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To: Arthalion

The orbiting earth detector telescope is due for launch in just a few years. Earlier they had looked back at earth to get our characteristic signature in case they spot another earth out there so they would recognize it.


44 posted on 08/05/2004 11:58:52 AM PDT by RightWhale (Withdraw from the 1967 UN Outer Space Treaty and establish property rights)
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To: RightWhale
Well, it'll be more than just a few years. Kepler is due for launch in just a few years, but it's essentially just a Hubble tuned to stare at stars to detect brightness changes. It will be far more sensitive and detect far smaller planets than we are currently capable of picking up, but it will still be inferring the presence of the planets by the changes in the host stars brightness.

We won't have any technology capable of directly observing planets in distant systems until the TPF missions launch, and they're currently not planned until 2014 and 2020 at the earliest. It's nice to know that these questions will be answered in my lifetime, but it's still a frustrating wait for us amateurs :\
48 posted on 08/05/2004 12:19:02 PM PDT by Arthalion
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