Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2018/04/16/launching-today-nasas-new-s.html
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Launching today: NASA's new satellite seeking "alien" Earths
I dunno, this seems like over engineering; in Prometheus, they were able to find an alien world based off some vague old cave drawings, and everyone in that film was a certifiable idiot.
Could a planet in the habitable zone have a moon big enough to hold and atmosphere? If the moon was tidally locked with the planet it would have a day night cycle that would hopefully prevent all the water from condensing out as snow on the dark side. Or would that be unstable? What about a large asteroid in one of the Lagrange points of a planet?
More data is needed, but IIRC, current models of planetary formation say that habitable moons are very unlikely, maybe impossible. So, no Yavins out there.
They weren’t happy with something during the countdown - the launch is postponed until Wednesday at 6:51 pm.
Been offline for two days. After spending two hours catching up on the news…I’m looking forward to hearing that these missions were a success.