Breakthrough Watch and European Southern Observatory Achieve First Light on Upgraded Planet-finding Instrument
“Pete Worden, Executive Director of the Breakthrough Initiatives, said: “We’re delighted to collaborate with the ESO in designing, building, installing and now using this innovative new instrument. If there are Earth-like planets around Alpha Centauri A and B, that’s huge news for everyone on our planet.” “ESO is glad to bring its expertise, existing infrastructure, and observing time on the Very Large Telescope to the NEAR project,” commented ESO project manager Robin Arsenault. “This is a valuable opportunity, as — in addition to its own science goals — the NEAR experiment is also a path-finder for future planet-hunting instruments for the upcoming Extremely Large Telescope, ” says Markus Kasper, ESO’s lead scientist for NEAR. “NEAR is the first and (currently) only project that could directly image a habitable exoplanet. It marks an important milestone. Fingers crossed – we are hoping a large habitable planet is orbiting Alpha Cen A or B” commented Olivier Guyon, lead scientist for Breakthrough Watch. “Human beings are natural explorers,” said Yuri Milner, founder of the Breakthrough Initiatives, “It is time we found out what lies beyond the next valley. This telescope will let us gaze across.”
It’s pretty cool stuff, and I hope they find planets. That said-
I doubt they’re going to find anything habitable with that limitation. Planets with radii twice that of Earth or greater are going to be gas dwarfs or water mantle worlds.
So true, but: astronomy is nothing if not incremental (which is why astronomers busy themselves with ever larger telescopes). And in some ways the incrementalism is a neccessary precursor as design or performance issue are worked out before the construction of ever-larger instruments.
Imagine yourself this little thought exercise, though:
“Are We Alone?
After millennia of wondering, we have the answer: No!
Results from the newest telescope in the world, and the 97th facility built in Atacama, are quite definitive.
This wondrous machine builds on research efforts from 20 years ago, confirming the presence of a water world ideally spaced from its host star. As-yet unnamed, this planet is 75% water; planet mass indicates gravity 80% of Earth normal. The new telescope, called the ‘Herculean Atmospheric Hydric Analyzer’ shows a mixture of atmospheric gases attributable only to life.
A desire to visit this planet could be, some say, an issue that finally supportable by everyone in Congress.
Early reports from Capitol Hill show very strong support for a mission to this world. One thoughtful Congressman introduced a bill that would repeal the long-standing limit on the speed of light, noting that “This is just too important for arbitrary limitations.”
Michael,
Please forgive my denseness…
What is your point / what are you suggesting? I see broad humor in the suggested repeal of the speed-of-light limit, but…is there more here than a generic jab at politicians?
I must acknowledge my own skepticism regarding the belief by many that the discovery of life elsewhere will seriously impact us and our institutions. [I’m putting aside the risk of it somehow prompting an alien invasion, etc. That would be a big impact…]
Science fiction (which has suffused out into popular culture) has plumbed the depths of the matter quite thoroughly (though admittedly not completely) and I think that most folks would just take it in as ‘interesting’ but not impacting their daily life.
Consider the discovery of exo-solar systems, first with Beta Pictoris…in the early 80s! So many predicted that the discovery of solar systems beyond our own (and, then, individual planets) would totally rewrite the collective consciousness of humanity. Yet not a few folks anticipating Hubble’s launch (and the revolution it would bring) were unaware that astronomers had already found other solar systems!
Now that we’re apparently even starting to image extra-solar planets, I’m not feeling any social or cultural tremors. I just don’t think the discovery of extra-terrestrial life (either in the solar system or beyond) is going to be as much of a ripple as the astrobiologists keep telling us it’s going to be. Since science fiction (not to mention philosophy & theology) has already been there, and sci fi has ‘prepared the ground’, I think it’s going to be (if it happens) another brief ‘That’s cool!’ moment, and then…back to the grind of getting on with our lives.
Intelligent life confirmation would likely make a bigger wow for a time, but until (?) we beat the speed of light (or figure out how to communicate with ‘them’), I suspect it will be just another bit of science in the news.
But what was your intention with your thought experiment? Obviously I was unable to think it.
I have to disagree with your assertion that finding life would not be a huge moment for science and for humanity.
Even if it’s just simple microbial/algae life, no-one with any curiosity at all will want to stand in the way of researching it and finding out if there is more life out there.
Yes, we’re still going to primarily squabble about money and politics, but extraterrestrial life will stir common emotions in all of us, probably including a widely unspoken, behind-the-scenes, sense that we should be ready to unite in the face of other potential intelligences.
I wouldn’t even call it an assertion, just my sense of the lay of the societal-cultural landscape.
It might (probably would likely) create a tick up in some fields of research & exploration, but I don’t see it being a very large tick up.
But a majorly huge ‘moment’ for humanity? I fear our age has become so saturated in and obsessed with lesser, immediate preoccupations that the ‘wow’ wouldn’t be very big nor last very long. For one thing, too many people are too familiar with the premise in the first place; it wouldn’t be much of a surprise today since we’ve been watching movies & reading books & magazine articles about it for so, so long. The real thing, not unlike quite a few portions of spaceflight itself, is more likely to be a letdown.
Consider ALH 84001. That Martian meteorite offered up credible evidence of Martian life in the mid-90s. Whether or not it is indeed true evidence (it’s still being debated today) is beside the point; consider the reaction of the wider world at the time.
While it did its part to help re-inspire a more steady stream of reasonably priced Martian exploration (invigorating the field of astrobiology, certainly) and even generated a formal bit of commentary from the then-current President (sufficient to be absorbed into a sci fi movie), it hardly produced any cultural shock waves. I wonder how many folks on the street today even know anything about it?
If a spaceship were to land on the Ellipse anytime soon and extraterrestrial life were to come forth, that might make some sizable waves. Anything short of something like that…I just don’t expect much hoopla beyond the usual flash-in-the-moment ‘Gee, that’s pretty cool’—except among the astrobiologists, of course.
I believe Mr. Spencer was, among other things, pointing out that building a better telescope is the right way to learn how to build even better telescopes. So, if this instrument will only be able to resolve a planet twice the size of the Earth, so what? In the process of building it, they will learn enough about the techniques that they will probably figure out how to build one which will resolve continents on an Earth-sized planet. And so on…
As far as the cultural or social impact of finding life on another planet, I’m sure it will have different effects on different people. It’s hard to tell. Sometimes trivial things can make a big difference. Three hundred or so years ago, the French decided to mostly send workers to North America while leaving their families back home. England ended up sending complete families. That’s a fairly minor detail, but it’s why I happen to be typing in English not French. Another random example is something Conan Doyle wrote into a description of his famous, all-knowing detective. He neither knew nor cared that the Earth goes around the Sun, as opposed to the Sun around the Earth. It made absolutely no difference to his life or work. Why waste brain cells on knowing about that sort of trivia? So I’m not going to speculate on if or how discovering extraterrestrial life will affect society.
>most folks would just take it in as ‘interesting’ but not impacting their daily life.
Very true as we don’t see much discussion of whatever astronomy or space by most folks. So little that for many people get sci-fi confused with the real thing. However, results from Kepler seemed to have resonated with a lot of people.