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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."

7 of 617 comments (clear)

  1. Montreal? by montreal!hahahahah · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    Hahahahahahah

    --
    I feel like I'm taking CRAZY pills!
  2. Clone planets? by Chouonsoku · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    ... and indicates that we are getting ever closer to finding another Earth orbiting an alien star.
    I wasn't aware those existed. Except in alternate universes. In which case, we'll need the Professor to make us a box.
  3. americans are hungry by racecarj · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    Alien steak anyone?

  4. Re:How long to get there? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    damn you!!! hahaha i was going to say that!

  5. whoohoo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    Yay! We found Earth 2. Meanwhile our cats are poisoned by their cat food, we are morbidly obese, and 1 in 3 die from cancer and the rest die of heart disease. But hey, there is an 'earth-like' planet! Maybe we send robots someday when most of us are dead and space exploration actually becomes important to people or the robots who keep them as their pets. Hurray...this has made my minute. Now on with real life...the one that matters. Wake me up with they figure out how to discover oxygen/nitrogen atmosphere, water oceans, and rocky land on a single remote planet with 99% certainty. Thats when it will matter only 100x to 200x less than the number of people starving or dying of thirst on our planet.

    Interesting news, but the search for Earthlike planets is about as useful as a fishing pole in the desert. Its like masturbation for astronomy nerds. The rest of us realize that there are earthlike planets out there with many harbouring intelligent life. Its just the religious fanatics that think we only have monkeys here on earth.

    Ok, who haven't I offended?

  6. So close by geekoid · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    There is only one man who would dare give me the raspberry! Lonestar...

    us raspberry make no sense, give somone a raspberry is different.

    pfffttt!

    --
    The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
  7. Sadly, it doesn't matter.... by blankoboy · · Score: 0, Offtopic
    if we find a habitable planet. We as a species are simply too corrupt and busy killing and trying to dominate each other to bother with spending money on technology that would get us there.

    One can only wonder where we could be in terms of technological advancement if we spent 50% of what is spent on military spending worldwide on sciences.

    Take me back to the cave with my spear and stones please.