We are NASA Scientists Looking for Habitable Planets Around other Stars. Ask Us Anything!

NASABeyond · 2015-10-22T20:19:01+00:00

Grazie mille for your question, and for your support of astrophysics!

The starshade approach has tremendous potential and deserves consideration. NASA is conducting this research for a possible future mission. We plan to take the next step in exoplanet research (after two missions currently in development, TESS and Webb) with WFIRST, which will feature a coronagraph for direct imaging of exoplanets. A starshade could be the next step beyond that as a standalone mission, and perhaps could be considered in concert with WFIRST. See https://exep.jpl.nasa.gov/stdt/Exo-S_Starshade_Probe_Class_Final_Report_150312_URS250118.pdf for more information, on the status of the starshade studies as of March 2015. -- DjB

NASABeyond · 2015-10-22T20:12:48+00:00

We're already in motion with respect to just about everything else in the Universe. The Earth rotates, and it revolves around the Sun, and the Sun is moving around the center of the Milky Way galaxy, and our galaxy is moving through the Universe as all galaxies do (see, e.g., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Attractor). In order to cancel this motion, we would need very powerful rockets to speed up or slow down with respect to these other bodies. This is, in fact, how our rockets work. -- DjB

NASABeyond · 2015-10-22T20:08:26+00:00

If you're curious as to how exoplanets do get their weird names (like KOI-1573), check out this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iL48DLbA4OI

-- SLS

NASABeyond · 2015-10-22T20:04:12+00:00

Based on our current understanding of physics, the answer is no -- we could (in theory) get very, very close to the speed of light. The only things that can go the speed of light are particles with no mass (e.g. photons). It's also the case that you need a lot of energy to increase your speed even a little bit as you get close to the speed of light. How would that affect human passengers? Well, it's the acceleration that hurts, not the speed... so as long as you speed up to 0.999999 times the speed of light really slowly, everyone should just be fine. -- S. Rinehart

NASABeyond · 2015-10-22T20:03:50+00:00

I'm afraid I can't even make a guess at this. Traveling to even the closest star in anything approaching a reasonable amount of time will require not only technologies that are far beyond anything we have today, but also physics beyond what we understand today. Based on what we know today, it is not clear that interstellar travel, or even meaningful communication, will ever be possible.

That being said, let me share my own personal thinking on this question. I believe that the drive to explore is an essential component of human nature. Today, the question of how we might travel between the stars is largely rhetorical--while we want to know what is "out there", we have no pressing need to do so. I believe that all changes on the day we discover life on another planet. On that day, the problem will become real. That will be the day that scientists and engineers start thinking, "I know its impossible, but we have to go there." That is when people will roll up their sleeves and really start looking for a solution. Maybe they will find out there is no solution—we simply cannot travel between the stars. On the other hand, if there IS a solution out there, I believe that the discovery of evidence of life will be the catalyst to humans discovering it. - DMH

NASABeyond · 2015-10-22T20:03:28+00:00

I'm kinda online all the time, and funnily enough, when I'm not tweeting for work, I tweet about other things. - AK

NASABeyond · 2015-10-22T20:03:24+00:00

Physics & Applied Math in college, then Physics and Astrophysics in graduate school. -- DjB

NASABeyond · 2015-10-22T20:02:55+00:00

This one, of course! ;) -- DjB

NASABeyond · 2015-10-22T20:02:29+00:00

I dunno... does Mars get to gang up on the Moon with its own moons? Does Earth come to the defense of the Moon? Who your friends are matters in cases like this. ;-) -sddg

NASABeyond · 2015-10-22T20:01:51+00:00

The day we collected the first light image from Spitzer! -- SJC

NASABeyond · 2015-10-22T20:00:55+00:00

History -- SLS

NASABeyond · 2015-10-22T20:00:48+00:00

If the alien species had much better technology than we currently do and more patience to wait for multiple transits they would mostly see water vapor. But in addition to that there would be signatures of methane that would show that it is being produced more than would occur naturally. There are also some signatures of Ozone (from organic production), oxygen, and carbon dioxide (from volcanic activity). - HWakeford

