So-called "Super Earth"

[Ran]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/6589157.stm

"Astronomers have found the most Earth-like planet outside our Solar System to date, a world which could have water running on its surface." - BBC News

What do you think of this?

~Ran

[Tom]

They were talking about this on NPR this morning. I think it's a great and exciting discovery.

[MaNa Shuffle]

Again, I'm pissed off at this. Various moons are planets and now this.

They shouldn't keep there hopes up about it.

Another Earth planet? I doubt there would be any life. Life cant just suddenly appear.

I thought "How the hell can you find it in a telescope?" (Yeah its a BIG one but ya know...It cant have a MEGA ZOOM...Meh...I dunno).

Sorry. I rant about science alot ^^;;;

[Tom]

It is only natural for space objects to constantly be reclassified, as our understanding of the universe is always expanding and evolving. I don't see why this would piss you off.... It's exactly this kind of progression that we NEED.

What is so hard to grasp about finding another planet with similar features to Earth? Honestly, in all of the cosmos, you seriously think our planet is the only one of its kind? It is only one of countless other large space objects all orbiting upwards of up to thirty-million-trillion or more stars, all of these things being born and evolving from different combinations of the same principal elements found all throughout the universe. The discovery of this Super-Earth isn't epiphanic; it's simply gratifying and completely inevitable.

As far as life goes, how do you think life began on our planet? What makes life here so different from life anywhere else?

And go read about telescopes and other scientific and astronomical tools and equipment. It will be worth more of your time to actually attempt to understand why scientists know what they do and how they learned it, instead of merely "ranting about science" without any good reason. How do you even get through school with such an extremist disbelieving attitude towards modern thinking?

:facefault

[fthrll]

What is so hard to grasp about finding another planet with similar features to Earth? Honestly, in all of the cosmos, you seriously think our planet is the only one of its kind? It is only one of countless other large space objects all orbiting upwards of up to thirty-million-trillion or more stars, all of these things being born and evolving from different combinations of the same principal elements found all throughout the universe. The discovery of this Super-Earth isn't epiphanic; it's simply gratifying and completely inevitable.

As far as life goes, how do you think life began on our planet? What makes life here so different from life anywhere else?


Absolutely. I agree entirely. Going by the law of averages alone, it would be extremely unlikely that this planet alone supported life of any type whatsoever - and why indeed should it be the only one?
That doesn't therefore lead to believing in hyper-intelligent long-limbed, bug eyed aliens of the movies - just other life forms, some of which may not be immediately recognisable because they've developed in a completely different environment, or maybe on an entirely different scale - they could be microscopic but nonetheless self-contained life forms with just as much validity as earth ones. There may well be creatures out there disputing whether there's any other life in the universe, too...

[TamTu]

I'm also very excited to hear this, although it'll be a while before man can travel fast enough to get there for any explorer's lifespan to do any terraforming, possibly. I think I picked up somewhere that it was 20,5 lightyears away? Since we're no where near lightspeed travelling it'll take much longer than 20,5 years to reach it right now.

Keep building them telescopes, smart people! And those warp drives!


A personal favorite link of mine is http://hubblesite.org

Pretty pictures of nearby and distant galaxies~

[judebert]

They shouldn't keep there hopes up about it.

Another Earth planet? I doubt there would be any life. Life cant just suddenly appear.

We won't really know that until we find a bunch of earthlike planets and discover no life. (Even then, proving a negative is tough. But we'd accept it as statistically improbable.) Meanwhile, in trying to determine how life began here, it would be very useful to have some similar conditions to compare against. We just found our first peer.

Note carefully: I'm not making any conclusions about God here. I don't want to start anything religious. I consider these problems to be completely separate: God and religion are the "why" of the origin of life, and science is the "how". By finding planets around other stars, we can figure out how planetary systems work. With that data, we can make predictions about how ours works, and what it will do in the future. Then we check those predictions against our own future and observations of other systems. That's all science is about -- useful future predictions.

