/sci/ - Science & Math » Thread #12794231

175KiB, 501x308, future-extrasolar-planet-detection.jpg

View Same Google iqdb SauceNAO

Anonymous Fri 05 Mar 20:50:10 2021 No.12794231 View Reply Original Report

Quoted By:

When do you guys reckon extraterrestrial life is discovered and in what?

I think it's pretty likely that signs of life will be detected in exoplanet atmospheres in the 2030s or late 2020s. These will be confirmed for sure in the 2040s or so. Techno-signatures, such as radio signals, are also theoretically possible in this time, but I think it's pretty unlikely.

Direct evidence and contact with extraterrestrial life will take way longer, depending on if other bodies in the solar system harbor life. If they do not, direct contact might be a reality in the 22nd century or it might never happen altogether.

Pic related is probably not possible until kilometre sized space telescopes, which can never happen.

Anonymous

Anonymous Fri 05 Mar 2021 20:51:18 No.12794245 Report

Quoted By: >>12794259

>Pic related is probably not possible until kilometre sized space telescopes, which can never happen.
meant it's possible that it will never happen, but who knows

Anonymous

Anonymous Fri 05 Mar 2021 20:52:46 No.12794255 Report

Quoted By: >>12794312 >>12794330

>Pic related is probably not possible until kilometre sized space telescopes, which can never happen.

You don't need a monolithic telescope, it can be done with an dispersed aperture using an interferometer. The technology doesn't exist but it is possible.

Anonymous

View Same Google iqdb SauceNAO 1534300126251.jpg, 22KiB, 441x486

Anonymous Fri 05 Mar 2021 20:53:42 No.12794259 Report

Quoted By: >>12794271

>>12794245
Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbour's.

That includes your neighbour's exoplanets.

Anonymous

Anonymous Fri 05 Mar 2021 20:55:19 No.12794271 Report

Quoted By: >>12794289

>>12794259
schyzo maxx?

Anonymous

Anonymous Fri 05 Mar 2021 20:58:37 No.12794289 Report

Quoted By:

>>12794271
How would you like it if extraterrestrial life decided that this planet should be theirs? It's basic ethics.

Anonymous

Anonymous Fri 05 Mar 2021 20:59:42 No.12794295 Report

Quoted By: >>12794301

Futuretimeline sets this at 2035-2045 which seems realistic. Here's their prediction

>During this period, the number of confirmed exoplanets (i.e. planets around stars beyond our Solar System) begins to reach into the millions. The first exoplanet was announced in 1988 and a total of 50 had been catalogued by the year 2000. The rate of discovery began to accelerate dramatically following the launch of the Kepler Space Telescope in 2009, which uncovered thousands of new worlds, including 20 of two Earth sizes or less and in habitable zones. These were in addition to those found by ground-based observatories.
>Many more planet-hunting missions would follow in the years and decades ahead. Each new generation of telescopes brought orders of magnitude improvements in sensitivity, resolution and computational abilities. Most of the earliest discoveries had been so-called "hot Jupiters" – gas giants in extremely close proximity to their parent star. In subsequent decades, however, much smaller candidates were capable of being identified and seen at greater distances in their systems. Eventually it was possible to determine the atmospheric compositions and even weather patterns on these unimaginably distant worlds, 10 billion times dimmer than the stars they orbited. By 2040, optics were so powerful that continent-sized features on terrestrial exoplanets were being directly imaged and mapped.*
>Not only were these highly detailed scans emerging, vast numbers of them were being generated. Like many areas of technology, space observatories were advancing exponentially in terms of raw data. Moreover, their results were increasingly interpreted, not by humans, but by AI software algorithms – using new and ever more sophisticated methods to recognise patterns, avoid the "false positives" and spot the proverbial needle in the haystack.

