Slashdot Mirror
Dusty Disc May Mean Other Earths
DoraLives writes "According to the BBC, astronomers say they have evidence for Earth-like planets orbiting a nearby star. The star in question is Vega, which is nice and close (as stars go), quite young (also as stars go), and one of the brightest stars in the sky. Apparently, 'Vega has a disc of dust circling it, and at least one large planet which could sweep debris aside allowing smaller worlds like Earth to exist.' Should be interesting to keep an eye on it as the years roll by as the disk rotates and our optical powers keep growing."
If it does have an Earth-type planet, it'll probably be inhabited by a bunch of beings that look like my late father... that's barely worth the trip out there, or an hour and half.
I'm tired of bombing the universe
Then the arms race starts.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
She's the Expert on going to Vega....
Vegans really ARE aliens from another solar system!
I'm off to eat some meat.
I claim first use of "Error No. 0B" - or "No. 0B error." It'll be the new ID 10T!
not all that earthlike
-- your Web browser is Ronald Reagan
Vega is only 25 light years away, so they'd be looking at the 70's. Of course, once they hear Disco, they'll probably decide nothing of value could have ever come from our system.
It should be illegal to say that freedom of speech should be limited.
"i hate the fact that we cannot see the planets right now and can only see its past. for all we know they are looking back at us on earth back in 5000bc going nope no life."
no, actually, they'd be looking at us in 1978 and saying "dude, check out the shitty clothes."
Vega is where the message was relayed to earth from in Contact, perhaps rather than just relayed, it will actually be FROM Vega :-)
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
The likelihood of other meaningful life in the Universe just got better. And I for one welcome the possibility.
Try not. Do or do not, there is no try.
-- Dr. Spock, stardate 2822-3.
But this certainly seems to be the most promising.
I'm still all about developing a means of getting us out there to explore these places.
Plus, it would certainly be nice to finally find a backup for our planet. You can't tell me there aren't at least a few people out there who have been rather alarmed at all of our recent unexpected solar activity.
Damon,
http://actionPlant.com
Will everyone else now belive me that Carl Sagan may know more than he is letting on?
120 chars of filth!
Except, Vega isn't 7000 light years away. It's only 25 light years away. They're seeing the seventies. This is an even more frightening thought.
Here are Terrestrial Planet Finder links at:
I kind of doubt anyone there is looking at us right now. From the (somewhat fuzzy) description in the article, it sounds like what we're observing is a disc of dust surrounding Vega with proto-planets forming within it. It was probably several hundred million years after the Solar System passed through that phase before life even got started on Earth. According to currently accepted models of planetary formation, those proto-planets would be pretty hellish places right now; their surfaces will be blazing hot and suffering constant bombardment by other, slightly smaller bodies. Being anywhere on the surface of one would be like being at Ground Zero of a massive nuclear strike.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
... they'd be laughed off the stage.
Seriously, there's a chance that a big planet might have cleared enough space so as to not preclude the existence of a planet the same size as ours
CALL THE PRESIDENT! THE ALIENS ARE COMING!!
foo mane padme hum
Apparently everybody is thinking of earth-like planets and stuff. Sorry, but NO.
1 - Vega is 25 light-years away. That's around the corner and "today" in astronomical terms
2 - Carl Sagan picked Vega not because of planets, but because there were none, just a bunch of dust... There was a RELAY there, not aliens...
3 - The news actually said about process that could happen; a balance between a dusty ring and an outer planet...
how long until
I am SO depressed that all the /. crowd can come up with are lame Contact references.
YOU CALL YOURSELVES GEEKS! DROP AND GIVE ME TWENTY!
Vega, as ALL REAL GEEKS know, was the home of Mother Thing of Robert Heinlein's "Have Space Suit, Will Travel".
And if they are watching Earth circa 1978, we'd better be damn thankful they don't rotate us 90 degrees just on general principles!
www.eFax.com are spammers
Vega was the source of the extraterrestrial signal in Carl Sagan's "Cosmos."
You mean "Contact," surely. And unfortunately, although it was the source of the signal, the system itself contained no life. So I don't think we can draw any parallels here.
Accountability on the heads of the powerful.
Power in the hands of the accountable.
There is no scientific theory that disproves it, so why not?
