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NASA's Kepler Spots Its First Rocky Exoplanet
coondoggie writes "NASA today said its star-gazing satellite Kepler has identified its first rocky planet orbiting a sun similar to our own — 560 light years from our solar system. While not in an area of space considered habitable, the rocky planet known as Kepler-10b is never-the-less significant because it showcases the ability of Kepler to find and track such small exoplanetary movements. 'Kepler's ultra-precise photometer measures the tiny decrease in a star's brightness that occurs when a planet crosses in front of it. The size of the planet can be derived from these periodic dips in brightness. The distance between the planet and the star is calculated by measuring the time between successive dips as the planet orbits the star. Kepler is the first NASA mission capable of finding Earth-size planets in or near the habitable zone, the region in a planetary system where liquid water can exist on the planet's surface. However, since it orbits once every 0.84 days, Kepler-10b is more than 20 times closer to its star than Mercury is to our sun and not in the habitable zone.'"
Yo' Adrian!
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The headline isn't flashy enough.
Should read:
NASA's Kepler Spots Hell 560 light years from earth and closing.
Not a habitable planet as the gravity would be about 20 m/s and put it in the habitable zone and gravity would get you again as hydrogen would not achieve escape velocity as it does here and thus build up in the atmosphere preventing any accumulation of oxygen
That's less than 2 million miles, or .05 AU from the sun.
Quite toasty.
So this means if a planet orbits a sun in any other plane than the one that happens to line up directly with us, it wont spot anything? Wouldn't that be...most of space?
Seeing as Kepler uses transits to find these planets, I wonder what the expected timeframe is for when they start really pumping out the data. I mean, if it looking at the right place for a year solid, it would expect to see one dimming of our sun from us (if it was pointed at our system from elsewhere). And that is only to find a single transit. Then add another year to get the orbit, probably another year at least to confirm.
To me it seems that it is going to be a very slow start (apart from these totally hotrock type planets with insanely quick orbit) but then the taps will be turned on and they will start finding exponentially more and more?
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I mean really.. Rocky?
Im very curious how they know this...how can they determine this is not simply a sunspot if it is that close? It's my understanding all the Kepler measurements are validated on the ground with telescopes checking doppler shifts for the wobble method...for something this close and this small, wouldn't that be a problem?
So to find a truly earthlike planet, won't they have to focus on a single star for more than a year in order to detect the planet passing the star more than once? What if the planet's orbit never aligns to eclipse the sun? What if there are two or three planets in very similar orbits?
Supporter of the +1 Over Dramatic mod option. In memory of apk.
I don't understand how a planet could be whipping around its primary once every .84 days, in an orbit 20 times closer than Mercury is to the Sun, and not be torn apart by tidal forces.
What am missing?
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
How will we discover planets that are orbiting stars, but that do not cross in front of our field of view?
And that is only to find a single transit. Then add another year to get the orbit, probably another year at least to confirm.
Well, probably yes, assuming they're looking for yearly (like Earth's) orbits. Makes a bit of sense, but an Earth-like planet might be closer or further away from its host star, and be perfectly OK for liquid water, life, all that (depending on the host star's energy output). Probably not very different from a year though, it rather depends on the sizes (mass and orbital radius) involved.
As for the confirmation, it might not get that long; since the dip might be a starspot or a different agent, a Doppler effect study (or astrometry, in the future) might confirm or dismiss it because, to some extent, different methods of detection can be used on the same source for confirmation. Though, on the Kepler mission, I think the confirmation is 'included' and the timeframe is set for 3 years.
To me it seems that it is going to be a very slow start (apart from these totally hotrock type planets with insanely quick orbit) but then the taps will be turned on and they will start finding exponentially more and more?
Hopefully yes. For the moment the methods of detection are biased- each of them is capable of locating specific groups of planets based on two parameters, those parameters being the planetary mass and its distance from its host star- there's also gravitational lensing that can 'see' better, but its a one-timer.
Encouragingly enough, if one plots the findings so far (mass vs orbital distance) it is not hard to imagine that the so far covered areas will start to expand. My point being that, before the Kepler mission, 'hot Jupiters' kept being the majority of bodies discovered, because they are the only ones we had the means detecting- Kepler has been watching the same patch of space, and it should see more than 'hot Jupiters' (provided they're out there and we are going around this the right way).
The three laws of thermodynamics:(1) You can't win. (2) You can't break even. (3) You can't even quit.
"While not in an area of space considered habitable"... Do they just mean because of its proximity to it's sun? Or, is that star considered to be in an area of space that is inhabitable? Not that it makes that much difference I guess, but being 20 miles from the surface of a star makes me think, "no shit sherlock". But if it is the area of space of that star makes me go, "hmm", and then "why are we looking there?".
I know I don't know what I don't know.
They mean its proximity to the sun, the so-called "habitable zone" that everybody wants to talk about, regardless of the type of planet.
> ...20 miles from the surface of a star...
