17 Jun 22
@Soothfast
Did you know there are Hubble size scopes, 6 of them at least, that DON'T look up?
That is why they can read a license plate on a car in the Sahara desert.
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17 Jun 22
@sonhouse saidI'm sure Metal knows that.
@Soothfast
Did you know there are Hubble size scopes, 6 of them at least, that DON'T look up?
That is why they can read a license plate on a car in the Sahara desert.
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03 Jul 22
@sonhouse saidYes. And Webb is going to be a game changer. It will even be able to examine potential atmospheres of exoplanets at the molecular level, as I’m sure you are quite aware. I’m just in awe thinking about it.
@Liljo
The faster supercomps get the more they will be able to analyze fainter signals and I expect the number of detects to go over 20,000 in the next ten years.
And soon, Webb will be fully functional....
03 Jul 22
@Liljo
Already what they have found out about these exoplanets is one in four may be ocean worlds, it looks like water is abundant in the universe and that is a good sign for the search for extraterrestrial life. So maybe even counting just what we know now, that would imply 1000 ocean worlds. Granted, some of them might be subsurface oceans like on Europa but even here in our solar system there are several already known ocean worlds, just deep underground.
15 Jul 22
@liljo saidThe thing is that astronomers won't get us to all those neat planets; we need a new set of science geniuses and engineers to get us there -- and I don't care what it takes or how it's done, but we need to get there! This Earth is falling apart at the seams with too many psychotic deranged leaders plunging us all towards starvation and annihilation. And if we don't get there, don't bother having grandchildren because they're already doomed.
We are now up to 5060 confirmed planets after Gaia's discovery.
NASA had another 8819 unconfirmed candidates.
The known exoplanets exist in a confirmed 3793 planetary systems.
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@sonhouse saidYes, I have read some very respected scientists who believe there could be as many as 10,000 planets just within the Milky Way that could support INTELLIGENT life! And many more that could support microbial life forms.
@Liljo
You would think ONE of those would be Earthlike. Or it could mean Earthlike planets with benign oceans and such are one in a million, but even at that, there should be dozens Earthlike planets in our galaxy alone.
The best analogy of how large just the Milky Way galaxy is was put this way:
Take a basketball. Place it on the ground in the United States. If the Milky Way could be scaled down in size to that of the United States, that basketball would represent the entire Solar System in which the Earth resides.
And to think...there are billions, even trillions of other galaxies, some which are much larger than the Milky Way. Our home galaxy is 100,000 light years across...