What makes you believe that you/we are the most intelligent and important civillisation in the universe? The universe is pretty big, and that's a very arrogant assumption to make.
Now all we need is Jodie Foster to point all of her radio telescopes toward it, and we'll be having corporate sponsored alien space travel devices in no time.
0110100100100000011000010110110100100000011000100
The article suggests that Vega is only 350 million years old. Moreover, at about 3 times the mass of the Sun, the lifespan of Vega will only be about 1 billion years. Given that it took about 3.5 billion years for life to get going, it seems unlikely that planets around Vega have (or ever could have) interesting lifeforms, even if an Earth-like planet is present.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
-Since the Vega system is very young, any terrestrial planets will probably not yet be in a "finished" state, but will still be busy accreting smaller planetesimals- for the Earth, this initial process might have taken 30 million years. Also, any such planets will not have finished differentiating into a core, a mantle and a crust.
If you send a probe there, it will not be able to find a cool surface on any of the larger planetesimals (growing proto-planets).
The Vega system is interesting because it provides a snapshot of the early phase of planet formation.
If you want to make a "Star Trek" style tour of a system, landing on the planets and checking for the presence of life, you need to find a more "mature" system, where the planetary crusts have had time to cool off, and where most of the orbiting debris has alredy been swept up by planets.
One other interesting point about the Vega system though: It is bound to have an amazing number of large, highly visible comets ! In mature systems, most comets have either been kicked out to the Oort cloud or crashed into a planet.
Yours Birger Johansson Sweden
[...] their surfaces will be blazing hot and suffering constant bombardment by other, slightly smaller bodies.
So...not unlike my ex-girlfriend, then.
"i hate the fact that we cannot see the planets right now and can only see its past. for all we know they are looking back at us on earth back in 5000bc going nope no life."
Nar aliens have tachyon telescopes. They can see us in real time. They're watching us sitting around Slashdot and going "nope, no life."
"Derp de derp."
I thought I'd be the first one with a Contact joke. Seems I'm one of the last.
By Earthlike I believe they mean terrestrial; a rocky world, as opposed to a gas giant.
Other known terrestrial worlds include baked-out Mercury, greenhouse-wracked Venus, and dry, cold Mars. Most people would not consider these "Earthlike" in the Star Trek Class M sense of the word.
That said: Even given the existence of terrestrial planets, Vega isn't a great place to go looking for a habitable, life-bearing world. It's a bright, hot star, which also means that it is a short-lived star. In a few hundred million years, when its potential planets begin to cool to the point where water would condense, Vega would be getting ready to wander off the main sequence and get way unpleasant to be near.
Another strike against life developing on Vega worlds: a greater percentage of its energy output would be in "bluer" wavelengths, including UV. Once it got started, life might adapt to UV, but to get started in the first place it needs some stability. I can see a influx of UV ripping apart delicate chemical chains in Vega Prime's oceans, greatly reducing the chance that life would get a foothold.
All this said, this is hopeful news, because the existence of one planet-forming debris field means there are probably others . . . some around more genial F and G and K class stars.
Stefan
Earth is a proper noun, no amount of dust is going to result in other earth's. Maybe earth-like or m-class or whatever you want to call them, but other earth's doesn't make sense in the same way other solar systems doesn't make sense.
First, there was plenty of life in 5000 BC. In fact, there was plenty of life in 1000000000 BC.
Second, Vega is only 25 lightyears away, meaning that the horrid bug-eyed Vegans are peering through their observoscopes and lusting after Farrah Fawcett.
When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a skull.
Should be interesting to keep an eye on it as the years roll by
Yes, because the 1st billion years (or so, give or take a couple hundred million) of Earth's existance were oh so exciting. And don't even get me started about the 2nd billion! Wow!
And the third billion... oh, my, god!
As the years roll by? What is that supposed to mean? That maybe, we might be lucky enough to see a planet form over the next 100 million generations or so? Wooppee!
I'll be excited when someone turns that slideshow into an animated GIF, ok?
Casual Games/Downloads
They would probably be more interested in the political situation. They would be watching the throes of the Nixon impeachment crisis in the West, China would still be in the middle of the cultural revolution, Vietnam would have ended but only just. The USSR would be in mid collapse. Latin America is run by cliques of corrupt generals who murder tens of thousands (Pinochet) or hundreds of thousands (Argentina).
