Vatican searches for aliens
Pope wants to learn the impact of extraterrestrial life on Caltholic Church
ARIEL DAVID
Associated Press Writer
Publication Date: 11/11/09
VATICAN CITY -- E.T. phone Rome.
Four hundred years after it locked up Galileo for challenging the view that the Earth was the center of the universe, the Vatican has called in experts to study the possibility of extraterrestrial alien life and its implication for the Catholic Church.
"The questions of life's origins and of whether life exists elsewhere in the universe are very suitable and deserve serious consideration," said the Rev. Jose Gabriel Funes, an astronomer and director of the Vatican Observatory.
Funes, a Jesuit priest, presented the results Tuesday of a five-day conference that gathered astronomers, physicists, biologists and other experts to discuss the budding field of astrobiology -- the study of the origin of life and its existence elsewhere in the cosmos.
Funes said the possibility of alien life raises "many philosophical and theological implications" but added that the gathering was mainly focused on the scientific perspective and how different disciplines can be used to explore the issue.
Chris Impey, an astronomy professor at the University of Arizona, said it was appropriate that the Vatican would host such a meeting.
"Both science and religion posit life as a special outcome of a vast and mostly inhospitable universe," he told a news conference Tuesday. "There is a rich middle ground for dialogue between the practitioners of astrobiology and those who seek to understand the meaning of our existence in a biological universe."
Thirty scientists, including non-Catholics, from the U.S., France, Britain, Switzerland, Italy and Chile attended the conference, called to explore among other issues "whether sentient life forms exist on other worlds."
Funes set the stage for the conference a year ago when he discussed the possibility of alien life in an interview given prominence in the Vatican's daily newspaper.
The Church of Rome's views have shifted radically through the centuries since Italian philosopher Giordano Bruno was burned at the stake as a heretic in 1600 for speculating that other worlds could be inhabited.
Scientists have discovered hundreds of planets outside our solar system -- including 32 new ones announced recently by the European Space Agency. Impey said the discovery of alien life may be only a few years away.
"If biology is not unique to the Earth, or life elsewhere differs bio-chemically from our version, or we ever make contact with an intelligent species in the vastness of space, the implications for our self-image will be profound," he said.
This is not the first time the Vatican has explored the issue of extraterrestrials: In 2005, its observatory brought together top researchers for similar discussions.
In the interview last year, Funes told Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano that believing the universe may host aliens, even intelligent ones, does not contradict a faith in God.
"How can we rule out that life may have developed elsewhere?" Funes said in that interview.
"Just as there is a multitude of creatures on Earth, there could be other beings, even intelligent ones, created by God. This does not contradict our faith, because we cannot put limits on God's creative freedom."
Funes maintained that if intelligent beings were discovered, they would also be considered "part of creation."
The Roman Catholic Church's relationship with science has come a long way since Galileo was tried as a heretic in 1633 and forced to recant his finding that the Earth revolves around the sun. Church teaching at the time placed Earth at the center of the universe.
Today top clergy, including Funes, openly endorse scientific ideas like the Big Bang theory as a reasonable explanation for the creation of the universe. The theory says the universe began billions of years ago in the explosion of a single, super-dense point that contained all matter.
Earlier this year, the Vatican also sponsored a conference on evolution to mark the 150th anniversary of Charles Darwin's "The Origin of Species."
The event snubbed proponents of alternative theories, like creationism and intelligent design, which see a higher being rather than the undirected process of natural selection behind the evolution of species.
Still, there are divisions on the issues within the Catholic Church and within other religions, with some favoring creationism or intelligent design that could make it difficult to accept the concept of alien life.
Working with scientists to explore fundamental questions that are of interest to religion is in line with the teachings of Pope Benedict XVI, who has made strengthening the relationship between faith and reason a key aspect of his papacy.
Recent popes have been working to overcome the accusation that the church was hostile to science -- a reputation grounded in the Galileo affair.
In 1992, Pope John Paul II declared the ruling against the astronomer was an error resulting from "tragic mutual incomprehension."
The Vatican Museums opened an exhibit last month marking the 400th anniversary of Galileo's first celestial observations.
Tommaso Maccacaro, president of Italy's national institute of astrophysics, said at the exhibit's Oct. 13 opening that astronomy has had a major impact on the way we perceive ourselves.
"It was astronomical observations that let us understand that Earth (and man) don't have a privileged position or role in the universe," he said. "I ask myself what tools will we use in the next 400 years, and I ask what revolutions of understanding they'll bring about, like resolving the mystery of our apparent cosmic solitude."
The Vatican Observatory has also been at the forefront of efforts to bridge the gap between religion and science. Its scientist-clerics have generated top-notch research and its meteorite collection is considered one of the world's best.
The observatory, founded by Pope Leo XIII in 1891, is based in Castel Gandolfo, a lakeside town in the hills outside Rome where the pope has his summer residence. It also conducts research at an observatory at the University of Arizona, in Tucson.
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On the Net:
Vatican Observatory, http://clavius.as.arizona.edu/vo
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Associated Press writers Victor L. Simpson and Alessandra Rizzo contributed to this report
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Maybe a meteor didn't kill the dinosaurs.
Time Magazine
Maybe an Asteroid Didn't Kill the Dinosaurs
By Jeffrey Kluger Monday, Apr. 27, 2009
When a scientific principle is common knowledge even in grammar schools, you know it's long since crossed the line from theory to established fact. That's the case with dinosaur extinction. Some 65 million years ago — as we've all come to know — an asteroid struck the Earth, sending up a cloud that blocked the sun and cooled the planet. That, in turn, wiped out the dinosaurs and made way for the rise of the mammals. The suddenness with which so many species vanished after the 65-million-year mark always suggested a single cataclysmic event, and the 1978 discovery of a 112-mi., 65-million-year-old crater off the Yucatán peninsula near the town of Chicxulub seemed to seal the deal.
