Scientists discover giant new planet orbiting two suns

Yahoo – AFP, June 13, 2016

An impression by artist Lynette Cook obtained June 13, 2016 from San Diego
State University in California shows the simultaneous stellar eclipse and planetary
transit events on Kepler-1647 b., a double eclipse event is known as a syzygy
(AFP Photo/Lynette Cook)

Washington (AFP) - Astronomers have discovered the largest planet outside our solar system orbiting two stars, at a distance that would make it potentially habitable for people, scientists announced Monday.

A team of NASA astronomers that made the discovery using the Kepler space telescope revealed the findings at a meeting of the American Astronomical Society in San Diego, California.

The gaseous planet -- dubbed Kepler-1647 b -- is the size of Jupiter and has a wide orbit, revolving around its two stars in 1,107 days, or around three years.

The discovery is the eleventh of its kind since 2005.

Planets that orbit two stars -- known as circumbinary planets -- are sometimes called "Tatooines," after the similar fictional planet in the movie Star Wars where Luke Skywalker was raised.

Kepler-1647 b is further from its two stars than any other known circumbinary planet, placing it in an orbit that "puts the planet within the so-called habitable zone," a statement from San Diego State University (SDSU) said.

In theory, that would make the planet neither too hot nor too cold for human habitation, and water could exist in liquid form.

However, Kepler-1647 b is gaseous like Jupiter, making the possibility life could exist there unlikely.

Still, any large moons orbiting the planet could possibly host life.

At 4.4 billion years old, Kepler-1647 b is roughly the same age as the Earth. Its stars are also similar to the Sun, one slightly larger and the other slightly smaller, according to a research paper set to appear in The Astrophysical Journal.

Located near the Cygnus constellation, the planet lies some 3,700 light-years away from the Earth (a light-year is the equivalent of around 5.9 billion miles, or 9.5 billion kilometers).

Researchers are able to detect planets outside the solar system -- called exoplanets -- when they pass in front of their stars, causing "slight dips in brightness," the researchers said.

"But finding circumbinary planets is much harder than finding planets around single stars," co-author William Welsh, an SDSU astronomer, said. "The transits are not regularly spaced in time and they can vary in duration and even depth."

Researchers who detect potential exoplanets use advanced computer software to verify the discoveries, a typically long and arduous process.

Astronomer Laurance Doyle of the SETI Institute -- whose mission is to "search for extraterrestrial intelligence" -- first noticed Kepler-1647 b's transit in 2011.

Scientists required several years to collect and analyze additional data before they could confirm the planet's discovery.

Guizhou radio telescope may pick up signs of alien life

Want China Times, Chuang Shu-chung and Staff Reporter 2015-07-23

The radio telescope under construction in Guizhou, July 16, 2014. (Photo/Xinhua)

A 500-meter aperture spherical telescope (FAST) is currently being constructed on top of a Karst landscape in Pingtang county in the Qiannan Buyei and Miao autonomous prefecture of Guizhou. Once complete, the radio telescope will be the most likely avenue for China to make first contact with aliens, according to our Chinese-language sister paper Want Daily.

On July 22 the installation of the first set of 1000 panels began. The telescope will incorporate 4,450 panels on completion, forming a 250,000-square-meter reflecting surface, roughly the size of 30 football pitches, which will give it the largest diameter of any telescope of its kind in the world at 500 meters.

The cable net is capable of moving along with celestial bodies, according to Zheng Yuanpeng, the technician responsible for the panels. The net automatically adjusts the 4,450 reflective panels which will lie on top of it, allowing the telescope to observe every corner of the sky. The telescope will reportedly be ten-times more agile than the Effelsberg 100-m Radio Telescope in the Ahrgebirge in Germany.

The head of production for China Electronics Technology Group Corporation (CETC), Yang Dingjiang, stated that possible contact with aliens is only one of the aims of the radio telescope. Yang said that the telescope was also aimed at exploring the origins of the universe, the structure of the interstellar medium, dim pulsars and dim radio sources, as well as searching for signs of intelligent life elsewhere in the universe.