Anonymous

Anonymous Fri 05 Mar 2021 21:00:45 No.12794301 Report

Quoted By: >>12794305

>>12794295
>Some of the criteria for evaluating candidate planetary biosignatures included the presence of liquid water, oxygen, complex organic molecules, the ratio of certain chemicals like hydrogen and methane, and changes in the surface or atmosphere that could not be explained by abiotic (non-living) processes. Based on these various observations and datasets, researchers could form categories for gaseous, surface, or temporal biosignatures. For example, oxygen might be detected in sufficient amounts to be the waste product of photosynthetic organisms, while an exoplanet's colour might give away the presence of vegetation pigments. Meanwhile, carbon dioxide (CO2) levels that varied in a way resembling Earth's Keeling curve* might also suggest a carbon cycle influenced by life.*
>For many years, candidate planets had been observed with only one, or at most a few, of these biosignatures. Although interesting from a scientific and observational point of view, they lacked the weight of evidence required to prove the existence of life. During the late 2030s and early 2040s, however, the sheer volume of data being acquired by telescopes, combined with revolutionary new ways of analysing the results, leads to a profound discovery. The first definitive evidence of life beyond Earth is uncovered during this period** with high levels of confidence based on a large and varied body of mutually supporting research. While some are cautiously sceptical initially, the observations are verified over and over again, to leave most people in little doubt that something incredibly special and unique has been found.

Anonymous

Anonymous Fri 05 Mar 2021 21:01:47 No.12794305 Report

Quoted By:

>>12794301
>The discovery of life on another world has enormous cultural impact, and even religious implications for many people. It is one of the biggest and most significant historical milestones of the 21st century, if not the millennium, reshaping the zeitgeist in numerous ways. One of the most obvious benefits is an immediate boost in support for space exploration funding, which helps in part to justify the crewed missions to Mars and the Moon that are coinciding around this time.
>Earlier studies had attempted to constrain the parameters of the famous Drake Equation and these suggested that primitive life was relatively common in our region of the galaxy.*** Indeed, many more planets with life are found in subsequent years. Later in the 21st century, however, the rate of exoplanet discovery begins to slow as most of the "low hanging fruit" in our galactic neighbourhood has been catalogued. The remaining candidates are to be found primarily in the core regions and beyond. These are much harder to observe, due to the combined brightness and density of so many stars in the galactic centre.

Anonymous

Anonymous Fri 05 Mar 2021 21:04:12 No.12794312 Report

Quoted By: >>12794410

>>12794255
So radio telescopes can combine their data with software to simulate a planet sized telescope. Could you theoretically do something similar with visible light or does it not matter because the wavelengths are too short?

Anonymous

Anonymous Fri 05 Mar 2021 21:08:15 No.12794330 Report

Quoted By: >>12794367

>>12794255
The easiest way to do it is by blasting the telescope to the outer system and using the sun as a focus.

Anonymous

Anonymous Fri 05 Mar 2021 21:15:14 No.12794367 Report

Quoted By:

>>12794330
That is only useful for one target, and you have to know that target precisely before the mission launches. The travel time would be many decades. An interferometer is a more attractive option, and is seriously being considered.

Anonymous

Anonymous Fri 05 Mar 2021 21:22:09 No.12794410 Report

Quoted By: >>12794438

>>12794312
>So radio telescopes can combine their data with software to simulate a planet sized telescope. Could you theoretically do something similar with visible light or does it not matter because the wavelengths are too short?
Not in software no. The reason you can't is because radio telescopes can measure both the intensity and phase of the wave with an antenna, whereas visible detectors like CCDs only record intensity information. You need both to do interferometry.
Visible/infrared interferometers do exist but the light must be physically relayed to a central recombining instrument. What makes it particularly complicated is that the light must be recombined in phase, so the path lengths have to be controlled to fractions of a wavelength. The current state of the art is instruments like the VLTI and CHARA, which have maximum separations of 200 to 300 meters. Going to very long baselines will only be possible in space.

Anonymous

View Same Google iqdb SauceNAO csm_VLT-Teleskop-Sonnenaufgang_c (...).jpg, 849KiB, 1280x720

Anonymous Fri 05 Mar 2021 21:27:29 No.12794438 Report

Quoted By:

>>12794410
Forgot pic, of the VLT an it's interferometer on Cerro Paranal. One of the coolest places in the world.

Capcode	All Only User Posts Only Moderator Posts Only Admin Posts Only Developer Posts
Show Posts	All Only With Images Only Without Images
Deleted Posts	All Only Deleted Posts Only Non-Deleted Posts
Ghost Posts	All Only Ghost Posts Only Non-Ghost Posts
Post Type	All Only Sticky Threads Only Opening Posts Only Reply Posts
Results	All Grouped By Threads
Order	Latest Posts First Oldest Posts First

Your latest searches