Now, however, a new study in the Journal of the Geological Society throws all of that into question. The asteroid impact and the dinosaur extinction, argue the authors, may not have been simultaneous, but rather may have occurred 300,000 years apart. That's an eye-blink in geological time, but it's a relevant eye-blink all the same, one that occurred at just the right moment in ancient history to have sent the extinction theory entirely awry. (See pictures of meteors striking the earth.)
The controversial new paper was written by geoscientists Gerta Keller of Princeton University and Thierry Addate of the University of Lausanne, in Switzerland — and both researchers knew that challenging the impact doctrine would not be easy. The asteroid charged with killing the dinosaurs, after all, left more than the Chicxulub crater as its calling card. At the same 65-million-year depth, the geological record reveals that a thin layer of iridium was deposited pretty much everywhere in the world. Iridium is an element that's rare on Earth but common in asteroids, and a fine global dusting of the stuff is precisely what you'd expect to find if an asteroid struck the ground, vaporized on impact and eventually rained its remains back down. Below that iridium layer, the fossil record shows that a riot of species was thriving; above it, 65% of them went suddenly missing. (Read about China's dinosaur fossils.)
But Keller and Addate worried that we were misreading both the geological and fossil records. They conducted surveys at numerous sites in Mexico, particularly at a spot called El Peñón, very near the impact crater. They were especially interested in a 30-ft. layer of sediment just above the iridium layer. That sediment, they calculate, was laid down at a rate of about 0.8 in. to 1.2 in. per thousand years, meaning that the entire 30 feet took 300,000 years to settle into place. (See pictures of Mexico's swine flu outbreak.)
Analyzing the fossils at this small site, they counted 52 distinct species just below the iridium layer. Then they counted the species above it. The result: the same 52. It wasn't until they sampled 30 feet higher — and 300,000 years later — that they saw the die-offs.
"The mass extinction level can be seen above this interval," Keller says. "Not a single species went extinct as a result of the Chicxulub impact."
Keller's and Addate's species samplings are not, of course, conclusive, and plenty of other surveys since 1978 do tie the extinctions closely to the asteroid. But since the new digs were so close to ground zero, the immediate species loss ought to be have been — if anything — greater there than anywhere else in the world. Instead, the animals seemed to escape unharmed. Other paleontologists, however, believe that the very proximity of El Peñón to the impact site makes the results not more reliable, but less. Earthquakes and tsunamis that resulted from the collision could have wrought havoc on the sedimentary record, causing discrete strata to swirl together and completely scrambling timelines. Keller disagrees, pointing out that the slow accretion of sediment she and Addate recorded is completely inconsistent with a sudden event like a tsunami. (See pictures of animals in space.)
"The sandstone complex was not deposited over hours or days," she says. "Deposition occurred over a very long time period."
So if the Chicxulub asteroid didn't kill the dinosaurs, what did? Paleontologists have advanced all manner of other theories over the years, including the appearance of land bridges that allowed different species to migrate to different continents, bringing with them diseases to which native species hadn't developed immunity. Keller and Addate do not see any reason to stray so far from the prevailing model. Some kind of atmospheric haze might indeed have blocked the sun making the planet too cold for the dinosaurs — it just didn't have to have come from an asteroid. Rather, they say, the source might have been massive volcanos, such as the ones that blew in the Deccan Traps in what is now India at just the right point in history. (See pictures of the space race.)
For the dinosaurs that perished 65 million years back, extinction was extinction and the precise cause was immaterial. But for the bipedal mammals who were allowed to rise once the big lizards were finally gone, it is a matter of enduring fascination.
Maybe an Asteroid Didn't Kill the Dinosaurs
By Jeffrey Kluger Monday, Apr. 27, 2009
When a scientific principle is common knowledge even in grammar schools, you know it's long since crossed the line from theory to established fact. That's the case with dinosaur extinction. Some 65 million years ago — as we've all come to know — an asteroid struck the Earth, sending up a cloud that blocked the sun and cooled the planet. That, in turn, wiped out the dinosaurs and made way for the rise of the mammals. The suddenness with which so many species vanished after the 65-million-year mark always suggested a single cataclysmic event, and the 1978 discovery of a 112-mi., 65-million-year-old crater off the Yucatán peninsula near the town of Chicxulub seemed to seal the deal.
Now, however, a new study in the Journal of the Geological Society throws all of that into question. The asteroid impact and the dinosaur extinction, argue the authors, may not have been simultaneous, but rather may have occurred 300,000 years apart. That's an eye-blink in geological time, but it's a relevant eye-blink all the same, one that occurred at just the right moment in ancient history to have sent the extinction theory entirely awry. (See pictures of meteors striking the earth.)
The controversial new paper was written by geoscientists Gerta Keller of Princeton University and Thierry Addate of the University of Lausanne, in Switzerland — and both researchers knew that challenging the impact doctrine would not be easy. The asteroid charged with killing the dinosaurs, after all, left more than the Chicxulub crater as its calling card. At the same 65-million-year depth, the geological record reveals that a thin layer of iridium was deposited pretty much everywhere in the world. Iridium is an element that's rare on Earth but common in asteroids, and a fine global dusting of the stuff is precisely what you'd expect to find if an asteroid struck the ground, vaporized on impact and eventually rained its remains back down. Below that iridium layer, the fossil record shows that a riot of species was thriving; above it, 65% of them went suddenly missing. (Read about China's dinosaur fossils.)