This NASA artist's concept compares Earth (left) to the new planet, called 

Kepler-452b, which is about 60 percent larger in diameter (AFP Photo/T. Pyle)

Related Articles:

NASA discovers closest Earth-twin yet (USA)

Hawking launches biggest-ever search for alien life (UK/Russia)

"The Big Picture - You Are Not Alone" -  Feb 2012 (Kryon Channelling by Lee Carroll)

"Common Questions from Non-Lightworkers" - Feb 2012 (Kryon Channelling by Lee Carroll)

"... Question Three: Is there life on other planets?

Are you kidding? There's life everywhere. Everywhere! Right now, your scientists are searching for microbial life on all the planets and their moons in your solar system, and they will eventually find it. They expect to find it. They will eventually understand that the seeds of life are everywhere.

How much life might there be? How long has it been "out there"? When science starts to realize the scope of how long life has been in your galaxy, they will begin to see something counterintuitive to evolution - their own Human history. How old is your Universe? Ask your scientists and they will say about 13 billion years. That's OK. Let's use their numbers. How old is your own planet - 4 or 5 billion, perhaps? Correct. But how old is humanity? Why weren't you here with the dinosaurs? You think the earth wasn't ready? Do you think that perhaps that which controls evolution was a little too stupid to make a Human sooner, but the process could make a dinosaur? Have you ever thought about these things?

If you put the earth's entire history into a 24-hour clock, life itself only started in the last hour and humanity, all of civilization, happened the last few seconds. Isn't that odd to you? Therefore, in a Universe that may be 13 billion years old, you arrived in the last few seconds. Did you ever think maybe you're the newest ones on the block? Well, you'd be right.

If the Universe is really that old, do you think perhaps there are civilizations in your galaxy that might be a billion or more years older than you? If that's the case, do you think perhaps they have gone through anything you're going through? Do you think any of them might have had your DNA attributes? Perhaps they also went through what you are going through spiritually? Perhaps they even went into a quantum ascension status? The answer is dozens of them.

You already know them and you've listed them in your publications. The ones who directly seeded you are called Pleiadians. The ones who seeded them might be Octurian and the ones who seeded them may be even Orion. They're everywhere, and they're all here as well. They're looking at you, for you are the ones who are next, and you are passing this marker of the shift

Oh, dear ones, it's going to be a long time before you really know any of these things to be your reality. The first step is peace on Earth. The next is a new kind of Human evolution that is going to increase your DNA efficiency to 100% and you're going to live a long time. Every time I say that, there are Humans in their intellectual mind saying, "Well, there is a geometric birth rate going on. We're not going to make it. It's going to over-crowd and we are going to run out of food. So what you're saying, Kryon, can't be a good thing. We're all going to be suffering and killing each other for food."

Let me address this, for if that is your thought, Human, you are assuming Humans are stupid and haven't figured out what's going on and why there's so much birth. You assume they can't control it because they haven't figured it out? I want to tell you, you're going to see something you didn't expect. You're going to see a decline in birth rate because Humans are smart and they're getting smarter. They're going to see that quality of life is linked to the number of children they have, and they're going to figure out the solution. It won't be how many children their church says they should have. They are going to do it intuitively. You're going to see it sooner than not.

You are going to see wisdom on the planet in many areas that no sociologist would ever have predicted. You will surprise them all, and it's going to happen without a government program. It's going to happen because you decide you want it. It's going to happen collectively, and you may even see it soon. Look for negative birth rates in first-world countries. Where Humans are able to see a larger picture and have freedom of information, the situation will not be what you have predicted.

Is there life on other planets? The scientists are saying, "It's going to be a long time before we get to the stars, you know? We have to get in this little metal can and put air in it, and then travel in it for years and years before we ever get to the next star." Meanwhile, a Pleiadian can do it in the blink of an eye! What do you think is going on there? Do you even believe me?

Not long ago, if you wanted to communicate to someone far away, you sent a letter. It was carried by a horse. It took a month to get a response. Now you communicate instantly!  Why is this so unbelievable to you about travel?

I will tell you, as long as you stay in 3D, you'll still be getting in little metal cans and air suits and going to planets. As soon as you begin the quantum age, however, you will simply wish yourself there, because you will be entangled with everything and can go with intent. If you don't believe this now, you will later, for what I give you is true. It may be lifetimes and lifetimes from now, but the group that is before me is the group that is going to come back over and over and over. The difference is that you're done coming back in an old energy. This is a new energy. ..”

