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Finding Candidate Planets

Signs of Intelligence. Fermi's Paradox. Mars. Titan. Complex Molecules in free Space. Enceladus. Europa. Search for extraterrestrial intelligence. New Technique Could Help Scientists Detect Alien Life... in Four Years. Just wait till we turn this thing on, and discover a thousand-plus worlds that seems to have a signal for life.

To look up at the stars and know* that all the universe is filled with life, everywhere**. * Obviously I'm using the term loosely here. There'd always be room to doubt, and certainly you'd need more evidence than that to declare something like that certain. But it seems like the signal would indicate a pretty high likelihood and Im sure I'd believe them if they said it was life. ** Or, alternately, not.

However, I'm one of those people that believe that life is almost inevitable, as are some of the more basic principals, like photosynthesis. If the answer turns out to be 'no', it's the wrong answer. The only sense that I can imagine that the answer would be no, is just that logical part of me that says that has to be a possibility until proven otherwise. . * From my new book, "Things to Ponder While You're High. " So, life has to be on the planet. . * Not proof. * Not a chemist. New Tool Coming In Hunt For Alien Life. With the James Webb Space Telescope still more than four years away from launch astronomers are coming up with ideas on how to maximise its usefulness.

A proposal published in Astrobiology outlines a way it could be used to detect signatures of life on planets around nearby stars. While it is always possible that life around extrasolar worlds will be “not as we know it”, the obvious place to start looking is on planets as similar as possible to our own. This includes the presence of liquid water, which in turn requires a substantial atmosphere. Low atmospheric pressure means water boils as soon as it melts. However, according to the new paper, “Current proposed methods for measuring pressure by using remote-sensing techniques that could be applicable to exoplanetary atmospheres are challenging.” A better way, the authors suggest, is to look for dimers. While knowing the pressure in the atmosphere is important, just picking up O2-O2 dimers could matter for another reason. A Geek's Gift Guide of Gadgets, Gear and Novelties. Like & Follow Dude I Want That Most Viewed Products Thursday, February 20, 2014.

7 Good Reasons Why There Might Be Life on Other Planets. A New Equation Reveals Our Exact Odds of Finding Alien Life. I find it beyond weird that these supposedly smart people never factor time into the equation.

If you miss someone by a minute or a millennium, you've still missed them. Even assuming a habitable world chemically, radiationally and biologically identical to Earth where evolution matched Earth's right up until the rise of humans, we still could've missed a high tech society by 100,000 years. (Radiationally is totally a word. Now.) Cloudy With A Chance Of Aliens: How We Look for Extraterrestrial Life. A Dramatic Glimpse of Mars as it Appeared Billions of Years Ago. Agreed.

I just can't see how there wasn't something, even if it was microbes. Smoke Ring [Archive] - Cosmoquest Forum. An oxygen 'smoke ring' is very unlikely, since oxygen tends to bond tightly with other elements.

A hydrogen 'smoke ring is a little more likely, so perhaps you might find them occasionally out there in the universe - but surely the density of the atmosphere in such a ring would be very low. The few examples in our solar system are practically hard vacuum. Top 3 Questions People Ask an Astrophysicist (and Answers) Credit: Alain R. | Wikimedia Commons.

Did exploding stars help life on Earth thrive? Research by a Danish physicist suggests that the explosion of massive stars -- supernovae -- near the Solar System has strongly influenced the development of life.

Prof. Henrik Svensmark of the Technical University of Denmark (DTU) sets out his novel work in a paper in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. When the most massive stars exhaust their available fuel and reach the end of their lives, they explode as supernovae, tremendously powerful explosions that are briefly brighter than an entire galaxy of normal stars. The remnants of these dramatic events also release vast numbers of high-energy charged particles known as galactic cosmic rays (GCR). If a supernova is close enough to the Solar System, the enhanced GCR levels can have a direct impact on the atmosphere of Earth. Prof. Comparing this with the geological record, he found that the changing frequency of nearby supernovae seems to have strongly shaped the conditions for life on Earth. And that’s why life may be rare in the Galaxy. By George Dvorsky Our asteroid belt, which is situated between Jupiter and Mars, has traditionally been seen as something of a nuisance.

Every once in awhile one of these rocks dislodges itself and heads straight for Earth, what often results in a cataclysmic impact. But ironically, as a new study from the University of Colorado suggests, we may owe our very existence to these chunks of displaced rocks. And according to the researchers, our asteroid belt appears to be unique as far as these things go — what may be contributing to the dearth of life in the galaxy. Astronomers and astrobiologists are increasingly coming to see asteroid belts as an important component to solar system composition, planet formation, and the emergence of life.

Despite the astronomical chaos produced by impact events, asteroids delivered water, organic compounds, and heavy elements to Earth — what are all crucial for the emerge of life. Image: NASA/ESA/A.