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Smallest Planet Outside Our Solar System Found
mikkl666 writes "Following the recent story about the discovery of the youngest planet outside our solar system, Spanish researchers now report that they found the smallest exoplanet observed so far. The planet, known as GJ 436c, was found by analyzing distortions in the orbit of another, larger planet, and its radius is only about 50 percent greater than the Earth's. The scientists are confident that their new method will lead to a series of further discoveries: 'I think we are very close, just a few years away, from detecting a planet like Earth.' You can also reference the the original paper online for further details."
So is it the youngest, the smallest, or both?
So you are saying that I can deduce a small child hovering around an obese parent by the way the bigger person's fat jiggles? Brilliant! Now if it only works on fat chicks, then I can discover if they have a hot, smaller female friend nearby...
I claim this planet on behalf of Mars!
No sig for the moment.
I think we have a Mission of Gravity here. 5x the mass of earth but only 50% more radius? I for one, welcome our Mesklinite Overlords.
what is the minmum possible size/mass of a planet according to the new definition of 'planet'?
'Pluto.'
DRM: Terminator crops for your mind!
...from this distance and with this technique, Venus would qualify as "a planet like Earth." It would truly suck to be the person who hiked 50 light-years to find that out.
Brackets contain world's first nanosig, highly magnified:[.]
What they mean to say is that this seems to be the lowest mass planet found orbiting a main-sequence star.
It's also annoying that the press release quotes the radius of the planet (which cannot be measured, and is only an approximation based on guesses at density), when what they actually measured is the mass. Planetary densities vary widely; they have no idea what the radius is.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
Before we discover such planets so far away, we should figure out a way to travel faster close to the speeds of light - i wouldn't wanna spend 30 precious years on a one leg journey
I remember watching my Star Trek and seeing them fly their starships right up to star systems because that was the only way to explore them. Shit, I suppose you'd still have to put sats in orbit and probes on the surface to do detailed science but holy shit, detecting planets from lightyears away, even making guesses as to habitability by looking at star type, planetary orbit, even getting spectrographic readings from the atmosphere. I never would have believe it in a book. Yeah, hyperdrives I could buy but not this. Reality is stranger than fiction. Heh, it's just like all of the scifi guys assuming that ambulatory robots would be the easy part and making them think fast and speak well would be the tough part.
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
Smallest object?
Bush's brain, or Cheney's heart?
Both are not of terrestrial, human origin.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
Comment removed based on user account deletion
That one's quite a stretch.
To save you all time, I am new here.
pluto is part of the solar system, it may be a long way out but the sun is still the dominant factor in it's orbit.
note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
If you look over the last twenty years in relation to human history (to say nothing of geological time frames) technology has developed all at once. There's a huge, nay exponential effect on technology of having near universal communications and access to knowledge content. If you scrape off the foam from the top of the Internet, there's an aweful lot of beer there. It's nearly instantaneous from that perspective.
Do not mock my vision of impractical footwear
Gimme a fucking break! Uid of 137 makes this not a serious troll? Thought the mod system was so we didn't have to read troll/off-topic/bullshit!?!?
It doesn't even meet the first qualification for being a planet.
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
...I'm ok with the orbital period of five days, that can be determined by the wobble the planet imparts to the star as it orbits. My problem is, how do they tell its rotational period?
Think about this for just a moment. Bright star, probably a hundred timed the diameter of the planet, and many thousands of times more luminous; assuming the planet is rocky (and barren, and a colouration about that of bleached tarmac), it'll have a reflectivity of about 15-20% (also known as albedo). Earth's blue-green marble surface and average 40% cloud cover gives it an albedo of around 35%. Given that the Voyager panorama barely picked up Earth from a distance of four billion miles, lost in the glare of our own sun, what chance do we in fact have of directly observing a body this close to its parent star, however dim it's a star and it's radiating stupid levels of energy, to be able to tell its rotation? And all from a distance of one hundred fifty trillion miles? You are not even going to see the planet in the glare, never mind seeing enough surface detail to determine how fast the bloody thing is spinning!
I think that they pulled the 22-day rotation out of their arses. Unless someone can tell me different?
Operation Guillotine is in effect.
I (and a group of people) am actually researching this system myself. We observed a transit of GJ436b on March 30, and we're reducing the data now. I'd like to point out, however, this paper is NOT a discovery article. I read it in February (before it was published), and I've got it on my desk right in front of me. Basically, it PREDICTS that there MIGHT be a planet of said radius and mass in an orbit about twice as far out as GJ436b (a transiting hot neptune), but it also says that more study is needed to confirm the existence of this planet. What my study was trying to do was to show that there's a change in GJ436b's orbit caused by this new theoretical planet. So far, things look promising, but we haven't confirmed anything yet.
That's actually supposed to be a 6.75 times increase in volume.
At 5x mass and 1.5x radius, I believe the surface gravity would only be about 2.2 g's
This poses a question. Would rocket power be sufficient to get off a planet of this mass? On earth, it seems rockets are pushed to the limit to launch any significant payload. At twice earth gravity, it seems like your payloads would really be limited, if you can even reach escape velocity with rocket technology.
This ad space for rent.
Or send my son. He's four. I'll consent for him.
With food riots in Haiti you'll not lack for volunteers.
It's a small lifeboat after all. There's not room enough in it for everybody.
Hey, I'm smart, educated, resourceful and healthy. If you won't go send me!
Help stamp out iliturcy.
as far as size goes, Venus is Earth-like
In case you haven't checked the reports, the scientists have not *seen* the object. Nor have they *seen* any of the other objects they so quickly claim are exoplanets.
If all you know are its mass, or diameter, and perhaps its orbital period that is insufficient information to claim it is a "planet". It should be a very large artificial satellite.
The astronomers are operating off of an assumption that the universe is dead (and therefore natural). Ooopps, then we probably shouldn't be here... They need to go read the papers by Charlie Lineweaver's group which document how *most* of the advanced technological civilizations in our galaxy may be much, much older than our own.
According to the IAU definition a planet needs to orbit around the Sun. No exoplanet is really a planet. Though the question depends a lot on what it's made of. It needs to be at hydrostatic equilibrium and fairly round (this is easier fluids and gases) and it needs to have cleared it's area.
Lets say it needs to be about the size of mercury and sweep the question under the rug as frankly a ball of water the size of a basketball, if the only object orbiting a star, would qualify as a planet.
It is no longer uncommon to be uncommon.
What we can know about extra solar planets currently is rather limited by having to use multiple methods for each characteristic. Mass and orbit are estimated from orbital perturbation, size is estimated by occlusion, chemistry by several optical methods, none highly precise.
It seems likely that the quality of observation will not improve until better optical observation is possible, such as space based or multi site terrestrial installations. Currently we are making educated guesses.