By Jove! Buried ocean makes Jupiter moon Ganymede possible cradle of life

NASA says it has confirmed that an ocean lies beneath the icy crust that forms the surface of Jupiter's largest moon Ganymede. The presence of a deep ocean there means Ganymede may be capable of sustaining life.

Deutsche Welle, 13 March 2015

Ganymede - the largest moon in the solar system - has a salty ocean underneath the icy shell that surrounds it, NASA said on Thursday.

The ocean is believed to be far deeper than any on Earth - some 100 kilometers (60 miles) deep and buried under some 150 kilometers of ice.

The ocean was detected by scientists using the Hubble Space Telescope, which observed Ganymede's magnetic field. The telescope looked at changes that took place to the moon's colorful polar auroras - similar to the Earth's aurora borealis - which give an indication about what lies beneath the surface of moons and planets.

There has long been speculation that Ganymede could have an ocean, although proof had been elusive, despite tantalizing clues sent back by NASA's Galileo spacecraft. Scientists now say they are sure.

"Since the 1970s, there were speculations and models that Ganymede could possess an ocean," said Joachim Saur of the University of Cologne in Germany. "We do not have these ambiguities anymore," he told reporters, with the Hubble findings providing: "the best evidence to date for the existence of an ocean on Ganymede."

The four big moons, with Ganymede
 the largest, were all discovered the
same year - in 1610 - by Galileo

With a diameter of 5,260 kilometers, Ganymede is slightly larger than the planet Mercury.

More 'waterworlds' dicovered

On Wednesday, a separate team of scientists reported that one of Saturn's moons, Enceladus, may have hot springs bubbling beneath its cold surface. There is also believed to be water below the surface of Jupiter's moon Europa, while another of the planet's moons, Callisto, is thought to have subterranean water.

"The solar system is now looking like a pretty soggy place," said NASA headquarters head of planetary science Jill Green, after the latest find.

Ganymede is one of dozens of confirmed moons that orbit Jupiter, and it is among the four large moons of the planet that were discovered in 1610, by the Italian scientist Galileo.

The prospect of a "deep ocean under the icy crust of Ganymede opens up further possibilities for life beyond Earth," said John Grunsfeld, a NASA administrator.

A European Space Agency mission to be launched in 2022 is expected to circle Jupiter and take a closer look at the moons, including Ganymede.

rc/bw (AFP, AP, dpa, Reuters)

Stars found forming at Milky Way's outer edge

Yahoo – AFP, 27 Feb 2015

Photo released on February 2, 2015 by the European Space Agency shows the

central parts of the Milky Way (AFP Photo/Vvv Consortium/D. Minniti)

Paris (AFP) - Brazilian astronomers said Friday they had found two star clusters forming in a remote part of our Milky Way galaxy where such a thing was previously thought impossible.

Seen from above, the Milky Way has arms of stars, gas and dust flailing out in a spiral shape from the centre.

From the side, it resembles a flat disk with a big bulge in the middle -- it has been likened to two fried eggs stuck together back-to-back.

Stars normally form inside clumps of gas in so-called giant molecular clouds (GMCs), found in the inner part of the galactic disk, said a statement from Britain's Royal Astronomical Society, which published the findings in its Monthly Notices.

Each of these clouds contains several gas clumps, which means that most stars, possibly all of them, are created together in clusters.

Using NASA's Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) space telescope, a team led by Denilso Camargo of the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul in Porto Alegre found GMCs far outside the central galaxy -- seen from the side they lay at distances thousands of light years above and below the Milky Way's disk.

And not only that, one of these remote clouds "unexpectedly" contained two star clusters, said the statement.

"This is the first time astronomers have found stars being born in such a remote location".

The two clusters, named Camargo 438 and 439, lie in a cloud named HRK 81.4-77.8.

Estimated to be about two million years old, the cloud lies 16,000 light years "beneath" the galactic disk -- "an enormous distance away from the usual regions of star formation".

"Our work shows that the space around the Galaxy is a lot less empty than we thought," said Camargo.

Bright lights on dwarf planet perplex NASA as probe nears

Yahoo – AFP, 27 Feb 2015

A NASA Dawn spacecraft image of the dwarf planet Ceres on February 19,

2015 (AFP Photo)

Washington (AFP) - The discovery of another bright light on the dwarf planet Ceres has NASA scientists perplexed as the US Dawn probe prepares to enter the orbit of the largest object in the asteroid belt and possibly resolve the mystery.

