From the University of Toronto:
Search for life on exoplanets more difficult than thought
A new study from the University of Toronto Scarborough suggests the search for life on planets outside our solar system may be more difficult than previously thought.
The study, authored by a team of international researchers led by UTSC Assistant Professor Hanno Rein from the Department of Physical and Environmental Science, finds the method used to detect biosignatures on such planets, known as exoplanets, can produce a false positive result.
The presence of multiple chemicals such as methane and oxygen in an exoplanet’s atmosphere is considered an example of a biosignature, or evidence of past or present life. Rein’s team discovered that a lifeless planet with a lifeless moon can mimic the same results as a planet with a biosignature.
“You wouldn’t be able to distinguish between them because they are so far away that you would see both in one spectrum,” says Rein.
The resolution needed to properly identify a genuine biosignature from a false positive would be impossible to obtain even with telescopes available in the foreseeable future, says Rein.
“A telescope would need to be unrealistically large, something one hundred metres in size and it would have to be built in space,” he says. “This telescope does not exist, and there are no plans to build one any time soon.”
Current methods can estimate the size and temperature of an exoplanet planet in order to determine whether liquid water could exist on the planet’s surface, believed to be one of the criteria for a planet hosting the right conditions for life.
While many researchers use modeling to imagine the atmosphere of these planets, they still aren’t able to make conclusive observations, says Rein. “We can’t get an idea of what the atmosphere is actually like, not with the methods we have at our disposal.”
There are 1,774 confirmed exoplanets known to exist, but there could be more than 100 billion planets in the Milky Way Galaxy alone. Despite the results, Rein is optimistic the search for life on planets outside our own is possible if done the right way.
“We should make sure we are looking at the right objects,” he says, adding that the search for life within our solar system should remain a priority. He points to the recent discovery of a liquid ocean on Enceladus, one of Saturn’s larger moons, as a prime example.
“As for exoplanets we want to broaden the search and study planets around stars that are cooler and fainter than our own Sun. One example is the recently discovered planet Kepler-186f, which is orbiting an M-dwarf star,” says Rein.
Rein says locating a planet in a habitable zone while being able to obtain a good resolution to model the atmosphere will help determine what’s on the planet.
“There are plenty of reasons to be optimistic that we will find hints of extraterrestrial life within the next few decades, just maybe not on an Earth-like planet around a Sun-like star.”
http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2014/04/23/1401816111
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I think it’s simpler than that: ET is hiding in the deep ocean.
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Check with someone who has had an encounter of the first kind. Were they real or not?
No problem finding life when it comes here looking!
milodonharlani says:
April 29, 2014 at 5:53 pm
Mark Luhman says:
April 29, 2014 at 5:32 pm
NASA & the European Space Agency had to chose between looking for life as we don’t know it on Saturn’s big moon Titan or life as we might know it on one of its smaller moons Enceladus, & probably wisely gave priority to the latter mission.
————————————–or—
conducting Muslim outreach
So many goals.
cn
“I think it’s simpler than that: ET is hiding in the deep ocean.”
This has been proven by the 1989 film “The Abyss”. After all Hollywood has proven itself to be an execellent source of rigorous science …
/sarc
I rather like Stephen Hawking’s comment. He didn’t think it possible that any ET’s would be able to reach earth, but if they did, “Expect the worse the contact might not be pleasant” I tend to agree But – if they don’t arrive physically, they could send robot probes. Much like we do. And where are our defense radars? Surely they would pick them up and I believe this has happened.
From the article:
“While many researchers use modeling to imagine the atmosphere of these planets, they still aren’t able to make conclusive observations…”
I think Climate Scientists could learn something from these folks. They understand the limits of their models.
‘A new study from the University of Toronto Scarborough suggests the search for life on planets outside our solar system may be more difficult than previously thought.’
What a load of bull! Searching for alien life is no more difficult than hopping in your car, zooming down the block to the neighborhood 24 hour store, skipping up to the news stand, and picking up a copy of National Enquirer.
Israel Anderson (@israelanderson) says:
April 29, 2014 at 4:24 pm
If we did not waste money on wars, and a bunch of other junk, we COULD build such a telescope.
—
Only if Putin gave us permission to waste his money on such an expensive project. Ukraine decided not to waste money on a military. They gave up nukes and most of their ability to wage war. Now they’re at Putin’s mercy.
They are most probably running out of funds? Who ever thought it would be easy. As one poster said, if we can’t locate a missing airliner, with all the alleged sightings that are false, can you imagine trying to find a planet that could support life as we know it! If this one is around a dwarf sun, possibly life has now disappeared, that is an old sun on the way out. Like ours in billions of years.
How sad. Another balloon popped.
Louis, has America forgotten what happened in Georgia? When some sections wanted to accede.
You don’t mess with Putin, he’ll do what he wishes. Remember the Russian planes near UK, and those who invaded Ukraine’s air space. They are a determined breed and we don’t want another Cuban crisis. Personally from what I know of the situation, most Ukrainians will to join with Russia.
It’s Georgia all over again.
“Search for life on exoplanets more difficult than thought”
Duh.
Exactly WHY is this news?
They’ve been at it a few years, going into it blind in the first place. Of COURSE they are going to find that some of their search has to change – and MOST of it would change toward the “More difficult” end of the spectrum. Any reasonable person could see this as probable.
Is this a plea for more money? More difficult = more funding required!
Neil says:
April 29, 2014 at 6:47 pm
“This is precisely why I do not believe evolution. The whole reason for looking for et is to prove evolution.”
