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New Large Rocky Planet Found
An anonymous reader writes "Discovery News is reporting the discovery of a super-sized rocky planet orbiting a red-dwarf. The star is located about 9000 ly from the sun. The planet consists of rock and ice and orbits at around the distance of asteroid belt. The planet could not grow to Jupiter size because the star is small and the system ran out of gas. The planet is about 13 earth masses and was discovered using the microlensing technique. Since most of the stars in the Milky Way are smaller than the sun, we should expect more of similar findings."
As more of these planets are found using microlensing, perhaps someone could put together the "Rocky Planet Picture Show."
Sorry, had to do that.
I haven't been following this news too closely, so could someone please tell me if they've found any planets that are the size of earth? not 13 earth masses, but somewhere between 0.5 and 2 earth masses would be nice. I know that life can exist outside of conditions found on the earth, but it would be really cool to find intelligent life like ourselves. I'm not sure what evolution did on other planets, but I'd like to see what kind of muscles developed on organisms that lived on a planet with 13 times the mass of the earth.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
I've heard that they've sampled some of the electromagnetic radiation and converted it to audible frequencies. As if crying out to the lonely darkness, Planet Rocky bellows (in a slightly nasal whine): Adriaannnnnnn!!!
Yoooooooooooo... Adriannnnneeeee
GetOuttaMySpace - The Anti-Social Network
-1: Flamebait
Come on, everyone knows science is incremental. 99% of progress is unremarkable in and of itself, but quite often the process involved allows greater leaps to occur. For instance, the microlensing they are using in these systems are a good advance in optics -- now what other uses can we think of? And that doesn't even count what we can't even predict.
Your attitude is just demonstrative of what is wrong with people today, they cannot think past the immediate, and certainly don't understand how we got to where we are today (hint: it's not by only making major breakthroughs).
Westblogs
What the hell does a "super-sized rocky planet" mean?
I really hate the way Discovery channel always takes information and adjusts it purely for their largest target audience - extremely overweight, couch potatoes who dislike going for more than 5 minutes without seeing the words "super-size".
So, when will we be able to use a worm hole, or jump across wrinkles in space to actually visit this planet, and see it with our own eyes?
That's what I'd like to see...or at least the beginning of real space travel across light years in minutes or hours.
We have found other planets like this before, this is not news.
Sure, to YOU it's just a dupe of celestial proportions.
But some of us are FROM Altair Centauri, and this is the first news item we've had in 9000 years, you insensitive clod.
Useless findings after useless findings are boring people to death.
No, this is just an indicator that you're a moron.
"No problem. I have the capacity to do infinite work so long as you don't mind that my quality approaches zero."-Dilbert
-1: Flamebait
Hey, hey, hey, just because somebody has a critical opinion on something dose not make them flamebait!
Come on, everyone knows science is incremental. 99% of progress is unremarkable in and of itself, but quite often the process involved allows greater leaps to occur. For instance, the microlensing they are using in these systems are a good advance in optics -- now what other uses can we think of? And that doesn't even count what we can't even predict.
I would agree with you here but, the focus of the story is not the optic technology used in this find; it's the useless planet.
The tech of the find is thrown in the story like packing peanuts, just filling space, and is overshadowed by the icy-rocky-planet-thingy.
Your attitude is just demonstrative of what is wrong with people today, they cannot think past the immediate, and certainly don't understand how we got to where we are today (hint: it's not by only making major breakthroughs).
Nope sorry, didn't miss the interesting optic comments in the story, but this was not billed as a story about how they found the planet.
Plus I am not only looking for major breakthroughs here, just tired of hearing the same story rehashed every 2 weeks.
"The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore."
If it's a rocky world and has roughly the same density as the Earth, with 13 Earth masses, the force of gravity is going to be 13 times as much on the surface as it would be on Earth. If it's MORE dense than Earth (which I think is likely), then the ratio is even higher!
I'll form my OWN solar system! With blackjack! And hookers!
Absolutely true, and it's sad that your post was modded "troll". It is the endless stories like this that have caused the Common Man to completely lose interest in space exploration. What the people modding you done seem to forget is that it is the opinions of the completely uninterested masses that are ultimately the group that is most important to listen to, because that's who the politicians listen to, not the intelligentsia. And the politicians have the say over the funding for this stuff.
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
Go back to your high school physics, g is proportional to the mass and the inverse of the distance squared. Assuming a sphere, mass equals density x 4/3 x pi x R^3. Apply the inverse R^2 term and you end up with g proportional to density x R.
The planet might be 13 times the mass but if the density is the same as Earth then g is only 2.35 times that of Earth (cube root of 13).
