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NASA Finds Family of Habitable Planets
coondoggie writes "NASA's star-gazing space telescope continues to find amazing proof that there are tons of habitable planets in space and we have only scratched the surface of what's out there. The space agency said today its Kepler space telescope spotted what it called its first Earth-size planet candidates and its first candidates in what it considers to be the habitable zone, a region where liquid water could exist on a planet's surface. Kepler also found six confirmed planets orbiting a sun-like star, Kepler-11. This is the largest group of transiting planets orbiting a single star yet discovered outside our solar system."
...how many are there then?
Delta-Mike November Bravo Tango
Can we call them "potentially habitable planets" instead of going all the way to "habitable" that quickly? I think I'd like to make sure of certain things before being so definite -- for instance: water, temperature, oxygen levels, lack of poisonous gases making the oxygen-level issue moot, edible flora and/or fauna, radiation levels ... hmmm, could be here awhile ...
Prevent Windows piracy. Use Linux instead.
http://exoplanet.hanno-rein.de/iphone/
we'll be veeeeeery quiet, hoping no one notices :)
Never antropomorphize computers, they do not like that
All those hot jupiters and high-mass planets inside the equivalent of a mercury orbit.
Get cracking boys. Lots of stuff to right and rewrite.
but will it still be inhabitable after the 1 billion light years it takes to get there?
Once you start despising the jerks, you become one.
Map
Pirate Bay might like to buy one! Who needs a micronation when you have your own planet!
when we can live in this planets ?
Stupid media hype. In that very same article it is stated that it would take 3 years -at minimum- to verify the existence of an Earth-size exoplanet. So clearly there aren't five of them on the books yet. Kepler went up in March 2009.
...don't seem so crazy now do they?
Surveys such as this tend to find lots of large planets close to their stars. It is worth pointing out that this is at least partly because such planets are easier to detect, and does not necessarily mean they are a high proportion of planets in the galaxy.
Kepler detects changes in stellar brightness due to transiting planets. The closer a planet is to its star, the less precise the alignment has to be for us to observe a transit. Also, the closer it is, the faster it orbits, and the more likely we observe a transit in the limited time we're observing that star. This second factor will become less restrictive as the Kepler mission runs for a longer time. (I presume they need at least two, possibly more, transits before they claim a detection.) Large planets will also give a larger, easier to detect change in brightness.
The other major way of detecting planets is spectroscopically: the planet wobbles the star slightly, and we observe the Doppler shift. This favours massive planets (they wobble the star more) and close planets (they wobble the star faster.)
There have I think also been a few cases where clever interferometry has allowed direct imaging of extrasolar planets. I don't know what the selection effects on this are - further away means easier to separate from the star (good) but less bright (bad.)
Quattuor res in hoc mundo sanctae sunt: libri, liberi, libertas et liberalitas.
It's not NASA's fault, the actual press release says nothing of the sort.
The NASA press release described a system of at least 6 larger -than-earth planets, all much closer to their sun than Earth is. Late in the release, they mention that "Kepler will continue conducting science operations until at least November 2012, searching for planets as small as Earth, including those that orbit stars in the habitable zone, where liquid water could exist on the surface of the planet. Since transits of planets in the habitable zone of solar-like stars occur about once a year and require three transits for verification, it is predicted to take at least three years to locate and verify an Earth-size planet. "
Then Michael Cooney appears to have invented from whole cloth the title, "NASA Kepler finds family of habitable, Earth-size planets". I do have to admit that the Slashdot title is pretty close to the Cooney source, but the article is... not even close to what it claims to be its source material.
Ummm, I'm pretty sure we haven't found a single planet that we know is habitable outside of our own. That certainly doesn't mean they aren't out there...but we are hardly at the point to justify hyperbole like "continues to find amazing proof that there are tons of habitable planets in space". There is no proof of a single other planet, let alone "tons". It sounds like things look promising for a few planets but it's far from proof of another habitable planet.
I found two Earth-size planets. I call one Venus, and the other one Earth.
the stargate takes just a few seconds to get there.
Que Avatar jokes...
There are billions and billions of habitable planets in an infinite universe.
(exaggerated paraphrase of mis-attributed quote of the One (Carl Sagan) MHRIP
-CF
They've found 5 earth sized planet candidates in what they believe to be the habitable zone. That's pretty exciting to me whether they're confirmed or not.
Why is is so hard to believe that there are potentially habitable planets? I guess we would be the only inteligent life in a universe of billions of stars and planets?
I shudder to think of the consequence of finding inteligent life out there. We barely understand or get along with each other. Who knows maybe finding inteligent life accelerates our understanding of ourselves.
I liken it to learning another language only then you understand proper sentence structure and the use of nouns, pronouns and verbs. :)
Why don't we just call them "Class M". We all know what that means.
