Exoplanet science is one of the most rapidly expanding fields of modern physical sciences: Countless new measurements are made, thousands of papers published annually, and the number of exoplanets and planet candidates discovered is rapidly approaching 6,000 – and set to accelerate!
What really drives this discovery? What will the future of exoplanet science bring? Which questions will be answerable? Which models will be testable? What will be the limits of knowledge in the next two decades? Which exoplanet surveys and missions will bring new fundamental insights into the nature and evolution of other worlds?
Recently, I gave a colloquium in LPL, exploring these questions, partly building on our Alien Earths team’s Bioverse framework. The colloquium is recorded and accessible via this link.
…interstellar travel constant acceleration (to the blue planet)… they arrive, see their occupants and decide to stay on the Moon hidden on the far side. They would have to come for supplies to the “supermarket”, maybe they have cities under the ocean floor, maybe they disguise themselves as humans, maybe they control the Earth, or maybe nothing at all. Where are the lunar satellites? There are none that are operational that we know of, a cloak of silence… They have put “7000” starlink satellites in Earth orbit in a moment, they have sent satellites to asteroids… but to the Moon “noo” that “they are not interested yet” in people watching the continuous live broadcast in UHD from a satellite in low lunar orbit. What rules on Earth?: religion. As soon as people see that the extraterrestrials know nothing about the miserable religious stories, that´s it: goodbye religion. For 50 years the Pope has been “thinking” about how to continue deceiving “astrotheology” with the “it´s just that “the grays” eat people. They left 2 Apollos on the ground after spending the $millions they cost “because there was no longer any interest in going there”. Apollo XI radio secret: “they are here in the crater next door watching us”…