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11 New Extra-Solar Planets Announced
Shooter6947 writes: "The European planet hunting team, including Mayor and Queloz who first found 51 Pegasus b in 1995, have just announced
the discovery of 11 new extrasolar planets. The new list includes 2 multiple planet systems, one planet with an orbital eccentricity of .93, and another in a nearly circular orbit near its star's habitable zone. Kickass!"
This assumes that there's extra-terrestrial life to be found in the first place.
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$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
This was kind of the philosophy that they talked about in "Rendezvous with Rama"... they had run out of all the Greek and Roman gods, and had moved onto Hindu gods at that point. Rama is Hindu, I guess, though I know very little about Hinduism, so I could be off by a religion or two.
These days we seem to name things XP3850203. I think they now name planets after StarCraft CD Keys.
Run a pencil-and-paper RPG campaign with your far-off friends: Gametable!
Freaky quantum stuff. I think using coupled ("verschränkt", the English term escapes me at the moment) particle pairs are discussed on theoretic levels for communications or teleportation.
But, as others have pointed out, even radio communication does not have to be detectable. I think even ours gets less and less detectable outside Saturn's orbit. We are moving from high power broadcast to localized, low energy communications. This comes with the move to high bandwidth, digital communications. There are plans to switch terrestrial TV broadcast entirely from analog to digital in Germany by 2007 or so, for example.
If a civilization does not intentionally set up radio beacons the waves could probably only be detected in the short period (~100 years?) between emergence of radio waves as forms of communications and advancements of technology making them move to digital high bandwidth communications.
Was that a Monty Python's The Meaning of Life reference, or just a coincidence?
Photos of bits of the past hiding in the present: afiler.com
People should be saying "These are all huge planets we could never live there." Who's to say nothing else can?
That's a disappointment.
It obviously isn't intelligent life...
Torrey Hoffman (Azog)
Torrey Hoffman (Azog)
"HTML needs a rant tag" - Alan Cox
Dude, don't use the endurium, you're killing millions of innocent little creatures! (or something, my memory is fuzzy :-) ).
Goddamn what a great game.
Not representing or approved by my company or anybody else.
life as we know it is very slim indeed
Well this is true only assuming there are actually other lifeforms out there in the universe. If not, life as we know it pretty much covers the entire gambit.
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Rare Window - free your photos
it's pretty funny watching any thread not related to linux, microsoft or linux-inspired hardware hacks decay into a litany of slashdot references, linux in-jokes and theonion.com-esque pieces.
the additional insight supplied by the slashdot community on this story is non-existent, except as reinforcement of the last word in the story post; a collective exclamation of "kickass".
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Rare Window - free your photos
Read some of the linked pages. These planets are found by making very high precision measurements of their stars' spectra over a period of years. Naturally, the astronomers parallelize the process as much as possible and observe loads of stars over those years.
When they have enough observations to A) find a planet and B) pin down the planet's orbital parameters with enough accuracy to make their claim worth while, then C) they can announce. Since the observations are parallelized and batched, the announcements are batched.
It's not a big deal.
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"You've crossed my Line of Death!" "What? No! Where is it?" "Here in the fine print...."
I don't think it as much as a troll but the fact they haven't taken High School History yet. Seriously though, I know so many children who believe this as it's simply common knowledge. It's almost as bad as wacko parents blaming Columbine soley on videogames.
-AU
We've recently heard from the Cassini probe about higher-than-expected radiation around Jupiter, and what was expected was already a very high level of radiation. These newly discovered planets are Jupiter-sized or even larger gas giants. Not to say life can't adapt in that environment, but I would expect moons around these planets to be bombarded with intense radiation even if they're an acceptable distance from their sun.
One other thing you forgot to mention there: SETI is using (IIRC) ground based radio telescopes for the data collection. If my memory is correct, the usable, receivable data in the radio frequencies in earth atmosphere is something less than 10% of the total radio spectrum. Which means that we're missing 90% of the possible data. Add in that any spacefaring race would have no need to worry about using that measly 10% (unless trying to communicate through an atmosphere like ours), and we are missing a huge section of the data.
GPL made simple: What was my stuff is now our stuff. If you improve our stuff, please keep it our stuff.
How about one that is actually useful to linux people...
www.blendedplanet.com
kinda almost makes up for BlenderMania going down a few days ago...
I'd rather you do it wrong, than for me to have to do it at all.
why do they keep using Greek god names anyway? There are lots of other gods from other cultures / religions that are useful.