The images taken nearly 29,000 miles (46,000 kilometers) from Ceres show that a bright spot on the planet scientists previously discovered appears next to another slightly darker spot, NASA said in a news release.

The light appears in the same basin as the other spot, images released by NASA show.

"This may be pointing to a volcano-like origin of the spots, but we will have to wait for better resolution before we can make such geologic interpretations," Chris Russell from the Dawn mission said.

The Dawn probe will enter the orbit of Ceres March 6. Scientists expect to receive better views of the mystery lights as the spacecraft closes in and spirals nearer the dwarf planet.

"The brightest spot continues to be too small to resolve with our camera, but despite its size it is brighter than anything else on Ceres. This is truly unexpected and still a mystery to us," said scientist Andreas Nathues who is in charge of the camera.

Scientists detected water vapor emitting from Ceres in 2012 and NASA reports the surface of the body contains "water-bearing minerals."

Launched in 2007, the Dawn probe was sent to investigate the two largest bodies in the asteroid belt, which lies between Mars and Jupiter.

Dawn explored giant asteroid Vesta starting in 2011, providing measurements and images. After 2012, the probe left Vesta's orbit and began its journey to Ceres.

Ceres has a diameter of about 590 miles (950 kilometers) and Vesta has a diameter of about 326 miles (525 kilometers).

Scientists predict Earth-like planets around most stars

Australian National University, 5 February 2015

Associate Professor Charley Lineweaver. Image: Stuart Hay, ANU.

Planetary scientists have calculated that there are hundreds of billions of Earth-like planets in our galaxy which might support life.

The new research, led by PhD student Tim Bovaird and Associate Professor Charley Lineweaver from The Australian National University (ANU), made the finding by applying a 200 year old idea to the thousands of exo-planets discovered by the Kepler space telescope.

They found the standard star has about two planets in the so-called goldilocks zone, the distance from the star where liquid water, crucial for life, can exist.

“The ingredients for life are plentiful, and we now know that habitable environments are plentiful,” said Associate Professor Lineweaver, from the ANU Research School of Astronomy and Astrophysics and the Research School of Earth Sciences.

“However, the universe is not teeming with aliens with human-like intelligence that can build radio telescopes and space ships. Otherwise we would have seen or heard from them.

“It could be that there is some other bottleneck for the emergence of life that we haven’t worked out yet. Or intelligent civilisations evolve, but then self-destruct.”

The Kepler space telescope is biased towards seeing planets very close to their stars, that are too hot for liquid water, but the team extrapolated from Kepler’s results using the theory that was used to predict the existence of Uranus.

“We used the Titius-Bode relation and Kepler data to predict the positions of planets that Kepler is unable to see,” Associate Professor Lineweaver said.

The research is published in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. Itis available online.

"Earth, the only planet with free choice in the Milky Way Galaxy"

Related Articles:

Will ET Be Here Soon? NASA Brings Scientists, Theologians Together To Prepare

US Government Takes First Major Steps Towards UFO Disclosure


"The Big Picture - You Are Not Alone" -  Feb 2012 (Kryon Channelling by Lee Carroll)

"Common Questions from Non-Lightworkers" - Feb 2012 (Kryon Channelling by Lee Carroll)

"... Question Three: Is there life on other planets?

Are you kidding? There's life everywhere. Everywhere! Right now, your scientists are searching for microbial life on all the planets and their moons in your solar system, and they will eventually find it. They expect to find it. They will eventually understand that the seeds of life are everywhere.

How much life might there be? How long has it been "out there"? When science starts to realize the scope of how long life has been in your galaxy, they will begin to see something counterintuitive to evolution - their own Human history. How old is your Universe? Ask your scientists and they will say about 13 billion years. That's OK. Let's use their numbers. How old is your own planet - 4 or 5 billion, perhaps? Correct. But how old is humanity? Why weren't you here with the dinosaurs? You think the earth wasn't ready? Do you think that perhaps that which controls evolution was a little too stupid to make a Human sooner, but the process could make a dinosaur? Have you ever thought about these things?

If you put the earth's entire history into a 24-hour clock, life itself only started in the last hour and humanity, all of civilization, happened the last few seconds. Isn't that odd to you? Therefore, in a Universe that may be 13 billion years old, you arrived in the last few seconds. Did you ever think maybe you're the newest ones on the block? Well, you'd be right.

