[ Sandy/NASAChatHost - 16 - 09:45:07 ]
In collaboration with the Space Telescope Science Institute's "Tour of the Cosmos," NASA Quest presents a chat with Drs. Deborah Padgett and Karl Stapelfeldt. They will be ready to answer your questions at 10 am Pacific ( 1pm Eastern), which is in about 15 minutes... Chat with you then!

[ Sandy/NASAChatHost - 18 - 10:00:53 ]
RE: [Sean-Zeeshan/Home] Hello Sandy, can I ask you how many people are going to chat today?
Hi Sean, glad you could join us! I'm not really sure, I'm guessing about 50. We'll begin in another 5 minutes....

[ Sandy/NASAChatHost - 19 - 10:01:28 ]
Sean: What time is it in Saudi Arabia and how did you hear about this chat!

[ TourTheCosmos - 20 - 10:03:51 ]
Hello Welcome to Tour the Cosmos! We are ready to take your questions.

[ Sandy/NASAChatHost - 21 - 10:04:23 ]
Drs. Deborah Padgett and Karl Stapelfeldt are the scientists behind the stellar disk images taken by the Hubble Space Telescope. They propose that dust particles orbiting a newborn star begin to clump together and form bits of space rubble, which eventually forms planets!

[ TourTheCosmos - 23 - 10:05:28 ]
RE: [Sean-Zeeshan/Home] The time here is about 9:01. I found about this chat on the internet.
Thanks for joining us Sean. Do you have a question for us?

[ TourTheCosmos - 25 - 10:08:02 ]
RE: [Sean-Zeeshan/Home] What does a "light year" really mean?
The distance that light travels in one year, about 6 trillion miles

[ TourTheCosmos - 27 - 10:09:15 ]
RE: [Chris-ChrisMaidt/CCC] I just want to congratulate you on a great piece of work doctors!
Thank you, we enjoy using Hubble.

[ TourTheCosmos - 29 - 10:11:21 ]
RE: [Sean-Zeeshan/Home] How do astronomers search for extraterrestrial life?
Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) project serches with large radio telescopes. They listen for signals from possible extraterrestrial civilizations.

[ TourTheCosmos - 31 - 10:12:25 ]
RE: [Chris-ChrisMaidt/CCC] How long do you expect the disk to take to form into independant solid or gaseous planets like the ones in our own solar system?
That is a perfect questions that we would like to know that answer to...we think about 10 million years, but it could be faster.

[ TourTheCosmos - 33 - 10:13:01 ]
RE: [Chris-ChrisMaidt/CCC] How long do you expect the disk to take to form into independant solid or gaseous planets like the ones in our own solar system?
We think the process of planet formation may be well underway by 1 million years.

[ TourTheCosmos - 35 - 10:14:04 ]
RE: [Sean-Zeeshan/Home] What conditions are necessary to support or even start life on planet?
For our kind of life we need temperatures that can provide liquid water, so not above boiling and not below freezing. For other kinds of life, we don't really know what they require.

[ TourTheCosmos - 36 - 10:15:34 ]
RE: [Sean-Zeeshan/Home] What is the possiblity of the existence of extraterrestrial life?
We are trying to address how many stars might form planets that have conditions to support life, which could be about 5% of all stars.

[ TourTheCosmos - 39 - 10:16:45 ]
RE: [Chris-ChrisMaidt/CCC] Wow! How many of these proto systems are predicted to exist in a galaxy like the Milky Way?
Let us get our calculator... about 5 billion.

[ TourTheCosmos - 40 - 10:17:46 ]
RE: [Chris-ChrisMaidt/CCC] Wow! How many of these proto systems are predicted to exist in a galaxy like the Milky Way?
About 1 million proto systems out of 100 billion stars.

[ TourTheCosmos - 42 - 10:19:19 ]
RE: [Sean-Zeeshan/Home] what is the possibility of finding extraterrestrial life?
It is a matter of how successful SETI will be as well as whether those systems are directing radio systems toward Earth. Remember, life such as microbes and bacteria could exist on other planets even in our solar system.

[ TourTheCosmos - 44 - 10:20:14 ]
RE: [Chris-ChrisMaidt/CCC] Thank you, I have to leave for work, but before I go I would like to know if Hubble is capable of detecting or seeing objects like itself in these other systems?
Inside the proto system it is very cloudy and dark and we cannot see inside, so we cannot be sure of the planet formation. But we don't expect to see another Hubble Space Telescope.

[ TourTheCosmos - 45 - 10:21:52 ]
RE: [Tim-TTWP] Is it true that if you are looking at a distant object, you are actualy looking back in time, and if so how far back in time have you seen ?
Yes, you are looking at the distance in light years which will tell you how old. Hubble has seen back about 90% of the age of the universe. The proto planetary systems we studied are about 450 - 500 light years away.

[ TourTheCosmos - 47 - 10:23:09 ]
RE: [Sean-Zeeshan/Home] in these 5 billion systems, what are the cahnces of finding extraterrestrial life?
We don't know if life forms even if the environment is suitable, so we don't know the exact answer to your question at this moment.

