This survey cannot be serious

[Malt]

Disagree with this a bit. If we found a planet full of cats we would classify them as intelligent and investigate them, even though they would be far "beneath us". Also the internet would probably break.

Alas, the internet will be the pinnacle of technology. From here on out, we will devolve into a world of trolls and cat videos.

[cafemerald]

I assume this has to have been done before, but....have meteors ever shown any signs of past life on them? I believe that some day in the next 20-30 years we discover some kind of fossil on another planet or evidence of bacteria.

Get ready to jizz your pants Jigo_oi

Big News From Mars? Rover Scientists Mum For Now

Scientists working on NASA's six-wheeled rover on Mars have a problem. But it's a good problem.

They have some exciting new results from one of the rover's instruments. On the one hand, they'd like to tell everybody what they found, but on the other, they have to wait because they want to make sure their results are not just some fluke or error in their instrument.

It's a bind scientists frequently find themselves in, because by their nature, scientists like to share their results. At the same time, they're cautious because no one likes to make a big announcement and then have to say "never mind."

The exciting results are coming from an instrument in the rover called SAM. "We're getting data from SAM as we sit here and speak, and the data looks really interesting," John Grotzinger, the principal investigator for the rover mission, says during my visit last week to his office at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. That's where data from SAM first arrive on Earth. "The science team is busily chewing away on it as it comes down," says Grotzinger.

SAM is a kind of miniature chemistry lab. Put a sample of Martian soil or rock or even air inside SAM, and it will tell you what the sample is made of.

Grotzinger says they recently put a soil sample in SAM, and the analysis shows something earthshaking. "This data is gonna be one for the history books. It's looking really good," he says.

Grotzinger can see the pained look on my face as I wait, hoping he'll tell me what the heck he's found, but he's not providing any more information.

So why doesn't Grotzinger want to share his exciting news? The main reason is caution. Grotzinger and his team were almost stung once before. When SAM analyzed an air sample, it looked like there was methane in it, and at least here on Earth, some methane comes from living organisms.

But Grotzinger says they held up announcing the finding because they wanted to be sure they were measuring Martian air, and not air brought along from the rover's launchpad at Cape Canaveral.

"We knew from the very beginning that we had this risk of having brought air from Florida. And we needed to diminish it and then make the measurement again," he says. And when they made the measurement again, the signs of methane disappeared.

Grotzinger says it will take several weeks before he and his team are ready to talk about their latest finding. In the meantime he'll fend off requests from pesky reporters, and probably from NASA brass as well. Like any big institution, NASA would love to trumpet a major finding, especially at a time when budget decisions are being made. Nothing succeeds like success, as the saying goes.

Richard Zare, a chemist at Stanford University, appreciates the uncomfortable position John Grotzinger is in. He's been there. In 1996, he was part of a team that reported finding organic compounds in a meteorite from Mars that landed in Antarctica. When the news came out, it caused a huge sensation because finding organic compounds in a Martian rock suggested the possibility at least that there was once life on Mars.

"You're bursting with a feeling that you want to share this information, and it's frustrating when you feel you can't talk about it, "says Zare.

It wasn't scientific caution that kept Zare from announcing his results. It was a rule many scientific journals enforce that says scientists are not allowed to talk about their research until the day it's officially published. Zare had to follow the rules if he wanted his paper to come out.

He did break down and tell his family. "I remember at the dinner table with great excitement explaining to my wife, Susan, and my daughter, Bethany, what it was we were doing," says Zare. And then he experienced something many parents can relate to when talking to their kids.

"Bethany looked at me and said, 'pass the ketchup.' So, not everybody was as excited as I was," he says.

Zare says in a way, scientists are like artists. Sharing what they do is a big part of why they get out of bed in the morning.

"How many composers would actually compose music if they were told no one else could listen to their compositions? How many painters would make a painting if they were told no one else could see them?" says Zare. It's the same for scientists. "The great joy of science is to be able to share it. And so you want to say, 'Isn't this interesting? Isn't that cool?' "

For now, though, we'll have to wait to see what's got Mars rover scientists itching to say what they found.

http://www.npr.org/2012/11/20/165513...ts-mum-for-now

[JiggleIt]

The bastards found DougHeil...

[The Voice]

You guys are taking a simple mental experiment illustrating the vastness of space and have convoluted it into something it isn't.


To prove my point, let's have a race... I'll search for an orange grain of sand on the beach, and you can search for life on other planets. Who do you think will finish first? Why do you think that person would finish first? Is one of these tasks easier than the other task?

You are basing this on our technology, which is not making sense. The aliens out there could have technology that could pick point life forms out.

[cafemerald]

You are basing this on our technology, which is not making sense. The aliens out there could have technology that could pick point life forms out.

And the Earth could be 6000 years old created by an omnipotent being who crafted us in His image. Or there could be a flying spaghetti monster.

Fact 1: There is no sign that extraterrestrial life ever visited this planet.
Fact 2: There is no sign that extraterrestrial life is trying to contact this planet. Everything to date that we have measured from outer space has been physical. There has been no recorded evidence of a message being relayed to Earth.
Fact 3: There has been no evidence that another planet is using any type of technology to probe our planet.

