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Astronomers Announce 5-Planet System
An anonymous reader writes "Astronomers have detected a record-breaking 5th planet orbiting the star 55 Cancri, 41 light years distant. This planet orbits within the 'habitable zone,' where water could presumably exist, but it's probably another gas giant like Saturn, so any liquid water would have to be on a moon. There's still a big gap between this planet and the outermost planet where no planets have been detected yet, so there could yet be a rocky planet in the system. The lead researcher said he's optimistic that 'continued observations will reveal a rocky planet within five years.'"
When I first saw this headline, I gasped. They already eliminated Pluto - what ELSE could they disqualify!?
"The lead researcher said he's optimistic that 'continued observations will reveal a rocky planet within five years.'" Sylvester Stallone commented on this breaking news; "Eh?"
Our solar system has more then that...
What Record did this break? The number of planets detected in a single (extrasolar) system record? That shouldn't be too hard considering we're probably missing over half of the extrasolar planets with our current detection threshold. I mean, this is certainly interesting, but by no means surprising. We should be detecting systems with more and more planets every year as we begin to detect smaller and smaller planets.
There are two kinds of fool One says 'This is old therefore good' Another says 'This is new therefore better'- Dean Ing
by the sounds of it, the wobble on this thing is just a mess- probably a lot like what our solar system's wobble looks like from the outside.
Sigs are too short to say anything truly profound so read the above post instead.
Imagine astronomers found a whole lot of earth like planets.
Imagine they even found one that seemed to have artificial satellites.
After years of observing and improving our telescopes, imagine we managed to image the planet itself and saw a civilization much like our own.
Glorious times we live in huh?
Imagine after much observation we found lots of these civilized neighbors out there in the black.
Imagine we tried to send them signals and waited the many years for a reply.
What if none came?
After hundreds of years of knowing we were not alone we came to the inescapable realization that just communicating with other intelligent beings in our galaxy is so hard and takes so long that it may never be achieved.
Wormholes and warp drives and ark ships.. what if it is all an unattainable dream?
Thankfully, I like to dream.
How we know is more important than what we know.
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
At least after we send our greeting, it will take 2 or 3 generations for the extermination fleet to arrive....
HI O WISE PRINCE. WHT TOOK U SO DAM LONG?
First we're told that there are nine planets in our system. Then we're told that there's ten. Then we're told that Pluto and the rest don't count. Then we're told that there's not even a scientific definition of a planet, so technically there's none in our system. Now we're told that some distant star has five planets. That's more than we have!
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
So we can Stargate there
I already assume SETI takes finds like these into account when listening. However, is there a program around who's not intent to just listen? What if we developed a database of systems most likely to contain life, and we started a program to send the top candidates high powered radio signals. Far fetched, but maybe it'll produce some results in 100 years.
from any one of those planets to ours... at the risk of offending the "human-colonisation-of-space" brigade, a great exercise is to try making some sort of scale representation. Like, if earth is as far from the sun as the size of a grain of sugar, how far away is this system? Hmmm, well, if we're 12 light-minutes from the sun (forgive me if I got that wrong, it's been a long time), and the parent star is 41 light years away, is that like... next door? next town? next country? Anyone?
"None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free." -- Goethe
The discovery of an earth-like rocky planet is always five years off.
However, at least we stand a good chance of being alive when the discovery is made. (Madly knocking wood)
If you don't want to repeat the past, stop living in it.
Perhaps not, but our descendants might. We don't have to stay human forever.
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
Does anyone know how far our strongest radio signals have gone in the galaxy? I'm thinking of the movie Contact, where they stated that the opening of the 1936 Olympics in Berlin produced the first signal with a strength capable of being detected at greater distances. Is this true? And if it is, how far has that signal gone so far?
A gas giant with habitable moons. Only 41 LY away, it can't be as remote as Dantooine.
AUGAUUUGCGCACAUAUCUCAGCGAAUGAAAGGGAUUAA
No human will set foot on Neptune either, does that make it's discovery meaningless? Thank god no scientist thinks like you.
Come to think of it, I will never meet you in person, so I guess you're meaningless too.
Astronomers have discovered a record-breaking fifth planet around the nearby star 55 Cancri, making it the only star aside from the sun known to have five planets.
Not to nitpick, but just so people don't go away thinking there are only 5 planets in our solar system, the sun in fact, has 8 planets currently.
Extrasolar planet refers to any planet beyond our solar system, not beyond our galaxy.
The Milky Way galaxy (ours) contains ~200 billion stars, each one a potential solar system.
Obligatory wikipedia article listing some of the discovered extrasolar planets: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extrasolar_planet
Endor is the name of both the moon the second death star was built over, and the name of its gas giant planet.
At least you're (almost) right about the wookies, except it's spelled Kashyyyk.
oh but this is neat,
if you use english units and assume that 1 AU = 1 inch,
then you get (1 inch / 1 au) * 41 light years = 40.9 miles,
which is kinda convenient !
ie,
if AUs are Inches, just change Light Years to Miles.
Quick, someone set up them a bomb!
I'd settle for a swarm of powerful telescopes all over the solar system. If we can't go there, then we might at least get some good pictures.
Also, the phrase above doesn't preclude generation ships. Sure, the original crew won't live to visit a distant planet, but their ((great-)grand-)children would.
This planet orbits within the 'habitable zone,' where water could presumably exist, but it's probably another gas giant like Saturn, so any liquid water would have to be on a moon. There's still a big gap between this planet and the outermost planet where no planets have been detected yet, so there could yet be a rocky planet in the system.
Rocky planets are usually found closer to the star than the gas giants - the heat from the the young star will make lighter elements evaporate, you see. So if this planet is a gas giant, it is not likely that they will find a rocky planet in the gap. Fortunately liquid water doesn't have to be on a rocky surface, there are such things as clouds. On the other hand, one thing that does seem to be important for the development of life as we know it is plate tectonics. Perhaps something with a similar effect could exist in the atmosphere of a gas planet.
It may be impossible to travel to other stars, but we don't know that for certain. We have to try, and then declare it impossible.
If there is a way to travel to other stars though, it would be the greatest thing ever happened to mankind.
i'll say right off the bat i have no idea what i'm talking about, so this idea could be really silly. So, that out of the way: Would it be possible to build floating stations/ships on/in a gas giant? What would be involved? Would it be useful? Too dangerous?
Utilizing the synergization of benchmark e-solutions to pre-workaround action items!
But Chewbacca lives on Endor!
Therefore you must acquit!
If you don't want to repeat the past, stop living in it.