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Kepler Confirms Exoplanet Inside Star's Habitable Zone
astroengine writes "Plenty of 'candidate' exoplanets exist, but for the first time, Kepler has confirmed the existence of an exoplanet orbiting its Sun-like star right in the middle of its 'habitable zone.' Kepler-22b is 2.4 times the radius of Earth and orbits its star every 290 days. 'This is a major milestone on the road to finding Earth's twin,' said Douglas Hudgins, Kepler program scientist at NASA Headquarters in Washington. 'Kepler's results continue to demonstrate the importance of NASA's science missions, which aim to answer some of the biggest questions about our place in the universe.'"
...oh deniers of the science. It works bitches,
Scientists don't yet know if Kepler-22b has a predominantly rocky, gaseous or liquid composition, but its discovery is a step closer to finding Earth-like planets.
Sure they do! Just look at the picture right next to the article! Man, who gets paid to Photoshop these spheres in front of bits of nebulae all day? That must be an interesting job.
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Mr. Sulu, set a course for Kepler 22b, warp 3, I'll be in my quarters looking over the latest Toupees Monthly.
Someone better start working on this faster than light drive. Of course, should we get there we'll probably find it a very tough planet to stand erect on.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
I've looked a bit this morning and can't find anymore info about the star itself. What its apparent magnitude it? What constellation its in? Etc. All I can figure out is its referred to as Kepler 22 which only makes sense in relation to the program. But I'd love to be able to try and see the star through a telescope.
So, when will we be able to get a spectrographic reading on its atmosphere to see if there is free oxygen there? If an amateur using a 10" scope can see the dust around another star, is there any way the very best techniques using twin 10 meter scopes with' anti-aberration lasers can block out enough of the stars light to see just the planet's atmosphere?"
but you wouldn't wanna spend your vacation there... big planet, heavy gravity... girls there are probably built like East European wrestlers with thunder thighs that could swat you like a fly.
There is an exoplanet that may be habitable but it is far, far outside our reach.
What do we do now? Shoot radio broadcasts in that direction? Start building a probe?
Chevron and Conoco Phillips entering the space race.
Many of you may already be aware of this, but it is likely that going forward we will find these "goldilocks" planets with more regularity. Kepler luanched in 2009 with first observations in Jan 2010 and discovers planets using the transit method. Basically, a planet blocks part of its home star's light, and sensitive instruments can pick up on this difference in light. Two transits create a pattern to follow up on, the third transit is considered confirmation of the existence of a plant. So almost 3 earth years of observations means finally being able to detect planets with year long orbits (slight error in logic, depending on when you catch the planet in the act...)
So we are getting to the point where the data should start pouring in on planets more similar to our own. In another 12 months, I would expect to see hundreds if not thousands of planets similar to our own. That is when I think things get interesting. Say we find only 100 "habitable" planets... follow-up observations should give us an idea about the existence or nonexistence of life. Is it common? Is it uncommon? Are we just one of millions of life bearing planets? Are we an outlier? The mind boggles at what we will learn.
This is an interesting time to be alive :)
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
...to spend a ton of time, effort, and research to find Earths twin, only to find the race of carbon-based life forms living there has completely fucked up the entire planet by abusing its natural resources.
"Well shit. NASA, you're not gonna believe this...we found alien life alright...and they're as fucked up as we are."
Who'll get FTL drive first ...
A year on Terra is obviously longer than a year on Kepler-22b. Assuming we're able to someday inhabit these planets, how will our perception of the passage of time being a sign of wisdom/experience/temporal-distance-to-death/etc. change as a species?
Looks like the inner edge to me. With that much mass I suspect that it is Venusian (or maybe a boiling water planet).
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
I'm sure its only 5000 light years away, i'll go pack my bags.
Translation: "In this era of financial armageddons, please overlook the ever-harmless, insightful NASA endeavors when deciding where to cut government spending (our research isn't for offense^H^H^H^H^H^H^H defense, no really). Remember we do things that are important, like finding this planet that seems a little like earth."