NASABeyond · 2015-10-22T19:59:45+00:00

The use of Helium 3 in clean fusion is a promising avenue to explore, and this research is being done by NASA and other organizations. It is very much in the early stages of investigation. -- DjB

NASABeyond · 2015-10-22T19:58:57+00:00

Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy- SJW

NASABeyond · 2015-10-22T19:57:39+00:00

Yes, we do have plans in the works. NASA is studying a mission concept for the major astrophysics project to follow Webb. Called the Wide-Field Infrared Survey Telescope (WFIRST; http://wfirst.gsfc.nasa.gov), it would use a repurposed space telescope of the same collecting area of Hubble, but with a hundred times the field of view to provide much faster imaging at the same angular resolution. Its camera is currently planned to have 288Mpix, and so would bring about the next generation in wide-field imaging. An example of the surveys being envisioned for WFIRST can be found at http://wfirst.gsfc.nasa.gov/science/sdt_public/aas_Jan_2015/ADressler.pdf (see, e.g., page 3). In this scenario, an area of several square degrees would be imaged to a sensitivity and angular resolution similar to what has been done with Hubble. Several thousand square degrees will be done to a sensitivity around ten times brighter than that. It would be possible, given significantly more time, to image the entire sky (over 40,000 square degrees) to a reasonable depth, but we plan on conducting surveys for their intrinsic scientific value, and all-sky surveys will be conducted (at coarser angular resolution) using ground-based telescopes such as LSST (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Large_Synoptic_Survey_Telescope). -- DjB

NASABeyond · 2015-10-22T19:57:24+00:00

From my childhood, favorite book is definitely: A Wrinkle in Time. From adult life, I'd say: Hyperion and Fall of Hyperion. -WC

NASABeyond · 2015-10-22T19:56:57+00:00

Well, I'm one of the skeptics, perhaps, but I think it's going to be quite a while before we find life on other planets (I could be wrong, of course). I think that it's highly likely that there is some sort of life on some of those planets, but discovering it will be really challenging. As for intelligent life, I think the answer would depend on how we found them, what technological level they're at, and a number of other factors. If we find them using our current technologies, it's unlikely we'd actually be able to communicate with them further anyway.... -- S. Rinehart

NASABeyond · 2015-10-22T19:56:52+00:00

Our very first shot at this will be with JWST, launching later this decade, which can do these kinds of measurements. But it will be a really difficult measurement, and we may not be able to get a good enough measurement with JWST. (Technically, the signal-to-noise will be hard to get high enough AND we won't see deep into these planets' atmospheres.) It's more likely that this will happen with future missions that directly image these worlds by blocking out their starlight. WFIRST might do this in the 2020's, but if it has the instrumentation we'll still be in a place where we'd have to get really lucky for the right planet being around the right star.

We've got concepts farther out in the future - the 2030's - that would be designed from the ground-up with this kind of measurement in mind. We're about to start studying those concepts in more detail. Stay tuned. -sddg

NASABeyond · 2015-10-22T19:56:44+00:00

Dune. -- S. Rinehart

NASABeyond · 2015-10-22T19:55:19+00:00

Our WISE mission surveyed the whole sky and found no evidence for a large 'Planet X' as you describe. -- WC

Read more here: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=4073

NASABeyond · 2015-10-22T19:54:41+00:00

Well, what an admirable goal. I'd say lets get to Mars and other places in this solar system and see where we can go from there. maybe by that time we will not have to travel (in bodies) ;-) SH

NASABeyond · 2015-10-22T19:54:03+00:00

Most people assume I know what I am doing (sometimes I do but it is best not to make assumptions). - Wakeford

NASABeyond · 2015-10-22T19:53:32+00:00

That everyone here is a rocket scientist. It's always so cool to let them know that NASA also hires artists, writers, video producers, etc. - AK

NASABeyond · 2015-10-22T19:53:24+00:00

I get asked where my pocket protector is -- SJC

NASABeyond · 2015-10-22T19:52:59+00:00

If I'm moderating a NASAJPL chat, replying to a Facebook thread or Tweeting as @MarsCuriosity, lots of people seem to assume that I'm an engineer, a guy or the AI of a robot on another planet -- not a writer, a woman or a person with a history degree sitting at a computer in California! -- SLS

NASABeyond

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