ZombieEngineer
This story is anything but useless, as it expands our understanding of the range of stars that can support a habitable planet. Sure, this world is probably too far from the red dwarf to have life, but the finding proves that red dwarf star systems can have rocky worlds like ours, perhaps even close enough to the star.
The previous poster was right -- SCIENCE IS INCREMENTAL. We can't shrug off discoveries like these simply because they don't "excite".
The previous poster was right -- SCIENCE IS INCREMENTAL. We can't shrug off discoveries like these simply because they don't "excite".
You and the AC are right science is incremental, but very step dose not need to be touted as a major breakthrough as been the norm as of late.
We don't need to hear about every stride the runner takes in the race, just the points of interest.
"The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore."
You know this is why people are loosing interest in the space program! Useless findings after useless findings are boring people to death.
They found a new planet, 13 times the mass of Earth, and you're bored?
Sheesh!
...it's the Death Star!
"Forget the engineers." -Carly Fiorina, briber of MIT Technology Review.
No we have not found planets like this before. We have found much much bigger, Juipiter-sized gaseous planets.
This one has a hard surface (and probably an atmosphere). This one is far, far closer to an Earth-like planet than ANYTHING we have ever seen outside the solar system.
Frankly, this is huge, huge news.
Nope. It's just another big rock.
Oh, you'll be very excited to learn that the scientists have fount that this rocky planet is home to a mineral that exists nowhere else in the galaxy, and it's said that it is a cure for the common stupidity! How exciting is that?! So, what's your excuse now?!
Constitutional rights may be respected, repealed, or modified; but they must never be ignored.
The sciences of astronomy and astrophysics are based upon solving fundamental questions: Where did we come from? How do solar systems form? How did the universe form? Are we alone in this universe? It is a quest for knowledge and as the parent pointed out, we gain knowledge incrementally by piecing together the small parts, with it occasionally falling into our laps as a breakthrough.
The article compares the ice-rock-planet to Earth because it has lots of ice. We all know that liquid ice - water is a prerequisite to life as we know it, which, granted, the article states this planet has none of. Also the Earth's core is presumed to be predominantly comprised of iron and iron alloys with oxygen, sulphur and nickel. The mantle and crust are comprised of other metals, minerals and oxides. So we know that we're living on a rocky planet. The planet discussed in the article shares these properties with Earth with the exception that it has 13 times the mass and is approximately 10 times as cold.
It makes me tremendously excited to know that there are known planets out there that share similar characteristics to our Earth, more so than landing a person on an, at present, uninhabitable Mars. Who knows, in a couple of million years we may see climate change in that solar system that will allow for life to prosper. We may also gain insight as to the natural evolution of our own planet from it's creation 4.5 bln years ago up until now. If this news doesn't float your boat then I guess keep scrolling.
"The planet could not grow to Jupiter size because the star is small and the system ran out of gas."
No problem. They'll just coast another few light years, and it turns out there's a Speedway just past the next pulsar. Add a couple chili dogs from the snack bar, and there'll be enough gas in that system for another 5 million years.
Wow! First time I've ever seen light years abbreviated (or formed to an acronym) as ly! Here's one of my favorites: WTF?
You know this is why people are loosing interest in the space program! Useless findings after useless findings are boring people to death.
Honestly what impact will this find have on the scientific community?
No, it's flamebait because you're flaming. "Boring people to death?" Doubtful, considering how much news an event like this generates. There are plenty of people on Slashdot alone talking about this, never mind the thousands of others who don't visit Slashdot.
Having a difference in opinion, even a critical one, is not what makes your post flamebait.
The "wow this is teh ghey! stupid boring scientists, who cares" presentation is what makes it flamebait. Honestly, if you don't care about these stories, DON'T READ THEM. Whining that they don't interest you is pretty boring in and of itself.
Endless arguments over trivial contradictions in books written by ignorant savages to explain thunder in the dark.
They found a new planet, 13 times the mass of Earth, and you're bored?
dude. You can't explain the relevance of the study when your audience does not understand the word "relevance"
"Truth is much too complicated to allow anything but approximations"
but very step dose not need to be touted as a major breakthrough as been the norm as of late.
Exactly. I think finding a planet (relatively) close to earth size in another system is nice...but with the fanfare every tidbit seems to get, nothing seems major anymore. Seems really prevalent in medical science, where study after study that 'may' 'hint' 'possible connection' gets a banner.
I used to pursue every newsflash with hopes of learning we made some breakthrough, but i'm so underwhelmed it doesn't seem to matter anymore.
However, didn't someone say that it really wasn't the scientists/researchers so much as the media trying to scoup others and running with halfunderstood stories?
