Slashdot Mirror
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."
I wonder if one of them is the planet of the apes.....Oh wait staue of libetry AGGGGGGGh that was earth!!!
To see what kind of planets they are, what kind of systems etc. anyone have a link to specific data?
Probably just the ones in our solar system......
Too bad Congress is pretty much convinced to let the Hubble die...
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
A hundred new specs of dust on the lens.
http://siokaos.org/
Hate to say it; I'm with the folks who would prefer to explore by robot and orbiting camera first. That buys us time to do a a nanotube 'beanstalk' right.
What a shame that the only thing that has frequently motivated us to look to the skies and spend the money to get there is fear and politics.
RMW
flames > dev/null
As a long time follower of our space exploits, I was dismayed when NASA announced their plans to not service hubble. When the massive outcry came forth, they were smart and decided to do the robotic mission thing. My two cents on this matter: we can learn more from using telescopes such as hubble than we can by going back to the effing moon. This article shows that, even after all these years, hubble is a key part of our space exploration program - and it should stay that way.
Its all fun and games until someone loses an eye... then its just fun.
Good think O'Keefe is going to let it fall out of the sky, because I want to have a time when Hubble doesn't see something that vastly increases our knowlege of the surrounding universe again...
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
Clearly its just trying to pad its resume now that the axe has fallen. -C
Yes now I definitely see that we need to be rid of this useless piece of space junk. It does nothing apparently but further our knowledge and increase our view of the universe. Worthless piece of junk.
Are they still planning on scrapping this thing? That would be sad.
Der Tod ist der einzige Weg hier raus!
I wonder if SETI will examine these areas more closely.....
If this doubles the number of known planets, does this make Earth half as significant? I mean, is Earth at all significant in the big scheme of things? I am reminded of that picture from Carl Sagan's book showing Earth as a mere speck against the vastness of space. I think the book was called The Pale Blue Dot. Wow, this makes me feel a lot better about forgetting to pay my phone bill.
Unknown host pong.
That I read about recently that predicts the number of planets which are capable of supporting carbon-based life. Does anyone know where I can find it? The guy that came up with it has used his own numbers/functions to predict that there are some 200,000 (maybe more?) planets in our galaxy alone that can support carbon-based life. Of course, this is all hinges on my memory being correct . . . hmmmmm.
None. If you RTFA, you'll see that the method used is to measure a dimming of a star, which can (but doesn't have to) be from a planet passing in front of it. For this to be measurable over the natural fluctuations of a star, the planet will have to be a giant.
Of course, the precense of one or more giant planets in a system increases the chance of habitable planets, as the giants acts like vacuum cleaners, keeping the smaller ones relatively undisturbed.
Regards,
--
*Art
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 . . .
My very educated mother just served us nine pizzas. -- Call me Ishmael. Some years ago- never mind how long precisely- having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world. It is a way I have of driving off the spleen and regulating the circulation. Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people's hats off- then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can. This is my substitute for pistol and ball. With a philosophical flourish Cato throws himself upon his sword; I quietly take to the ship. There is nothing surprising in this. If they but knew it, almost all men in their degree, some time or other, cherish very nearly the same feelings towards the ocean with me
Is anyone even clear now on how many planets are in just our solar system? We found two more even smaller than pluto but now they're saying not even pluto counts as a planet..so rather than just be like WEE LOOK A ROCK hows about we get some unified standards of some sort
Yeah, getting kids interested in other planets so they study science is a worthless endevor.
...these planets? Is it some kind of spectrum analysis?
Don't be a looter...and yes, I know that it's spelled with an "A" instead of an "E".
Oh please there are much more important things for people in education to focus on then some planet hundreds of light years away. What practical reason would they have for teaching (what little they know) about the contants of a planet's atmosphere in another galaxy.
That was meant to be sarcastic, I hope. If we force education on our childrent to focus solely on the exactly what they need to know to be another cog in the machine, and not a thing more, we will be turning out a generation of proles. Things like "No Child Left Behind" and its emphasis on standardized testing are likely to do just that.
Cosmology teaches us about the joy and wonder of the universe, and impresses us that we are able to gain even a glimmer of an understanding of it. That's enough "practicality" for me, and I sure do hope my little boy learns this in school and not just from me.
To reduce crime, make fewer things against the law.
