News of NASA's Kepler Mission discovery was a leak

Originally posted by mothershipzeta

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."

Well how do you know this than? Aren't you contradicting yourself with this?


About the OP :

Also, I think that NASA faked this leak. They want to make it "look like" legit leaks happen of high quality info all the time and no one goes to prison over it. Yeah right.

They are keeping the lid on virtually tons of secrets. This was probably nothing compared to what they really know.

Originally posted by spikey
reply to post by mother1138

 

Which begs the obvious question...if they plan to lie about something as benign as finding other 'Earth like' planets in the galaxy, one can imagine they would not be exactly forthright regarding really important issues and discoveries eh?

This is exactly what I was thinking. Also, how long did they know certain things before we found out about it? This whole thing strikes me as strange. I mean yeah it is exciting that we find more earth-like planets, but a lot of people figured it was only a matter of time until we did so the only exciting part is to have confirmation they are out there.

I guess what I am saying is this does seem to be keep-from-the-public worth to me.

I think people are getting carried away here. Kepler has found 'indications' of Earth-like planets...not yet conclusive. Sasselov's disclosure wasn't so much a leak as an enthusiastic 'blab' in front of a receptive, informed crowd at the TED talk.

The Kepler mission statement is clear in its objectives...

The scientific objective of the Kepler Mission is to explore the structure and diversity of planetary systems.

Kepler in brief

It's going to take up to three and a half years to confirm the existence of any of these planets. One transit across the respective star isn't enough to conclusively identify a planet...at least 4 transits are the benchmark.

Considering that we want to find planets in the habitable zone, the time between transits is about one year. To reliably detect a sequence one needs four transits. Hence, the mission duration needs to be at least three and one half years.

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/d70194fd2de6.jpg[/atsimg]

The mission is still young and the discoveries remain provisional until another couple of years have passed.

Fair enough, people like to accuse NASA of withholding information. In the case of Kepler, it's hard to see where they've withheld anything? Another puzzle, from my perspective, is why NASA would feel the need to hide the existence of planets that *possibly* exist light years from Earth?

Before making unsubstantiated allegations, it's worthwhile to spend a few moments using a search engine to read the facts...

Kepler FAQs

Kepler Mission wiki

Mass Transits: Kepler Mission Releases Data on Hundreds of Possible Exoplanets

If an article cites Hoagland as a credible source, it's not worth getting our collective underwear all bunched up

Just to be devils advocate what if this is actually proof that if they can't keep a seemingly meager find like this secret how could they possibly keep proof of aliens secret?

In other words how could they keep the lid on something huge when they couldn't even stop this from coming out? Imagine how excited one of those team members would be to find evidence of Aliens, how could they ever keep to themselves if they knew NASA was going to bury it? The couldn't, and they would have come out by now.

Originally posted by mothershipzeta

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.

Let me clarify: novel information has power. If everyone knows it, of course there is no power in it.

In real life, you have dishwashers who know little more than washing dishes. It isn't an "in demand" job. But mathematician? Yeah, they make the bucks. Why? Because they can do stuff that others cannot do. Same with atheletes, but that is a digression.

The point is, the information, if no one else knows about it, gives you the opportunity to use it. This could give an advantage in so many areas, depending on the information.

And the lack of information is a weakness. If you don't know what your competitors are doing, you are at a disadvantage. This is why so much money is spent on intelligence.

I hope you understand my meaning a little more. It is obvious that without an ability to use information you gain nothing by it.

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?

is that a strawman, or are you just asking clarifying questions rhetorically?

It should not take months (until February) to analyze that 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.

Thanks for the prediction. I would sure like to have the opportunity to put your prediction to the test.

But only after you explain to me what "people like me" are, and how you came across this information which ties me to other people who i may not even know.

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.

I agree with this. And when applied to this situation, it equates to apples and bumper brackets.

If you had a server crash, and didn't bother to tell him until February that it had happened because you had to analyze the data, it would look like you were either:

a) incompetant and lazy
b) hiding something

I run businesses for a living. If my IT guy came to me days later to tell me about a major issue, he would be unemployed. When i ran a 400 seat call center, our telephony guy was fired because he accidentally reset the card that controlled the HR department while they were doing an unemployment call. Accountability (should) happens.

any word as to where these Earth like/sized planets are? It would be interesting to see if they found any of them in the Zeta Recticuli region or Orion belt. Or are those too far for us to see?

Anyone here maybe know the downlink frequencie of Keppler? And more info, like what mode etc. etc? All info will be welcome, or links of used frequencies by NASA......

[edit on 2-8-2010 by DatdanWeerWel]

Originally posted by Kandinsky
I think people are getting carried away here. Kepler has found 'indications' of Earth-like planets...not yet conclusive. Sasselov's disclosure wasn't so much a leak as an enthusiastic 'blab' in front of a receptive, informed crowd at the TED talk.

And why would they want to keep that quiet? Surely, if they follow this up with "No, there's really nothing there" I'm sure the ATS crowd will take them at their word.

Leaking preliminary information is usually frowned upon for precisely this reason. If the final report doesn't mesh with what people want it to be, they will say it was altered.

But if they say there are hundreds of "Earth-like" planets, then ATS will be aflame with "Why only HUNDREDS when there must be THOUSANDS?" And if NASA says "thousands," ATS will say "MILLIONS."

