Astronomers capture first images of new planets - CNN.com

For the first time planets orbiting a star outside of our solar system have been directly observed by telescope. Prior to this detected planets were only extrapolated to be orbiting stars by measuring a star's "wobble" caused by the orbiting planet's gravity. Of course these planets are gas giants, larger then jupiter, so they aren't habitable, but still, it's amazing we are actually "taking pictures" of alien worlds.

Too bad there is no money left for an American space policy of consequence

There are only two things I have ever supported Bush on. First was the war in Afghanistan, and second was his push to have NASA send a man to Mars. It's true NASA isn't getting the respect it deserves, but that's because in a way it has failed, it has ceased to market itself, and inspire awe. Sending a couple rovers to mars, or building the ISS has some "cool" factor, but there is no WOW factor. Until NASA gets it's act together and actually tries to deliver something that makes us sit up and notice, it'll be stuck in it's current rut. Not to say NASA is doing poorly, but there is nothing going on like the Apollo program right now.

Also the visual confirmation of planets opens up the strong possibility we will find an inhabitable planet sometime in the next century. There are already plans to build an orbiting telescope to begin the search for a planet with an atmosphere like earth. Of course if we find a planet that people could live on, we have no way to get there, but that would be enough to jump start things in my oppinion.

As a side note Obama has described himself as a Star Trek fan and says NASA will be one of his priorities.

To Whom It May Concern,

One of the main reasons I voted for Obama was because of his positions on science and technology. I made several posts in the forum to show the differences between McCain and Obama. I have hopes that he will still be able to make some needed changes in America's Science Policy even though the economy is troubled.

Sincerely Yours,
C. David Neely

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Much is going on in the fields of exo planet discovery. If you look into the planned project list of both NASA and ESA you will see that both are planning large scale exo planet finding satellite missions.

Hopes are realistic, that it will be possible to not only get some direct picture of a potentially habitable planet (with earth like sizes), but by that also to analyize the chemical composition of its atmosphere. I find that an extremely fascinating outlook.


Regarding what is happening already today:
ESA - COROT - COROT discovery stirs exoplanet classification rethink
The European COROT mission has found an object which does not fit into the current exo-planet classifications. It has the size of Jupiter but over 20 times of its mass. Probably the densest exoplanet found so far.

PS:
Congratulation to NASA for that break through btw.

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"Der echte Wiener ist aus Schleim gemeisselt"
Christoph Waltz quoting Karl Kraus

Space exploration should be privately funded. Its simply not a priority in this day for the govt to be spending 15bil on NASA, unless its for national defense related research, which I think is funded in the defense budget anyway. As with anything govt does, its underfunded, inefficient, and too risk averse. Look at the new moon project. Itll take 15 years and hundreds of billions to basically design the exact same capsule we did 40 years ago. Meanwhile the russians are getting 20mil a pop to fly tourists up, and Virgin Galactic is making profit off their spaceship.

Sure its cool, but given a choice, we have better thing to spend the money on.

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"To take from one, because it is thought his own industry and that of his father has acquired too much, in order to spare to others who (or whose fathers) have not exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association, "to guarantee to everyone a free exercise of his industry and the fruits acquired by it."

-Thomas Jefferson

The question is wether you'd like to do it for earning money, or for scientific progress. It all boils down to the old discussion about basic research. Basic research costs, a lot actually, and it does not produce much revenue directly,if any at all. What Japan has however proven impressively is that on a long term basis you get an important competitive advantage by investing substantial amounts into it. If you want to be at the leading edge of technology you also need to keep your act together on basic research.

Companies normally don't have the breath to run basic research on their own initiatives. They are not interested in research which can't be adopted instantly into profit.


Of course its the choice of the Americans to oppose basic research or not. But when you scrap it and then realize that you are falling back in science, don't start complaining about it. Its simply the case when you give it up, you voluntarily give up one of the largest strengths of you country.


WRT that "Virgin Galactic", its a joke when people compare that to serious space undertakings. Look into it, to which height they are launching their rockets. When knowing that the increasing of height leads to an exponentially rising effort behind it, you realize that this job of Virgin Galactic is peanuts already compared to launching a geostationary satellite. But launching a geostationary satellite is peanuts compared to a moon mission.
Having that said, of course private companies can be successful in certain aspect of space launching as well. Arianespace for example is a private company which is very successful at launching commercial satellites with Ariane rockets. The Ariane rockets are also used for research projects run by the European Space Agency. Of course Arianespace has to have close contacts with the state for this job, but that does not change the fact that its run like as a private company.