This provides a point for focused study. We now have a place to listen for signals, look for changes, and make comparisons. For instance, if we can detect the overall color of its surface, we can make a guess at how much ocean it has. If the color changes, we can conclude something about its climate changes. Of course, with a two-week year, I expect the climate will be pretty stable. But observation could prove me wrong, and then we'll know more about our planet. If we find it's mostly green, well, maybe it's got plants. That's life. And then we'd know more about our planet. (Okay, we'd have to check to see if it's covered in copper or something (which also turns green), but even then we'd know more about our planet.)


I thought "How the hell can you find it in a telescope?" (Yeah its a BIG one but ya know...It cant have a MEGA ZOOM...Meh...I dunno).
You can't. Yet, anyway. A big space telescope might be able to see it, because it would have MEGA HYPER ZOOM with no interference, and we now know just where to point it. But for now, we have to watch the star itself over a long period of time. From its color and brightness, we can figure out how big it is. If it dims and brightens, we can tell that a planet just went between it and us; from the brightness change, we can tell how big the planet is. From watching the star's movement, we can see how it's affected by its orbiting planets, and that'll tell us how big those planets are and how far they are from their sun.

In this case, the star wobbles up and down a bit every two weeks, telling us that something is orbiting it every 14 days. The amount of wobble tells us how big the planet is: it's about 1.5 times the size of earth. (If you weigh 100 pounds here, you'll weigh 150 pounds there.) The closer a planet is, the faster it orbits, so that tells us just how far away the planet is: really close. And since the star is really dim, the temperature of the planet should be somewhere between just freezing and pretty hot (104 degrees F, in fact). That means that if the planet has water, it'll be water, not ice or steam. We assume all life needs water, since all life here needs water. So whatever happened here to start life could happen there, too.


Sorry. I rant about science alot ^^;;;
Cool; I rant about bad science a lot. And I like explaining things. This is neat because it's the first planet we've discovered where there's even a chance of life as we know it. By checking it more carefully, we can make a better prediction about how often life starts when conditions are similar to ours. I find that exciting!

[judebert]

I'm also very excited to hear this, although it'll be a while before man can travel fast enough to get there for any explorer's lifespan to do any terraforming, possibly. I think I picked up somewhere that it was 20,5 lightyears away? Since we're no where near lightspeed travelling it'll take much longer than 20,5 years to reach it right now.

Well... with a solar sail, we could get there pretty quickly. Within a few generations, anyway. With a Bussard ramjet we could get there even faster, but that's never been built before, so the time to test it would likely give the sail the chance to get there first.

Before we start terraforming it, we'd better see what's there. And even if we could get a satellite there in 20 years, we'd have to wait 20 years for the information to come in. That's a bare minimum of 40 years before we can even start deciding what to do! It'll be hundreds of years before we actually send people to it, if we start right now. And by then we could be wiped out by atmospheric change, solar change, dinosaur-like disaster, crazy people...

Anyway. Yeah. LONG time periods here. I think we should focus Arecibo on it right away.

[Ran]

Heres what I think (and thought)

I'm Religious So This can be mind boggling for me but then I realized, Back then was the old days and you didnt get Telescopes and Technology back then and People probebly didnt know anything about planets at the time.....

This is a good Discovery though. However, Its more of a "wait and see" thing so lets see what happens. This doesnt really Bug me now since I was "deep in thought" at Lunch and I don't think Its gonna mess up my Beliefs since I really thought about this.

To be honest, I'm not a Big fan of Science but this new "Super Earth" could be something Interesting :) .

~Ran

[Ran]

How can you not be a fan of science while indulging in all that it has to offer...? Isn't that kind of like saying you're anti-fur, while wearing a fur coat?

Umm....

Just because I think this could be Interesting, doesnt mean I have to be Interested in Science :)

Its kinda like this: I'm not a fan of the Band Kasabian but I like their song "Empire"

~Ran

[judebert]

I'm Religious So This can be mind boggling for me but then I realized, Back then was the old days and you didnt get Telescopes and Technology back then and People probebly didnt know anything about planets at the time.....

Well, sure; they used a lot of allegory to get their ideas across. But why should scientific discovery ever upset your religious views? Science and religion are completely separate. One deals with why, and the other with how. "Why are we here?" is a religious question. "How did we get here?" is a scientific one.

