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NASA news conference tomorrow

Joe P

Joe P

Memory Alpha incarnate | mod; Shatner number = 2
NASA is holding a press conference tomorrow to present findings on planets that orbit stars other than the Sun.

https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-to-host-news-conference-on-discovery-beyond-our-solar-system

The number of confirmed exoplanets is well into the thousands now and growing weekly. Discovery of yet another exoplanet would be news, but not likely worthy of a press conference.

Much rarer are the Earth-like planets that orbit their stars in the Goldilocks zone, the region around a star where conditions are right for liquid water to exist should a rocky planet be in orbit in that zone. But almost a dozen of these exoplanets have been discovered previously, too. Finding another Earth-like planet in the Goldilocks zone would be news, but again not likely worthy of a press conference.

Personally, I hope it's evidence that complex organic molecules have been detected because that would suggest life — alien life. It's probably too much to expect it to be benevolent intelligent alien life capable of interstellar travel but not yet sufficiently advanced socially to have a prime directive. It's critical that they don't have a prime directive.

My thinking is they might be inclined to interfere with our social development by removing threats to our existence, most obviously Trump. Or maybe they could just give him a proper anal probing with a cold instrument in a room lit harshly by bluish-white LEDs.

Whatever the news, all shall be revealed in the fullness of time... sometime tomorrow.

Stay tuned for updates.

Joe
 
As Arthur C. Clarke famously put it in The promise of space, getting to the stars is no problem, provided that one is in no particular hurry.

As an aside, I quite enjoyed Ascension on Netflix, the story of a generation ship en route to the stars, which, unbeknownst to the crew, had never actually left the ground. I guess that's the only way we'll ever get there - it's almost as if Someone Out There has essentially quarantined us, so that we can only wreak havoc on the immediate neighbourhood.
 
tones said:
As an aside, I quite enjoyed Ascension on Netflix ...
Click to expand...

That was a total rip off of JG Ballard’s Thirteen To Centaurus—filmed as an episode of the '60s series Out of the Unknown.

I surprised someone didn't sue!

I do hope it's a message—"We just saw Ascension and it is a total rip off of Ballard's Thirteen To Centaurus! Baste&d Earthlings."

I, for one, welcome our Centauran overlords.

Stephen
 
Tony,

NASA may have figured out what planet Trump is from.
Click to expand...
Planet Ekos, where Trump is Professor John Gill and Bannon is Deputy Führer Melakon.


Yes, I know I've Trekked my own thread.

Joe

P.S. If I were a bettin' man, I'd put a fiver on the discovery of complex organic molecules on a rocky planet in the Goldilocks zone, which would be suggestive of life. It won't be proof of life, but life can't exist without complexity.
 
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Could be related to this, Michael Gillon on the briefing list was part of the team to discover them:

Astrophysicists from the University of Liege using the TRAPPIST telescope have discovered a planetary system formed of three Earth-sized planets around an « ultracool red dwarf star » slightly bigger than Jupiter in size. While these planets are close to their host star, they are not exposed to very high temperatures and could harbor areas on their surfaces that are suitable for life. The new planetary system is only 40 light years away from Earth. This proximity should allow the future generation of large telescopes to study the atmosphere of these planets with precision. As of today, these planets are the most promising candidates for having liquid water or even life outside the solar system. Even though the news has just been published in the journal Nature, it is probably a safe bet that teams of astrophysicists over the world will be tripping over each other to study this planetary system. In the meantime, the team that made the surprising discovery only has eyes for "its" small nearby star...
Click to expand...
 
It's to announce that by presidential executive order the earth is now flat, and at the centre of the universe - which is actually a series of glass spheres. So NASA is no longer needed.
 
I hear Trump is going to pull the plug on most of the NASA work, and announce the discovery of a rare breed of cats living on a distant planet....
 
Joe P said:
...
P.S. If I were a bettin' man, I'd put a fiver on the discovery of complex organic molecules on a rocky planet in the Goldilocks zone, which would be suggestive of life. It won't be proof of life, but life can't exist without complexity.
Click to expand...

Interesting stuff Joe.

Not sure if I'm being dumb, but surely one needs to get a tad closer to complex organic modules to, err, discover them?

Unless it's a particularly massive alien life form, perhaps holding up commensurately large signs that say "Hi".
 
They're announcing that Climate Change is a Chinese hoax, and that burning hydrocarbons is actually good for the atmosphere.
 
Whaleblue Ian,

Astronomical spectroscopy is the tool that would let scientists study the various planetary atmospheres from afar.

Sodium_in_atmosphere_of_exoplanet_HD_209458.jpg


Absorption lines in the right places would be good evidence that complex organic molecules exist, which would be suggestive of life.

Joe
 
Astro Iain,

Please let it be Vulcans — or at least Denebian slime devils!

Joe
 
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