Tag: Goldilocks zone

A New Frontier in the Search for Extraterrestrial Life

Article by Adam Frank                                       December 31, 2020                                        (washingtonpost.com)

• On December 18th, ‘Breakthrough Listen’ – a privately funded offshoot of SETI, the ‘Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence’ – detected a distant “candidate signal” labeled BLC-1, which SETI astronomers would like to think is coming from another intelligent civilization in the galaxy. Of course, these scientists are quick to point out that it is probably not coming from another civilization, but just radio interference from our own planet.

• The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence began more than 60 years ago. Proponents of SETI have long complained that there has never been sufficient funding or telescope time available to make a dent in the effort. In the 1980s and 1990s, Congressional legislators withheld “wasteful” SETI funding, and it has survived since on private funding from millionaires like Yuri Milner who in 2015 pledged $100 million to create Breakthrough Listen.

• Jason Wright and his astronomy colleagues at Penn State have argued that the reason we have not found life elsewhere in the universe is simple: We haven’t really looked. If the galaxy were an ocean, so far astronomers have splashed around in just one hot-tub’s worth of water.

• With Milner’s funding, the Breakthrough Listen project was provided access to telescopes from the Parkes radio dish in Australia and the Green Bank instrument in West Virginia, and resources to explore new search methods and technologies. These include machine-learning initiatives designed to accelerate “classic” SETI research. Artificial intelligence can enable computers to identify those all-important ‘weirdness needles’ in the cosmic signal haystack of data. The next generation of instruments, including the soon-to-be-launched James Webb Space Telescope, should enable SETI astronomers to explore the atmospheres of smaller, Earthlike planets and search for the chemical imprint of an exo-biosphere.

• Meanwhile, the ‘exoplanet revolution’ opened a second frontier in the search for ET. In the mid-1990s, astronomers found the first exoplanet, a Jupiter-size world on a four-day orbit around the star 51 Pegasi. Today, we know that almost every star in the sky hosts a family of worlds. Scientists worldwide are building a census of alien planets, showing which stars have planets and which planets are in the star’s “Goldilocks zone,” where surface temperatures are just right (that is, anywhere between freezing and boiling) for life to form. As a result, astronomers can find out exactly where they should be looking for life and intelligence.

• Astronomers are also gaining the capacity to probe the atmospheres of distant planets for ‘biosignatures’. By interrogating light passing through a far-flung world’s gaseous veil, astronomers can compile its chemical inventory and see what’s in the planet’s atmosphere. Alien astronomers looking at Earth, for example, would see oxygen and methane in our atmosphere — a signature of life’s presence on our planet. Scientists have already explored the atmospheres of a few Jupiter-size exoplanets.

• But why stop at biosignatures? The presence of technology on a planet might be far more detectable than biology. Telescopes on the drawing boards right now might have the capacity to see city lights on distant worlds. In 2019, NASA awarded the first-ever research grant to study atmospheric technosignatures, with two more funded in 2020. All this means that the search for technosignatures is becoming just as plausible and just as important as the search for biosignatures, representing a thrilling new face of SETI, embracing both anomaly-based searches and targeted explorations of exoplanets and their environments.

• The truth about the search for intelligent exo-civilizations is that it’s probably going to take a lot of time and effort. That’s the price you pay for great science. This extraordinary journey — taking us to the shores of alien worlds — is really only just getting started. Something remarkable is happening in the science of life and intelligence beyond Earth. The age of “technosignatures” is dawning.

• [Editor’s Note]  The boys at SETI are dedicated… dedicated, that is, to making sure that the average person remains woefully ignorant of the multitude of intelligent beings and civilizations that permeate our galaxy and universe. Seth Shostak and his accomplices at SETI are simply shills for the deep state. The deep state controls several secret space programs that interact constantly with mostly negative extraterrestrial beings, and have access to their advanced technologies which the deep state wants to maintain for themselves only, in order to preserve their advantage.

But it appears that 2021 will usher in a new level of disclosure of this underlying deep state cabal that has repressed the natural technological and spiritual development of the human species on this Earth since World War II, when the presence of extraterrestrial beings, both benevolent and malevolent, greatly increased in response to our species’ own technological achievements. Suddenly, Earth humans were a more interesting species to scrutinize, and more valuable to exploit. By using human (?) deep state operatives to infiltrate all aspects of government and society, these negative beings orchestrated a false reality which has supported their control agenda for the past seventy years.

We have a unique opportunity now to expose this deep state cabal and the negative extraterrestrial entities that have given this cabal its capacity to control the planet. The time has come to reclaim the planet for our own species, as the benevolent beings and our human cousins of the Galactic Federation have urged us to do. They won’t step in and do it for us. We must save ourselves. It appears that President Trump has declared war on the deep state, and this much anticipated transition has begun.

We are living in the most fantastic period in human history. It is just a shame that more people have not yet awakened to recognize the battle between good and evil that is now unfolding. Once we have overcome our deep state oppressors, the human species will enter a golden age of higher spiritual consciousness and advanced technologies (available to everyone) that will transform our planet as we assume our rightful place among the multitude of space-faring civilizations which deep state operatives, such as SETI and the Washington Post, are desperately trying to prevent.

