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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."
Nevermind... need to read summaries better.
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 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.
'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.
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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.
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This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
Do you honestly believe that all technology either should develop "all at once" or should follow your chronology? Besides the point of looking deep into the space is not entirely to find a place for humanity to go. Just understanding the universe is a goal worth pursuing. At least that's how some other people view science and fortunately I should say.
what is the minmum possible size/mass of a planet according to the new definition of 'planet'?
I don't know about that (well I do know but you could just look it up) but if a planet 4.7 times as heavy and 50% bigger than Earth was considered too small/lightweight to be considered a planet I'd seriously consider packing my bags and moving to a real planet like Uranus (to live in an airship of some sort that is, I'm very aware that you can't actually stand on Uranus, thank you!).
You just got troll'd!
It's more to do with the planet clearing its own orbit of debris rather than size, I think.
...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.
I'm sure we'd have no problem with that sort of technology by the time we actually reached that planet.
The Unicode standard is over 20 years old. Why does Slashdot not support it?
Well, besides humans, this would also aply to any intelligent life that might evolve on such a planet. Would rocket technology be sufficient to get off a planet with two or three times the gravity of earth? At point would the gravity be too great for rocket technology to work?
I'm sure we'd have no problem with that sort of technology by the time we actually reached that planet.
Well, that's sort of a meaningless answer, since your talking about technology that doesn't exist either in reality or in theory. Why not talk about flying unicorns to solve the problem? Its just as unreal. No offense to you, but I'm mystified your answer was modded insightful. I've got news for the mods. WARP DRIVE DOESN'T EXIST, AND MAY NEVER EXIST. Just because its on Star Trek doesn't make it real. Warp drive violates the known laws of physics, and is likely impossible.
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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.