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Earthlike Planet Orbiting Nearby Star

Posted by kdawson on from the 13-days-a-year dept.

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."

11 of 617 comments (clear)

  1. NOT so fast.... by heauxmeaux · · Score: 5, Funny

    Turns out it's just Rosie O'Donnell

    --
    Beat 'Em and Eat 'Em
  2. Hi-rez imaging by pyro_peter_911 · · Score: 5, Funny

    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

    --
    Downsize DC Today!
    1. Re:Hi-rez imaging by linzeal · · Score: 5, Funny

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

      --
      An Education is the Font of All Liberty
    2. Re:Hi-rez imaging by celerityfm · · Score: 5, Funny

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

      --
      ...unfortunately no one can be told what The Mat^H^H^HGoatse is...they must experience it for themselves...
    3. Re:Hi-rez imaging by gotgenes · · Score: 5, Funny

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

      No, it's just devoid of intelligent life.

      --
      It's such a fine line between stupid and clever.
    4. Re:Hi-rez imaging by celerityfm · · Score: 5, Funny

      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.

      --
      ...unfortunately no one can be told what The Mat^H^H^HGoatse is...they must experience it for themselves...
  3. omg omg by drfrog · · Score: 5, Funny

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

    coincidence?

    of course!

    --
    back in the day we didnt have no old school
  4. Caturday reply to the news by steak · · Score: 5, Funny

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

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

    [m]

    --
    lose != loose
  5. Re:How long to get there? by Wonko+the+Sane · · Score: 5, Funny

    having been transformed into raspberry jam by the accelleration forces.
    I like to think of it as salsa, actually.
  6. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 5, Funny

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  7. OFQ by orkysoft · · Score: 5, Funny

    (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!
    --

    I suffer from attention surplus disorder.