Thanks to Kepler 22-b, Hippies Can Restart SETI
The loneliest job in the galaxy is working at SETI, scanning the heavens for extraterrestrial life in the form of transmitted TV and radio waves. Know why its so freakin’ lonely? Cause aliens don’t freakin’ exist. But now that the news has hit that there is a star with an Earth-like planet out there, dirtbag pot smoking undergrads are going to open up the shop and put on their earphones again.
From CNET here:
The search for aliens is back on–and newly confirmed Earthy-ish planet Kepler 22-b is among the top targets.
SETI’s Allen Telescope Array (ATA) is once again searching for extra-terrestrial life after spending several months in hibernation. The University of California cut funding to the program due to budget constraints, and last April the ATA ceased its obsessive habit of intense inter-galactic eavesdropping. The array “listens” across a broad range of frequencies for any radio transmissions from, well, somewhere else.
The SETI Institute says the restart of the search is thanks to funding raised via the Web–the SETIStars program has raised more than $200,000 in online donations–as well as additional funds from the U.S. Air Force.
The announcement comes as NASA also announced this week that its Kepler mission had confirmed the first Earth-like planet in a habitable zone where liquid water and life might exist. The planet, dubbed Kepler 22-b, is 600 light years away and roughly 2.5 times the size of Earth. Scientists believe surface temperatures to be comfortably around 70 degrees
So that planet was 70 degrees 600 years ago. If a light year is measured in the span of time it takes for light to travel, then the fact that this stellar body has been observed means that we are peering into the past.
And climate science is so awesome we can now predict weather on a planetary body 600 years in the past at a vast distance? I’m even more skeptical of this new climate science than I am of our own.
