Nasa's New Telescopes Could Spot Alien Life Within 20 Years

Convinced that there's got to be life on other planets? You're not alone in the universe -- in fact, many NASA scientists agree with you. And a panel convened recently by the space agency (see the video below) believes that finding it could happen soon, too -- perhaps "in twenty years" -- thanks to incoming telescope technology. Recent projects, like the Kepler Telescope, Dark Energy Survey and the Very Large Telescope have detected the presence of planets and even their atmospheres. But astronomers are even more excited about future projects like the Transiting Exoplanet Surveying Satellite (TESS) and James Webb Space Telescope, set to launch in 2017 and 2018, respectively.

http://www.engadget.com/2014/07/16/nasas-new-telescopes-could-spot-alien-life-within-20-years/

2017 is predicted to be the year that everyone on earth will know without a shadow of a doubt(even the skeptics) that alien life exist on other planets.

...not sure how we would know without a shadow of a doubt in 2017, considering that is only when it launches...and the article says it could find life within 20 years from that point...did you mean 2037?

Anyway, we probably could know sooner if we stopped sending probes to Mars and set our sites on the moons of Jupiter and Saturn.

Yey!

nope i meant 2017

...um, how can you even begin to think a mission that they say could take 20 years would be successful the year it launches?

well this guy predicted 5 years ago that by the year 2017 everyone on earth would know and now nasa announces this coincidence?

...seriously...never post a science related thread in this forum again...for the sake of all of us...

Cool beans, let's keep it coming with bigger and bolder projects, let's increase NASA's budget tenfold, cut on wasteful military spending.

you have to be pretty much in a bubble to believe there aren't aliens somewhere in the universe, it's pretty much 99% that they exist, just like how we exist, the Universe is way to big, to even think that nothing exists, I think it more comes down to, do they actually come to our planet, and for me there are way to many credible statements from military personnel to say they don't at some point.

It be great to learn if there is a planet in reach we can see which has life on it, could you even contemplate seeing a planet which has buildings on it and things walking around, and just anything from a different planet which had intelligent life.

I don't understand this. Perhaps we can look at the nearest stars with those telescopes but other than watching the wobble of stars 50+ light years away and using astrophysics to figure out their atmosphere I don't see how this is possible.

Perhaps I should read the article.

It'd be hard to believe there is not life anywhere else at all but Earth. Whether it's intelligent life is another question.

Its hard to believe that physicists who work at NASA are the most intelligent people, yet they believe in things that don't exist.

And instead, we as a race of beings would prefer to fund war and suffering than science and discovery.

Figuring out the atmosphere is the point. Look up 'spectropolarimetry red edge'.

The universe is made up of billions of galaxies. Billions from what we know of. Why do you believe that we are the only living species in it? Because we have not discovered them yet? There are still tons of species of animals on this planet we live on that we have not discovered, it doesn't mean that they don't exist.

There might be alien life but can we see them with our eyes?

Or are they out of the range of our visible spectrum.

I'm very sure that when our telescopes does reliably detect alien life, they in turn will interpret as a sign that we are ready to enter the wider galactic community. Or something...

This is a good point. Visible light, the type of light that we can see with our eyes, is very limited on the overall spectrum of light.

If something is material it's going to reflect across pretty much the whole spectrum. We can't see X-rays, but different parts of our body reflect them in different amounts, which is how X-ray graphs work. Hell we even reflect radio waves, just try walking around a TV antenna sometime and watch that picture pixelate!

But how can we determine whether or not reflected light is reflecting off living beings several light years away? :P

As above: look up 'spectropolarimetry red edge'.

Ah, okay. Sweet.

I hope it's not going to take too long to be announced that we are definitely and with proof not alone. I want to witness this stuff now that I'm still young. I hate how we're going to miss so many of humanity's discoveries and breakthroughs. **** old age and diseases.

they don't exist just another sky daddy

I wonder who or what is out there waiting for us or perhaps not wanting to be found.

I'll believe it when i see it with my own eyes.

Although statistically speaking the possibility of intelligent existing somewhere out there is very high considering the size of the universe.

QFT