Uranus-Sized Planet Discovered Through Microlensing

You couldn't come up with a better "Headline of the Day" if you tried.

NASA's Hubble Space Telescope and the W. M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii have made independent confirmations of an exoplanet orbiting far from its central star. The planet was discovered through a technique called gravitational microlensing.

With all these planets we are finding, it makes you wonder what else we may find out there. Also it begs the question, why aren't we doing more to find out?

Makes me feel this country is run by backward thinking luddites.

Mr. Bluntman said:

With all these planets we are finding, it makes you wonder what else we may find out there. Also it begs the question, why aren't we doing more to find out?

Makes me feel this country is run by backward thinking luddites.

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There's no money to be made in that. The money-interests that run our government know this.

Spidey329 said:

There's no money to be made in that. The money-interests that run our government know this.

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A single M-type asteroid could be worth 20 trillion in raw materials alone. That's assuming you sold them on Earth. I suspect some buyers would pay a premium to take delivery in space...

Kueller said:

A single M-type asteroid could be worth 20 trillion in raw materials alone. That's assuming you sold them on Earth. I suspect some buyers would pay a premium to take delivery in space...

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It depends on how it's shipped, trillions could be lost as well.

Spidey329 said:

There's no money to be made in that. The money-interests that run our government know this.

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It should not be the government's job to entertain the public. Spending money on extrasolar space exploration is putting the cart before the horse.

There are bigger problems we need to solve right now besides finding more balls of rocks (or gas) thousands of light years from our own planet.

Namely how do we make our society more efficient to develop the technology we need as fast as possible? How do we generate enough power to build whatever we need to do to get there? How do we travel faster than the speed of light to get there? What are we going to gain from traveling there?

Face it, we can all dream about something like Star Trek becoming a reality during our lifetime, but it is not going to happen with just rocket technology or likely during our lifetime. Quit blowing taxes and society's money on useless causes and start putting it toward things that will advance society faster so this will one day become a reality sooner. Dreamers are slowing progress toward that dream.

Also, just getting Steve's pun.

Spidey329 said:

There's no money to be made in that. The money-interests that run our government know this.

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Which is incredibly short-sighted. See below.

Kueller said:

A single M-type asteroid could be worth 20 trillion in raw materials alone. That's assuming you sold them on Earth. I suspect some buyers would pay a premium to take delivery in space...

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This. Plus bonus points for not doing ecological and environmental damage here. And who knows, maybe we will find exotic metals or substances that aren't on or accessible with our current tech on Earth, and that said elements have properties that will advance science and technology greatly.

sleepeeg3 said:

It should not be the government's job to entertain the public. Spending money on extrasolar space exploration is putting the cart before the horse.

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It's not entertainment, it's hard science. I'd say pumping a few tens of billions into NASA is a far wiser investment than keeping the military industrial complex fat and happy - which I think is a far greater waste of money with all the pork attached to their funding. Don't get me wrong, I think defense is important, but there are far more cost effective ways of going about this than we currently are, with all the greased palms in Washington. Cut the fat away and there will be more money for programs like this.

sleepeeg3 said:

There are bigger problems we need to solve right now besides finding more balls of rocks (or gas) thousands of light years from our own planet.

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Who said it had to be thousands of light years away? Just yesterday I read an article that there is a four planet system about 23ly away. One of the closest yet that has been discovered. If we keep looking we will be bound to find something that could be feasible to travel to and fro in a single human lifetime at relativistic speeds.

sleepeeg3 said:

Namely how do we make our society more efficient to develop the technology we need as fast as possible? How do we generate enough power to build whatever we need to do to get there? How do we travel faster than the speed of light to get there? What are we going to gain from traveling there?

Face it, we can all dream about something like Star Trek becoming a reality during our lifetime, but it is not going to happen with just rocket technology or likely during our lifetime. Quit blowing taxes and society's money on useless causes and start putting it toward things that will advance society faster so this will one day become a reality sooner. Dreamers are slowing progress toward that dream.

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I will concede to the point that yes, there are big problems that need attention, like solving the clean energy issue, homelessness, children and adults starving here in our own country, affordable housing, jobs, etc. But burying our heads in the sand about learning more of what's out there while doing so isn't a solution. If there was more funding for science and space exploration, discoveries both in knowledge and in technology would trickle down into every other aspect of our society. For the better part of 40 years we have been coasting off the space race to Luna. If we kept up that pace instead of just putting it on the back burner set to low I think we would be more advanced than what we are now.

The JSF program isn't a colossal waste of money? Especially when a 30 year old plus design outperforms it in almost every way? As I have said, giving NASA a much, much larger budget would have a positive effect, and the money would be there to solve such problems, either directly or indirectly. You have to look at the big picture, not in short term gains.

Mr. Bluntman said:

It's not entertainment, it's hard science. I'd say pumping a few tens of billions into NASA is a far wiser investment than keeping the military industrial complex fat and happy - which I think is a far greater waste of money with all the pork attached to their funding. Don't get me wrong, I think defense is important, but there are far more cost effective ways of going about this than we currently are, with all the greased palms in Washington. Cut the fat away and there will be more money for programs like this.

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There is no money for either program or any of the other stuff the government isn't supposed to be spending money on you mentioned. There is -$500B/year for everything. Country is $18T in debt and only brings in $3T / year. $250B is spent just on the interest. That's like having a $50k/y job and having $300,000 in credit card debt! Does anyone even remotely understand how insanely broke the US government is?

Who said it had to be thousands of light years away? Just yesterday I read an article that there is a four planet system about 23ly away. One of the closest yet that has been discovered. If we keep looking we will be bound to find something that could be feasible to travel to and fro in a single human lifetime at relativistic speeds.

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Still dreaming... Gee only 135 trillion 205 billion 495 million and 630 thousand miles away! With a conventional rocket going 36,500 MPH, it will only take 422,680 years! Just going to Pluto takes 10 years.

Come on!

sleepeeg3 said:

There is no money for either program or any of the other stuff the government isn't supposed to be spending money on you mentioned. There is -$500B/year for everything. Country is $18T in debt and only brings in $3T / year. $250B is spent just on the interest. That's like having a $50k/y job and having $300,000 in credit card debt! Does anyone even remotely understand how insanely broke the US government is

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I'm very well aware. All that I am saying is that the money would be better spent on this than some of the insanely wasteful things that our government does now.


Still dreaming... Gee only 135 trillion 205 billion 495 million and 630 thousand miles away! With a conventional rocket going 36,500 MPH, it will only take 422,680 years! Just going to Pluto takes 10 years.

Come on![/QUOTE]

And with your attitude we never will discover another method of travel. Research takes money and time. I didn't say that it would happen overnight, but if there isn't significant investments made we will forever be doomed to be stuck within the solar system

Kueller said:

A single M-type asteroid could be worth 20 trillion in raw materials alone. That's assuming you sold them on Earth. I suspect some buyers would pay a premium to take delivery in space...

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No need. I'll buy it through Amazon prime and get free 2 day shipping. Of course the box it comes in will be three times the size with lots of giant zeppelin sized air bags to fill it up.