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Signs Of Water Found On Distant Planets
nphillips writes "According to this article at CNN, an Italian team has found evidence of water on three planetary systems. The team used a 32-meter radio telescope to search for water maser emissions, telltale microwaves which could indicate water in a planet's atmosphere when it is bathed in the infrared light of its star."
Its cool they found a method for finding water on other planets, but its no surprise that their is water, what earth was the only planet in the universe to be hit by a comet ;)
Those Italians are so fond of their wansy pansy "aqua minerale" and stupid diet food. Give
that R&D money to our Irish astronomers and they will find planets with beer and whiskey.
Looks a little like Jupiter, if you ask me ....
note: the Italian team was unable to find signs of interstellar beer, which signifies that there is indeed no intelligent life out there.
Eh wrong. Keep looking for at all the planets you can for signs of life. That's the fastest way to get a look at new propulsion systems. Here's my reasoning:
When we find them, beam them transmissions of Britney Spears Pepsi Commericals, Back Street Boys, and American Idol. They'll use their fancy propulsion systems to come over here to say hi...
Extra bonus, we'll probably get to see their fancy ray guns shortly their after as they wipe us from the slate of universal existence...
Yet another reason for "And don't forget to bring a towel!"
Most of what we know about the universe has been found out right here on Earth by analyzing light spectra. The "what's the point if we can't go there" attitude isn't beneficial to anyone. The more information we have, the more comprehensive our theories about the universe will be.
"We shall party like the Greeks of old! You know the ones I mean." - HedonismBot
That is not true, there is strong evidence that Water exists at the poles of Mars and on Europa. In fact, there is evidence that water exists at the poles of the Moon, and Mercury as well.
But it frustrates me that so many scientists always seem to believe that water in a liquid form is a necessity of life. Just because it was required in our form of life doesn't mean that there aren't silicon-based life forms out there, or bacteria that thrive in environments other than H20.
I drink to prepare for a fight; tonight I'm very prepared. -Soda Popinksi
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Read Rare Earth, it shows that water has been found on some distant planets (or variations thereof). My personal take is that life is out there, but in extremaphile form (simple life forms that can exist in extremely hot/cold environments, live off sulfur, etc...)
I wonder if they only look for water? Wouldn't there be other elements they could detect using the same methods?
Most extrasolar planets are less than 150 light years away which is nothing in geologic time. Refer to The Extrasolar Planets Encyclopaedia for more information. The finding of the 100th extrasolar planet was reported yesterday.
Another CNN 'science' article about some guy who *MAY* have found something that *COULD* be important. *POSSIBLE* *MAYBE* *SORTA* *KINDA*
They're always so eager to publish anything by anyone in a lab coat who's in need of funding.
And of course there's nothing informative to explain what the story means.
Ie; What the hell is a maser? What does it emit? Am I the only one reading CNN that isn't an astrophysisist?
And inevitably, a few days later, they publish a 'follow-up' article which retracts everything they said. "Meteor to hit earth in 3 days!" "Another Moon Found" "Meteor actually not going to hit earth" "Moon is really dog-doo on a stick"
Meh.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
Well if you drink too much, you either fall flat on your face, staring into a planet;
That's how I found planet Earth! Don't quite remember where I came from... I do remember that planets smell kind of funny. And they have bits of sausage on them. And cucumber. Definately cucumber. Well known scientific fact.
"I have opinions of my own, strong opinions, but I don't always agree with them." -- George H. W. Bush
This is atmospheric water, not surface water that they have, presumably, found. Mars has only a tiny bit of water in its atmosphere, just 210 parts per million. Europa has practially no atmosphere at all, just a tenuous one of oxygen at 1e-11 bar of pressure. If we find a planet with more water in its atmosphere than Mars or Europa, it will be at least the second most watery planet we know of!
$#!^ happens, but why does it always have to happen to me???
Ie; What the hell is a maser? What does it emit? Am I the only one reading CNN that isn't an astrophysisist?
A "maser" is the microwave equivalent of a laser, operating on rotational energy states instead of vibrational states or electron shell jumps. Ammonia is what was used in the first maser built on earth, but other chemicals work too.
Maser action occurs naturally under various conditions. The one I remember reading about was maser emissions from the outer envelopes of (if I recall correctly) red giant stars, as these are cool enough to have molecular matter instead of plasma in the outermost layers.
Detection of a water maser in a distant star system definitely indicates that water is there. Whether it's in the upper atmospheres of planets or just in the outer layers of the host star is another question.
"But it frustrates me that so many scientists always seem to believe that water in a liquid form is a necessity of life."
...
Scientists do not have to believe anything that was not proven yet. Put out a theory that can be tested and maybe then you'll have the right to get frustrated with people who always require some kind of evidence to exist before they start believing in things that they have not seen or proven theoretically.
