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Astronomers Announce 5-Planet System

Posted by kdawson on from the looking-for-something-rockier dept.

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.'"

31 of 145 comments (clear)

  1. MORE cuts!?!? by Nerdposeur · · Score: 5, Funny

    When I first saw this headline, I gasped. They already eliminated Pluto - what ELSE could they disqualify!?

    1. Re:MORE cuts!?!? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

      When I first saw this headline, I gasped. They already eliminated Pluto - what ELSE could they disqualify!? Well it turns out that Neptune was just a smudge on the lens, Mercury was just a big piece of garbage and Jupiter was just Rosie O'Donnell's long-lost sister.
    2. Re:MORE cuts!?!? by Cecil · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I've read that article, it's good, but it is still "life not quite as we know it" rather than "life nothing like what we know". As a counterexample, what about an AI? An AI has basically no requirements as far as chemistry are concerned. While it's laughably implausible to imagine an electronic AI "evolving" out of nothingness the way biological organisms did it's still -- by my definition -- "life" and there's no reason we couldn't find it "living" on any planet on our solar system or indeed any we've discovered so far. I find it hard to believe that these are the only two types of life that are physically possible, so I imagine that there may yet be some interesting things to discover out there.

      --
      Random and weird software I've written.
    3. Re:MORE cuts!?!? by qmaqdk · · Score: 2, Interesting

      "...is in orbit around the Sun..."? Then technically, what they found is not a planet.

      --
      My UID is prime. Hah!
  2. More news by Skiron · · Score: 4, Funny

    "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?"

  3. What record? by teh+moges · · Score: 2, Funny

    Our solar system has more then that...

    1. Re:What Record? by evwah · · Score: 3, Insightful

      assuming systems with more than said number of planets are common, or even exist (other than ours). scientists take nothing for granted. well they aren't supposed to anyway. that makes this newsworthy.

    2. Re:What Record? by meringuoid · · Score: 5, Insightful
      That shouldn't be too hard considering we're probably missing over half of the extrasolar planets with our current detection threshold.

      To a very, very close approximation, we're missing all the extrasolar planets. We've yet to discover a single one outside our own Galaxy :-)

      --
      Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
    3. Re:What Record? by evwah · · Score: 2, Informative

      population of the universe: none

  4. What Record? by Jarjarthejedi · · Score: 2, Insightful

    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
  5. more planets to come! by wizardforce · · Score: 5, Interesting

    55 Cancri has produced "a rat's nest of radial velocity data," Fischer said. "We probably still don't have all the planets. We are pulling out one thread at a time, disentangling all these orbits, and it has taken a lot more data and time than we predicted.


    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.
    1. Re:more planets to come! by cperciva · · Score: 4, Interesting

      The gas giants are more massive, but also much further away. Saturn is 95x more massive than the Earth, but it's 9.5x further away from the Sun, so its tug on the Sun (mass/distance^2) is only marginally more than the Earth's -- and is less than that of Venus, which is 0.8 Earth masses but only 0.72 AU away from the Sun.

      An astronomer from 55 Cancri would probably detect Jupiter (mass/distance^2 = 11.7 Earths/AU^2), Venus (1.56 Earths/AU^2), Saturn (1.04), Earth (1.00), and possibly Mercury (0.367), while Mars (0.046), Uranus (0.039), and Neptune (0.019) would almost certainly go unnoticed.

      --
      Tarsnap: Online backups for the truly paranoid
    2. Re:more planets to come! by MMatessa · · Score: 4, Informative

      The java program to analyze wobble data is called Systemic and can be found at http://www.oklo.org/.

    3. Re:more planets to come! by MtViewGuy · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I think we will find a lot rocky-crust planets orbiting other stars by 2025 thanks to the Terrestrial Planet Finder space telescope array that will probably be fully operational after 2016. They should concentrate on every star like our Sun within 100 light years of our Solar System in its search.

  6. Curb your enthusiasm by QuantumG · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.
    1. Re:Curb your enthusiasm by 4D6963 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Here's exactly the kind of comment I hate whenever we're talking about something dealing more or less with extraterrestrial life, it's how we go from very down-to-Earth claims such as "here's what we know about exoplanets" to "here's what we might find out a few years from now" to "teh extraterrians they wont care about us cause were so inferior omg!". I know extraterrestrial life is an exciting topic, but because they're so little to satisfy ourselves with people are so quick to wildly speculate that they forget that the next important and exciting steps are to find a planet where conditions for life as we know it is there and then to detect biological activity on a planet, and at this stage we're most likely talking about bacterial forms of life and such.

