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Transit Method Reveals Many Extrasolar Planets
eldavojohn writes "You might recall not too long ago the first photo of an extra solar planet or, more recently, the mapping & speculation on these planets that lie outside our own solar system. Long since those first few spotted in the 90s, we're now starting to find them in droves due to the popularity of a method that relies on the planet passing directly between the viewer on earth and the star that it orbits. Be sure to check out Space.com's list of the most interesting extra-solar planets. Will we ever find Earth 2.0 candidates?"
Considering the statistically unlikely percentage of planetary orbits that would naturally line up so that the planet would transit its sun from our point of view, planets must be pretty much common as dust. Either that or God was nice enough to line them up so it's easy for us to find them (possible, I hear God is a very nice person)...
The NSA: The only part of the US government that actually listens.
Yes, as long as we don't kill ourselves first.
"I'm just here to regulate funkiness."
Read the article. Discovering planets via the transit method (eclipse dimming of the star) is rare. Around 80% are instead discovered using the so called wobble method, which measures changes in starlight doppler shift.
Only if we leave behind the annoying paraplegic kid.
are they looking for life with less intelligence too? I mean sorta like 30 million yrs behind..they might not be sending out radio signals..but may be throwing knives made of stones...may be hubble can catch that
Who wants to deal with stupid grendlers? Let's just skip to 3.
"Life is life." --Laibach
Of course; space is big and there are bound to be tons of great planets out there. I just hope there is no one already living on our soon to be discovered new colony planet so we can move in quicker.
I Am My Own Worst Enemy
So, by this did you mean...other planets to rape and pillage?
I'm sorry. The number you have reached is imaginary. Please rotate your phone 90 degrees and try again.
I thought Earth 1.0 was Deep Thought 2.0?
All these World 2.0s are yours except Europa 2.0. Attempt no landings there.
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Will we ever find Earth 2.0 candidates? I'm sure we will. And when we do, I have a number of candidates for who should be sent there.
I realize the existing crop of candidates leaves much to be desired, but is looking outside the solar system for our next president really a solution? How would you square that with the Constitutional requirement that the President be born in the US? Isn't that why Schwarzenegger can never really fulfill his political ambitions?
Oh, yeah, it's not easy to pad these out to 120 characters.
Given all that then it's not too surprising that there be a preference for this favorable occultation geometry.
Finally I note that we are not really interested in planets that don't rotate in their orbital plane since otherwise they'd be roastingly hot on one side and freezing on the other.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
Earth 2.0
Please stop. Right now. Seriously. Stop. No more use of "2.0" allowed.
However, they do plan on looking for signs of molecular oxygen in the atmospheres of some of these planets. Molecular oxygen is chemically unstable, so its presence is usually considered to be an excellent indicator of life. Not perfect, as it might not be necessary or sufficient, but it's the best method we have right now for detecting M-class planets.
Ben Hocking
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How about making the current one stable first?
Swedish plasma phys. PhD student; MSc EE; knows maths, programming, electronics; finance interest; seeks opportunities
Every time I see "Extra solar planet" I envision a planet with more than one sun.
I mean "extra salt" = more salt, right ?
If only we could fall into a woman's arms without falling into her hands
Wow! An uninhabited planet where we can rape all the resources, pollute as much as we want, and no one can complain!
ROCK ON!
2 cents,
QueenB.
HDGary secures my bank
Yes, I'm left. You have a problem with that?
Everyone knows it's the even-numbered versions that are stable...
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
Thundara, and when we destroy that the catpeople will end up going to Third Earth.
What are we going to do about getting there? Unless we can figure out some way to travel faster than the speed of light, i doubt any human will ever step foot on a planet outside our solar system. I think it far more likely that we will have to terraform one of the ones near us, and even then, we seem to messing this one up way faster than we could even start that process. I think hawkins may be right, 1000 years at most left for us. Although that really may have been a bit optimistic.
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
C'mon guys. Accept it. The geek in us should be overjoyed to see/hear such news. After all that SF we've read, after so many Star Trek episodes seen, this team of astronoms, astrophysicists gives you this list _now_. Can you imagine that not being fiction? I can only hope to see during my left lifetime ( let's say 50 years at least) really flying there. Not that i am bored with news from Spirit, Opportunity, Huygens or Cassini, but this give us hope.
...when I say if it is actually called "Earth 2.0" that I would seek Kevorkian's "assistance." (Joking, of course.) The moniker is used way too much! Instead, I feel we should call the planet "Godzilla" so it would be entertaining to hear people scream its name in excitement upon viewing it for the first time.
The link to Space.com for the 'most interesting extra-solar planets' has a top 10 list with all the new updated data. The article from the summary said that the fastest planet's orbit around its sun is 1.2 days, where instead the top-10 list shows a recently discovered planet with an orbit of just 10 hours! There is a link that leads to this page http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/061004_fast_ planets.html that talks about 'fast planets' and shows the new data.
p lanets.html just click at the bottom link where it says "Number 10: The First" and off you go! It's actually a really nifty countdown :)
I recommend going to the top-10 list found at http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/extrasolar_
Enjoy!
A black cat crossing your path signifies that the animal is going somewhere. -- Groucho Marx
There's no way I'm going to be the first one using an x.0 planet.
