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Astronomers Claim Discovery of Earth-like Planet
Raver32 writes "A team of astronomers announced they have discovered the smallest and potentially most Earth-like extrasolar planet yet. Five times as massive as Earth, it orbits a relatively cool star at a distance that would provide earthly temperatures as well, signaling the possibility of liquid water. 'The separation between the planet and its star is just right for having liquid water at its surface,' says astronomer and team spokesperson Stephane Udry of the Observatory of Geneva in Versoix, Switzerland. 'That's why we are a bit excited.' But researchers do not yet know if the planet contains water, if it is truly rocky like Earth, which might make it hospitable to life as we know it, or whether it is blanketed by a thick atmosphere. 'What we have,' Udry says, 'is the minimum mass of the planet and its separation" from its star.'"
Fire off a bunch of rockets filled with Prisoners.
Call it the S.S. Botany Bay, and give them a radio to let us know how it all works out for them.
That's only if the radius from the centre of the objects is the same. Remember, gravity decreases as a function of the square of the distance.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
TFA is dated 24 April, 2007 -- I'm pretty sure that this is old news.
I wonder how long before we can verify an earth like extrasolar planet?
As more of these are found we may be able to plug more data into drake's equation
5x gravity only if it were the same physical size.
It's a poorly written and shite article, but the box off to the side says:
One of two newly discovered exoplanets is nearly the size of Earth...
So, assuming they're talking about the same one, it should be roughly 5 times our gravity.
I live in constant fear of the Coming of the Red Spiders.
For you maybe, but anything that evolved in that environment would be really strong on this planet, be able to leap...wait, what was the name of that planet?
Can you imagine the women, why they'd be build like a brick shi...cue the Commodores.
Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong fix.
From the blurb itself, it's five time the size of earth, it's revolving around a cooler sun than earth, and it might not have liquid water or a thick atmosphere. Yeah, that's exactly like earth!
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
Mass alone says very little about the surface gravity of a planet - you need to know the radius of the object to make any statement about its surface gravity. Earth's moon has slightly over a percent of the mass of Earth, but about 1/6g surface gravity. Mars has only about 10% of the mass of Earth, while having 1/3g surface gravity.
Acceleration due to gravity scales as mass over Radius squared, whereas Radius will scale as Mass to the one third, assuming relatively constant density. So, the radius would be about 1.7 times that of Earth.
Thus, acceleration due to gravity would be about 5 / (1.7 ^ 2) or about 1.7 times Earth acceleration (10 m / s ^ 2). This is all assuming it is Earth like in composition, which we don't know for sure.
1.7 times Earth gravity would be pretty high, but it might be livable. It is worth noting, however, that this is only a MINIMUM mass estimate - the mass could be higher.
I think that in planetary terms we can safely assume 5x mass will create an environment of roughly 5g ... maybe give or take 20%. Enough to ensure that the simple act of getting out of bed would be a gruelling ordeal.
Another problem I noticed after actually reading TFA:
Gliese 581 c, orbits at one fourteenth the distance between Earth and the sun. But the red dwarf is 50 times cooler than the sun. The group estimates that the planet would experience temperatures in the zero-to-40-degree-Celsius (32-to-104-Fahrenheit) range.
It is my understanding that red dwarfs, while generating reduced heat and light output, produce solar flares that are almost as intense as those produced by a G class star. So if a planet exists in the habitable zone it is also exposed to periodic sterilizing blasts of charged particles.
Maybe if we're lucky the planet happens to have a really strong magnetic field ... then we just have the crushing g load to contend with.
If libertarians are so opposed to effective government, why don't they all move to Somalia?
It's a poorly written and shite article, but the box off to the side says:
One of two newly discovered exoplanets is nearly the size of Earth...
So, assuming they're talking about the same one, it should be roughly 5 times our gravity.
The Earth has a density of about 5.5, so if that planet was 5 times heavier than Earth, it would have a density of 27.5 am I right? Even if it was made of pure gold it couldn't be that dense.
You just got troll'd!
No. While it is hard to measure, gravity drops off with any altitude at all. The gravity you feel standing on top of Mt. Everest is ever so slightly less than that in Death Valley.
