The search for primitive life. Why?

[Sayonara]

Originally posted by Intelligence

I know what he said and I responded accordingly.

You clearly didn't. You got it completely wrong. You said I was talking about searching for planets, and I was not. So NYAAAAHH.

 

You are too aggressive and not nearly linky enough

 

I think NASA should go to Europa too - it's the best prospect for finding complex alien life in this system.

[Intelligence]

Originally posted by Sayonara³

ANYWAY:

 

Here is what I was looking for:

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/2636643.stm

 

 

Apparently only two planets have ever been found this way, with two more candidates being investigated - even though the Ogle focuses on a densely packed part of the galaxy.

 

This is not really a flat-out method for finding planets, it is more a tool for analyzing the atmosphere of known planets.

 

This article is entirely wrong. Either that or it's using wish-wash terms to disrey you.

 

Let me explain - every single planet at all times makes a straight line from it to it's sun.

 

The telescope makes a straight line to the star.

 

As long as the planet passes within this line it is detected.

 

Now you might be quick and dumb to say well what's the chance that if the star covers say 3.6 degress, that the planet crosses it.......the answer is of course 1 in 100

 

But there are BILLIONS OF STARS and thus even 1% of these means the telescope will see 1000's

 

Also that article indeed is incorrect, there have been MANY planets seen passing over stars.

[Intelligence]

Originally posted by Sayonara³

You are too aggressive and not nearly linky enough

 

I think NASA should go to Europa too - it's the best prospect for finding complex alien life in this system.

 

The reason I don't link is frankly because - as I just have confirmed in your link - the internet is filled with incorrect or lying articles.

 

Shit man I could link you to a news article posted this year claiming the earth is flat........

 

I'm a book man, not an internet news man - I will try hear to find NASA info on the tele for you though...thanks for the interest.

 

 

Yes I too want to see more about this europa mission - do you recall when it was too begin? Wasn't the space shuttle already sent out?

 

Of course the water on mars thing needs to be checked out but i dunno Europa is more exotic.

[Intelligence]

Banana - Well see to me searching for planets and searching for life on planets is the same thing...

 

 

....To me it's the only thing worth spending time looking beyond the blue sky....

 

..so that's what I meant, it's one and the same to me.

[Sayonara]

If you are going to make these claims, the onus is on you to prove them.

 

Find a better, more trustworty, more accurate, and more impartial source than the BBC and I will be very impressed.

 

Additionally, I don't know of any telescopes that can monitor 1000's of stars simultaneously.

[Sayonara]

Originally posted by Intelligence

Yes I too want to see more about this europa mission - do you recall when it was too begin? Wasn't the space shuttle already sent out?

Errrr... where did you hear/read that? Seriously.

[Intelligence]

Originally posted by Sayonara³

Additionally, I don't know of any telescopes that can monitor 1000's of stars simultaneously.

 

I'll give you a hint.

 

You have two of them on your face right now.

[Intelligence]

Originally posted by Sayonara³

Errrr... where did you hear/read that? Seriously.

 

Calm down I watch to much science channel might be confused.

 

I am searching NASA for the answers to these right now....

[Sayonara]

Originally posted by Intelligence

I'll give you a hint.

 

You have two of them on your face right now.

You are saying that my eyes are capable of simultaneously detecting the planets that may or may not be passing between my retinas and the thousands of stars in my field of view?

[Intelligence]

Originally posted by Sayonara³

You are saying that my eyes are capable of simultaneously detecting the planets that may or may not be passing between my retinas and the thousands of stars in my field of view?

 

 

If you sat in outerspace beyond our atmosphere (which causes stars to blink as well) you would indeed see stars blinking, yes.

 

They blink more obviously than the blinks caused by the earths atmosphere that we see every night.

 

And yes you could see them blink anywhere within your main field of vision.

[Sayonara]

How? And why?

 

(them blinking, not me seeing them. I know how vision works)

[Intelligence]

Here is the page on the Europa mission - I was wrong:

 

http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/missions/jup_missns/jup-europa.html

 

This here is the mission I was most likely thinking of:

 

http://www.nasa.gov/missions/deepspace/galex_mission.html

[Intelligence]

Originally posted by Sayonara³

How? And why?

