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Super-Earths Discovered Orbiting Nearby, Sun-Like Star
likuidkewl writes "Two super-earths, 5 and 7.5 times the size of our home, were found to be orbiting 61 Virginis a mere 28 light years away. 'These detections indicate that low-mass planets are quite common around nearby stars. The discovery of potentially habitable nearby worlds may be just a few years away,' said Steven Vogt, a professor of astronomy and astrophysics at UCSC. Among hundreds of our nearest stellar neighbors, 61 Vir stands out as being the most nearly similar to the Sun in terms of age, mass, and other essential properties."
And if so, where do I get my kryptonite?
61 virgins...... drool.....
I read that as "...were found to be orbiting 61 Virginians..."
Yes, a mere 28 light years away. So all we need to do is get in the fastest spacecraft we've ever built and we can be there in just about 150,000 years.
Who's coming with me?!?!?
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
In 6 months, Google will launch their own Super-Earth.
Some water would be nice too.
Hey! I thought it was supposed to be 70 Virginis.
Something tells me that these astronomers are keeping Virginis 1 through 9 to themselves. Grab your torches and pitchforks, kids.
High gravity + Close to its star = big fat, sweaty alien women.
I'll get excited when we find a planet about 93 million miles away from its star, the proper solar light properties for blue skin and near earth gravity. I've always had a thing for blue skinned alien girls.
Why is everyone surprised that super-earths are orbiting other stars? I've always wondered that.
Anyway in case anyone hasn't RTFA (or noticed the light-gray on white links at the top of the oklo.com page) you yourself can help them search for nearby earths by downloading the tool at http://oklo.org/downloadable-console/ while you're still unemployed.
I say it is high time we develop a warp ship capable of carrying the combined military might of the entire planet to this system.
We'll move quickly, from one "Super" Earth to the next, conquering indigenous peoples and enslaving them to toil in our mines until the planet is naught but a smoldering husk, a shadow of what used to be.
Then we'll see who is "Super".
Who's with me!?!
Yes, a mere 28 light years away. So all we need to do is get in the fastest spacecraft we've ever built and we can be there in just about 150,000 years.
Well, maybe not us, but bacteria could. Or... maybe bacteria came from there, and landed here. Betcha didn't think of that.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
found to be orbiting 61 Virginis
now to be known as the slashdot system...
I'm a rabbit startled by the headlights of life
Your bringing the Cheetos right?
Is the estimation of Drake's equation getting better now with the discovery of more plants? Does anyone have an up to date estimate?
We've found it. Get started on Artificial Gravity and Terraforming tech so we can use it when we fill up Earth that was.
How far away are we from discovering Rainbow Worlds? Those have much more minerals and would make the ~30 light year trip more worth it.
you aren't thinking it all the way through...
the other half of the acceleration necessary to get somewhere is the deceleration necessary to stay.
If you do reach a speed which will get you there in a "reasonable" timeframe
you better prepare to jump out when you arrive because you will be going so fast your spaceship will not be able to stop or even linger.
your window of opportunity for doing something when you arrive will be hours/minutes at best.
Unless, of course, you spend half of the trip decelerating which tends to make it a longer trip then you were thinking in the first place.
The New Horizons Mission to Pluto using gravity assists will take 9 years to arrive. but will have only a couple of days once it gets there due to it's speed.
How can they tell that they are "Super" Earths? Are they wearing a big "S"?
I would assume that they are 3/4 covered with water, and have a large diversity of living creatures wandering about. Otherwise, how can you compare these planets to Earth? Thats like saying a toilet is just like a box of cookies, except that they're made from different materials, are different sizes, used for a different purposes, and look nothing alike.
Who would win this election: Andrew Weiner vs Andrew Weiner's weiner.
And if so, why don't we see any evidence of these great astronaut bacteria today?
Because that bacteria killed off all of the dinosaurs who then fell down on them crushing the bacteria.
Bacteria are really tiny, you know, and dinosaurs were really big.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
If they had be found to be orbiting 72 Virginis then a certain religious theory might have become more feasible. But no ...still pending evidence.
Osama Bin Laden may be hiding in neighboring star system, 72-Virginis
According to The Times, it was actually a number of new _plants_ discovered near this "neighbouring" star (neighbours 27 light-years away? I should be so lucky). They were apparently accompanied by a slightly surprised looking whale.
Is it just me or does that strike anyone else as an astounding deduction?
Maybe Im just ignorant, but it seems to me that detecting 2 low-mass planets out of all the planets within ~30 light years, and then going on to say "These detections indicate that low-mass planets are quite common around nearby stars" is a little crazy.
I've always had a thing for blue skinned alien girls.
Mr Shatner, I didn't realise you were a slashdot user! Nice to talk to you! Please don't write any more Star Trek films though. Star Trek V was enough.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
> of course since it's the internet, I'm actually a 12/f/CA.
Really?? You work for the FBI!?
From the article, these planets are between 5 and 25 times as massive as the Earth. These planets are notable because they orbit a star that is about the same temperature and mass as the Sun, the planets themselves are of unknown composition.