There are plenty of religious scientists. They generally consider themselves to be playing in God's sandbox, seeing how God did it. The monk Gregor Mendel (who discovered how genetics works) was a scientist.

The end result is that science is a means for making predictions about the world, while religion is a means for assigning value and meaning to the world. Each does an excellent job in its limited domain. As long as you don't attempt to mix the two, you'll never have a conflict.

[Ran]

I never said you had to, either :P It just came off as though you were knocking the subject as a whole because of your religious beliefs. Sorry for misunderstanding!


Its Okay :D

~Ran

[River Kanoff]

This is pretty impressive. If all this hype about the ozone layer tearing up is true, then this could be the break we're looking for, though I'm not in any way worried about it. I wouldn't get your hopes up about finding aliens, though, heh.

[Azure]

It's certainly interesting but I hate how everytime something like this is discovered people immediatly go "ZOMG I bet it has little green men on it!" Even if it did have life it could just have teeny tiny microbes on it. Microbes don't generally chat =3

[judebert]

It's certainly interesting but I hate how everytime something like this is discovered people immediatly go "ZOMG I bet it has little green men on it Even if it did have life it could just have teeny tiny microbes on it. Microbes don't generally chat =3

ZOMG I bet it's got teeny tiny microbes on it! :razz:

I'm not so sure I'd want to talk with the little green men. Who knows what they want, or what they can do? I'd rather watch until I knew what I was dealing with. For that matter, the microbes could be dangerous, too.

But when they say "life", they're talking about any life. Microbes on Big Brother would be an astounding discovery. Plant life would be even more mind boggling. How similar any of these things are to Earth life would be the big question.

[SulliMike23]

For me, this is something very cool to hear about. Scientists are even working on making "deflector shields" like the ones you see in Star Trek. If they're successful and we discover a way to travel faster than the speed of light, then it might be possible that scientists can explore this planet even further and more carefully.

IF we're lucky (and this is a big "if"), we might find some intellegent lifeforms on this planet and try to see if we can make contact with them. But like I said, this is a big "if" so I won't hold my breath until FTL travel is achieved. Although, it wouldn't surprise me that if we DID find life on other planets, some people might not accept it.

Let's just face it, most of humanity are idiots (no offense to the folks here). For all of mankind's achievements, there are some who just won't accept the idea that there might be other lifeforms like us out there. Even if we make contact with them, some of these people will more than likely force our scientists to reject these lifeforms and just stay on Earth and more than likely start an interstellar war.

[Azure]

ZOMG I bet it's got teeny tiny microbes on it! :razz:

I'm not so sure I'd want to talk with the little green men. Who knows what they want, or what they can do? I'd rather watch until I knew what I was dealing with. For that matter, the microbes could be dangerous, too.

But when they say "life", they're talking about any life. Microbes on Big Brother would be an astounding discovery. Plant life would be even more mind boggling. How similar any of these things are to Earth life would be the big question.

Well I know the scientists mean that, but there's always a little green man joke (http://www.metro.co.uk/news/article.html?in_article_id=46555&in_page_id=34), which I suspect people often take seriously.

[ClymAngus]

First thing they did was get "Mr UFO spotting soundbite man" to embarrass himself on national television.

Never mind th fact that this might give a good chunk of humanity a bit of a purpose (at least for the next 200 years) to get off their ass and get back to the moon. (a nice big array on the far side would have a good chance of spotting anything out there). No, it's all about the flying saucers isn't it? Instead of waxing lyrical about what the rest of the universe is doing I wish people would pay a little more attention to consolidating the species. Protect the freak monkeys first. :)

[Matt Alan]

I was thinking of looking for a new place to live. I think this new Super-Earth will work out just fine. Hey....wait......Who's that little green guy with the big eyes and feathers standing there?? STRAP ME INTO A MOBILE SUIT I'M READY FOR COMBAT.

(If ANYONE gets thats reference...I'll be very happy :D)

[ClymAngus]

Word from the Mr Physics:

At 2X gravity, circling a red dwarf?...... Spindly and grey they would not be.

Your talking short, stumpy (very strong) and probably eyeless. (Snakes see in the infra-red and they do so using "pits").

