Reply With Quote
Oh boy, here we go.
http://www.time.com/time/health/arti...00.html?hpt=T2
Found: An Earthlike Planet at Last
The star known as Gliese 581 is utterly unremarkable in just about every way you can imagine. It's a red dwarf, the most common type of star in the Milky Way, weighing in at about a third the mass of the Sun. At 20 light years or so away, it's relatively nearby, but not close enough to set any records (it's the 117th closest star to Earth, for what that's worth). You can't even see it without a telescope, so while it lies in direction of Libra, it isn't one of the shining dots you'd connect to form the constellation. It's no wonder that the star's name lacks even a whiff of mystery or romance.
But Gliese 581 does have one distinction — and that's enough to make it the focus of intense scientific attention. At last count, astronomers had identified more than 400 planets orbiting stars beyond the Sun, and Gliese 581 was host to no fewer than four of them — the most populous solar system we know of, aside than our own. That alone would make the star intriguing. But on Wednesday, a team of astronomers announced they'd found two more planets circling the star, bringing the total to six. And one of them, assigned the name Gliese 581g, may be of truly historic significance.
(See an illustrated history of Planet Earth.)
For one thing, the planet is only about three or four times as massive as our home world, meaning it probably has a solid surface just like Earth. Much more important, it sits smack in the middle of the so-called habitable zone, orbiting at just the right distance from the star to let water remain liquid rather than freezing solid or boiling away. As far as we know, that's a minimum requirement for the presence of life. For thousands of years, philosophers and scientists have wondered whether other Earths existed out in the cosmos. And since the first, very un-Eearthlike extrasolar planet was discovered in 1995, astronomers have been inching closer to answering that question. Now, they've evidently succeeded (although to be clear, there's no way at this point to determine whether there actually is life on the new planet).
"We're pretty excited about it," admits Steve Vogt, of the University of California, Santa Cruz, a member of the team, in a masterpiece of understatement. "I think this is what everyone's been after for the past 15 years."
Planetary scientist James Kasting, of Penn State University, who wasn't involved with the discovery, agrees. "I think they've scooped the Kepler people," he says. Kasting refers to the Kepler space telescope, launched into space early last year on a mission to determine how common Earthlike planets might be. The "Kepler people" have a number of candidate Earths in the can, but are still working to confirm them.
Being first isn't the main reason Vogt is excited, however. "Someone had to be first," he says. "But this is right next door to us. That's the big result." What's particularly big about it is a matter of simple arithmetic. With only 116 stars closer to Earth than this one, it was hardly a sure thing that so small a sample group would produce two habitable planets, including Earth. And two such planets may be an undercount, Vogt says, since just nine out of those 100-plus stars have been studied in any detail. Indeed, one of Gliese 581g's sister planets, known as Gliese 581d (OK, they truly don't put a lot of creative energy into naming these things) could conceivably be a habitable world itself.
One of the four planets known to orbit Gliese 581 before the latest discovery, 581d was found by a team of Swiss astronomers in 2007 and was thought to be outside the habitable zone, and thus too cold for liquid water. But a reanalysis last year brought it into the zone, albeit just barely. The problem is, Gliese 581d is also too big to be Earthlike; it's probably made mostly of nonwater ice, like Neptune and Uranus, which makes a poorer candidate for life than 581g.
Lost in the excitement over possible life on the new world is what a remarkable achievement its mere discovery was. Detecting a planet this small is monstrously hard—and would have been impossible when Vogt and co-discoverer Paul Butler, of the Carnegie Ins ution of Washington first got into the planet-hunting game in the early 1990s. The instruments you use to detect tiny back-and-forth motions in the star — motions caused by the orbiting planet's gravitational tugs, which are often the only way to infer that the worlds exist at all—simply weren't sensitive enough. Since then, though, says Vogt, "I've been busting my gut to improve the instruments, and Paul has been busting his got to do the observations." In all, those observations span more than 200 nights on the giant Keck I telescope in Hawaii over 11 years, supplemented by observations from the Geneva group — and that painstaking work finally confirmed 581g's existence.
None of this proves that there actually is water on Gliese 581g. "Those are things we just have to speculate about," says Vogt. But he goes on to point out that there's water pretty much everywhere else you look. "There's water on Earth," he says, "and on the Moon, and Mars, and on Jupiter's moon Europa and Saturn's moon Enceladus, and in interstellar space. There's enough water produced in the Orion Nebula every 24 seconds to fill the Earth's oceans."