Basically you'd have to use very clever occluding telescopes and/or very wide inferometry to get a spectrogram separate from the star. But clever designs have been proposed recently. I dont think any made the 2010s budget due cost and technological immaturity.
It's an ugly planet, a bug planet
Now what? Everybody says, "Woohoo!" and goes home? I just don't see how this has any importance, whatsoever, because I don't see how it can have any measurable effect on any decision made by anyone on this planet in the foreseeable future.
If you don't already see the importance in discovering life outside of our own planet, then I doubt you ever will. Go out into the world sometime, enjoy it, and see if you don't come back wanting more life in this universe. (Please note, I said 'into the world'. The 'world' is not just the human world. The human portion of this world is only the tiniest fraction of the greater whole. As Ed Abbey would say: Go to a national park, park your car, get out, and crawl on your stomach across the rocks and plants. Maybe, just maybe, then you'll learn something. He and I both doubt you will, but if you do that long enough your chances are better.)
PS: I don't reply to ACs.
Number one! Assemble an away team!
So, instead of answering the question, you argue that I'm just not smart enough to see the obvious? How quaint.
I get out enough to want to move from the sub-burbs and into the country. Unfortunately, the wife wants to be close to shopping. Knowing what is in the world around me is important. It affects the decisions I make.
Now, if you're going to respond, could you make an attempt at answering the question. What effect will knowing that their is a roughly Earth sized rock circling an unreachable star going to have on any decision you make in your lifetime? How is this discovery important in any way other than to sate your curiosity?
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
That's not how science works. I'm pretty sure someone asked your very same question when a 100 years ago a guy called Albert wrote about a dynamic Space Time. Nowadays we can't get by without his theories. Just because we research something that has no applicable effect today, doesn't mean it is without value.
eww, Mesklinite pr0n!
really, really, really think long and hard before GIS'ing that one, mate. I'm not kidding.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Just finished up having a conversation with my boss about this. He stated that he hates when they come out and "confirm" stuff like this when there is no way of "proving" it. He talked about how we are always changing theories and tried to use the declasification of Pluto as an example.. to which I countered that it was all semantics.. the facts about Pluto didn't change, only the classification.
We went back and forth for about 10 minutes with him trying to explain his point... the entire time I bit my toungue so that I wouldn't bring up the fact that he's a Catholic which is entirely based on faith. There's no proof of God existing yet billions of people (over multiple religions) believe there is.
He's normally a level headed guy and never pulls the religion card out, which is why I didn't either. But how he misinterpreted the article to mean scientists confirm there's a planet out there with liquid water really frustrated me.
I've got a bad case of the Mondays
"Action without philosophy is a lethal weapon; philosophy without action is worthless."
[...] I don't see how it can have any measurable effect on any decision made by anyone on this planet in the foreseeable future.
Because the decisions made by the myopic semi-intelligent simians on some stupid backwater mud ball in the bad part of the galaxy are the only measure of "importance." Uh huh.
WALSTIB!
Is there any way we can see this? This is what protects us from becoming flesh flavored Hot Pockets(tm).
I just don't see how this has any importance, whatsoever, because I don't see how it can have any measurable effect on any decision made by anyone on this planet in the foreseeable future.
Here's an interesting way it could have an effect:
1. US Government discovers habitable planets within, say, a century of here.
2. US Government scares the population of Earth by pointing out that this habitable planet might be filled with evil aliens who want to take over Earth.
3. US and foreign governments and UN all scramble to do whatever is necessary to take on the aliens, pouring massive amounts of cash into R&D, engineering projects, construction of defensive tools, space launching capabilities, and even pure research.
4. The economy recovers, because all this stuff has much the same effect on the world economy as WWII had on the US economy, but without the millions of people dying.