If the Universe is really that old, do you think perhaps there are civilizations in your galaxy that might be a billion or more years older than you? If that's the case, do you think perhaps they have gone through anything you're going through? Do you think any of them might have had your DNA attributes? Perhaps they also went through what you are going through spiritually? Perhaps they even went into a quantum ascension status? The answer is dozens of them.

You already know them and you've listed them in your publications. The ones who directly seeded you are called Pleiadians. The ones who seeded them might be Octurian and the ones who seeded them may be even Orion. They're everywhere, and they're all here as well. They're looking at you, for you are the ones who are next, and you are passing this marker of the shift

Oh, dear ones, it's going to be a long time before you really know any of these things to be your reality. The first step is peace on Earth. The next is a new kind of Human evolution that is going to increase your DNA efficiency to 100% and you're going to live a long time. Every time I say that, there are Humans in their intellectual mind saying, "Well, there is a geometric birth rate going on. We're not going to make it. It's going to over-crowd and we are going to run out of food. So what you're saying, Kryon, can't be a good thing. We're all going to be suffering and killing each other for food."

Let me address this, for if that is your thought, Human, you are assuming Humans are stupid and haven't figured out what's going on and why there's so much birth. You assume they can't control it because they haven't figured it out? I want to tell you, you're going to see something you didn't expect. You're going to see a decline in birth rate because Humans are smart and they're getting smarter. They're going to see that quality of life is linked to the number of children they have, and they're going to figure out the solution. It won't be how many children their church says they should have. They are going to do it intuitively. You're going to see it sooner than not.

You are going to see wisdom on the planet in many areas that no sociologist would ever have predicted. You will surprise them all, and it's going to happen without a government program. It's going to happen because you decide you want it. It's going to happen collectively, and you may even see it soon. Look for negative birth rates in first-world countries. Where Humans are able to see a larger picture and have freedom of information, the situation will not be what you have predicted.

Is there life on other planets? The scientists are saying, "It's going to be a long time before we get to the stars, you know? We have to get in this little metal can and put air in it, and then travel in it for years and years before we ever get to the next star." Meanwhile, a Pleiadian can do it in the blink of an eye! What do you think is going on there? Do you even believe me?

Not long ago, if you wanted to communicate to someone far away, you sent a letter. It was carried by a horse. It took a month to get a response. Now you communicate instantly!  Why is this so unbelievable to you about travel?

I will tell you, as long as you stay in 3D, you'll still be getting in little metal cans and air suits and going to planets. As soon as you begin the quantum age, however, you will simply wish yourself there, because you will be entangled with everything and can go with intent. If you don't believe this now, you will later, for what I give you is true. It may be lifetimes and lifetimes from now, but the group that is before me is the group that is going to come back over and over and over. The difference is that you're done coming back in an old energy. This is a new energy. ..”

Astronomers find oldest known star with Earth-like planets

Yahoo – AFP, 27 Jan 2015

This NASA artist concept shows NASA's planet-hunting Kepler spacecraft

operating in a new mission profile called K2 on December 19, 2014 (AFP Photo)

Miami (AFP) - International astronomers said Tuesday they have discovered the oldest known star encircled by five Earth-sized planets, signaling that planets formed throughout the history of the universe.

The system is 11.2 billion years old and was born near the dawn of the galaxy, said the report in the Astrophysical Journal.

The star has been named Kepler-444, since it was found with the help of NASA's planet-hunting Kepler spacecraft which launched in 2009.

Its five planets are a bit smaller than the Earth, ranging in size from Venus to Mercury.

They circle their Sun-like star in less than 10 days, at a distance smaller than one-tenth the distance between the Earth and Sun -- making them too hot to be habitable.

But the sheer age of the star has stunned astronomers.

At a distance of 117 light-years from Earth, Kepler-444 is two and a half times older than our solar system, which is 4.5 billion years old.

"We've never seen anything like this -- it is such an old star and the large number of small planets make it very special," said co-author Daniel Huber from the University of Sydney's School of Physics.

"It is extraordinary that such an ancient system of terrestrial-sized planets formed when the universe was just starting out, at a fifth its current age," he added.

