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Hubble Discovers a Hundred New Planets
Spudley writes "The BBC is reporting that the Hubble Telescope has discovered over a hundred new exoplanets - a number which almost doubles the total known. Apparently they are also expecting to be able to analyse the atmospheres of up to 20% of them. The discovery will be confirmed within the next seven days."
The Drake Equation.
So how many of those 200-odd planets that we know of are capable of supporting carbon-based life? You crunch the numbers . . .
Actually, an other space telescope will be brought in space a few years after hubble 'dies', and it will be a lot better. The shuttle incident really caused problems in space explorations. The shuttles are all still locked on the ground (in pieces) and when they will fly again, the ISS will be their only destination. This is the reason why hubble won't be repaired, there is simply no shuttle going that way and they just don't consider the repair is worth a $500 million launch.
But it's not too bad since there will only be a 4 year gab (or so) between both satelites.
Qui ne va pas à la chasse n'a pas de gibier
PHP Queb
This is incorrect, probably based on a misreading of this quote: "If this is confirmed, in seven days we will have doubled the number of planets known in nine years."
The article states that Kailash Sahu, the astronomer who made the discovery, did so during an observation period of seven days. According to the director of the Space Telescope Science Institute, they don't expect final results until September or October.
A moon-based scope has many advantages and disadvantages which should be considered.
/. assumption that anyone working in any field is an idiot? (Every /. story about any new device or invention leads with the usual "I wonder what they're going to do about X," where X is the blindingly obvious thing that any simian would have thought of first - yes, they've thought about it and actually done a calculation!).
They have considered it, thanks. Also scopes on the Antartic high ice cap, and earth-trailing, and at 5 AU, and at L2.
Why is there always an assumption that the folks at NASA are idiots? Or is that just the usual
It's incredibly expensive to softland devices on the moon, compared to orbiting them in space. There's no solar power for two weeks at a time, so you'd have to use nuclear, which limits the amount of power you can get (and nuclear power generators are heavy, so you can't just launch more). Assuming it's a visible wavelength telescope (IR just seems impossible with the temp variations), when you're in the shade, you have to keep things warmed up to room temp, and when you're in the sun, you have to shield them from the sun without blocking your aperture. Being on the moon severely limits pointing capabilities - you have to point where ever the moon is pointing (L2 satellites have to point anti-sun but that's less restrictive). In fact, when the sun is shining down your aperture, can you observe at all? There's no soft lander infrastructure in place (you can't call up Boeing and order a Delta IV with the moon soft landing option), so you'd have to develop that also. It would include landing a multi-ton very precise, irreplaceable mirror and deploying in a gravity field. Just seems like a design, cost, and risk nightmare. All this is robotic of course, unless you also want to pay for the infrastructure to put humans up there. Which would cost about the same as 5 or 10 Hubble equivalents. That would make the telescope the flea on the elephant's back and the first thing to be cut when the inevitable overruns happened.
Now where are the advantages? Or did you just say that because you think there are some but you really haven't thought about what they are, but hey, Hubble on the moon! That sounds cool! Right up there with "move the Hubble to the ISS" in terms of bad choices.