'super-Earth' found in space.

[Atticus]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6589157.stm

[ninjashoes]

thats crazy, I was gonna post this yesterday but the server kept exploding.

[CHE]

LETS COLONIZE THIS MUTHAFUCKA!

if anything send all the life sentence/death row inmates in the world over there.

[Adz]

I don't think we could ever reach the place if it's 20.5 light years awa...Could we?

[Fumblingwisdom]

I don't think we could ever reach the place if it's 20.5 light years awa...Could we?

in theory

[CHE]

I don't think we could ever reach the place if it's 20.5 light years awa...Could we?

what we have for propulsion systems now it wouldnt be possible in our lifetime, but who knows, in 10-20 years its quite feasible that some new thing will make it much easier.
































like the star trek enterprise

[Blunt Object [ADR]]

what we have for propulsion systems now it wouldnt be possible in our lifetime, but who knows, in 10-20 years its quite feasible that some new thing will make it much easier.
like the star trek enterprise

you don't plan on living 10-20 years in the future. lol

[HarshReality]

what makes it super?? it's amazing what telescopes can do these days.. not only show you a planet but somehow tell you it's living conditions are very similar to those on earth.. un-fuking believable..

Curious where is the stargate?? no fukin telescope gonna give you that much info..

[cooncat]

what makes it super?? it's amazing what telescopes can do these days.. not only show you a planet but somehow tell you it's living conditions are very similar to those on earth.. un-fuking believable..

Curious where is the stargate?? no fukin telescope gonna give you that much info..

It's a "super" earth because it's about 1.5 times the Earth's radius, according to the article.

Also, there is no telescope that can come even *close* to resolving something as faint as a planet from that far away, especially when it's so close to a much brighter object like a star. Astronomers rely on indirect evidence to determine the presence of planets, such as "blinking" when a planet passes in front of it's star, and the wobble that an orbiting planet's gravity imparts on the star. From measurements like these, scientists can estimate the size of the planet and distance from the star, which in turn determines it's temperature. This planet is estimated to be similar in temperature to earth, which would allow for liquid water on the surface.

[Fumblingwisdom]

It's a "super" earth because it's about 1.5 times the Earth's radius, according to the article.

Also, there is no telescope that can come even *close* to resolving something as faint as a planet from that far away, especially when it's so close to a much brighter object like a star. Astronomers rely on indirect evidence to determine the presence of planets, such as "blinking" when a planet passes in front of it's star, and the wobble that an orbiting planet's gravity imparts on the star. From measurements like these, scientists can estimate the size of the planet and distance rom the star, which in turn determines it's temperature. This planet is estimated to be similar in temperature to earth, which would allow for liquid water on the surface.


How are they sure of an atmosphere then ?

[Fumblingwisdom]

Found 20 light years away: the New Earth

Last updated at 19:20pm on 26th April 2007 http://www.dailymail.co.uk/i/commentIconSm.gif Comments (10) (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/technology/technology.html?in_article_id=450467&in_page_id=1965#StartComments)
It's got the same climate as Earth, plus water and gravity. A newly discovered planet is the most stunning evidence that life - just like us - might be out there.
Above a calm, dark ocean, a huge, bloated red sun rises in the sky - a full ten times the size of our Sun as seen from Earth. Small waves lap at a sandy shore and on the beach, something stirs...

http://img.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2007/04_02/planet2_468x194.jpg (http://img.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2007/04_02/planet2504_800x323.jpg)http://img.dailymail.co.uk/i/nav/enlarge.gif (http://img.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2007/04_02/planet2504_800x323.jpg)


More....
Watch an animation of the new planet (Windows) (http://www.kamera.com/content/anm/US_Planet.asx)
Watch an animation of the new planet (Real Player) (http://www.kamera.com/content/anm/US_Planet.ram)
This is the scene - or may be the scene - on what is possibly the most extraordinary world to have been discovered by astronomers: the first truly Earth-like planet to have been found outside our Solar System.

The discovery was announced today by a team of European astronomers, using a telescope in La Silla in the Chilean Andes. If forced bookies to slash odds on the existence of alien beings.

The Earth-like planet that could be covered in oceans and may support life is 20.5 light years away, and has the right temperature to allow liquid water on its surface.

http://img.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2007/04_02/planet_468x457.jpg

This remarkable discovery appears to confirm the suspicions of most astronomers that the universe is swarming with Earth-like worlds.

We don't yet know much about this planet, but scientists believe that it may be the best candidate so far for supporting extraterrestrial life.

The new planet, which orbits a small, red star called Gliese 581, is about one-and-a-half times the diameter of the Earth.

