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

oh i dunno i always thought they were exactly the same.

Goldilocks problem refers to the other planets that have been discovered (i.e. either too hot or too cold)... (makes more sense now, huh?) Whereas this one is "just right"

Originally posted by Gazrok
Goldilocks problem refers to the other planets that have been discovered (i.e. either too hot or too cold)... (makes more sense now, huh?)

Whereas this one is "just right"

Im no expert of course

This article says:

If Earth were a little closer to the sun it might be like hot choking Venus; a little farther, like cold arid Mars. Somehow, though, we ended up in just the right place with just the right ingredients for life to flourish. Researchers of the 1970s scratched their heads and said we were in "the Goldilocks Zone."

science.nasa.gov...

Also in Wikipedia:

The HZ may also be referred to as the "life zone", "Green Belt" or the "Goldilocks Zone" (because it's neither too hot nor too cold, but "just right")

That is why I also refered earlier to the Goldilocks Zone. Just trying to find as much as possible about what they claim in the discovery.

[edit on 26/4/2007 by rai76]

Weird, as they often refer to the "Goldilocks Problem" as well...

www.phys.lsu.edu...
burro.case.edu...
citeseer.ist.psu.edu...

I guess it's just important whether you have "problem" or "zone" after Goldilocks, as they are two different things. I've always heard it mentioned in the "problem" context....

Guess we all learn something new everyday, LOL!

EDIT: In any case, the discovery is certainly exciting. It doesn't really surprise me... My personal view is that the Universe is (compared to common thought) teeming with life. Heck, there are at least TWO other places in the solar system other than Earth (Mars and Europa) that could have some degree of liquid water, and thus life as we know it. In addition, we've found life on Earth in habitats we thought would never support it, so who knows what small little critters can survive and in what climes....

[edit on 26-4-2007 by Gazrok]

The Goldilocks Zone

Somehow, though, we ended up in just the right place with just the right ingredients for life to flourish. Researchers of the 1970s scratched their heads and said we were in "the Goldilocks Zone."

The Goldilocks Zone seemed a remarkably small region of space. It didn't even include the whole Earth. All life known in those days was confined to certain limits: no colder than Antarctica (penguins), no hotter than scalding water (desert lizards), no higher than the clouds (eagles), no lower than a few mines (deep mine microbes).

In the past 30 years, however, our knowledge of life in extreme environments has exploded. Scientists have found microbes in nuclear reactors, microbes that love acid, microbes that swim in boiling-hot water. Whole ecosystems have been discovered around deep sea vents where sunlight never reaches and the emerging vent-water is hot enough to melt lead.

Source: NASA



[edit on 26-4-2007 by blue bird]

youtube.com...

British bookies scared of aliens

British bookmakers have wasted no time slashing the odds on aliens being discovered after astronomers announced that they had discovered an Earth-like planet.

Bookies William Hill cut the odds on proving the existence of extraterrestrial life from 1,000-1 to 100-1.

"We felt we had to react to the news that an Earth-like planet which could support intelligent life had been discovered - after all, we don't know for sure that intelligent extra-terrestrial life has not already been discovered, but is being hushed up," said spokesman Graham Sharpe.

Astronomers reported they they had found a "super-Earth" more than 20 light years away, the most intriguing world found so far in the search for extra-terrestrial life.

For William Hill to pay out on an aliens bet, the Prime Minister has to confirm officially the existence of intelligent extra-terrestrial life within a year of the bet being placed.

"We have come a cropper before when, in the early 1960s, we offered 1000/1 about man walking on the moon before 1970," said Mr Sharpe.

About five times the mass of Earth, the planet orbits a cool, dim "red dwarf" star in the constellation of Libra, the team from the European Southern Observatory said in a press release.

"Because of its temperature and relative proximity, this planet will most probably be a very important target of the future space missions dedicated to the search for extraterrestrial life," said Xavier Delfosse, a team member from France's Grenoble University.

Originally posted by Cutwolf
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!

No. The aliens who reportedly abducted the Hill's told Betty that they were from the planetary system around Zeta Reticuli A.

Here is all of the up-to-date info on Gleise 581c.

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.

Oth­er cu­ri­ous fea­tures of the new­found plan­et are that grav­i­ty at its sur­face would be around twice as strong as on Earth; and its year is just 13 Earth days long, as it comp­letes one or­bit about its sun in that time.

It’s 14 times clos­er to its star than we are from our Sun, re­search­ers said. But since its host star, the red dwarf Gliese 581, is smaller and cool­er than the Sun, the plan­et nev­ertheless would lie in its hab­it­a­ble zone—the re­gion around a star with suit­a­ble tem­pe­r­a­tures for liq­uid wa­ter.

