<
https://www.quantamagazine.org/alien-life-a-dream-of-discovery-finds-new-hope-20221103/>
"One of the many times Lisa Kaltenegger’s dream jolted a little closer toward
reality was on a cold April morning a decade ago at an astronomy conference.
She was clutching what she recalls was a terrible, just awful cup of coffee,
not because she was going to drink any more of it but because she had waited in
line and it was warm in her hands. Then Bill Borucki veered in her direction.
She readied herself to tell him to avoid the coffee. But Borucki, head of
NASA’s Kepler mission, a space telescope designed to hunt for planets orbiting
other stars (or “exoplanets”), had something else to discuss. Kepler had
glimpsed its first two Earth-size exoplanets with a decent chance of having
liquid water on their surfaces. These were the sort of strange new worlds that
everyone at the conference — and possibly most of the human race — had imagined
at least once. Would Kaltenegger confirm that the planets might be habitable?"
Via
Future Crunch issue 191:
https://futurecrunch.com/
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics