Article by Conor Clark April 26, 2021 (express.co.uk)
• NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) – “the largest, most powerful and complex space telescope ever built and launched into space”, was to be launched into space in 2007. But it exceeded its budget and was rescheduled for March 2018. Then the telescope’s sunshield ripped during a practice deployment and was further delayed. Then the COVID pandemic hit. Now the JWST is scheduled to launch from French Guiana aboard an Ariane 5 rocket in October of this year.
• The JWST is 100x more powerful than NASA’s Hubble Telescope which it will replace. Hubble has orbited the Earth’s lower atmosphere since 1990. But the JWST will orbit the Sun, a million miles away from Earth at a point which is four times further away than the Moon.
• The JWST will give scientists the ability to look even closer at exoplanets and learn which are most likely to harbor living beings, specifically gas dwarfs or super-earths that are surrounded by a thick atmosphere made up of an array of gases. Some of these gases, such as ammonia, could indicate that there is life beneath them on the planet. Scientists at Ohio State University say that the JWST will have the ability to detect some of the aforementioned gases in just 60 hours (the equivalent of a few orbits).
• The JWST is about half the size of a 737 jet and will be the largest telescope ever sent into space. Its main goal will be to find light radiated by the universe’s oldest stars and galaxies that were born after the Big Bang over 13.5 billion years ago, enabling scientists to learn more about the origins of life and the formation of stars and planetary systems. The JWST’s mission lifetime is “5-10+ years” meaning that we could potentially have answers about extra-terrestrial life within the next decade.
• Over 1,200 scientists, engineers and technicians from 14 countries have worked on the JWS Telescope to get it ready for take off. “My research suggests that for the first time, we have the scientific knowledge and technological capabilities to realistically begin to find the answers to these questions,” said graduate student Caprice Phillips.
The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) would give scientists the ability to look even closer at planets and learn which are most likely to harbour living beings, if all goes to plan. These planets are most commonly known as gas dwarfs or super-earths and are surrounded by a thick atmosphere made up of an array of gases.
Some of these gases, such as ammonia, could indicate that there is life beneath them on the planet.
This has been hard for scientists to establish in the past, given that there are no gas dwarf planets in our solar system and the massive clouds of dust are opaque to visible-light observatories.
Caprice Phillips
According to NASA’s website, the JWST “will be the largest, most powerful and complex space telescope ever built and launched into space”, claiming it “will fundamentally alter our understanding of the universe”.
Study author graduate student Caprice Phillips said: “Humankind has contemplated the questions: Are we alone? What is life? Is life elsewhere similar to us?”
“My research suggests that for the first time, we have the scientific knowledge and technological capabilities to realistically begin to find the answers to these questions.”
The telescope is 100x more powerful than NASA’s Hubble Telescope which is being replaced. That telescope orbiting the earth’s lower atmosphere since 1990.
Scientists at Ohio State University have determined that the JWST will have the ability to detect some of the aforementioned gases in just 60 hours (the equivalent of a few orbits).
It will orbit the sun, a million miles away from Earth at a point which is four times further away than the moon.
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Article by Elizabeth Rayne April 5, 2021 (syfy.com)
• A research team from the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory think that observing Earth from the perspective of distant extraterrestrial beings could help astronomers see our world through extraterrestrial eyes. And in turn, this can help our own scientists new insight on how to look for habitable – and inhabited – exoplanets.
• Researchers Noam Izenberg, Kevin Stevenson and Laura Mayorga recently presented the objective of the Earth Transit Observer (ETO) mission concept to the 52nd Lunar and Planetary Science Conference, hoping to get a green light to pursue the idea.
• Astronomers have been using the ‘transit method’ of finding and studying exoplanets since 1999. When a planet is orbiting in front of its star, the starlight will dim and brighten again when the planet has moved on. Particles in a planet’s atmosphere absorb starlight at some frequencies to indicate a planet in transit. What the ETO team wants to determine is whether more can be applied to this method in the future.
• The research team pointed out that the fundamental problem in exoplanet science is that we only know an exoplanets as well as we know their host star. Stars have varying degrees of brightness throughout. Starspots (like sunspots) can make scientists think they are seeing in a transiting planet. Sunspots on our own Sun are well documented. But starspots on distant stars remain largely unknown. Also, most exoplanets are too close to their stars to make out continents and oceans.
• “Even if you can separate the planet from the star, the Earth is reflecting and absorbing sunlight at different wavelengths,” say the researchers. “For a star to be a good reference it either needs to be unchanging, or you need a good understanding of how it changes.”
• Atmospheric particles that absorb starlight can indicate whether an exoplanet has anything close to the air we breathe, or if it rains everything from metal to lava. One exoplanet is so hot that it not only vaporizes metal, but tears the vapor molecules until the dismembered atoms are blown to its cooler night side to regroup.
• Future NASA astrophysics missions using space telescopes like TESS, Hubble and the soon-to-be launched James Webb Space Telescope will require stacking dozens of transmission spectra to build up sufficient signal for the relatively small atmospheres on exoplanets. “An Earth transit observer will test how well stacking can be done or if other strategies are needed,” say the researchers.
• What an ‘Earth transit observer’ is likely to see is a pale blue dot, watery and covered in clouds with an atmosphere of nitrogen and oxygen in which water vapor precipitates. Reflected light can give away whether a planet has oceans, while planet life has very low reflectivity. Any celestial body with water is seen as having a higher chance of being habitable. There are also traces of methane in our atmosphere that could tell an alien observer that our blue planet could be swarming with life.
• Earth may not be so easy to demystify from an alien’s perspective, however. Sun flares and coronal mass ejections of plasma can mess with how our transiting planet is seen. Then there are the constantly changing planetary seasons of Earth that can also throw off an alien astronomer’s observations. “These lessons are then directly transferable to exoplanet observations,” say researchers. Of course, there may be creatures out there that breathe poison. Even some Earth bacteria can eat rocks and metabolize methane. So you have to expect anything.
Suppose there really are aliens out there who are creeping around on the surface of
Noam Izenberg
some faraway planet and have managed to survive everything space has thrown at them so far. How could we find out they exist?
The answer might lie in how they would (hypothetically) see us. We may never know whether there really are intelligent beings who have spotted our planet as it passed by the sun, but observing it from their perspective could help us see through extraterrestrial eyes. This is the objective of the Earth Transit Observer (ETO) mission concept. Led by a research team from
Kevin Stevenson
the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL), ETO will watch Earth in transit as if it was a spacecraft sent out here by other intelligent beings.
Researchers Noam Izenberg and Kevin Stevenson, who will be the project leads if this
Laura Mayorga
mission becomes reality, and co-led a study recently presented at the 52nd Lunar and Planetary Science Conference, and Laura Mayorga, who also co-led the study, believe that observing Earth from the perspective of a being who never knew it existed could give us new insight on how to look for habitable—and possibly inhabited—planets.
“While an earth transit observer will not explicitly help us detect exoplanets, it will help us understand them and tease out their possible habitability signatures better. There is a
‘transit method’ of finding exoplanets
fundamental problem in exoplanet science in that we only know planets as well as we know their stars,” they said.
Astronomers have been using the transit method of finding exoplanets since 1999.
Earth
This method determines when a planet is orbiting in front of its star, which causes starlight to dim while it is being obscured and brighten again when the planet has moved on. Particles in a planet’s atmosphere can also absorb starlight at some frequencies, and the light that makes through can tell the observer how much was absorbed and whether that is a sign of a planet in transit. What the ETO team wants to know is whether there is more that can be applied to this method in the future.
The problem with stars is that they have varying degrees of brightness throughout, with starspots (like the sunspots in our own star) can warp what scientists think they are seeing in a transiting planet. However, the dark spots on our Sun are documented and followed, so scientists know how they change over time. Starspots on distant bodies remain largely unknown. When there is no clear idea of their size or distribution, they can mess with observations. Most exoplanets are also too close to their stars to make out the continents and oceans they may have.
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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 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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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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Article by Claire Bugos August 10, 2020 (smithsonianmag.com)
• In January 2019, there was a total lunar eclipse. During a two-day period, light from the Sun passed through the Earth’s atmosphere and hit the Moon, and was reflected back toward the Earth. The Hubble Space Telescope was able to intercept and gather data from this ultraviolet light. Though similar ground-based studies have been done before, this is the first time that scientists have used a space telescope to capture ultraviolet wavelengths. From this data, scientists from NASA and the European Space Agency are able to analyze the Earth’s own atmospheric spectrum. They reported their findings in an article published August 6 in The Astronomical Journal. (see 3-minute NASA video below)
• The main focus was on the Earth’s protective ozone layer. Ozone absorbs ultraviolet radiation. During the eclipse, Hubble detected lower amounts of UV radiation from the light reflected off the Moon than is present from unfiltered sunlight. Therefore, the Earth’s atmosphere absorbed some of it. If they can simulate this with a distant exoplanet, they can determine whether that planet’s atmosphere contains ozone. And along with oxygen, the detection of an ozone layer is considered an indication of possible life on that planet.