What, Fuhrer? /ducks
What the heck are you smoking?
How about "earth-like planets"? Or "planets like ours"?
Honestly... phrases like "earth 2.0" and "web 2.0" (not to mention WiFi, which really ought to be pronounced "whiffy") make me wonder about the collective intelligence of the technically inclined.
Do you really think George Washington, Sam Adams, Patrick Henry, and Thomas Jefferson would approve of the Patriot Act?
If they don't, it's just because they're stinking traitors who belong down in Guano Bay prison.
I drank what? -- Socrates
Alexander Hamilton, John Adams, and the Conway Cabal would approve just fine.
God, what a mess the "Top 10 Exoplanets" site is! Bright orange background that is absolutely physically painful to look at, requires 10 click-throughs to read the whole article (when each page has about a paragraph of text), the text itself is in little iframes that require you to scroll to get past the first few sentences - and don't get me started about the content (what little there is). If you haven't visited it... don't.
Patrick Henry
Is that the one with the hammer?
http://exoplanet.eu/
I, for one, welcome our new Terrian overlords.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth_2_(TV_series)
Let me add the missing step.
... ?
* continue to wreck this one?
* declare them part of the axis of evil?
* export our garbage there ?
*
* PROFIT!!
Why do you assume that we are not already on Earth 2.0?
We'd have to work around that nasty speed of light thing first. I seem to recall that it'd take about 450,000 years to reach the one we found that has water, which is 20 light years from here. If that proves impossible then those planets will be forever out of our reach.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
The IAU recently cemented the definition of planet, carefully avoiding a useful classification that generalizes to objects outside the solar system. Suffice to say, under the current definition, no extrasolar body is a planet, even if it's a sub-molecular copy of Earth squarely in the habitable zone of a star which purely by coincidence happens to be a spectral twin of Sol.
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
It is mars. It is not 100%, but close enough. And there is increasing data to indicate that it does have life (bacterial, but still life).
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
While we don't have the tech in place to make the trip now, we do have ideas of what could be done. We just need to get some cheap Earth to Orbit launch facilities in place so we can start research and development of the tech needed. (Rutan's SpaceShipX ships. Space elevators. Catapult launch from high altitude sites.)
Once we have a lot of people and equipment in space, we could do such things as build generation ships and take the slow route. Whether powered by Sol base lasers, atomic bombs (Orion), ion propulsion, solar sails or other related tech, we can launch something at choice targets without a lot of extra tech. (It would be more of an engineering problem than a science problem.) It will take a long time to get there and the odds of sending people back will be low if it is attempted.
Now with space based research we might be able to come up with variations on the classic FTL drive, making it possible to do such a trip and make it back in a reasonable amount of time. This would require some basic breakthroughs in science, followed by engineering to make the science usable.
At this time those breakthroughs are mostly pipedreams. But in centuries past, things like steam engines, airplanes and spaceships were the same way. While they may seem simple to us, in years gone by they were future technology that needed a lot of research to make it possible.
http://kepler.nasa.gov/ After Kepler launches we will know about an additional 1-2k planets. 4-6 years after it launches we should know about at least one Earth 2.0.
I can see a lot of ethical problems with that solution, but that never has been a problem in the past though.
You never catch me alive
Don't you mean "attempt no landings 2.0 there?"
This is my sig. It's prescription, I swear. I need it for reading things... on the other side of things
As everyslashdotter knows, it is crictical to have reduncancy for anything you consider important. Life, for example.
Without another planet, we'll die with this one. Giant meteors, weird bursts of radiation and other freaks of nature could wipe life off this planet. In theory, it could happen anyday. If you're not scared of that because of the extremely low probabilities involved, then consider the 100% inevitable and total incineration of all life on earth when the sun blows.
Anyhow, sitting around on earth until everything is "perfect" is not much better than mass suicide, tomorrow. Because things will never be "perfect". We will still disagree and still be stuck here on earth when the sun blows some billions of years into the future.
Also, keep in mind that we're talking on a cosmic scale here. Other planets may be dead. For all you know, other planets would be overjoyed to have the environmental problems of earth. Because they're fucking dead, mister. I'm just saying that applying subjective standards to ourselves before we spread life, is utterly stupid. Without any detailed knowledge of other planets, our issues on earth could be horrible, or they could be absolutely wonderful, the dream and envy of every other planet. We simply don't know.
Most other planets will certainly not be able to support human life as well as this one. That means that everywhere we settle will basically become a case-study for improving the environment. Which will surely cause some research and feedback to improving things back on earth. I just don't see any problem here.
I lost my sig.
The galactic plane is inclined at 123 degrees from the ecliptic. Its only a single example but your hypothesis has no basis. The torque that would bring the oblate, rotating sun and galactic core into the same plane are vanishingly small.
an ill wind that blows no good
The evil laugh at the end. Mwhahahaaha. There, put it in for you.
Deleted
Third Earth? Well, if that's your choice of destination I suppose you're free to go there, but I'd suggest you avoid going anywhere near the Onyx Pyramid. Just a helpful safety tip.
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
Star Trek IV was the best of them all!
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
We don't HAVE a spaceship that can go 10% of light speed right now...
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?