If there is complex land life I sure don't want to meet it. as for it could survive it would need to be super strong, and light. So an humanoid would be like 25 lbs and probably on the average twice as strong as us.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Andy
... they really don't know jack squat about this planet and they're just making wild speculations about it given the extremely tiny amount of gravitational aberration data that they've managed to collect with their instruments, which only really suggests anyway that there *might* be a planet of some certain mass and orbital radius there, if their instruments' measurement errors or perhaps some other gravitional phenominon aren't what they actually seeing anyway.
You're probably thinking of the shell theorem, which says that a uniform sphere of mass is gravitationally equivalent to a point mass located at the center of the sphere. This theorem does imply that a larger radius = less gravity at the surface.
Visit the
Plus you can take into account all the other advantages life on Earth has had to make it possible:
- In a solar system with a large gas giant, which helps keep catastrophic impacts with asteroids and comets from happening too often
- Has a large satellite, which may help stabilize climate
- Is in a quiet part of the galaxy, and is not too near other stars, avoiding interactions with other stars/gamma ray bursts/etc.
Invade!
--- What?
you can move there.
To calculate the gravitational effect of a massive sphere, its whole mass can be
:-)
considered accumulated in its center as long as you are outside of it.
So the gravitational acceleration indeed only depends on mass an distance.
Mathematical fact.
Neat additional trivia:
- Inside a hollow sphere, there is no gravitational effect by the sphere's mass - it cancels out exactly.
That's why
- Inside a massive sphere, gravitational acceleration increses linearly with the radial distance to the center.
(the mass increases with r^3 as you get further out, its effect decreases by 1/r^2 - and as it can be considered
concentrated in the middle, you get an increase by a factor of r^3/r^2 = r
Gravity is fun
All this of course only for constant density.
That's only if the radius from the centre of the objects is the same. Remember, gravity decreases as a function of the square of the distance.
Isn't the case, that, at least while you are on the planet, the math works out such that the gravity is consistent at whatever point you are on?
No, we can even measure how surface gravity varies from g=9.78 m/s2 to g=9.82 m/s2 when moving from the equator towards a pole. And this is because Earth is not perfectly round, the people at higher latitudes are closer to the center of Earth and fall faster.
Pluto isn't within the range in which liquid water can exist on it, because it's too cold. These planets seem (or seemed) to be in the range.
"Computers are useless. They can only give you answers." - Pablo Picasso
5 times the mass means 5 times the gravity assuming the same volume.
If we assume this planet is truly "earth-like" and has similar density, then it is not a true statement that it will have 5 times the gravity of earth. If the density is similar to that of Earth, then the size of the planet will be larger. The radius will be larger by a factor of the cube root of 5 (the real one, that is), which is about 1.7, which is also almost exactly the square root of 3.
Since gravity is proportional to the inverse of the radius squared, the gravity of this planet at its surface is 1/3 the magnitude it would have if the volume were the same as Earth's.
Comparing, this means that this planet will have 5/3 the gravity of earth, or 1.67 times. 1 kg of mass would weigh about 3.68 lbs, so my meager 75kg frame would weigh 276 Earth lbs. Wouldn't be the first time...
That's kind of important, I would think.
Let me be the first to say, Hail to our alien overlords!
These points, among others, are made by authors Ward and Brownlee in the book Rare Earth
Long story short, complex life as it exists here on Earth is the result of a long series of very happy accidents. The odds against it happening elsewhere are ... well ... astronomical.
If libertarians are so opposed to effective government, why don't they all move to Somalia?
``No, we can even measure how surface gravity varies from g=9.78 m/s2 to g=9.82 m/s2 when moving from the equator towards a pole. And this is because Earth is not perfectly round, the people at higher latitudes are closer to the center of Earth and fall faster.''
No, that's because they drink more alcohol there.
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
Give each member of the team of astronomers a Steakhouse burger from BK!
You mean the odds OF it happening elsewhere. ;-)
The odds against it happening elsewhere are ... well ... astronomical.
The universe contains a very large number of elsewhere.
I think the real problem to make it earth-like is not surface gravity, but instead the distance at which it can still trap its atmosphere. The much thicker atmosphere probably means that the planet traps heat from its "sun" very efficiently.
I think that in planetary terms we can safely assume 5x mass will create an environment of roughly 5g ... maybe give or take 20%. Enough to ensure that the simple act of getting out of bed would be a gruelling ordeal.
I don't know about you, but getting out of bed is a grueling ordeal at any gravity for me!