[ TourTheCosmos - 49 - 10:27:26 ]
RE: [Tim-TTWP] Where does the solid material to form the proto systems come from?
Good question, metal and rocks but in very small form, approximately the size of dust particles which were formed in an earlier generation of stars.

[ TourTheCosmos - 50 - 10:28:35 ]
RE: [Tim-TTWP] Where does the solid material to form the proto systems come from?
You can see these particles yourself in the forms of dark nebulae in the Hubble Space Telescope images.

[ TourTheCosmos - 53 - 10:29:46 ]
RE: [TourTheCosmos] You can see these particles yourself in the forms of dark nebulae in the Hubble Space Telescope images.
These dust particles condense out of hot gases in space the same way as rain and snow condenses out of clouds.

[ TourTheCosmos - 54 - 10:32:23 ]
RE: [Tim-TTWP] What determines how many and what kind of planets form ?
The mass of material in the protosystem is important. You have to have enough material to form a large planet, such as Jupiter. If the central star is double, it can complicate planet formation. The environment in which the planetary system is forming, the presence of nearby massive stars may affect the lifetime of materials available to form planets (strong radiation from massive stars can blow the material away). But we don't know if a system will form one or two big planets or lots of little planets.

[ TourTheCosmos - 55 - 10:33:17 ]
RE: [Sean-Zeeshan/Home] In your opinion, do you think that the search for extratterestrial intelligent life is worth it? If it is, how is it going to benefit us?
It is worth it because it satisfies our curiosity about the uniqueness of humanity in the universe.

[ TourTheCosmos - 60 - 10:38:39 ]
RE: [Sean-Zeeshan/Home] what are some of the projects being conducted to search for extratterrestrial life?
There is a part time search that is privately funded using radio telescopes, which is the major search. The search for any type of life is a little trickier but two major efforts are being supported by NASA, the Mars mission and the mission to Europa to dig through the ice to look for liquid water.

[ TourTheCosmos - 62 - 10:39:56 ]
RE: [Cheryl-CherylBrownCampbell/NASAEducationOffice] Would you please explain the hydrogen, helium process in terms of the creation of stars, and how are the heavier elements created in your accreation theory of the universe.
These proto systems are simply rearranging existing elements into planets or stars. Hydrogen and helium existed in the early universe but heavier elements are created through fusion inside stars.

[ Sandy/NASAChatHost - 63 - 10:40:01 ]
RE: [Eric-Eric] Just joining...
Hi Eric, glad you could make it! Send us your questions :-)

[ TourTheCosmos - 65 - 10:41:23 ]
RE: [Tim-TTWP] What is the catylist to form a star.
Gravity and lots of star dust. Gravity pulls a gas cloud down into a central object that grows into a star and it may need a push to get started such as a supernova blast shockwave.

[ TourTheCosmos - 67 - 10:42:10 ]
RE: [Eric-Eric] [ TourTheCosmos - 55 - 10:33:17 ] RE: [Sean-Zeeshan/Home] In your opinion, do you think that the search for extratterestrial intelligent life is worth it? If it is, how is it going to benefit us? It is worth it because it satisfies our curiosity about the uniqueness of humanity in the universe. To play devils advocate: Couldn't the money be spent more wisely on say, health care or education?
The devils advocate has won and the government is not providing any money for SETI.

[ TourTheCosmos - 68 - 10:43:00 ]
RE: [Sean-Zeeshan/Home] Who started/founded the search for the search for extraterrestrial life?
It was a group of scientists, including Frank Drake who was the first to publicly advocate doing an organized search.

[ TourTheCosmos - 71 - 10:44:04 ]
RE: [Eric-Eric] that is if the only reason is to satisfy a curiosity...
There is a small chance that you could get valuable information from extraterrestrial life. For example, we discovered the greenhouse effect by studying the history of Venus.

[ TourTheCosmos - 72 - 10:45:13 ]
RE: [Dave-DaveWilliams/HarrisCorp] I noticed one of the pictures in the TourTheCosmos web page was of SN1987A. How long do you expect it would be before we see more Hubble pictures of activity in SN1987A?
It should be very soon, it is frequently being monitored and within the next decade it should become brighter as the blastwave encounters older material surround the star.

[ TourTheCosmos - 75 - 10:46:27 ]
RE: [Tim-TTWP] So your saying something as small as stone, could over time could get enuff mass to form a star ?
Something like stones would form planets, however, stars are formed from very large clouds of gas and dust.

[ TourTheCosmos - 76 - 10:47:17 ]
RE: [Tim-TTWP] And could we say ignite saturn to form another sun in our system?
Why would you want to do that and ruin the beautiful ring. Saturn's mass is about 200 times too small to make a star that could shine.