It’s proved. Study it, if you dare. Study paleontology. Study the development of the horse from paleo progenitors. Study the “keyhole” brachiopod. Then think about it. Being told something isn’t conclusive of anything. Ask yourself why a tomato has a lot of the basic DNA that we have. Ponder why a gorilla has 95-99% the same DNA as humans. Do this without the “talking points for anti-evolution” by your side. That way nobody is telling you anything. Do you believe fossils are remains of former living creatures? Christians in the Middle Ages refused to believe the obvious and called them “sports of nature” because they didn’t fit into the beliefs at the time. Leonardo Da Vinci actually correctly explained the provenance of fossils. On a religious level, I don’t see why such a clever plan as evolution for “creation” isn’t okay.
New age mystical nonsense!
New age mystical nonsense, just like global warming, climate weirding and the big bang theory!
The guy down the street is a space alien. I’m sure of it.
Gary they didn’t believe in Darwin’s theory of evolution even in the 19th century, and some still don’t. The thought of being related to other primates doesn’t meet their idealistic view of being made in God’s image. What they forget is the evolution to the Homo species was a miracle in itself. How we survived and adapted in a violent world without any physical natural defense additions, like teeth, power, speed, claws etc., to become the prime predator, we have done very very well to survive. Even though we are not perfect any ET would have to be a lot smarter than us, and not have such a climate that tends to get bleedin’ cold. i.e. Ice ages.
As we now have the ability to detect planets around not too distant stars, we are finding that planets are a fairly common occurrence. Given that there are about 400 billion stars in this Galaxy and at least100 billion galaxies in the observable universe, and assuming that there is at least one planet for every 10 stars (probably a ridiculously low estimate), that would give us at least 4,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 planets. If only one in a million planets was capable of developing life (another ridiculously low estimate considering that life on Earth has found a way to exist in nearly every environment on the planet), that would still leave four quadrillion life baring planets in the universe, and 400,000 in this Galaxy alone (if I got my decimal points right.)
If you believe that everything is happening just based on the laws of physics, then the odds that planet Earth is the only planet with life, or even sentient life, is so ridiculously small that it is not even definable. Life finds a way and appears to evolve towards sentience. If you believe God is the creator of life on Earth and no other place, then why did he go through the trouble of creating an additional 40,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 stars and a likely similar number of planets besides our sun and this planet Earth? An artist does not purchase 4 X 10 to the 21st canvases if he only wants to paint on one.
I am guessing that there is life out there. Lots of it. I would not be surprised if our Galaxy alone was home to tens of thousands of sentient species, if not millions.
The Universe is a very big place, and if the same laws of physics apply to the rest of the universe as they do here on Earth; life abounds!
SETI astronomers have been searching for intelligent life in our galaxy for half a century and found none. I believe there are ETs in our galaxy but very hard to find given SETI’s current technology. I calculated the probability of finding ET using SETI’s method at one in three million. I explained this to Seth Shostak, senior astronomer at SETI Institute. He thinks this will improve as computing speed increases exponentially. That’s wishful thinking since Moore’s law is coming to an end.
Israel,,,
If we did not waste money on wars, and a bunch of other junk, we COULD build such a telescope.
Know what ? I am tired of other arsewholes deciding on how to spend half of what I make just so I can work till I am 65 only to find out that what I have saved has been inflated into nearly nothing.
No one can say for sure there is no other life on the trillions of planets in the Milky way. The probability is there is and lots of them. Then there is the hypothesis of alternative universes. This is a bit hard for me to digest. The chances there are the same physical laws apply to some that exist on Earth, should also be possible. However, the distances that separate us may preclude any contact, for a good reason. What we see has taken light years to reach us anyway.
Unless they have discovered a way or we do to travel just below the speed of light, and can live longer than a human can on earth, why would they bother to even reply to us. The prime directive? If they are that advanced to communicate they might not want to with the thought we might respond differently than they wished we would. Good sci-fi though. Be careful for what you wish for?
The fact that we would not have a realistic chance of observing life or the signatures of life on another planet is why SETI focussed on radio emissions.
We are not going to be able to see them, but we can hear them.
I have no idea why this study was made because this was already known about 50 years ago. Duh, comes to mind. On the other hand, technology for observing some characteristics about a planet with life is rapidly advancing so the study is both 3 years out-of-date and 50 years out-of-date and frankly ridiculous.
Unfortunately, SETI hasn’t found anything in the radio spectrum that points to an intelligent civilization anywhere.
Even if we do find one, the problem is it is more than, lets say 99% probable that we cannot travel faster than light (as in the warp drive of Star Trek) and 98% probable than no advanced civilization can travel faster than light, so we are all stuck in our own little solar systems.
If we do contact another civilization through radio transmissions, then we wait 300 years between “Hello” and “How are you” and “tell us about yourselves” and “what is your DNA” etc etc. That would be too frustrating to contemplate.
98% probable that no civilization can travel to the stars is the important point. Some pretty fantastic observation systems are require to detect life on another planet but we are getting there pretty fast.
I saw ET. I don’t know why we’re looking for them. They look like turds with eyes.
yeah, modeling exoplanet atmospheres, using many untested assumptions, because you can’t measure them, that’s the ticket. because that works so well on earth.
There is likely hood some form of life exists on Jupiter’s moons. Anyway, that is within our scientific exploration technology. Even if it is a brine shrimp, maybe a giant one. LOL.
Isn’t it true that there is more evidence of CAGW than there is of ETs?