Planet Hunters Seek New Ways To Detect Alien Life

[Fweethawt]

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/planet-hunters-seek-new-ways-to-detect-alien-life/?wt.mc=SA_Reddit-Share

 

In the search for life beyond Earth, false alarms abound. Researchers have generally considered, and rejected, claims ranging from a 1970s report of life on Mars to the 1990s ‘discovery’ of fossilized space microbes in a meteorite.

Now, inspired by the detection of thousands of planets beyond the Solar System, NASA has started a fresh effort to learn how to recognize extraterrestrial life. The goal is to understand what gases alien life might produce—and how Earth-bound astronomers might detect such ‘biosignatures’ in light passing through the atmospheres of planets trillions of kilometres away

[Jeff]

Makes me sad I'll never ride a spaceship to another planet.

Maybe I can be a head-in-a-jar in the future and see it