Assuming it has the same density as earth it works out to 2.92 G.
Not suitable for people, but totally possible for life as we know it - especially undersea stuff.
Yeah, that's an unreasonable density, but you should bear in mind that compression occurs. (Earth's uncompressed density is significantly lower than the actual density, for example.)
That said, you can fairly assume that the density is nearly the same as Earth's. In that case, the surface gravity is only about 70% higher than here. It'd still be tough walking around.
Maybe the gravity is or isn't 5 X earth's due to altitude but I'm guessing it's significantly higher. If complex lifeforms can exist in such a heavy environment they would probably be tougher than the average human. Gilese 581 is a red-dwarf thus most of it's light is in the near-infrared. So... a lifeform with eyes would probably see infrared. So... I'm picturing an alien badass w/ nightvision... sound familiar?
I think that in planetary terms we can safely assume 5x mass will create an environment of roughly 5g ... maybe give or take 20%. Enough to ensure that the simple act of getting out of bed would be a gruelling ordeal.
Another problem I noticed after actually reading TFA:
No, it would not. It would need to be much denser than Earth for that to happen. This is basically impossible for an object of that mass.
Assuming roughly Earth like density (which is quite plausible), Radius will scale like Mass to the 1/3, while gravity scales like mass / radius squared. This works out to about 1.7 times Earth gravity at the surface.
When they say "nearly the size of earth" they're speaking in an astronomical scale, which would qualify something 5-times as large as the earth as 'nearly'. It's not composed of gold or other heavy metal.
!#&*
What's that compress density you're talking about??
You just got troll'd!
it sure wouldn't be a comfortable place to spend any amount of time.
...let alone to deliver pillows on it.
Faith is a willingness to accept something w/o complete proof and to act on it. Reason allows you to correct that faith.
I'm not fat, im just from a higher latitude :(
In fact, I would argue that from a human sized point of view, it contains an astronomical number of elsewheres.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
I, for one, welcome Superman.
Facebook is the new AOL
Oh for god's sake, people! Do a little math.
Let's assume that the average density of the earth-like planet is the same as Earth. (It wouldn't be an earth like planet if it were significantly different.) Then we can use the volume of the sphere to relate the mass and the surface radius. Since M = 4/3 * \pi * R^3 * \rho, where \rho is the density, it is easy to see that the surface radius goes like the cube root of the mass. Putting this into Newton's equation, we can see that a = GM/R^2 means that the surface gravity is also going to go like the cube root of the mass. If the mass is five times that of Earth, then the surface gravity will be the cube root of 5 greater than Earth's or about 1.7 times Earth normal.
Taking differences in the mean density into account is no more difficult, but I leave that as an exercise for the reader.
No with constant density, for a sphere, 5x mass = 5^(1/3) gravity on surface
\u262D = \u5350
Captain Kirk found a new Earth-like planet almost every week. What was even more amazing was they were occupied by PEOPLE with 1960s haircuts and clothing.
So what you're saying is we should go there to work out?
They'd be like a really strong Little Fuzzy or 2 year old?
I drank what? -- Socrates
5x mass = 5x gravity
That's unlikely, and as a couple other responders have pointed out, it depends on the radius of the planet. If it has the same average density as the Earth, then the gravitational forces at its surface are 5^(1/3)=1.7 times as strong.
It's a poorly written and shite article, but the box off to the side says:
One of two newly discovered exoplanets is nearly the size of Earth...
So, assuming they're talking about the same one, it should be roughly 5 times our gravity.
Not so. If the planet has twice the diameter of earth, that falls well within the category of "nearly the size of Earth" for astronomers. Since gravity decreases proportionally to the square of the distance, gravity would be only 5/(2^2) times as strong as on Earth, an increase of a mere 20%.
If it has approximately the same density as earth, then since volume of a sphere increases proportionally to the cube of the radius/diameter, it would have 5^(1/3) times as large a diameter as earth, which is about 1.71 -- even closer to the size of our Earth. It would also wind up with gravity 1.71 times as strong, since 5/((5^(1/3))^2) == 5/(5^(2/3)) == 5^(1/3).
Ummm, no. More like 1.7x.