• Using this unique method, scientists can simulate observations of exoplanets. When an exoplanet crosses in front of its star, the star light is filtered through the planet’s atmosphere, creating a “halo” effect. Chemicals in the atmosphere filter out certain colors of starlight. Therefore, scientists can determine that planet’s atmospheric composition.
• “But how would we know a habitable or an uninhabited planet if we saw one?” queries Allison Youngblood of the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics, and lead researcher of Hubble’s observations. By developing a model of the Earth’s chemical spectrum, scientists can use this as a template for categorizing the atmospheres of exoplanets in other solar systems.
• The age of the planet is also be taken into account when determining its ability to host life. Earth had low concentrations of oxygen for more than a billion years, while organisms used photosynthesis to build the ozone layer. So it may be challenging to detect ozone in younger planets. Still, ultraviolet may be “the best wavelength to detect photosynthetic life on low-oxygen exoplanets,” says Giada Arney of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center and a co-author of the study.
• The Hubble telescope was launched in 1990, even before astronomers first discovered exoplanets. While its ability to observe extraterrestrial atmospheres is “remarkable,” NASA says future observations of Earth-sized planets will require much larger telescopes and longer observational periods, which the James Webb Space telescope, scheduled to launch in 2021, will provide.
In the quest to discover life beyond Earth, scientists are harnessing a very large and proximate tool—the moon.
Allison Youngblood
During a total lunar eclipse in January 2019, the moon acted like a giant mirror, reflecting sunlight that had passed
Hubble Telescope
through our atmosphere back toward Earth, reports Chelsea Gohd for Space.com. The Hubble Space Telescope, which was positioned between the Earth and moon, intercepted the reflected ultraviolet light for scientists to analyze.
Scientists from NASA and the European Space Agency studied the reflected light from a lunar eclipse during a two-day window. They reported their findings in an article published August 6 in The Astronomical Journal.
For the first time, scientists used a space telescope to capture ultraviolet wavelengths. Though similar ground-based studies have been done before, using a space telescope for this observation allows scientists to simulate future observations of exoplanets, Space.com reports.
Giada Arney
The goal was for the telescope to detect the Earth’s ozone layer. The ozone molecule that makes up the Earth’s protective layer absorbs ultraviolet radiation. During the eclipse, Hubble detected lower amounts of UV radiation from the light reflected off the moon than is present from unfiltered sunlight, meaning the Earth’s atmosphere must have absorbed some of it, according to a NASA press release.
If scientists are able to detect an ozone layer or oxygen on a neighboring exoplanet, there’s a possibility that the planet may harbor life. On Earth, oxygen is often produced by life forms, especially those that photosynthesize. If scientists detect an oxygen-rich atmosphere on an exoplanet, especially if the amount of oxygen varies seasonally, there is a chance that it also hosts life. But scientists would need to further analyze the atmosphere using other tools before determining if it’s life-hosting, Allison Youngblood of the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics, and lead researcher of Hubble’s observations, says in the press release.
3-minute video “Hubble Views Moon to Study Earth” (‘NASA Goddard’ YouTube)
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Article by Leonard David November 26, 2019 (space.com)
• So far, astronomers have found more than 4,000 exoplanets and more are being discovered, suggesting that every star in the Milky Way galaxy hosts more than one planet. Space.com asked top SETI experts whether they will detect life elsewhere in the galaxy or even intelligent extraterrestrials?
• In searching for extraterrestrial intelligence, senior SETI astronomer Seth Shostak relies on detecting narrow-band radio signals or brief flashes of laser light from nearby star systems. If there are 10,000 extraterrestrial societies broadcasting radio signals in the galaxy, then he estimates that SETI will need to examine 10 million star systems to find one. That will take at least two more decades.
• But with the new receivers for the Allen Telescope Array in northern California that is scheduled for 2020, SETI will be able to search for laser technosignatures, which may improve their chances. Says Shostak, “[O]ne can always hope to be taken by surprise.”
• Michael Michaud, author of the book: Contact with Alien Civilizations: Our Hopes and Fears about Encountering Extraterrestrials, says that improvements to search technologies could boost the odds of success. But there are still vast areas of the galaxy that we are not looking at. In searching for chemical technosignatures, we’ll most likely find simple life forms before finding a technological civilization.
• If SETI did find evidence of life in the galaxy, Michaud thinks the news will leak quickly. How should they announce the discovery? “[G]overnmental authorities won’t have much time for developing a public-affairs strategy,” says Michaud. Premade plans for such an announcement are unlikely because agency personnel won’t be able to get past the “giggle factor”, thinking that it is all just too absurd.