      But you people don't care, you'd rather push your imagination to its limits to the point you'd find it disappointing if we found an alien civilisation but that they wouldn't communicate with us in a satisfactory manner. It's like people only care about what would the alien Britney Spears be like, what would aliens think about us, or what their technology must be like, that kind of stuff.

      --
      You just got troll'd!
  7. Ewoks live on a moon by HTH+NE1 · · Score: 2, Funny

    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. Any chance they plan to name this planet Endor?
    --
    Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
  8. Think positively by imsabbel · · Score: 4, Funny

    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?
    1. Re:Think positively by ashitaka · · Score: 2, Funny

      The current generation always dumps their problems on the following generations.

      --
      If you don't want to repeat the past, stop living in it.
  9. SETI, and contact them? by newgalactic · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

    1. Re:SETI, and contact them? by gad_zuki! · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Inherent self-preservation instinct of any successful race will dictate that no one will begin transmitting like crazy to suspect systems. Its too much of a risk. Only idealists with a lot of faith in both humanity and alienity would be willing to take such a risk. The problem here is idealists are usually poor and can't afford to the equipment and energy to do what you propose. Not to mention, I imagine that the people who would even attempt such a thing are pretty credulous to begin with and would just conclude that aliens are here already and point to fuzzy videotapes and tall-tales of area 51 as proof.

    2. Re:SETI, and contact them? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      "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."

      I'll see your what if, and raise you one:

      What if 50 years from now we receive a tight-beam laser transmission inviting us to join the galactic survival club and, BTW, whatever you do, don't send out radio signals to random planets, the neighborhood has been littered with alarms by the berserkers.

      Uh-oh, the captcha is "deaths".
    3. Re:SETI, and contact them? by jamstar7 · · Score: 4, Insightful
      Upside, they're now watching the original Star Trek in its first run.

      Downside, they're judging us all by William Shatner.

      --
      Understanding the scope of the problem is the first step on the path to true panic.
  10. How far has our reach extended? by newgalactic · · Score: 2, Interesting

    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?

    1. Re:How far has our reach extended? by newgalactic · · Score: 2, Informative

      Here's a cool website that has some of the brightest stars within 50 Light years. Here's to getting a signal in 30 or so years. http://www.atlasoftheuniverse.com/50lys.html

    2. Re:How far has our reach extended? by Tsuki_no_Hikari · · Score: 2, Informative

      The 1936 Olympics were 71 years ago, 60 when Contact came out.

      Television and radio signals are both part of the EM spectrum, all of which travel at C with varying levels of refraction depending on the medium it passes through.

      That gives us a range of 71 light years for a civilization to have received the signal at all, and 35.5 light years if we would expect to hear a response from a civilization tomorrow.

    3. Re:How far has our reach extended? by ChrisA90278 · · Score: 5, Informative

      Let's set, radio travels at the speed of light. In one year light travels (get's out calculator.) one light year. If there are any people there listening to Earth they are hearing what we heard in 1956.

      When did we first build powerful transmitters? Comercial radio started in the 1920's so almost 90 years ago. Higher frequency VHF got beg after the war in the lat 40's when TV got popular.

      Could they hear it? Only if they have invested in VERY sensitive receivers MUCH more sensitive then anything we have. Our current receivers could only hear a signal if it were from a very powerful beacon aimed right at us.

      We do not currently have a system then could detect our own signals if they were coming from another star.

  11. A perfect spot for a rebel base! by primenerd · · Score: 2, Funny

    A gas giant with habitable moons. Only 41 LY away, it can't be as remote as Dantooine.

    --
    AUGAUUUGCGCACAUAUCUCAGCGAAUGAAAGGGAUUAA
  12. Re:Curious But Meaningless by Loke+the+Dog · · Score: 2, Insightful

    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.

  13. Re:Starting to sound like flying cars.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    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)

    Whoa. Only a true uber-geek could masturbate to astronomy news.

    - T

  14. Extrasolar simply means beyond our solar system by hlomas · · Score: 2, Insightful

    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