 

(them blinking, not me seeing them. I know how vision works)

 

From Earth they blink because of atmospheric polution.

 

From space it's merely contant eclipses.

 

From the view point of standing on the moon one could, using a nice man-made telescope, experiencing eclipses every single second forever.

[Intelligence]

I am completely and totally INCORRECT.

 

Either the science channel hyped the telescope up and made my mind think it wa hugely successfull or I am malfunctioning.

 

It has since found only two planets

 

HD 209458b first

and then Ogle-TR-56b

 

You are correct.

 

 

 

 

 

 

(fuck, I got told by a dancing banana, there's goes my ego.)

[Intelligence]

Originally posted by Intelligence

Jakiri - Incorrect. This was a rather hacked up method used many years ago which was extremely slow, stupid, and pointless.

 

The telescope now used to study blinking gathers data hundreds of times better and empirically NOT theoretically.

 

Banana man - What do you mean by the time we are searching for extrasolar planets.....

 

......I sincerely hope you aware that there are currently over 160 extra solar planets known and catagorized.

 

And last I checked NASA is still here and so is america

 

 

NOTE: On further examination I am wrong only 2 planets have been found using this method, but 160 found using ALL methods. See here:

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/2636643.stm

[Sayonara]

Oh, NOW you like the BBC, lol.

 

I don't like to rub it in when you so laudably admitted your error, but you're wrong on the eclipse issue too.

 

Ogle doesn't actually 'see' the planets moving in front of the stars at all. It analyses the light coming from the star and calculates spectroscopic data, gravitational variance etc, which allows deductions to be made about what's happening.

 

Consider eclipses of the sun seen from Earth. In a solar eclipse, the moon appears the same size as the sun due to a massive mathematical fluke. But the moon's shadow - the umbra, or darkest part, is tiny compared to the surface of the Earth. Imagine how insignificant light variations due to the transit of a planet across a massive yet distant star must be viewed from here.

 

If you remember the images of Mercury crossing the face of the sun that were publicised recently, you'll also remember there was no blinking at all. And that was all happening right on our doorstep.

[Intelligence]

I didn't mean that the entire sun blots out in a blink - I meant that when you use a filter on the telescope that sees light that removes coronal spectrums than all you see is a dot - which is usuall color enhanced to BLUE for hot, and white for hotter - not your normal red shades.

 

Then the planet crosses it appears as a black dot.

 

The dot in some photos is 1/100 the size, but can clearly be followed in a time lapse video.

 

so I was generalizing about the blink.......

[Sayonara]

You mean like the thingy in the movie posted in the "your favourite star" thread?

[Intelligence]

Not sure which you mean but this is a picture of the FIRST of the two seen:

 

http://www.muyinteresante.es/canales/muy_act/anterior/julio00/imagenes/planet15.gif

 

That is EXAcTLY what i mean.

[JaKiri]

Well, at least you can admit if you've made a mistake. That's good.

[matter]

I'm pretty interested about a mission to Europa. Atleast there we have a small idea that there could be water below the surface. Would there be any life in the water? Well, I kind of doubt there would be. For my own reasons I guess. One things for sure, I wouldnt wanna go in the creepy water of Europa, it looks dark and scary.

[Dudde]

all the more reason to go!

 

heck if they're short on people to go under I'll free up my schedule;)

[JaKiri]

2010++

[YT2095]

I`de back you up too! on the codition I could take some instant heat packs and my water wings (I can`t swim)

Seriously though, with regards to the WHY NASA search for primitive life, I think it`s to do with learning about WHAT conditions life CAN exist in, then from this , Hopefully expanding our search a little wider than just 21%O 78%N 1%other... with an ambient temp of about 21c

I mean it would be really cool to come across Silicon or Boron based life too, besides, it gives them something other than weapons to spend their money on and that`s GOTTA be a good thing

[matter]

I dont think my mind could handle being so far away from earth, not with how unsafe space travel is at this time. Well, that's not true, I guess I could handle it. Most likely they'll send machines to Europa right? I don't think they wanna risk sending any people out past Mars.