Jump to content
Goodbye Jesus

Potentially Habitable Planet Found


Biggles7268

Recommended Posts

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070425/ap_on_...abitable_planet

 

By SETH BORENSTEIN, AP Science Writer 57 minutes ago

 

For the first time astronomers have discovered a planet outside our solar system that is potentially habitable, with Earth-like temperatures, a find researchers described Tuesday as a big step in the search for "life in the universe."

 

The planet is just the right size, might have water in liquid form, and in galactic terms is relatively nearby at 120 trillion miles away. But the star it closely orbits, known as a "red dwarf," is much smaller, dimmer and cooler than our sun.

 

There's still a lot that is unknown about the new planet, which could be deemed inhospitable to life once more is known about it. And it's worth noting that scientists' requirements for habitability count Mars in that category: a size relatively similar to Earth's with temperatures that would permit liquid water. However, this is the first outside our solar system that meets those standards.

 

"It's a significant step on the way to finding possible life in the universe," said University of Geneva astronomer Michel Mayor, one of 11 European scientists on the team that found the planet. "It's a nice discovery. We still have a lot of questions."

 

The results of the discovery have not been published but have been submitted to the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics.

 

Alan Boss, who works at the Carnegie Institution of Washington where a U.S. team of astronomers competed in the hunt for an Earth-like planet, called it "a major milestone in this business."

 

The planet was discovered by the European Southern Observatory's telescope in La Silla, Chile, which has a special instrument that splits light to find wobbles in different wave lengths. Those wobbles can reveal the existence of other worlds.

 

What they revealed is a planet circling the red dwarf star, Gliese 581. Red dwarfs are low-energy, tiny stars that give off dim red light and last longer than stars like our sun. Until a few years ago, astronomers didn't consider these stars as possible hosts of planets that might sustain life.

 

The discovery of the new planet, named 581 c, is sure to fuel studies of planets circling similar dim stars. About 80 percent of the stars near Earth are red dwarfs.

 

The new planet is about five times heavier than Earth. Its discoverers aren't certain if it is rocky like Earth or if its a frozen ice ball with liquid water on the surface. If it is rocky like Earth, which is what the prevailing theory proposes, it has a diameter about 1 1/2 times bigger than our planet. If it is an iceball, as Mayor suggests, it would be even bigger.

 

Based on theory, 581 c should have an atmosphere, but what's in that atmosphere is still a mystery and if it's too thick that could make the planet's surface temperature too hot, Mayor said.

 

However, the research team believes the average temperature to be somewhere between 32 and 104 degrees and that set off celebrations among astronomers.

 

Until now, all 220 planets astronomers have found outside our solar system have had the "Goldilocks problem." They've been too hot, too cold or just plain too big and gaseous, like uninhabitable Jupiter.

 

The new planet seems just right — or at least that's what scientists think.

 

"This could be very important," said NASA astrobiology expert Chris McKay, who was not part of the discovery team. "It doesn't mean there is life, but it means it's an Earth-like planet in terms of potential habitability."

 

Eventually astronomers will rack up discoveries of dozens, maybe even hundreds of planets considered habitable, the astronomers said. But this one — simply called "c" by its discoverers when they talk among themselves — will go down in cosmic history as No. 1.

 

Besides having the right temperature, the new planet is probably full of liquid water, hypothesizes Stephane Udry, the discovery team's lead author and another Geneva astronomer. But that is based on theory about how planets form, not on any evidence, he said.

 

"Liquid water is critical to life as we know it," co-author Xavier Delfosse of Grenoble University in France, said in a statement. "Because of its temperature and relative proximity, this planet will most probably be a very important target of the future space missions dedicated to the search for extraterrestrial life. On the treasure map of the Universe, one would be tempted to mark this planet with an X."

 

Other astronomers cautioned it's too early to tell whether there is water.

 

"You need more work to say it's got water or it doesn't have water," said retired NASA astronomer Steve Maran, press officer for the American Astronomical Society. "You wouldn't send a crew there assuming that when you get there, they'll have enough water to get back."

