Category: Exoplanets
ET life: We should look for planets like Earth’s past, not it’s present
| September 13, 2018 | Posted by News under Exoplanets, Extraterrestrial life, Intelligent Design |
Suggested at New Scientist: There may be life out there that was like life on Earth when Earth was a very different environment: In the 4.5 billion years our planet has existed, it has experienced dramatic transformations: ice ages and warming periods, times when the atmosphere was impossible to breathe, when large areas were desert, […]
How can lots of water worlds be “bad news for life”?
| August 28, 2018 | Posted by News under Exoplanets, Extraterrestrial life, Fine tuning |
In other words, Earth doesn’t just “have water”; it is fine-tuned for life. We need to find exoplanets that are likewise fine-tuned.
Claim: A planet does not need plate tectonics to sustain life
| August 7, 2018 | Posted by News under Exoplanets, Extraterrestrial life, Fine tuning, Intelligent Design |
Plus, a friend offers a reply. From ScienceDaily: There may be more habitable planets in the universe than we previously thought, according to Penn State geoscientists, who suggest that plate tectonics — long assumed to be a requirement for suitable conditions for life — are in fact not necessary. When searching for habitable planets or […]
SETI reacts to the new study that says not to wait up for extraterrestrials
| July 18, 2018 | Posted by News under Exoplanets, Extraterrestrial life, Intelligent Design |
From SETI’s Seth Shostak, who surely doesn’t welcome this news, at NBC: A recent paper by three researchers at the University of Oxford is throwing shade on those who feel confident that the cosmos is thick with extraterrestrials. … If we own up to the true extent of these uncertainties and do the requisite math, […]
At Forbes: Maybe fine-tuning doesn’t matter as much as some claim. Many planets might support life…
| July 9, 2018 | Posted by News under Exoplanets, Extraterrestrial life, Intelligent Design |
From Ethan Siegel at Forbes: Based on everything we know, it seems like the conditions that make life possible are a lot more diverse and flexible than most people would expect. … Take Earth’s large moon, for example. The gravitational forces from it keep our planet rotating on the same axis over time. Our present […]
First pictures of an exoplanet in formation
| July 3, 2018 | Posted by News under Exoplanets, Intelligent Design |
From Maria Temming at Science News: New infrared telescope observations reveal an exoplanet that appears to be growing inside the disk of gas and dust around a star about 370 light-years away. Astronomers have indirectly identified other exoplanet embryos by observing the paths that these young worlds cleared through the dusty disks around their parent […]
Exoplanet has stable axial tilt, like Earth – but Earth has help from the moon and other planets
| July 2, 2018 | Posted by News under Exoplanets, Extraterrestrial life, Fine tuning, Intelligent Design |
The reality that earth is fine-tuned for life screams out at us from stories that seem to make a point of not emphasizing the fact. From ScienceDaily: The researchers suggest that Kepler-186f’s axial tilt is very stable, much like the Earth, making it likely that it has regular seasons and a stable climate. The Georgia […]
From Universe Today: Do icy worlds have enough chemicals to support life?
| June 11, 2018 | Posted by News under Exoplanets, Extraterrestrial life, Intelligent Design |
From Matt Williams at Universe Today: For decades, scientists have believed that there could be life beneath the icy surface of Jupiter’s moon Europa. Since that time, multiple lines of evidence have emerged that suggest that it is not alone. Indeed, within the Solar System, there are many “ocean worlds” that could potentially host life, […]
Tour the exoplanets – virtually – courtesy of NASA
| June 5, 2018 | Posted by News under Exoplanets, Extraterrestrial life, Intelligent Design |
From Lisa Grossman at ScienceNews: If you’re looking for starry skies, exotic plant life and extreme weather on your summer vacation, NASA’s Exoplanet Travel Bureau has just the spot. Consider a trip to Kepler 186f. This extrasolar planet is nearly 558 light-years away, so a real trip may be out of your budget — and […]
Retro: Futurist Malcolm Forbes (1919-1990) on the future of space exploration. Which is where we are living now.
