

NASA Hubble Finds a True Blue Planet  - asutosh
http://www.nasa.gov/content/nasa-hubble-finds-a-true-blue-planet/

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Pitarou
And science marches on.

Maybe I'm showing my age, but it astonishes me how quickly the study of exo-
planets has progressed. I wonder if I'll live long enough to see images beamed
back from an interstellar probe?

~~~
arethuza
"I wonder if I'll live long enough to see images beamed back from an
interstellar probe?"

I would say you have a small, but definitely non-zero, chance of that - but it
probably depends more on the development of effective life prolonging
therapies that anything else. We're quite a long way from being motivated
enough to build a dedicated interstellar probe and then you would probably
have to wait a few decades for the probe to actually get somewhere and a, much
smaller, time for the signals to get back.

Personally, I'd settle for seeing manned exploration of Mars and I think that
may just happen...

~~~
kamaal
Mankind is into space since what, 75 years?

Its too early to think of traveling to far points in space using the
technology we have.

Imagine some thousands of years back, planning to explore the world using an
ox cart. Yet today, airplanes have made that perfectly possible.

~~~
arethuza
Well, if we _really_ wanted to we could probably hack something together along
the lines of the Project Orion designs right now, but it would be hugely
expensive and pretty messy so I can't see anyone doing that.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Orion_%28nuclear_propul...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Orion_%28nuclear_propulsion%29)

I suspect if we do send out interstellar probes they will be tiny rather than
flying battleships:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starwisp](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starwisp)

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marshc1
Dose NASA have a full time staff of artists? Or do they outsource these
"artistic interpretations" we some frequently see?

~~~
TsiCClawOfLight
I think they have actual photos. Only, the government hides them from us...
maybe the alien overlords don't want to reveal themselves yet?

~~~
Pitarou
That would be cheaper, yes.

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kamaal
When I looked at the word 'blue' in the title, my first thought was there
could be life but. But reading further...

>> It is only 2.9 million miles from its parent star, so close that it is
gravitationally locked. One side always faces the star and the other side is
always dark.

and

>>day side and night side temperatures on HD 189733b differ by about 500
degrees Fahrenheit.

Means life similar to us doesn't exist there.

Seems like our exploration of the cosmos and some drastic results with regards
to that will only happen after some drastic changes in technology. It took a
ship, and a few determined men to explore places on earth.

It will take some radical invention in transport systems. And few determined
men this time too.

I don't think we will ever discover anything substantial as long as the
physics of that is limited by things like speed of light. Its like thinking of
heavier than air flying machines before the discovery of bernoulli's theorem.

~~~
vidarh
I think this part made it sound nastier:

> On this turbulent alien world, the daytime temperature is nearly 2,000
> degrees Fahrenheit, and it possibly rains glass -- sideways -- in howling,
> 4,500-mph winds.

~~~
deletes
That description makes Venus look like a habitable planet.

~~~
sampo
Actually, if you could somehow use balloons filled with human-breathable air
as floating devices, you could float about 50 km above Venus surface, in a
nice earth-like 1 atm pressure and 0–50 C temperature range.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonization_of_Venus#Aerostat_...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonization_of_Venus#Aerostat_habitats_and_floating_cities)

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obeleask
And here I was thinking they had found an Australian Planet...

[http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=true%20blue](http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=true%20blue)