The discovery will lend support to the idea that almost every sunlike star in our galaxy, and probably the Universe, is accompanied by planets.
If you've ever read anything about star formation the co-effect of planet formation seems a no-brainer. Just eddies in an accretion disk. It would seem more unlikely to me that an accretion disk would perfectly aggregate into a lone star. In fact, you can apply this to other things, such as ring formation, and more sporadically I would imagine, life. The universe is a BIG place.
It's a good thing that we are going to let the Hubble fall into disrepair. All of these new discoveries mean that we will have to keep revising our Science textbooks and that is an expense that our school systems cannot afford. At least when that damn telescope stops working we will can content that we know all that it is possible to know without the burden of having to keep up with these new "facts."
The Tools Of Ignorance wanna be a tool?
Spectral analysis. In some cases, the planet crosses between us and the star, and if it has an atmosphere, then the gasses in the atmosphere will absorb some of the light from the star. Different compounds in the atmosphere will absorb different colors of light, so the colour of the star will appear different to us when the planet is in front of the star. By analysing the colour difference, you can determine the chemical composition of the planet's atmosphere.
A republic cannot succeed till it contains a certain body of men imbued with the principles of justice and honour.
So now all those who have criticised Hubble should be sorry. They have to eat Hubble pie.
This is even beyond Carl Sagan's reasoning of the likleyhood of the existence of life in the Universe. It is hard to imagine the possible abundance of extra terra life, but this theory is reasonable, and this discovery is one step closer to proving it.
I just wish I could be around to witness the presentation of absolute proof that life exists elsewhere in the Universe.
Yep, I teach physics and astronomy at the local community college, and I diffuse such statements at the beginning of each semester. "Are we ever going to use this stuff?" students typically ask physics and math professors at some point during their studies (always at the difficult parts --- no one has objections to learning irrelevant easy stuff). "Nope!" I say, proudly beaming. Teaching astronomy to the general public has no practical value, aside from the (perhaps) 2nd order effect of funding for space missions that help make technological advances. Rather, I hope to teach them how to think critically, expose them to scientific ideas, methods, and principles, and instill some sense of appreciation for the amazing universe we are embedded in. If we stimulate imaginations and a little "shock and awe" at ideas not yet imagined, hopefully that is some slight public service. This is especially important for children, whose romantically large sense of wonder should be occasionally inflated. As Feynman said, "science is like sex; occasionally something practical comes out of it, but that's not the reason we're doing it."
If nobody had ever worked on areas that have no immediate practical purpose, we'd still be focused on optimizing the designs of pointed sticks and stone hammers.
You can also detect planets by watching the way the star dims slightly when it's eclipsed. You can only detect really big planets this way; you wouldn't notice the transit of Venus from that far away.
But once you've found a planet that big, you can look even more closely and see what color changes you observe during the dim period. You can chalk that up to wavelengths of light absorbed by the planet's atmosphere, which you can use to hazard a guess as to what the planet's made of.
In all likelihood it's pretty much the same as Jupiter, which is to say pretty much like the sun itself: mostly hydrogen and some helium. But you might be able to detect faint signals of nitrogen, oxygen, maybe some carbon, and perhaps a bit of ammonia. The ratios of hydrogen to helium will suggest a lot about the way the planet was formed.
I believe the first exoplanet was discovered in 1996, by Marcy and Butler, around 70 Virginis
The up to date list (minus these recent 100) can be found at exoplanets.org
While the BBC News headline is as gung-ho as Slashdot's uncritical echo, the first paragraph contains the key word 'may' ("may have discovered..."), and even the lead scientist admits that some of the planets may not be confirmed.
The BBC article also notes that confirmation may not come "until Fall", not in 'seven days' as you have.
This smells more like a press release than meaningful, peer-reviewed astronomy to me. I suspect it's a piece of "hey, let's keep Hubble" propaganda.
DO NOT LEAVE IT IS NOT REAL
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.
I'm going to go on a short rant here, somewhat inspired by the parent. Feel free to downmod.
It appears to me, at this moment, that the entire US spacd program is becoming as mismanaged as the Russian one. Useful projects are threatened with mothballing, deorbit, and cancellation, while white elephants like the ISS are allowed to suck dollars. Now that I think of it, it is an absolute disgrace that no backup to the manned shuttle program was considered, in the event that disasters like Challenger and Columbia stalled major projects like the ISS and Hubble upgrades. At least the Russians have a working capsule transport system that can carry people to and from space.