Not 20 miles. "20 times closer to its star than Mercury is to our Sun". That would put it somewhere around 1.5 million miles out.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
I do not profess to know anything, but I never quite understand it when people go on about a planets ability - or lack there of to sustain life.
Now I (think I) understand the habitable zone, but just because something is too hot or too cold for our liking, does that really mean it would be too hot or cold for whatever may evolve independently of what has evolved here on earth?
The search for water is often associated with the search for life. Have I watched too much bad SciFi and read too many comics that I fail to see the relevance?
I have always felt that people put too narrow a view on what life is or could be.
Feel free to let me know why I am very wrong. .
. .
.. not my favorite term, but a way to derive it in front of astrophysics students is to assume a planetary body, no atmosphere, figure out its surface temperature, and demand it to be 'within liquid water limits'.
Now, since one may very correctly inquire, "liquid water without atmosphere? Are you on crack? And do your math, some planets are obviously not in it like, well, THE ONE WE'RE STANDING ON", I will have to add that I have been in two conferences so far, and 'habitable zone' seems to be more a popular term than a scientific one.
There is much talking though on 'expanding' the definition (see 'dwarf planet' for examples on how that works) talking into account atmospheres, orbital characteristics and other stuff.
Still, given where we stand now regarding exoplanet detection, it's not so bad using what we've got and work our way up from there.
The three laws of thermodynamics:(1) You can't win. (2) You can't break even. (3) You can't even quit.
Sure, life may exist elsewhere even in our solar system. But suppose humans need an escape hatch because of a mammoth meteroite or some other catastrophe, where could we head out to that would have resources to support long term colonization w/o requiring everyone to wear space suits 24x7?
I'm kinda hoping that it discovers a small, non-rocky, artificially smooth body orbiting a star.
When referring to planets it always means "where liquid water could exist".
Because we have an ever so slight bias towards life as we see it on Earth.
If we assume that life can be anything anywhere how do we decide where to look and how will we know it if we find it? We have one example of a habitable planet. We are narrowing the search by looking for similar places. We have limited resources. Why look for silicon-based life instead of carbon-based life when we don't even know if the former is possible but are an example of the latter?
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Oh, you're not "very wrong."
We can only recognize life as we already understand it. A common medical exam question is to define life. A common graduate school exam question is to define life. How do we do that? Based on what we know.
We know that life (as-we-know-it) requires a few conditions, so we look for planets that could support those conditions.
Nobody thinks that's the only place to find life, but it's probably the easiest place to find life that we would understand...
To me it seems that it is going to be a very slow start (apart from these totally hotrock type planets with insanely quick orbit) but then the taps will be turned on and they will start finding exponentially more and more?
Given exponential time and budget, I hereby state that "the Kepler programme" is theoretically able to eventually detect all the planets in this and nearby galaxies.
(seriously... this is to say that "the law of the most restricting factor" will seriously skew the "discovery curve" you mention... just don't hold your breath).
Questions raise, answers kill. Raise questions to stay alive.
". .not "very wrong" Can I show this to my wife?
But thank you for the clarification.
. .
I have always felt that people put too narrow a view on what life is or could be.
You're reading too much into it if you're thinking they're limiting their view on what life is or could be. If I tell you I've just arrived in the city and am looking for good Italian restaurants, it does not follow that I am assuming only Italian food exists or could exist. It's just the kind I'm most interested in finding at the moment. The "habitable zone" is the zone that could support all the life we've ever detected. If we detect new forms of life, the zone will get bigger. There's no a priori assumption here that only life as we know it can exist, it's an a posteriori judgement: "this is what we've seen -- where could it survive?"
"Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."
Kepler-10b is more than 20 times closer to its star than Mercury is to our sun and not in the habitable zone
So if Mercury orbits at between 46 and 69 million kilometers (let's say an average of 57 million km), and Kepler-10b orbits 20 times closer, then that's 20 times 57? 1.1bn kilometers?
No no of course not. What this messed up math is trying to say is it orbits at one twentieth the distance of Mercury, or about 2.85 million km.
When did it become the standard in math to say something is X times Y when what is actually meant is Y divided by X? My school math teachers would have kicked me out of class for expressing something like that.
It's so very exciting! I'd die to see a real telescopic close-up of the first closely observed exoplanet! Generations would have passed before we reach that stage of discovery though. For now, the artist's concept will do nicely as wallpaper :-)
I make no guarantees to that assertion's applicability other than in the context in which it was originally intended.
The "holy grail" (so to speak) right now is finding evidence for ANY life outside of our planet. Doing so would change our relationship with the universe in many ways (even though most relevant scientists are much less agnostic than they should be when it comes to the question of whether life exists elsewhere in the universe). Once we find life in one place not on Earth, we'll be much more open to the idea of looking all over for it and for other forms of life than what we're familiar with. So, until that first goal is achieved, we'll look where we think we're most likely to find life.
Just wondering, how does Kepler (or any other transit-based planet detection technique) differentiate between an orbiting planet and a sunspot (or starspot, I guess) moving across the star's surface as it rotates?