2X gravity makes a lot of things we take for granted, Very difficult. Then there's the radiation to take into account..... AHHH! You've got me doing it now you fooel! >.<

Still, I would be quite interested in Ran's views on wether this discovery really screws up "genesis" or not. But that I suppose is more of a theological discussion for some far flung future thread.

[judebert]

Wait a minute... twice Earth's gravity. Red sun. Incredible tidal stresses (close to its sun, and two large, nearby neighbors) threatening to rip it apart.


Don't you see? It's Krypton! We all know what's going to happen next!

[ig.]

Sweet, let's nuke it

[ClymAngus]

Wait a minute... twice Earth's gravity. Red sun. Incredible tidal stresses (close to its sun, and two large, nearby neighbors) threatening to rip it apart.


Don't you see? It's Krypton! We all know what's going to happen next!

By god there are times at which I wonder why the hell I bother. Speechless.

[Mochan]

A personal favorite link of mine is http://hubblesite.org

Pretty pictures of nearby and distant galaxies~

First: This site makes me happy. :)

Second: I don't know if or when we'll be able to inhabit another planet, but just the mere fact of finding new planets, moons, stars, etc, is very exciting news. It's depressing it's so far away, but I have faith teleportation will be perfected soon. ;)

[judebert]

By god there are time at which I wonder why the hell I bother. Speechless.

Speechless with giggling, I hope. C'mon, you can't expect me to be "serious scientist" all the time. (At least I recognized the tidal forces from the proximity to the sun and two supergiant planets!)

Okay, so what do you call this:


Fe - Fe
/ \
Fe Fe
\ /
Fe - Fe
It's a Ferrous Wheel!

Okay, I'm done. I'll be serious again.

[ClymAngus]

Oh don't get me wrong, usually I'm the one with the one liners. But then very occassionally I get upstaged in a most enjoyable way.

Your line attacked from a blind spot and hit home like a face seeking kipper. <SMEK!>

Redsun, high gravity, yeah. I'm just kicking myself that I didn't think of it.

Molecular structure of a giant: Fe-Fi-Fo-Fm

[Tom]

Have you guys ever explored theories of astrobiology? Aside from carbon, it's interesting to think about what other bases for "life" could be possible--ammonia, silicon, phosphorus, plasma, etc. How stable organisms of these varieties would be, as far as we know, perhaps not very; but, you never know what undiscovered or currently unfathomable space objects to harbor these things are out there!

Hey, wasn't The Blob an alien? Killer Jell-O!

[judebert]

Redsun, high gravity, yeah. I'm just kicking myself that I didn't think of it.

Well, I found it on a different forum anyway, so I didn't really think of it myself. It was just too good to keep inside.


Molecular structure of a giant: Fe-Fi-Fo-Fm
Oh, mercy.


Have you guys ever explored theories of astrobiology? Aside from carbon, it's interesting to think about what other bases for "life" could be possible--ammonia, silicon, phosphorus, plasma, etc. How stable organisms of these varieties would be, as far as we know, perhaps not very; but, you never know what undiscovered or currently unfathomable space objects to harbor these things are out there!
One of my favorite science fiction short stories is about aliens based on sulfur. It's in the same column as oxygen, so theoretically it could perform the same function. But of course, they needed much higher temperatures, so the sulfur would be liquid.

They considered our world cryogenically cold. They were surprised that the life was here, instead of Mercury or Venus. But they were willing to negotiate with us, and eventually became addicted to cigarettes, which burned by themselves in their environment.

[Astrono]

I 'm a bit worried about it if we are possible to go to that planet.
The reason why is because of the chance of other life forms at the planet, indeed theres a chance it's an empty planet or a planet with only ultra-small creatures.
But what if there are high evolved life forms at that planet?
They will be smarter than us, and no that doesn't mean they are evil.

The most evil creatures i know are humans, anyway if we would get to that planet without knowing what kind of creatures there are there it will be really dangerous.
Anyway, i 'm surprised we found another planet that looks like earth!
And if they will develop that much that they even can take photo's of the planet.
Then we will know if theres other life at that planet too.

-Astrono