'Super-Earth' planet spurs hope for billions more David Perlman, Chronicle Science Editor
San Francisco Chronicle February 3, 2012 04:00 AM Copyright San Francisco Chronicle. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Friday, February 3, 2012
Astronomers have detected a rocky "super-Earth" planet orbiting a nearby star in a region where life could possibly exist, a finding that led one of the team from UC Santa Cruz to predict there must be billions more of them in the Milky Way.
The newfound planet is big, at least 4 1/2 times as massive as Earth. It is 22 light-years from Earth, orbits its star every 28 days, and lies in the star's "habitable zone," where temperatures are just right - neither too hot nor too cold - for liquid water to support life on its surface.
Astronomers like to call that "the Goldilocks zone."
The planet's sun is a member of a curious triple-star group, involving two suns that are "binaries" orbiting each other, and a third that is possibly hosting two or three additional planets. One of them could be a "gas giant" similar to Jupiter, and the other could be another "super-Earth," with a 75-day orbit, the astronomers said.
"Detecting this planet so near implies that our galaxy must be teeming with billions of potentially habitable rocky planets," said Steven Vogt, a veteran UC Santa Cruz planet hunter who is a member of the discovery team and is now completing a new telescope called the Automated Planet Finder at the Lick Observatory atop Mount Hamilton near San Jose.
Leaders of the discovery team are Paul Butler and Guillem Anglada-Escud\ufffd of the Carnegie Institution for Science in Washington, D.C., and astronomers from Germany, England, Australia and Chile.
Less that two years ago, Vogt and Butler led another team that discovered the first of these "exoplanets" - planets orbiting stars beyond our solar system - in a habitable zone around a star called Gliese 581, about 20.5 light-years from Earth.
This new one is just about as near, but its star has no official name, just GJ 667 in the star catalogs.
The team detected the new planet by measuring tiny wobbles in GJ 667's motion across the sky caused by the tug of the planet's gravity. The star itself is known as an M-class dwarf - one of the most common types in the Milky Way, and "was expected to be a rather unlikely star to host planets," Vogt said.
But the fact that such a common type of star does host them leads astronomers to believe there must be countless more undetected exoplanets in the Milky Way, he said.
"This planet is the new best candidate to support liquid water and, perhaps, life as we know it," Anglada-Escud\ufffd said.
The team's findings appear online and will be published in Astrophysical Journal Letters, a leading journal for exoplanet discoveries.
Altogether, 755 exoplanets have been confirmed since the first one was detected in 1995, according to the Extrasolar Planet Encyclopaedia, maintained by astronomers at the Paris Observatory.
E-mail David Perlman at dperlman@sfchronicle.com.
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Brad Guth
2012-02-03 22:10:03 EST
On Feb 3, 1:29 am, "NSA TORTURE TECHNOLOGY, NEWS and RESEARCH" <*.@yahoo.com> wrote: > http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2012/02/03/BAH01N1P4... > > 'Super-Earth' planet spurs hope for billions more > David Perlman, Chronicle Science Editor > > San Francisco Chronicle February 3, 2012 04:00 AM Copyright San Francisco Chronicle. All > rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or > redistributed. > Friday, February 3, 2012 > > Astronomers have detected a rocky "super-Earth" planet orbiting a nearby star in a region > where life could possibly exist, a finding that led one of the team from UC Santa Cruz to > predict there must be billions more of them in the Milky Way. > > The newfound planet is big, at least 4 1/2 times as massive as Earth. It is 22 light-years > from Earth, orbits its star every 28 days, and lies in the star's "habitable zone," where > temperatures are just right - neither too hot nor too cold - for liquid water to support > life on its surface. > > Astronomers like to call that "the Goldilocks zone." > > The planet's sun is a member of a curious triple-star group, involving two suns that are > "binaries" orbiting each other, and a third that is possibly hosting two or three > additional planets. One of them could be a "gas giant" similar to Jupiter, and the other > could be another "super-Earth," with a 75-day orbit, the astronomers said. > > "Detecting this planet so near implies that our galaxy must be teeming with billions of > potentially habitable rocky planets," said Steven Vogt, a veteran UC Santa Cruz planet > hunter who is a member of the discovery team and is now completing a new telescope called > the Automated Planet Finder at the Lick Observatory atop Mount Hamilton near San Jose. > > Leaders of the discovery team are Paul Butler and Guillem Anglada-Escudé of the Carnegie > Institution for Science in Washington, D.C., and astronomers from Germany, England, > Australia and Chile. > > Less that two years ago, Vogt and Butler led another team that discovered the first of > these "exoplanets" - planets orbiting stars beyond our solar system - in a habitable zone > around a star called Gliese 581, about 20.5 light-years from Earth. > > This new one is just about as near, but its star has no official name, just GJ 667 in the > star catalogs. > > The team detected the new planet by measuring tiny wobbles in GJ 667's motion across the > sky caused by the tug of the planet's gravity. The star itself is known as an M-class > dwarf - one of the most common types in the Milky Way, and "was expected to be a rather > unlikely star to host planets," Vogt said. > > But the fact that such a common type of star does host them leads astronomers to believe > there must be countless more undetected exoplanets in the Milky Way, he said. > > "This planet is the new best candidate to support liquid water and, perhaps, life as we > know it," Anglada-Escudé said. > > The team's findings appear online and will be published in Astrophysical Journal Letters, > a leading journal for exoplanet discoveries. > > Altogether, 755 exoplanets have been confirmed since the first one was detected in 1995, > according to the Extrasolar Planet Encyclopaedia, maintained by astronomers at the Paris > Observatory. > > E-mail David Perlman at dperl...@sfchronicle.com. > > begin 666 Prod.dat > K1TE&.#EA`0`!`( ``````````"'Y! $`````+ `````!``$```("1 $`.P`` > ` > end
Gliese 581c at 20.5 light years away and much bigger, which means at least double gravity, are each unsuitable factors for us. However, for other complex and intelligent life it may not be so bad.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gliese_581_c
No doubt the majority of stars are hosting planets, and many of those could be as good or better worlds than Earth. Of course, we still can't exploit our physically dark moon or the extremely nearby planet Venus, so perhaps we got decades to go before we mange to accomplish either of those.