• Pete Worden, executive director of the Breakthrough Initiatives, which is affiliated with SETI, said, “I think this is going to be a long-term project. I estimate a very small probability of success (of finding extraterrestrial life) in any given year.” Nevertheless, “The Breakthrough Initiatives is committed to full and immediate disclosure of any and all results,” said Worden.
• Steven Dick, an astrobiology scholar and author of the book: Astrobiology, Discovery, and Societal Impact, says despite the work by Breakthrough Listen and NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), there’s no reason to think 2020 would be the year for discovery. “[A]ll these things combine to increase the chances over the next decade of finding extraterrestrial intelligence. I would caution, though, that any discovery will be an extended process, consisting of detection and interpretation before any understanding is achieved,” said Dick. “I see the search advancing incrementally next year, but with an accelerating possibility that life will be discovered in the near future.” “One thing that is certain is that we are getting a better handle on the issues of societal impact, should such a discovery be made.”
• Douglas Vakoch, president of the SETI-affiliated nonprofit Messaging Extraterrestrial Intelligence (METI), notes that “We are right now on the verge of finding out whether there is life elsewhere in the universe.” We scan with available technologies: Earth-based observatories, space-based telescopes, and even craft that travel to other planets and moons in our solar system. “It all depends on how plentiful intelligent extraterrestrials are. If one in 10,000 star systems is home to an advanced civilization trying to make contact, then …the news we’re not alone in the universe could well come in 2020,” Vakoch says.
• “As the next generation of space telescopes is launched, we will increase our chances of detecting signs of life through changes to the atmospheres of planets that orbit other stars, giving us millions of targets in our search for even simple life in the cosmos,” says Vakoch. But we probably won’t have “definitive proof” until after 2020 when NASA launches the James Webb Space Telescope, or 2028 when the European Space Agency starts its Atmospheric Remote-Sensing Infrared Exoplanet Large-survey, or ARIEL, to study the atmospheres of exoplanets for potential signs of life.
• “[D]on’t hold your breath for discovery by 2020,” says Vakoch. Humans cannot control whether or not there is life elsewhere in the universe. “Either it’s there or it’s not.” “To be human is to live with uncertainty.” “If we demand guarantees before we begin searching, then we are guaranteed to find nothing. But if we are willing to commit to the search in the coming year and long afterwards, even without knowing we will succeed, then we are sure to discover that there is at least one civilization in the universe that has the passion and the determination to understand its place in the cosmos — and that civilization is us.”
• [Editor’s Note] Seth Shostak and his band of idiots at SETI make their living by covering up the widespread existence of intelligent extraterrestrial life all around us, on behalf of their puppet masters, the Deep State elite. Are they liars or are they being fooled themselves? If they are half the scientists they claim to be, they must know the truth. Therefore, they are the very face of the Deep State lying to the public. They are reprehensible. They talk in scientific terms about the new technologies that they employ in their phony search to find a needle in a haystack. But they insist that it will take years, and probably lifetimes before they find a microbe on a distant exoplanet. Then they add platitudes of what a grand discovery it will be if they ever find life in the universe besides humanity. But make no mistake. Their job is to never find life beyond the Earth, and they have gotten very good at it.
In the past three decades, scientists have found more than 4,000 exoplanets. And the discoveries will keep rolling in; observations suggest that every star in the Milky Way galaxy hosts more than one planet on average.
Seth Shostak
Given a convergence of ground- and space-based capability, artificial intelligence/machine learning research and other tools, are we on the verge of identifying what is universally possible for life — or perhaps even confirming the existence of extraterrestrial intelligence?
Is 2020 the celestial payoff year, in which objects of interest are found to offer “technosignatures,” indicators of technology developed by advanced civilizations?
Space.com asked top SETI (search for extraterrestrial intelligence) experts about what next year may signal regarding detecting other starfolk.
Michael Michaud
Gaining speed
“Well, despite being the widely celebrated 100-year anniversary of the election of Warren G. Harding, 2020 will not likely gain fame as the year we first discover extraterrestrial life,” said Seth Shostak, a senior astronomer at the SETI Institute in Mountain View, California.
The search for intelligent beings elsewhere, Shostak said, is largely conducted by checking out nearby star systems for either narrow-band radio signals or brief flashes of laser light. And those might succeed at any time, he told Space.com.
“But one should remember that this type of search is gaining speed in an exponential fashion, and that particular technical fact allows a crude estimate of when SETI might pay off. If we take — for lack of a better estimate — Frank Drake’s opinion that there might be 10,000 broadcasting societies in the Milky Way, then we clearly have to examine at least one [million] – 10 million stellar systems to have a reasonable chance of tripping across one. That goal will be reached in the next two decades, but certainly not in 2020,” Shostak said.
