Right After Launching a Telescope That'll Show Us The Universe Like Never Before, NASA Hired Theologians To Figure Out How Earth Would React To The Discovery of Alien Life on Distant Planets
Okay a lot in that headline right? We've got the universe, telescopes, aliens, and priests all together. We're combining two stories in one here because no one has touched on the James Webb Telescope yet. I'm a noted idiot and will probably not understand this fully, but here we go.
Now forgive me if some of you aren't fascinated with space and the universe, but this idiot right here has been blown away with the launch of the James Webb Space Telescope. Oh big whoop, it's a telescope who gives a shit? Yeah you think that initially until you realize this machine is going to forever change our understanding of the universe. We're going to be able to peer back to the first ever galaxies and the early stages of everything. It's fucking nuts what this thing is going to show us as long as everything goes as planned.
This telescope has been something that many have uttered "I'll believe it when I see it" because of all the delays and time spent on it. Well, it's here. The telescope is in space as you read this, embarking on it's mission to get set up and tell us everything there is to know. 25 years in the making has arrived.
Here's an overly dramatic, but awesome trailer for the telescope.
The scary part is that this bad boy has been in the works for a quarter of a century and we won't know for sure it's good to go for about 30 days post launch. There are over 340 steps that need to go perfect, otherwise this is all worthless (I may be exaggerating, but it seems like it would be very bad).
From what I gather, this is essentially the most impressive and complex piece of technology ever built in the history of mankind. We're going to be able to look back over 13.5 billion years ago to try to figure out what the hell was going on and how we got here. Scientists believe this is going to help unlock mysteries of distant worlds, alien life, black holes, and all the other scary shit that keeps us up at night.
One thing this telescope can do, in terms of showing extraterrestrial life, is pick up infrared light. If aliens were on a planet it wouldn't be able to see them, but it would be able to pick up artificial light used for their cities if that's what they were doing. We're a few generations of technology away from picking up biosignatures (evidence of past or present life) from that far away, but we're getting there! This telescope will be orbiting around 100 1 million miles from Earth. That's insane!
Over the last few years it seems like we've gotten more and more proof that UFOs are real and among us. Alien life and UFOs have basically been confirmed at this point by the government. If you don't believe in aliens by now then you are simply naive and small minded. For those who have a brain and don't think we're the center of the universe, well we're just waiting for that next step, whatever it may be. This telescope is it, unless the aliens plan on starting their invasion pronto which would just be rude with how much time we've spent on this thing.
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Research by Ohio State University claims that within five years of it coming online, James Webb will have found signs of alien life on a distant world. Graduate student Caprice Phillips calculated that it could feasibly detect ammonia created by living creatures around gas dwarf planets after just a few orbits. (source)
Just a few days after the launch of the telescope, NASA announced they hired 24 theologians (aka priests) to try and figure out how to tell the world we found alien life without a shred of doubt. That or we're planning to introduce religion to the aliens when they invade to show them how dumb we are. Just tell them that billions of people here worship fake people and they'll move onto another planet to harvest.
According to reports, the agency is hiring 24 theologians to take part in its program at the Center for Theological Inquiry (CTI) at Princeton University in New Jersey, which NASA gave a $1.1 million grant to in 2014.
CTI is described as building 'bridges of under understanding by convening theologians, scientists, scholars, and policymakers to think together. 'Religious traditions would be an important feature in how humanity would work through any such confirmation of life elsewhere,' Davidson shared in a blog post on the University of Cambridge site.
'Because of that, it features as part of NASA's ongoing aim to support work on 'the societal implications of astrobiology', working with various partner organizations, including the Center of Theological Inquiry at Princeton.' (source)
Just think about how many peoples' religious views would be shaken up if/when this telescope discovers some real shit. Like let's say the aliens left the lights on and we find cities. People would naturally freak the fuck out so it might be a good idea to prep the priests for what's to come and how to communicate it to their followers.
All of this is really cool and crazy to me. You can track the mission over the next month here.