But Keller and Addate worried that we were misreading both the geological and fossil records. They conducted surveys at numerous sites in Mexico, particularly at a spot called El Peñón, very near the impact crater. They were especially interested in a 30-ft. layer of sediment just above the iridium layer. That sediment, they calculate, was laid down at a rate of about 0.8 in. to 1.2 in. per thousand years, meaning that the entire 30 feet took 300,000 years to settle into place. (See pictures of Mexico's swine flu outbreak.)
Analyzing the fossils at this small site, they counted 52 distinct species just below the iridium layer. Then they counted the species above it. The result: the same 52. It wasn't until they sampled 30 feet higher — and 300,000 years later — that they saw the die-offs.
"The mass extinction level can be seen above this interval," Keller says. "Not a single species went extinct as a result of the Chicxulub impact."
Keller's and Addate's species samplings are not, of course, conclusive, and plenty of other surveys since 1978 do tie the extinctions closely to the asteroid. But since the new digs were so close to ground zero, the immediate species loss ought to be have been — if anything — greater there than anywhere else in the world. Instead, the animals seemed to escape unharmed. Other paleontologists, however, believe that the very proximity of El Peñón to the impact site makes the results not more reliable, but less. Earthquakes and tsunamis that resulted from the collision could have wrought havoc on the sedimentary record, causing discrete strata to swirl together and completely scrambling timelines. Keller disagrees, pointing out that the slow accretion of sediment she and Addate recorded is completely inconsistent with a sudden event like a tsunami. (See pictures of animals in space.)
"The sandstone complex was not deposited over hours or days," she says. "Deposition occurred over a very long time period."
So if the Chicxulub asteroid didn't kill the dinosaurs, what did? Paleontologists have advanced all manner of other theories over the years, including the appearance of land bridges that allowed different species to migrate to different continents, bringing with them diseases to which native species hadn't developed immunity. Keller and Addate do not see any reason to stray so far from the prevailing model. Some kind of atmospheric haze might indeed have blocked the sun making the planet too cold for the dinosaurs — it just didn't have to have come from an asteroid. Rather, they say, the source might have been massive volcanos, such as the ones that blew in the Deccan Traps in what is now India at just the right point in history. (See pictures of the space race.)
For the dinosaurs that perished 65 million years back, extinction was extinction and the precise cause was immaterial. But for the bipedal mammals who were allowed to rise once the big lizards were finally gone, it is a matter of enduring fascination.
Monday, April 20, 2009
Man Not Alone In Universe
(CNN) -- Earth Day may fall later this week, but as far as former NASA astronaut Edgar Mitchell and other UFO enthusiasts are concerned, the real story is happening elsewhere.
Former NASA astronaut Edgar Mitchell, shown in 1998, says "there really is no doubt we are being visited."
Former NASA astronaut Edgar Mitchell, shown in 1998, says "there really is no doubt we are being visited."
Mitchell, who was part of the 1971 Apollo 14 moon mission, asserted Monday that extraterrestrial life exists, and that the truth is being concealed by the U.S. and other governments.
He delivered his remarks during an appearance at the National Press Club following the conclusion of the fifth annual X-Conference, a meeting of UFO activists and researchers studying the possibility of alien life forms.
Mankind has long wondered if we're "alone in the universe. [But] only in our period do we really have evidence. No, we're not alone," Mitchell said.
"Our destiny, in my opinion, and we might as well get started with it, is [to] become a part of the planetary community. ... We should be ready to reach out beyond our planet and beyond our solar system to find out what is really going on out there."
Mitchell grew up in Roswell, New Mexico, which some UFO believers maintain was the site of a UFO crash in 1947. He said residents of his hometown "had been hushed and told not to talk about their experience by military authorities." They had been warned of "dire consequences" if they did so.
But, he claimed, they "didn't want to go to the grave with their story. They wanted to tell somebody reliable. And being a local boy and having been to the moon, they considered me reliable enough to whisper in my ear their particular story."
Roughly 10 years ago, Mitchell claimed, he was finally given an appointment at Pentagon to discuss what he had been told.
An unnamed admiral working for the Joint Chiefs of Staff promised to uncover the truth behind the Roswell story, Mitchell said. The stories of a UFO crash "were confirmed," but the admiral was then denied access when he "tried to get into the inner workings of that process."
The same admiral, Mitchell claimed, now denies the story.
"I urge those who are doubtful: Read the books, read the lore, start to understand what has really been going on. Because there really is no doubt we are being visited," he said.
"The universe that we live in is much more wondrous, exciting, complex and far-reaching than we were ever able to know up to this point in time."
A NASA spokesman denied any cover-up.
"NASA does not track UFOs. NASA is not involved in any sort of cover-up about alien life on this planet or anywhere else -- period," Michael Cabbage said Monday.
Debates have continued about what happened at Roswell. The U.S. Air Force said in 1994 that wreckage recovered there in 1947 was most likely from a balloon-launched classified government project.
Stephen Bassett, head of the Paradigm Research Group (PRG), which hosted the X-Conference, said that the truth about extraterrestrial life is being suppressed because it is politically explosive.
"There is a third rail [in American politics], and that is the UFO question. It is many magnitudes more radioactive than Social Security ever dreamed to be," Bassett said.
Former NASA astronaut Edgar Mitchell, shown in 1998, says "there really is no doubt we are being visited."