Astronomers can measure a distant planet's age using a technique called asteroseismology, which measures the oscillations of the host star caused by sound waves trapped within it.

These waves lead to small pulses in the star's brightness, which can be analyzed to measure its diameter, mass and age.

Co-author Steve Kawaler, an Iowa State University professor of physics and astronomy, said Kepler-444 is very bright and can be easily seen with binoculars.

"We now know that Earth-size planets have formed throughout most of the universe's 13.8-billion-year history," said lead author Tiago Campante from the University of Birmingham.

"Which could provide scope for the existence of ancient life in the galaxy."

Kepler 438b: Most Earth-like planet ever discovered could be home for alien life

New discovery is likely to be a rocky world in the ‘Goldilocks’ zone of its parent star where the temperature is just right for liquid water to flow

The Guardian, Ian Sample, science editor, 7 January 2015

An Earth-like planet orbiting a star that has formed a planetary nebula. Earlier in
its life, this planet may have resembled the newly discovered Kepler 438b. Illustration:
David A Aguilar/CfA

An alien world that orbits a distant star in the constellation of Lyra may be the most Earth-like planet ever found outside the solar system.

The planet, named Kepler 438b, is slightly larger than Earth and circles an orange dwarf star that bathes it in 40% more heat than our home planet receives from the sun.

The small size of Kepler 438b makes it likely to be a rocky world, while its proximity to its star puts it in the “Goldilocks” or habitable zone where the temperature is just right for liquid water to flow.

A rocky surface and flowing water are two of the most important factors scientists look for when assessing a planet’s chances of being hospitable to life.

Kepler 438b, which is 470 light years away, completes an orbit around its star every 35 days, making a year on the planet pass 10 times as fast as on Earth. Small planets are more likely to be rocky than huge ones, and at only 12% larger than our home planet, the odds of Kepler 438b being rocky are about 70%, researchers said.

Kepler-186f is part of five-planet system 795 lights years away. The find is
described in the journal Science as ‘a landmark on the road to discovering
habitable planets’. Photograph: Nasa Ames/SETI Institute/JPL-Cal/PA

Scientists at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics announced the discovery at a meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Seattle on Tuesday, along with seven other planets that also lie in the habitable zones of their stars. The haul doubles the number of small planets – those less than twice the size of Earth – believed to be orbiting in their parent stars’ habitable zones.

All were spotted with Nasa’s Kepler space telescope which detects planets as they move across the faces of their stars, causing the light picked up by the telescope to dim periodically by a minuscule amount.

One of the other planets, Kepler 442b, lies in the same constellation 1,100 light years away. It is about a third larger than Earth, receives about two thirds as much starlight, and has a 60% chance of being rocky, according to a report to be published in The Astrophysical Journal.

Guillermo Torres, lead author on the study, said the size and amount of light falling on the planets made them the most Earth-like planets yet found beyond our solar system. Before their discovery, the exoplanets most similar to our own were Kepler 186f, which is 10% larger than Earth and receives a third as much light, and Kepler 62f, which is 40% larger and gets about 41% as much light.

The scientists do not know if the planets have atmospheres, but if they are cloaked in insulating layers of gas, the mean temperatures of Kepler 438b and 442b are expected to be about 60 and zero degrees Celsius respectively.

The Harvard-Smithsonian team used a computer program called Blender to confirm that the planets originally spotted by the Kepler space telescope were real. False sightings can happen when pairs of stars that lie behind the one being studied eclipse each other, causing the background light to dim slightly. In some cases, this can be mistaken for a planet moving in front of its star.

“The pair of stars can be way behind the target star, but if they are in the same line of sight, the result is a very tiny dimming that can look like a planet,” said Torres.

The Blender program gives a statistical probability that the planet is real and not an effect of background stars eclipsing one another. Of 12 suspected planets Torres and his colleagues assessed with the program, 11 came out at more than 99.7% likely to be real.

David Kipping, a co-author on the study, said that Kepler 438b and 442b were “as close to Earth analogues as we’re going to find in the Kepler data”.

Astronomers are keenly waiting on the next generation of telescopes, including Hubble’s replacement, the James Webb Space Telescope, and the European Extremely Large Telescope, which is being built in the Atacama desert in Chile, to help them examine the atmospheres of distant planets for signs of life.

