Astronomers: We could find Earth-like planets soon

news.yahoo.com...

WASHINGTON – Astronomers say they are on the verge of finding planets like Earth orbiting other stars, a key step in determining if we are alone in the universe.

"The fundamental question is: Are we alone? For the first time, there's an optimism that sometime in our lifetimes we're going to get to the bottom of that," said Simon "Pete" Worden, an astronomer who heads NASA's Ames Research Center. "If I were a betting man, which I am, I would bet we're not alone — there is a lot of life."

Even the Roman Catholic Church has held scientific conferences about the prospect of extraterrestrial life, including a meeting last November.

"These are big questions that reflect upon the meaning of the human race in the universe," the director of the Vatican Observatory, the Rev. Jose Funes, said Wednesday in an interview at this week's conference

[edit on 7-1-2010 by ufo reality]
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[edit on Fri Jan 8 2010 by Jbird]

Just another interesting space article:

abcnews.go.com...

Too hot to be a planet, too small to be a star.

This is very interesting. We are such a privileged generation to get to see so much out there. great stuff!

you just beat me on posting this tread...good one

i believe they are slowly with suspence trying to let us know we are not the only ones out here in space....i believe this is like the begining of disclosure of intelligent life in the universe.

To many stars out there and so much we dont know to not be alone I mean come on I'm sure the ones that visit us in the night have been around longer then the dinosaur's would have to be to acquire that technology through evolution!

There are aliens. I wont even debate it. With all the planets we're finding with our fledgling technology, there shouldn't be any more question. Do we really NEED to wait for them to find one with the righ size/orbit, THEN another one that COULD support life, then confirm one that does have life?
I don't think we really need to be told something so obvious. Our solar system is obviously not special, why should we be?

reply to post by ufo reality


By Earth like do they mean capable of sustaining life as we know it or are they also referring to the size of of the planet as well ?

As far as my limited understanding of the science of finding planets goes is that it's based on measuring the wobble of a sun then looking at the sun with filters and searching for visible elements via the spectrum . As I understand , once again my understanding as to how they do this is limited , they will also try to spot very large orbiting bodies . Has this Tech. been refined to such an extent that " we " can now locate much much smaller objects from Earth based telescopes orbiting distant suns ?


But to you , nice find ! S&F

[edit on 7-1-2010 by Max_TO]

Originally posted by EagleClaw
This is very interesting. We are such a privileged generation to get to see so much out there. great stuff!

How true is that?! I'm 27 years old. When I was in elementary school, the thought of other Earth-like planets was never EVER mentioned or even thought of. Now it's close to becoming a reality. I think the discovery of an Earth-like planet and/or intelligent extraterrestrial life would be such a positive and humbling thing for humanity.

reply to post by Max_TO


theyre just talking about size & orbit. It will be at least 10 years before we can truely find an earth-like planet with oxygen,nitrogen,co2 atmosphere.

the kepler telescope will tell us how common earh-size/orbit planets are in the galaxy. It looks like nasa is going to go with the "starshade" idea to be able to analayse the light from earth size planets. The "starshade" team have been given $250m to start the project.