| May 25, 2018 | Posted by News under Astronomy, Culture, Exoplanets, Geo-strategic issues, Intelligent Design |
Suzan Mazur has republished her wide-ranging interview with the Renaissance man (in an age of specialization), first published in Omni in 1981, at Oscillations. The interview as a whole offers insights on how space exploration was viewed back then (for example, habitable planets were not top of mind): Suzan Mazur: Since every last mineral can […]
Exoplanets break apparent rules for planet formation
| May 14, 2018 | Posted by News under Exoplanets, Extraterrestrial life, Intelligent Design |
From Lisa Grossman at ScienceNews: Seven of those exoplanets are in the TRAPPIST-1 system, one of the most exciting families of planets astronomers have discovered to date. At least three TRAPPIST-1 planets might host liquid water on their surface, making them top spots to look for signs of life (SN: 12/23/17, p. 25). Yet those […]
2018: Serious exoplanet search begins
| April 19, 2018 | Posted by News under Exoplanets, Intelligent Design |
From Lisa Grossman at Science News: TESS, the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, is headed to an orbit between the Earth and the moon, a journey that will take about two months. In its first two years, the telescope will seek planets orbiting 200,000 nearby, bright stars, and identify the best planets for further study. TESS’ […]
Water forms superionic ice, a “new” metal-like state with H+ ions as charge carriers
| February 12, 2018 | Posted by kairosfocus under Exoplanets, Geology, Logic and First Principles of right reason, UD's Sci-Tech watch |
Water is of central interest to ID and to many other fields of study relevant to the cosmos and in the world of life. Accordingly, the recent experimental discovery of a predicted metal-like state with a grid of O atoms and with H+ ions flowing through, is significant news. As NY Times reports: >>This new […]
Tech advance may make Earth-sized exoplanet analysis easier
| February 2, 2018 | Posted by News under Exoplanets, Extraterrestrial life, Intelligent Design |
Good project. Hope differs from hype by more than a single letter. From Brian Wang at ScienceNews: Babak Saif and Lee Feinberg at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, have shown for the first time that they can dynamically detect subatomic- or picometer-sized distortions — changes that are far smaller than an atom […]
ET life: Massive dust storms deprive Mars of water
| January 23, 2018 | Posted by News under Exoplanets, Extraterrestrial life, Intelligent Design |
From Dan Garisto at ScienceNews: Storms of powdery Martian soil are contributing to the loss of the planet’s remaining water. This newly proposed mechanism for water loss, reported January 22 in Nature Astronomy, might also hint at how Mars originally became dehydrated. Researchers used over a decade of imaging data taken by NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance […]
Some exoplanets may just be mirages
| January 20, 2018 | Posted by News under Exoplanets, Intelligent Design |
From Leah Crane at New Scientist: Some exoplanets around red giant stars may be no more than an optical illusion. Variations in starlight that appear to be caused by orbiting worlds could come from ripples in the stars’ surfaces instead. … (paywall)More. Actually, they are never a mirage. No, really. Never. Some things are just […]
“Alien Megastructure Is Not The Cause Of The Dimming Of Tabby’s Star ” (Design Inference filter in action; Sci Fi Fans disappointed)
According to SciTech Daily in a January 3, 2018 article, Tabby’s star, aka KIC 8462852, has had a mysterious brightening and dimming cycle. (Such a cycle, of course raises the interesting thought of the erection of a Dyson Sphere or a similar megastructure.) As the article reports: >>A team of more than 200 researchers, including […]
Researchers: Chances of life on exoplanets less than supposed, due to stellar winds
| December 16, 2017 | Posted by News under Exoplanets, Extraterrestrial life, Intelligent Design |
Despite the recent NASA announcement, which kind of fizzled. From ScienceDaily: Researchers led by space physicist Chuanfei Dong of the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) and Princeton University have recently raised doubts about water on — and thus potential habitability of — frequently cited exoplanets that orbit red dwarfs, the […]
Rob Sheldon: NASA’s big announcement about exoplanets”underwhelming”
| December 15, 2017 | Posted by News under Exoplanets, Extraterrestrial life, Fine tuning, Intelligent Design |
A mere desire to support the notion that we are nothing special. At 1:00 pm ET, December 14 (yesterday), we were told by NASA: NASA will host a media teleconference at 1 p.m. EST Thursday, Dec. 14, to announce the latest discovery made by its planet-hunting Kepler space telescope. The discovery was made by researchers using machine […]
Pretty discouraging news from exoplanet research: We’re not sure what to look for
| November 21, 2017 | Posted by News under Exoplanets, Extraterrestrial life, Intelligent Design |
And most don’t think life will be found on an exoplanet by 2040. From Alexandra Witze at Nature: It turns out that water worlds may be some of the worst places to look for living things. One study presented at the meeting shows how a planet covered in oceans could be starved of phosphorus, a […]
