NASA Has Made A Huge Discovery About Planets Outside Our Solar System

NASA Has Made A Huge Discovery About Planets Outside Our Solar System

Has NASA found evidence of life in space? Some of the world's leading voices on life beyond Earth will gather for a NASA press conference Wednesday where an important announcement on planets outside our solar system was expected to be made, NASA announced Monday. Exoplanets are widely believed to be the best hope of finding life elsewhere in the universe.

NASA vowed to broadcast the announcement featuring astronomers and planetary scientists from across the world on NASA Television and the agency's website. The space agency was encouraging the public to ask questions during the briefing on Twitter using the hashtag #askNASA.

The announcement comes as NASA has also been working to send a lander to Europa, Jupiter’s ice moon, to explore the potential for extraterrestrial life. The project includes determining whether life can thrive on Europa.

The full press release about Wednesday's major announcement titled "NASA to Host News Conference on Discovery Beyond Our Solar System" can be found below:

"NASA will hold a news conference at 1 p.m. EST Wednesday, Feb. 22, to present new findings on planets that orbit stars other than our sun, known as exoplanets. The event will air live on NASA Television and the agency's website.

Details of these findings are embargoed by the journal Nature until 1 p.m.

Click link for story..

some interesting news coming out of NASA again.... We have seen these announcements before but this one looks promising. Guess we will find out Wednesday whats up.

a reply to: Xcathdra

Ahhhh, Never A Straight Answer... Can't wait

If some major discovery, do we believe they actually share to share, or share because its no longer hidable and want to take credit? God I'm cynical, lol..

I like what you did there. Very sharp of you.

NASA vowed to broadcast the announcement? Vowed.....solemnly promise...Must be something big.

NASA has, in recent years, hyped up a lot of things that are now commonplace. Like the discovery of exoplanets. Not to lessen the impact of discovering other worlds, but hype is unnecessary and turns people off when commonplace discoveries are announced via hyped up press conferences.

Like the discovery of water on Mars. By the time they had made the announcement many publicly made observations had already confirmed the presence of water on Mars.

they need money.
to get money they need good publicity before the budget hearings.

same old story.

a reply to: painkiller

Ye, but this time round they will get it.

originally posted by: painkiller
they need money.
to get money they need good publicity before the budget hearings.

same old story.

Exactly.

I'm a huge advocate already for increasing NASA budgets for missions and research.

But using hyped up teasers like this to get support from the public is souring the political and financial will to make it happen.

a reply to: Xcathdra

Interesting announcement, would be great if they actually found some hard evidence for life outside the solar system.

But my bet is that they need funding for their research. And that of course requires creating some excitement in your field from time to time. But hey, perhaps the news will be "earth-shaking" but I don't really think so.

ETA: I just realized that painkiller beat me to it regarding the "money argument" with his post further above, too bad!

Slow down....

Here's what NASA actually said:

NASA will hold a news conference at 1 p.m. EST Wednesday, Feb. 22, to present new findings on planets that orbit stars other than our sun, known as exoplanets. The event will air live on NASA Television and the agency's website.

Ignore what some Yahoo second rate hack has reported. No mention of aliens at all.

a reply to: MarsIsRed

Ignore what some Yahoo second rate hack has reported. No mention of aliens at all.

Heard, understood, and acknowledged.

a reply to: Xcathdra

Some of the people that will be at the press conference:

Sara Seager "Astronomical Indiana Jones"
Seager developed a parallel version of the Drake equation to estimate the number of habitable planets in the galaxy.[25] Instead of aliens with radio technology, Seager has revised the Drake equation to focus on simply the presence of any alien life detectable from Earth. The equation focuses on the search for planets with biosignature gases, gases produced by life that can accumulate in a planet atmosphere to levels that can be detected with remote space telescopes

Nikole Lewis
Dr. Lewis is an expert in the area of exoplanet atmospheric characterization. Her work focuses on the interplay of dynamical, radiative, and chemical processes (including cloud formation) in exoplanet atmospheres. She has successfully bridged the gap between theory and observation through her pioneering work with Spitzer Space Telescope exoplanet observations and the development of general circulation models for a number of giant exoplanets. Dr. Lewis' work at the Space Telescope Science Institute focuses on enabling transiting exoplanet observations with the James Webb Space Telescope

Michael Gillon
As part of the project TRAPPIST he chief scientist and principal investigator for exoplanets 2 . This project leads to numerous publications as well as the detection of some thirty exoplanets in transit between the end of 2010 and mid 2012 2 . He was the initiator of an international research observing for the first time the thermal emission of a super-Earth : 55 Cancri e 2 , 5 . In 2013 , he was appointed a member of the CHEOPS scientific team . He represents Belgium with his colleague Valérie Van Grootel 6 , 7 .

Hopefully it's the Vulcans, we could use their assistance.

It would appear though, that they've found something in the atmosphere of a large exoplanet that could indicate life.

a reply to: projectvxn

Obviously we'd all like it to be aliens though! Perhaps they've found oxygen or methane in the atmosphere of an exoplanet... except we only have the technology to potentially look at gas giants, which won't support life (other than perhaps airborne microorganisms).

Nasa will announce they have tapped into the galactic internet and downloaded plans for warp drive. will be flying to other solar systems come Fall!

Mark my words!

(then ignore them)

a reply to: MarsIsRed

I don't need it to be aliens.

There have been a lot of amazing discoveries recently that have me extremely excited. Like metastable metallic hydrogen, LIGO's discovery of gravitational waves, and ongoing research into EM drive.

The discoveries are profound on their own without any hype.

originally posted by: jhn7537
a reply to: Xcathdra

Ahhhh, Never A Straight Answer... Can't wait

If some major discovery, do we believe they actually share to share, or share because its no longer hidable and want to take credit? God I'm cynical, lol..

Well, Never A Simple Answer, perhaps... considering that ice particles and camera glitches need complicated detailed explanations for some people who cannot understand technology or physics..

Or it's... Aliens.

a reply to: Xcathdra

NASA needs money. They receive less than 1% of the federal budget. In order to maintain money flow they need to get as much publicity possible , and with that comes a little extra hype with scheduled press conferences about new discoveries at a steady pace rather than everything at once. The big downside to this is if they actually do find anything out of the ordinary, they have to be extremely careful what they release , or how they release it as to not attract scrutiny which will have a negative effect on future budget hearings. In other words - if you want to go to Europa, or that good retirement plan, don't call that anomaly that buzzed passed the moon a UFO... NASA has to be careful what they release , how they release and at what pace for this very reason. Hence the rapid growth of the private space industry ..

A MSM source hypes things up, using words NASA never actually mentioned... and all the blame for hype and disappointment is levelled at NASA.


Here's the actual anouncement: www.nasa.gov...

NASA will hold a news conference at 1 p.m. EST Wednesday, Feb. 22, to present new findings on planets that orbit stars other than our sun, known as exoplanets. The event will air live on NASA Television and the agency's website.

Words like "huge", "important", "wowed", and "major" are nowhere to be found. Great job, Yahoo! You're not too far off Daily Mail.

The live broadcast of the conference is nothing unusual either, and has been done many times before.

So yeah, hold your horses and let's first hear what they have to say.

This might be something big and interesting, or it might be something that the general public won't find interesting or significant.

Anyhoo, NASA are there to do science (and not to appease the public with sensational stories), and science is what they're doing. Looking forward to hearing what they discovered!

The announcement will most likey be along the lines of how they found that super planets the size of Jupiter and larger do not have to be gas giants and introduce the findings...