Planetary System Similar to Sol Discovered

Anonymous Coward writes: "The Washington Post is carrying its own copy about a planetary system very similar to Sol in the Big Dipper. 47 Ursae Majoris has at least two large gas giants in circular orbits, similar to many of Sol's satellites, and the possibility exists for smaller, currently undetectable rocky planets closer to the primary. Circular orbits are less common than highly elliptical orbits, and are more promising. Read the whole article to find out why."

Comments

Re:Why look?

[stevelinton]

Of course, this isn't what you do. You say.

"Hi, we think we have detected someone who might be able to receive this message. Here are 90 years of transmissions from our encyclopedias, archives, libraries, etc., with lots of redundancy, various frequencies etc. etc."

90 years later, if all goes well, you start receiving replies like

"Hey, good to talk, we've decoded your language primers. Here are our encyclopedias etc."

Then a few months later

"Based on what you've sent so far, we'd like to hear more about fly fishing, barbecue cookery and string theory (or whatever). We're also starting to skip the basic physics in our encyclopedias where it matches up with what you're telling us you already know."

If you haven't already sent the requested info, you slip it in when the question arrives.

It's not exactly a conversation, but if both sides are willing, you can learn a lot about one another in a couple of centuries.

Why look?

[DarkHelmet]

Yes, there might be life. There might be signs of biological life on a planet that's far away. But what's the point? The only confirmed life on other planets far away will be from "Intellegent Life" (Meaning they have access to radios). And even if communication is possible, there's a latency of 45 years just to say hello back and forth.

"Hi" (45yrs)
"Hi" (90yrs)
"How are you?" (135yrs)
"We're fine on this planet, how are you?" (180yrs)
"We're doing okay. Too bad the person who originally sent you this message is dead now." (225yrs)
Our condolences. (270yrs)

Looking for life this way is not only difficult, but nearly futile. Anything lower than 20th century technology on their side and they won't hear us. Anything greater than 21st technology and chances are they'll find us a LOT sooner than we'll find them.

That, and they'll be using something other than radio waves to communicate. Maybe I'm just dreaming.

Either that, or bend space just to send an alien over here to bitchslap us and tell us how silly we are.

While you're at it...

[Gen-GNU]

I am going on the assumption that the above comment was not an attempt at humor. If it was...well, I must be too tired..however, if it wasn't...

Why should we bother wasting time exploring space when the world we live on is not perfect? You're right, it costs money, and there is not immediate gain to discoveries like this. However, there are several good reasons.

Firstly, I suggest you watch the show connections sometime. It's a wonderful show for history if nothing else. In it, the narrator shows how each invention or discovery led to others, building the very foundation of knowledge without which the current world you live in would not be possible. Many of the inventions in that chain were considered, at the time, to be useless. Impractical. A novelty at best. However, when applied with some other idea (or 2) from other people it blossomed into a very useful invention.

So how does this discovery help us? Directly, not at all. But indirectly, it may be very important. Remember the story within the last few days here on /. about those astronamers who were trying to prove that constants changed over time, and thus help string theory? If the advances made by others needing to look farther into space, for things exactly like this discovery, were not made, that may have never been possible.

Another reason we should do this is that it helps explore, discover, and explain our universe.

Societies are judged, from a historical standpoint, by the advancements they make for humanity. Think of what Rome is remembered for. The roads they made which allowed trade across great distances. The aquaducts, etc. These were made possible by taxes, just like NASA is today.

We have the ability to explore more of the universe than anyone in history. Does this mean we should do it to the exclusion of helping suffering in the world? No. But it does mean that if we have the ability, and resources, and do nothing with it, we will be holding back progress which could ultimately help humanity expand it's knowledge of the universe we live in. And personally, I am willing to give a few tax dollars to that.

Re:Too bad

[bonoboy]

Here's a thing not really talked about. If a moon of a large planet harbours life, they'd have to be orbiting in a perpindicular plane to the rest of the solar system to sustain it. Pretty unlikely. And if they weren't, they'd disappear behind the planet every 'night' for long periods. Hence, you've got a moon with huge long nights, freezing the planet, and long hot days. The only way round it is an incredibly fast orbit, which would stuff everything up. Am I missing something here?

killing serious discussion

[emir]

i'm probably going to be modded down for this post but i'm going to post it anyway.

why does discussions about any science/space article has to be ruined by people who do nothing else but posts idiotic comments that has nothing to do with the article, and then some even greater idiot mods them up and we end up having like 10 comments who are at 5 Funny ? This usually kills all serious discussion on the subject. There are actually people who prefer to read something smart and not just your idiotic comments.

Goto segfault.org and be funny there!!! stop posting if you dont have anything serious to say!!!