News of NASA's Kepler Mission discovery was a leak

Originally posted by Chadwickus
Oh this is rich.

This isn't proof of NASA lies, it's proof that NASA scientists are human.

It is also proof of there being a lot of unconfirmed earth sized planets in the galaxy, that's it.

And that's the kicker here, unconfirmed.

that team members had been allowed to keep to themselves for further analysis until next February.
*

NASA wasn't planning to withhold this information, they wanted to investigate further and confirm their findings before sharing the news, this is what real scientists typically do, I say typically because, Dimitar Sasselov got a bit ahead of himself obviously.

But please, continue with your ignorant witch hunt against NASA, it's quite funny to watch actually.

In all due respect, I would say that crux of the argument here is that this IS typically what is done.

If it weren't typical, we likely would not be here complaining about how NASA and other governmental agencies hoard information.

Information = power. I was just telling this to Hanslune. The people who have information tend to hoard it in order to protect their power. A sense of superiority starts to take place, as the "profane" are not worthy of knowing. They are "too stupid" to be able to understand. It is for their protection that they are kept in the dark, for knowing the truth is such a burden.

reply to post by GerhardSA


The Goldilocks zone , like many other theories is being undone at almost the same rate we see the rare earth myth being unravelled. More extremophiles appear to science every year, in increasingly unlikely and inhospitable places. We cannot truely know that life outside the Goldilocks zone, therefore is impossible. Only that humans cannot survive there. There is a massive divide between those two statements. One is relavent the other is of no importance at this stage.

I don't see what all the fuss is about with this source, and why the source's ridiculous relation to Hoagland's delusions.

And I'm sure most Astronomer's expected to find lots more Earth-like planets, and the just right zone for habitable planets will vary extraordinarily with different types of stars and for different forms of life.

The team of Astronomers were given the data to study until next Feb. which perhaps is normal procedure before releasing anything to the public if there's still research left to finish off. Having nice diagrams is all very well but perhaps they want to run further computer models with the data.

If NASA were so eager to keep silent on this issue, they wouldn't have let this leak or press release occur so easily.

The announcement was especially striking because it was largely based on Kepler data that team members had been allowed to keep to themselves for further analysis until next February.

The all-too-public leak came from astronomer and Kepler co-investigator Dimitar Sasselov of Harvard University at the annual TEDGLobal conference, a production of the nonprofit TED.

At 8:15 into his 18-minute talk, Sasselov showed a bar graph of planet size. Of the approximate 265 Kepler planets represented on the graph, about 140 were labeled “like Earth,” that is, having a radius smaller than twice Earth’s radius. “You can see here small planets dominate the picture,” said Sasselov. Until now, astronomers’ exoplanet finds had been more like gas giant Jupiter than rocky little Earth. Even Kepler investigators had refrained from discussing any Earth-size finds.

None of this proves NASA is sitting on evidence of ET unfortunately (as Hoagland would suggest!)

But of course it's still very exciting, and nice that we got to hear about it sooner than next year!



[edit on 2-8-2010 by john124]

hey people nice post. Ive not been a member of ATS for long and more of a ATS lurker but im well interested in this post so i had to ask about it. Can someone explain to me what the goldielocks zone is.

I also like people theories on the 'sitting on it till 2012' bit. As a skeptic i dont believe the world is going to end in 2012 but something more bigger.
Im also for one for believing that somewhere out in the big vast of blackness there has to be other life. Im hopin for discloser in 2012

Thanks for any answer or thoughts anyone replies with

Originally posted by ThePeaceMaker
hey people nice post. Ive not been a member of ATS for long and more of a ATS lurker but im well interested in this post so i had to ask about it. Can someone explain to me what the goldielocks zone is.

I also like people theories on the 'sitting on it till 2012' bit. As a skeptic i dont believe the world is going to end in 2012 but something more bigger.
Im also for one for believing that somewhere out in the big vast of blackness there has to be other life. Im hopin for discloser in 2012

Thanks for any answer or thoughts anyone replies with

I am only giving one line...it is all that is needed: Habitable Zone

This is another fine example of the forethought behind the armed robbery of your neighbors.

So, NASA is keeping secrets- that in itself is no big deal; although, if they're enjoying their salaries, their equipment, and the support and security of public servants all at the cost of armed robbers coming into my neighbors' homes to plunder resource from their families table... well, this makes a wonderful example of the design behind the mind of the masters.

How long will people lift their chins, and allow the chihuahua sized tick to engorge themselves upon the naked neck? How long will they allow these looters to produce work and research at the cost of their own family, and not demand a share in the produced work? How long will people actually choose to allow the likes of such worthless endeavors like NASA to pilfer from their family???

When will men grow testicles on this planet again???

reply to post by bigfatfurrytexan


Thank you bigfatfurrytexan i googled it which i know i could of done sorry to be a pain ooh and ive made my second line

they try to hide info like this and some of us are hoping for full disclosure? In our dreams! They will never disclose ANYTHING!

Ummmm.......I think they meant earth size planets and not earth like planets. I might be mistaken though.

[edit on 2-8-2010 by boomadatigger]

[edit on 2-8-2010 by boomadatigger]

I am laughing my derriere off at this. It just goes to show that NASA and TPTB will do anything to keep us in the dark. I knew sooner or later somebody was going to blab. And I bet every single candidate planet is probably at some different point of both eclogical and biological status in its development. I'd start pointiong SETI at some of these closer planets under 20 or so light years away and see if they are sending out artficially produced signals; radio or otherwise.

Originally posted by spikey
The really important question has yet to be asked it seems...exactly WHY would they be planning to 'sit on the information' or shelve it indefinitely, in the first place?

...

There is no credible reason to hide this from the public, none at all.

