In 116 days and 23 hours the exoplanet floodgates will open.

[walterpthefirst]

Hello.  

 

As I write this, the counter on this page... https://www.cosmos.esa.int/web/gaia/data-release-3 

 

...is showing 116 days, 23 hours, 29 minutes and 24 seconds until the next data release from the Gaia satellite.

 

When that happens the number of exoplanets humans will have discovered will jump from just over 4,000 to (possibly) over 20,000.

 

https://sci.esa.int/web/gaia/-/58784-exoplanets

 

If the Gaia mission runs for up to ten years then that number might reach as many as 70,000 exoplanets.

 

https://sci.esa.int/web/gaia/-/58705-perryman-et-al-2014

 

With some plausible assumptions on planet occurrences, we find that some 21,000 (±6000) high-mass (~1-15M_J) long-period planets should be discovered out to distances of ~500 pc for the nominal 5 yr mission (including at least 1000-1500 around M dwarfs out to 100 pc), rising to some 70,000 (±20, 000) for a 10 yr mission.

 

The Perryman article cited above was dated 2014, a year after Gaia's launch.

 

So come 2023/24, that ten year mission threshold will have been reached.

 

Spoiler:

Gaia cannot detect the presence of small, rocky exoplanets like Earth, Venus, Mars or Mercury.  It's capable of detecting gas giants like Jupiter and Saturn.  But the importance of this data cannot be overstressed.  With such a large and representative sample of giant planets it should finally become possible to do see if our system is unique or not.

 

Thank you.

 

Walter.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[pantheory]

Some ideas that will have interest for the future is that Gas giants like Jupiter and Saturn, can have very interesting moons, maybe even rare possibilities like the movie Avatar.

 

Not only can these planets have one sun, but maybe two or three. Not only can these giant planets be in the goldilocks zone, but their moons will also likely be in the Goldilocks zone too. For a cold Jupiter, its moons can obtain heat from tidal interactions with its planet which might provide the internal heat energy for life also.

 

Jupiter produces more internal heat than it receives from the sun.  A bigger planet than Jupiter could produce a great deal of internal heat like a proto-star, and its moons could be as warm as the Earth.

[TABA]

5 hours ago, pantheory said:

Some ideas that will have interest for the future is that Gas giants like Jupiter and Saturn, can have very interesting moons, maybe even rare possibilities like the movie Avatar.

The most interesting places in the solar system, in terms of the possibility of life being present, are no longer Mars or Venus (long since disqualified but once regarded as a possible Earth twin) but rather Jupiter’s moon Europa and Saturn’s moons Enceladus (which evidently have water oceans beneath their ice)  and Titan, with its lakes and rains of methane.  

[pantheory]

1 hour ago, TABA said:

The most interesting places in the solar system, in terms of the possibility of life being present, are no longer Mars or Venus (long since disqualified but once regarded as a possible Earth twin) but rather Jupiter’s moon Europa and Saturn’s moons Enceladus (which evidently have water oceans beneath their ice)  and Titan, with its lakes and rains of methane.  

 

Although I still think the possibility of finding underground microbial life on Mars is still pretty good, maybe 20% (but maybe many years yet to find it ), and underground microbial life on the moon maybe 5%. And life in the upper atmosphere of Venus, maybe 1-5%. But Europa's underground ocean will be very interesting since there has been plenty of time for more advanced sea life to have evolved there. Enchiladas is small but maybe it has microbial life in its ocean.  It might be the easiest to spot since plumes of water are ejected, some of which could be brought back to Earth without us having to drill for it, as we will have to do for Europa. Also Ganymede and Callisto both have underground oceans but much too deep to get to within a hundred years or more from now.

 

All could be good reservoirs to grow great quantities of seafood for astronauts in the distant future.

 

Titan is very interesting but too foreign to make predictions of life. Also Neptune's moon Triton will be interesting to investigate in the more distant future concerning its possibilities.