Extraterrestrial life - we're gonna know soon!!

[machotrouts]

I'll be so fucked off if I die before we get aliens. Like what was the point of being alive during THIS stupid little window of time that doesn't have aliens in it. Wanna see the fucking aliens

[Sherringford Hovis]

Wanna see the aliens fucking

FTFY

[ZoyzaSorris]

I'll be so fucked off if I die before we get aliens. Like what was the point of being alive during THIS stupid little window of time that doesn't have aliens in it. Wanna see the fucking aliens

+1

[Jim Bob]

I'll be so fucked off if I die before we get aliens.

You'll be unlikely to be fucked off or have any kind of emotional response to anything, to be honest.

[kittens]

will there be aliens in heaven?

[Voltan (Man of Steel)]

Quite refreshing really, naming it literally. In size it will supersede the Very Large Telescope (honest) and construction was sanctioned after plans for the Overwhelmingly Large Telescope (again, really) were deemed too costly.

I'm glad they didn't go with the public's vote for Telescopey McTelescopeface.

[Jim Bob]

will there be aliens in heaven?

Don Bluth considers a rewrite.

[Flatulent Fox]

At least we can point this tech at Mars and find out whether the aliens are cheating at football.

He must've been flying very slowly. Took Neil Armstrong three days.

Lovely stuff.

I've had a good old think about all this aliens business, and decided that they are a very nosey sort in general.
It's a sizzlin' mystery but.


Aliens - a hoax or reality?

[Alberon]

In the interview Lord Rees says that the JWST probably won't be much use for this (even if it ever gets launched: it's already 13 years late and $9 billion over budget).  More likely to be useful, he says, is the extremely large telescope the European Southern Observatory agency is building in Chile, to be called, er, the Extremely Large Telescope (honest).

He also proposes that we should start planning for a huge space telescope with a mirror hundreds of meters in diameter that would be launched in 2068, the hundredth anniversary of Earthrise.

The bigger the better, though NASA seems to think they've found a way to use the James Webb Telescope to find oxygen on exoplanets.

https://exoplanets.nasa.gov/news/1615/new-technique-may-give-nasas-webb-telescope-a-way-to-quickly-identify-planets-with-oxygen/

In a new study, researchers identified a strong signal that oxygen molecules produce when they collide. Scientists say Webb has the potential to detect this signal in the atmospheres of exoplanets.

"Before our work, oxygen at similar levels as on Earth was thought to be undetectable with Webb, but we identify a promising way to detect it in nearby planetary systems," said Thomas Fauchez of the Universities Space Research Association at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.

[Kryton]

Threads like these reassure me there's still things to be discovered and life isn't as dull as I sometimes think it is.
Nice one :)

[touchingcloth]

Did anyone see the press conference on this today? Mind blowing.

[Cerys]

will there be aliens in heaven?

The afterlife will consist of having our lives dissected by beings who want to find out all about us.  Anal probes are only likely if we experienced them while alive.

[machotrouts]

FTFY

Nope. Got it right first time. Thanks

You'll be unlikely to be fucked off or have any kind of emotional response to anything, to be honest.

Yes I will. I'll be bloody livid. I'll be dead livid

[Tony Tony Tony]

Now that the Aliens are just around the corner, anyone else up for a good solid probing?

[Keebleman]

The bigger the better, though NASA seems to think they've found a way to use the James Webb Telescope to find oxygen on exoplanets.

https://exoplanets.nasa.gov/news/1615/new-technique-may-give-nasas-webb-telescope-a-way-to-quickly-identify-planets-with-oxygen/

Not quite on topic, but I was listening to this old episode of In Our Time about galaxies, and was tickled to hear one of the panel say of the James Webb Telescope, "We hope it will be launched early in the next decade." Ok, next decade.  Presumably he means 2020s, right?  But when was the show recorded?  2006!!

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p003c1cn?fbclid=IwAR1su32uiB9N3zMFi_6mXtOtRWQUhx9yW3U6zZA711Agr_PucsHDw4wgoOQ

[Paul Calf]

Call me Mr Cynical but that timescale seems incredibly optimistic. As I pointed out in the football thread the other day, it took 18 years from commentators saying 'surely at the rate technology is going we can have a system to tell if the ball is over the line' during Euro 96, to actually getting that technology in 2014.

It took so long because some people (I'm one of them) think it shouldn't have happened at all.

[BlodwynPig]

They are already here.

[Bence Fekete]

I'll be so fucked off if I die before we get aliens. Like what was the point of being alive during THIS stupid little window of time that doesn't have aliens in it. Wanna see the fucking aliens

150ug lysergic acid diethylamide + ~70mg of DMT = 👽 (promise)

[Ferris]

51, cunt.

The biography on your okcupid account as let itself go.

[Keebleman]

Well bloody hell, it seems we might not have to wait until 2040 after all!

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-54133538

I must say that as a Cardiffian I am particularly chuffed that the city's university has played such a crucial role in the research.  It's the most exciting thing to happen here since we won the FA Cup in 1927.

Here's a terrific edition of Big Picture Science one of my favourite podcasts, put together at very short notice in response to the news.  The episode looks into what exactly the evidence is, why it is so convincing, and how the most exciting conclusion (Yay! we've found alien life!) could turn out to be mistaken.

https://radio.seti.org/episodes/life-on-venus

[Glebe]

Could this mean that aliens could have acid for blood after all?

[Keebleman]

They'd certainly have it for breakfast, lunch, tea.  There's bog all else to eat!

[steve98]

Could this mean that aliens could have acid for blood after all?

Naw man, we drink it. Ah fuckin' love acid me.

[Glebe]

Naw man, we drink it. Ah fuckin' love acid me.

Norman Tebbit's looking well.

[solidified gruel merchant]

[Paul Calf]

Ooh, an alien judge. Golly.

[Paul Calf]

That's led me to this, and I can't stop guffawing:



Lynn's face is perfect.

[Keebleman]

It's all gone quiet on this topic, hasn't it?  Here's the reason why:

https://www.washington.edu/news/2021/01/27/phosphine-venus-so2/

[Dragon]

hitler doing the olympics is are humans

[Pinball]

We probably wouldn't want to encounter microbes that can survive in 90% H2SO4, although I bet some muppet would organise a retrieve and return mission.