Water is the best solvent known to our kind that stays liquid between degrees 0C and 100C at ground atmospheric pressure and protected by layer of ozone from various types of radiation from being broken down into oxygen and hydrogen by high energy elements.
There are other types of chemicals that can become solvents: Ammonia, for example melts at negative 77C and boils at negative 33.5C So it is not impossible to use ammonia as a solvent at lower temperatures to do the same things water does at our temperatures. However, notice that with ammonia as a solvent, the actual energy in the system is much lower than in the system at higher temperatures. Thus the chemical reactions will happen much slower if ammonia is used as a solvent at lower temperatures. On the other hand, at higher temperatures some forms of liquid metal can be used as solvents, the problem with those is that at such temperatures things burn. Of-course here comes silicon. Silicon is known to be almost as good at creating long chains as carbon, but not exactly as good. In nature long carbon chains are much more prevalent than long silicon chains, in space we find alcohol molecules - a mix of hydrogen, oxygen and carbon atoms. B.T.W. Carbon is a much more common element in the universe than silicon:
4 1H --> 4He.
3 4He --> 12C.
12C + 4He --> 16O.
12C + 12C --> 24Mg.
etc. making 28Si, 32S,
This is the life of main sequence star, where every next stage is less possible and is much shorter than the previous one and every next stage requires more energy (pressure-temperature) to continue the thermonuclear reactions going. Carbon in these reactions are found much earlier than silicon thus there is more carbon in the universe than there is silicon.
Anyway, my point is that there is no reason to get frustrated with scientists. The science will explain everything to us in due time.
Cheers.
You can't handle the truth.
But it frustrates me that so many scientists always seem to believe that water in a liquid form is a necessity of life. Just because it was required in our form of life doesn't mean that there aren't silicon-based life forms out there, or bacteria that thrive in environments other than H20.
It turns out that water has a number of unusual properties that makes it very friendly to life compared to most other substances.
Among other things, it's a wonderful solvent, and water ice is less dense than liquid water (meaning that a pond freezes _over_, leaving habitable liquid water underneath, instead of freezing solid from the bottom up).
While you can make a strong argument for life being _possible_ in other media, it certainly seems to be most _likely_ to occur in a water-based environment.
Also, finding a world that can support water-based life would be one hell of a PR boost, as it makes the general public consider the possibility of human colonies there (practical or not). An environment habitable to silicate bugs doesn't quite grab the cultural imagination the same way.
But it frustrates me that so many scientists always seem to believe that water in a liquid form is a necessity of life.
Of course I know nothing about what is necessary for life. But water is a really unique chemical. Because of the hydrogen bridges, many salts dissolve (ionize) very easily in water, and not in other chemicals.If you can't ionize salts, there is a large number of elements that you just can't use as a primitive life form because it'll remain rock. It's not so unreasonable to assume that complex life is very unlikely without water.
I believe posters are recognized by their sig. So I made one.
What the hell is a maser? Microwave Amplification by Stimulation Emission of Radiation.
What does it emit? Photons. Actually, if you don't know which particle some phenomenon emits, answering "photons" gives you the best chance to be right.
Am I the only one reading CNN that isn't an astrophysisist? Probably. This is Slashdot. Those of us who do not hold a degree in astrophysics could, if we wanted to, but then again we don't and couldn't care less, but that has never kept our mouths shut about anything, has it? Just assume every post starts with a virtual IANAA, except were noticed otherwise.
karma police: arrest this man, he talks in maths; he buzzes like a fridge, he's like a detuned radio. [radiohead]
CNN really sucks about things like this. The New Scientist article is much better.
The books posit life evolving on the surface of a neutron star. Some of the consequences include an almost unimaginable difference in timescales - a few minutes in our perception are equivalent to centuries of time on the surface of the neutron star, and the very process of studying the evolving intelligent life their ends up motivating that life's progress into high technology and space travel. I won't give away much more of the books, but I'll suggest it as some of the best Mind Candy I've read in a while.
I would say that is a pretty direct detection, as Charbonneau et al. have even detected sodium in the atmosphere of that planet.
The issue you are talking about concerns one star out of close to a hundred with planet candidates. Don't be so quick to dismiss some very nice work that people (several independent groups) have been doing for years now. You start to sound like a crank
Human genome = 3 billion base pairs = 6 GBit. Windows + Office = 20 Gbit. Which is more impressive?
I just want to let you know, that most of what you said went through one hemisphere and out the other - however, since you started stating chemical formulas, i'm going to stand here and look impressed.
Lalande 21185: No paper reporting a planet around this star has yet been published, although there was a "SORTA KINDA" statement made about 5 years ago.
Eps Eri: Is a maybe planet. See here
The planets around Upsilon Andromedae are however not in question. But it is not clear from the article that they are detecting masers on each (or any) of the planets. They should be able to detect clear periodic doppler signals as each of the planets orbits.