In the meantime, scientists plan to look for other, indirect signs, that a planet may be well-suited for life. Kipping is searching through the Kepler data for hints that some planets have moons, which can improve their odds of being habitable. Our own moon stabilises Earth’s tilt, making the temperatures far less erratic than they would be otherwise. Alien planets that share a solar system with a gas giant like Jupiter are also interesting, because the vast size of the planet acts as a shield against devastating asteroid and comet impacts.

Will ET Be Here Soon? NASA Brings Scientists, Theologians Together To Prepare

Huffington Post, Lee Speigel, 09/22/2014

Looking for extraterrestrial life is akin to a search for a cosmic needle-in-a-haystack, as evidenced by the above incredible Hubble Space Telescope image showing approximately 10,000 galaxies.

In large part, thanks to NASA's Kepler spacecraft, more than 1,400 planets have been identified beyond Earth.

A few days ago, NASA tried closing the gap between life on Earth and the possibilities of life elsewhere. The space agency and the Library of Congress (image below left) brought together scientists, historians, philosophers and theologians from around the world for a two-day symposium, "Preparing For Discovery." Their agenda: To explore how we prepare for the inevitable discovery of extraterrestrial life, be it simple microbial organisms or intelligent beings.

"We're looking at all scenarios about finding life. If you find microbes, that's one thing. If you find intelligence, it's another. And if they communicate, it's something else, and depending on what they say, it's something else!" said astronomer, symposium organizer and former chief NASA historian, Steven J. Dick.

"The idea is not to wait until we make a discovery, but to try and prepare the public for what the implications might be when such a discovery is made," Dick told The Huffington Post. "I think the reason that NASA is backing this is because of all the recent activity in the discovery of exoplanets and the advances in astrobiology in general.

"People just consider it much more likely now that we're going to find something -- probably microbes first and maybe intelligence later," he added. "The driving force behind this is from a scientific point of view that it seems much more likely now that we are going to find life at some point in the future."

Among the many speakers at last week's astrobiology symposium, one has raised a few international eyebrows in recent years.

"I believe [alien life exists], but I have no evidence. I would be really excited and it would make my understanding of my religion deeper and richer in ways that I can't even predict yet, which is why it would be so exciting," Brother Guy Consolmagno, a Jesuit brother, astronomer and Vatican planetary scientist told HuffPost senior science editor David Freeman.

Consolmagno has publicly stated his belief that "any entity -- no matter how many tentacles it has -- has a soul," and he's suggested that he would be happy to baptize any ETs, as long as they requested it.

"There has to be freedom to do science. Being a good scientist means admitting we never have the whole truth -- there's always more to learn." Consolmagno also doesn't think the public would panic when or if it's revealed that alien life has been found.

"I really think it would be a three-day wonder and then we'd go back to worrying about reality TV or the crazy things going on in Washington -- that's the way human beings are. Because I think most people are like me: we expect it's out there. And our reaction would be, 'Wow, thank heavens. It's about time."

Earth is no longer the center of the universe, nor is it flat -- at least that's the currently accepted thinking among most scientists. And we now know, conclusively, that there are a lot more planets than the ones in our own solar system.

"The number of habitable worlds in our galaxy is certainly in the tens of billions, minimum, and we haven't even talked about the moons. And the number of galaxies we can see, other than our own, is about 100 billion," Seth Shostak, senior astronomer at California's SETI Institute told HuffPost.

Watch this video zooming and panning through the night sky to show 10,000 galaxies photographed by the Hubble Space Telescope.

At the NASA/Library of Congress symposium, Shostak gave out some startling numbers about how many stars there are in the part of the universe that we can see. "It's a big number: 10,000 billion, billion. And we know that most of those stars have planets -- 70 or 80 percent. If all of those planets are sterile, and you're the only interesting thing happening in the cosmos, then you are a miracle. That would be exceptional in the extreme. So, the middle-of-the-road approach is to say, 'You're not a miracle, you're just another duck in a row of ducks.'"

"The bottom line of this," Shostak said, "is something like one in five of all stars may have an analog to Earth. That's a lot of habitable worlds, and, indeed, the number of Earths in our own galaxy might be on the order of 50 billion."

Those are big numbers to ponder.