Pete Worden
Improved searches
But there are still reasons for intelligent-alien hunters to be excited and optimistic about the coming year. Multiple existing projects will either be expanded or improved in 2020, Shostak said. For example, the SETI Institute will get new receivers for the Allen Telescope Array in northern California, and both the SETI Institute and the University of California, Berkeley, will conduct new searches for possible laser technosignatures.
“And, of course, there’s always the unexpected,” Shostak said. “In 1996, the biggest science story of the year was the claim that fossilized Martian microbes had been found in a meteorite. No one really saw that coming. So one can always hope to be taken by surprise.”
Previous predictions
“I am skeptical about picking a specific year for the first discovery. Previous predictions of success have been wrong,” said Michael Michaud, author of the thought-provoking book “Contact with Alien Civilizations: Our Hopes and Fears about Encountering Extraterrestrials” (Copernicus, 2007).
“I and others have observed that the continued improvement of our search technologies and strategies could boost the odds for success,” Michaud said, noting that the primary focus of SETI remains on radio signals. “However, we still don’t cover all frequencies, all skies, all of the time. Other types of searches have failed, too, such as looking for laser signals or Dyson spheres [ET mega-engineering projects]. Those campaigns usually have limited funding and often don’t last long.”
Steven Dick
A new possibility has arisen because of exoplanet discoveries, Michaud said: “In some cases, astronomers now can look for chemical evidence of life in planetary atmospheres. It is conceivable that we will find simple forms of life before we find signals from a technological civilization.”
Douglas Vakoch
Prevailing opinion
If astronomers do someday confirm a SETI detection, how should they announce the discovery? It is an old question that has been answered in several ways.
“The prevailing opinion among radio astronomers has been that the news will leak quickly. If that is correct, scientific and governmental authorities won’t have much time for developing a public-affairs strategy,” Michaud said.
“It remains possible that the sophisticated monitoring capabilities of intelligence agencies might be the first to detect hard evidence,” Michaud said. “One might think that the government would have a plan to deal with such an event.”
But, Michaud said that his own experience suggests that such plans are unlikely to be drawn up due to a “giggle factor” and would be forgotten as officials rotated out of their positions. He previously represented the U.S. Department of State in interagency discussions of national space policy.
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• The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), which will go online in 2021 replacing the Hubble Telescope, will be the most sophisticated space telescope ever made. The JWST will be able to observe high redshift objects that are too old and too distant for the Hubble and other earlier instruments to observe. It promises to see deeper into time, and with much greater clarity, than any space-based or terrestrial optical telescope on Earth.
• One of the JWST’s major goals is observing some of the most distant events and objects in the universe such as the formation of the first galaxies, the formation of stars and planets, and direct imaging of exoplanets and novas. The JWST will be able to see 0.3 billion years after the Big Bang to when visible light itself was beginning to form. It will accurately measure the content of water, carbon dioxide and other components in the atmosphere of an exoplanet hundreds of light years away and will tell scientists more about the size and distance of these exoplanets are from their host suns. By measuring the chemical make-up of a planet, scientists will be able to see if it can host life.
• “Even if we never find other life in our Solar System, we might still detect it on any one of thousands of known exoplanets,” Cathal O’Connor, researcher and center manager at the University of Melbourne, said. “The ancient question ‘Are we alone?’ has graduated from being a philosophical musing to a testable hypothesis. We should be prepared for an answer.”
When the astonishing James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) sees first light in 2021, the world of science as we know it will never be the same again.
The most sophisticated space telescope ever made promises to see deeper into time, and with much greater clarity, than any space-based or terrestrial optical telescope on Earth. Some of the more starry-eyed fantasize JWST might even glimpse alien spacecraft hovering over their home planet.
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The replacement for the venerable Hubble Telescope will be able to see 0.3 billion years after the Big Bang to when visible light itself was beginning to form. It will accurately measure the content of water, carbon dioxide and other components in the atmosphere of an exoplanet hundreds of light years away and will tell scientists more about the size and distance of these exoplanets are from their host suns.
By measuring the chemical make-up of a planet, scientists will be able to see if it can host life.
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• 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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The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) would give scientists the ability to look even
closer at planets and learn which are most likely to harbour living beings, if all goes to plan. These planets are most commonly known as gas dwarfs or super-earths and are surrounded by a thick atmosphere made up of an array of gases.
Suppose there really are aliens out there who are creeping around on the surface of
On Dec. 18, the world learned that Breakthrough Listen, a privately funded search for extraterrestrial