(Note: not entirely my idea)
I am officially gone from
Your question was actually more philosophical than practical. So he gave a philosophical answer(Which sadly, is often just more questions). Think about the big picture. I mean the REALLY big picture. Thousands of years from now. Can you even begin to imagine what the world will be like? Will it still even exist? Having an even slightly greater amount of knowledge about the Universe/World/Kitchen/Whatever will help you think about those things. Identifying potentially habitable planets is just a start. Once we know they are there, odds are good we will at lest try to reach them. If not personally, then with machines. Your are right, that in the immediate future, it is unlikely to mean a great deal. To use a car analogy(badly). We had horses and whips and buggies, oh my. Now someone comes along and discovers that they can push a piston with a small explosion. So what? It cannot be used with the horses. Whips gain nothing from it. And a buggy? Completely useless. Can't hook an engine up to the horse bar. Someone, somewhere, saw the potential and just went with it. Identifying habitable planets is just one small step on a long road to somewhere else. This just gives people more hope for something better.
How about this... The human species has often viewed itself as occupying a privileged position in the universe. Earth, for instance, was often viewed as the center of the universe. Then, the heliocentric model was found to do a better job of explaining planetary motion. Later, it was found that the solar system occupies an undisinguished position in an undistinguished galaxy. Now, we are finding that planets are a dime-a-dozen. Discoveries like this one indicated that habitable worlds may not, in fact, be rare. Thus, the idea that our existence implies that the universe was created for us becomes less and less likely. I would argue that the question of whether humans occupy a privileged position in the universe does affect the decision making of many people.
A planet in the habitable zone!!
Awesome.
600 Light years away though...
Could be a _long_ walk.
Better pack some snacks n stuff.
Bye bye!
-Hack
Got Geometrodynamics? Awe, too hard to figure out? Too bad.
ROFL. Yeah, when we land there. It's ONLY 600 light years after all.
I get it, I really do. We've only barely been to our own moon. We can't even get to mars. If we said we were going to send a probe you'd have every right to laugh, let alone a manned mission.
But hear me out first.
Mankind has only been engaged in industry for a couple of hundred years. And that was enough to get us to the moon. And humanity has no signs of ending anytime soon. What will we be capable of in another thousand years? Ten thousand? A million? Because if we don't do anything stupid we have that time. Our sun has a few billion years left in it.
It's important to look for extrasolar planets. It is important to see if they can maintain human life.
Reason being, that's the first step. We won't ever try to leave this solar system if we have no expectations to be able to survive out there. Now we are finding out that there are planets out there that might be able to support us. Now we have a reason to want to try to reach them. Yes, 600 light years is an uncrossable barrier to us. Today. But if you told the Wright brothers that we'd be walking on the moon in 70 years they would have told you you're nuts. They wouldn't have believed it. Another uncrossable barrier. To them. Not to us.
Finding these planets is exciting. It says that there is a reason to try to go. It kindles a desire to go see them. And given a million years of human progress, the science *will* come. Maybe it won't be as sexy as warp ships. Maybe it'll just be colony ships moving at a fraction of light speed and take a thousand years to get there. But one way or another, we will get there.
We will most likely visit this planet. Someday.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
I would argue that the question of whether humans occupy a privileged position in the universe does affect the decision making of many people.
...in how they relate to each other, the non-human life on this planet, and our collective environment from second to second, day to day, year to year, generation to generation, and so on and so on.
Not too long ago, believing the earth wasn't the center of the universe could get a person killed. Remove certain strong beliefs and people wont feel they can throw anyone to the fire for simple, erroneous judgements. This leads to enhanced freedom from persecution and greater general happiness, I recon. Maybe learning we're not unique will lead us to treating our world with more respect.
To not waste space, I'll also give a short list of NASA-research impacted inventions:
-microwaves:
--everything from the microwave oven, the cell phone, GPS, and wireless internet signals are understood through techniques originally used by NASA.
