SKIRMISHER

For some time now, NASA has been searching our galactic environs for Earth-like planets. So far, what the guys have found are giants–very much like Jupiter and Saturn. But that’s alright; earth wisdom tells us that while extrasolar giants like these may not support life as we know it, the planetary systems they are in may also contain terrestrial planets like Earth and Mars.

So far, the global planet-hunting project has identified 170 extrasolar planets. Just last week, NASA’s Far Ultraviolet Spectroscopic Explorer, or FUSE, has discovered abundant amounts of carbon gas in a dusty disk surrounding a young star named Beta Pictoris.

The star and its emerging solar system are less than 20 million years old, and planets may have already formed. The abundance of carbon gas in the remaining debris disk indicates that Beta Pictoris’ planets could be carbon-rich worlds of graphite and methane, or the star’s environs might resemble our own solar system in its early days.

“There is much, much more carbon gas than anyone expected,” said Roberge, a NASA postdoctoral fellow and lead author on the Nature report. “Could this be what our own solar system looked like when it was young? Are we seeing the formation of new types of worlds? Either prospect is fascinating.”

That same fascination and wonder have been fuelling such ambitious projects in the past few decades. With NASA’s current preoccupation with finding earthlike worlds, says PlanetQuest’s site:

Over the next 15 years, NASA is embarking on a bold series of missions to find and characterize new worlds. These will be the most sensitive instruments ever built, capable of reaching beyond the bounds of our own solar system.

We will analyze the atmospheres of these distant worlds, looking for carbon dioxide, water and ozone. The substantial presence of all three gasses would suggest that life is present.

Such a discovery would at last provide convincing evidence that we are not alone.

We will have found another Earth.

NASA’s FUSE FINDS INFANT SOLAR SYSTEM AWASH IN CARBON

Stumble it!