Telescopes poised to spot air-breathing aliens

[Soylent Brice]

couple days old, but interesting:

SIGNS of life on planets beyond our own solar system may soon be in our sights. Experiments and calculations presented at an astrobiology meeting last week reveal how the coming generation of space telescopes will for the first time be capable of detecting "biosignatures" in the light from planets orbiting other stars.

Any clues about life on these exoplanets will have to come from the tiny fraction of the parent star's light that interacts with the planet on its journey towards Earth. The Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes have both detected gases such as carbon dioxide and water vapour in the atmospheres of a handful of gas-giant exoplanets as they pass in front of their parent stars. The gas molecules absorb light at characteristic wavelengths, and this shows up as dark lines in the spectrum of the starlight which has been filtered through the planet's atmosphere. But seeing evidence of life - so-called biosignatures - in the spectrum of worlds small enough to be rocky like Earth is beyond the sensitivity of these instruments.

One potential biosignature is oxygen, which is abundant in Earth's atmosphere because it is produced by plants and photosynthesising microbes.

At a symposium on the search for life beyond Earth held last week in Baltimore, Maryland, delegates heard how NASA's infrared James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) could discern signs of oxygen present in the atmospheres of Earth-like planets around the nearest handful of stars, if such worlds are present and happen to "transit" in front of their parent.

more: http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20227083.800-telescopes-poised-to-spot-airbreathing-aliens.html

[Kaleva]

1. Those fricking air breathing Swedes!! We are watching you!!!

[HopeHoops]

2. I think they may be on the wrong track for two important reasons.

First, there's no reason to assume all life forms breath the same mixture of gasses we do. Some might be really happy with nitrous oxide - I know I would!

Second, shouldn't we be looking for warp drive signatures instead? Well, assuming the Borg hasn't gone back in time and taken over on those planets.

[flyarm]

3. the US launched a space rocket not too long ago out of Cape Kennedy

to look for extra terrestrial stuff..it was kept pretty quiet..but i saw it take off and come right over my head..went off a saturday night..approx 11 pm..it looked like a fireball in the sky..I thought it was a Plane on fire when i saw it..coming right towards my porch!! I went to the computer to see what the hell it was ..and saw that this was a second one to take off..the first one crashed.

[Soylent Brice]

5. trying to find a link. do you have one?

i think i know what you're talking about but can't remember the name of the mission, rocket, equipment, etc.

[Uncle Joe]

4. I wonder if carbon dioxide on a smaller rocky planet would be easier to detect than oxygen?

Thanks for the thread, Soylent Brice.

[Soylent Brice]

6. i would imagine it's more difficult.

CO2 only makes up less than 1% of our atmosphere. if we are looking for planets with comparable atmospheres it would be easier to search for oxygen rich ones.

it's also heavier so it sinks and gets distributed unevenly making it harder to detect.

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/features.cfm?feature=2029

[Uncle Joe]

7. Thanks for the link Soylent Brice.

:thumbsup: