Slashdot Mirror
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."
-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
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.
....intelligent life like ourselves....
I hardly think we rate as intelligent. No, we're about as smart as the bacteria that occupies a petridish until we've released so much toxin we make it uninhabitable for ourselves long before the available food runs out. Frankly, we're about the level of pond-scum in the Grand Scheme.
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".
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!
absolutely true, and it's sad that your post was modded "troll".
Welcome the "common man"
So you don't understand the significance of this observation because?
It is the endless stories like this...
Perhaps you could reference these "endless stories Seriously, it sounds pretty cool to me. I don't see in any way, shape, or form how this is a "dupe", if that was your conjecture. Or perhaps by "endless" you mean any scientific study that does not result in a star-trek utopia?
"Truth is much too complicated to allow anything but approximations"
Yeah, well, this "pond scum" is going to transcend biologics within the next 100 years and spread its intelligence across the universe. No, global warming is not going to kill us even if the most dire prediction are true. This pond scum has a nasty habit of survival and environmental manipulation.
If this "pond scum" for some reason doesn't spread itself to the wind to cover every nook and cranny within its little sphere of light, it is only because it doesn't want to or someone else did it first.
I know knocking humanity is cool and all, but passing off humanities achievements and its potential to reshape the universe in ways that make supernovas look trivial is just silly. Humanity (as far as we can tell) IS something unique. We are the next step in a grand evolution that has taken literally billions of years. Nuclear parts formed atoms, atoms formed molecules, molecules formed complex organic molecules, complex organic molecules formed the beginnings of life, the beginnings of life developed into diverse single celled organism, single celled organisms developed into multi-cellular organism, multi-cellular organisms developed into animals with complex behavior, animals with complex behavior developed into intelligent creatures, intelligent creatures developed technology.
Ever since the first atoms were formed this 'evolution' has speed along its way developing new paradigm shifts. We tend to forget that the evolution was taking place long before life and that life is just one of the newest attempts towards greater complexity. Technology is just the latest step in this long chain of evolution. What is next? Transcended biotech humans? Strong AI? Who knows? Whatever the case, I would bet my bottom dollar that whatever is next, we are apart of it.
Pond scum we might be, but I personally think that this pond scum is going to leave a lasting mark on this universe.
Then again, I could have just been reading too much Kurzweil
Is the fact they haven't visited us.
(Sorry. I couldn't resist)
Splut.
Coz eternity my friend, is a long *ing time.