Former NASA astronaut Edgar Mitchell, shown in 1998, says "there really is no doubt we are being visited."
Mitchell, who was part of the 1971 Apollo 14 moon mission, asserted Monday that extraterrestrial life exists, and that the truth is being concealed by the U.S. and other governments.
He delivered his remarks during an appearance at the National Press Club following the conclusion of the fifth annual X-Conference, a meeting of UFO activists and researchers studying the possibility of alien life forms.
Mankind has long wondered if we're "alone in the universe. [But] only in our period do we really have evidence. No, we're not alone," Mitchell said.
"Our destiny, in my opinion, and we might as well get started with it, is [to] become a part of the planetary community. ... We should be ready to reach out beyond our planet and beyond our solar system to find out what is really going on out there."
Mitchell grew up in Roswell, New Mexico, which some UFO believers maintain was the site of a UFO crash in 1947. He said residents of his hometown "had been hushed and told not to talk about their experience by military authorities." They had been warned of "dire consequences" if they did so.
But, he claimed, they "didn't want to go to the grave with their story. They wanted to tell somebody reliable. And being a local boy and having been to the moon, they considered me reliable enough to whisper in my ear their particular story."
Roughly 10 years ago, Mitchell claimed, he was finally given an appointment at Pentagon to discuss what he had been told.
An unnamed admiral working for the Joint Chiefs of Staff promised to uncover the truth behind the Roswell story, Mitchell said. The stories of a UFO crash "were confirmed," but the admiral was then denied access when he "tried to get into the inner workings of that process."
The same admiral, Mitchell claimed, now denies the story.
"I urge those who are doubtful: Read the books, read the lore, start to understand what has really been going on. Because there really is no doubt we are being visited," he said.
"The universe that we live in is much more wondrous, exciting, complex and far-reaching than we were ever able to know up to this point in time."
A NASA spokesman denied any cover-up.
"NASA does not track UFOs. NASA is not involved in any sort of cover-up about alien life on this planet or anywhere else -- period," Michael Cabbage said Monday.
Debates have continued about what happened at Roswell. The U.S. Air Force said in 1994 that wreckage recovered there in 1947 was most likely from a balloon-launched classified government project.
Stephen Bassett, head of the Paradigm Research Group (PRG), which hosted the X-Conference, said that the truth about extraterrestrial life is being suppressed because it is politically explosive.
"There is a third rail [in American politics], and that is the UFO question. It is many magnitudes more radioactive than Social Security ever dreamed to be," Bassett said.
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
100 Billion Earth-Like Planets in Milky Way
Galaxy may be full of 'Earths,' alien lifeStory Highlights
Astronomer: There may be 100 billion Earth-like planets in the Milky Way
If any of them have liquid water, they are likely to have some type of life, he says
Analysis: Thousands of intelligent civilizations may have emerged in the Milky Way
NASA's Kepler mission to search for habitable planets in our corner of the galaxy
By A. Pawlowski
CNN
(CNN) -- As NASA prepares to hunt for Earth-like planets in our corner of the Milky Way galaxy, there's new buzz that "Star Trek's" vision of a universe full of life may not be that far-fetched.
Pointy-eared aliens traveling at light speed are staying firmly in science fiction, but scientists are offering fresh insights into the possible existence of inhabited worlds and intelligent civilizations in space.
There may be 100 billion Earth-like planets in the Milky Way, or one for every sun-type star in the galaxy, said Alan Boss, an astronomer with the Carnegie Institution and author of the new book "The Crowded Universe: The Search for Living Planets."
He made the prediction based on the number of "super-Earths" -- planets several times the mass of the Earth, but smaller than gas giants like Jupiter -- discovered so far circling stars outside the solar system.
Boss said that if any of the billions of Earth-like worlds he believes exist in the Milky Way have liquid water, they are likely to be home to some type of life.
"Now that's not saying that they're all going to be crawling with intelligent human beings or even dinosaurs," he said.
"But I would suspect that the great majority of them at least will have some sort of primitive life, like bacteria or some of the multicellular creatures that populated our Earth for the first 3 billion years of its existence."
Other scientists are taking another approach: an analysis that suggests there could be hundreds, even thousands, of intelligent civilizations in the Milky Way.
Researchers at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland constructed a computer model to create a synthetic galaxy with billions of stars and planets. They then studied how life evolved under various conditions in this virtual world, using a supercomputer to crunch the results.
Galaxy Quest
• The Milky Way is believed to be more than 13 billion years old.
• It is just one of billions of galaxies in the universe.
• The Milky Way has a circumference of about 250,000-300,000 light years.
• It is about 100,000 light years in diameter.
• There are three types of galaxies: ellipticals, spirals and irregulars.
• The Milky Way is a large disk-shaped barred spiral galaxy. (A barred galaxy has a bar-shaped structure in its middle.)
Source: Space.com In a paper published recently in the International Journal of Astrobiology, the researchers concluded that based on what they saw, at least 361 intelligent civilizations have emerged in the Milky Way since its creation, and as many as 38,000 may have formed.
Duncan Forgan, a doctoral candidate at the university who led the study, said he was surprised by the hardiness of life on these other worlds.
"The computer model takes into account what we refer to as resetting or extinction events. The classic example is the asteroid impact that may have wiped out the dinosaurs," Forgan said.
"I half-expected these events to disallow the rise of intelligence, and yet civilizations seemed to flourish."
Forgan readily admits the results are an educated guess at best, since there are still many unanswered questions about how life formed on Earth and only limited information about the 330 "exoplanets" -- those circling sun-like stars outside the solar system -- discovered so far.