It's not hard to imagine, in other words, that Gliese 581g might have plenty of water as well. "It could have quite a good ocean," Vogt says. Certainly, it could still be a sterile, non-biological ocean. But unlike any planet found until now, there's nothing to rule out the idea that could also be teeming with life.
Oh boy, here we go.
As humans we first need world peace in this planet before we can explorer whats out there...
As one, we can work on building spaceships instead of military weapons
Then what happens when we come across something that wishes to do humanity wrong, throw love at them?
I thought you were in jail.
This is a cool find. I wonder how long until we launch a probe to one of these planets in the habitable zone?
Fascinating discovery. I've long been convinced that we'll eventually find extraterrestrial life. I just hope it happens during my lifetime.
Awesome. Very relevant article for me since I've taken 2 astronomy courses before, one freshman and one sop re year. It'd be awesome if they eventually find many more similarities, and if it indeed does have an ocean with life on the planet.
Yeah dude!
And then you find out they didn't "evolve" and think Darwin is full of what then?
There is a much higher probability of the opposite.
fictional story but ain't any more realistic than superman tbh. i firmly believe the morons will finally step onto the mysterious planet on day but they will find nothing there but stones and ashes.
yeah..........ok.
That still doesn't answer my question. Your Darwin worshipers ed up now when they find out there is new life and they can prove the solar system is not 4 billion years old it blows up your big bang theory, not to mention if they are a result of intelligent design your world comes crashing down.
On one hand you guys have it all figured out, oops! we found new life!
now you want to change the rules? all of you I hope this new world laughs at your ignorant Darwin monkey to man ass's
What is your question? When extraterrestrial life is eventually found we'll discover that it has evolved in new and wondrous ways. It will be the final validation of Darwin's theory.That still doesn't answer my question. Your Darwin worshipers ed up now when they find out there is new life and they can prove the solar system is not 4 billion years old it blows up your big bang theory, not to mention if they are a result of intelligent design your world comes crashing down.
On one hand you guys have it all figured out, oops! we found new life!
now you want to change the rules? all of you I hope this new world laughs at your ignorant Darwin monkey to man ass's
Your so full of . You haven't even seen or spoken to this new life and you want us to believe they evolved from a frog? I suppose if they prove they are a result of intelligent design and say we are also you will call them bible thumper's and move to the next planet?
you guys crack me up.
It's like mouse deliberately tries to be wrong every time he talks about evolution.
Your the one who is ed here you have no choice but to agree with me or look like an idiot like the others. But your ego will get in the way and you will go down with the Ship of fools rather than give me my props or at least say I make a point, (a common thing during debates) a heads up. You can win a debate even though you agree with some points the other one makes.
By being one sided you show your bias and thus your debate has an agenda and your not here to learn your here to belittle others who don't conform to your way of thinking it shows you have no character and you lack talent.
Also others can see you for what you are and how you think.
so make the right choice my friend....
Dude... WTF are you talking about? How would finding new life invalidate Darwin or prove "intelligent design"?Your so full of . You haven't even seen or spoken to this new life and you want us to believe they evolved from a frog? I suppose if they prove they are a result of intelligent design and say we are also you will call them bible thumper's and move to the next planet?
you guys crack me up.
Back to the original post... pretty cool, but not surprising. With billions of stars out there, odds are there are many planets with similar Earth-like conditions. It's just a matter of actually being able to find them. Count me in the bunch that firmly believes there is life outside our solar system.
1.) I'm not your friend.
2.) There is absolutely no point in rebutting your points, because you will disappear like you always do.
I'm confused...finding extraterrestrial life does NOT decrease the likelihood of evolution being true...as tlong said it does do the opposite.
And it looks like it's 4-1 in this thread...
This is what mouse does: make re ed assertions then disappear when he is owned. He's got to be trolling because nobody can be this ignorant.
I'm confused...finding extraterrestrial life does NOT decrease the likelihood of evolution being true...as tlong said it does do the opposite.
And it looks like it's 4-1 in this thread...
How would the discovery of extraterrestrial life prove EITHER darwin's theory or intelligent design?
Realize we're talking about something that has not been "discovered" and MAY not even exist. For either side to claim something that hasn't happened as validation of their beliefs is tomfoolery at it's finest.
Well I really hope the bold part can one day be more realistic...but unfortunately the vast majority of the US is very ignorant (of course there's extreme ignorance on multiple levels basically everywhere, but I'm only speaking for the country I've spent my life).
I'm not trying to elevate anything here, sort of bending the topic and saying that people in general need to do more free-thinking. There's way too many people that really don't know about anything. And again, not really just religion.
There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)
Posting Permissions