Surface gravity is proportional to the cube root of the mass if you assume similar composition, because it's proportional to the planet's mass and inversely proportional to the distance from the center of mass to the surface (i.e. the planet's radius). The radius will be 5^(1/3) = 1.71x. The gravity will then be 5/(1.71^2) = 1.71x.
rj
that's a leap... the whole 'goldilocks' zone concept is fuzzy at best... an indicator, but not enough in itself; Take earth for example... we're NOT close enough to the sun to have liquid water by default. If the mantle cooled enough to end vulcanism, the atmosphere would grow thin, cold, and what water didn't freeze to the surface would seep down beneath the crust forever. Then take Europa... way way way too far from the sun for liquid water... and yet, due to internal stress, liquid water is not unlikely to be found there, under its crust of ice... the attributes of the body have as much if not more influence than the sun does (outside of being so close that the surface is thoroughly scorched, that is.)
I was just about to say that...
"The irony when tending a flock of sheep is the dogs you put in place to protect them are genetically mutated wolves"
I think that in planetary terms we can safely assume 5x mass will create an environment of roughly 5g ... maybe give or take 20%.
How do you justify that remark? Mars has a mass 1/9 of Earth's but a surface gravity over 1/3 of Earth's. Mercury has a mass 1/18 that of Earth but has gravity slightly higher than that of Mars.
There's just no way you can have confidence within 20% that the gravity will be proportional to the mass.
Patrick Doyle
I mod down every jackass who puts his moderation policy in his sig. Oh, wait a sec....
There are two press releases that I really really wish I could take a vacation from. First, announcement of an "earth-like planet" that, when you read the details, isn't actually earthlike. Second, announcement of a "breakthrough in solar cell technology" that, when you read the details, is a piece of fundamental research that may be interesting in a scientific way but the researchers have never actually produced a working solar cell.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
"Space is big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is." ...and thats the thing about a really big place- sheer size provides an astronomical number of opportunities for such astronomically unlikely things to happen, over and over agin.
!#&*
Doesn't that assume that it's the exact same size as earth too? The article refers to it as a Super-Earth
As an example, another super earth mentioned in the wiki article, Gliese 876d, has a mass of at least 5.8 earths, but it's been estimated that it's radius is 1.4 earth-radii.
What's the value of information that you don't know?
Even without doing any maths, some basic sanity checking can tell the grandparent that he's an idiot. Gravity on the surface of Jupiter is about 2.3 times that on Earth and Jupiter is a shade under 320 times the mass of the Earth. A planet with five times the surface gravity of Earth would have to be incredibly dense.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Its 20 light years away, which if you could get a probe up to say .5 c could be done in 40 years. Thats sounds like a long time until you realize Voyager probes have been in space for about 30 years.
... but right now it's kinda like being a man dying of thirst on a boat in the middle of the ocean ("water, water everywhere, and not a drop to drink").
Wake me up when we can actually swing by one of these places for a visit.
Insisting on "correct" English is like saying that there is only one, definitive recipe for chili.
Mass =/= Density Density = Masss / Volume 5x Mass =/= 5x Density, unless the planet's volume was equal. Which it probably is not.
Says you.
We don't know what it's composed of, and it *could* be solid gold. It *could be* heavy metal.
I personally believe it's composed entirely of soft rock. Chances are very slim that it's composed of top-40 pop or country&western.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
IANAB but I don't see that being a problem for ocean life or insect-size land creatures, right? Probably no birds though.
5x weight = cubic root of 5 times the diameter of earth, so gravity= earth gravity times 5 divided by (cubic root of 5 squared)= 5 to the power of (1-2/3) = third root of 5 = 1.71 Earth gravity.
This means any inhabitants might look somewhat dwarf-like and will consider us as cone-heads, but isn't quite as bad as 5x.
Hey don't blame me, IANAB
Uncompressed density = density of material at 1 atm
Compressed density = density of material under given pressure
If we took all the stuff Earth is made of, took it apart and measured the average density of all those rocks at 1 atm, we would get a significantly lower average than what we get by dividing the estimated mass of Earth by its estimated volume.
Those who would give up liberty to obtain working drivers, deserve neither liberty nor working drivers.
indeed... see Mars... it's internal warmth died off quickly, being not only a small, but light-for-its-size, planet... Earth is waning now, but remained internally hot for billions of years longer... and even in spite of that, it once spent a fair period of time as an icecube before the cambrian explosion... just goes to show that location is important, but not enough.
You are well on your way to inventing the calculus. It is mentioned elsewhere, but when you integrate over a shell, the gravitational attraction is the same as if the shell were a point mass at the center of the shell.