The first was confirmed in 1995 and the latest just this month when Europe's COROT space telescope spotted the smallest terrestrial exoplanet ever found. With a diameter less than twice the size of Earth, the planet orbits very close to its star and has temperatures up to 1,500° Celsius (more than 2,700° Fahrenheit), according to the European Space Agency. It may be rocky and covered in lava.
Hunt for habitable planets
NASA is hoping to find much more habitable worlds with the help of the upcoming Kepler mission. The spacecraft, set to be launched from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida next week, will search for Earth-size planets in our part of the galaxy.
Don't Miss
NASA.gov: Explore the Kepler mission
iReport.com: Stargazers unite! Share your view of the universe
Kepler contains a special telescope that will study 100,000 stars in the Cygnus-Lyra region of the Milky Way for more than three years. It will look for small dips in a star's brightness, which can mean an orbiting planet is passing in front it -- an event called a transit.
"It's akin to measuring a flea as it creeps across the headlight of an automobile at night," said Kepler project manager James Fanson during a during a NASA news conference.
The focus of the mission is finding planets in a star's habitable zone, an orbit that would ensure temperatures in which life could exist. Watch a NASA scientist explain the search for habitable planets »
Boss, who serves on the Kepler Science Council, said scientists should know by 2013 -- the end of Kepler's mission -- whether life in the universe could be widespread.
Finding intelligent life is a very different matter. For all the speculation about the possibility of other civilizations in the universe, the question remains: If the rise of life on Earth isn't unique and aliens are common, why haven't they shown up or contacted us? The contradiction was famously summed up by the physicist Enrico Fermi in 1950 in what became known as the Fermi paradox: "Where is everybody?"
The answer may be the vastness of time and space, scientists explained.
"Civilizations come and go," Boss said. "Chances are, if you do happen to find a planet which is going to have intelligent life, it's not going to be in [the same] phase of us. It may have formed a billion years ago, or maybe it's not going to form for another billion years."
Even if intelligent civilizations did exist at the same time, they probably would be be separated by tens of thousands of light years, Forgan said. If aliens have just switched on their transmitter to communicate, it could take us hundreds of centuries to receive their message, he added.
As for interstellar travel, the huge distances virtually rule out any extraterrestrial visitors. iReport.com: Share your view of the universe
To illustrate, Boss said the fastest rockets available to us right now are those being used in NASA's New Horizons mission to Pluto. Even going at that rate of speed, it would take 100,000 years to get from Earth to the closest star outside the solar system, he added.
"So when you think about that, maybe we shouldn't be worried about having interstellar air raids any time soon," Boss said.
Astronomer: There may be 100 billion Earth-like planets in the Milky Way
If any of them have liquid water, they are likely to have some type of life, he says
Analysis: Thousands of intelligent civilizations may have emerged in the Milky Way
NASA's Kepler mission to search for habitable planets in our corner of the galaxy
By A. Pawlowski
CNN
(CNN) -- As NASA prepares to hunt for Earth-like planets in our corner of the Milky Way galaxy, there's new buzz that "Star Trek's" vision of a universe full of life may not be that far-fetched.
Pointy-eared aliens traveling at light speed are staying firmly in science fiction, but scientists are offering fresh insights into the possible existence of inhabited worlds and intelligent civilizations in space.
There may be 100 billion Earth-like planets in the Milky Way, or one for every sun-type star in the galaxy, said Alan Boss, an astronomer with the Carnegie Institution and author of the new book "The Crowded Universe: The Search for Living Planets."
He made the prediction based on the number of "super-Earths" -- planets several times the mass of the Earth, but smaller than gas giants like Jupiter -- discovered so far circling stars outside the solar system.
Boss said that if any of the billions of Earth-like worlds he believes exist in the Milky Way have liquid water, they are likely to be home to some type of life.
"Now that's not saying that they're all going to be crawling with intelligent human beings or even dinosaurs," he said.
"But I would suspect that the great majority of them at least will have some sort of primitive life, like bacteria or some of the multicellular creatures that populated our Earth for the first 3 billion years of its existence."
Other scientists are taking another approach: an analysis that suggests there could be hundreds, even thousands, of intelligent civilizations in the Milky Way.
Researchers at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland constructed a computer model to create a synthetic galaxy with billions of stars and planets. They then studied how life evolved under various conditions in this virtual world, using a supercomputer to crunch the results.
Galaxy Quest
• The Milky Way is believed to be more than 13 billion years old.
• It is just one of billions of galaxies in the universe.
• The Milky Way has a circumference of about 250,000-300,000 light years.
• It is about 100,000 light years in diameter.
• There are three types of galaxies: ellipticals, spirals and irregulars.
• The Milky Way is a large disk-shaped barred spiral galaxy. (A barred galaxy has a bar-shaped structure in its middle.)
Source: Space.com In a paper published recently in the International Journal of Astrobiology, the researchers concluded that based on what they saw, at least 361 intelligent civilizations have emerged in the Milky Way since its creation, and as many as 38,000 may have formed.
Duncan Forgan, a doctoral candidate at the university who led the study, said he was surprised by the hardiness of life on these other worlds.
"The computer model takes into account what we refer to as resetting or extinction events. The classic example is the asteroid impact that may have wiped out the dinosaurs," Forgan said.
"I half-expected these events to disallow the rise of intelligence, and yet civilizations seemed to flourish."