I've been led to understand that the proposed Crew Exploration Vehicle will be closer to a single-use capsule than a reusable spaceplane. It occurs to me, after considering the problems caused by the Columbia disaster and the presence of an ongoing, if rickety and bankrupt, Russian transport system, that maybe the old Apollo or Gemini designs should have been dusted off and updated years ago, for just such a situation like this. There is much to be said for a reusable transport system like the shuttle, but diversification is the key for the health and survival of... well, damn near anything. Relying on robots is good in terms of safety and learning how to remotely manipulate machines in space, but if we're going to travel to the Moon, and eventually Mars (and beyond?), we must get people into space, the more the better, to continue learning how to survive and travel in that harsh environment for extended periods.
Despite the hard work of the scientists and engineers at NASA, it seems to me that the American program is in disarray, buried under years of budget cuts and pointless rhetoric from various bureaucrats and politicians. The Russian program will be something of a writeoff until that agency is given a degree of stability and sure access to resources. China's program may very well lead the way to the moon again, but I have no clue just how well that program is being handled, or whether it would survive a collapse of the current authoritarian regime. Europe seems focused on unpiloted probes like Cassini, which as I said is perfectly KO, but for the lack of human interaction. India... who knows, crossing my fingers. Ultimately, we can guess what living on the Moon and during interplanetary transit will be like. We can even make some solid predictions based on our current knowledge ands cience. But, we simply won't know what is really involved in such a massive project as an orbiting construction platform, or a moonbase, until we try it. By "try", I mean dedicate the resources necessary, not the resources demanded by political convenience and pork, which is far less and more wasteful. Some of the nongovernmental efforts may also help keep people going to the stars, freed from the constraints of government bureaucracy and state inertia.*
I'm tired of dicking around, scrambling for dollars while we, as a species, waste billions trying to kill each other. What the hell, might as well launch the nukes now and get it over with. If you want to call me nuts after reading this, you're the ones trying to rationalize the wholesale immolation of millions for... what, exactly?**
Ok, rant over
* I'm not exactly talking about privatization and dividing of space here. I actually hope some non-monetary-profit projects get started. After all, there is more to wealth than dollars and lines on a map (or a contract).
**The "you" in this refers to anyone, in any set of borders, who would rather spend money on guns and bombs than food and exploration. I'm starting to wonder if there is a collective, subconscious psychosis developing among our species. The dolphins may want to make their move soon, whatever that turns out to be.
Someday, you're going to die. Get over it.
That's what I misread this story headline as. I need to start reading some other websites...
Some of the stars observed were seen to dim slightly in brightness. It is thought that a planet passing in front of the star is responsible for the dip in its light output.
Couldn't this "dip" be caused by sunspots?
How many stars did they have to look at to find 100 planets passing in front of 100 stars?
Think about it. Just between the Earth and the Sun, Venus only passes between our line of sight with the sun twice every hundred years (isn't that the correct figure)? I mean, it passes by in inner orbit, but it only actually eclipses the sun twice in that period. The rest of the time, it's either above or below the sun.
Now, with Venus, we're in fairly similar planes of orbit. But with other stars, the odds of the plane being in our line of sight AND a planet happening to pass right between us and the star while they're looking, the odds of that have to be pretty damn low.
I mean, I'm sure they realize this, but I'd have to think they had to look at tens of thousands of stars to catch 100 planets passing by, at least. Am I missing something?
For those who follow this field, I'll remind you of the OGLE project, which has been doing the same thing from the ground. They found 60 likely planetary candidates (out of a similar number of stars monitored), but only two of those actually look like they could be planets. All the rest are either grazing-incidence binaries or blended binaries. The higher resolution of Hubble may help the blend problem to an extent, but I highly doubt the number of actual planets is anywhere near 100.
They also have little chance of confirming whether these are actually planets, as you need to do extremely high-resolution spectroscopy in order to confirm its existence via the radial velocity method. Even Keck can only do that for stars down to ~16th magnitude, and according to the observing proposal, this survey is going down to 23rd. They might be able to get precise-enough light curves to reject false positives based on color-curve changes, but I'd like to see it before I believe it.