Just don't name a planet Xenu, that's all...
...Now all we need is a little Endurium and we'll be ready to start looking for inhabitable planets to colonize.
"Everything you know is wrong. (And stupid.)"
"Everything you know is wrong. (And stupid.)"
Moderation Totals: Wrong=2, Stupid=3, Total=5.
Not just _towards_ extrasolar life - if they find an atmosphere with a significant amount of free O2, that is direct evidence of life. Without life, O2 tends to naturally combine with silicon, leaving the atmosphere with no free O2. Therefore, if we find a strong O2 signature in any spectra taken from an extrasolar planet, that planet has life.
-NOC Monkey (OOK!) Experience is what allows you to recognize a mistake the second time you make it.
I'll bet some crackpot with some half baked title of ownership is already drooling over the prospect of his solar system having habitable planets, and thus, commercial real estate.
Feed the need: Digitaladdiction.net
Wow.
'earth released its gravitiational lock'....'weird conception of orbital mechanics'
Ummm...
All masses attract all other masses, its only a question of the magnitude of the force produced by the masses involved.
If you voted for Nader, THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT!!
From the article:
This new planet is therefore located in the "habitable zone" where temperatures like those on the Earth are possible. Still, it is a giant, gaseous planet (with a minimum mass of 3.5 times that of Jupiter, or about 1000 times that of the Earth) and thus an unlikely place for the development of life. Nevertheless, it may be orbited by one or more moons on which a more bio-friendly environment has evolved.
Maybe we'll find a man on the moon after all...
Look out honey, 'cause I'm using technology; Ain't got time to make no apology
*ahem*
The Apollo missions never left Earth's orbit; or, do you think that the moon is not orbiting Earth?
First posting isn't trolling. It's...first posting.
Any chance they will name one Rupert?
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You mean with that big tilted rock formation? You know which one I mean :-)
I suffer from attention surplus disorder.
You're right, this is undeniably cool. I've heard people complain: "Well, these are all huge planets, nobody could live on them." Sure, but what about the moons? If Titan were in orbit around a planet in the habitable zone, it might be suitable.
There are plenty of moons in our own solar system that, in the right orbit and the right chemical makeup, could be perfectly suitable for habitation. How cool would that be. "Hey, it's a full Saturn tonight. Isn't it beautiful?" Now that would be undeniably cool.
Is there some sort of 3D simulation of such a system available, I'm having a hard time imagining this...
Bizar technology?
Every time our "Advanced" culture interacts with a less developed one, it pretty much destroys the less developed culture.
I think the only reason there isn't "Proof" that aliens exist is because it wouldn't be good for us--no matter how ready we think we are.
I just wish we had really been "Advanced" enough to be able to view cultures without destroying them over the past few hundred years.
I wonder how many world cultures at our level have been destroyed because they just "Gave up" after finding out that everything they've invented over the past 100 years--and everything they will invent over the next 2000--has already been invented and handed to them.
Seriously, how do you catch up?
Nah..not go science. Benevolent conservatism will lock us in place. I remember when the movie 2001 came out. So many promises. Look where we are now
Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.
I wouldn't believe some guy named Jesus. I've read about him. Legend has it, he went around saying that non believers should be burned . . . blah blah rant rant
Blah.
Of course, if you'd read the article, you would realize that these are two separate planets. One (HD80606) has an e=.93, which is very nearly an ellipse. The other one in question (HD28185) is in a nearly circular orbit in what scientists like to call the "habitable zone", which simply means they think water could exist in liquid form there on the surface of a body.
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If we don't change direction soon, we'll end up where we're going.
How about # of seconds since 1970 (or some other importand date). Chop it up using the metric system (Megasecond, etc). chris@syrnix:~$ date +%s 986598778
chris@xanadu:~$ whatis /.
/.: nothing appropriate.
Nasa has announced that they're going to launch a probe in an attempt to crash it into the planets surface. One spokesperson was quoted "If they're there this ought to wake them up!"
Confucius say: Man who walk through airport turnstile sideways going to Bangkok.
I know most of these planets are Juipter sized. But what if life could live on them? Would the exrtreme gravity make life extremely small and resrict it to bacteria and fungus? Or just really tiny bi-pedal species?
Something to think about.
Cd
This
Nice singing, but the article was about ESO not NASA.
So we dont actually detect the planet directly, but only by it's effects on a large enough body (star) that can be detected by us? So we dont know 100% if these planets exist or of what form, is that correct, because we dont actually view them directly?
