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

theguardian.com

91–100 of 156 posts

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

#91
post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Things have gone poorly for them, but they didn’t know it would happen like this when they invaded. In theory the USSR could have greatly benefited from a short war that gained them resource rich territory at minimal cost like the previous time they invaded Ukraine and annexed Crimea in 2014. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_occupation_of_Crimea However, an alien civilization has little reason to invade a planet…

I don't think Russia gained materially from that. While they ruthlessly exploited whatever resources they could get hold of in the Donbas, that of course that leaves the region much poorer so the have just concentrated wealth, not creates more of it overall.

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

#92

When I read such PR it feels that someone need a budget approved and no accountability : "here is something cool that nobody can check, but hey we could explore this for a couple of millions, can you sign down here"

Huh? Most of the "cool" stuff is speculation from readers like ourselves.

If you were on the budget, Galileo would have never gotten money for a telescope.

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

#94
post #67

120 light years away. If there was life out there, similar to us - could we detect their radio and television signals over this distance?

of course. photons do not experience time or distance, and are probably ageless

They do, however, experience the inverse square law.

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

#95

When I read such PR it feels that someone need a budget approved and no accountability : "here is something cool that nobody can check, but hey we could explore this for a couple of millions, can you sign down here"

Nobody can check? You can file a request for a time slot on webb if you have proper reasoning then compare your atmospheric composition findings with nasa own findings that they posted also they never claimed that there’s life they said “some astronomers believe that these worlds are promising environments to search for evidence for life on exoplanets.” Also they have other sensors on webb that have no been pointed at the planet yet so I don’t think they will need any money for this purpose yet. Heres the original post https://www.nasa.gov/goddard/2023/webb-discovers-methane-car...

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

#96
post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Things have gone poorly for them, but they didn’t know it would happen like this when they invaded. In theory the USSR could have greatly benefited from a short war that gained them resource rich territory at minimal cost like the previous time they invaded Ukraine and annexed Crimea in 2014. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_occupation_of_Crimea However, an alien civilization has little reason to invade a planet…

I don't think Russia gained materially from that. While they ruthlessly exploited whatever resources they could get hold of in the Donbas, that of course that leaves the region much poorer so the have just concentrated wealth, not creates more of it overall.

A thief doesn’t care about overall economic outcomes. Crimea may be worse off but that’s not necessarily relevant to Russia’s leadership.

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

#97
post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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[flagged]

If they are used to propaganda where every enemy is stupid and ever allied plan works they don't. But in real life you can be genius and a bad person at the same time

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

#98
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is, when would we get an answer? Even in the best case, that would be 240 years. But we don't have the capability of building probes which approach the speed of light, so with current technology, it is probably hundreds of thousands of years. So the short term solution (in the order of decades) is improve the observation capabilities. More observations with the JWST should give a better idea what the next…

We won't get the capability to build probes that approach the speed of light if we keep observing instead of beginning to build the probe.

Nobody said something about stopping building probes. That will continue and eventually lead to probes which might approach the speed of light. But the achievable targets for the next decades are planetary, not interstellar.

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

#99

When I read such PR it feels that someone need a budget approved and no accountability : "here is something cool that nobody can check, but hey we could explore this for a couple of millions, can you sign down here"

Data is open, you can check. Hell you can even propose your own time slot of webb if you want.

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

#100

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?

If you want to send things there, I would say the best solution is to take this as evidence that interesting exoplanets exist, and to look for similar closer ones
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