Are We Alone in the Universe?

cynic10508 writes "CNN is running a story about how ours might be a unique solar system. Of the 100+ systems currently known to contain planets, all contain seemingly only gas giants. However, this may be a case of current technology and techniques being unable to detect planets similar to Earth." There are also BBC and Space.com stories.

Comments

Re:Absence of Evidence is not Evidence of Absence

[ave19]

Though the parent to your post was correct, you are off by just a tad.

The basis for the assertion that there's a problem with the model is based on the current population of known extra solar planets. It's almost completely made up of big planets close their stars.

Well, duh.

We have only detected short period orbits because we need to see multiple passes of a planet in front of its start to confirm it's presence. This technique finds the shortest periods first. We have to keep watching to catch the longer periods.

The bigger the planet, the bigger the wobble, the easier the confirmation of the presence of a planet.

Big planets on short orbits are the first off the assembly line.

We have to wait longer to detect longer orbits (if an orbit takes 10 earth years, and we need three passes of the planet to call it a dedection...)

Smaller planets don't make their stars wobble enough to be detected in the current manner.

The original post is absolutly correct, there's no news here.

I just KNOW somebody's getting a new grant to take a look at this possibility, though.

-ave