Aliens: Are We Alone? ...Kepler space telescope.... Channel 5 aired Thurs 16/5/2013

[Cidersomerset]

Aliens: Are We Alone? Channel 5 aired Thurs 16/5/2013

Documentary exploring the possibility of the existence of extraterrestrial life,
focusing on the research being undertaken using the Kepler space telescope.



I just watched this and its about the Kepler space telescope , and it search for
earth like planets and it has found hundred and potentially thousands of
rocky water based worlds in the 'Goldilocks ' zone of their Suns....

It seems only five minutes ago that scientists thought we maybe alone
now they speculate their maybe billions. As far as i'm concerned disclosure
is here and ET's are abundant in the Galaxy. Now mainstream are
acknowledging it is not in the realms of Science Fiction any more.....


http://wwwcdn.channel5.com/assets/images/000/007/339/carousel_item_Aliens_AreWeAlone_640x360.jpg?1368635543


http://www.channel5.com/shows/aliens-are-we-alone/episodes/aliens-are-we-alone


I don't know if you will get the link outside the UK ?



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http://thegalaxytoday.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/717579main_NewCandidatesbySize-07Jan13_946-710.jpg

http://thegalaxytoday.com/2013/02/09/


Thursday, April 26, 2012

2,321 Earth-Like Planets and Counting

The 2012 John D. Schopp Memorial Lecture will explore the Kepler Mission
milestone discoveries.

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http://newscenter.sdsu.edu/sdsu_newscenter/news.aspx?s=73569

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Two Promising Places to Live, 1,200 Light-Years From Earth


American Association for the Advancement of Science

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2013/04/19/science/space/19planets-span/19planets-span-articleLarge.jpg

An artist's impression of a sunrise on Kepler 62f. The two outer planets of the
Kepler 62 system may lie in the habitable zone, where liquid water could exist on
the surface.

By DENNIS OVERBYE

Published: April 18, 2013





Astronomers said Thursday that they had found the most Earth-like worlds yet
known in the outer cosmos, a pair of planets that appear capable of supporting life
and that orbit a star 1,200 light-years from here, in the northern constellation Lyra.

Read More..

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/19/science/space/2-new-planets-are-most-earth-like-yet-scientists-say.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

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This presentation is 6 months old......

Finding the Next Earth: The Latest Results from Kepler

ZbijeR_AALo

Published on 18 Mar 2013


Oct. 17, 2012
Dr. Natalie Batalha (NASA Ames Res. Ctr.)

Dr. Batalha (Mission Scientist for the Kepler Mission, searching for exoplanets)
describes the techniques used by the Kepler team to identify planets orbiting other
stars and updates us on the remarkable progress they are making in the search for
Earth-sized worlds. She discusses the planets already found and shares what we
know so far about the thousands of candidate planets that are in the Kepler data.

[cloud9]

It cracks me up that "they" are always looking for planets like earth (size, color, atmosphere, etc) and in the goldilocks zone as if it's the one possibility for life... it's as if life is only possible on the surface of our planet just because we live on it but as we well know life on earth is everywhere. I just laugh about it, it's the same with their story about the pyramids and how they were built, they insist on slaves dragging stones and chiseling them down with child like cooper tools or carving stones hitting them with a smaller one... I think scientists have no imagination and limit themselves (and us) with such a short vision.

[ghostrider]

2 million thrirty thousand human civilizations in our milkyway galaxy alone , one galaxy of many ... our scientist think small , and are way off on their calculations about earth's age, number of stars , planets etc ... don't look out there for ET , they live here , some under mt. shasta ...

[Cidersomerset]

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16 May 2013 Last updated at 03:29

Nasa's Kepler telescope hobbled by faulty wheel


http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/67632000/jpg/_67632988_67632748.jpg


An artist's depiction of the Kepler space telescope, provided by Nasa The Kepler
telescope, which detects planets outside our solar system, has already completed
its primary mission




The planet-hunting space telescope Kepler has been hobbled by a broken wheel, say scientists at Nasa.

Two of four reaction wheels are now faulty. At least three are needed to orient the
telescope correctly.

"I wouldn't call Kepler down and out just yet," said Nasa administrator John
Grunsfeld, saying scientists were working on the problem.

Kepler was launched in 2009 and last month identified two distant planets that
Nasa said could be habitable.So far, the $600m (£395m) mission has identified 132
"exoplanets" outside our solar system, and another 2,700 possible candidates.

But last July one of the spacecraft's four reaction wheels broke down, leaving
scientists aware that a further failure was likely and would prevent the telescope
operating as it should.In a statement, Nasa said the problem had been detected on
Tuesday, when the telescope went into a pre-programmed "safe mode" which kicks
in "if the observatory has trouble knowing where it should point", Mr Grunsfeld told
AFP news agency.

