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NASA says distant exoplanet could have rare water ocean, possible hint of life

theguardian.com

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Re: NASA says distant exoplanet could have rare water ocean, possible hint of life

#41

Post by mpreda »

gsky wrote: post #30
mpreda wrote: post #17

We can expect these posibilities: 1. no life 2. simple life 3. advanced intelligent civilization In the first two cases, we need to send a physical probe there. In the third case it might be enough, and much faster, to send communication signals there and get answers back. The third case is also arguably the most interesting.

What if the advanced civilization treats us like the way we treat animals? In my view it's better to stay away from the advanced civilizations

If we detected their planet, and they're significantly more advanced than us, then it follows that they know a lot about our planet already.

Re: NASA says distant exoplanet could have rare water ocean, possible hint of life

#42

Post by CalRobert »

Grimburger wrote: post #8
truculent wrote: post #6

If the presence of dimethyl sulphide is confirmed, what would the next steps be? Presumably sending a probe would not be feasible in any foreseeable timeframe?

> Presumably sending a probe would not be feasible in any foreseeable timeframe? With global resources we can do it easily but the people in charge of our countries wouldn't have a job if they didn't invent fake boogeymen to waste cash on instead. We have plenty of starshot proposals that are incredibly cheap compared to other things: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breakthrough_Starshot

.....

How do you propose getting a probe to something 120 light years away and getting an answer within a human lifetime, unless you're going for a ride on the probe? Do you have some new physics?

Re: NASA says distant exoplanet could have rare water ocean, possible hint of life

#43

Post by verisimi »

dotancohen wrote: post #3

> the agency also hinted at even more remarkable possibility in the > potential finding of a molecule called dimethyl sulfide (DMS), which > on Earth is only produced by life. Are there any other instruments or telescopes that could further investigate this? Or is JWST the only telescope instrumented to detect such molecules 120 LY far away?

I can't see a molecule on my desk, even with a jeweller's microscope, nevermind seeing one 120 million light years away!

Science is amazing.

Re: NASA says distant exoplanet could have rare water ocean, possible hint of life

#44

Post by tigerlily »

perihelions wrote: post #19
King-Aaron wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The good news: if there is intelligent life it will not easily get here either. Unless 'it' left a long time ago and is already here. I always feel the 'space is big haha no one can cross it' argument is weird due to always framing it in our own frame of reference. What if the hypothetical 'thing' is like a jellyfish and time isn't as big an issue, or an AI that definitely doesn't care about time. Or a bundle of fu…

Even simpler: you send out self-replicating AI drones in advance—to every star in the entire galaxy. That guarantees permanent security. The drones assess if alien intelligences have any potential to become a threat, and if so annihilates their planet, by autonomous decision. Takes a few million years to set up... but that's just a blink of an eye on cosmic time scales; a brief era in the galactic-scale lifespan of a…

Huh, sounds like those Von Neumann probes from Star Control II

Re: NASA says distant exoplanet could have rare water ocean, possible hint of life

#45

Post by dncornholio »

Gys wrote: post #11

Distance is 120 light years. So whatever we see is 120 years in the past. Getting there within a reasonable time frame is impossible with our current technology (an unmanned rocket will still needs 1000s of years). The good news: if there is intelligent life it will not easily get here either.

120 light years is nothing. Light is pretty slow seen from the cosmic scale.

Re: NASA says distant exoplanet could have rare water ocean, possible hint of life

#46

Post by shafyy »

sandworm101 wrote: post #37
mpreda wrote: post #17

We can expect these posibilities: 1. no life 2. simple life 3. advanced intelligent civilization In the first two cases, we need to send a physical probe there. In the third case it might be enough, and much faster, to send communication signals there and get answers back. The third case is also arguably the most interesting.

Many forms of life may be detectable using telescopes. A jungle planet will look different in many ways than an ice world.l, ways that are detectable. A billion LED street lamps would similarly make the night side detectable.

Well only once you get to very very close to it.

Re: NASA says distant exoplanet could have rare water ocean, possible hint of life

#47

Post by ornornor »

mpreda wrote: post #33
gsky wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if the advanced civilization treats us like the way we treat animals? In my view it's better to stay away from the advanced civilizations

We do have animal rights, don't we?

Yeah right. We like to think we do.

Re: NASA says distant exoplanet could have rare water ocean, possible hint of life

#48

Post by stjo »

verisimi wrote: post #43
dotancohen wrote: post #3

> the agency also hinted at even more remarkable possibility in the > potential finding of a molecule called dimethyl sulfide (DMS), which > on Earth is only produced by life. Are there any other instruments or telescopes that could further investigate this? Or is JWST the only telescope instrumented to detect such molecules 120 LY far away?

I can't see a molecule on my desk, even with a jeweller's microscope, nevermind seeing one 120 million light years away! Science is amazing.

It is amazing, but JWST is not really seeing individual molecules. I believe they are analysing the spectral atmospheric emissions.

Re: NASA says distant exoplanet could have rare water ocean, possible hint of life

#49

Post by tigerlily »

throwaway74902 wrote: post #22
BoxOfRain wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps not, if the speed you can drive a probe is increasing with technological development it might be a waste of time to send a probe that'll be overtaken by its newer sisters.

The technological development is driven by the need to launch the probe. You need to start somewhere.

And what's more is we'll probably send the next probe someplace else.

Re: NASA says distant exoplanet could have rare water ocean, possible hint of life

#50

Post by shafyy »

dotancohen wrote: post #3

> the agency also hinted at even more remarkable possibility in the > potential finding of a molecule called dimethyl sulfide (DMS), which > on Earth is only produced by life. Are there any other instruments or telescopes that could further investigate this? Or is JWST the only telescope instrumented to detect such molecules 120 LY far away?

Does anybody know if this is the first time ever they detected DMS?
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