That should be more like the title of the news story. We already had found hundreds of planet candidates by other means. Now with this report we have added a bunch more using the transit method. Kepler is only scanning one patch of the sky, and only catches planets whose orbits are edge on, so they pass in front of their star (transit). So it's a pretty small sample percentage wise. Extrapolating the Kepler results to the whole sky, and all orbit angles, means there's a LOT of planets out there, millions of them. That's probably the most important news - that there are lots of planets out there. The details of orbits, masses, temperature, etc will come eventually with better instruments, but from sheer random statistics, some of them will end up with the right mass, and distance from their star to be "possibly Earthlike".
Note that by the time we could visit such planets, we won't need them. We will have learned to live on the Moon, Mars, the Asteroids, and other non-Earthlike places long before we attempt an interstellar mission. All we really need is raw materials and sunlight. Habitable planets just make for cool news stories.
and if that's not ridiculous enough, you can click on 'Enlarge' for a better look at it.
The government which is strong enough to protect you from everything is strong enough to take everything from you.
Have they found heaven yet? Maybe they looking in the wrong place. Heaven maybe be temperature controlled, but the global warming really hot place probably should be avoid. But they're scientist, what the hell right?
What it takes three years to find is a planet orbiting a star once a year, ie: in an earth-like orbit. They've found a bunch of earth-sized planets orbiting much closer than that.
From wiki.. Kepler-11 is a star in the Kepler spacecraft field of observations and is roughly 2000 light years away from our Solar System.
So only a few thousand generations and we are so there...
Pretty sure that's the largest system of transiting planets _including_ our solar system, right? Since we only have 3 (Mercury, Venus, and Earth -- one could dubiously call Luna #4, under the let's-call-it-a-double-planet approach), that disclaimer is unnecessary. Now when we get a human out past Mars...
And only 1200 so far may look reasonable.
Still a good ratio.
But, pay attention to the report, in that a large number, almost half have GAS giants in the zone...more than likely with Earth sized moons or smaller.
You could literally have Multiple Earths around a single body...I wonder how that affects the odds of life in general?
Compare that to the situation we are in, where a rocky planet has its own orbit. That so far is a very small percentage.
We could very well have a very unique situation.
I find it odd that Pandora as a movie of science fiction may in fact be much more common than a rocky planet in its own orbit about the sun that has life.
Very exciting though that we are starting to get ratios of stars to planets with habitable zones and even what sort they are.
In another 20 years we should have a trend line to plot!!!
All within my lifetime, which is very exciting!!!
(Well...God willing!!)
-Hack
Got Geometrodynamics? Awe, too hard to figure out? Too bad.
THIS IS CETI ALPHA FIVE!
I thought 0bama told the head of NASA that they had a new mission...."To seek out and befriend muslims"......So what the Hell are they doing looking out to space or is it to find muslim planets... which would be okay I guess....
FragHARD or don't frag at all
can we stop killing each other and focus on space exploration now? For all you corporate types: I am sure there are plenty of diamonds, gold, oil and other fantastic elements on these planets.
The Kepler space telescope found six planets around Kepler-11? Sounds a bit self-involved if you ask me. ;)
Call me when they find a Kemplerer rosette; then I'll be impressed.
"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
Yes, but the intermediate steps between Africa and Hawaii included numerous habitable lands. When there's nothing but vacuum between you and the next nearest habitable world and it will take hundreds of generations to get there, you're pretty well screwed. Yes, *in theory* we can set up domed colonies on otherwise uninhabitable locations along the way, but that sure won't be as easy as pitching tents wherever you happen to settle and building up a colony out of the raw materials and available foods right there where you are.
We are alone. There is no proof to dispute this statement. Theories, hopes and dreams do not equal proof. The universe exists for the sole purpose to serve as a backdrop for humanity.
Quantum physics shows us that the universe behaves differently when it is observed by us than when it is not. This phenomenon appears to suggest that our physical universe exists solely for our benefit so that our limited minds can perceive and comprehend reality in a coherent and predictable manner.
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
"Kepler also found six confirmed planets orbiting a sun-like star, Kepler-11. This is the largest group of transiting planets orbiting a single star yet discovered outside our solar system."
The qualification "outside our solar system" is unnecessary. There are only two transiting planets inside our solar system: Mercury and Venus.
The mormons are only slightly crazier than the average religion. I imagine these guys would be spinning this news like crazy.
What a sad, boring and desolate universe you live in.
Lack of proof is not proof of lack, or some such shit.
"NASA Finds Family of Habitable Planets"
So, they have now determined there are a bunch of habitable planets by a telescope that
"looks for the data signatures of planets by measuring tiny decreases in the brightness of stars when planets cross in front of, or transit, them. The size of the planet can be derived from the change in the star's brightness. The temperature can be estimated from the characteristics of the star it orbits and the planet's orbital period."
NOTHING in the actual NASA article said these planets are "habitable." Why? Because luckily NASA still hires scientists. Just wish /. would have 1/10th their standards. I mean, jeez, are you guys trying to one-up Gizmodo for sensationalistic sci/tech-headlines?
