Possible first earth-like plan­et "super- Earth" found out­side our So­lar Sys­tem

In a find­ing that if con­firmed could stand as a land­mark in history, as­tro­no­mers have re­ported dis­co­v­er­ing the most Earth-like plan­et out­side our So­lar Sys­tem to date: a world that may have liq­uid oceans and thus life.

Swiss, French and Por­tu­guese sci­en­tists found the body, es­ti­mated as 50 per­cent wid­er than our Earth, or­bit­ing a so-called red dwarf star rel­a­tively close to Earth. The star is thought to har­bor two oth­er plan­ets al­so.

Artist's con­cept of a red dwarf, a dim star that burns slow­ly and very long. (Cour­te­sy NASA)
The new­found exo­pla­n­et—as as­tro­no­mers call plan­ets around stars oth­er than the Sun—would be the small­est such body ev­er re­ported.

None­the­less, the object is es­ti­mat­ed to weigh as much as five Earths, part­ly thanks to its great­er width. For the same rea­son, it would have more than twice Earth’s sur­face ar­ea. His­tor­i­cally, only large exo­pla­n­ets lend them­selves to hu­man de­tect­ion, though that is chang­ing.

www.world-science.net...

Eventually astronomers will rack up discoveries of dozens, maybe even hundreds of planets considered habitable, the astronomers said. But this one - simply called "c" by its discoverers when they talk among themselves - will go down in cosmic history as No. 1.

seattlepi.nwsource.com...

[edit on 24/4/2007 by rai76]

Oh this does sound interesting,
Thanks for brining this topic up its one to watch for sure,

Originally posted by asala
Oh this does sound interesting,
Thanks for brining this topic up its one to watch for sure,

Absolutely. It seems that this is the very first earth like planet they have found outside our solar system that meets that standards for a possible hatibable planet.

It seems besides having the right temperature it is probably full of liquid water, which is not confirmed yet. Because this is based on the theory how planets form.

Will be amazing when and if astronomers can get a better look at it,

Seems there unsure if its rocky or more oceans, however this really is soemthing that could change how our outlook on the Universe,

And the amazing possibilty that there could even be life on there,


edition.cnn.com...


[edit on 24-4-2007 by asala]

This artists rendering released by European Southern Observatory, shows the planetary system around the red dwarf Gliese 581 For the first time astronomers have discovered a planet outside our solar system that is potentially as habitable as Earth, at left, with similar temperatures, researchers announced

[edit on 24/4/2007 by rai76]

Very interesting, do keep us updated

This is amazing.

Next line of duty: Does the location of this planet correspond with any of the abduction stories/maps (Betty and Barney Hill?) or anything like that?

Get to it, ATS!




View from the new planet (render, obviously)

Are there bigger/better instruments that we could use to get more information from this "super-earth"? If it were up to me i'd have every telescope on earth pointed at this thing getting as much data as possible

20 light years is pretty close if I'm not mistaken. Isn't this the closest exo-planet found yet?

This is great news, by far the greatest, and we should all kepp a watchful eye out for the progress of this story. I just hope the government doesn't silence anyone or anything before this story gets developped. Great job!

-Jimmy-

Big discovery, but 20 light years is still far away, it would take a probe hudreds of years to get there, it would take an object betwen 80 and 100 years to get there, and that if it the object were to be traveling at a quorter of light speed.
Since objects like probes travel at a speed much smaller it would take for a probe probaly hundreds of years if not one thoulsand years to get there depending on the speed it travels.
One thing we can do is build a biger telescope and take a closer look at it since it's closer than other places in the universe.



[edit on 24-4-2007 by pepsi78]

Wow, this is truly amazing news! This totally made my day!

Looking forward to hearing more info on this.

What a WONDERFUL discovery!

I'm packing my bags now -- let me know when the first space ship leaves for it OK?? I'll be ready any time....

This is truly amazing news. I guess the people that said earth was too "unique" for there to be another planet like it are eating their words right now.

this is awesome! i wonder if the inhabitants recently discovered us! or maybe they have discovered us some time ago. perhaps they are on the same level of technology and one day we will recieve some sort of probe from them. wouldnt that be something

From what I've been reading so far, this planet is billions of years older than our own so that could possibly mean that the evolution of life on that planet could be billions of years ahead of us! Think about that.... isn't it awesome??

Wow, amazing news, need to figure out a way to see it..

another link... www.msnbc.msn.com...

Originally posted by pepsi78
Big discovery, but 20 light years is still far away, it would take a probe hudreds of years to get there, it would take an object betwen 80 and 100 years to get there, and that if it the object were to be traveling at a quorter of light speed.
[edit on 24-4-2007 by pepsi78]

Using 1950's technology. I'm positive our government has near light speed and maybe even faster secret technology.

A thread on this subject already exists, actually there are several.

The first one can be found here.
Earth Like Planet Found?

[edit on 4/24/2007 by iori_komei]

that's awesome.

I wonder how old it is. I'd love to know it's temperature and what makes up it's atmosphere.

It's so close to it's sun, if there was enough oxygen, the temp was right and it's at least as old as Earth, there's a good chance it already supports some sort of life. Biological or higher forms.

But, damn ... it's so far away. I'm mean not really. At least it won't be in the future when the speed of light barrier is not a problem. So, I guess it'd take 20 years to get there at the speed of light, right? So we've just got to figure out this small problem of mass and we're there!

www.abovetopsecret.com...

posted on 24-4-2007 @ 01:16 PM