The D.C. conference included a great deal of discussion about the upcoming mission of the Hubble's long-anticipated successor: the James Webb Space Telescope. As large as a tennis court, this deep space observatory is scheduled for a 2018 launch and will orbit beyond our moon. The Webb telescope will focus on new planetary discoveries and collect data from the atmospheres of those planets, looking for certain things that might point to what we would consider possible indicators of life.

HuffPost asked Dick, an astrobiologist, for his opinion on the continuing output of UFO reports around the world.

"I try to keep an open mind on this. Ninety-some percent can be explained by natural phenomena, etc. The question is what to do with the other 3 or 4 percent," Dick said. "My opinion is that they should be studied further, on the one hand. By definition, they're something that we don't know what they are. They could be some physical, psychological or social phenomena that we don't know about. But I think it's jumping to a conclusion that they're extraterrestrial. I don't see that evidence.

"I haven't looked at the evidence close enough to say that there's intelligence behind it. But I've seen enough to know that there are unexplained things that we should look at more, and right now, the U.S. government is not doing that."

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"FUTURE AND PHYSICS (#)" - May 16-17, 2014 (Kryon Channelling by Lee Carroll) -

(#) New major Discoveries (This channel will become a historical channel in the future, prove that Kryon is a real communication to humanity from the Creative Source) - (Text version Physics)

1 To see and measure multi-dimensional/quantum physics, instrument (super cooling quantum plasma lens)

2 Two more laws of multi-dimensional physics revealed: explanation of dark matter & acknowledgement of free energy (controlling mass)

3 God in the atom. God has - provable - part in physics. Intelligent/benevolent design. (Will bring religion and science together.)

4 Human Consciousness is an attribute of physics. (Pleiadians - Humans ancestors / Humans free choice only planet in the Milky Way Galaxy. Other galaxies have their own spiritual systems and physics)

5.Coherent DNA. Multidimensional DNA coherent between dimensions will give Enhanced DNA

"Earth, the only planet with free choice in the Milky Way Galaxy"

"The Big Picture - You Are Not Alone" - (a message from Kryon channeled by Lee Carroll)

"The Quantum Factor" – Apr 10, 2011 (Kryon channeled by Lee Carroll) (Subjects: Galaxies, Universe, Intelligent design, Benevolent design, Aliens, Nikola Tesla (Quantum energy), Inter-Planetary Travel, DNA, Genes, Stem Cells, Cells, Rejuvenation, Shift of Human Consciousness, Spontaneous Remission, Religion, Dictators, Africa, China, Nuclear Power, Sustainable Development, Animals, Global Unity.. etc.) - (Text Version)


"Recalibration of the Universe"– Jan 25, 2012 (Kryon Channelling by Lee Carroll) - (Text Version)

“… The entire galaxy revolves as one plate, in a very counter-intuitive way. The stars and the constellations do not orbit within the rules of Newtonian physics that you are used to seeing all around you in your own solar system. For the stars and clusters in your galaxy, distance from the center does not matter. All the stars rotate as one. This is because the galaxy is entangled with the middle of itself. In that state, there is no time or distance. The change of consciousness on this planet has changed the center of the galaxy. This is because what happens here, dear one, is "known" by the center.

It's interesting to us what your reaction to all this is scientifically. You saw that the "creative event" of your Universe is missing some energy in order for it to have formed as it did. In addition, the unusual way the galaxy rotates, as I just stated, was also noted. So you have calculated that for all this to be in place, there has to be missing 3D matter, and you have given it a name - dark matter. How funny! Did you ever think that there could be a multidimensional effect going on that you now can observe and calculate - that has immense power, but can't be seen? It's not "matter" at all and it's not 3D. It's quantum energy.

Let me tell you something about physics. Yet again, I'll make it simple. Everything your scientists have seen in physics happens in pairs. At the moment, there are four laws of physics in your three-dimensional paradigm. They represent two pairs of energy types. Eventually, there will be six. At the center of your galaxy is what you call a black hole, but it is not a single thing. It is a duality. There is no such thing as "singularity". You might say it's one energy with two parts - a weak and a strong quantum force. And the strangest thing is it knows who you are. It is the creator engine. It's different in other galaxies than this one. It's unique.

The very physics of your galaxy is postured by what you do here. The astronomers can look into the cosmos and they will discover different physics in different galaxies. Could it be that there's something going on in the other galaxies like this one? I'm not going to answer that. … “