There has just been a war in the middle east. The Iranians are about to kick out the Shah (a brutal thug on a par with Saddam Hussein) and the Ayatolah would appear soon after to pervert the democratic revolution the same way Lenin appeared on the scene in Russia after the Tzar was deposed.
Things don't get any better for quite a while and they get worse before they get better. The nuclear arms race accelerates, the US and the USSR are engaged in a series of proxy wars that appear likely to turn nuclear. If you look at the situation from the outside even the events of 1989 might be considered evidence of further instability rather than a good sign.
On the whole I don't think that they are going to be avoiding talking to us just because of the disco music...
I think we should get our act together globally before we start to try to join extra-terrestrial clubs. If there is anyone out there worth talking to they already know about us.
Looking for an Information Security student project suggestion?
Try http://dotcrimeManifesto.com/
There's got to to be lots more where this came from. This particular sample was a lucky find, being a mere 25 light-years away. Could this lead to predicting similar (or better) environments beyond such easy eyeshot?
Hm, given that Vega is 2.3935E14 km away and that Voyager I is travelling at 62500 km/h, a probe sent there will be travelling for about 437169 years. So maybe, by the time it gets there the planet will be ready :-)
They would be watching the throes of the Nixon impeachment crisis in the West....
No they wouldn't, they'd be looking at Jane Fondas tits!
As opposed to the garden-variety, non-massive nuclear strike?
Well, yeah, actually. Like what would have happened to Washington and Moscow if the Cold War had gone hot, as opposed to what happened to Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Not just one big boom, but a whole lot of them, one after another, until absolutely nothing is left.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
Don't they mean a 'Class M' planet?
Drill baby drill - on Mars
with these new planets forming, one day (assuming we're still alive and havent killed each other off like morons) we'll be receiving radio signals asking if they're alone or not in the universe.. :P
This is an all-too-common example of sloppy BBC reporting. Evidence of Earth-like planets at Vega has not been found. What's been found is a dust disk that conforms to theories that very large planets ormed early in a system's development will migrate to larger orbits, dragging a lot of debris that would otherwise crash on small planets and inhibit life there. (Still a lot of rocks left over to crash and burn, though. Take a look at all those craters on the Moon. Earth would look the same, if not for erosion.)
Good news, though, but not as good as imaging a small planet and getting positive results for water, oxygen and methane.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
the horrid bug-eyed Vegans ...and that's why meat and dairy are important parts of a well balanced diet.
=Smidge=
So...not unlike my ex-girlfriend, then.
:-)
You sir, truly live up to your name.
Higher Logics: where programming meets science.
That's a good thing, because I don't want to have to remember any new kings. (ref., Futurama)
I think the real threat to our planet is ourselves, not our sun.
I think you ment biosphere, not planet
Thus, I hope we do not find a backup planet. I hope this is it.
If we foul our planet to the point it is unlivable, we deserve our fate.
First, IMHO this is utterly wrong factually: once a society colonizes
space, all it'll need is energy and materials. I suggest that actually
there may be few solar systems which are completely uninhabitable.
Second, from the pragmatic POV, this sounds to me like morality gone
completely insane: are you truly sugesting that you'd willfully risk
total genocide for humanity (and its surrounding biological system, BTW)
just because you think we "deserve it" ?
That's the largest-scale suicidal philosophy I have ever seen.
Not, of course, that I am in any position to affect change on this issue. Either a habitable planet is in range or not. Either we find it, or not.
Wrong. In fact, for a single individual, a researcher may be in one
of the best positions to affect humanity's future course.
Certainly we should try.
To this I agree
I just hope it is not too easy to leave Earth for the rich and powerful.
Why not ? if it'll easy for them in several decades, it'll probably
be easy for others later.
And anyway, don't worry. Space travel is going to be risky buisness
for a long time. If a rich and powerful person is willing to take on
personal risks to explore a new fronteer, he/she'll probably be
exactly the kind of person needed up there.
Working for necessity's mother.
Vegans (pronounced 'vee-gan') don't eat meat.
Vegans (pronounced 'vay-gan') love nothing more than the mouthwatering taste of human flesh.