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored. -Aldous Huxley
I wonder if this would make some (clearly stupid) people feel that they can now safely disregard looking after the earth with the comfort of a bigger and newer planet so close by? duane chaos "chaos is not just a theory!"
"Question everything, including this!" - http://technoracle.blogspot.com/
I probably won't be around for it, but I'd get quite the laugh outta a human spacecraft showing up there and a superior alien race telling the travellers that they can take their freakshow on to the next planet, tyvm. They'll keep their planet for themselves and wonder what kinda irrational species heads off across interstellar space in a slower-than-light steel bucket to a 'habital planet" and not expect to find someone already inhabiting it?
Think how far science has come in the last 200 years (horses to space shuttle). Now try to imagine where we might be in about 5 times that period (1000 years). NASA, the US space agency, is only 51 years old. Again, only 1000 years is almost 20x that period. Only an idiot would try manned interstellar travel with today's tech. Queue idiots.....
Since I haven't seen anyone else mention it yet...
"Size" and "mass" are two different things.
Size has to do with physical dimensions, whereas mass is an intrinsic property of matter. TFA clearly states these super Earths are 5 to 7.5 times the mass of Earth, not the "size." Summary is wrong.
World energy use is increasing about 2% a year. Speed of a vehicle goes as the square root of the kinetic energy. Therefore if the speed of a vehicle depends on the energy you have to throw at the problem, you can expect your spaceships to get faster about 1% a year.
Therefore any trip over 100 years, you would expect a faster ship launched later to overtake you. So any spaceship heading for alpha Centauri (4.3 light years), you may as well wait till you have 4% of lightspeed ships or better.
So lets dial the startgate and go there.
According to the article:
The researchers said they cannot tell yet if HD 1461b is a scaled-up version of Earth, composed largely of rock and iron, or whether, like Uranus and Neptune, it is composed mostly of water.
[sarcasm]Yeah, perhaps they have as much water as planetary nebulae have![/sarcasm]
Actually, Uranus and Neptune are primarily composed of hydrogen, just like the other 2 gas planets. Uranus and Neptune appear blue because of their methane, not water!
Relatively geeky crowd, orbiting dead cat, Contact.
are there any superman?
The only possible interpretation of any research whatever in the 'social sciences' is: some do, some don't
61 virginis. I'm pretty sure that's where you go after you jihad. Let's steer clear of that one when we start flying around the universe.
or else!
The ocean full of used condoms, empty water bottles and bits of rubber duckies, and the smog so thick over land that it looks just like . . . HOME.
I'd love to change the world but I can't find the source code.
Possible specific impulse for an antimatter based star ship?
http://www.engr.psu.edu/antimatter/introduction.html
10^3 - 10^6 s.
And don't get me started that we don't have any. I've hatched a secret
plan to use that high intensity solar energy at a facility orbiting the sun
inside the orbit of mercury to power my accelerators. Sure it may
take my 50 years or so to make enough to launch a mission but, what
the hey, that's a lot better than traveling the slow way. You have to
take the long view. (Oh yeah the crew will be stored eggs and revived,
raised, and educated on site by robots to save on mass)
Shhh. Don't tell anyone.
I seem to remember hearing about a kind of death where one gets more than 61 Virgins....
Several virgins orbiting one overweight heavenly body.
Sounds like they found the one cosplay chick at the convetion who'se still single.
Vinea?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vinea
So, are the scientists who make the discoveries able to identify the same planets again at a later stage? Then they could possibly start naming planets.
Uranus and Neptune are primarily composed of hydrogen in the same way Earth is primarily composed of nitrogen.
One that hath name thou can not otter
Does "super earths" mean they have better weapons?
I can't wait for our first contact, it may be bad, or good, but we sure will prove that there is life out there besides our own.
Hydrogen != water.
They are WRONG, not RIGHT.
Earth's atmosphere is indeed primarily composed of nitrogen, but that is quite a bold claim to say that that Earth as a whole is primarily composed of Nitrogen. I am under the impression that the metallic rock in the core and the mantle is much greater than the nitrogen, both in terms of volume and mass. Where did you read that earth as a whole is primarily composed of nitrogen? The Australian museum says:
The overall composition of the Earth is very similar to that of meteorites, and because of this, it is thought that the Earth originally formed from Planetesimals composed largely of metallic iron and silicates.
...what you think I did for Earth. You totally ignored their internal composition.
Yes, their atmospheres are composed primarily of hydrogen. Yes, there is no sharp boundary, whatever. Crust is largely from water ice (or "ice"), and it constitutes most of the planet mass.
Yes, what you did is equivalent to saying that Earth is composed mostly from nitrogen.
One that hath name thou can not otter
Well really 28 light years isn't really that far. With our current technology yeah we can forget ever getting there. This is why is important for research to be put back into Project Orion, that would give us the ability to at the very least send machines into deep space, we have the stockpiles of nuclear weapons to do this with. The technology has been tested with regular explosives back in the 50's and works. But treaties where signed to ban the detonation of nuclear weapons in the atmosphere and space. So we will have to wait until antimatter propulsion methods have been developed. Until then they should work on making massive telescopes that can take HD pictures of the planets surface 28 light years away.