The team's priority now is to put the craft into "Point Rest State" - reducing fuel
consumption so the craft has enough left to last months or years, giving scientists
the time to decide how to proceed.Kepler completed its primary three-and-a-half
year mission last November, Nasa says, and is now in an extended mission phase.

The US space agency says the telescope has generated a wealth of data which
could generate new discoveries for years to come.Last month, scientists announced
that Kepler had discovered two of the most intriguing candidates yet in the search
for Earth-like exoplanets.They orbit the Kepler-62 star in the Constellation Lyra -
1,200 light-years from Earth.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-22548886

[Cidersomerset]

http://static.bbci.co.uk/frameworks/barlesque/2.45.9/desktop/3.5/img/blq-blocks_grey_alpha.png

19 April 2013 Last updated at 02:26

Kepler telescope spies 'most Earth-like' worlds

By Jonathan Amos
Science correspondent, BBC News

http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/67080000/jpg/_67080314_67080313.jpg

Artist's impression of Kepler-62 system Artist's impression:

The outermost pair are the smallest exoplanets yet found in a host star’s habitable
zone Scientists say these new worlds are the right size and distance from their
parent star, so that you might expect to find liquid water on their surface.It is
impossible to know for sure. Being 1,200 light-years away, they are beyond
detailed inspection by current telescope technology. But researchers tell Science
magazine, they are an exciting discovery.

"They are the best candidates found to date for habitable planets," stated Bill
Borucki, who leads the team working on the US space agency Nasa's orbiting
Kepler telescope. The prolific observatory has so far confirmed the existence of
more than 100 new worlds beyond our Solar System since its launch in 2009.
The two now being highlighted were actually found in a group of five planets
circling a star that is slightly smaller, cooler and older than our own Sun. Called
Kepler-62, this star is located in the Constellation Lyra.

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Its two outermost worlds go by the names Kepler-62e and Kepler-62f.

They are what one might term "super-Earths" because their dimensions are
somewhat larger than our home planet - about one-and-a-half-times the Earth's
diameter. Nonetheless, their size, the researchers say, still suggests that they are
either rocky, like Earth, or composed mostly of ice. Certainly, they would appear to
be too small to be gaseous worlds, like a Neptune or a Jupiter.

Many assumptions

Planets 62e and 62f also happen to sit a sufficient distance from their host star that
they receive a very tolerable amount of energy. They are neither too hot, nor too
cold; a region of space around a star sometimes referred to as the "Goldilocks
Zone".Given the right kind of atmosphere, it is therefore reasonable to speculate,
says the team, that they might be able to sustain water in a liquid state - a
generally accepted precondition for life."Statements about a planet's habitability
always depend on assumptions," said Lisa Kaltenegger, an expert on the likely
atmospheres of "exoplanets" and a member of the discovery group.

"Let us assume that the planets Kepler-62e and -62f are indeed rocky, as their
radius would indicate. Let us further assume that they have water and their
atmospheric composition is similar to that of Earth, dominated by nitrogen, and
containing water and carbon dioxide," the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy in
Heidelberg researcher went on.

"In that case, both planets could have liquid water on their surface: Kepler-62f gets
less radiation energy from its host star than the Earth from the Sun and therefore
needs more greenhouse gases, for Instance more carbon dioxide, than Earth to
remain unfrozen.

"Kepler-62e is closer to its star, and needs an increased cloud cover - sufficient to
reflect some of the star's radiation - to allow for liquid water on its surface."

Key signatures

None of this can be confirmed - not with today's technology. But with future
telescopes, scientists say it may be possible to see past the blinding glare of the
parent star to pick out just the faint light passing through a small world's
atmosphere or even reflected off its surface.

This would permit the detection of chemical signatures associated with specific
atmospheric gases and perhaps even some surface processes. Researchers have
spoken in the past of trying to detect a marker for chlorophyll, the pigment in
plants that plays a critical role in photosynthesis.

Dr Suzanne Aigrain is a lecturer in astrophysics at the University of Oxford.

She said ground-based experiments and space missions planned in the next few
years would give more detailed information on distant planets like those announced
by the Kepler team.Astronomers would like to pin down the masses of the planets
(information difficult to acquire with Kepler), as well as getting that data on
atmospheric composition.Dr Aigrain told BBC News: "What we do next is we try to
find more systems like these; we try to measure the frequency of these systems;
and we try to characterise individual systems and individual planets in more detail.

"That involves measuring their masses and their radii, and if possible getting an
idea of what's in their atmospheres. But this is a very challenging task."

Kepler meanwhile will just keep counting planets beyond our Solar System.

It is equipped with the largest camera ever launched into space. It senses the
presence of planets by looking for a tiny "shadowing" effect when one of them
passes in front of its parent star.


http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/67099000/jpg/_67099309_habitable_planets_624.jpg

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-22200476