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Astronomers Find What May Be the Closest Exoplanet So Far
The Bad Astronomer writes: Astronomers have found a 5.4 Earth-mass planet orbiting the star Gliese 15A, a red dwarf in a binary system just 11.7 light years away (PDF). Other exoplanets candidates have been found that are closer, but they are as yet unconfirmed. This is more evidence that alien planets are common in the galaxy.
OK is it another "Hot" Jupiter or is it a rocky world in the habitable zone? Might just be Quonos.(Klingon Home World)
The Geek Hillbilly
I seem to only find this story on Slate. First we get the lovely story about the ipod touch bricking someone's arm. Now we get this fantastic story. Great.
traveling with a 1G acceleration:
1/2g t^2 = 1/2*11*3E8
so t = 3.3 years to half way. 6.6 years to go all the way and thus 13.2 years for the round trip.
Thus you could easily go there and come back in your lifetime.
Note that this is also Faster than light can make the round trip. However that is not any violation of relativity. THe people on earth would have aged a lot more than 13.3 years during your trip. But you would only have aged 13.3 years.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
5.4 solar masses is m sin i, where i is the inclination of the orbit to the plane of the sky. Therefore, the mass could well be greater than 5.4 solar masses, and so it could be a neptune or in rare cases of close to face-on inclination have even higher mass.
This is a limitation of the radial velocity method, which was used in this detection; with transits (where you watch the star dim as the planet passes in front of it) you already know the inclination---it's 90 degrees to a high accuracy. So you know the mass once you have a transit and a radial velocity.
Krypton?
mark "it had to be asked"
So close... and yet still a freeking impossible distance away.
Oh.. it's just 11 light years away. That's a small number, right? As much as I'd like to be able to say we have a "warp drive" or "jump drive" or something like that... at the moment 11 light years might as well be 11 million light years. it makes no difference to our ability to get there.
This is more evidence that alien planets are common in the galaxy.
Strange statement. Why would anyone think planets were uncommon in the galaxy?
Views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of the author.
people are forgetting that no one's going to be awake or likely aging during this flight. suspended animation will be required for a trip like this and likely possible in the not too distant future (100 yrs?).
so it doesn't really matter so much if it takes 13.3 yrs or 100 yrs.
the hardest part will be that people don't do well at funding and executing projects that last more than a life time. the organizations and countries and people that launch these missions will be long gone by the time the crew arrives. there's a high chance they won't even know the mission existed and will not have the (ancient) equipment to communicate with the crew.
My God can beat up your God. Just kidding...don't take offense. I know there's no God.
If the surface gravity were about the same as the Earth's, wouldn't that mean that its atmospheric pressure at the surface would be about the same also. After all, it's gravity holding the gas down, and technically the atmospheric pressure is the weight of the gas above that point. Assuming the gas is trapped to the planet by the gravity, then you might have about the same amount of gas trapped above a point by a similar amount of gravity.
I'm just speculating though.
No. Atmospheric pressure is not simply a function of gravity. It is more a function of how much stuff there is in the atmosphere.
Consider that Venus' surface gravity is 0.904g wrt to Earth's (1g). And yet Venus's atmospheric pressure at the surface is 9.2 Megapascals whereas Earth's atmospheric pressure is 101.325 kilo-pascals (or 0.101325 Megapascals).
That is, even though Venus gravity is 90.4% that of Earth, its atmospheric pressure is 92 times that of Earth.
it can be used as a refueling station to reach other planet and star systems out there.
I assume since it is a Class M planet it has fossil fuels and water and other stuff we can use on it.
You can send robot shuttles to the surface to mine and collect fossil fuel and water, water can be turned into hydrogen for fuel and oxygen to breathe.
There might even be plants or soil rich enough to plant Earth plants on it, that might or might not grow in the higher gravity. Put down solar cells to collect sunlight and store energy. Move robots all over the planet to look for stuff.
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