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Richest Planetary System Discovered With 7 Planets
eldavojohn writes "The European Southern Observatory has announced that with the aid of their 190 HARPS measurements they have found the solar system with the most planets yet. Furthermore they claim 'This remarkable discovery also highlights the fact that we are now entering a new era in exoplanet research: the study of complex planetary systems and not just of individual planets. Studies of planetary motions in the new system reveal complex gravitational interactions between the planets and give us insights into the long-term evolution of the system.' The star is HD 10180, located 127 light-years away in the southern constellation of Hydrus, that boasts at least five planets (with two more expected) that have the equivalent of our own Titius–Bode law (their orbits follow a regular pattern). Their survey of stars also helped reinforce the correlation 'between the mass of a planetary system and the mass and chemical content of its host star. All very massive planetary systems are found around massive and metal-rich stars, while the four lowest-mass systems are found around lower-mass and metal-poor stars.' While we won't be making a 127 light-year journey anytime soon, the list of candidates for systems of interest grows longer."
At seven planets, I'm reasonably sure this qualifies as the *second* richest planetary system we're aware of.
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
For everyone here who has seen a lot of science fiction movies or lived in a trailer park where hillbilly meth-heads are routinely abducted by little green men, you might want to keep in mind that 127 light years is a very long way--an almost unimaginable distance, in fact. Most people have absolutely no appreciation for interstellar distances in general (when I was a wee lad, for example, I thought that the next solar system began right at the edge of our own). Let's put it this way: our fastest craft take about 9 years or so to go from the Earth to Pluto. At that same speed, it would take about 125,000 years to reach our next door neighbor (Proxima Centauri). And that's a mere 4.2 light years away (right in our cosmic back yard).
So if you're planning a visit to this newly discovered system, you'd better pack for about a 4-million-year trip, one way.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Quick, tax it!
NASA announces that they have big news on Kepler WRT planets, and now EU decides to quickly make an announcement. Ah, the ability to have the big announcements are always so important.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
I know of a solar system that has 8 planets. Used to have 9.
SpyDock: Scientific Python in a Docker container
Just sayin'.
"the solar system with the most planets yet"
There is only one Sol. There can only be one System Sol. Anything else is a star system.
Does anyone know a site which visualizes all the extra solar planets in something like a cool rotating, zoomable, star trek like map?
Would really like to start planning my galactic empire now. Or just stare at it in wonder what future generations might discover.
...Class M planet, Spock?
Is that star HD 10180i, or HD 10180p?
Am I the only one who first read that as "The star is HD 1080".
It would require a radio telescope with a 1 Km dish (or many with equal collecting area as well as comparable resolving power) to be able to detect an Earth-sized planet 1 AU from its sun at a distance of 100 LY from Earth at a resolution of a single pixel. (Information courtesy of the director of the SETI Institute during an on-site lecture at NASA.) This is 127 LY away and some of the planets are closer to their sun still. The current proposal for the Square Kilometer Array (SKA) telescope has it distributed across continents - boosting the resolving power - but the collecting area might still be too feeble to directly observe a whole lot.
(The proposal would likely need to be upgraded to a Square Mile Array or larger before you could do much in the way of direct observation. The SKA project has been painfully slow to advance and, frankly, upgrading it to the size necessary to actually look at Earth-sized alien worlds at that kind of distance just isn't going to happen. It's unclear to me if SKA as it stands will ever really happen.)
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
The rumor is they found some rather complex systems with the Kepler space-probe and will announce that on Aug 26. That probe stares at the same 150K patch of stars for years at a time looking for star-dimming indicative of transisting planet. Other phenomena cause dimming, so they examine the light curve carefully and look for periodic orbital repeats to establish planets. There were several hundred dimmings observed the first few months of operation. Probably many times that by now. Some of this dimming data has been released to the public already. Some is reserved for astronomers to double-check with other instruments.
We should send a probe now if possible. We may not live to see the results some 250 years later, but I'm sure that millions of people will thank us when they get their first close-up view of extrasolar planets.
If faster than light travel is never achieved, we'll eventually have an archeo-space exploration science, where future scientists must track and watch for signals from (then ancient) probes as they reach waypoints and destinations.
Does anyone else remember playing Master of Orion, and finding a planet, where the info-box says "Ultra rich, heavy-G".
I always thought that sounded like a nickname for a gangsta rapper.
Information theory is life. The rest is just the KL divergence.
Get back to me when they find a planet with Orion slave girls on it...
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
Perhaps there is only one "Solar system," but there are plenty of other "solar systems."
Can you spot the difference?
I guess that this is because of all the games I played and the movies I watched... But I find it a bit surprising that there is such an uproar because they found a system with 7 planets. Shun me not, but, I personally thought that a system with 9 planets would be common. :/
But yeah, Iguess it's just my mediatic up-bringing...
I bet the lawyers at Disney went into full battle mode when they heard the news of a bright white celestial object orbited by seven smaller ones.
Carbon based humanoid in training.
Wake me up when we find intelligent life. No, seriously, I'm not being sarcastic. I really really really want to see/meet alien life. I'm sick of the retarded humans. Domestic violence against one = jail, International violence (war) against millions = medals.
I wonder which planet of the seven is most like our own m-class planet type? Will it be: HD 10180 I, HD 10180 II, HD 10180 III, HD 10180 IV, HD 10180 V, HD 10180 VI or HD 10180 VII?
* runs off to see Star Trek *
Tired of my customary (Score:1)
Nine.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
Did they find Arrakis (Gune) ?
But seriously, the richest solar system would be one that contains a habitable planet. Gas Giants are 10 a penny...
I suspect most humans, at any given time, will be far too old for organized interstellar journeys, the way we might probably do it (imho) - those young enough will be composed of dozen or so cells, cryogenically frozen. Or even not really existing yet, travelling in the form of egg & sperm bank on a quite small, light & fast spaceship (which would still be an enormous strain to build & launch, but at least plausible; plausible enough also to do it every few decades, maximizing chances of success) with advanced autonomous systems to kickstart the colony (ok, plus maybe some very small human team in hibernation - doesn't change things much)
Embryo colonisation seems to be the most plausible approach with technology that's almost certainly within our grasp, certainly possible within our Universe.
Alternatively, after getting the hang of asteroid mining and colonisation, we should eventually, after who knows how many millenia, spread out into Oort cloud of Solar System. Over time, ever further from the Sun. At some point, Oort clouds of neighbouring stars can be said to basically intersect, in a way. So some of our descendants will make the jump. But that's even further from the scifi idea of interstellar travel...
Though it would mirror the way we took over the Earth.
One that hath name thou can not otter
We only have one more in our own, and we're killing the earth,
What the hell does this has to do with what is being discussed?
our planet don't even contain half of the ressources it took billions of year to produce.
Source or citation for this please? And whoever voted this post as insightful, please go back to school and learn some analytical thinking (or to middle school if you have to.)
Without the ability to determine definitively whether they have 'cleared the neighbourhood of its orbit' can we really prove that we've discovered *any* extrasolar planets?
And yes, I know that the IAU says that is the definition of a planet in our Solar system, but as even the most basic student of science philosophy knows science assumes that definitions are not variable across time and space. So really we just don't know.
FU Tyson - {G}. If Pluto can't be a planet I'm not recognizing any of these others till you have definitive quatification of the ephemerides for all of them.
Pug
An Invisible Entity of Vast Power whose existence must be taken on faith alone: Liberal Media
There IS ONLY ONE Solar System in this reality. The others star systems do NOT have our Sun, Sol, as the star! Tim S.
It is these kinds of announcements that make me wish warp drive was real. Space is so interesting!