Tuesday, December 07, 2010

Super Earth

Now, when NASA made that announcement, I was hoping for something like this:

"Ultimately the goal is to try to look for biosignatures," Bean said. "This work is another sort of milestone on this road. We're going directly towards that."


Looking at exoplanet atmospheres.

Be even better if they discovered biosignatures on one of these worlds, then managed to focus their instruments in time to pick up on the alien equivalent of Marconi.

10 comments:

Jebel Krong said...

i'm simply amazed they can work out atmospheric composition from the way light refracts through the atmosphere as the planet passes in front of the sun... from lightyears away. that's pretty dam cool math right there.... meanwhile we're slipping down the education tables at an alarming rate - we'll catch up with america soon - no wonder NASA's only got sensationalists, not scientists...

Neal Asher said...

Can they, Jebel? Or was the announcement of that just a bit of rent or attention seeking? Science has taken a terrible wound lately, but a justified one.

Jebel Krong said...

they don't spend millions on those exotic telescopes for nothing. at least i hope not!

science hasn't taken the wound - nasa has, and that's an important distinction (not that science or scientists are immune from politics - and i know that from bitter personal experience - but what is?).

Neal Asher said...

I think my last comment on the 'science by press release' post covers this. With such fast exchange of information people are discovering how scientists really operate instead of putting them up on pedestals. That's the wound.

Jebel Krong said...

it's not only that - science - proper science - is only conducted properly with peer review. that's the whole point: you formulate a hypothesis, test it, get other to test it, and prove one way or another, if it's wrong you refine hypothesis and repeat. it's proper that the nasa findings are released for review, the only difference is - because of the publicity - we can all do a little bit of it ourselves, whilst the truth is inevitably muddied in-between.

Jebel Krong said...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-11942451

diamond planets?

Neal Asher said...

Yeah, that was on the news last night, Jebel. But of course as soon as you got hold of that quantity of diamonds they'd be worthless.

Jebel Krong said...

of course, but they'd be infinitely useful in naotech applications, not to mention warship hulls.... :p

graphite/graphene/buckyballs/nanotubes - is there anything carbon isn't a wonder at?

Neal Asher said...

Are you talking about that EVIL carbon?

Jebel Krong said...

it only seems evil when it's locked in a gaseous state - the real evil is that pesky Oxygen...

oh and my dodgy typing - 'nanotech' being what i was aiming for.