I know thanks. I was address the supposition that the planet was the same radius, and therefore the same volume.
You just got troll'd!
Are these the guys eating the steakhouse burgers? "You either find a planet capable of supporting life or you don't. Assisted pffft"
"Call it the S.S. Botany Bay"
KHAAAAAAAAAAAAAANNNNNNNN!!!!!
(stupid slashdot caps nazis)
Enough to ensure that the simple act of getting out of bed would be a gruelling ordeal.
Isn't it always?
Assuming that the density is a little bit less than the Earth (more like the Moon or Mars) and this "Super Earth" is thus larger by a sizable fraction..... what is the geological environment of a planet such as this like?
Since the interior heat of this planet has less surface area in proportion to its volume, internal heat from its formation and nuclear decay from heavy elements (like Uranium) would therefore cause a much larger interior heat sink... and causing substantially more techtonic activity and a great many more volcanoes.
Using Mars as a comparator here as well, Mars is smaller than the Earth, and geologically dead, with fewer but much larger volcanoes. Is it reasonable to assume this planet... if it had a rocky "surface", would literally be littered with smaller volcanoes over nearly all of its surface with much smaller "continents"?
Assume that the age of this planet is roughly similar to that of the Earth and that heavy metals (heavier than Iron) in its formation are roughly proportional to what we find on the Earth.
I just don't find that this would be all that pleasant of a place to be at, and the nearly constant volcanism would IMHO kill off nearly any attempt to colonize this planet with life.
It certainly would be a weird planet to look at though.
Yup, at 1.7X earth gravity my meager 205lb weight would be a 349 lb. As I know some 350 lb people it would be difficult, but possible. However, the time spent in 0g in transit would make my bones so brittle that I don't think it would work. Hmm... maybe bacta tanks until my bones can re-calcify. Anyway since the power requirements to get me there in my lifetime are ludicrous (speed. they went plaid! heh heh) why don't we just teleport there for our workout each day. peace.
The things you list are factors which aid in the development of complex lifeforms. They're not really a factor when it comes to unicellular - or even simple multicellular - life.
Actually, if I remember correctly, an object weighs less at the equator because the earth is rotating. An object in motion will travel in a straight line unless acted on by an outside force. Therefore, at the equator, gravity also acts as a centripetal force to keep the object from flying off into space. If the object is near the poles, less centripetal force is required to keep it from flying away and it is held tighter to the surface.
Is it not possible, now that we know where is, to point a big-ass telescope at it and take a look to see if we can see us some cities?
Random rants about technology: http://technorants.blogspot.com
Astronomical... anybody else find it ironic that this term is used when speaking of astronomy-related subjects?
Sanity is like a condom: rather have it and not need it, than need it and not have it.
Not necessarily. You'll also get a denser atmosphere, which should alter the dynamics of flying a bit. Our birds might not be able to make it, but I wouldn't be surprised if bird-analogues couldn't evolve there.
Gah. "Could evolve there". Geez.
Hm, Slashdot ate my reply which said pretty much what you just said, except that I added that this means that larger planets are almost always denser in spite of the fact that the terrestrial planets have nearly the same composition. (Shut up, Mercury.) A planet larger than Earth should be somewhat denser, so the assumption I made above isn't exactly true. It is, however, probably good enough.
IANAB but I don't see that being a problem for ocean life or insect-size land creatures, right? Probably no birds though.
What do botanists know about that?
When the policeman of the tie, rule you violate, hello punishment of the kitty?
We'll work out the details en-route. :)
To be pedantic, Jupiter doesn't have a surface. It just has a really thick atmosphere that turns into molten stuff when you get deep enough. It's not a stretch to say there's nothing solid in the entire planet.
you're both missing the point, if the planet has water, then the only factor is compression ratio, aquatic life don't suffer from gravity like land bound creatures do, if they have neutral buoyancy the only effect of gravity they feel is the relative pressure of the water at the depth they live in.
considering there are whales that can go very deep in the ocean, to the very surface, the pressure regulation seems to be easily solved.
gravity only becomes an issue when life tries to evolve from aquatic life to land based life.
without oceans the planet won't develop enough diversity of life to populate the land. and it's far enough away that we can't tell if it has oceans.