 

On Dec. 18, the world learned that Breakthrough Listen, a privately funded search for extraterrestrial

                        Jason Wright

intelligence, had found its first official candidate signal. The signal’s existence lit up the Internet. Was BLC-1, as it’s called, finally our moment of contact? Breakthrough Listen scientists, now hard at work on a paper about their findings, were quick to explain that the answer was probably “no”: Given the wealth of human-made radio signal interference out there, BLC-1 will probably turn out to be of human origin.

Their preliminary conclusion, however, does not defuse the excitement of BLC-1. The fact that there’s a candidate at all is cause for celebration. That’s because something remarkable is happening in the science of life and intelligence beyond Earth. The age of “technosignatures” is dawning.

                             Yuri Milner

Many people have the romantic notion that astronomers huddle over their telescopes every night and scan the skies looking for signals from distant, alien civilizations. That, unfortunately, just ain’t happening. Though the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) began more than 60 years ago, there was never sufficient funding or telescope time available to make a dent in the effort. In the 1980s and 1990s, some in Congress cited public SETI funding (as little as it was) as a press-worthy example of wasteful spending. Government support mostly dried up, leaving the field running on fumes. As Jason Wright and colleagues at Penn State have demonstrated, if the sky is an ocean that needs to be searched for life, so far astronomers have splashed around in just one hot-tub’s worth of water. The reason we have not found life elsewhere in the universe is simple: We haven’t really looked.

Now, however, the long desert of opportunity may finally be giving way to a new era of growth. In 2015, Internet billionaire Yuri Milner pledged $100 million to create Breakthrough Listen, a next-generation radio-based search for extraterrestrial intelligence. With a single stroke, Milner helped rejuvenate the field: The project provided access to telescopes from the Parkes radio dish in Australia and the Green Bank instrument in West Virginia, and provided resources to explore new search methods and technologies. These include machine-learning initiatives designed to accelerate “classic” SETI research of the kind epitomized by BLC-1. As pioneered by Frank Drake and others (and popularized by the 1997 movie “Contact”), classic SETI searches for signals that are anomalous, as opposed to those originating from natural or human causes. Historically, the challenge has been that SETI observations produce tidal waves of data. But artificial intelligence can enable computers to identify those all-important weirdness needles in the cosmic signal haystack of all that data.

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Hunting Earthlike Exoplanets

Article by Rick Robinson                                  October 19, 2020                                     (now.northropgrumman.com)

• The search for life on earth-like exoplanets far beyond Earth continues. In the search for extraterrestrial life, water is the Holy Grail, according to Northrop Grumman’s Robert Lockwood, project manager for NASA’s TESS (Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite) mission. Liquid water is so friendly to complex organic chemistry that it’s regarded as the most likely environment for life elsewhere in the universe.

• We know that Mars once had seas and rivers, and liquid water still occasionally flows on its surface. Jupiter’s moon Europa has a smooth, icy surface, beneath which lurks a hidden ocean deeper than any on Earth, scientists believe.

• Currently, TESS’s mission is examining candidate stars within about 300 light-years of Earth — close enough to allow for future follow-up examination of the exoplanets that TESS discovers. What is TESS looking for? In a nutshell, they are looking for “Goldilocks” conditions where planets are roughly earth-sized, big enough to hold an atmosphere, but not so big as to be mostly gas or liquid, like Jupiter or Neptune. Moreover, the planet must orbit within its parent star’s habitable zone, hot enough that oceans don’t freeze, but not so hot that they boil away.

• Lockwood notes that even the most powerful instruments don’t allow astronomers to actually see exoplanets. Instead, astronomers must currently suss out planets by observing indirect effects, like the planet’s bulk blocking part of its parent star, slightly dimming the star’s light — the technique used by the TESS mission.

• This will change next year, when NASA‘s James Webb Space Telescope is scheduled to launch into orbit. The JWST will be able to take spectroscopic images (separating light into its individual wavelengths, or spectrum) of the light from the star as it interacts with the planet’s atmosphere. The wavelengths of light will allow astronomers to search for telltale signs of water vapor in a planetary atmosphere. JWST observations will mark a giant step forward in the search for habitable planets beyond Earth.

• The University of Puerto Rico at Arecibo has identified 55 leading exoplanet candidates. One is substantially smaller than Earth, while 20 others are moreo earth-sized. The remaining 34 are classed as “super-Earths” and “mini-Neptunes.”

• ScienceAlert reported the recent discovery of two prime candidates orbiting a dim red dwarf star called Teegarden’s Star. They orbit their parent star every few days, much more frequently than Mercury orbits our Sun (once about every 80 days), but the star is so faint that both planets are still within its habitable zone. And Teegarden’s Star is a mere 12.2 light-years away. If we learn to build space probes capable of approaching the speed of light, a mission to this pair of worlds would take about the same amount of time as other interplanetary NASA missions have taken.