Unless they wanted to have all their analysis done and release it all at one time. Now, if they do have further research to release no one will pay attention because the "big story" is already out there.

They said in November that it would not be fully operational until 2011:

www.universetoday.com...

So isn't it possible that they will have a MUCH bigger find, with a lot more details, in the future? Now that people know about it, they will just greet new information and much more analysis - with a yawn.

Maybe this article might clarify it some.
www.nasa.gov...


Or maybe this article
www.universetoday.com... a-um-not-really/


[edit on 2-8-2010 by boomadatigger]

Originally posted by sakokrap
This is another fine example of the forethought behind the armed robbery of your neighbors.

So, NASA is keeping secrets- that in itself is no big deal; although, if they're enjoying their salaries, their equipment, and the support and security of public servants all at the cost of armed robbers coming into my neighbors' homes to plunder resource from their families table... well, this makes a wonderful example of the design behind the mind of the masters.

...

How long will people actually choose to allow the likes of such worthless endeavors like NASA to pilfer from their family???

Yeah. Let's just shut NASA down, then hear everyone whine and complain that it was shut down to prevent us learning the truth about extraterrestrials.

The current NASA budget is .052% of the national budget. Half of one percent. I think you have other government spending that's much more wasteful and less useful than NASA.

And "armed robbers?" Seriously, Captain Hyperbole?

I never heard of armed robbers coming in to take some small change from your piggy bank, but whatever.

Just remember, rule #1 at nasa- "NEVER A STRAIGHT ANSWER"!!

Originally posted by TrueBrit
reply to post by GerhardSA

 

The Goldilocks zone , like many other theories is being undone at almost the same rate we see the rare earth myth being unravelled. More extremophiles appear to science every year, in increasingly unlikely and inhospitable places. We cannot truely know that life outside the Goldilocks zone, therefore is impossible. Only that humans cannot survive there. There is a massive divide between those two statements. One is relavent the other is of no importance at this stage.

Seconded. Thanks for saving me the bother. What's too cold for one lifeform could be lethally hot for another. I think the tardigrade was the first one I heard of as a kid 30 odd years ago.

There is also no guarantee that other life forms are going to be carbon based bags of mostly water. It's just our own prejudice that leads us to those conclusions.

Humanity will # themsevles, once they realize earth like planets are VERY common, just intellgent life isnt so common, takes a little bit more time in the oven if you know what i mean.

But on all worlds life eventaully reachs intellgence of human capability and higher, for we are only in the infant stage of intellgence, it really excits me knowing there are higher levels of intellgence

Given all the confusion that sprang up all over the place regarding the use of the term "Earthlike", it is very easy to see why the people in charge of the project wanted more time to get the information right. This is not a bad thing and the speculation that Nasa would of shelved the data or not released it is just that -speculation.

Originally posted by bigfatfurrytexan
Information = power. I was just telling this to Hanslune. The people who have information tend to hoard it in order to protect their power. A sense of superiority starts to take place, as the "profane" are not worthy of knowing. They are "too stupid" to be able to understand. It is for their protection that they are kept in the dark, for knowing the truth is such a burden.

Information is not power unless you can apply it. Just knowing there are Earth-sized planets out there gives me NO power I didn't already have. Reading ATS definitely doesn't add to my net power. But if I learned something here that could actually be applied to my daily life, it would have some power.

So, do you think NASA should just dump data? Constantly. No analysis, no thought, nothing. Would you know what you were looking at? Or would you have to defer to people who actually understand the information?

If they did just dump information by the gigabyte, people like you wouldl criticize them for dumping too much information and overwhelming us, saying they were trying to hide something amid the chaff.

I manage servers for a medium-sized firm. Should I run to my boss the moment I come across a problem? Of course not - I need to analyze the issue. A failed backup doesn't mean I replace the servers affected - I have to see WHY it failed. And, since he's not a techie, I also have to phrase it without a lot of jargon. It's not because he's "stupid" - his expertise just lies in an area separate from mine. He's an accountant - and I know NOTHING about tax law, so he'd have to reduce something tax-related to a level I would understand.

Raw data means nothing. It has to be processed to be meaningful to 99.9% of the population.

Originally posted by boomadatigger
Maybe this article might clarify it some.
www.nasa.gov...


Or maybe this article
www.universetoday.com... a-um-not-really/


[edit on 2-8-2010 by boomadatigger]

Good call on posting that article, (even though at first-glance it appears to hold all the earnestness of an 8-yr-old confessing to a neighbor that it was indeed his baseball that broke the window) it did at face value clear the air...

From an update to MSNBC article:

In the blog posting, he emphasizes that the Kepler telescope can measure the size of objects as they pass over a star's disk, but can't say much about their climate or chemistry - let alone whether they have water or rocks. In fact, he notes that the Earth-scale planets detected by Kepler so far couldn't be Earthlike in the water-and-trees sense because they circle their parent stars in such hellishly close orbits. They're nowhere near the "habitable zone" within which life as we know it can exist.

I didn't think this preliminary date supported any info regarding Goldilocks zone or surface water...but finding one in what, 360 candidates are pretty good odds...especially with the likelihood of that number to rise with time.

Maybe SETI can help out here? I mean, all this time they've been listening at random space basically...Could NASA be so kind as to at least "point them" in a right direction? Together, they could triangulate which planets each should be looking/listening at....

Originally posted by Patriotgal
Just remember, rule #1 at nasa- "NEVER A STRAIGHT ANSWER"!!

When it comes to cosmology, physics, etc, anyone who can give you a straight (simple) answer is misinformed, misunderstanding the subject, or flat-out lying. And if you accept the "straight answer," you're part of the problem because you'll be speaking from the same ignorance as the original guy.

It's a lot like the Richard Feynman quote:

"If you think you understand quantum mechanics, you don't understand quantum mechanics."