In a statement that has made me nerd out hard, NASA has announced it will create a multidisciplinary team in order to continue its search for alien life.
The Nexus for Exoplanet System Science, or NExSS, will bring together experts in planetary science, heliophysics, astrophysics and many other disciplines in order to understand how life could form on other planets.
As readers of my column will know, I am a huge fan of space exploration.
Ever since I was a kid, I dreamed of being able to fly off into the stars to find new and interesting worlds.
Though we aren’t really ready for intergalactic travel, this endeavor seems to be our best shot so far at finding extraterrestrial life.
NExSS will be using the Kepler spacecraft, a telescope of sorts that was launched in March 2009. Since its launch, Kepler has discovered more than 1,000 alien worlds, with more than 3,000 other “candidate planets.”
That fact alone is enough to blow my mind. In six years, this spacecraft has found up to 4,000 planets orbiting around stars just like our sun.
Of course, just because they are planets doesn’t mean they can sustain life.
However, if we could find so many planets in such a short time, how many are we missing out on?
These are the kinds of questions that interest me, and it seriously hurts to think about how many people are bored with news like this.
A man-made device has been launched into space, an area of the universe that was completely out of our grasp only a few decades ago, and people are bored by it.
Will NExSS solve the energy crisis or stop world hunger or end all the wars currently being fought?
Probably not, but that’s not its point.
NExSS is the epitome of human curiosity.
It doesn’t ask questions in order to find answers that can better our ?situation.
No, it asks questions simply because they need to be asked.
Where do we come from?
Who are we in relation to the universe?
Are we alone?
These are all questions that have driven the human race for eons.
Religions have been formed about these questions, and entire lifestyles revolve around them.
In an essence, they represent who we are as a ?species.
I have no idea what kind of information NExSS and the Kepler spacecraft will come across.
I can’t possibly know if we will ever find a world like ours or if we can ever even dream to find intelligent life outside of our own planet.
What I do know is the search for this knowledge is what makes us human.
Asking these tough questions and working toward finding the answer is the core of who and what we are.
kevsjack@indiana.edu
