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NASA says distant exoplanet could have rare water ocean, possible hint of life
- dvh 3y agoK2-18 is a flare star.
- dotancohen 3y ago> the agency also hinted at even more remarkable possibility in the > potential finding of a molecule called dimethyl sulfide (DMS), which > on Earth is only produced by life. Are there any other instruments or telescopes that could further investigate this? Or is JWST the only telescope instrumented to detect such molecules 120 LY far away?
- verisimi 3y agoI can't see a molecule on my desk, even with a jeweller's microscope, nevermind seeing one 120 million light years away! Science is amazing.
- stjo 3y agoIt is amazing, but JWST is not really seeing individual molecules. I believe they are analysing the spectral atmospheric emissions.
- sigmoid10 3y agoYou're actually seeing tons of molecules on your desk. You just can't resolve them individually. Neither can the JWST.
- verisimi 3y agoSo if we're not seeing individual molecules, why talk about molecules? Its fine to talk about desks or whatever we can actually see, right?
- nkrisc 3y agoThe JWST is essentially “seeing” them the same you see all the molecules in front of you in your desk: from the light they scatter or absorb.
- shafyy 3y agoDoes anybody know if this is the first time ever they detected DMS?
- _joel 3y agoIt's not really "seeing" them but the absopbtion of light in certain wavelengths that shows what's present in the exoplanet's atmosphere. There's a whole new branch of sience looking for bio and techno signatures from exoplanets. Exciting times!
- perihelions 3y agohttps://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37468342 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37468342 (109 comments)
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- truculent 3y agoIf the presence of dimethyl sulphide is confirmed, what would the next steps be? Presumably sending a probe would not be feasible in any foreseeable timeframe?
- psiops 3y agoThe best time to send a probe to an exoplanet is 200 years ago. The second-best time to do it is now.
- BoxOfRain 3y agoPerhaps not, if the speed you can drive a probe is increasing with technological development it might be a waste of time to send a probe that'll be overtaken by its newer sisters.
- throwaway74902 3y agoThe technological development is driven by the need to launch the probe. You need to start somewhere.
- tigerlily 3y agoAnd what's more is we'll probably send the next probe someplace else.
- mongol 3y agoNo, sending it several million years ago would be better.
- TheOtherHobbes 3y agoBetter yet if it was always there.
- Grimburger 3y ago> Presumably sending a probe would not be feasible in any foreseeable timeframe? With global resources we can do it easily but the people in charge of our countries wouldn't have a job if they didn't invent fake boogeymen to waste cash on instead. We have plenty of starshot proposals that are incredibly cheap compared to other things: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breakthrough_Starshot https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breakthrough_Starshot
- Gys 3y agoDistance is 120 light years. So whatever we see is 120 years in the past. Getting there within a reasonable time frame is impossible with our current technology (an unmanned rocket will still needs 1000s of years). The good news: if there is intelligent life it will not easily get here either.
- King-Aaron 3y ago> The good news: if there is intelligent life it will not easily get here either. Unless 'it' left a long time ago and is already here. I always feel the 'space is big haha no one can cross it' argument is weird due to always framing it in our own frame of reference. What if the hypothetical 'thing' is like a jellyfish and time isn't as big an issue, or an AI that definitely doesn't care about time. Or a bundle of fungus that doesn't necessarily care one way or another.
- konschubert 3y agoIf you have enough acceleration , you can travel 1000 light years in a human lifetime. It’s just that when you return, at least 2000 years will have passed on earth.
- pomtato 3y agoso you're implying speed atleast 10x the speed of light? i think you'll have better luck increasing the human lifespan instead.
- rowanG077 3y agoNot that's not what he is implying. He is talking about time dilation.
- melvinmelih 3y agoHow does one travel 1000 light years in a span of human lifetime (~80 yrs) if you’re not going faster than the speed of light?
- thibran 3y agoTime to build a railgun in space and get some probes to K2-18 b.
- mpreda 3y agoWe can expect these posibilities: 1. no life 2. simple life 3. advanced intelligent civilization In the first two cases, we need to send a physical probe there. In the third case it might be enough, and much faster, to send communication signals there and get answers back. The third case is also arguably the most interesting.