 

The search for life beyond Earth continues within our solar system; the search also extends far beyond the solar system, where we aim to discover earthlike exoplanets.

Water, Water Anywhere

Water is the holy grail in the search for extraterrestrial life, says Northrop Grumman’s Robert Lockwood, project manager for NASA’s TESS (Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite) mission. Liquid water is essential for terrestrial life; it’s so friendly to complex organic chemistry that it’s regarded as the most likely environment for life elsewhere in the universe.

Within the solar system, we know that Mars once had seas and rivers, and liquid water still occasionally flows on its surface. Meanwhile, Jupiter’s moon Europa has a smooth, icy surface, beneath which, scientists believe, lurks a hidden ocean deeper than any on Earth.

Oceans Beyond the Sun

The search for potential life beyond the solar system is in some ways simpler, but it’s incredibly demanding due to the enormous distances involved. Currently, TESS’s mission is examining candidate stars within about 300 light-years of Earth — close enough to allow for future follow-up examination of the exoplanets that TESS discovers.

What are TESS and other extrasolar survey observations — both space-based and ground-based — looking for? In a nutshell, said EarthSky, they are looking for “Goldilocks” conditions, just right. That means planets that are roughly earth-sized, big enough to hold an atmosphere, but not so big as to be mostly gas or liquid, like Jupiter or even Neptune.

Moreover, the planet must orbit in its parent star’s habitable zone, hot enough that any oceans don’t freeze solid, but not sThe search for life beyond Earth continues within our solar system; the search also extends far beyond the solar system, where we aim to discover earthlike exoplanets.

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New Technique for Tracking Exoplanets Could Help in Search for Habitable Regions of the Universe

July 22, 2020                                  (rt.com)

• There are hundreds of ‘lost planets’ in distant solar systems. The usual method of tracking an exoplanet is to train the telescope on the star and then wait for a dip in brightness to indicating an object (i.e.: a planet) passing in front of the star in its orbit around the star. The telescope will then follow the planet’s trajectory until it disappears behind the star. It is then ‘lost’.

• Astronomers at the University of Warwick (in Coventry, England) have added an additional way of tracking these exoplanets, in order to ‘rediscover’ them. They track the planet’s orbit from their telescope, but they also track it from another telescope elsewhere on Earth. This allows astronomers to determine its speed and orbital trajectory around the back of the star, and to determine its temperature based on its proximity to the star. Once they know the planet’s orbit, they can gauge when it will reappear on the other side of the star in its continuing orbit.

• For example, the exoplanet known as NGTS-11b orbits a star 620 light-years away. The planet has the size and mass of Saturn and an orbit of 35 days, which makes it relatively close to its star. According to Dr. Samuel Gill at the University of Warwick, “Longer (orbital) period planets are cooler, more like the planets in our own solar system.” But with its relatively short 35 day orbit, NGTS-11b is close to its star and therefore quite hot – 320 degrees Fahrenheit. But it is still cooler than the planet Mercury. So it is close, but not within the ‘Goldilocks Zone’ where a planet may have liquid water and be able to harbor life (as we know it).

• The findings open up a new world of potential planets within the ‘Goldilocks zone’ of a far distant solar system that could potentially harbor extraterrestrial life.

 

The rediscovery of a planet lost in outer space could signal the beginning of tracking a habitable world in the ‘Goldilocks zone’ of a far distant solar system.

                      Dr. Samuel Gill

The planet is one of hundreds of ‘lost’ planets discovered by astronomers from the University of Warwick, and was the result of a new way of tracking and logging planets in hopes of finding something similar to our own.

Some of these lost planets reside in the Goldilocks zone – a particular range of orbits that allow the existence of liquid on a planet’s surface: too close to the sun and it will be too hot, too far away, too cold.

To accomplish the research, the team adapted the usual transit method of tracking a planet, in which the telescope waits for a dip in light that indicates that there is an object passing between the telescope and a star. It then follows the planet’s trajectory for 27 days before it disappears.

In this instance, however, the team followed the planet and further tracked it from a different station, allowing them to assess its speed and therefore orbit.

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Six Billion Earth-Like Planets Could Exist in Galaxy

Article by Sean Martin                                June 17, 2020                                (express.co.uk)

• Searching through data from NASA’s planet hunting telescope Kepler, scientists from the University of British Columbia published a study in The Astronomical Journal estimating the likelihood of rocky Earth-like worlds which could contain water, within the Milky Way galaxy. A planet must also orbit a G-type star, like our Sun, and be positioned within the ‘Goldilocks Zone’ – the region around a star where it is neither too hot nor too cold – for life to exist.

• Astronomer Jaymie Matthews says, “Our Milky Way has as many as 400 billion stars, with seven per cent of them being G-type. So approximately six billion stars may have Earth-like planets in our Galaxy.” Researcher and co-author Michelle Kunimoto uses a technique known as ‘forward modelling’. “I started by simulating the full population of exoplanets around the stars Kepler searched. I marked each planet as ‘detected’ or ‘missed’ depending on how likely it was my planet search algorithm would have found them. Then, I compared the detected planets to my actual catalog of planets. If the simulation produced a close match, then the initial population was likely a good representation of the actual population of planets orbiting those stars.”

• Kunimoto also limits the possible number of habitable exoplanets where there exists a “radius gap”, “[I]t is uncommon for planets with orbital periods [of] less than 100 days to have a size between 1.5 and two times that of Earth,” says Kunimoto. “My calculations place an upper limit of 0.18 Earth-like planets per G-type star.” Previous estimates have suggested that there could be as few as 0.02 Earth-like planets per Sun-like star.

 

                  Jaymie Matthews

There are as many as 400 billion stars in the Milky Way galaxy alone, meaning there could be trillions of planets. As is evident from our solar system, the majority of these planets would be lifeless and barren, but billions could still be hospitable for life, according to new research. Scientists from the University of British Columbia (UBC) have searched through data from NASA’s planet hunting telescope Kepler to determine the likelihood of Earth-like planets – rocky worlds which could contain water.

       Michelle Kunimoto

To be considered Earth-like, the planet must also orbit a star like our Sun, known as a G-type star, according to the research published in The Astronomical Journal.

It also has to orbit the star in what is known as the Goldilocks Zone – the region around a star where it is neither too hot nor too cold for life to exist.
UBC researcher Michelle Kunimoto, co-author of the new study, said: “My calculations place an upper limit of 0.18 Earth-like planets per G-type star

“Estimating how common different kinds of planets are around different stars can provide important constraints on planet formation and evolution theories, and help optimise future missions dedicated to finding exoplanets”.

UBC astronomer Jaymie Matthews: “Our Milky Way has as many as 400 billion stars, with seven per cent of them being G-type.
“That means less than six billion stars may have Earth-like planets in our Galaxy.”

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Are Humans a Genetic Accident?

Listen to “E81 8-30-19 Are-Humans-a-Genetic-Accident?” on Spreaker.
August 22, 2019                       (dailygalaxy.com)

• Scientists have identified a group of planets outside our solar system where the same chemical conditions that may have led to life on Earth exist in what they call the Abiogenesis Zone. Would it contain life? Intelligent life? Human-like intelligent life?

• At some point the cosmos must have harbored extraterrestrial life, argues astrophysicist Adam Frank in a New York Times article “Yes, There Have Been Aliens”, Frank reasons that with an estimated 10 billion trillion habitable planets residing in boundless star system’s Goldilocks Zones, and considering that there are two planets in our own solar system – Earth and Mars – that we know have contained water and vegetation in its history, the degree of pessimism required to doubt the existence of another advanced extraterrestrial civilization existing at some point in time, borders on the irrational.

• On the other hand, there may have been only a handful of civilizations that have come and gone throughout a timeline of billions of years, decreasing the odds of two of them running into one another. How long does a civilization typically exist? It took the human race 7 million years to get far enough just to build a radio. Adam Frank points out that we haven’t the slightest clue how life arose on this planet, and what series of happenstance allowed primordial ooze to evolve into an intelligent being. Who knows what sort of life might be spawned on a different planet under different circumstances? The development of life is quite an unreliable process which further decreases the odds of our finding another civilization.

• Colin Blakemore, a neurobiologist at Oxford University, estimates that 200,000 years ago the brains of some, but not all, of an ancient primate species mutated into an intelligent human species. As it is unknown how this could have happened, it appears that humanity is a genetic accident. Then suddenly, over mere hundreds of years, we’ve recently develop the technological means to destroy ourselves. Perhaps, as Harvard’s Avi Loeb hypothesized in his book: How to Search for Dead Cosmic Civilizations, the explanation to Fermi’s paradox as to ‘where are all of the aliens?’ , is – from a cosmic perspective of billions of years – that they have all run the course of their brief existences.

• Paul Rimmer, an astrophysicist at Cambridge University, is pessimistic that life might exist outside of our own world. “You want to at least look at the places where the (building blocks of life) exist,” says Rimmer. “But they may not be sufficient. It’s possible you could mix them for billions of years and nothing happens.” Rimmer speculates that life itself may have come as one big accident. If so, then we are probably the only intelligent life in the universe, and maybe the only life at all. But this seems highly unlikely.

• [Editor’s Note]   Oh how the world yearns for the truth about how we humans came to this point. These academics and scientists, coming from Deep State institutions such as Oxford, Cambridge and Harvard, must adhere to the Rockefeller Deep State presumption that as hard as we’ve tried, we have yet to find any evidence of extraterrestrial life. This is to ignore and obfuscate the multitude of evidence all around us – from ancient rock and renaissance paintings of ETs and UFOs, to modern testimony of ET and UFO sightings and personal experiences, to leaks of classified government documents, to consistent reports by credible insiders that various extraterrestrial species have been working behind the scenes with the Deep State government and the covert development of various secret space programs over the past eighty years. When these mainstream “experts” are finally unshackled from the Deep State-controlled narrative, they will relearn a history that answers all of their questions.