We are alone.
Prove it.
Quantum physics doesn't specify "by us".
And what is good, Phaedrus, And what is not good... Need we ask anyone to tell us these things?
so, it "looked potentially habitable" 2000 years ago. If we could go there at the speed of light, we'd be there 4000 years after what we've seen. If any-one is living there, I hope they take good care of their planet during those 4000 years, or else ...
Learn to read. It is not EART SIZE but EARTH ORBIT (that means 1 transition roughly every year) that is to be confirmed 3 times (aka 3 years in total) to get an idea if the planet is in the habitable zone.
That has nothing to do with the size of the planet as that is conducted from the brightness drop of the star when the planet passes in front of the star.
Best Regards
angel'o'sphere
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
I'm too lazy to dig up the links right now. But I remember watching a number of science documentaries that credit the moon for the persistence of life on Earth. The reasons range from the gravitational effects of the moon, triggering the tides while ironically stabilizing the Earth's axis of rotation, to its role as a shield or maybe more like an imperfect filter against celestial heavy bombardment (after the Earth's initial impact with the Mars size object that gave birth to the Moon). That the Earth and Moon make up what is in fact a double planet system would be the more obvious planetary feature to an alien space probe before spectral analysis revealed the difference between Earth's and Venus's atmospheres.
I wish the guys with the telescopes cop on: Some Obstacles to life on any planet are: Lack of a moon to stabilise gyroscopic wobble; whether hydrogen would escape, or build up, while oxygen remains; whether water would boil, wash over you, or freeze all over; Sufficient raw materials and nourishment; fredom from severe meteor strikes. Suitable day & season length, etc. Even then, there's a whole lot of Catch-22 situations to prevent life forming. There isn't even a working hypothesis as to how it happened here on earth. They can't explain how the first genes ended up inside the first embryonic sac as part of a working cell, with all that that involves. It is (atheistic) faith, & hope, not science.
But I remember watching a number of science documentaries that credit the moon for the persistence of life on Earth
And the moon, with the solid tides it causes on the earth lithosphere, may be the reason why there are plate tectonics on earth.
Besides, the tides on the oceans may be one reason why life arose on earth. When the moon was closer, tides were much higher, hundreds of meters. That caused increased erosion that may have been the origin of the clays that many theories consider essential scaffold for the first self-reproducing complex molecules.
There is an estimated one trillion comets just in our Oort cloud, spanning out to a light year or two (that's perfectly comparable with close passes of other stars, nvm their clouds). Sedna is almost certainly just a first out of a whole class of bodies (heck, there are some hints it might have extra-solar origin). As I said, don't obsess about inner planetary systems / random one would be virtually certainly likewise "uninhabitable".
And I really don't think anyone suggests it would be comparably straightforward to methods of hunter-gatherers... thing is, it appears fantasy-wishful-thinking-"but I want to be Kirk" physics isn't required.
One that hath name thou can not otter
Are we going to kick the existing inhabitants out like the Europeans didn't North America?
It never said that in the bible.
They say this like we actually might be able to colonize the planet. At current speeds it would take 54 million years to get there. To get there in the span of human civilization (100 000 years) we would need to achieve speeds of 0.02C. Our top speed at the moment (Apollo 10) 0.000037C. I don't think we are going to get there ever.
If it is too far for us to reach within this life time (100 light years away or something)...it is useless to worry too much about it...log them for later, once we accomplish warp drive.
It is called sampling bias. They have nothing to rewrite yet (altough, they may have in the future).
Rethinking email
The Earth was made as an Eden for us in God's image. There is no proof to dispute this statement. Theories, hopes and dreams do not equal proof. The Earth exists for the sole purpose to test humanity for sin.
-or-
The Earth is Flat
Look left and right: it's flat. There is no proof to dispute this statement. Theories, hopes and dreams do not equal proof. The flatness of the earth is as plain as my hand in front of my face.
etc.
The idea that there is only one Earth, knowing what we know about how the Earth was formed, is highly improbable, considering this same formation scenario can happen pretty much around any star.
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
We are not alone. There is no proof to dispute this statement. Theories, hopes and dreams do not equal proof. The universe does not exist for the sole purpose to serve as a backdrop for humanity.
Quantum physics shows us that the universe behaves differently when it is observed by others than when it is not. This phenomenon appears to suggest that their physical universe exists solely for their benefit so that their limited minds can perceive and comprehend reality in a coherent and predictable manner. Therefore, we don't see them, and they don't see us.
There is no proof to dispute that statement either.
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It requires three separate transits (planet crossing in line between the observer and the star of interest) to verify via the transit method. The planets already verified are verified, either because they have much shorter rotational periods than earth (their 'year' is shorter) or verified via optical telescope either by direct observation or the 'wobble' method.
I've already received brochures from real estate developers!
NASA Finds Family ON Habitable Planets.
Now that would have been a headline that would get NASA funded!