Have you ever seriously looked at the planet Venus?
Obviously there are certain environmental and physiological extremes that are off-limits to us naked humans, but clearly our moon and the extremely nearby planet Venus are not on any physics or technology NO FLY list. This ongoing gauntlet of recent solar CMEs headed towards us is way off the hook for being lethal to anyone visiting our naked and physically dark moon, however, that worse than toasty surface of Venus is hardly if even measurably affected by the absolute worse kinds of X+ flair events and halo CMEs, all because of that thick and robust atmosphere is providing a truly nifty shield.
Thumbnail images, including mgn_c115s095_1.gif (225 m/pixel) http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/imgcat/thumbnail_pages/venus_thumbnails.html Lava channels, Lo Shen Valles, Venus from Magellan Cycle 1 http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/imgcat/html/object_page/mgn_c115s095_1.html http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/imgcat/hires/mgn_c115s095_1.gif “Guth Venus”, at 1:1, then 10x resample/enlargement of the area in question: https://picasaweb.google.com/bradguth/BradGuth#5630418595926178146 https://picasaweb.google.com/bradguth/BradGuth#5629579402364691314 Brad Guth / Blog and my Google document pages: http://groups.google.com/group/guth-usenet?hl=en http://bradguth.blogspot.com/ http://docs.google.com/View?id=ddsdxhv_0hrm5bdfj http://translate.google.com/# Brad Guth, Brad_Guth, Brad.Guth, BradGuth, BG / “Guth Usenet”
Mr.B1ack
2012-02-03 23:08:47 EST
There very likely ARE very large numbers of planets in this galaxy very near to the size and climate of earth. May not be anything living there ... but you could terraform them.
IF you could GET there.
We can't.
Rockets ain't nearly good enough.
We'll need 'warp drive' or 'star-gates' or something like that.
Nothing like that on the horizon.
FreedomOfThought
2012-02-04 03:28:51 EST
"Mr.B1ack" <bw@barrk.net> wrote in message news:2mbpi75m9qvs66fu68skh1nuef1410631p@4ax.com... > There very likely ARE very large numbers of > planets in this galaxy very near to the size > and climate of earth. May not be anything > living there ... but you could terraform them.
It was Western astronomers who claimed decades ago that Earth is the only planet in the Universe where life exists.
They turned out to be complete fools.
Your evil secret government of CIA and NSA possibly are in contact with life from other planets who once in a while show up hovering in Guadalajara, Mexico or England and at times in Chicago Airport and Chinese Airports.
Any human being who thinks Earth is the ONLY planet in the Universe where life exists should be locked away in a mental asylum.
> IF you could GET there. > > We can't. > > Rockets ain't nearly good enough. > > We'll need 'warp drive' or 'star-gates' or > something like that. > > Nothing like that on the horizon. >
> >"Mr.B1ack" <bw@barrk.net> wrote in message >news:2mbpi75m9qvs66fu68skh1nuef1410631p@4ax.com... >> There very likely ARE very large numbers of >> planets in this galaxy very near to the size >> and climate of earth. May not be anything >> living there ... but you could terraform them. > > > >It was Western astronomers who claimed decades ago that >Earth is the only planet in the Universe where life exists.
Fortunately they were scientists ... who are willing to revise their opinions in the face of new facts - unlike theologians.
