Kepler Space Telescope Data Reveals Billions Of Earth-Like Planets Near Earth

If ET phones home today, his long distance charge might not be as much as people believed when Steven Spielberg's classic film came out three decades ago. That's because recent data from NASA's Kepler space telescope suggests that billions of Earth-like planets are much closer than ever before imagined.

"The information we presented today will excite the general public because we now know that the nearest potentially Earth-like world is likely within 13 light years of the sun," astronomer Courtney Dressing said in an email to The Huffington Post.

Huffington Post

Nothing here that Is too surprising, however it is fascinating to note how mainstream the idea that earth-like planets are everywhere has become. I especially liked this quip from the end:

"Future missions, such as the NASA James Webb Space Telescope (the successor to Hubble) and proposed extremely large ground-based telescopes, like the Giant Magellan Telescope, will be able to probe the atmospheres of nearby habitable planets," Dressing said.

"Those missions will be able to search for biosignatures, like oxygen, and possibly lead to the first announcement of life on another world."

It feels incredible to realize that the answers to some of life's greatest questions are within the grasp of our current generation.

reply to post by Monts

It feels incredible to realize that the answers to some of life's greatest questions are within the grasp of our current generation.

Nah. It's just a back-door strategy to promote asteroid mining. Monumentally stupid without hugely comprehensive medical insurance - not to mention up-to-date info on the molecular effects of radiation etc. and epigenetics. Talk about suicidal.

Man it's a love/hate relationship with me and news like this. I love hearing that there's so many possibilities of life being discovered, but I hate that we do not have the capabilities to get there.

reply to post by Monts


the possibility of finding biosignatures is particularly exciting, now we just need to hurry the heck up and sort out warp drives.

and phasers

and hot space chicks in uniforms!

but i digress, thanks for sharing

reply to post by iamhobo


I'm glad we can't get there. We can't even habit our own planet efficiently and in balance with it. And then there's the blindness of the privileged populations of this planet to the crimes and horrors committed by their (our) governments upon other nations.

I hope another war-like species far superior to us come here from another planet and ravage us so we can forget our differences and realise we are one species.

reply to post by skalla


Something this awesome comes up and you digress into trivial things like phasors and warp drives. And let's not forget 'biosignatures'.....

Now lets get back to the important stuff like just what these uniforms would look like...

I doubt the scientific community can present such claims with absolute certainty. In fact I think their claims are a lot of hooey designed to ensure they continue to get research grants.

We spend outrageous amounts of money on examining space and get very little for the investment. Why do we need 20 missions to Mars when we learned very early on that it's a barren rock?

The Pioneer, Voyager and Cassini missions were worth it because they did more than look at just one body. Hubble is worth it. There are a couple others that are worth it.

Don't get me wrong. I love space. I just hate seeing money wasted on pointless endeavors like looking for habitable planets. We not going there anyway.

We should be investigating Jupiter, Neptune, Uranus and Pluto, not looking light years across galaxies at unreachable targets. Such telescopes are better used for close examination of our neighbors. Why aren't we taking high-res photos of what is near us? Why haven't we gone back to the moon?

I really question the wisdom of people who think it's more important to look hundreds of light years away for habitable planets when there is so much so close to explore.

No more Mars!

Habitable planets? What is the point? We're stuck where we are.

Originally posted by Creep Thumper
I doubt the scientific community can present such claims with absolute certainty. In fact I think their claims are a lot of hooey designed to ensure they continue to get research grants.

We spend outrageous amounts of money on examining space and get very little for the investment. Why do we need 20 missions to Mars when we learned very early on that it's a barren rock?

The Pioneer, Voyager and Cassini missions were worth it because they did more than look at just one body. Hubble is worth it. There are a couple others that are worth it.

Don't get me wrong. I love space. I just hate seeing money wasted on pointless endeavors like looking for habitable planets. We not going there anyway.

We should be investigating Jupiter, Neptune, Uranus and Pluto, not looking light years across galaxies at unreachable targets. Such telescopes are better used for close examination of our neighbors. Why aren't we taking high-res photos of what is near us? Why haven't we gone back to the moon?

I really question the wisdom of people who think it's more important to look hundreds of light years away for habitable planets when there is so much so close to explore.

No more Mars!

Habitable planets? What is the point? We're stuck where we are.

Such a downer!

Anyhow, the more sensational interest they drum up in astro-sciences..the more young folks will be wanting to join into a career to further it...propulsion, space station design, engineering, etc...gotta create the "cool" aspect of it and get the youngins studying and innovating.

So ya...being able to point out to a star and say a planet going around that has trees on it is a big deal. Who knows..the kid who hears that may create some sort of space-warp tech down the line.