It probably has a substantial atmosphere and may be covered with large amounts of water - necessary for life to evolve - and, most importantly, temperatures are very similar to those on our world.

http://img.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2007/04_02/planet3_468x313.jpg (http://img.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2007/04_02/planetDM2504_800x526.jpg)http://img.dailymail.co.uk/i/nav/enlarge.gif (http://img.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2007/04_02/planetDM2504_800x526.jpg)


It is the first exoplanet (a planet orbiting a star other than our own Sun) that is anything like our Earth. Of the 220 or so exoplanets found to date, most have either been too big, made of gas rather than solid material, far too hot, or far too cold for life to survive.
"On the treasure map of the Universe, one would be tempted to mark this planet with an X," says Xavier Delfosse, one of the scientists who discovered the planet. "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." Gliese 581 is among the closest stars to us, just 20.5 light years away (about 120 trillion miles) in the constellation Libra. It is so dim it can be seen only with a good telescope. Because all planets are relatively so small and the light they give off so faint compared to their sun, finding exoplanets is extremely difficult unless they are huge.

Those that have so far been detected have mostly been massive, Jupiter-like balls of gas that almost certainly cannot be home to life. This new planet - known for the time being as Gliese 581c - is a midget in comparison, being about 12,000 miles across (Earth is a little under 8,000 pole-to-pole). It has a mass five times that of Earth, probably made of the same sort of rock as makes up our world and with enough gravity to hold a substantial atmosphere.

Astrobiologists - scientists who study the possibility of alien life - refer to a climate known as the Goldilocks Zone, where it is not so cold that water freezes and not so hot that it boils, but where it can lie on the planet's surface as a liquid. In our solar system, only one planet - Earth -lies in the Goldilocks Zone. Venus is far too hot and Mars is just too cold. This new planet lies bang in the middle of the zone, with average surface temperatures estimated to be between zero and 40c (32-102f). Lakes, rivers and even oceans are possible. It is not clear what this planet is made of. If it is rock, like the Earth, then its surface may be land, or a combination of land and ocean.

Another possibility is that Gliese 581c was formed mostly from ice far from the star (ice is a
very common substance in the Universe), and moved to the close orbit it inhabits today.
In which case its entire surface will have melted to form a giant, planet-wide ocean with no land, save perhaps a few rocky islands or icebergs. The surface gravity is probably around twice that of the Earth and the atmosphere could be similar to ours. Although the new planet is in itself very Earth-like, its solar system is about as alien as could be imagined. The star at the centre - Gliese 581 - is small and dim, only about a third the size of our Sun and about 50 times cooler.

The two other planets are huge, Neptune-sized worlds called Gliese 581b and d (there is no "a", to avoid confusion with the star itself). The Earth-like planet orbits its sun at a distance of only six million miles or so (our Sun is 93 million miles away), travelling so fast that its "year" only lasts 13 of our days. The parent star would dominate the view from the surface - a huge red ball of fire that must be a spectacular sight. It is difficult to speculate what - if any - life there is on the planet. If there is life there it would have to cope with the higher gravity and solar radiation from its sun. Just because Gliese 581c is habitable does not mean that it is inhabited, but we do know its sun is an ancient star - in fact, it is one of the oldest stars in the galaxy, and extremely stable. If there is life, it has had many billions of years to evolve.

This makes this planet a prime target in the search for life. According to Seth Shostak, of the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence Institute in California, the Gliese system is now a prime target for a radio search. 'We had actually looked at this system before but only for a few minutes. We heard nothing, but now we must look again.' By 2020 at least one space telescope should be in orbit, with the capability of detecting signs of life on planets orbiting nearby stars. If oxygen or methane (tell-tale biological gases) are found in Gliese 581c's atmosphere, this would be good circumstantial evidence for life. Dr Malcolm Fridlund, a European Space Agency scientist, said the discovery of Gliese 581c was "an important step" on the road to finding life. "If this is a rocky planet, it's very likely it will have liquid water on its surface, which means there may also be life." The real importance is not so much the discovery of this planet itself, but the fact that it shows that Earth-like planets are probably extremely common in the Universe.

There are 200 billion stars in our galaxy alone and many astronomers believe most of these stars have planets. The fact that almost as soon as we have built a telescope capable of detecting small, earth-like worlds, one turns up right on our cosmic doorstep, shows that statistically, there are probably billions of earths out there. As Seth Shostak says: "We've never found one close to being like the Earth until now. We are finding that Earth is not such an unusual puppy in the litter of planets." But are these alien Earths home to life? No one knows. We don't understand how life began on our world, let alone how it could arise anywhere else. There may be an awful lot of bugs and bacteria out there, and only a few worlds with what we would recognise as plants and animals. Or, of course, there may be nothing.

The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence Institute uses radio telescopes to try to pick up messages sent by alien civilisations. Interestingly, Gliese 581c is so close to the Earth that if its putative inhabitants only had our level of technology, they could - just about - pick up some of our radio signals, such as the most powerful military transmitters. Quite what would happen if we for our part did receive a signal is unclear. "There is a protocol, buried away in the United Nations," says Dr Shostak. "The President would be told first, after the signal was confirmed by other observatories. But we couldn't keep such a discovery secret." It may be some time before we detect any such signals, but it is just possible that today we are closer than ever to finding life in the stars.