The universe, our galaxy, and our local star cluster of 52 stars is teeming with intelligent and highly advanced extraterrestrial civilizations. In fact, we Earth humans here in third density consciousness are at the bottom of the developmental totem pole. The fossil records suggest that we suddenly appeared here on Earth because, well, we suddenly appeared here on Earth. Human-like species of a wide variety of races happen to dominate this region of our galaxy. For millions of years, Earth was used as a haven for some of these third density races to escape catastrophes or wars on their home planets. For hundreds of thousands of years, technologically advanced extraterrestrials conducted genetic experiments on these different human-like species to create a congruent human species made up of various races, genetically and physiologically adapted to this particular planet. Higher density beings sat back to allow the Earth humans to develop uninhibited, while technologically advanced negative beings did their best to infiltrate and control the planet.

Some of these refugees came here upon the destruction of their Super Earth home which blew up and became the asteroid belt about a half million years ago. It left nearby Mars a barren husk of what it once was. About 55,000 year ago they resettled on Atlantis, an island that was and is part of the Antarctica continent. Then they set out to conquer the planet, evolving from the Pharaoh priest class into the “church and crown” medieval rulers, and then into the modern Illuminati cabal. This bloodline of the “Sons of Belial” worked with the advanced negative extraterrestrials over millennia to fully control the planet. But we now happen to be at the precise point in our species’ history when a solar energy event will cause the planet, and those humans on the planet who are prepared, to ascend to a fourth density of consciousness, and take our place among our human star cousins. This will extract us from the control of the dark ET/cabal alliance. The dark forces want to maintain the status quo and prevent this shift in consciousness by keeping the human population ignorant of the truth. They do this through their official control over the mainstream narrative which denies that extraterrestrial life exists beyond this small planet, and propagating articles such as this one.

 

Insights from the world’s leading scientists on evolution, climate change, technology and extraterrestrial life. We are the only species of the billions of species that have existed on Earth that has shown an aptitude for radios and even we failed to build one during the first 99% of our 7 million year history, says Australia National University’s Charley Lineweaver.

Are Homo sapiens a one-off, genetic accident?

             Adam Frank

Scientists have identified a group of planets outside our solar system where the same

Paul Rimmer

chemical conditions that may have led to life on Earth exist in what they call the Abiogenesis Zone. It’s also possible that if there is extraterrestrial life, that it has, or will, develop in a totally different way than it did on Earth.

“I’m not sure how contingent life is, but given that we only have one example so far, it makes sense to look for places that are most like us,” said Cambridge University astrochemist, Paul Rimmer. “There’s an important distinction between what is necessary and what is sufficient. The building blocks are necessary, but they may not be sufficient, it’s possible you could mix them for billions of years and nothing happens. But you want to at least look at the places where the necessary things exist.

Rimmer speculates that life may have come from non-life as one big accident. This seems highly unlikely, at least given the way our universe is set up, so if it’s that way, then we are probably the only intelligent life in the universe, maybe the only life at all.

For what purpose did the human brain evolve?

“For what purpose did the human brain evolve?” It is a question that has puzzled scientists for decades, and was answered in 2010 by Colin Blakemore, an Oxford University neurobiologist who argued that a mutation in the brain of a single human being 200,000 years ago turned intellectually able primates into a super-intelligent species that would conquer the world. Homo sapiens appears to be genetic accident. Or are we?

 

1 hour video of Adam Frank “Light of the Stars: Alien Worlds
and the Fate of the Earth” (Talks at Google YouTube)

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Black Hole ‘Goldilocks Zones’ Could Be Feeding Alien Life on Rogue Worlds

Listen to “E35 7-18-19 Black Hole ‘Goldilocks Zones’ Could Be Feeding Alien Life on Rogue Worlds” on Spreaker.
by Emma Parker July 7, 2019 (dailystar.co.uk)

• New research into supermassive black holes suggest that intelligent extraterrestrial beings could feed off the black holes’ radiation, even powering photosynthesis, which can be used to fuel life.

• In order for life to exist as we know it, the presence of water is integral. The presence of liquid water depends a planet’s distance from its star, whether the planet is located within the Goldilocks Zone. Venus is closer to the Sun than the Earth, and it is therefore unable to host life because it is too hot. Other planets are too cold, so only water in the form of ice exists. Neptune and Uranus are inhabitable because they are made entirely of gas. Because liquid water can’t exist, life is unable to flourish. But a drifting “rogue planet” might find itself within this Goldilocks Zone, and suddenly alien life can bloom.

• Harvard University astronomer, Mansavi Lingham, author of a study published in the Astrophysical Journal, believes black holes could provide a light source for planets which have no nearby host star to create such a Goldilocks Zone. Says Lingham, “People have mostly been talking about the detrimental effects of black holes. We wanted to ask ourselves if there were any positives.”

• [Editor’s Note]   It is comforting to know that we have Harvard’s ‘best and brightest’  working hard on these theories, because it serves a very important purpose:  It keeps the public distracted from what is really going on.

