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Extraterrestrial

SETI to focus on extrasolar planets

By T.K. Randall
December 8, 2011 · Comment icon

38 comments

Image Credit: Hajor, Wikimedia

SETI are back thanks to new funding and is turning its attention towards newly discovered alien worlds.

The potentially earth-like planet recently discovered by NASA's Kepler space telescope, Kepler-22b, is a prime target for SETI's efforts. "For the first time, we can point our telescopes at stars, and know that those stars actually host planetary systems - including at least one that begins to approximate an Earth analog in the habitable zone around its host star," said director Jill Tarter. As the number of planets discovered by Kepler increases SETI will have plenty of possibilities in its hunt for extraterrestrial life.

The Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI) has announced that it is back in business checking out the new habitable exoplanets recently discovered by NASA's Kepler space telescope to see if they might be home to alien civilisations.

Source: The Register | Comments (38)

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#29 Posted by Future_Ikann 14 years ago

It would be great if we learn for a fact we are not alone. But if we pick up signals it may be bad. A person is smart and can understand what it would mean, but people as a whole are dumb and the only thing it would mean in real life is even more BS religions popping up. i would also bet looting and more violence would occure with the excuse that the governments knew for years and hid it. Even if they truly didnt. And i really do mean IF the governments didn't know. I personally have faith life exists all over the universe, but have no faith in people as a whole being able to handle proof.

#30 Posted by mcrom901 14 years ago

The protocols, which Dr. Kaku never got around to explaining, do *not* say that news of the discovery of intelligent extraterrestrial radio signals should be concealed. They *do* say that, in common with other scientific discoveries, it should be thoroughly and repeatedly confirmed by independent observers, and then released to the general public. where *did* you get all that from?

#31 Posted by 747400 14 years ago

where *did* you get all that from? sounds a proper scientific approach, though, don't you think?

#32 Posted by mcrom901 14 years ago

sounds a proper scientific approach, though, don't you think? could be, but i was rather considering the sociopolitical aspects... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-detection_policy

#33 Posted by ynotnoty 14 years ago

Based on the apparent age of the star, they're saying that it is probably somewhat older than Earth. Plenty of time for life, even intelligent life to have evolved, assuming it got started there. The fact that they're calling it 'habitable' does not mean that it would be ideal for human beings. Our world probably wouldn't seem very suitable to beings from a planet with half our surface gravity, either. ok how old is the star?

#34 Posted by bison 14 years ago

ok how old is the star? A specific figure for the age of the star is not available. It's mass is ~97 % that of the Sun, while it's diameter is ~98 % . Main sequence stars are known to slowly increase their diameters over billions of years. This small excess in size, in proportion to mass, was presumably interpreted to suggest that Kepler 22 is further along in this process than the Sun, hence older.

#35 Posted by bison 14 years ago

where *did* you get all that from? From a good deal of reading on the subject. Here is a video of Dr. Jill Tarter of the SETI Institute explaining how the protocols would work in practice. She manages to do this in just three minutes.

#36 Posted by mcrom901 14 years ago

Here is a video of Dr. Jill Tarter of the SETI Institute explaining how the protocols would work in practice. she clearly mentions that there was a post detection protocol when they were being funded by 'nasa'... but, do you have any evidence that there are no such funding anymore? or that when the pdp was actually dropped?

#37 Posted by bison 14 years ago

she clearly mentions that there was a post detection protocol when they were being funded by 'nasa'... but, do you have any evidence that there are no such funding anymore? or that when the pdp was actually dropped? I assume that Dr. Tarter was giving an accurate account, when she stated that the NASA-era protocols were no longer in force. I think it likely that the NASA funding was actually cut in 1992. I remember when this happened, and how the SETI Institute had to scramble to find private donors, including myself. One of their early, privately funded projects was called 'Phoenix'- - as in ... [More]

#38 Posted by G3N0M3 13 years ago

Hey, I'm not too informed about everything SETI does, but could someone tell me if they have not at least looked at where each of the oldest cultures on Earth believed their people came from, or where their gods came from... Over 60% of the religions believe that their gods or people came from the Orion Sector... I mean that alone should dedicate an entire fleet of satalites pointing there... If you even want to get technical you could try and calculate their perception of the stars when the Earth was on a different axis...

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