Or is this the primary detection and there is a secondry verification? Apologies for the questions, but this is rather interesting and I'ld like to understand what's being done.
"Old Rallydrivers never die - they just fail to book in on time"
I'm not up with the latest techniques in planet detection, so can someone tell me how they find these things? Radio waves? Gravitational influences? Guessing? How many planets is this now scientists have found? General pondering - wonder if any species on the other planets (if any) are staring back at us, wondering if the planet in the habitable zone of Sol (or whatever they call it) has life? Given that there semms to have been no contact from intelligent life as yet, I think that may suggest there is no chance of contact in the end. I would personally think IF life exists on other planets and they are capable of interstellar fight, the following senarios would take place... 1) Life is so rare that other life form becomes extremely excited and greets us in a big way 2) Life is so common that alien creatures just go ho hum and announce their presence by landing in Times Square.
"Old Rallydrivers never die - they just fail to book in on time"
Actually, I saw an interview several years ago in which a cast member pointed out on the Enterprise schematics that there was only one real bathroom on the whole ship. Guess they didn't figure we needed to see space toilets in all the quarters...
I think you're confusing Jesus with some of the people who came after him. After all. the essential teaching of Jesus Christ (and it says this in the bible) is "Love thy neighbour as thyself". And there are no exception clauses to that.
Which is why hatemongers who call themselves Christians really aren't...
Hacker: A criminal who breaks into computer systems
"Information wants to be paid"
I doubt it. Unless we find extra-terrestrial life in our solar system it will be impossible for us to get close enough to any place else to find life there within our lifetimes.
Guess this means I better dust off the ol' Klingon dictionary, eh?
It is a gas giant planet, it probably couldn't sustain life (as we know it), although life as we know it is very slim indeed. It is also very possible there are moons around this planet that are very similar to earth, and could be a very good place to look for the first extraterrestrial lifeforms. Jupiter has quite a few moons that we think might hold life, it stands to reason the newly discovered "habitable zone" planet may as well, especially it is nearer it's sun.
Enigma
Enigma
According to the article, they found a giant planet moving in an orbit around its Sun-like central star that is very similar to the one of the Earth and whose potential satellites (in theory, at least) might be "habitable".
I wonder if this could be a candidate for our new home when our sun blows up in 5 billion years.
mmm...physics...
The article discusses two-planet systems. Just today, our physics teacher was describing how our "moon" is actually more of a planet, and we revolve around each other. Pluto and Charon are another set of double planets. Moons are more on the order of Phobos and Deimos, Mars' moons, which span about 22 miles laid end to end.
mmm...physics...
Seriously, what's with the scientific community holding onto their discoveries until they're newsworthy? Makes me wonder how long ago the first of these 11 'newly discovered' planets were really found...
"If at first you don't succeed, lower your standards."
a real good chance of finding life. Hospitable zone, not all we need is water...
--
jX [ Make everything as simple as possible, but no simpler. - Einstein ]
if you had read the article... One of the planets they were talking about has an orbital period of 444 days (~1.3 year)
the technique you describe is actually used for detecting MACHOs in the galactic halo using the Large Magellenic Cloud as a background for source stars to be lensed. The other technique for exoplanet hunting is actually to watch an eclipsing red dwarf binary star system looking for a drop in brightness that is not one of the stars eclipsing the other. This method attempts to see the planet directly. The reason for looking at red dwarves is that they are small enough (radius) that an approximately earth-sized planet (radius, not mass) can cause an approximately 2% drop in brightness which is detectable with a ccd camera. The reason for specifying an eclipsing binary is to increase the chances that any planet that does exist would orbit so that it came between the stars and our telescopes (the stars are orbitting each other in a plane that is oriented so that the stars eclipse each other, any planets should be orbitting in the same plane.)
That's not the case. True over time Oxygen will combine with other elements, but the existstance of large amounts of "free" Ozygen, is NOT a guarantee that the palanet has or hasn't life.
First, we must assume that not all life needs pure oxygen to exist. Who's to say that extraterrestial life doesn't "breathe" though photosynthesis? Or are even carbon based lifeforms ?
Second, if there's lot's of Oxygen, is that proof alone that life exists there ? Can You be certain that Oxygen is the ONLY basis of life ? What if the atmosphere is strongly radiated ?
Third, what if the planet is gaseous ? It might have lots of Oxygen, but no Carbon. This could proove to be a very inhospitable place for life to exist.