Forgan readily admits the results are an educated guess at best, since there are still many unanswered questions about how life formed on Earth and only limited information about the 330 "exoplanets" -- those circling sun-like stars outside the solar system -- discovered so far.
The first was confirmed in 1995 and the latest just this month when Europe's COROT space telescope spotted the smallest terrestrial exoplanet ever found. With a diameter less than twice the size of Earth, the planet orbits very close to its star and has temperatures up to 1,500° Celsius (more than 2,700° Fahrenheit), according to the European Space Agency. It may be rocky and covered in lava.
Hunt for habitable planets
NASA is hoping to find much more habitable worlds with the help of the upcoming Kepler mission. The spacecraft, set to be launched from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida next week, will search for Earth-size planets in our part of the galaxy.
Don't Miss
NASA.gov: Explore the Kepler mission
iReport.com: Stargazers unite! Share your view of the universe
Kepler contains a special telescope that will study 100,000 stars in the Cygnus-Lyra region of the Milky Way for more than three years. It will look for small dips in a star's brightness, which can mean an orbiting planet is passing in front it -- an event called a transit.
"It's akin to measuring a flea as it creeps across the headlight of an automobile at night," said Kepler project manager James Fanson during a during a NASA news conference.
The focus of the mission is finding planets in a star's habitable zone, an orbit that would ensure temperatures in which life could exist. Watch a NASA scientist explain the search for habitable planets »
Boss, who serves on the Kepler Science Council, said scientists should know by 2013 -- the end of Kepler's mission -- whether life in the universe could be widespread.
Finding intelligent life is a very different matter. For all the speculation about the possibility of other civilizations in the universe, the question remains: If the rise of life on Earth isn't unique and aliens are common, why haven't they shown up or contacted us? The contradiction was famously summed up by the physicist Enrico Fermi in 1950 in what became known as the Fermi paradox: "Where is everybody?"
The answer may be the vastness of time and space, scientists explained.
"Civilizations come and go," Boss said. "Chances are, if you do happen to find a planet which is going to have intelligent life, it's not going to be in [the same] phase of us. It may have formed a billion years ago, or maybe it's not going to form for another billion years."
Even if intelligent civilizations did exist at the same time, they probably would be be separated by tens of thousands of light years, Forgan said. If aliens have just switched on their transmitter to communicate, it could take us hundreds of centuries to receive their message, he added.
As for interstellar travel, the huge distances virtually rule out any extraterrestrial visitors. iReport.com: Share your view of the universe
To illustrate, Boss said the fastest rockets available to us right now are those being used in NASA's New Horizons mission to Pluto. Even going at that rate of speed, it would take 100,000 years to get from Earth to the closest star outside the solar system, he added.
"So when you think about that, maybe we shouldn't be worried about having interstellar air raids any time soon," Boss said.
Sunday, February 15, 2009
Billions of Earths
BBC NEWS
Galaxy has 'billions of Earths'
There could be one hundred billion Earth-like planets in our galaxy, a US conference has heard.
Dr Alan Boss of the Carnegie Institution of Science said many of these worlds could be inhabited by simple lifeforms.
He was speaking at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Chicago.
So far, telescopes have been able to detect just over 300 planets outside our Solar System.
Very few of these would be capable of supporting life, however. Most are gas giants like our Jupiter; and many orbit so close to their parent stars that any microbes would have to survive roasting temperatures.
But, based on the limited numbers of planets found so far, Dr Boss has estimated that each Sun-like star has on average one "Earth-like" planet.
This simple calculation means there would be huge numbers capable of supporting life.
"Not only are they probably habitable but they probably are also going to be inhabited," Dr Boss told BBC News. "But I think that most likely the nearby 'Earths' are going to be inhabited with things which are perhaps more common to what Earth was like three or four billion years ago." That means bacterial lifeforms.
Dr Boss estimates that Nasa's Kepler mission, due for launch in March, should begin finding some of these Earth-like planets within the next few years.
Recent work at Edinburgh University tried to quantify how many intelligent civilisations might be out there. The research suggested there could be thousands of them.
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/science/nature/7891132.stm
Published: 2009/02/15 10:25:15 GMT
© BBC MMIX
Galaxy has 'billions of Earths'
There could be one hundred billion Earth-like planets in our galaxy, a US conference has heard.
Dr Alan Boss of the Carnegie Institution of Science said many of these worlds could be inhabited by simple lifeforms.
He was speaking at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Chicago.
So far, telescopes have been able to detect just over 300 planets outside our Solar System.
Very few of these would be capable of supporting life, however. Most are gas giants like our Jupiter; and many orbit so close to their parent stars that any microbes would have to survive roasting temperatures.
But, based on the limited numbers of planets found so far, Dr Boss has estimated that each Sun-like star has on average one "Earth-like" planet.
This simple calculation means there would be huge numbers capable of supporting life.
"Not only are they probably habitable but they probably are also going to be inhabited," Dr Boss told BBC News. "But I think that most likely the nearby 'Earths' are going to be inhabited with things which are perhaps more common to what Earth was like three or four billion years ago." That means bacterial lifeforms.
Dr Boss estimates that Nasa's Kepler mission, due for launch in March, should begin finding some of these Earth-like planets within the next few years.
Recent work at Edinburgh University tried to quantify how many intelligent civilisations might be out there. The research suggested there could be thousands of them.
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/science/nature/7891132.stm
Published: 2009/02/15 10:25:15 GMT
© BBC MMIX
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
Runaway Stars
Astronomers Find New 'Runaway' Stars
By ANDREA THOMPSON
Space.com
LONG BEACH, Calif. (Jan. 7) — A total of 14 young stars racing through clouds of gas like bullets, creating brilliant arrowhead structures and tails of glowing gas, have been revealed by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. They represent a new type of runaway stars, scientists say.