I personally think more needs to be spent on space...we should be having our first midway to moon giant space station (with rotation for gravity and all) soon. Its time we start our baby steps off this planet.

reply to post by SaturnFX


We can't even take care of the planet we're on let alone its people.

We haven't earned space.

annoys me how astronomers/ press inaccurately present stuff like this.

1. they shouldnt use the term earth-like planet for planets in the HZ around red dwarf stars. They will be nothing like earth.

2. there are so many problems with red dwarf stars they probably dont host any complex life. Its worth a look and they will be the first to give up their secrets but I'm not expecting and earth-like signature from their atmospheres.

Originally posted by soficrow
Nah. It's just a back-door strategy to promote asteroid mining.

How so? I don't see the connection.

Monumentally stupid without hugely comprehensive medical insurance...

How does medical insurance apply to robotic asteroid mining?

Originally posted by Creep Thumper
We spend outrageous amounts of money on examining space and get very little for the investment. Why do we need 20 missions to Mars when we learned very early on that it's a barren rock?

The money spent (for robotic missions), isn't really all that outrageous. It's pocket change when compared to other Government spending.

Robotic missions are very limited in the amount of scientific instruments they can carry. We've barely scratched the surface when it comes to exploring other planets, including Mars. We're still learning things about our own planet and we live on it!

We should be investigating Jupiter, Neptune, Uranus and Pluto, not looking light years across galaxies at unreachable targets.

Why does it have to be one or the other? Looking at the rest of the Galaxy and everything else out there helps us to learn and understand more about the universe. It also gives us new questions that we have to find answers for.

Such telescopes are better used for close examination of our neighbors. Why aren't we taking high-res photos of what is near us? Why haven't we gone back to the moon?

The HST is used to look at planets in our solar system, but for high res images, dedicated orbiters are much better for that.

As for returning to the Moon. That's mostly a monetary and political issue. It costs a lot of money to go to the Moon, especially if you're going to set up a permanent outpost. It's difficult to convince short sighted politicians (and tax payers) that it's worth it.

Originally posted by LightAssassin
reply to post by iamhobo

 

I hope another war-like species far superior to us come here from another planet and ravage us so we can forget our differences and realise we are one species.

I don't know, man. Yeah, sometimes we have our conflicts, but we wouldn't have been able to reproduce in relative peace to 7 billion people if we didn't get along at least some of the time. And our economics and trade systems are mind-boggling, when you look at them. The power of our peaceful trading far exceeds our waste in conflict. So I don't see why it's necessary to be so down on humanity. We're okay. Doing the best we can.

And if aliens ever showed up here, as long as they didn't instantly destroy us like insects, after some initial shooting, we'd eventually probably just set up friendly trade agreements and get back to doing business.

Originally posted by Creep Thumper
reply to post by SaturnFX

 

We can't even take care of the planet we're on let alone its people.

We haven't earned space.

Sure we can..have you seen how awesome our sewer systems and highways are?
I would venture to say we took very good care of it and conformed it to our will...time to exploit space now.

Since when does lifeless rocks trump humanitys existence? Perspective man, perspective.

Possibly 17 billion, that's BILLION possible earth-like planets in our system

The data has also been used by scientists to predict that the Milky Way could contain up to 17bn Earth-sized planets orbiting stars.

www.guardian.co.uk...

And here's kind of what it all really looks like:

Originally posted by Zcustosmorum
Possibly 17 billion, that's BILLION possible earth-like planets in our system

Very interesting, indeed! But I just can't get over that fermi-paradox: Where are 'they', if they are potentially there in such large numbers? Makes me get back to the galactic zoo theory in a slightly modified version:

Perhaps there is a point in the development of an intelligent species at which you come to the conclusion that any intrusion into the realm of another intelligent species is 'unethical' and might ultimately lead to difficulties, differences, mistrust and - in the end - perhaps even hostility (in the worst case). Especially if one of the species is 'less' developed. This could reach an extent, at which the disadvantages of a contact might 'outweigh' the advantages. In this context, they would somehow manage to keep in the background, invisible and unnoticed ... but as said, that's just a thought. Those questions are really puzzling!!

Originally posted by skalla
reply to post by Monts

 

the possibility of finding biosignatures is particularly exciting, now we just need to hurry the heck up and sort out warp drives.

and phasers

and hot space chicks in uniforms!

but i digress, thanks for sharing

We are fantasizing about Seven of Nine then, are we?

On the tech side of things, I feel that the tech (as being studied by NASA at the moment) could be available sooner than we imagine.... I hope so.