can we see alian planets. or can we see that far

Can we see alian planets or can we see that far. Mars dosent count. it has a lot of leading evidence that pulls us in more and more. can we see further out than what were lead to belive. I belive we can. The government is not sharing the pictures or evidance with us except what we know from roswell, area 51 and those who have seen what we have not. If there is any information you can share please post.

You can see most of the Solar System's Planets with a good telescope from your back yard. You can see that Mars and Venus are spheres with a good set of field glasses (binoculars).

The problem with 'seeing' Extra-Solar planets (planets around other stars) from Earth is that you are looking through atmospheric distortion.

Once in orbit, you need a pretty big diameter optical scope if you're going to image a planet around another star. Scientists have detected many, through deductive reasoning, infering their existence from their gravitational effects. There are plans in the works for an orbital telescope array that can visually image another Earth-like world. The first (that I know of) NASA plan to do this was called the Terrestrial Planet Finder, and would use an array of orbiting telescopes to form a large mirror through interefereometry. Because of this idea, many similar ideas are refered to as 'TPFs' for Terrestrial Planet Finders.

The ESA (European Space Agency) has one in the works as well.
Within 10-20 years we should have this capability.

-WFA

[edit on 10-4-2008 by WitnessFromAfar]

We don't really have powerful enough telescopes to see planets around other stars. However, we still know they are there.

How do we know?

We have very sensitive and specialized equipment that can measure the Doppler Shift in the light emitted from the star.

In essence, when a planet is on our side of that very far away star, the planet itself pulls that star ever so slightly towards us, causing the light from that star to shift towards the upper end of the spectrum and vice versa when it is on the other side. We are also able to measure the light reflected from those planets by studying the shifts in the stars light.

In other very very rare cases, we just happen to be on the same plane as the orbit of planet itself and can measure the "dimming" of the star as the planet passes between us.

reply to post by v.i.p.e.r


Interesting you should mention this, I've always wondered about the light that shines from the stars.. from all the Hubble pics.. I've yet to see a Giant white dwarf ya know? that 'star' alone would have to be so massive based on what astronomy tells us, those 'stars' would have to the since of our galaxy. Light diminishes over distance and will be blocked by other space debris/planets.

How is it that we can still see the light from ALL the stars billions of LIGHT YEARS away, through planets, nebulas, space debris, ect.

reply to post by v.i.p.e.r


I believe we are seeing as far as is humanly possible with current technologies. I also believe that a certain percentage of the stars that currently fill our night sky - the ones you can see with the naked eye - are suns at the center of life baring systems. Because SETI isn't getting what they consider to be intelligent signals thus far is a mute point.

To address the Government Cover-up aspects of your question:

My belief is "No, there is no cover-up". The field work is purely scientific, being conducted by scientists. We know much about their current research projects and what they have discovered so far regarding other planets etc.

There are conspiracy theories of shadow NASA missions that already go to many of our planets included the 'extra solar' but there is no proof for this other than fanciful stories, imagination and wild speculation.

IRM

Edit for rushed spelling & lazy fingers!

[edit on 11/4/08 by InfaRedMan]

Originally posted by Komodo
How is it that we can still see the light from ALL the stars billions of LIGHT YEARS away, through planets, nebulas, space debris, ect.

That's a great question, and the answer IMO is two-fold.
1) There is a lot of 'space' in space. The vast majority of what we're looking at is unobstructed by other objects.
2) When the light from a star is blocked by another star from being observed directly using line of sight, an VERY interesting phenomenon occurs. The gravity from the obstructing star actually bends the light around itself, allowing viewers from Earth (or where ever you are viewing from) can see what's behind it. It's called 'Gravitational Lensing'. Here is a neat link that explains this effect:
en.wikipedia.org...

The gravity from the obstructing star actually bends the light around itself, allowing viewers from Earth (or where ever you are viewing from) can see what's behind it. It's called 'Gravitational Lensing'

what if we could build a laser or sompthing that can show us what is behind a star or a planet using biger telescopes would that work?

reply to post by v.i.p.e.r


Well if we use a lazer which is a form of light it would probably take a while to get out there, since some stars and planets are a couple hundred even thousands of years away. Just think how long it would take our lazer pointer to get there. The best method would have to be the one we have now. Watch the star and see if it wobbles slightly in it's path. Or even watch it's light radiotion and see if it's being "Tugged" if so we either have two things. a Binary star system or planet(s) in the system. If there is no other light emission (Being produced on it's own like stars) then we have found a planet, but some planets reflect the light so sometimes thinks at first may be misthoughts.

Still the same old problem with the speed of light barrier... Until we know how to break that, we are limited to see what happened in a more or less recent past, and to limit travels to very very close places.

The closest stars to us is the trio Alpha Centauri A, B & Proxima, and as far as I'm aware, no planet has been detected there. Still, if there were any, and even though that triple star system is only just a bit more than 4 light years distant, the fastest that we could imagine to get there with current technology is in the range of 25 to 30,000 years of travel!

But researches are promising new telescopes & techniques in the near future, and maybe we'll soon be able to actually see an exoplanet! Getting there is another story...

reply to post by v.i.p.e.r


Hey, obviously we have a pretty good view of planets in our solar system. But in case you are wondering about techniques used to spot Earth sized planets in other star systems, I dug up this old thread on exosolar planet spotting.
exosolar planet spotting.

Still as one poster pointed out, we're better off exploring our own solar system first. You have to learn how to crawl before you walk.