-velcro
--originally designed for space suits
-any number of materials engineering breakthroughs
--all I know is, without carefully designed, ceramic tiles, going into space would always be a one way trip. I'm not a mat. engineer, but I'm sure those ceramics have helped all sorts of industrial processes. (Say, electrical power generation where you've got tons of heat to insulate and transport. Or, simply moving heat away from a CPU, perhaps?)
PS: I don't reply to ACs.
The density estimate on the official Kepler page is estimated to be 14.7g/cc. That's somewhere between lead and gold. To sustain a density like that, assuming there is a fair amount of iron present (a very common metal readily created in large stars), the planet would have to be near half gold, uranium, or something equally unlikely.
Also, if the mass and radius (and therefore density) given are anywhere near correct, that's 20 gravities.
Something ain't right. What elements of that density are that common in a star of that population, age and metallicity? How would a planet of such density form, and in the process rid itself of pesky, feather-light extremely common materials like iron? The mass can be estimated fairly accurately with Dopper measurements. If the transit is reporting a size of 2.4 Earth radii, either the mass estimate is wrong, the transit data is wrong, or this is the most exotic, highly-radioactive metalball you're ever likely to find. What am I missing here?
There may be liquid water, but that planet's going to be as radioactive as it gets, with a hell of a lot of heat coming from the inside out.
Everybody gets what the majority deserves.
So, instead of answering the question, you argue that I'm just not smart enough to see the obvious? How quaint.
No where did I say you weren't smart enough to understand something. I said that I doubt you'll ever have an appreciation for astronomical research, it's goals, and it's place in the world. You can prove me wrong by simply:
1.) Coming up with a compelling alternative to projects such as this as a national investment in R&D. Would you prefer finance researchers create new financial products such as more mortgage-backed securities or credit-default swaps?
2.) Proving that projects such as this study have never and can never design nor research something useful to society.
3.) Admitting you were wrong and that looking into the stars can teach us all a thing or two.
PS: I don't reply to ACs.
Remember that Kepler looks at stars using the "transit" method. Basically it stares at the little point of light for a looooong time, never blinking and waits to see if the light drops just a teeny bit due to something passing in front of it. How long? Well since it has to calculate the orbital period, it must watch at bare minimum for at least 1 year to see 2 passes (assuming its looking for a planet in an earthlike orbit around a sun-like star). Then, in order to make sure that it isn't some OTHER planet passing in front of the star, or an object in our solar system, or "sun spots" on the star, or maybe space butterflies getting in the way, the scientists must wait for a THIRD confirming pass (at the predicted time of course with the same drop in intensity) to be sure the observation is "real".
I think these guys have found the first "earth-sized" object that has made three confirmed passes. Note that the period is a bit less than a year so they've had enough time to get three observations in the three years. Soon, they'll be announcing confirming "third passes" on more and more planets that have periods in roughly the one-year window that indicates it's in the habitable zone around a sun-like star.
There are two things to note here: First, Kepler can only see planets that pass between it and the target star, that is the planet's orbit must be almost exactly edge on for us to see it. How close to edge on must it be? Well for example; the earth's orbit is a circle (very) roughly 100 million miles from the sun and the sun is roughly 1 million miles across. So, if the orbit was tilted more than 1/100 or 1%, from some distant observer, they wouldn't see it cross in front. (The size of the earth is inconsequential in this calculation because it is so small in relation to the sun). Similarly, for the kind of planets Kepler is looking at circling around sun-like stars, we are only seeing BY PURE CHANCE 1% of them. So if we see 100 planets circling these stars in their habitable zone; that means there are really 10,000 of them! So for a sample size of 150,000 stars, that means that one out of every 15 sunlike stars has planet in it's habitable zone! Amazing, especially when you consider our galaxy to have perhaps 10 BILLION sunlike stars!