 

Extraterrestrials from rogue planets could be feeding off go the radiation given off by supermassive black holes in what is known as the Goldilocks zone.

      Mansavi Lingham

New research into the mysterious masses suggest beings of another world could feed off the radiation, even powering photosynthesis, which can be used to fuel life.

In order for life to exist as we know it, a few things need to be present, one of the most important being water.
The presence of water is integral for life to survive, and it is determined by a planet’s distance from its star.

Planets such as Venus, are closer to the sun than Earth, and it is therefore unable to host life because it is too hot.
Other planets, are too cold, so only water in the form of ice exists.

 

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How Winston Churchill’s Views on Aliens Were Revealed in Lost Letter

by Callum Hoare                     May 1, 2019                        (express.co.uk )

• Sir Winston Churchill was a hero politician and army officer who led the UK to victory in World War II as Prime Minister. What many do not know, is Churchill was also fascinated by the possibility of extraterrestrial life.

• At the beginning of WWII in 1939, Churchill wrote a science document which he updated in the 1950’s. One of the sections asked the question: “Are we alone in the Universe?” wherein he reasoned like a scientist about the likelihood of life on other planets capable of sustaining advanced life.

• Churchill defined ‘life’ as “the ability to breed and multiply”, noting the importance of water to sustain life. In considering the likelihood that other stars could host planets, Churchill concluded that a large fraction of these distant worlds “will be the right size to keep on their surface water and possibly an atmosphere of some sort”. And some worlds would be “at the proper distance from their parent sun to maintain a suitable temperature”. Churchill is describing what scientists now describe as the “habitable” or “Goldilocks” zone – the narrow region around a star where it is neither too hot nor too cold for life.

• “I for one, am not so immensely impressed by the success we are making of our civilization here that I am prepared to think we are the only spot in this immense universe which contains living, thinking creatures, or that we are the highest type of mental and physical development which has ever appeared in the vast compass of space and time,” wrote Churchill.

• Churchill’s essay predicts great opportunities for exploration of the Solar System. “One day, possibly even in the not very distant future, it may be possible to travel to the Moon, or even to Venus and Mars,” Churchill wrote.

• [Editor’s Note]  British intelligence records released in 2010 showed that the prime minister also ordered that a reported UFO sighting by the Royal Air Force during World War II be kept secret in order to avoid “mass panic.”

 

Sir Winston Churchill, the embodiment of the British bulldog spirit, was a hero politician and army officer who led the UK to victory in World War 2. The wartime leader, who was Prime Minister from 1940 to 1945 and again from 1951 to 1955, played a vital role in defending liberal democracy from the spread of fascism adopted by Adolf Hitler’s Nazi Germany and the Axis Powers. However, what many do not know, is Churchill was also fascinated by the possibility of extraterrestrial life.

In 1939, just after World War 2 broke out, the Nobel Prize winner put pen to paper to create an 11-page science document.

It wasn’t until the Fifties that Churchill returned to the document, though, and the updated version was never published.

Churchill passed away on January 24, 1965, and the papers were forgotten about until they reemerged in 2017 at the National Churchill Museum in Fulton, Missouri, by director Timothy Riley.

He noted how one part questioned: “Are we alone in the Universe?”

In this, the wartime leader reasoned like a scientist about the likelihood of life on other planets capable of sustaining advanced life.

The former Prime Minister builds on the Copernican Principle – the idea that human life on Earth should not be unique given the vastness of the Universe.

He went on to define life as “the ability to breed and multiply”, noting the importance of water to sustain life, adding: “All living things of the type we know require it.”

More than 50 years before the discovery of exoplanets, he considered the likelihood that other stars would host planets, concluding that a large fraction of these distant worlds “will be the right size to keep on their surface water and possibly an atmosphere of some sort”.

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UK Leads Hunt for Aliens With £25 Million Fund to Find Extraterrestrials

by Sean Martin                   March 8, 2019                    (express.co.uk)

• The UK Space Agency has announced it will spend £25 million on the ‘Planetary Transits and Oscillations of Stars’ mission, placing 26 telescopes and cameras around the globe which will look for habitable planets in the ‘Goldilocks zone’ in one million nearby star systems. The mission will be headquartered at the University of Warwick (Coventry, England).

• The telescopes will look at the transit zones of the star when a planet crosses the face of a star, and scientists can note a dip in brightness. The telescopes will then examine the chemical make-up of the planets, and look for ‘biosignatures’ – signs of life. Science Minister Chris Skidmore said, “(This mission) may eventually lead to us answering the question of whether extra-terrestrial life exists.”

• Professor Don Pollacco of the University of Warwick leading the PLATO Science Management Consortium, said, “These planets will be close enough to facilitate a historic search for signs of life in their atmospheres using the next generation of large telescopes. For the first time we will start to understand if life exists beyond the solar system.”

• The UK government will also spend £10million to help create the ‘Solar wind Magnetosphere Ionosphere Link Explorer’, which will examine how space weather interacts with Earth. “Space weather – such as solar wind – is a potential threat to our communications systems here on Earth so this research examining how the wind interacts with our planet’s electromagnetic system is important,” said Skidmore.