The discovery of the speedy stars by Hubble, announced here today at the 213th meeting of the American Astronomical Society, came as something of a shock to the astronomers who found them.
"We think we have found a new class of bright, high-velocity stellar interlopers," said study leader Raghvendra Sahai of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "Finding these stars is a complete surprise because we were not looking for them. When I first saw the images, I said 'Wow. This is like a bullet speeding through the interstellar medium.'"
The arrowhead structures, or bow shocks, seen in front of the stars are formed when the stars' powerful stellar winds (streams of neutral or charged gas that flow from the stars) slam into the surrounding dense gas, like a speeding boat pushing through water on a lake.
The strong stellar winds suggest that the stars are young, just a few million years old, the team concluded. Most stars produce powerful winds either when they are very young or very old; and only very massive stars (with masses greater than 10 times that of the sun) can keep generating these winds throughout their lifetimes.
But the objects Sahai and his team found aren't very massive, because they don't have glowing clouds of ionized gas around them. They appear to be medium-sized stars up to eight times more massive than the sun.
The stars' youth is also evidenced by the fact that the shapes of nebulas around dying stars are very different from what is seen around the stars found by Hubble, and old stars are almost never found near dense interstellar clouds, as these stars are.
Runaways
The bow shocks that the stars created in those interstellar clouds could be anywhere from 100 billion to a trillion miles wide (the equivalent of 17 times to 170 times the width of our solar system, out to the orbit of Neptune).
These bow shocks indicate that the stars are traveling fast, more than 112,000 mph (180,000 kph) with respect to the dense gas they're plowing through –- roughly five times faster than typical young stars.
Sahai and his team think the young stars are runaways that were jettisoned from the clusters they were born in.
"The high-speed stars were likely kicked out of their homes, which were probably massive star clusters," Sahai said.
There are two possible scenarios for how this stellar expulsion could have happened: One way is if one star in a binary system exploded as a supernova and the partner got kicked out. Another is a collision between two binary star systems or a binary system and a third star. One or more of these stars could have picked up energy from the interaction and escaped the cluster.
Assuming the youthful phase of the stars lasts only for a million years and that the stars are traveling at 112,000 mph, they have traveled about 160 light-years, Sahai said.
Tip of the Iceberg
The stars spotted by Sahai and his team aren't the first stellar runaways astronomers have found. The Infrared Astronomical Satellite (IRAS) spied a few similar-looking objects in the late 1980s.
But those stars produced much larger bow shocks that the stars found by Hubble, suggesting they are more massive stars with more powerful stellar winds.
"The stars in our study are likely the lower-mass and/or lower-speed counterparts to the massive stars with bow shocks detected by IRAS," Sahai said. "We think the massive runaway stars observed before were just the tip of the iceberg. The stars seen with Hubble may represent the bulk of the population, both because many more lower-mass stars inhabit the universe than higher-mass stars, and because a much larger number are subject to modest speed kicks."
These renegade stars aren't easy to find though because "you don't know where to look for them because you cannot predict where they will be," Sahai explained. "So all of them have been found serendipitously, including the 14 stars we found with Hubble."
Sahai and his team were actually looking for pre-planetary nebulas, the puffed-up aging stars on the verge of shedding most of their layers to become glowing planetary nebulas.
The astronomers are planning follow-up studies to search for more interlopers, as well as study what effect they have on the gas surround them.
"One of the questions that these very showy encounters raise is what effect they have on the clouds," said study team member Mark Morris of the University of California, Los Angeles. "Is it an insignificant flash in the pan, or do the strong winds from these stars stir up the clouds and thereby slow down their evolution toward forming another generation of stars?"
© Imaginova Corp. All rights reserved.
2009-01-07 17:01:48
By ANDREA THOMPSON
Space.com
LONG BEACH, Calif. (Jan. 7) — A total of 14 young stars racing through clouds of gas like bullets, creating brilliant arrowhead structures and tails of glowing gas, have been revealed by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. They represent a new type of runaway stars, scientists say.
The discovery of the speedy stars by Hubble, announced here today at the 213th meeting of the American Astronomical Society, came as something of a shock to the astronomers who found them.
"We think we have found a new class of bright, high-velocity stellar interlopers," said study leader Raghvendra Sahai of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "Finding these stars is a complete surprise because we were not looking for them. When I first saw the images, I said 'Wow. This is like a bullet speeding through the interstellar medium.'"
The arrowhead structures, or bow shocks, seen in front of the stars are formed when the stars' powerful stellar winds (streams of neutral or charged gas that flow from the stars) slam into the surrounding dense gas, like a speeding boat pushing through water on a lake.
The strong stellar winds suggest that the stars are young, just a few million years old, the team concluded. Most stars produce powerful winds either when they are very young or very old; and only very massive stars (with masses greater than 10 times that of the sun) can keep generating these winds throughout their lifetimes.
But the objects Sahai and his team found aren't very massive, because they don't have glowing clouds of ionized gas around them. They appear to be medium-sized stars up to eight times more massive than the sun.
The stars' youth is also evidenced by the fact that the shapes of nebulas around dying stars are very different from what is seen around the stars found by Hubble, and old stars are almost never found near dense interstellar clouds, as these stars are.
Runaways
The bow shocks that the stars created in those interstellar clouds could be anywhere from 100 billion to a trillion miles wide (the equivalent of 17 times to 170 times the width of our solar system, out to the orbit of Neptune).
