Are There Other Beings Like Us in The Universe?
NASA is about to embark on a £428 million space mission in order to look for other planets which may have trails of alien existence.
Scientists say that the 3 ½ year journey by the Kepler telescope, which is being considered as NASA’s biggest project so far, will enable us to find the answer to the million-dollar question: “Are we alone?”
It is set to launch from Cape Canaveral in Florida and will look for planets which are in the area of about 100,000 stars. These planets are known as ‘Goldilocks zone’ because of their perfect temperature, which enables the existence of life.
This search, according to them, could possibly reveal 50 such planets.
According to Bill Borucki, the project’s main investigator, if they can find a number of planets, it could be possible that there is life all throughout the galaxy.
Alternatively, says Borucki, if the results are negative, it still remains as a big discovery because it will effectively confirm that Earth is the only life in the universe, and that there isn’t a Star Trek.
The spacecraft will have a very sensitive light meter, which will look through a particular part of the Milky Way and keep a tab on the brightness of every star in the target group every half-an-hour for 3 years.
When a planet intercepts the star, the brightness falls. The light meter will then measure by how much the light falls and for how long. This will enable Kepler to find out the temperature and size of the planet, which will tell them whether the planet is habitable.
Project scientist Patricia Boyd says that we all have a natural curiosity of our origins, whether there is life outside the planet earth, how unique is life on Earth. The Kepler mission is set to answer at least some of these questions.
The craft has been named after Johanes Kepler, a German scientist who made notable studies on the motion of planets. It will be observing a particular part of the sky between 2 constellations – Lyra and Cygnus the Swan – where nearly 3.5 million stars are located. 100,000 of these starts are to be part of the study.
During the past decade, nearly 250 big planets have been seen to orbit stars away from the solar system, a large proportion of them being big gas balls. Kepler will be eyeing the smaller planets.
The telescope will be the biggest ever, enabling it to look at a part of the galaxy equal to 20 moons’ width.
Borucki adds that the Kepler, with its advanced-technology, can answer that elusive question as to whether there are other living beings in the universe.
The journey, Borucki stresses, will not be about finding out about other beings, but as to where there are other habitable planets. The former will be conducted in a follow up project by NASA.
Like Mr. Borucki says, the Kepler will not look for Extra Terrestrial creatures, but it will look for the extra terrestrials’ home!
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i want to know more about the big bang theory and the experiment held on 27th sep 2008