• “[O]ur investment will ensure UK scientists and engineers will be leading participants in all aspects of the mission… through our ongoing membership of the European Space Agency,” Chris Lee, Chief Scientist at the UK Space Agency, said. “(This) is a game changer in Exoplanet science.”

 

The UK Space Agency has announced it is committing the large sum to a mission which will browse the universe for signs of life. The mission is known as Plato, short for Planetary Transits and Oscillations of Stars, and will use 26 telescopes and cameras around the globe which will examine one million nearby star systems. University of Warwick is heading the mission, which states the plan is to look for habitable planets that are orbiting the ‘goldilocks zone’ – a region around a host star where it is neither too hot nor too cold.

The telescopes will look at the transit zones of the star to determine this. The transit zone is when a planet crosses the face of a star, and scientists can note a dip in brightness.

The telescopes will then examine the chemical make-up of the planets, and look for ‘biosignatures’ – signs of life.

Science Minister Chris Skidmore said: “Work to discover Earth-like planets around other stars may eventually lead to us answering the question of whether extra-terrestrial life exists.”

Professor Don Pollacco, University of Warwick, which leads the PLATO Science Management Consortium, said: “These planets will be close enough to facilitate a historic search for signs of life in their atmospheres using the next generation of large telescopes.

“For the first time we will start to understand if life exists beyond the solar system.”

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Alien Life ‘A Lot More Likely Now’ Study Reveals

by Tom Fish                  March 8, 2019                   (express.co.uk)

• A new University of Sheffield research study suggests solar systems formed in turbulent times, when stars form in pairs, could actually improve the chances of allowing the planets around them to be the right temperature. About one third of our galaxy’s star systems are made up of binary star pairs. In such systems, when the stars are far enough apart, the habitable ‘Goldilocks zone’ is set by the radiation emanating from individual stars. If the stars are close enough, the zone’s size expands. The stars feel the warmth from each other and the planet is more likely to be in the habitable zone, doctors Bethany Wootton and Richard Parker write. When a pair of stars encounter a third star, the binary pair of stars might be pushed together. This, in turn, could expand the habitable zone, increasing the likelihood of life.

• And in a typical “stellar nursery”, where there would be 350 or so binaries, some 20 of them would be squeezed together in such a way as to expand their Goldilocks zone, and with it the chance of alien life. In some cases, those habitable zones even overlapped, consequently increasing the chances of life. These are the star systems toward which astronomers should turn their telescopes in the search for alien life.

• Dr Wootton said: ”Our (computer) model suggests that there are more binary systems where planets sit in Goldilocks zones than we thought, increasing the prospects for life. “So those worlds beloved of science fiction writers – where two suns shine in their skies above alien life – look a lot more likely now.”

 

Young planetary systems are violent, with new planets often colliding into each other. Such environments were thought to be too rough for life since they are so harsh and extreme. But the latest research now suggests astronomers should, in fact, turn their telescopes to these solar systems in the search for alien life.

The search for extraterrestrial life has so far centred around planets orbiting stars similar to our own.

This is because of a bias presuming other solar system containing aliens will likely look like ours.

But almost none of those “solar twins” – stars resembling our own – have actually been found to exist.

Now new University of Sheffield research suggests solar systems formed in turbulent times, when stars form in pairs, could actually improve the chances of allowing the planets around them to be the right temperature.

Such habitable planets sit in a zone where liquid water can exist and life could consequently flourish.

When they encounter a third star, a binary pair of stars might be pushed together.

This, in turn, could expand the habitable zone, increasing the likelihood of life.

The habitable zone is dubbed the “Goldilocks zone”: existing where the temperature is just right – not too hot and not too cold.

Those perfect conditions are believed to be necessary for life since water could allow complex molecules to eventually evolve into life can form.

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The Exoplanet Next Door

by John Wenz                    (astronomy.com)

• Since first detecting a weak signal from our Sun’s closest neighbor, Proxima Centauri (only 4.24 light-years away) in 2013, a group of astronomers from Germany, France and Chile who call themselves the “Pale Red Dot Team’ have been looking for – and have found – an Earth-mass planet in the habitable zone of that star. Proxima was monitored closely for subtle variations on the European Southern Observatory’s HARPS instrument over a series of nights from January 19 to March 31, 2016. By a process called radial velocity that looks for Doppler shifts in a star’s light due to the tug of a planet, the researchers could estimate the mass and orbital frequency to zero in on a planet, which they named Proxima Centauri b (PCb). Their findings were published in the science journal Nature last summer.

• Turns out that PCb is quite Earth-like. It slightly bigger and is roughly the mass of our planet and is located in just the right “Goldilocks zone” in relation to its star where, if it has an atmosphere, liquid water could exist on the surface. The exoplanet’s distance from its star is only one-fifth the distance from Mercury to the Sun. But Proxima Centauri is only a little larger than Jupiter, considered the runt of the litter in the Alpha Centauri system.

