NASA to play advanced Sim Earth!

[First of Two]

http://www.space.com/scienceastronom...ts_021210.html

Somewhere between reality and the unknown, science fiction has always flourished. The best sci-fi authors rigidly adhere to one principle: Make it as real as possible, given what's known. Now, as if lifting a chapter from an Isaac Asimov novel, NASA plans to create hundreds of "synthetic planets" that might represent real worlds orbiting faraway stars.

The cyber planets will be modeled on solid science, but the results are likely to be decidedly fantastic. No one knows what sort of worlds will be generated, and that's the whole point.

[SIR SIG]

They didn't really go into much detail about the spacecraft though.

And if it would be looking for life like a probe in Earth orbit or if they will actually send it to a star wich will take decades at the very least to get somewhere.

[First of Two]

You mean the Terrestrial Planet Finder?

It's to be a giant space telescope, not a probe. The UberHubble (actually, probably several UberHubbles flying in formation as a giant interferometer.)

http://www.space.com/searchforlife/n...ch_020510.html

http://planetquest.jpl.nasa.gov/TPF/tpf_index.html

The SIRTF (Space InfraRed Telescope Facility), one of the TPF's "precursor missions" is scheduled to be launched in April, 2003.

[SIR SIG]

Ah

The first link wasn't very clear on who or what the TPF was