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"Der echte Wiener ist aus Schleim gemeisselt"
Christoph Waltz quoting Karl Kraus

Point is they are making a profit, and if done right, can only make more. Furthermore, its a priority issue. Should we spend that 15billion in space or here on the ground? Also, 15bil a year on space exploration isnt even a lot anymore. Bill Gates makes that in interest every year. He could single handidly fund the entire space program if he wanted. There are companies that will spend such amounts when it becomes profitable to do so. Exxon for example invests 10 times that on oil exploration. No immediate profit, but in 50 years itll pay itself back. Once they find a way to make money off the moon, itll happen. In the meantime, private individuals can fund whatever science they like and do pretty well. We gave a billion to Obama just to run for president. Why not give that billion to SETI?

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"To take from one, because it is thought his own industry and that of his father has acquired too much, in order to spare to others who (or whose fathers) have not exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association, "to guarantee to everyone a free exercise of his industry and the fruits acquired by it."

-Thomas Jefferson

Far be it from me to criticize NASA's budget since it was my bread and butter for 20 years but I do understand what you're saying. The budget for fiscal year 2009 is $17.6 billion and with a failing economy, I find it hard to justify it at this time. I do think that if NASA was funded by the private sector, advances would probably be made much faster.

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"Life should NOT be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive and well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways - Chardonnay in one hand - chocolate in the other - body thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and screaming "WOO HOO, What a Ride!"

It would definetly be more profit and charity oriented, and less fair to overall science. But then it would also be competitive. Instead of taking my tax money and forcing govt to study climate change from space, greenies can donate money to launch their own program. Problem is when you ask people directly to contribute to something like that instead of just taking it from the rich, it doesnt quite work. People value their own money more than someone elses.

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"To take from one, because it is thought his own industry and that of his father has acquired too much, in order to spare to others who (or whose fathers) have not exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association, "to guarantee to everyone a free exercise of his industry and the fruits acquired by it."

-Thomas Jefferson

Thats true, but they add hardly anything at all to scientific progress, nor to economical important space infrastructure (commercial satellites for example). Don't get me wrong, they make money with their concept so it makes sense to them and is perfectly fine, but while some rich people might be ready to pay for it, its a nonproductive luxury (unlike launching satellites or scientific research which enlarges human knowledge of the world and universe).

It therefore plays in a completely different league as most of the serious space programs.

Its always a question of priority. You can't know by definition of the term basic research if what you research will deliver commercially usable knowledge or not. A large chunk of the space business is basic research. History shows that companies are highly resistant to invest much into basic reasearch just by itself. Companies are very uncomfortable with the completely uncertainty of its outcome (hence the very nature of basic research).

If you want to base your leadership in basic reasearch on the mercy of some multibillionaires and companies I wish you good luck. It can be only of an advantage for Europe and Japan, where one would not be so naive.

Again, it seems to me you have not fully understood the concept of basic research. When research can be foreseen as being profitable, it most likely isn't any basic research anymore but applied research. Don't get me wrong applied research is very important as well, but it can't replace basic research.

Thats not even applied research, thats just exploration. Exploration is part of their job description. Foresters also grow trees sometimes even for future generations. That has little to do with research. (Research would be finding new exploration methods, and even that would be applied research not basic one) While you are right that it has no immediate profit, it can be foreseen already that it will be the basis for future profit and that the company will not survive spending too little on exploration. Furthermore you can roughly calculate with exploration costs, they have a certain rate of success when all the know how is applied.

Basic research is different from that, or do you want to tell me that there is any company out there which would build a CERN on its own? Such a company does not exist.

Once that happens its not basic research anymore. Anyway, even if it happens, there are so many scientific projects in space which have nothing to do with our moon.

Basic research needs reliable long term funding. What you suggest is the exact opposite of that. But if you want to gamble with your position on the leading edge of technology, just go on. The rest of the world will be happy about that surprising present of you giving up that position. Furthermore not every basic research sells as well as SETI to the public. Actually few do so.


NASA needs a thourough refom beyond any doubt. But if you reform it, it can play an important role again, while being efficient as well. ESA for example has only a part of NASA's money at its disposal, when you look however on the results, its quite impressive what they achieve with it. That certainly has also to do with the fundamentally different organisation form of ESA and the national European space agencies compared to NASA. There is considerably less red tape involved as far as I know.

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"Der echte Wiener ist aus Schleim gemeisselt"
Christoph Waltz quoting Karl Kraus

Really people, if you're worried about space exploration at this point in time, mail me a few grams of it, willya?

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I needs government help to live.
I must be a liberal.

Those things are huge. The size of Jupiter blows my mind let alone a planet ten times it's size.

Really, I once took an astronomy course where we used a telscope to see saturn. Cant even process the size. WIth the naked eye through mirrors it was size of a penny.

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"To take from one, because it is thought his own industry and that of his father has acquired too much, in order to spare to others who (or whose fathers) have not exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association, "to guarantee to everyone a free exercise of his industry and the fruits acquired by it."

-Thomas Jefferson

Well, be prepared to mop your mind up off the floor after looking at this site...

AstroPhotography by Kirk Rogers -- writings - Our Planet and Sun in Size Perspective

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“For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.” - Carl Sagan