Expect the unexpected. That's the best advice I can give you.
Heard any good sigs lately?
yar ly!
I imagine that it would shorten lifespan considerably, because the body would have to spend a great deal more resources building muscle, bone breaks would be far more common (and skeletal distortion would occur much earlier in life) and the heart muscle would be under much more strain. After several thousand generations (assuming it's possible) maybe selection would favor adaptions that make those conditions more survivable, but I'm dubious; I think the attrition rate would be very high.
All the techniques ever used to make men moral have been themselves thoroughly immoral... (Nietzsche)
I think first we should focus on finding life elsewhere, not intelligent. Intelligent life would always be nice to find, but it'd be easier to find just anything living first. It'd be very hard to communicate with other forms of intelligent life because we'd speak entirely different languages, and come from entirely different places. Sure, we do that on earth, but these ETs will not be familiar with and earth things at all. The design for things can be extremely different than ours and such, so it wouldn't work out well. And imagine, we have wars between countries, but what if we had wars between planets?
But discoving many other planets is always a good thing. I think the odds of Earth being the only planet with life is very small, so we'll find some somewhere out there.
Is the fact they haven't visited us.
(Sorry. I couldn't resist)
Splut.
Coz eternity my friend, is a long *ing time.
There's one thing I couldn't figure out from the article. How do they know the planet is actually rock and ice, and not a small gas giant? (FYI, the mass of Uranus - certainly a gas giant - is about 14.5 Earth masses.)
nice spelling there "loosing"
Looser
The star is located about 9000 ly from the sun.
If it's that far away, we obviously can't see it yet. The universe was created in 4004BC..
Old people fall. Young people spring. Rich people summer and winter.
We might be a step in the grand evolution, but so are ferns, moss, fungi, evergreens, ants, bees. Everything around today is the next step in grand evolution, regardless of its intelligence, awareness, or bra size. Humans are no more exquisite than whales, bonobos, or lemurs. We all are the result of the evolutionary process, and right now, we all are successful result to that process. Humans have NO favor or sway. To consider it any other way is hubris.
...tizzyd
Hi, everyone. I wrote one of the original news releases about this planet discovery, so I'm very interested in the discussion of whether the "super-Earth" is exciting news or not. When I first found out about the planet (I work at Ohio State University; one of our astronomers heads the team that identified it) I knew I had to write a news release (I mean, this is a new planet!) but I also had to wonder how much of a splash the story would make in the media.
Some 170 extrasolar planets have been discovered in the last decade, so there's already been a lot of news coverage. But it's easy to forget that before a decade ago, scientists had no real evidence of what other solar systems are like. This planet is unusual in that it's terrestrial, and its solar system doesn't seem to have any giant gas planets like Jupiter. So the find expands our ideas about what kinds of solar systems are out there, and it also suggests that we're getting closer to our goal of finding other Earth-mass planets.
There's more information in the Ohio State news release, and the one written by my colleagues at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. There are also lots of other news stories out there right now, most notably by New Scientist, National Geographic, and Space.com.
Pam Gorder
for summary of discovered extrasolar planets (exoplanets) check
www.exoplanets.org
(it's not updated as frequently as news sites, but it IS maintained by astronomers, not someone making a quick buck...)
You could probably walk on the surface of this thing!
Just because the mass is 13 times that of the earth doesn't mean the surface gravity is. A more massive body is usually also a bigger body in terms of volume, meaning the surface is further out from the center of gravity. And the pull gravity falls of as the *square* of distance, so it's a very significant effect.
Assuming this body has about the same density as Earth (Yes, the material would be under greater pressure and therefore maybe more dense, but how compressible is rock and metal? Not very, I think. Also, a large proportion of the plant might be the 'ice' they mentioned, which is quite a bit less dense than most of the Earth) the diameter would be the cube root of 13 times Earth's = 2.35 earth diameters.
So the mass 13 times Earth but you're 13^(1/3) times as far from the center of mass as you'd be on Earth.
Pull of gravity is proportional to:
mass / distance^2 = 13/13^(1/3) = 13^(2/3) = 2.35
In other words, the surface gravity may be only 2.35 times Earth's or even less if a large proportion of the planet's mass is in ice.
Ooops. Pull of gravity is proportional to: mass / distance^2 = 13/(13^(1/3))^2 = 13^(1/3) = 2.35
I dislike that pessimistic look on life. All that it takes to be truly intelligent is to be able to make the realisation that we may not be truly intelligent. There are so many complex concepts in that thought, that only a truly self aware and comprehending being can articulate it with such ease. We are important. We are concious. We are rare. We are life.
EpiAdv - if you like Pokey the Penguin, try this comic!