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html
To the many, many people who've taken the time to correct my shitty assumption, berate me, mod me down, and otherwise point out that in my rush to post I forgot to turn my brain on ... I hang my head in shame. I will now seek out my grade 10 physics teacher (or locate his grave as the case may be) and confess my sins.
And of course, for the angriest among you, this post presents another opportunity to mod me down.
If libertarians are so opposed to effective government, why don't they all move to Somalia?
The latest results of Messenger's first flyby of Mercury confirms a magnetic field and molten outer core. Conversely, Venus which is Earth's twin in size, seems a lot more dead. A more important factor may have been chemical composition at the time of formation - Mercury had more metal. Elements may have been unevenly distributed as function of distance from the Sun in the original planetary nebula.
The odds against it happening elsewhere are ... well ... astronomical.
Isn't the universe, well, astronomical?
The Zeitgeist Movement
Naaah, not Superman. You need to read your Doc Smith. We're talking Valerians here, or those spies masquerading as circus performers from DesPlaines. Except both of those groups would thing a mere 1.7G was piddling.
If you REALLY want some gravity, talk to Hal Clement's Mesklinites.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
"Captain, we detected an M class planet on your long range sensors."
Sorry, folks... I'm an uncurable Star Trek fan.
So say we all
Cant make a joke anymore in Slashdot :-(
20.5 light years according to my calculations =
186,000 * 60 * 24 * 365 * 20.5 =
2,004,112,800,000
that's 2 trillion+ miles to you and me.
It's a poorly written and shite article, but the box off to the side says:
One of two newly discovered exoplanets is nearly the size of Earth...
So, assuming they're talking about the same one, it should be roughly 5 times our gravity.
Size usually refers to mass, not to diameter, when discussing cosmic bodies.
It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.
Construction of B-Ark commences.
"Kill 'em all and let Root sort 'em out"
In this paper there are theoretical relations between planet radius and mass for a wide range of possible planet compositions. These are computed using equations of state that are largely determined from laboratory experiments.
Anyway, for an Earth-like composition (~67% rock, 33% iron), a 5 M_earth planet would have a radius of ~1.5 R_earth yielding a surface gravity that is ~2.2 times greater than that of the Earth (such a planet is not incompressible, so the density is slightly higher for a greater mass).
For a pure iron planet, the radius would be only 1.2 times that of the Earth and the surface gravity would be quite high (3.6 times the Earth's).
For a pure rock planet, the radius would be 1.7 times that of the Earth and the surface gravity would be 1.75 times that of the Earth.
For a pure "water-world" (say a scaled up version of some of the icy satellites orbiting the outer planets), the radius would be ~2.5 times that of the Earth and the surface gravity would be 0.8 times that of the Earth (i.e. less surface gravity than the Earth!).
Point is there is a fairly significant range in possible radii and thus a significant range in the possible surface gravity.
...that I'm "very Brad Pitt-like" in my online dating profile, even if I'm actually "five times as massive?"
I mean, otherwise we are VERY, VERY, VERY, similar, right down to the molecular level!
Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced.
True, but we're not looking for planets in distant galaxies - we're looking for it in our backyard. There isn't an astronomical number of stars in a 1000LY radius.
Why shouldn't it be almost entirely iron (like Earth)?
Rethinking email
Now, if only I knew if you meant server as in slave or serve as in food...
"Die endgueltige Teilung Deutschlands - das ist unser Auftrag." - Chlodwig Poth
...are precisely right for maintaining approximately a pint of beer in liquid condition ready to drink. Alas, having the right conditions does not a pint of beer make.
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
So that article was published in 07 good catch by all you rocket scientists. :-p
2001+14-9+1=2007 == last year's news.
I think they mean L.A! Strangely Earth-like but not *quite* the same somehow...
The only glaring problem in all of this is that the astronomers say the only things they know are the minimum mass of the planet and the separation from its star. That's not a lot to go on.
"Give a man fire, and he'll be warm for a day; set a man on fire, and he'll be warm for the rest of his life
I think he meant "I am not Bo Jackson"
And of course you are assuming that life in the universe can only exist at 1G, like on Earth... I'd be very surprised if that was the case. Shall I remind you that even on Earth there are organisms that live in the depths of the oceans at very high pressures? Other live at extreme temperatures, so why not at extreme gravity?
That's funny in more than one way. For those who haven't read it, I recommend the book "Deep Storm" but I can't say more or I'd ruin the end.