Other arguments exist, but these are certainly dominant amongst those...
Unfortunately we'll have to wait a few hundred years for a sattelite to swing by, with our current level of technology. Hopefully, in the near future the world will pull together and pour some money into researching possible new (cheaper and faster) methods of space vehicle launching, and interstellar travel.
--- To err is human... Am I more human than most ?
What? Not:
?</ob AYBABTU>Umm... I don't think you can call a parabolic or hyperbolic trajectory an orbit. You can call it a near miss, but it's not an orbit unless the trajectory is circular or elliptical.
include $sig;
1;
So which would it be? 3 planets with the same name? Or 3 different names for a single planet?
Well, our last Planet was called Pluto, so there's still Mickey, Goofy, Daisy, Donald, Chip, Dale, Sneezy, Sleepy, Grumpy, Bashful, Doc... and there ya go!
Hey, if they use it at the Disney parking lot...
Tongue-tied and twisted, just an earth-bound misfit, I
Tongue-tied and twisted, just an earth-bound misfit, I
Learning to fly, Pink Floyd.
"Wasn't Copernicus afraid of persecution when he discovered that the Earth orbits the Sun rather than the other way around? "
So fucking what ?
He WAS a priest in Catholic Church and was subjected to their rules.
"Religion is a good thing, but people are very adept at ruining it"
Yeah, what other revelations are you going to descent on us here ?
People tend to fuck up a lot of things, that is a human nature.
Yeah, we came out of dark ages straight into glorious days of colonialism and two world wars.
Wasn't that Stalin and Hitler who claimed that age of God is over?
This is a good overview of older discoveries: jtwinc
I'm still trying to figure out what people mean by 'social skills' here.
Planet OOG is not taken yet, thankfully. I vote that the planet with the circular orbit in the habitable zone be called "OOG".
In Bushworld, they struggle to keep church and state separate in Iraq as they increasingly merge the two in America.
Sounds great! When can I move in?
hehe
I don't see why a moon is needed to stabilize the axis
Many simulations have shown that, without the moon, the Earth's axis would be subjected to chaotic instability - say it would change 80 degrees in some thousand years. That would cause a lot of climatic disasters.
Well, actually there's not much detail.
With these observations, you can only know:
- how big the planet is
- how far is from his sun
- how elliptical is the orbit
This is enough to find out an approximation of the planet's temperature, and a couple of other things. But really not a lot of detail.
Very close. IIRC it goes something like "I sincerely hope and pray there's intelligent life out in space, coz there's bugger all down here on earth.". Or something very similar. :)
-- Soruk
Mind you, that hasn't stopped the folks at TOTL.NET trying...
-- Soruk
The 5% detection seems low, but keep in mind that circa 50% of stars out there are in fact binary stars, and their gravitational interactions are too complex to maintain classical planetary systems. Hence, a 5% detection rate should be read as 10% of the potential.
well, how do you know whatever planets there might be out there have enough Si to combine with all the ambient O2?
Wouldn't it be something if one of the real planets turned out to be like one of the StarTrek planets?
Yeah, wobbly and part cardboard.
"The new list includes 2 multiple planet systems, one planet with an orbital eccentricity of .93, and another in a nearly circular orbit near its star's habitable zone."
Let's look at that last little bit again " and another in a nearly circular orbit near its star's habitable zone."
Do you see it now, or do I have to spell out for you that they are talking about two different planets.
Have Fun.
the product of the planet's mass and (roughly)
the inclination of its orbital plane relative
to our line of sight.
So it could be of nominal mass in an orbit
that is coplanar with the Earth, or much more
massive but in an orbit that "faces" us.
Yes, I'm a karma whore.
How do you know? What if tommorrow someone comes up with some super-powered-plasma-coldfusioned-light-year-jumpi ng engine. then a couple years down the road they start implementing it into some new spacecrafts and whatnot....you know what im getting at....anythings possible....and whos to say that those "other forms of life out there" aren't running their own SETI@Home clientsm looking for us.
Information Technology White Papers and Research
just do it like subdividing a building to make a new address, put a 1/2 on it, like 975 1/2 Ohio St.
Ok I volunteer for the first trip to that habitable planet. Between spy planes in China and the RIAA on my hard drive I'm willing take my chances with ET.
Thats why I dont give a ratts arse any more and dont submit any stories at all.
Perhaps eventualy everyone will give up and the amount of crap stories will be down by 3%
I thought they allready had them in labs in roswell.
