Friday, May 1, 2015

Life Beyond Earth


There is a huge curiosity in the world to know that weather we are alone or is there life in any other planet in the universe beside earth. There are lots of scientists who are doing various kinds of research to find out if any life is out there in the universe. NASA is running various missions to find life in any other planet of the universe. 
The creation of universe is beyond the imagination of human being but there will always be a curiosity to know the truth behind it, and this curiosity always motivates human for various inventions and discoveries. Among this one very big curiosity in humans is, can life be possible in any other planet beside earth? Is there any life similar to human beings in any planet? And if possible then how? From all these imagination humans had always been motivated and tried to create these characters in the silver screen from time to time. In both Hollywood and Bollywood these alien characters had been shown in various movies such as Discovery 9, Transformers, Independence Day, Koi Mil Gaya etc . Science had never denied from the possibility of aliens in the outer space.
National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) scientists, after getting motivated by this curiosity started a mission in 2009 of planet hunting from Kepler Mission-10. Few days before, top secret Area - 51 scientists had made it public the footage of a dead alien body and UFO expert Tom Carey released images of the alien from the footage given by Area 51 scientists and claimed it to be authentic, Tom Carey said the footage (not pictured) was captured on film and has been verified by Kodak to date back to 1947 – the same year of the infamous Roswell incident in New Mexico. 

The picture released by the top secret Area  - 51 UFO scientist was sent to the official historian of Kodak up in Rochester, New York, and he did his due diligence on it, and he said yes, this filmstrip, the slides are from 1947. According to the historian the film was 100 percent authentic and it was not photoshopped or manipulated like present days. According to the report the alien was described as being four feet tall with an insect-like head. Carey says the head has been severed, and there has been a partial autopsy. The innards have been removed, and the cadaver has been embalmed, at least at the time when this picture was taken.
After this news some scientists had few doubts, according to them if the dead body of an alien was claimed then there has to be a very big incident that would have change the world totally and this type of news is not possible to hide from the public for such a long period of time such as 50 years. In 1947 after the Roswell incident a debate between the Ufologist experts had been started and few had even said this incident to be a political incident.
 Many scientists believe that we are not alone in this universe, there are millions of planets in the Milky Way Galaxy and thus there is a possibility of life on those planets. In a public conference organized  in Washington few months ago, the scientists from NASA declared about various missions run by NASA at present and, the use of telescope technology in future, in search of life or earth like planet. Once Sara Seager, professor of planetary science and physics department in Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) said, in the future people will point out the star and can say the planet next to that star is a earth like planet. According to astronomer there is at least one planet near each and every star in the Galaxy. NASA’s scientists are studying the planetary system of other stars from previous few years and started the Kepler Mission-10 in 2009 and in near future NASA is planning to start various other missions. 

Search of life in another planet with the help of telescope
To study stars and various planets NASA had already finished the project of Hubble space telescope, Spitzer space telescope and Kepler space telescope. Lot of information about the stars can be gathered by these advanced telescopes, at the same time studies of the planets revolving once or more than once can be done, with the help of these advanced technologies we can also find out the distance between the star and the planet at particular time or whether there is water in the planet or not? In this respect NASA has lot of plans in future. In 2017 NASA will launch Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) and in 2018 James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) will be launched by NASA. NASA had also created an outline for another century, and hoping to start Wide-Field Infrared Survey Telescope (WFIRST), it is a NASA observatory designed to perform wide-field imaging and slitless spectroscopic surveys of the near infrared (NIR) sky for the community. The current Astrophysics Focused Telescope Assets (AFTA) design of the mission makes use of an existing 2.4m telescope to enhance sensitivity and imaging performance. WFIRST-AFTA will settle essential questions in both exoplanet and dark energy research and will advance topics ranging from Galaxy evolution to the study of objects within the Galaxy and within the Solar System. In near future with the help of Webb telescope and WFIRST-AFTA, atmosphere suitable for life will be observed in various planets, presence of water, carbon dioxide and information of various other minerals will be collected. 
NASA is forming an army of robots in search of aliens in outer space these robots will be fully equipped with web cam and GPS system. Unlike other robots of NASA these robots will be comparatively small and each robot will have web cam, antennae and a GPS system to find their way. These robots will work in the same way as ants work in their group. The tests of these robots are in preliminary stage `after the completion of various tests these robots will be able to get information about various useful minerals required for life in a planet.

Information from Kepler Mission-10
In 2009 after the launch of Kepler spacecraft the doubt about exoplanet  was cleared. Till now more than 5000 exoplanet have been identified and information has been collected about them among them information about more than 1700 exoplanet has been confirmed. Kepler had gathered information of various earth size planets in habitable zone. The possibility of water in these planets in this zone is very high. According to Charles Mattias Mountain the director of the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, we were not sure in previous 5 years that there are nearly 10% to 20% stars similar to earth in terms of size. With the help of advanced space telescope information about various earth like planet which are both smaller and bigger than earth can be collected. The day when we will get appropriate information about life in any other planet it will change the perception and thinking of humans, and then it can easily be proved that we are not alone.
NASA has decided to install a huge space telescope in order to find the existence of alien in the outer space. The Advanced Technology Large Aperture Space Telescope (ATLAST) is a NASA strategic mission concept study for the next generation of UVOIR space observatory. ATLAST will have an angular resolution that is 5 - 10 times better than the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) and a sensitivity limit that is up to 2000 times better than the Hubble Space Telescope (HST). ATLAST is envisioned as a flagship mission of the 2025 - 2035 period, designed to address one of the most compelling questions of our time. Is there life elsewhere in our Galaxy? It will accomplish this by detecting "biosignatures" (such as molecular oxygen, ozone, water, and methane) in the spectra of terrestrial exoplanets. ATLAST will be the most powerful telescope in this world which can observe about 30 lac light year far planets and study the atmosphere of the universe.

Possibility of life in more than 1800 planets
Humans had not yet been able to fully understand the creation of universe, weather we are alone in this space or there is lot of other race who are much more superior and technologically advanced or less superior than human race. The myth of alien existence has not yet been solved. To solve this puzzle NASA has been conducting various projects such as Kepler Mission-10. This space craft is equipped with various huge telescopes to search earth like planets where water is present, at the same time we are also trying to find the possibility of life in 400 million stars and planets in our Galaxy. In our Galaxy there are numerous solar systems like ours and in each solar system there is one star just like sun and all the planets revolve around the star just like our solar system. Out of five stars there is a possibility of life in one planet near the star. Till 1995 the scientist didn’t even thought of any alien existence because till then science didn’t have any information or knowledge about any planet having possibility of life. Later the search of various planets started and with the help of spacecraft Kepler we were able to find various earth like planets where there is possibility of life. The data collected of earth like planet has reached more than 1800 and in 2014 itself scientists had declared nearly 700 planets on which the possibility of life can be hoped.

Life after contact with alien
According to eminent astrophysicist Stephen Hawking, in search of alien we are advancing towards a huge problem, the signals send by us will help the more advanced alien race to know the existence of human race and this could be dangerous. He is also a firm believer of the existence of biological life in many parts of the universe, but he warns against contact with extraterrestrial life. Most likely, aliens will represent a great danger to humans. They can conquer and plunder Earth, “If aliens visit us, the outcome would be much as when Columbus landed in America, which didn't turn out well for the Native Americans," says Hawking but there is also the other side of story, the aliens can help the human race to get more advanced by providing their technology.