Avatar moons may become a science fact

Habitable alien moons like the one depicted in the blockbuster movie Avatar may become science fact within the next few years, according to a leading astronomer.

US astronomer and planet-hunter Lisa Kaltenegger, from the Harvard-Smithsonian Centre for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Massachusetts, believes there is every chance a real-life version of Pandora exists and will soon be found.

She has conducted research showing that a planned new space telescope will be able to identify nearby "exomoons" and discover if they are habitable.

"Alpha Centauri A is a bright, nearby star very similar to our Sun, so it gives us a strong signal," said Dr Kaltenegger. "You would only need a handful of transits to find water, oxygen, carbon dioxide and methane on an Earth-like moon such as Pandora. "If the Avatar movie is right in its vision, we could characterise that moon with JWST in the near future."
The American space agency Nasa's James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is due to be launched in 2014.

www.independent.co.uk...

The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) will eventually find planets with water (and perhaps life), I guarantee it. Its all part of slow disclosure

reply to post by TallWhites


I just find it so frustrating , almost every week we have news of another important discovery made by the latest piece of hardware in orbit , but when we find a likely target that ticks all the boxes we have no way to go and check it out .
It feels to me that as a Space-faring Civilization we have dipped our toe in the water and are now content to just stand and stare into the pool.

To be fair, should we be calling them "Avatar moons" or "Star Wars moons." The forested moon of Endor came first.

Yay Blue Aliens might exist and soon we will be attacking it after 2 years as Tony Bliar will come saying these natives have WMD's

I don't think so. A moon would not support life like a planet would. Science will soon realize this and will abandon all stupid desires of populating a moon.

saw the movie, incredible

you should watch it in 3D

as for the moons, yes, it can be plausible one day

reply to post by Crazy A

I don't think so. A moon would not support life like a planet would. Science will soon realize this and will abandon all stupid desires of populating a moon.

What ......? , I think you have a preconceived notion of what a Moon is , not all Moons are like our own .
A Moon is defined as any natural satellite of a planet , therefore a planet the size of lets say Jupiter could have Moons the size of Earth or larger .
If Ganymede were not bound to Jupiter, it would be considered a planet in its own right ,It is actually bigger than Mercury.
Europa is a Moon and is currently the most likely place for Extra-Terrestrial life in our Solar System .