- amelius 3y agoWhy not aim an antenna at it, and download the answers to the questions of the universe?
- molly0 3y agoIf 3, And The are truly advanced we should consider not communicating with them. Maybe they are hiding from someone else... ;) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_forest_hypothesis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_forest_hypothesis
- sigmoid10 3y agoIf they are truly that advanced, they certainly already know about us. It seems kind of arrogant to presume that we could detect them with our primitive technology and they could not detect us. Most likely scenario is that they don't care about us in the same way we don't care about ants.
- rbanffy 3y agoI am more optimistic about the gas giant in the same system and its satellites.
- ImHereToVote 3y agoIf it's anything like our gas giant, the radiation of the satellites will neutralize all life on the surface. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonization_of_Europa#:~:text=Europa%20receives%205.4%20Sv%20(540,mortality%20rate%20within%2030%20days https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonization_of_Europa#:~:text....
- rbanffy 3y agoDoesn't have to be. It could be a more peaceful one like Saturn.
- _nalply 3y ago1. I looked up the phase diagram of water. If the mass is 10 times the earth, their athmospheric pressure might be one hundred times of ours. At that pressure, water boils at about 300°C. If ambient temperature is about 200°C then their chemistry would be completely incompatible with ours. And with hydrogen athmosphere anyway. 2. Re the Dark Forest hypothesis: maybe. They will discover our radio in about 60 years (assuming that our broadcasting only started to be strong enough to notice 60 years ago). Then they might assemble something like a robotic attack army and send it over after, let's say 10 years. And if they are capable to send something half the light speed, then we might encounter our demise after 240 years more. So we still can enjoy our Earth 300 years or more if we don't destroy our livelyhood basis on Earth ourselves before that. Perhaps we could retaliate and send something back, but probably the odds are bad. 3. However there's the Loud Aliens And We Are Early hypothesis as well: maybe. There's life on that planet but not as advanced as ours. We will find more signs of life the next decades in that case. Then maybe send several robot probes. Contact could be possible after: 30 years of building the first probe, sending it over: 600 years (assuming we can reach 20% of light speed) and first reporting back 120 years, in total 750 years. Caveat emptor: This is all speculation.
- dividedbyzero 3y ago> Then they might assemble something like a robotic attack army and send it over Why would they want to though? What do we have here that someone who could do the above couldn't get much easier otherwise?
- mg 3y ago120 light years away. If there was life out there, similar to us - could we detect their radio and television signals over this distance?
- XorNot 3y agoIf we could get a positive confirmation of just anything living - even if it's just oceans of plankton - then that would revolutionize our understanding of the universe. Actual, viable, recognizable lifeforms of extra-solar origin changes the inputs to a lot of our ideas about where and who we are pretty substantially (also some rather unfortunate possibilities about the great filter).
- 867-5309 3y agoof course. photons do not experience time or distance, and are probably ageless
- fbhabbed 3y agoThey do, however, experience the inverse square law.
- yashasolutions 3y agoWhen I read such PR it feels that someone need a budget approved and no accountability : "here is something cool that nobody can check, but hey we could explore this for a couple of millions, can you sign down here"
- quadrifoliate 3y agoHuh? Most of the "cool" stuff is speculation from readers like ourselves. If you were on the budget, Galileo would have never gotten money for a telescope.
- AnonMO 3y agoNobody can check? You can file a request for a time slot on webb if you have proper reasoning then compare your atmospheric composition findings with nasa own findings that they posted also they never claimed that there’s life they said “some astronomers believe that these worlds are promising environments to search for evidence for life on exoplanets.” Also they have other sensors on webb that have no been pointed at the planet yet so I don’t think they will need any money for this purpose yet. Heres the original post https://www.nasa.gov/goddard/2023/webb-discovers-methane-carbon-dioxide-in-atmosphere-of-k2-18b https://www.nasa.gov/goddard/2023/webb-discovers-methane-car...
- jackmott42 3y agoData is open, you can check. Hell you can even propose your own time slot of webb if you want.