Is the level of detail in which they can describe the planets they discover.
insert sig here for great justice
"On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog!" - a dog
I can't even begin to imagine the amounts of problems we would likely encounter trying to inhabit the moon of a gas giant so many times(~200 IIRC)larger than our earth. An earth sized satellite, moving in orbit around the gas giant, would be perpetual darkness for half of the orbit around the planet, while in perpetual full daylight for the other half of it's orbit around the giant, and the actual measured time when these two states would occur would change as the planet itself orbits around the solar body. Lets not forget ejections from a possibily volatile gas-giant, and the amount of space crap that would bombard a planet(and the moons, which we would be looking to inhabit)of that size. However, for professional aesthetes such as myself, it would be worth any risk--for the part of the satellite's orbit where the lighted side of the planet would be facing it--to watch planet-rise! But that's assuming that the satellite has a revolution as well as an orbit, and that might not be the case(look at OUR moon).
Just a little cosmological pondering..
Unfortunately the space craft has M$ Winblows as its OS. I can just see it now - "Well the crew was just about to land on the planet, with the Aliens of the planet welcoming us in open arms.....until the blue scrren of death appeard, the pilot lost control of the ship, super-powered-plasma-coldfusioned-light-year-jumpi ng engine ignited, the ship was catapolted around the planet into their sun where the reaction of the engines with the sun caused the sun to super-nova.....Nasa is now looking for another planet with life...and putting Linux in the new space craft!"
Remember, wherever you go, there you are!
Must... control... Fist of Death!
Script Kiddies? Nah, we're looking for intelligent extra-terrestrial life ;P
-Scott
However, a very large moon orbiting a gas giant in the habitable zone is an interesting possibility. The gas giant might do the right thing to the moon to stabilize its axis and protect it from space debris (but, then, it might do other bad things).
Extra-terrestrial life, not Extra-terrestrial intelligence. Didn't they find proof of bacteria on Mars? That counts as extra-terrestrial life too.
Help find a cure for cancer!
DAMN! you beat me to the Ihre ganze Unterseite sind gehören uns
More subtle problems may also exist. For instance, heavy elements may be comparatively scarce in such systems. Nor is there any particular reason to think that to the inhabitants of a Ganymede, Europa or Titan look particularly comfortable or appealing; moons of the same planet can be quite radically different.
I'm just glad there's something past Uranus. I mean, I need all the protection I can get.
------ 1001001
well, the aliens would of course have words for 10-15, and thus words for 0x10-0xF0, of course. they'd probably be systematic, and thus much better. as for multiplication tables...oh well. i'd like to get my hex tables down, but i don't think it'll happen.
--how long till the operators are jailed for anime-induced pedophelia and
and with their simpler code and more useful radix, hopefully they'll destroy us decimal using humans.
--how long till the operators are jailed for anime-induced pedophelia and
The patent would expire by the time anyone could get to these planets and pay royalties.....
I'm curious whether it's true or not that some of these planets are bigger than Jupiter. The reason I'm asking is because I was under the impression that if Jupiter was any more massive it would actually shrink in size due to it's own gravitational pull. --Dan Ost
*sigh* back to work...
That would be 'Sol-3'. And that name has been used plenty.
Let me try this again:
We are currently studying orbits in my mechanics class. The break down is as follows:
e = eccentricity:
If e is greater than 1: Hyperbolic orbit
If e is equal to 1: Parabolic orbit
If e is between 0 and 1: Ellipictal orbit
If e is equal to 0: Circular orbit
* Note that e can not be less than 0 because it means that the energy of the orbiting body is less than the potential energy of the system (If this were the case it would mean the the kinetic energy is negative, which is not possible).
Please mod this up, and mode the poorly written version down.
Actually, the newly discovered planet orbiting in the star HD 28185's habitable zone has a fairly low eccentricity of 0.06. For reference, the eccentricity of Earth's and Mars' orbits are 0.0016 and 0.093, respectively. See this diagram and table for more details.
--Chris
http://www.shatters.net/~claurel
It seems that the star around which that "habitable zone" planet revolves (iota Hor) is 56 light years away.
Think about that for a second - flat out at the speed of light, and it takes you 56 years to get there.
It might as well be on the other side of the universe.
Space travel sucks. Why couldn't Sol be in a nice, tightly packed, globular cluster?
Want to learn about race cars? Read my Book
Note that one of the preconditions to life is that there are various cycles.
waves 0.1s
waves 1s
waves 10s
tides ~ 0.5d
day/night 1.0d
moon 4w
summer/winter 1 y
Solar cycle ~ 11 y
ice ages 10k y
???? 23M y
All these cycles make sure that at least at one point in the cycle, the conditions are "good" to cause life to start. After that, the conditions are bound to be worse, and evolution is forced to adapt to the worsening conditions.
I speculate that life can only get started/continue going when there are several cycles interfering with each other at different frequencies.....
A nearly circular orbit, like earth, is bad for evolution. Some excentricity is good.
Roger.
The current technology also is limited to close-in fast moving palnets. You usually have to observe two orbital cycles to verify the result.
So slower orbits, on the order of a year or more haven't really been looked for yet due to the
time and cost involved.
And they intercepted the first extra-solar communication, in a language still unclear to humans:
f1rs7 p05t!
Scientists are struggling to figure it out.
My excitement turns to depression; launch date: 2012. I hope SETI finds something before then, I just have a hard time thinking that all the big space projects are beyond the scope of a human life span. I wish I could remember his name, there was one guy who lived, he was at the Wright brother's first flight, and then something like 60 years later he was also at the launch of Apollo 11! Fun stuff, I just wish it happened more often.
True, in a system like this the effects of orbital mechanics would be more obvious. However, they would also be a lot harder to characterize. Consider our calendar system: months are easy, weeks are just quarter months. Now, in a moon of a gas giant, what would you use? Even if you pick the most obvious "moon", it's period as viewed from your world wouldn't be a constant.
It would be very hard to develop mathematics in this world.
If you've never read "Nightfall" by Isaac Asimov, I suggest you do so. The Good Doctor covers this item in great detail.
www.eFax.com are spammers
The problem with either method is what you do when you discover a shy little planet that you hadn't noticed before? Renumber all the planets? That's why I suspect that it would be more realistic to number planets large to small, or in order of discovery (which would probably be the same order anyway).
Of course planets usually have moons, so you've got to add decimals to your numbers, or append a letter.
--
Slashdot monitor for your Mozilla sidebar or Active Desktop.
Well... there's always the StarTrek approach: Aldebaran-5, Ceti-alpha 6, etc. In other words, the name of the star followed by the number of the planet; although I'm not sure if they were numbering them from the center out, or the fringe in.
Wouldn't it be something if one of the real planets turned out to be like one of the StarTrek planets?
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
I thought Einstein was the one who proved we weren't the center of the universe (and that in fact there was no center of the universe) by disproving the etheral field.
Unless you're talking about the geometric center, or the center of gravity of the universe, in which case, we might be either one of those, or both.
ok then your [sic] infringing on my copyright! Could you as [sic] me next time before STEALING my comments for your own?
That's not the case. True over time Oxygen will combine with other elements, but the existstance of large amounts of "free" Ozygen, is NOT a guarantee that the palanet has or hasn't life.
It is a very strong indicator. The existence of oxygen in the earth atmosphere is so high that it cannot possibly be explained by anything other than life, or perhaps somebody actually producing the stuff industrially (but that would indicate life as well). It is of course a possibility that O2 could be produced randomly much like ozon is produced in the atmosphere, but the concentration of O2 in the atmosphere is so high, that this possibility is pretty much out of the question. We are talking about highly complex processes, in other words: life (or something planned by intelligent creatures, which also means life).
First, we must assume that not all life needs pure oxygen to exist.
Nope, quite the opposite. We assume that some alien life (such as ourselves) needs oxygen to exist. There are of course other possibilities that this method would not find (although we could look for large concentrations of other unstable compounds).
Who's to say that extraterrestial life doesn't "breathe" though photosynthesis? Or are even carbon based lifeforms ?
That's pretty much what we hope for, yes. If that was the case, then the atmosphere would be full of oxygen. As you might be aware of, the earth atmosphere's oxygen is a product of plants doing photosynthesis. So we pretty much hope that aliens '"breathe" though photosynthesis' like life on earth does!
If we are looking for alien life that is not carbon based, we probably won't find it while looking for oxygen. That doesn't mean that the technique is useless. It simply means that we restrict our search to something we can hope to recognize. If we are looking for any kind of unthinkable life (like a Hooloovoo (from hhgttg: a superintelligent shade of blue)), we will never find anything. So in the name of practicality, we start looking for oxygen primarily, and other unstable compounds secundarily. Sounds pretty much like common sense to me.
Second, if there's lot's of Oxygen, is that proof alone that life exists there ? Can You be certain that Oxygen is the ONLY basis of life ? What if the atmosphere is strongly radiated ?
Well, the possibility of 20.9% oxygen being created by chance from radiation is zero. You need complex mechanisms such as photosynthesis to produce oxygen at this level. Just adding some sunlight to a batch of water and CO2 won't do it...
Third, what if the planet is gaseous ? It might have lots of Oxygen, but no Carbon. This could proove to be a very inhospitable place for life to exist.
Life survives surprisingly many places on earth. Bacteria seems to survive quite all right in our atmosphere, so I don't see why they couldn't survive in an all gaseous planet. The lack of carbon would be more troublesome. But tell me when you find a planet with 20% oxygen and no carbon... (I don't think you will!). Having relative masses of 12.01 (C) and 16.00 (O)these two elements will naturally tend to appear in the same places. And in a gaseous planet, most likely in the form of CO2.
"Scientists find new home for Jon Katz and Bill Gates: Indian Government committed to launch schedule later this month" one month later, headlines read ..
"OOPS. Indian rocket slams into Pakistani capital, The casualties in the millions. AOL stock rises on news"
Troll? How many scientific advances were held back by the Catholic church. Wasn't Copernicus afraid of persecution when he discovered that the Earth orbits the Sun rather than the other way around? How many lashes did the publisher of the first English-language bible get? How many old women were burned as witches?
I'm not blaming religion anyway, peabrain - I'm blaming fundamentalism, which is where people believe they can do anything they like and use religion as a justification.
Feudalism was also a part of this fundamentalism, given that the kings/queens believed they had been given absolute authority by God, rather than having ancestors more talented at intrigue than those around them.
Religion is a good thing, but people are very adept at ruining it, and if you think fundamentalism is a good idea, I suggest you move to Afghanistan for a first-hand look at how overuse of God's Word is a bad idea.
The Dark Ages were a factor in this. Had we not been held back by religious fundamentalism for several hundred years we might very well be well into the galactic empire stage by now.
What a clever troll. Let's forget about the black plague and feudalism and blame it all on religion.
//m
Won't be long now before I'm dressed up as a Grey standing on a building with a sign that says "Welcome Friends". 'Course I was voted most likely to get Vaporized by my High School Class.
Commander Taco was greatly dissapointed when it was discovered that the 95% of the lifeforms found on the new planet were carriers of the Trollus FirstPostus gene. He has since removed Seti at Home from his computer.
The Dark Ages were a factor in this. Had we not been held back by religious fundamentalism for several hundred years we might very well be well into the galactic empire stage by now.
The fact that they're part of a system within a system may also nullify this effect. When you're on a moon going around a gas giant with other moons, all going around a star, the observations you would get would make it much harder to convince yourself that you're the centre of the universe. Imagine how much faster our own cosmology might have progressed if Venus or Mars had easily detectable moons, giving mediaeval astronomers a much clearer demonstration of how the Solar System was really organized.
Of course, fundamentalists can come up with an explanation for everything, so who knows. It would be interesting to see what the native fundamentalists of this new system would come up with. :)
The physical state and chemistry of the planet with the highly eccentric orbit would be fascinating. At furthest it is a little closer to its sun than the earth is to our sun. At closest it is about 17 lightseconds away from its sun. That must really kick up storms on the planet, if not outright distort it at times. The atmosphere gets really cooked then allowed to cool on a regular basis. You'd almost expect that the orbit would be unstable. Shades of Darkstar.
If you can't beat them, embrace and extend them.
Planet Express
Planet Badly, Fix It In Implementation
LB 426 Is A Rock
This IS Ceti Alpha Five!
This Planet Intentionally Left Blank
Source Of The Bug Scourge
God Like Being Retirement Planet (Thank You For Not Talking About Alternative Universes)
What Do You Mean We're Detecting An Energy Surge On The Planet's Surfa...