Microsoft delenda est!
I'm glad there are still teachers with this attitude out there. Cries of "what practical use is that?" are disheartening. I don't know if it's just that I'm getting older and more cynical, but it seems to be more common. If there isn't an application for a discovery in the next quarter, no one's interested in it.
It's not just the things we may discover that we can't predict that are important, the process of discovery and learning is important. Without the process, we wouldn't have science as we know it. Just a bunch of people running around with alchemy sets and healing crystals.
We need to preserve and pass on the sense of awe and wonder that comes from pursuing knowledge for it's own sake. It teaches us to think, gives us perspective, and allows us to see humanity in a broader context than profits and dominance.
So, from someone who had too many teachers that answered that question with "It will be on the test", thank you.
This is the voice of World Control. I bring you Peace.
In case anyone's interested and prefers a little more science in their science reporting, here's the original proposal (it's a text file):
. pro
http://www.stsci.edu/observing/phase2-public/9750
A big aspect of this proposal *not* mentioned in the BBC article is the importance of metallicity on star formation - in other words, what star environments (old vs. young) form more planets.
There are several methods of detecting extra-solar planets. One of the first was detecting the extremely small wobble of the parent star as the planet orbits it. This works for planets less than the size of a "brown dwarf" (15-80 times the mass of Jupiter) down to around the size of Jupiter. As an example of the size of the wobble we detect, at 10 parsecs from the Sun, the wobble due to the orbit of Jupiter would be something like (if memory serves me correctly) three tenths of an arc-second.
Another method that also uses this wobble measures the Doppler shift of the light from the star as it comes towards us and away from us due to the planet's rotation. According to this paper, these velocities of the star are on the order of meters per second, so we're talking about extremely tiny Doppler shifts.
The method used in this study measures the slight dimming of the light of the star as the planet transits the star. This still generally works for larger, close-in planets. However, by studying the spectrum of the light that comes from the star and passes through the atmosphere of the planet, we can figure out what the atmosphere of the planet is made of.
For much smaller planets, it is possible to detect a slight localized brightening of the parent star when the planet is transiting across it. This brightening is due to the same gravitational lensing that we use to see far-away galaxies. The gravity of the planet focuses the light very slightly near it, and so we see a slightly bright spot on the star. This technique, called gravitational microlensing, has been used to discover planets of roughly the same size as the Earth.
Just because the new instruments capture in InfraRed, doesn't mean you won't get nice images. Scientists will be happy to apply false color techniques to thier data to make it all pretty. Most of the space images you already see are enhanced to bring out or add in the color.
That's not true! (And neither is the person who responded to you...)
:)
The first exoplanets were discovered by Alexander Wolszczan in 1991, around PSR B1257+12.
They're pulsar planets, yes, but they're planets. Give the guy credit.
Story here. Curious that the first discovered planets were Earth-sized. Also the planetary system is very much like Earth's. Dead, yes, but still encouraging.
Unless we find some big loophole that allows us to get around relativity, the earth really is an island to itself, and while it may be one of millions, it is the only one that will ever have any significance whatsoever to us.
Of course, six hundred years ago everyone was convinced that the earth was flat, and that if you sailed too far you'd fall off the edge.
I'll grant that science plays a significantly bigger role these days than it did back then, and that we know a bit more now about how much we don't know, but I still argue that we don't yet know enough to disclaim the possibility of faster-than-light communication or travel.
That said, I'm not overly optimistic about the chances of figuring out FTL in my lifetime, and only slightly more optimistic about the chances of figuring out a way to extend my lifetime until we do figure out FTL (or its impossibility). At the moment I'd put my money on us blowing ourselves up before we get that far . . .
How will we ever reach the Moon and eventually Mars if we're too afraid to launch a Space Shuttle mission to fix the Hubble?
We have a viable space system gathering dust because of a paralyzing fear that something might go wrong on another shuttle mission. Do you think Russia, China, even India are holding their collective breaths waiting for us to make a decision on our space program?
The Apollo fire proved that from crippling failure success can be born. We picked ourselves up, analyzed what went wrong and forged ahead. The crew of Columbia were well aware of the risks of space flight and took those risks willingly.
We've mourned long enough, it's time to fix what's wrong and honor the memories of Columbia by renewing meaningful space science again without fear.