William Hill said it had shortened the odds on proving the existence of extraterrestrial intelligence from 1,000-1 to 100-1. Spokesman Graham Sharpe said: "We would face a possible eight-figure payout if it were to be confirmed that intelligent life of extra-terrestrial origin exists. We felt we had to react to the news that an earth-like planet which could support intelligent life had been discovered - after all, we don't know for sure that intelligent extraterrestrial life has not already been discovered." The new planet, so far unnamed, is 20.5 light years away and orbits a red dwarf star called Gliese 581.

[Fumblingwisdom]

Scientists find most Earth-like planet yet


<!--endclickprintinclude--><!--startclickprintinclude--><script language="JavaScript" type="text/javascript">var clickExpire = "05/25/2007";</script> <!---->Story Highlights
• NEW: Planet could conceivably house life outside our solar system
• NEW: Discovery a "significant step" on way to finding possible life in universe
• NEW: Planet, dubbed 581 c, orbits red dwarf star Gliese 581
• NEW: Newly found planet full of liquid water, scientist believes
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WASHINGTON (AP) -- European astronomers have found the most Earth-like planet outside our solar system, and here's what it might be like to live there:
The "sun" wouldn't burn brightly. It would hang close, large and red in the sky, glowing faintly like a charcoal ember. And it probably would never set if you lived on the sunny side of the planet.

You could have a birthday party every 13 days because that's how fast this new planet circles its sun-like star. But watch the cake -- you'd weigh a whole lot more than you do on Earth. You might be able to keep your current wardrobe. The temperature in this alien setting will likely be a lot like Earth's -- not too hot, not too cold.

And that "just right" temperature is one key reason astronomers think this planet could conceivably house life outside our solar system. It's also as close to Earth-sized as telescopes have ever spotted. Both elements make it the first potentially habitable planet besides Earth or Mars. "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 new body. "It's a nice discovery. We still have a lot of questions."

There's still a lot that is unknown about the new planet, which could be deemed inhospitable to life once more is learned about it. But as galaxies go, it's practically a neighbor. At only 120 trillion miles away, the red dwarf star that this planet circles is one of the 100 closest to Earth.

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 wavelengths. 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, and gravity there would be 1.6 times as strong as Earth's. 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 1½ 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 mid-evening in the Northern Hemisphere.ven so, Maran noted, "We don't know how to get to those places in a human lifetime."
But, oh, the view, if you could. 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.
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.

[BRN]

sweet, we can go there and fuck up that planet too

[Adz]

i heard from bbc that the gravity wud be so extreme the most possible kind of life would be flattend bug things.

[Narbegesicht]

:jihad: lets take their oil

[Narbegesicht]

It's a "super" earth because it's about 1.5 times the Earth's radius, according to the article.

Also, there is no telescope that can come even *close* to resolving something as faint as a planet from that far away, especially when it's so close to a much brighter object like a star. Astronomers rely on indirect evidence to determine the presence of planets, such as "blinking" when a planet passes in front of it's star, and the wobble that an orbiting planet's gravity imparts on the star. From measurements like these, scientists can estimate the size of the planet and distance from the star, which in turn determines it's temperature. This planet is estimated to be similar in temperature to earth, which would allow for liquid water on the surface.

they don't use a light telescope they find it by seeing the doppler shift and you can see it has an atmosphere because it deflects gamma rays emitiing from the star but that planet must be young because red dwarfs are old stars but before becoming red dwarfs they explode and and explosion would have wiped out any orbiting planets

[b-zar]

thats crazy what telescopes these days could do wonder what we will b able to do a 11o years from now

[Ultrashogun]

LETS COLONIZE THIS MUTHAFUCKA!

if anything send all the life sentence/death row inmates in the world over there.

No itll be like Australia and after some time the prisoners start liking it there.

[sprawl]

LETS COLONIZE THIS MUTHAFUCKA!

if anything send all the life sentence/death row inmates in the world over there.

no way man,i wanna go there myself.

i cant wait to get the fuck out of here and leave everything behind.

fuck al quade and fuck afghanistan,fuck iraq,fuck iran and their atomic bomb,fuck the hunger in africa,fuck aids,fuck global warming,fuck global dimming,fuck pollution,fuck communism,fuck imperialism,fuck telemarketing,fuck tv commercials and most of all fuck paris hilton and her fucked up life that i'm hearing about all the time.

just give me the damn ticket and let me get the fuck out of here.

if any of the above will try to follow me i swear i'm gonna blow their spaceship to pieces.

cool people and hot chicks are invited.

bring some booze with you.

[yousayunclenow]

Bust out the wormholes already, I wanna go, I wanna go!