NASA Announces First Earth Twin in Habitable Zone Discovered by Kepler

a reply to: On7a7higher7plane
Totally agree, they are orbiting a RED DWARF meaning they are probably Gas Giant remnants.... Dead Iradiated balls of heavy elements... So reminiscent of a totally exciting..... and pointless NASA announcement.

originally posted by: grey580
I'll bet you guys a dollar that within the year someone will "invent" a propulsion system that will get us there quickly and open up exploitation of the planets resources.

I would take you up on that, how about we make this more interesting, what do you say about betting tree fiddy?

Anyway I don't think there are any reasonable means of getting to other star systems using propulsion based technology. The only feasible way I can see of accomplishing a task like that is by exploiting space-time with some sort of technology. Otherwise it's basically impossible. Morgan Freeman would probably second that.

a reply to: JadeStar

Your mug just made my day.

Way to keep up the thread.

Dr. Isaac Asimov wrote, in his book 'Extraterrestrial Civilizations' that a red dwarf star with a mass greater than 1/3 that of our Sun could probably have habitable planets that were not tidally locked. Kepler 186 reportedly has nearly half the mass of the Sun, and planet f is said to be near the outer boundary of this star's habitable zone.
Assuming Dr. Asimov's calculations still stand as correct, it seems a reasonable possibility that planet Kepler 186 f could rotate on its axis, faster than its orbital period around its star. This would make it that much more like Earth, than if it always had one side facing the star, and the other always averted from it.

Very interesting achievement indeed to be able to detect a non-radiant object at that distance.

IE detecting the planet as it crosses its star from our perspective.
This method will only pick up on planets in a very particular orbital plane from our point of view so we'd be lucky to be picking up the existence of even 1% of the planets that are actually out there orbiting stars close enough to us for the method to work. There could very well be numerous 'earth twins' out there in habitable zones in our immediate neighbourhood (galactically speaking) that can't be detected as yet because their orbital plane is inclined with respect to our location such that they never cross their star from our point of observation.

a reply to: Pilgrum
You are spot on.
More the merrier, I guess

a reply to: Pilgrum

That's true for the planet-hunting method that Kepler employs (the transit method).

However, there are other observatories using the Doppler spectroscopy method, which is also called the radial-velocity method. The doppler spectroscopy method looks for the slight wobble that a star will disply due to being pulled on as planets orbit it.

For example, as the Earth obits the Sun, the Earth's own gravity pulls the Sun towards it ever so slightly. Using very precise measurement techniques (reading the doppler shift of the star), astronomers can determine if a star has plants, and what the size of those planets are.

The Doppler spectroscopy method does not require the line-of-sight required by the transit method. Many times, the doppler method is used hand in hand with the transit method. Planets believed to possibly exist that were found by transit have later been confirmed by doppler.

a reply to: Soylent Green Is People

Thanks for the explanation

Might update my estimate to maybe 2% of potential candidates in our general neighbourhood now. Just need to wonder about whether we'll (as a species) ever make it that far out to actually confirm them as being habitable.

It seems like I've joined the party late here with this thread. Whilst I watched the teleconference I didn't get chance to post here after.

Jadestar -

thank you for your wonderful posts! Your eNthusiam really is inspiring! Two things that came up in your posts in this thread -

1. That recent KOI list you posted and how far down Kepler 186f was. It really does look promising in terms of more announcements like Kepler 186f.

2. The possibility of them using Hubble to determine the mass of Kepler 186f. How exactly would they do this? A closer look at the orbits of the system? Could Hubble take spectra of Kepler 186f. I suppose that would be wishful thinking!

I just love how it's likely that much more of these planets could exist within 10 odd light years of where we are. We truly do live in exciting times, documentaries in the future will look back on this time and remark how 17-4-14 truly was one of a handful of significant dates in our understanding of life beyond our planet.

Jadestar, another quick question if I may... What is the current status of the proposed 'K2' mission? I keep reading loads of conflicting reports about this, can't seem to get any definitive answers. Also, could the K2 extended mission be used to gather new data about Kepler 186f?

Thanks again Jadestar for your truly fascinating posts

Ross 54 -

Thanks for clearing up the whole tidal locking thing, I'll have to look up Dr. Isaac Asimov's book, seems right up my street. I hope Kepler 186f isn't tidally locked, increases the chance for life to exist. Also increases the chances that more discoveries like Kepler 186f around M Dwarf stars will not be tidally locked. I hope so anyway.


Soylent Green Is People -

Thanks for your explanation of the detection techniques. How likely is it that radial velocity will be used on planets like kepler 186f?

Who said we don't have the tech to image this world??

Right here: quartermaester.info...




Someone had to...


On topic..
Now if only all that "secret" tech could be used to actually do some smart stuff.....

a reply to: JadeStar I didn't know if I should start a new thread or just bump this old one. Pretty cool this is from 2014 and now NASA is gonna talk more about it. Here's the link. NASA Is Hosting a Conference to Detail a Major Alien Planet Discovery