Town Crier Articles

With slides and vivid video, Professor John Delano succeeded in persuading a rapt audience of New Town residents that indeed the vastness of the universe exceeds common imagination. The March 11th Noon Talks in New Town was entitled “NASA’s Search for Life Beyond Earth.”

 

Starting with an explanation of the characteristics that made Earth suitable for complex life, Delano proceeded to demonstrate how technology since the 1990’s has been able to measure and track minute events throughout the galaxies to determine where else these characteristics are likely to exist. The video feed from the Hubble, Kepler and Tess satellites have identified 4,136 known planets, mostly the size of Earth or bigger. Scientists have been able to analyze the data to further plot a habitable zone within which only about 25 planets are believed to have the conditions for liquid water for life. All of these planets are thousands of light years from Earth.

 

 

But what form might this life take? The investment in Mars research is focused on identifying microbe life that may not be DNA-based. From meteor samples, scientists know that the building blocks of life--proteins and amino acids--are abundant but how they are linked/built together will determine whether life as we know it exists. Attendees peppered the speaker with questions varying from the cost benefits of sending humans v. technology into space, the advances of China on the moon, the U.S. Space Force, and whether any other life forms may have already visited Earth.

 

 

NASA is “on the verge of remarkable discoveries” Professor Delano explained. Watch for the launch of the Perseverance Mars rover in July 2020 and the debut of the Space Launch System in 2021, the world’s largest rocket launcher capable of launching a payload of 70 to 140 tons. NASA is simply gathering information to describe nature and determine whether life is common or rare. “The implications of these discoveries are left for others to explore,” he said.