 

The new planet's star system is a mere 20.5 light years away, making Gliese 581 one of the 100 closest stars to Earth. It's so dim, you can't see it without a telescope, but it's somewhere in the constellation Libra, which is low in the southeastern sky during the midevening in the Northern Hemisphere.

 

"I expect there will be planets like Earth, but whether they have life is another question," said renowned astrophysicist Stephen Hawking in an interview with The Associated Press in Orlando. "We haven't been visited by little green men yet."

 

Before you book your extrastellar flight to 581 c, a few caveats about how alien that world probably is: Anyone sitting on the planet would get heavier quickly, and birthdays would add up fast since it orbits its star every 13 days.

 

Gravity is 1.6 times as strong as Earth's so a 150-pound person would feel like 240 pounds.

 

But oh, the view. The planet is 14 times closer to the star it orbits. Udry figures the red dwarf star would hang in the sky at a size 20 times larger than our moon. And it's likely, but still not known, that the planet doesn't rotate, so one side would always be sunlit and the other dark.

 

Distance is another problem. "We don't know how to get to those places in a human lifetime," Maran said.

 

Two teams of astronomers, one in Europe and one in the United States, have been racing to be the first to find a planet like 581 c outside the solar system.

 

The European team looked at 100 different stars using a tool called HARPS (High Accuracy Radial Velocity for Planetary Searcher) to find this one planet, said Xavier Bonfils of the Lisbon Observatory, one of the co-discoverers.

 

Much of the effort to find Earth-like planets has focused on stars like our sun with the challenge being to find a planet the right distance from the star it orbits. About 90 percent of the time, the European telescope focused its search more on sun-like stars, Udry said.

 

A few weeks before the European discovery earlier this month, a scientific paper in the journal Astrobiology theorized a few days that red dwarf stars were good candidates.

 

"Now we have the possibility to find many more," Bonfils said.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm very excited about this discovery. I had not realized how many planets had already been discovered outside the solar system.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Super Cool!

 

Now we only need a space ship to take us there. We need a warp drive.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Super Cool!

 

Now we only need a space ship to take us there. We need a warp drive.

I'll drive is someone pays for the gas. It's only 22 light years away. Let's see.... 26 miles per gallon for 120 trillion miles...... anyone have a calculator?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Damn it. It sounds like we have to invent the anti-particle-generator first... I can't afford the gas for this trip. :(

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Damn it. It sounds like we have to invent the anti-particle-generator first... I can't afford the gas for this trip. :(

Where's Scotty when you need him?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Red sun... bit bigger than earth... We've found Krypton!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Where's Scotty when you need him?

I don't think the transporter works that far... did anyone ever hear in ST about how far a transporter beam could reach?

 

The warp drive is pretty cool though, because I think it maybe isn't total fiction. If one could bend space and wrinkle it up, it would be possible to travel much faster. I read somewhere that some scientists have investigated it, but if it is possible to do a warp drive, the energy needed is so high that we can't do it today. Anti-matter-reactor is a must. Gene was a very clever guy...

 

 

GH, does this mean the planet will explode? Maybe we'll see a meteor fall down on us soon with a little super-boy inside.

 

 

Red Dwarf, that was the Brittish TV comedy show. I loved that one. I think there were talks about making a movie, but never heard anything more after that.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Saw this. Also won't hold my breath waiting for radio signals, but perhaps they'll find chemical signatures in the atmosphere or wherever that could tell us whether or not there are plants there. Plants = life and that would be a great first step.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Super Cool!

 

Now we only need a space ship to take us there. We need a warp drive.

 

The Warp Drive

 

Good luck.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Before anyone gets too excited, let's deal with REALITY here, okay?

 

God made the stars for us to give light at night and to mark the seasons and so forth. Jesus did create everything, of course, but He only created life here on this one flat planet. The Bible doesn't mention life on other worlds, and if it was something that we needed to know about if it did exist, then He would have told us about it in His Word.

 

Since God didn't mention life on other worlds, it doesn't exist. That's simple and logical, isn't it?

