as exoplanets cross in front of them, Spitzer analyzes infrared light directly from the exoplanet itself. Basically, as the exoplanet goes behind the sun, the total infrared light from the sun and exoplanet dims. In the NASA statement announcing the finding, the infrared light coming from both “55 Cancri eâ€Â and its sun were analyzed in the attached table (on right). As 55 Cancri e†dropped behind its sun, the total thermal emission dropped, and increased when the exoplanet appeared again in its orbit.
This raises the question, could Spitzer detect a large extraterrestrial metropolis giving off heat in a distant world? We can look for an answer from Dr. William Danchi, Spitzer program scientist who states:
The radiation that is measured is in the infrared, which is sensitive to the composition as well as temperature of the atmosphere of the planet. Spitzer was able to measure such a small diameter planet because it was hot, and hot objects emit exponentially more photons that cool objects. It would be much harder to detect a small, cool planet.
An earth like planet in a distant solar system orbiting the habitable region of its solar system, would be much cooler than 55 Cancri e which is much closer to its sun, but what if the habitable exoplanet was covered by very large extraterrestrial cities generating vast amounts of heat? Could the thermal infrared signature of an alien New York City be seen using the detection method pioneered by the Spitzer telescope?
Infrared satellite image of New York City, USA.
While Spitzer may lack the detection sophistication to measure the thermal signature of large alien metropolises, its replacement, the James Webb Space Telescope is being promoted as having such a capacity. According to NASA: “The [Spitzer] spacecraft is pioneering the study of atmospheres of distant planets and paving the way for NASA’s upcoming James Webb Space Telescope to apply a similar technique on potentially habitable planets.” The James Webb telescope launches in 2018, until then, we will have to rely on the Spitzer telescope which officially retires in 2014, to find an alien New York City.
Video has recently emerged of a speech by Professor Dimitar Sasselov, Harvard astronomer and co-investigator of NASA's Kepler Space Telescope, where he declared that the "Galaxy is rich in small, Earth-like planets." His speech was given at a Technology Entertainment and Design conference at Oxford University in mid-July where speakers are limited to 18 minutes on the latest scientific trends. The Kepler telescope uncovered evidence of up to 140 different planets similar in size to the Earth. Sasselov believes that the discovery amounts to a Copernican revolution where a clear affirmative answer is given to the question: “Are there other Earth like planets out there that can harbor life?” Significantly, Sasselov asserts that the evidence points to more earth-like planets in the galaxy than gas giants as previously thought. Estimates of earth-like planets in the galaxy could be quickly revised up to 100 million or more. Most importantly, he says that the data allows scientists to scan exoplanets for tell tale signs of life. Sasselov’s findings is good news for researchers in the fields of astrobiology and exopolitics since it encourages more scientific inquiry into the implications of intelligent extraterrestrial life.
Sasselov’s speech was quickly featured in the international media with bold headlines such as Britain’s Daily Mail that “More than 100 'Earth-like' planets discovered in past few weeks." Not so fast according to Space.com.
What Dimitar presented was 'candidates,'" said David Koch, the mission's deputy principal investigator at NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif. "These have the apparent signature we are looking for, but then we must perform extensive follow-up observations to eliminate false positives, such as background eclipsing binaries. This requires substantial amounts of ground-based observing which is done primarily in the summer observing season."
Indeed, Sasselov confirmed that more work was to be done over the summer to confirm what the Kepler data was suggesting, and that more news was “to come later in the year!"
That did not however stop Sasselov commenting on the significance of what has been discovered so far. He said that smaller rocky Earth like planets were statistically more common than gas giants: "Even before we have confirmed the planets among these hundreds of candidates, we can see statistically that the smaller-sized planets will be more common than the large-sized (Jupiter- and Saturn-like ones) in the sample,"
Sasselov explained that the results so far of the Kepler mission heralded a Corpernican revolution. Just as Corpernicus revolutionized astronomy by publishing data that the solar system rotated around the sun, rather than the earth, so too the data from the Kepler mission would lead to another scientific revolution. Rather than planets like earth being unique or an uncommon occurrence in the galaxy, they in fact are plentiful. Sasselov declared in his speech that the “Galaxy is rich in small, Earth-like planets”
While more scientific investigation will occur in the months ahead to confirm the results of the Kepler mission so far, its implications are enormous. Astrobiologists will be able to conclude with great confidence that extraterrestrial life is certain to exist elsewhere in the galaxy. Importantly, for the field of exopolitics, intelligent extraterrestrial life will also be deemed certain to exist, and this has profound social and political implications for humanity. In April 2010, Prof Stephen Hawking claimed it was “perfectly rational” to discuss the motivations of advanced extraterrestrial life. The findings of the Kepler mission make inquiry into the possible motivations of intelligent extraterrestrial life not only “perfectly rational" but now a logical necessity. The Kepler space telescope results will not only bring about an astronomical revolution, but a revolution in social and political thought about technologically advanced intelligent life in the galaxy and its impact on humanity.
European endeavour to map the atmospheres and chemical environments of far-flung worlds. If all goes well, Ariel will bring planetary science out of the solar system, and into uncharted territory. However, alien hunters may have to keep their enthusiasm in check – for now.
The telescope will search for faint chemical fingerprints as planets transit in front of their star. By only soaking up particular wavelengths, different atmospheric components imprint distinctive patterns on the starlight beaming through. The closer a planet is to its star, the more frequent the transits and the opportunities to carry out observations. Another perk of closely orbiting hellish worlds is that they wear their atmospheric makeup on their sleeve. Whereas gases may sink or coalesce into clouds on cooler planets, in an atmospheric cauldron they can circulate freely, allowing Ariel to capture more representative spectral signatures.