And when this happens, you shall all respect my clairvoyant abilities.

I think it must be not to difficult for a radioamateur to receive keppler's signals......come on, were are those die hards on ATS?
Let's make a new topic "How to crack Keppler's data" nice or not?

Big deal with the discovery of earth sized planets, or that it was a leak, who cares, and what is the point of keeping this info secret, its not like anybody thought that this is the only rock floating in the void of space. If they did think that what would be the point of keeping it a secret, no one cares. To little to late, not interesting.

Originally posted by fooks
what do they mean, "earth-like"?
moon? water? o2? size?
i know what i think of when i hear that description.
i am loading it now but it's 22mins to watch.

Besides that, who says a planet needs to be "Earth-like" in orden to have life. Maybe life is in the other ones they observed and rejected.

This is making such a mountain out of a molehill!!!

Harkens back to months ago, when the ridiculous spate of "NASA is Going to Bomb the Moon!!" threads were popping up, like a game of "Whack-a-Mole"....

Originally posted by weedwhacker
This is making such a mountain out of a molehill!!!

Harkens back to months ago, when the ridiculous spate of "NASA is Going to Bomb the Moon!!" threads were popping up, like a game of "Whack-a-Mole"....

That may be true. However, with all the actual mountains that NASA has given us, it is hard to differentiate the small mountains and the large molehills.

if you had any idea how kepler works you'd know its impossible to find any "earth-like" planets so soon and you'd know that story is horse manure.

the 5 they have confirmed are gas giants close in to the stars.

The planets at the TED presentation cannot be in the habital zone as it was based on the first 42 days of data. They need 3 transits to confirm giving the maximum orbital period of these planets at around 15 days.
Good luck standing on a planet that close to a star

None of the planets in that TED graph are smaller than 1.5 earth radias. So in actual fact the number of exactly earth size candidates remains at 0.

The tool who gave the presentation should give up doing them and we should try to clone Carl Sagan to takeover, even other kepler scientists are disturbed at the terminology this bufoon was using. He's set the whole kepler team up for massive fall. If he made that slide and put the text in saying "earth-like" instead of "earth-size" he should be removed from the project for incompetence.

This is paradigm shifting stuff. Its about confirmation of centuries of speculation and dreaming as to the nature of our world’s uniqueness and/or commonness with regard to the universe around us. Now the Kepler team is fumbling its way through clarification of what was said and was not said, implied and miscommunicated. If you are going to go out and talk about things with such an epochal potential for all humans to think about, you owe it to everyone involved (in other words everyone, everywhere) to make damn sure you know how to convey this information. If not, then find someone who can do it.”

We Could Certainly Use Carl Sagan Right Now

nasawatch.com...


kepler needs 3 years of data to confirm earth size planets in earth like orbits around stars like our Sun. ITS IMPOSSIBLE TO DO IT SOONER. Stories like the one posted by the OP prey on peoples ignorance of the science and how the telescope works . Mr Sasselov inept presentation skills hasnt helped either. Jesus just let seth shostak convey what the data so far tells us at least he understands the average person hasnt got a clue he would make it clear and we'd have less idiotic press stories about "earth-like" planets.

On witholding data. YES the kepler team is witholding some data, so what? Theyve spent 20 years on this project i woudlnt give the data to some tool in another country to take the credit either. Cynics say theyre doing it to help their run at a nobel prize. So? they deserve it Cassini was still on cruise after 3 years im patient.

[edit on 2-8-2010 by yeti101]

This guy is awesome. I highly recommend watching this video - it explains so much about the Kepler telescope, and what's going on:

reply to post by impaired


im sorry impaired hes not awesome hes incompetent. He cannot convey the information/data collected by kepler so far. He should be banned from any further presentations regarding the kepler data. He's caused so much confusion in the press & public he should publicly flogged.

The thing is in his head he knows exactly whats going on, he's smart. He just takes for granted the press & public knows what he knows. They dont. The press & public are ignorant and need it spelled out with no ambiguity. He fails to do this. He's jeapordized the credibilty of everyone involved in the project.



[edit on 2-8-2010 by yeti101]

The only thing I can say is that NASA sucks, what right have they got to hold back info such as this in the first place.
Second if the No Good Nicks, planned to hold this info back from us for a indefinite time period, what else is being held back from us now?
This shows true, of what is going on with the rest of the our Government, transparency, what Bull crap.
This is perfect example of how the Government is and has been pulling the wool over the eyes of the people of the late great U.S.ofA..

Sorry got excited and double posted.

[edit on 2-8-2010 by googolplex]

reply to post by googolplex


LISTEN!!!!

its not NASA holding anything back. The kepler team are holding back the data of around 400 candidate planets from the rest of the astronomy community so they can release the info themselves . Take out the false positives you have about 200.

Prediction: these planets will be small rocky worlds less than 2 earth radii possibly in the HZ of M class stars. YOU WILL GET THE RESULTS WHEN THE KEPLER TEAM OBSERVE MORE TRANSITS AND CONFIRM THEY ACTUALLY EXIST!!

the kepler team , since its their mission , want to announce the most interesting planets themselves. That is all.

[edit on 2-8-2010 by yeti101]

The truth of the matter is we don't know the 1/2 of it - make that a 1/4 of it!