 

Let's also remember that God has told us about the nature of the universe in His Word. The universe, contrary to the erroneous opinions expressed by foolish worldly scientists, is small and three-tiered. It consists of our flat planet, the solid dome firmament in which the stars are fixed, and God's Heaven above it. This is REALITY. The supposedly enormous universe filled with galaxies, stars, and other planets that is promoted by NASA and astronomers in cahoots with them is pure nonsense! There's no evidence for it at all! NASA uses computer-generated graphics to depict their fantasies, and the whole world - except for those of us who know the Lord and believe in His Word - has bought it! We need to stand strong and firm and speak out against the lies of NASA and the anti-God, anti-Bible scientific establishment! When nonsense such as alien life and other habitable worlds is promoted by evil men, we must stand up for the TRUTH! Hallelujah!

 

For all the proof that any educated, thinking person could ever need that the Bible is correct when it speaks on scientific matters, see this wonderful site:

 

http://www.fixedearth.com

 

EDIT: Hey, I just noticed that this was my 1,000th post! GLORY!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It would be great if we could see plant life on the planet (would be incredibly hard to see it though). It would show that life isn't improbable as christians make it out to be.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

AWESOME!

Now to the business of giving the name for the planet...

 

I suggest a few things.

 

Trantor: If humanity has the plan to colonise it, it should be called that, lol. Plus it'd be the perfect way to honour Isaac Asimov.

 

Toci: Goddess of earth from Aztec mythology

 

Jord or Jorth: Is personification of the Earth in Norse Mythology and a goddess.

 

Prithivi: the Earth goddess in Hindu mythology

 

Damkina: Earth mother goddess in Mesopotamian mythology

 

Suggest more or debate them!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

AWESOME!

Now to the business of giving the name for the planet...

I'm sure the people that live there already have a name for their planet.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

AWESOME!

Now to the business of giving the name for the planet...

 

I suggest a few things.

 

Trantor: If humanity has the plan to colonise it, it should be called that, lol. Plus it'd be the perfect way to honour Isaac Asimov.

 

So that's where the name comes from? :)

(In the PC game X2, one sector of colonized space is called "President's End" in the English version, and "Trantor" in the German one. I always wondered why the fuck such a different name had been chosen... this at least answers one of several questions ;) )

 

As for the naming... how about Vanaheim? (That's the name, in Asatru lore, of the world where the Vanir Gods reside... deities of peace, wealth and fertility...)

I'd have suggested Asgard, but I guess to most people that will sound too pompous :mellow:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Red sun... bit bigger than earth... We've found Krypton!

 

That would be perfect since we just discovered Kryptonite in Siberia.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

We may find that it already has a name! According to a Scientologist in Oz it's actually the homeworld of Xenu and the headquarters of the Galactic Confederacy! :Doh::twitch:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It would be great if we could see plant life on the planet (would be incredibly hard to see it though). It would show that life isn't improbable as christians make it out to be.

 

TBH, black smoker ecologies piss on the idea of life being improbable...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

We may find that it already has a name! According to a Scientologist in Oz it's actually the homeworld of Xenu and the headquarters of the Galactic Confederacy! :Doh::twitch:

I wonder if they have varying numbers of fingers like they did in 'Battlefield: Earth'

Link to comment
Share on other sites

AWESOME!

Now to the business of giving the name for the planet...

I'm sure the people that live there already have a name for their planet.

Chances are it's something like 'Earth' in the local language... TBH our planet doesn't have name. although they may have one for Jupiter and the other Gas giants...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I just hope that if we (humanity) ever do (does) colonize another planet,

that they do so :vent:WITHOUT:vent: religion.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I just hope that if we (humanity) ever do (does) colonize another planet,

that they do so :vent:WITHOUT:vent: religion.

Ever read 'The Streets of Ashkelon' by Harry Harrison?

 

"Harrison's most anthologised story, and the one which he had the most difficulty getting into print in the first instance, because it broke one of the current taboos of the SF publishing world: its hero was an atheist."

 

"The Streets of Ashkelon" details the horrific results attendant upon the introduction of religion to a race of Edenic aliens.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest
This topic is now closed to further replies.
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

By using this site, you agree to our Guidelines.