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Kepler's Alien World Count Skyrockets
astroengine writes "The number of known planets beyond the solar system took a giant leap thanks to a new technique that verifies candidate planets found by NASA's Kepler space telescope in batches rather than one-by-one. The new method adds 715 planets to Kepler's list of confirmed planets, which previously totaled 246, scientists said Wednesday. Combined with other telescopes' finds, the overall exoplanet headcount now reaches nearly 1,700. 'By moving ... to statistical studies in a "big data" fashion, Kepler has showcased the diversity and types of planets present in our galaxy,' said astronomer Sara Seager."
In other exoplanet news, a recent study found that so-called 'super earths,' planets that are bigger than Earth but smaller than gas giants like Uranus and Neptune, are unlikely to be habitable to known forms of life. The higher mass traps significantly more hydrogen during the formation of the planetary system, which results in extremely high atmospheric pressure — high enough to be hostile to known life.
I'm not a xenobiologist, but wouldn't a high-pressure hydrogen-rich atmosphere conceivably be home to organisms similar to those that live around deep sea volcanic vents? Will we be going to war with/conquered by giant tubeworms?
So which way is this shifting the Drake equation result? Up or down compared to what we thought the popularity of exoplanets were?
Whoops
crazy dynamite monkey
It's life, Jim, but not as we know it.
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Not all 1700 are from Kepler. Problem solved.
>> Combined with other telescopes' finds...
Oh.
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
246 currently known. Add in 715 and the new total is 1,700????
TFS clearly says "combined with other telescopes' finds...", so the problem isn't math, it's a problem with you reading for comprehension. Given the reminder of your post, you apparently have other issues as well.
Great! Now there's new way for nerds to show off: by reciting the names of the planets. Easy when there were only nine, easier then there were eight, now it's a real challenge. Way more interesting than the digits of pi. Although that's setting the bar pretty low.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
From the headline I figured that Kepler was a new space MMORPG, like Eve.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
Probably because they added a bunch of quotles.
I misread the headline as Kerbal instead of Kepler. I've been waiting for more planets to crash into.
How many skyrockets did the world count?
I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
Y'know what? If the planet can support liquid H2O, my money is on life appearing there all by itself. There, I said it - I'm a believer in the theory of Spontaneous Generation.
As for Drake - even he knew he was whistling in the dark. He just grabbed numbers out of the sky ("if one in ten thousand stars has planets . . . if one in one thousand of these planets is a suitably sized rocky planet . . . if . . . ). I suspect he was more interested in elucidating the list of things to consider and showing how finite those considerations were against a Universe the size of our Universe. He was not trying to realistically predict the odds, he was more interested in making people understand the question.
If I'm wrong, Drake was definitely whistling in the dark. He simply didn't have the tools to make a better prediction. Incidentally, neither do we (yet).
As for Drake - even he knew he was whistling in the dark
The Drake equation is crap. There are any number of variables in that can never be known.
L the length of time civilizations release detectable radio signals. Well that can be anything, we will never know the exact answer to that one. For us it could be 100 years. For some other civilization it could be a 1,000. We will never know that.
fi is the fraction of planets that go on to develop life. That will also be another for ever unknown. We only guess at how many plants that will develop intelligent life.
I could go on and on but basically the Drake equation depends completely on numbers that anyone could pull out of their ass. So as a scientific formula its useless.
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You only need one planet with life 3 billion years ago for it to have polluted the entire galaxy by now. Er... Wait a minute...
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There are more digits of pi than there are atoms in all the stars in the observed universe.
Priest: "Universe from nothing, no laws of physics, sped up time"+ huge discrepancies. Creationism? No. Big Bang Theory
You: There are any number of variables in that can never be known.
Drake didn't know either. The formula is sound, each of those variables have answers based on averages.
Drake didn't know the answers but knew the variables. You are saying you don't know the values of variables, just like Drake didn't know.
This doesn't mean that the variables don't have values. They do.
We don't know the value of the variables today. 100,000 years from now or 1,000,000 years from now, we very well might.
Priest: "Universe from nothing, no laws of physics, sped up time"+ huge discrepancies. Creationism? No. Big Bang Theory
Aren't the "known forms of life" the, um, forms of life we already, you know, know about, i.e. not the same ones we're going to find on alien worlds?
NASA's Exoplanet visualization toollets you see where those planets are relative to earth and see the solar systems around far away stars.
I could go on and on
We've noticed.
He just grabbed numbers out of the sky
That's generally how astronomy works.
Dear Biologists and Similar Ilk,
Time and again, life is found in places where no biologist (or equivalent ilk) expected it. This has happened so frequently that you would think that you would stop using phrases similar to, " high enough to be hostile to known life". What you know about life has clearly been shown to be lacking. Given that, how about a phrase that acknowledges your knowledge gap in a positive and proactive way. A preferred phrase, in this case, should be, " high enough to produce interesting life forms." It shows you aren't complacent in your ignorance and are open to new experience.
Regards,
fygment
"Consensus" in science is _always_ a political construct.
Never is a strong word.
L (the length of time civilizations release detectable radio signals) will get a value if a signal is ever detected. Right now it is at zero (thus making the Dake equation result zero.
fi (the fraction of planets that go on to develop life) is another term where "never" should not be used. If MSL detects an organic mix typical of primitive life in the Gale crater clays, then we can start to estimate this term. Even better would be detection on Europa (because Mars live might have the same genesis as Earth's).
I suppose the Drake Equation isn't complete crap. I still believe as a scientific formula it's pretty useless. But if you poke in numbers to what we know, it can give us some ideal what we can expect. An as someone pointed out as the years go by we might be able to fill in the more answers. But one thing is certain no matter what number we can find the answer to the Drake Equation might always be 1.
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