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Scientists Discover Exoplanet Less Than Twice the Mass of Earth
Snowblindeye writes with this excerpt from the European Southern Observatory:
"Well-known exoplanet researcher Michel Mayor today announced the discovery of the lightest exoplanet found so far. The planet, 'e,' in the famous system Gliese 581, is only about twice the mass of Earth. The team also refined the orbit of the planet Gliese 581 d, first discovered in 2007, placing it well within the habitable zone, where liquid water oceans could exist. Planet Gliese 581 e orbits its host star — located only 20.5 light-years away in the constellation Libra ('the Scales') — in just 3.15 days. 'With only 1.9 Earth-masses, it is the least massive exoplanet ever detected and is, very likely, a rocky planet,' says co-author Xavier Bonfils from Grenoble Observatory. Being so close to its host star, the planet is not in the habitable zone. But another planet in this system appears to be. ... The planet furthest out, Gliese 581 d, orbits its host star in 66.8 days. 'Gliese 581 d is probably too massive to be made only of rocky material, but we can speculate that it is an icy planet that has migrated closer to the star,' says team member Stephane Udry. The new observations have revealed that this planet is in the habitable zone, where liquid water could exist. '"d" could even be covered by a large and deep ocean — it is the first serious "water world" candidate,' continued Udry."
"could even be covered by a large and deep ocean â" it is the first serious "water world" candidate" ..
Good.. I wonder if we can export Kevin Costner.
"i lost my dignity on a slippery wiener"
Water worlds always have the crappiest minerals. Oh look more alkalines. Yay. It won't be worth spending the fuel to land on Gliese 581 d, much less the cargo hold space. Gliese 581 e might have iron and other metals, but being so close to the star it probably has major hot spots. So that's probably not worth landing on either until we meet the Melnorme and buy some tech off them.
Oh well. Eliminating planets to explore is good too. There's a lot of stars in the sky, you know, and only so much time to explore them before the UrQuan return.
The enemies of Democracy are
It's 20 (or so) light years from Earth. According to this article, we've probably already pissed off any inhabitants...
Only if you eradicate the ewoks first. God those things are annoying. But hopefully tasty.
I think it would be a good idea to send a rocket with a screen and dvd player or something, with a big red button on it that plays it.
Yeah, because if a big thing from another planet lands and I look inside and see a big red button attached to some unknown device, I'm gonna just press that puppy right away :-)
I Am My Own Worst Enemy