We Live in the Future: The Oceans of Other Stars

Centauri Dreams has a great post today on planet hunting and on how new developments could lead to being able to find oceans on said planets.

If the method works, we should be able to tell the difference between terrestrial-size planets and terrestrial worlds with oceans. That's a big step forward for exoplanet studies and it's one available in the near-term. And if we can extend that model to learning about the shapes of continents on such worlds, we've moved a bit closer to making Goldin's vision a reality. Space telescopes or the Moon itself could provide an ideal base for pursuing such studies, and tomorrow I want to turn to McCullough's ideas on lunar exploration and its implications for this work.