Some animals don't walk around, they slither or they swim.
Red Sun, High Gravity, it's Krypton, right?
... what about women?
Er, very good observation. Humans, however, were the original subject here. Only lawyers of the species slither. The rest of us will probably be uncomfortable. (Which will make the lawyers even happier just as soon as they figure out whom to sue.)
... before you are ready to leave?
I am greatly saddened by the fact that the nearby Batman posting got more than 4 times as many comments as this one.
Where have all the real people gone?
No more so than when the term ironic is used when speaking of steel-related subjects... Sorry, couldn't help myself.
Says you.
We don't know what it's composed of, and it *could* be solid gold.
So we could expect that the Solid Gold Dancers could live there?
Tired of being "punished" by the Slashdot $rtbl since 2002. I'm now over at http://soylentnews.org/ .
For you maybe, but anything that evolved in that environment would be really strong on this planet, be able to leap...wait, what was the name of that planet?
Or, more likely, everything will be smaller. Being small is a very good way to deal with high gravity.
So we'd be giants to these miniature supermen.
They could have stated that it's the most Pluto-like extra-solar planet discovered, and been just as right. Just because it is a slightly closer match doesn't mean much. It is still not Earth-like enough to matter.
Liquid water is the key here. That's what sets the Earth apart from other rocky planets in our solar system, and this is the smallest exoplanet yet that looks like it has the right temperature range for liquid water. Therefore, it's the most earth-like yet.
You think it's very irony on that planet?
If it's too irony then we probably won't find what we're expecting if we ever go there.
Yup, at 1.7X earth gravity my meager 205lb weight would be a 349 lb.
The other problem is that you suddenly have to deal with 1.7x the hydrostatic pressure difference, meaning that your heart would have to pump as if you were 1.7x as tall, and other means of distributing fluids in your system (e.g. the lymphatic system) might not work as intended, either.
5x the mass != 5G as other posters have pointed out (more like 1.7G if it has the same density as Earth).
In any case, if the planet can support life, any life that evolved there will have evolved to be adapted to the gravitational environment there - to life on that planet, it wouldn't be a "crushing G load". 1.7G isn't even crushing to a human, although it wouldn't be fun walking about.
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The odds against it happening elsewhere are ... well ... astronomical.
The universe contains a very large number of elsewhere.
Yes, but what are the chances they are close by? I wanna know the probability density.
Of course, the gravity felt at the surface wouldn't be 5x as much. It's surprisingly much less. A planet with 5x the mass at the same overall density would have approximately 1.7x the radius. (Volume scales as the cube of the radius, and at constant density, mass scales linearly with volume. The cube root of 5 is approximately 1.7.)
Gravity decreases with the inverse of the square of the distance from the center of gravity. So, while the planet would exhibit 5 times the gravity, the amount of gravity felt at the surface would only be about 1.7x what we see here on Earth. The reason is, you're 1.7x further from the center, and so the effect of that gravity is 1.7 x 1.7 less.
A planet where everything is 70% heavier than it is here on Earth still seems like it could be very Earth-like, with similar forms of life. We might find it uncomfortable until we adapted, but I imagine it's actually something humans could adapt to even.
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x5 mass is actually closer to x2 gravity assuming a density relatively close to earth.
Surface gravity is inversely proportional to the square of the radius of the object.
Reading this as an email digest, I thought,
What? Astronomers claim discovery of Earth?
Isn't that a bit cheeky?
Still, (I thought) if Columbus could claim to have discovered America (despite the little fact that there were already people living there, who presumably already knew that it existed), then perhaps the Hubble telescope guys are entitled to swing it around so it points straight down and say, Look! A life-supporting planet! And it's really close!
But then I read the actual article and it wasn't nearly so funny. :(
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LOL. Good one! :)
Finally, we can breed Jinxians!
Humorously, the wikipedia article claims Jinx is 6 times more massive than Earth and "very dense", with a surface gravity of 1.78 times that of Earth. The only problem with this is that if the planet had exactly Earth density, it would have a surface gravity of 1.82 times Earth. Therefore, Jinx must actually be slightly less dense than the Earth.
I didn't really read the article.
I just remembered that Jinx was supposed to be about 5-6 times more massive than Earth and have a surface gravity 1.7-1.8 g.
The similarity to TFA struck me as funny.