FreedomOfThought
2012-02-05 04:39:38 EST
"Mr.B1ack" <bw@barrk.net> wrote in message news:a6asi7la1nga5q2lahb2elj05o6ik0mobs@4ax.com... > "FreedomOfThought" <FreedomOfThought@Humanity.com> wrote: > >> >>"Mr.B1ack" <bw@barrk.net> wrote in message >>news:2mbpi75m9qvs66fu68skh1nuef1410631p@4ax.com... >>> There very likely ARE very large numbers of >>> planets in this galaxy very near to the size >>> and climate of earth. May not be anything >>> living there ... but you could terraform them. >> >> >> >>It was Western astronomers who claimed decades ago that >>Earth is the only planet in the Universe where life exists. > > Fortunately they were scientists ... who are > willing to revise their opinions in the face > of new facts - unlike theologians.
You got it wrong as usual.
Those western scientists didnt have any "facts" at that time when they claimed Earth is the only planet in the Universe where life exists.
It was downright dumb and stupid on their part to claim so when we earthlings hardly had any knowledge about the vast Universe beyond pluto.
>"Mr.B1ack" <bw@barrk.net> wrote in message >news:2mbpi75m9qvs66fu68skh1nuef1410631p@4ax.com... >> There very likely ARE very large numbers of >> planets in this galaxy very near to the size >> and climate of earth. May not be anything >> living there ... but you could terraform them. >It was Western astronomers who claimed decades ago that >Earth is the only planet in the Universe where life exists.
Bullshit. There is a reason you can't come up with any references to back up that claim: You're full of shit.
--- http://www.skeptictank.org/
Mr.B1ack
2012-02-05 18:24:01 EST
f*e@skeptictank.org (The Skeptic Tank) wrote:
>"FreedomOfThought" <FreedomOfThought@Humanity.com> wrote: > >>"Mr.B1ack" <bw@barrk.net> wrote in message >>news:2mbpi75m9qvs66fu68skh1nuef1410631p@4ax.com... >>> There very likely ARE very large numbers of >>> planets in this galaxy very near to the size >>> and climate of earth. May not be anything >>> living there ... but you could terraform them.
>>It was Western astronomers who claimed decades ago that >>Earth is the only planet in the Universe where life exists. > >Bullshit. There is a reason you can't come up with any references to back >up that claim: You're full of shit. > >--- >http://www.skeptictank.org/
I think he's reaching WAY back ... closer to 'astrologers' and priests who said all the facts they needed to know about the universe were on one little book.
These were not 'scientists'.
Of course even modern 'scientists' are prone to rather excessive speculation ... tune into 'Discovery Channel' or whatever and watch 'em go. Makes for good TV and TV profits - but I don't think it serves 'science' very well.
Actual EVIDENCE of any kind of life anywhere in the universe aside from the earth right now = ZERO. (ok, we've probably put some mold spores on Mars by now, but it's still 'earth life')
MAY be life elsewhere, maybe a lot, maybe a little, but with only one point of reference it's gonna STAY 'maybe'.
The Skeptic Tank
2012-02-05 21:02:36 EST
Mr.B1ack <bw@barrk.net> wrote: >*e@skeptictank.org (The Skeptic Tank) wrote: >>"FreedomOfThought" <FreedomOfThought@Humanity.com> wrote: >>>"Mr.B1ack" <bw@barrk.net> wrote in message >>>news:2mbpi75m9qvs66fu68skh1nuef1410631p@4ax.com... >>>> There very likely ARE very large numbers of >>>> planets in this galaxy very near to the size >>>> and climate of earth. May not be anything >>>> living there ... but you could terraform them. >>>It was Western astronomers who claimed decades ago that >>>Earth is the only planet in the Universe where life exists. >>Bullshit. There is a reason you can't come up with any references to back >>up that claim: You're full of shit. > I think he's reaching WAY back ... closer to 'astrologers' and priests who said all > the facts they needed to know about the universe were on one little book.
That could be however he is claiming "decades ago" which is a flat-out bullshit lie. Scientists have accepted the probability of life existing on other planets which obtain the same general environmental conditions as we have here on Earth, there has never actually been an era where any serious scientific work has suggested otherwise.
Religious occultism, on the other hand, has routinely presumed that humans on Earth are some how special.
--- http://www.skeptictank.org/
FreedomOfThought
2012-02-06 00:45:53 EST
"The Skeptic Tank" <frice@skeptictank.org> wrote in message news:dKudnQt9ob-xeLPSnZ2dnUVZ_s6dnZ2d@posted.sonicnet... > "FreedomOfThought" <FreedomOfThought@Humanity.com> wrote: > >>"Mr.B1ack" <bw@barrk.net> wrote in message >>news:2mbpi75m9qvs66fu68skh1nuef1410631p@4ax.com... >>> There very likely ARE very large numbers of >>> planets in this galaxy very near to the size >>> and climate of earth. May not be anything >>> living there ... but you could terraform them. >>It was Western astronomers who claimed decades ago that >>Earth is the only planet in the Universe where life exists. > > Bullshit. There is a reason you can't come up with any references to back > up that claim: You're full of shit. > > --- > http://www.skeptictank.org/ >
You westerners enjoy eating shit anyway. You can relish my shit.