Earthlike Planet Orbiting Nearby Star

The Bad Astronomer writes "Astronomers in Europe have announced the discovery of a planet with only 5 times the Earth's mass, orbiting a red dwarf star 20 light years away. It orbits the star so closely that it only takes 13 days to go around... but the star is so cool that the temperature of the planet is between 0 and 40 Celsius. At this temperature there could be liquid water. Models indicate the planet is either rocky like the Earth or covered in an ocean. While it's not known if there actually is liquid water on the planet, this is a really big discovery, and indicates that we are getting ever closer to finding another Earth orbiting an alien star."

Comments

NOT so fast....

[heauxmeaux]

Turns out it's just Rosie O'Donnell

Re:NOT so fast....

[DigiShaman]

...and you can wipe it with ONE SQUARE!!!

Hi-rez imaging

[pyro_peter_911]

Hi-rez imaging of the planet shows that there's already three Starbucks stores, a bridge project sponsored by Ted Stephens, and fourteen RIAA lawyers looking for copyright infringers.

Peter

Re:Hi-rez imaging

[linzeal]

So it is devoid of life, culture and civilization in other words.

Re:Hi-rez imaging

[celerityfm]

I say nuke the site from orbit, it's the only way to be sure.

Re:Hi-rez imaging

[gotgenes]

So it is devoid of life, culture and civilization in other words.

No, it's just devoid of intelligent life.

Re:Hi-rez imaging

[celerityfm]

Regret dawned after that post, as this came to mind:

"It is of course well known that careless talk costs lives, but the full scale of the problem is not always appreciated. For instance, at the very moment that Arthur said `I seem to be having tremendous difficulty with my lifestyle,' a freak wormhole opened up in the fabric of the space time continuum and carried his words far far back in time across almost infinite reaches of space to a distant Galaxy where strange and warlike beings were poised on the brink of frightful interstellar battle. The two opposing leaders were meeting for the last time . . . and a dreadful silence fell across the conference table as the commander of the Vl'hurgs, resplendent in his black jewelled battle shorts, gazed levelly at the G'Gugvant leader squatting opposite him in a cloud of green sweet-smelling steam, and, with a million sleek and horribly beweaponed star cruisers poised to unleash electric death at his single word of command, challenged the vile creature to take back what it had said about his mother.

The creature stirred in his sickly broiling vapour, and at that very moment, the words `I seem to be having tremendous difficulty with my lifestyle' drifted across the conference table. Unfortunately, in the Vl'hurg tongue this was the most dreadful insult imaginable, and there was nothing for it but to wage terrible war. Eventually of course, after their galaxy had been decimated over a few thousand years, it was realised that the whole thing had been a ghastly mistake, and so the two opposing battle fleets settled their few remaining differences in order to launch a joint attack on our Galaxy -- now positively identified as the source of the offending remark.

For thousands more years the mighty ships tore across the empty wastes of space and finally dived screaming on to the planet Earth, where, due to a terrible miscalculation of scale, the entire battle fleet was accidentally swallowed by a small dog.

Those who study the complex interplay of cause and effect in the history of the Universe say that this sort of thing is going on all the time, but are powerless to prevent it.

`It's just life,' they say."

Indeed. RIP, Mr. Adams.

omg omg

[drfrog]

planet orbiting a red star?
on the same day kryptonite is found

coincidence?

of course!

Caturday reply to the news

[steak]

I threw this together in a couple minutes after reading this.

http://x014.uploaderx.net/x/astronautcat.jpg

[m]

Re:Only one thing to do!

[Wonko the Sane]

You could send them in the third ark, but then who would sanitize our telephones?

Just remember

[iminplaya]

When we talk to these people, we don't discuss religion or politics, or work. That just leaves the weather and women. Nothing else matters. Got it?

Re:Just remember

[Dr. Eggman]

Well, I guess I'll have to settle for non-verbal research...*Charges up the Probulator*

And the designation is...

[dominique_cimafranca]

So should we classify a planet like this as Class "M"?

Re:And the designation is...

[n0dna]

Leela: "Well, it's a type M planet, so it should at least have Roddenberries."

Re:And the designation is...

[3vi1]

Actually, Minshara would be the correct designation... and the Vulcans would be the ones classifying it at this stardate.

How come it's so easy to learn from Star Trek, yet I haven't a freaking clue what happened at work today?

Re:Only 5X the mass of Earth!

[Cromac]

How do you know he didn't account for that? Maybe he's a 500 lb chair bound computer geek.

Re:Strange new worlds

[vivin]

Earth-like planet only 5-times the Earth's size...

That's like saying "I'm dating this girl who's like Jessica Alba. She's latina, has dark hair, and is only five times Jessica Alba's size! So you see, she is plainly like Jessica Alba!".

Heh.

Disclaimer: I am very excited by this news; I'm just being a smartass!

Re:How long to get there?

[Wonko the Sane]

having been transformed into raspberry jam by the accelleration forces.

I like to think of it as salsa, actually.

Re:Only 5X the mass of Earth!

[pescadero]

Whew! As long as it's below 2.5G, we're okay. I learned that from Spaceward Ho!

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

OFQ

[orkysoft]

(Obligatory Futurama Quote)
From the Futurama episode Love and Rocket:

Fry: Wow Bender, are you and the ship an item? I mean, I know you're both items but -- how can you date a ship anyway? It'd be like me dating a really fat lady. And living inside her. And she'd be all like -- <ship noises>
Bender: Fry, in order for me to get busy at maximum efficiency, I need a girl with a big four hundred ton booty!
Leela: Bender, dating your co-worker and primary mode of transportation is immoral, illogical and a violation of interstellar shipping statute 437-B.
Bender: That's what makes it so nasty!

WELCOME!

[eXFeLoN]

I for one welcome our 5 times more massive overlords!

Re:Uninhabital new worlds

[bradkittenbrink]

Well, sure it's not ideal, but since I was the first to call 'dibs', then you're sure gonna be disappointed when I get my shiny new as-habitable-as-Nevada planet.

Re:This is worth sending a probe.

[plasmacutter]

i like those screwups though... listening to excuses about and watching simulations of probe crashes because someone forgot to carry the 2 is much more entertaining than the 400 billion dollars we pay for war-o-vision.

Re:When do tickets go on sale?

[icebrain]

Actually, an easier solution: Given that any ship we could make in the forseeable future (barring huge advances in physics) will take decades, if not a century or two to get there, we could slowly increase the artifical gravity (spinning) up to 2.25 g by the end of the mission. When you consider it would very likely be a generation ship (with 2-3 or more generations being born en route), the generation that actually lands will be perfectly comfortable in 2.25 g. They may also be built like tanks, but that just means if they ever experience 1 g, they'd make a hell of a football team.

That's awesome

[drix]

Raise your hand if you feel you were born about 100 years too early.

Re:Ion drive not up to the task

[TheThiefMaster]

Am I the only one surprised that the windows calculator can operate on numbers that large?

That is a truly shockingly large number.

Re:Strange new worlds

[Tolleman]

Oh, that reminds me. If humans were to one day habitat that planet. We'd have to invent super push-ups. Imagine what gravity would do to all the boobies!