These bow shocks indicate that the stars are traveling fast, more than 112,000 mph (180,000 kph) with respect to the dense gas they're plowing through –- roughly five times faster than typical young stars.
Sahai and his team think the young stars are runaways that were jettisoned from the clusters they were born in.
"The high-speed stars were likely kicked out of their homes, which were probably massive star clusters," Sahai said.
There are two possible scenarios for how this stellar expulsion could have happened: One way is if one star in a binary system exploded as a supernova and the partner got kicked out. Another is a collision between two binary star systems or a binary system and a third star. One or more of these stars could have picked up energy from the interaction and escaped the cluster.
Assuming the youthful phase of the stars lasts only for a million years and that the stars are traveling at 112,000 mph, they have traveled about 160 light-years, Sahai said.
Tip of the Iceberg
The stars spotted by Sahai and his team aren't the first stellar runaways astronomers have found. The Infrared Astronomical Satellite (IRAS) spied a few similar-looking objects in the late 1980s.
But those stars produced much larger bow shocks that the stars found by Hubble, suggesting they are more massive stars with more powerful stellar winds.
"The stars in our study are likely the lower-mass and/or lower-speed counterparts to the massive stars with bow shocks detected by IRAS," Sahai said. "We think the massive runaway stars observed before were just the tip of the iceberg. The stars seen with Hubble may represent the bulk of the population, both because many more lower-mass stars inhabit the universe than higher-mass stars, and because a much larger number are subject to modest speed kicks."
These renegade stars aren't easy to find though because "you don't know where to look for them because you cannot predict where they will be," Sahai explained. "So all of them have been found serendipitously, including the 14 stars we found with Hubble."
Sahai and his team were actually looking for pre-planetary nebulas, the puffed-up aging stars on the verge of shedding most of their layers to become glowing planetary nebulas.
The astronomers are planning follow-up studies to search for more interlopers, as well as study what effect they have on the gas surround them.
"One of the questions that these very showy encounters raise is what effect they have on the clouds," said study team member Mark Morris of the University of California, Los Angeles. "Is it an insignificant flash in the pan, or do the strong winds from these stars stir up the clouds and thereby slow down their evolution toward forming another generation of stars?"
© Imaginova Corp. All rights reserved.
2009-01-07 17:01:48
Friday, November 21, 2008
The Fountain of Youth
Scientists take a step closer to an elixir of youth
A naturally occuring substance that can create "immortal cells" could be the key to finding a real elixir of youth, scientists claim.
By Richard Alleyne, Science Correspondent
Last Updated: 5:48PM GMT 21 Nov 2008
Scientists believe boosting the enzyme that stops chromosomes unravelling could help those battling against aging. Researchers believe boosting the amount of a naturally forming enzyme in the body could prevent cells dying and so lead to extended, healthier, lifespans. The protein telomerase helps maintain the protective caps at the ends of chromosomes which act like the ends of shoelaces and stop them unravelling.
As we age, and our cells divide, these caps become frayed and shorter and eventually are so damaged that the cell dies. Scientists believe boosting our natural levels of telomerase could rejuvenate them.
A team at the Spanish National Cancer Centre in Madrid tested the theory on mice and found that those genetically engineered to produce 10 times the normal levels of telomerase lived 50 per cent longer than normal.
Maria Blasco, who led the research, told the New Scientist said that the enzyme was capable of turning "a normal, mortal cell into an immortal cell".
She added that she was optimistic that a similar approach may eventually lead to extended human lifespans - though she urged caution.
"You can delay the ageing of mice and increase their lifespan," she said.
"(But)I think it is very hard to extrapolate data from mouse ageing to human ageing."
One of the problems with boosting telomerase is that it can increase the risk of cancer.
Dr Blasco said this could be overcome by also issuing cancer drugs that could offset the negative affects.
She said that the mice with the boosted enzyme also saw other health benefits – often associated with youth such as less subcutaneous fat and better glucose tolerance.
A naturally occuring substance that can create "immortal cells" could be the key to finding a real elixir of youth, scientists claim.
By Richard Alleyne, Science Correspondent
Last Updated: 5:48PM GMT 21 Nov 2008
Scientists believe boosting the enzyme that stops chromosomes unravelling could help those battling against aging. Researchers believe boosting the amount of a naturally forming enzyme in the body could prevent cells dying and so lead to extended, healthier, lifespans. The protein telomerase helps maintain the protective caps at the ends of chromosomes which act like the ends of shoelaces and stop them unravelling.
As we age, and our cells divide, these caps become frayed and shorter and eventually are so damaged that the cell dies. Scientists believe boosting our natural levels of telomerase could rejuvenate them.
A team at the Spanish National Cancer Centre in Madrid tested the theory on mice and found that those genetically engineered to produce 10 times the normal levels of telomerase lived 50 per cent longer than normal.
Maria Blasco, who led the research, told the New Scientist said that the enzyme was capable of turning "a normal, mortal cell into an immortal cell".
She added that she was optimistic that a similar approach may eventually lead to extended human lifespans - though she urged caution.
"You can delay the ageing of mice and increase their lifespan," she said.
"(But)I think it is very hard to extrapolate data from mouse ageing to human ageing."
One of the problems with boosting telomerase is that it can increase the risk of cancer.
Dr Blasco said this could be overcome by also issuing cancer drugs that could offset the negative affects.
She said that the mice with the boosted enzyme also saw other health benefits – often associated with youth such as less subcutaneous fat and better glucose tolerance.
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