If you want to believe that there is a supremely advance civilization in the universe that has the technology to 1) travel faster than the speed of light (which is as far as we have ascertained is physically impossible) 2) has visited Earth without leaving any trace of their presence 3) has the technology to identify Earth as having life leaving no trace of their probing of Earth and 4) once they identified Earth as having life, has made no contact with Earth... then I guess this discussion is over.

It's silly to base your argument solely on speculation. Especially speculation that has not one seed of evidence. It is about as productive as arguing religion.

[Walter White]

Pretty sure this has already been proven.

[KI4MVP]

And the Earth could be 6000 years old created by an omnipotent being who crafted us in His image. Or there could be a flying spaghetti monster.

Fact 1: There is no sign that extraterrestrial life ever visited this planet.
Fact 2: There is no sign that extraterrestrial life is trying to contact this planet. Everything to date that we have measured from outer space has been physical. There has been no recorded evidence of a message being relayed to Earth.
Fact 3: There has been no evidence that another planet is using any type of technology to probe our planet.

If you want to believe that there is a supremely advance civilization in the universe that has the technology to 1) travel faster than the speed of light (which is as far as we have ascertained is physically impossible) 2) has visited Earth without leaving any trace of their presence 3) has the technology to identify Earth as having life leaving no trace of their probing of Earth and 4) once they identified Earth as having life, has made no contact with Earth... then I guess this discussion is over.

It's silly to base your argument solely on speculation. Especially speculation that has not one seed of evidence. It is about as productive as arguing religion.

why would life in they have to travel faster than the speed of light? The milky way is 100,000 light years wide. At 1% the speed of light, it would take 10 million years to travel from one end to the other.

There are galaxies 25,000 light years, 81,000 light years and 98,000 light years from earth, each closer that the width of the milky way.

There are 11 more galaxies less than 500,000 light years from earth. At 1% of the speed of light, travel from these galaxies to the milky way would take under 50 million years.

These times are a long time by human life span standards, but are a still small compared to the age of the universe (14.5 billion years) or the age of the milky way (13.2 billion years). Earth is 4.5 billion years old. All it takes is one planet in any of these galaxies to be a billion years ahead of us to see that it's quite possible for them to reach earth.

All of this is based on traveling 1% the speed of light. Researchers today believe anti-matter fueled engines could travel 70% the speed of light, which both cuts those travel times down dramatically and greatly expands the potential pool of galaxies that have the potential to reach earth.

The good news is that the GEANT4 simulations indicate that a magnetic nozzle can be much more efficient than previously envisioned, reaching 85 per cent efficiency. That translates into an average exhaust velocity of about 70 per cent light speed. That's much more promising. "True relativistic speeds once more become a possibility," say Keane and Zhang.

These guys have another surprise up their sleeve. Their nozzle has a magnetic field strength of around 12 Tesla. "Such a field could be produced with today’s technology, whereas prior nozzle designs anticipated and required major advances in this area," they say.

http://www.technologyreview.com/view...ation-toolkit/

And thus far SETI has explored what amounts to 1 cup of water out of all of the worlds oceans.

Interesting how your image applies to your view. I'm simply saying it's possible, which it quite clearly is.

[supergoat52]

why would life in they have to travel faster than the speed of light? The milky way is 100,000 light years wide. At 1% the speed of light, it would take 10 million years to travel from one end to the other.

There are galaxies 25,000 light years, 81,000 light years and 98,000 light years from earth, each closer that the width of the milky way.

There are 11 more galaxies less than 500,000 light years from earth. At 1% of the speed of light, travel from these galaxies to the milky way would take under 50 million years.

These times are a long time by human life span standards, but are a still small compared to the age of the universe (14.5 billion years) or the age of the milky way (13.2 billion years). Earth is 4.5 billion years old. All it takes is one planet in any of these galaxies to be a billion years ahead of us to see that it's quite possible for them to reach earth.

All of this is based on traveling 1% the speed of light. Researchers today believe anti-matter fueled engines could travel 70% the speed of light, which both cuts those travel times down dramatically and greatly expands the potential pool of galaxies that have the potential to reach earth.



http://www.technologyreview.com/view...ation-toolkit/

And thus far SETI has explored what amounts to 1 cup of water out of all of the worlds oceans.

You're right, they don't have to travel the speed of light to reach here. However you didn't address the other points in his post. No one is denying that its possible theoretically, but all you can do is speculate because there is no evidence whatsoever. Every big rock that supposedly can't be moved has an explanation, and many of them have been replicated today (such as Easter Island, Ancient Egypt). Every UFO sighting is on grainy out of focus footage, or has been shown as a hoax. In a world of smartphones, no one has seen anything just like no one has seen Bigfoot.

I would love to believe that aliens visited here, that would be really sweet. However when we want to believe something, rather than find evidence to convince ourselves, we should be even more skeptical of it, because our emotions are likely clouding our judgement.

[KI4MVP]

There are plenty of people who let their emotions say it's impossible. I'm simply saying it's possible. And it's not like there haven't been unexplained reports like this.

[cafemerald]

Vampires, warewolves, ghosts, bigfoot, the lochness monster, and a talking burning bush have the same (if not more) 'evidence' than that.

[cavsfanclanman]

http://www.technologyreview.com/view...ation-toolkit/

And thus far SETI has explored what amounts to 1 cup of water out of all of the worlds oceans.

Interesting how your image applies to your view. I'm simply saying it's possible, which it quite clearly is.

Sweet link!

[Zombie dmhtfld]