Secondly, Kepler was launched before astronomers "discovered" that the best place to find "habitable" planets wasn't around sunlike stars but around smaller cooler stars. For various reasons, the habitable zone (where water can be a liquid) is proportionately larger in these "mini" solar systems (everything is smaller, like the orbits). They realized that even if a planet was tidally "locked" so that one face was always facing the sun, the atmosphere would redistribute the heat enough so the planet would be "habitable" (must sure be windy though). Another advantage is that these smaller stars live much longer than our sun giving life longer to come to well... life! Finally these smaller stars are much more numerous than sunlike stars. Anyway, I think Kepler was focusing mainly on sunlike stars and not these smaller, more numerous and perhaps easier to detect (because the orbits are smaller you don't have to wait as long for three passes) targets. Maybe Kepler II will go after them!
Just so that you know, Kepler is likely (has already?) been giving tons of other interesting data. I understand that its sensors are sensitive (and stable enough!) so as to detect possible sunspots in these stars. Also by paying close attention to the timing of the transits, they can determine whether other planets are gravitationally "tugging" at the transiting planet and perturbing its orbit (that's how Neptune was discovered). Finally, the resolution of the 'light curve" of the transit may be sharp enough to reveal any large moons in orbit around the transiting planet. So even if the planet in the habitable zone is too large to support life as we know it, it may have a right sized moon! (think "Pandora").
Meanwhile, scientists and the population at large on Kepler-22b are celebrating the discovery of Sol-3a: a planet that exhibits the same livable properties as Kepler-22b and offers the promise of an alternative to their resource-abused, irreversibly-climate-warming, short-term-doomed home world.
That would only work if we could confirm the existence of oil on the planet.
Thsi is the new and intresting thing:
Previously the methods for finding planets has favoured massive objects, and they found lots of Jupiter size things....
Now we get a different picture: This method favoures thigns close to the star, and here the smaller planets are in majority: Check out the data from NASA: total: 2,326. Of these, 207 are approximately Earth-size, 680 are super Earth-size, 1,181 are Neptune-size, 203 are Jupiter-size and 55 are larger than Jupiter.
Next question is what is the minimum detection size for this method? Looks like the data lacks anything smaller than "approximately Earth-size"
Per Ohlin
I just don't see how this has any importance, whatsoever, because I don't see how it can have any measurable effect on any decision made by anyone on this planet in the foreseeable future.
Imagine that you were considering a move to the southern hemisphere, building a small (15-25 meter) radio telescope, and starting your own personal SETI project focusing on the most likely stars within 50 light years. The importance of this discovery is statistical. It makes it more likely that there is a habitable planet within a more realistic travel/communication range of 50 - 100 light years. It may be a slight effect but it is a measurable effect. If it encourages more people to get involved with passive and active SETI projects then it at least served some small purpose.
Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.
My suspicion too. (See post above.)
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
Many lifeforms thrive right here on earth in environments very hostile to human life. Life can exist on something else that doesn't confirm to earth...
I've got better things to do tonight than die.
I agree we are in a bit of a slump, space-wise. No shuttle anymore. No moon missions.
But I think the original "right stuff" guys wouldn't be surprised by our current state of affairs. They knew it was all based on funding, and PR, and the cold war. Russia not a threat anymore? Space program (aka gigantic propaganda "we're awesome" machine) would be scaled back.
But you're not thinking long term.
How about a thousand years from now, or ten thousand? Or a million? Do you think we'll stagnate that long? I don't. Things will pick back up inside of a couple of hundred years, tops.
Progress does happen because we do things. We'll get back to that soon-ish. And by soon-ish I mean sometime in the next thousand years. There are plenty of good reasons to get back up there. Orbital mining, zero g labs and construction sites, asteroid collision prevention...the list goes on and on.
We're going back. The current slump is just a hiccup in history.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
4. The economy recovers, because all this stuff has much the same effect on the world economy as WWII had on the US economy, but without the millions of people dying.
(Note: not entirely my idea)
There is at least one major drawback to this working in the same way. A significant portion of what made the US economy so powerful post-WWII was the fact that in the process of prosecuting that conflict a healthy chuck of the manufacturing capability of the rest of the world was reduced to rubble.