[ Sandy/NASAChatHost - 77 - 10:47:31 ]
EVERYONE: THERE ARE 15 MINUTES LEFT IN THIS CHAT... Keep your questions coming :-)

[ TourTheCosmos - 80 - 10:48:35 ]
RE: [Eric-Eric] RE: The devils advocate has won and the government is not providing any money for SETI. Yet Astrobiology is a new NASA program getting quite a good deal of money...and the Astrobiology Insititute is channeling money to private institutes
SETI is searching for extraterrestrial intelligent life beyond the solar system. NASA is funding research on astrobiology, as is NSF, to understand the formation of biological systems. This also relates to Genome research.

[ TourTheCosmos - 82 - 10:49:28 ]
RE: [Sean-Zeeshan/Home] I have heard that some of the projects conducted to search for extraterrestrial life have been rejected to be funded by the Congress. Can you please identify these projects? Also, who funds the projects conducted to search for extratterestrial life?
Yes, it is the SETI project which no longer has government funding. Hewlett-Packard is one of the corporations that is funding SETI.

[ TourTheCosmos - 84 - 10:50:40 ]
RE: [Cheryl-CherylBrownCampbell/NASAEducationOffice] What are your thoughts on the idea that matter might perhaps travel faster than light, afterall even Einstein was not totally sold on his concept. Would not such a hypothesis help us explain, worm holes, black holes, and perhaps the creation of galaxies et cet era.
Nothing in the universe has been seen to travel faster than light. Normal physics can explain the existence of black holes and other objects we see in a straight forward way.

[ TourTheCosmos - 85 - 10:51:38 ]
RE: [Stephanie/Edmonton] How much denser must Jupiter have been to form a star?
Jupiter's density and the Sun's density are about the same. It is the total mass that matters, and Jupiter would need to be about 80 times more massive.

[ Sandy/NASAChatHost - 86 - 10:51:54 ]
EVERYONE: WE'VE GOT TIME LEFT FOR ABOUT 10 MORE QUESTIONS...

[ TourTheCosmos - 90 - 10:55:58 ]
RE: [Tim-TTWP] Do you believe the asteroid belt was once a planet or one that never formed ?
Great question. The asteroid belt represents the type of rocks that form planets however, they were gravitationally stirred up by Jupiter and were unable to form a large body. The total mass of the asteroids is less than Earth's moon and could have only formed a very small planet anyway.

[ Sandy/NASAChatHost - 91 - 10:56:34 ]
EVERYONE: We on NASA Quest would like to know how you enjoyed this chat today. Please fill out the short chat survey at: http://quest.arc.nasa.gov/qchats/qchat-surveys

[ TourTheCosmos - 93 - 10:57:34 ]
RE: [Cheryl-CherylBrownCampbell/NASAEducationOffice] Would you please explain what is happening during a T-Tauri phase, is this analagous to our solar wind activity in the magnetosphere.
Young stars have solar activity similar to our Sun's solar wind activity only a thousand times greater than our Sun today. Some of the extra activity is cause by material pouring onto the stars surface.

[ TourTheCosmos - 95 - 10:59:53 ]
RE: [Stephanie/Edmonton] How was the Butterfly Nebula formed?
The Butterfly Star in Taurus was formed by a dusty cloud of gas that collapsed under gravity. Because the cloud was slowly rotating the infalling gas spun up to form a rotating disk. The whispy material seen in the Hubble Space Telescope images represents gas and dust falling onto the disk.

[ TourTheCosmos - 98 - 11:01:00 ]
RE: [Sean-Zeeshan/Home] What is the average cost of an ordinary project that is being conducted to search for extraterrestrial life? How many people are required to work for a single project?
Sean, we suggest you go to the SETI web page at http://www.seti.org

[ TourTheCosmos - 99 - 11:01:52 ]
RE: [Cheryl-CherylBrownCampbell/NASAEducationOffice] I am taking a graduate course on this very subject, I enjoyed this chat very much...wish we had more time.
Thanks for joining us and we recommend you go to the star formation web page at http://astro.caltech.edu/~lah/starformation.html

[ Sandy/NASAChatHost - 100 - 11:01:58 ]
RE: [Cheryl-CherylBrownCampbell/NASAEducationOffice] I am taking a graduate course on this very subject, I enjoyed this chat very much...wish we had more time.
EVERYONE: This chat will be archived in the next day or so at: http//quest.arc.nasa.gov/sso/chats

[ Sandy/NASAChatHost - 101 - 11:02:47 ]
RE: [Last_Child] hi every1
Hello! I'm sorry to say that you've caught us at the end of our chat hour. See the above message for the archive URL.

[ TourTheCosmos - 102 - 11:02:49 ]
RE: [Sean-Zeeshan/Home] What does you daily schedule involve? (from the time you get up till the time you go to bed)
MEetings with other scientists, looking at and analyzing new Hubble Space Telescope images, writing reports on what we find and at the moment working on the NASA WIRE mission.

[ TourTheCosmos - 103 - 11:03:59 ]
Thanks everyone for your interest and stay tuned to the upcoming Hubble Space Telescope information, we expect to find alot of new information in the coming years.