We Made It! (Pending Legal Action With Larry Niven)
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
NASA, my friend, is an example of a government program that is doing this country a FAVOR on multiple levels. First and foremost, the science that NASA's programs have returned over the last thirty years have expanded our understanding of the world and universe around us more than you probably even realize. Since there is no equivalent private organization with launch and science research capabillities, we'd still be in the cosmological dark ages without a space program. To answer your socio-political attack of NASA: Yes, I agree that there are millions of people on this little world of ours who are starving. And yes, I realize that the obvious solution is to pull the plug on the space program and spend that money to feed the less fortunate. But think about this: NASA's programs create a LOT of jobs, that in turn create many other jobs! In addition, NASA projects tend to turn out new technologies that trickle down into public life. So the quesiton becomes this...do we: A) Take $14.5B/year and just give it away to the poor? -or- B) Run a space program that creates jobs (that in turn creates other jobs...more engineers means more managers, means more secretaries, means increased sales of raw materials and office supplies, means increased sales of of other products through trickle down from NASA to corporate to employee to salesperson that employee buys from), generates lots of useful products as a side effect of its existence, inspires schoolchildren to excel in math and science, AND expands our knowledge of the universe? I think the choice is obvious.
So, we're a Sun-3.
If tits were wings it'd be flying around.
Neptune was the only planet to be found by mathematical prediction from anomalies in Jupiter and Saturn orbits. The first six planets were known from ancient times by eye. Uranus was accidently discovered with early telescopes. Mathematicians predicted another planet beyond Neptune. Pluto was found during a search for this planet, but it was too small and in the wrong place compared to mathematical predictions. A few die-hards hold out for another solar planet.
It's pretty much accepted that we're all made of dead stars. What I hadn't realized is that mere supernovas don't readily explain the relative abundance of heavy metals we seem to have in the solar system.
Yesterday on NPR they had a piece about a researcher who has apparently determined that the more abundant heavy metals come from a collision between neutron stars. The elemental distribution we enjoy in our solar system requires both previous supernovas and neutron star collisions in order to exist. At least according to this researcher.
Makes you wonder about SETI. Also makes you wonder if the more abundant heavier elements are necessary for life, for advanced life, for intelligent life, or for technology-using (maybe intelligent too, unlike Earth) life.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
The Dark Ages were a factor in this. Had we not been held back by religious fundamentalism for several hundred years we might very well be well into the galactic empire stage by now. Another civilisation may not have had these problems, nor had a space race that depended more on nationalism and value for tax money than scientific advancement and exploration. Only time will tell. I doubt that the Star Trek future is very likely for us, since learning from history is not a human trait.
The new list includes 2 multiple planet systems, one planet with an orbital eccentricity of .93, and another in a nearly circular orbit near its star's habitable zone.
p lanets/ecc.html for more information on this.
For those of you who don't know what orbital eccentricity is, it is a measure of how much an orbit deviates from being a perfect circle. IOW, the planet in question here has a very elliptical orbit, which is not close at all to being circular. See http://www-astro.phast.umass.edu/courseware/java/
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The AOL-Time Warner-Microsoft-Intel-CBS-ABC-NBC-Fox corporation:
I pledge allegiance to the flag...
of the Corporate States of America...
First Planet: God.
Second Planet: ...
Well, that exhausts those possibilities. So much for monotheism.
Mod me Mad
Given the last item -- "a giant planet moving in an orbit around its Sun-like central star that is very similar to the one of the Earth and whose potential satellites (in theory, at least) might be "habitable"" -- I wonder not about how we humans might live there, but how life might evolve there.
In particular, I wonder if advanced space travel might develop at a faster evolutionary rate given several habitable planet-sized moons in close proximity. After all, great advances in technology are usually composed of thousands of small steps and an occasional leap. Starting from Earth, there are no close-by habitable locations, so we focus on making one great leap after another. Our drive to explore overrides reasons to return to the same spots again and again. That's not very efficient or productive in terms of developing travel technology. If the Moon, Mars, and Venus were all habitable, the amount of repetitive space travel we'd be engaged in would result in rapid incremental improvement in travel technology.
Racetrack demons start by going really fast around the block when they're little kids, and speeding up with every step. But here we are, stuck in a celestial backwater with nowhere to go nearby, so our first toddling steps involve building and driving the equivalent of a long-haul truck. I'd lay my money on us being visited far sooner than us finding/visiting another travel-capable race.
I think not...(*poof*)
The naming planets after Greek Gods thing has been done to death. I say we adapt it to modern times and start naming planets after modern Gods. Planet Carmack, anyone?
I'm still waiting for the new, better detection methods that will allow us to actually find Earth-sized planets in their normal orbits. Not only that, but future missions will be able to tell the composition of the atmosphere around these planets - and if they find an atmosphere a lot like ours, that would be the first concrete evidence towards extrasolar life.
main(c,r){for(r=32;r;) printf(++c>31?c=!r--,"\n":c<r?" ":~c&r?" `":" #");}