• The reason that the five billion year-old PCb planet revolves so quickly around its star is because it is tidally locked to it. The same side of the planet faces Proxima Centauri at all times, much like the same side of the Moon faces Earth at all times. But if PCb still has an atmosphere, it could reach temperatures up to 86° F (30° C) on its sunlit side, and -22° F (-30° C) on its darker side, bringing it into quite Earth-like temperature ranges. But if, for some reason, PCb has lost its atmosphere, the lack of atmosphere could have evaporated any water on the planet long ago, leaving a cold, barren planet of -40° F (-40° C).

• The key to preserving an atmosphere would be the existence of a magnetic field. Researchers have gone back and forth whether a tidally locked planet could have a core that stirs with its rotation, thus generating a magnetic field. The magnetic field shields the planet from the worst excesses of its star, which then settles into a state of relative dormancy. The Pale Red Dot astronomers believe that as a planet migrates closer to its sun while creating a magnetic field, this magnetic field could remain active even after a planet gets so close to become tidally locked to its sun.

• Astronomers need to observe the planet in greater detail in order to further characterize it. Planets are so small, the signals are so weak, it almost needs its own dedicated telescope. Currently, no instrument in space or on the ground is sensitive enough to pick up reflected light from older and smaller planets. But the James Webb Space Telescope currently under construction might be a mega-telescope that can actually detect biosignatures, or even molecules, in the atmospheres of other planets. Other proposed methods of getting deeper into a planet’s biosignature include ‘stellar suppression’ which blocks the surrounding light of the star, and infrared.

• “To find (a habitable planet) around the nearest, best-studied star … maybe we’re just really lucky, or maybe there really are just billions of M-dwarf planets out there waiting for us to find them,” says Elisabeth Newton, a Kavli post-doctoral fellow at MIT who studies red dwarf, or M-dwarf, systems. Nearly every star is suspected to have a planet. Some of those could be habitable. If it ends up that PCb is barren, then perhaps we’ll have better luck looking at the next star over, Barnard’s Star.

 

The hunt for exoplanets has, in some ways, been about the hunt for an Earth-like planet – something warm where water could exist. Headlines tout each discovery as “the most Earth-like planet yet.” Many of those planets are far away.

But a new discovery published August 24 in Nature hits closer to home, with an Earth-mass planet in the habitable zone of its star. What’s more, that star is Proxima Centauri, only 4.24 light-years away. That means that there is no solar system that will be closer to Earth in our lifetimes.

And so far, the exoplanet, named Proxima Centauri b, is shaping up to be quite Earth-like, roughly the mass of our planet and in just the right place where, if it has an atmosphere, liquid water could exist on the surface.
This is as in our backyard as it gets.

“I think it actually marks a transition,” Jeffrey Coughlin, a SETI Institute scientist not involved in the study who assembles the Kepler catalog, says. “Twenty years ago, we were finding the first exoplanets and it was totally exciting,” he says. Then there was the Kepler telescope, which found thousands of planets, including some in the habitable zone, and some within a few dozen light-years of us.

And now there’s a planet of 1.3 Earth masses right next door, zipping around its star in 11.2 days. Its distance of 4,349,598 miles (7 million kilometers) from its star may seem tiny, at just one-fifth the distance between Mercury and the Sun, but Proxima Centauri is the runt of the litter in the Alpha Centauri system. At a diameter of 124,274 miles (200,000km), it’s only 1.43 times the diameter of Jupiter.

So how was there a planet hiding around the closest star to us, just waiting to be discovered? The simple answer: Finding a planet is really hard. Kepler found thousands of planets by staring at 145,000 stars in a minute region of the sky at the tail end of Cygnus, waiting for the 1 percent chance a planet would directly pass in front of a star and cause a dip in its light, in a method known as transiting.

But the problem with the Proxima Centauri planet is that it doesn’t transit — at least not from our vantage point. In order to witness a transit, the orbital plane of the planets must be at or near our line of vision, but not all solar systems have the same orientation. A star might have all of its planets aligned at a 90-degree angle from us, with the planets orbiting in such a way that they never pass in front of their star for our telescopes to see. While some planets have been found by direct imaging (that is, appearing in a photo along with its star) it’s not possible of yet with Proxima, a 5 billion year old planet. Unless the planets are very young and very large, no instruments are currently capable of directly imaging these planets.

How to find a planet (that doesn’t want to be found)

That’s why the Pale Red Dot project, tasked with finding a planet around our nearest neighbor, had to turn to indirect — but reliable — methods of detection. The researchers chose radial velocity, a process that looks for shifts in a star’s light due to the tug of a planet, sometimes called the Doppler shift method. Subtle movements of gravity cause the light of a star to move toward the blue end of the light spectrum, which means it’s moving toward us, or the red end of the spectrum, which means it’s moving away. Based on those changes, researchers can give a mass estimate, and the frequency gives an idea of the orbit.

The planet itself was found over a series of nights from January 19 to March 31, 2016, during which Proxima was monitored closely for subtle variations on the European Southern Observatory’s HARPS instrument.

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