You know, i could swear i heard this somewhere before...

As in, prior to the past two days.

Yeah. This keeps being posted. Look, it's proof that methane, could be proof of life, sure. But methane can also be produced by inorganic means. So it's not proof of life, it's proof of the possibility of carbon based life.

I posted this on another thread but may aswell do it again for this one too and see which on e takes off best.

There appears to be a lot of mini stories of late and posts that are full of tiny bits of information, true, false or twisted, who knows?

I think it's excellent that this type of discovery is made because those who do not check out sites like this wont be able to handle full disclosure all at once. They will need breaking in gently, so to speak.

If this is how the disclosure of ET life / contact is going to progress it shouldn't take long. Many governments like France and Japan, i think, have been making statements and releasing bits of info on the UFO topic, there are numerous sitings reported (maybe an increase due to current technology) and many more things that all suggest disclosure should be around the corner.

This way, governments can slowly inject the idea of ET life through the media and, over a period of time, you will no longer be a honey nut loop for believing in the obviuos.

Remirah

To the OP as i have explained already in another thread methane is an organic chemical. Otherwise know as hydrocarbons, these chemicals are seen in huge abundance throughout the visible universe, hydrocarbons are thought to be the "primordial soup" from which life arose on earth.

Again just to be clear hydrocarbons are not life and in this case no way signs of life on this hot jupiter.

To Remirah its people like you that annoy me the most dragging your fantasies about visiting alien spaceships into real science. Your post infers astronomers have known or have evidence of life already and are holding it back. The reason exoplanet info is being released is because we have only just begun to be able to detect & analyse them.

The first exoplanet was discovered in 1995 and to date we have 380 confirmed exoplanets. There are over 30 independant exoplanet hunting missions in many diffirent countries throughout the world, do you think theyre all part of some collosal coverup? If they know already whats out there why are nasa spending hundreds of millions of dollars on a space telescope to look for earth size planets which will launch in 2009?

why have esa spent hundreds of millions of euros on CoRoT launched in 2007 to look for planets and are spending more on a future telescopes to analyse their atmospheres? seems like a big #ing waste of time and money if they already know dont you think?

Did you know the science community in the UK worked for free and in their spare time to contribute towards the failed beagle2 lander to mars? thats how deeply they feel about space exploration.

The space agencies and the science communities are working relentlessly to further mankinds knowledge of our universe. Exoplanet research is the most exciting becuase it can answer one of the most important questions mankind has ever asked. "Are we alone?"

Your right about one thing , this is how life outside of our solar system will be discovered if it exists. What have the nutjobs in the ufo field provided us in over 60 years of the modern "flying saucer"?. Well by 2025(perhaps sooner) if there is another earth-like planet within 200 light years of earth we will find it. Proving life exits in 30 years from the first exoplanet discovery.

Astronomers are going to cream the floor with the ufo crowd and give us real data, real evidence and real places we can dream about. And when we do acheive that ill be here to say "i told you so"



[edit on 20-3-2008 by yeti101]

I have to agree that we are being "broken in" gently. All of this smacks of the aborted cosmic journey project that was supposed to have kicked off in the early 1990s but aborted owing to political, relgious and budget concerns. Timothy Good made reference to this in one of his books Ailen Liasion (I think) It seems however we are back on the journey. It would not surprised me if one day the news we have all been waiting for finally broke, that life is offically confirmed elsewhere in the universe. I for one will be cracking open a bottle of champange when the news does come through. Why? Because it will force mankind to re exammine itself, and although it wont happen overnight i do think there will be a shift in thinking and that can only be a good thing.

ok. i never said proof of life on this planet. i was just trying to convey an article to the ats masses. it was new on the 18th so it was news to me.
anyway, i understand that methane is a building block for higher organic compounds. i just think it is quite cool that we have the tech. to find methane on a distant planet.
that makes us humans look not so meek....