Av­er­age tem­pe­r­a­tures on this “supe­r-Earth” lie be­tween 0 and 40 de­grees Cel­si­us (32 to 104 de­grees Fahren­heit), “and wa­ter would thus be liq­uid,” said Sté­phane Udry of Switz­er­land’s Ge­ne­va Ob­serv­a­to­ry, lead au­thor of a pa­pe­r re­port­ing the re­sult. “Mod­els pre­dict that the plan­et should be ei­ther rock­y—like our Earth—or cov­ered with oceans,” he added.

“Liq­uid wa­ter is crit­i­cal to life as we know it,” not­ed Xa­vi­er Delfosse, a mem­ber of the team from Gre­no­ble Uni­ver­si­ty, France. “Be­cause of its tem­pe­r­a­ture and rel­a­tive prox­im­i­ty, this plan­et will most prob­a­bly be a very im­por­tant tar­get of the fu­ture space mis­sions ded­i­cat­ed to the search for extra-terrestrial life. On the treas­ure map of the Uni­verse, one would be tempted to mark this plan­et with an X.”

...The host star, Gliese 581, is among the 100 clos­est stars to us, ly­ing 20.5 light-years away in the con­stel­la­tion Li­bra (“the Scales.”) A light-year is the dis­tance light trav­els in a year.

And about it's host star:

Gliese 581 has one third the mass of our Sun. Such small stars, called red dwarfs, are at least 50 times faint­er than the Sun and are be­lieved to be the most com­mon stars in our gal­axy. Among the 100 clos­est stars to the Sun, 80 be­long to this class.

“Red dwarfs are ide­al tar­gets for the search for such plan­ets be­cause they emit less light, and the hab­it­a­ble zone is thus much clos­er to them than it is around the Sun,” said Xa­vi­er Bon­fils, a co-re­searcher from Lis­bon Uni­ver­si­ty. Plan­ets near a star are eas­i­er to de­tect be­cause their grav­i­ta­tion­al pull af­fects the par­ent star no­tice­ably, in­duc­ing some­thing of a wig­gling mo­tion.

Red dwarfs are al­so ex­pected to live ex­traor­di­nar­ily long be­cause they burn fu­el slow­ly. A red dwarf one-third the Sun’s mass, like Gliese 581, would typ­i­cal­ly shine for some 130 bil­lion years, out­liv­ing the Sun by thir­teen times. That might re­lieve at least one source of stress for any in­hab­i­tants of a red dwarf sys­tem. We on Earth are al­ready half­way through the Sun’s life­time, though much time re­mains.Source

[edit on 4/26/2007 by Stormrider]

I wish we could get a better look at gliese 581c!, Is Hubble still operational?????????, ifso, we could get awesome photos!

Hubble, yeah, it's still good, and with planned repairs it should last till 2013, when it will be replaced with the James Webb Telescope, which will unfortunately only observe in infrared (though it will do a better job of that than Hubble, which can observe in infrared, visible, and ultraviolet).

cool, Hopefully the people with access to the BATS (Big Ass Telescopes), will look its way. I Would we even be able to see it? or just the solar system that is lies in?

Dude, it was only found as a result of BATS observation. If anything else is discovered it will most likely be from the planned next generation of satellite telescopes.

Originally posted by uberarcanist
Dude, it was only found as a result of BATS observation. If anything else is discovered it will most likely be from the planned next generation of satellite telescopes.

Well, arent those ground based????? iam pretty sure the ones we have on earth pale in comparison to how far the Hubble and see!

Anything we know about this planet is inferred from effects it exerts on its parent star, direct observations have not been made and I doubt that even in orbit such observations would be possible with current technology. Do not despair, many new telescopes are planned one of which will probably allow direct observations, see the Wikipedia articles on Terrestrial Planet Finder/Darwin (this will probably be a collaborative mission) and also James Webb Space Telescope/New Worlds (probably also a collaborative mission). Heck, I say just stick 'em all together like Voltron!

Some facts:

* Gliese Stars are named by German astronomer WILHELM GLIESE - who is best known for his Gliese Catalogue of Nearby Stars.

* "The discovery of the planet by the team of Stéphane Udry of the Geneva Observatory in Switzerland was announced on April 24, 2007. The team used the HARPS instrument on the European Southern Observatory 3.6 m Telescope in La Silla, Chile. The team employed the radial velocity technique. The team now intends to use the Canadian-built MOST space telescope to conduct follow-up studies of the planet as it passes in front of the star"

wiki

So - no it is not NASA or Hubble who found it...and, no picture so soon!

Using solar sails for interstellar travel sounds interesting:

www.centauri-dreams.org...

RocheWorld

No one here will be alive to see that planet, sorry.

Terrestrial Planet Finder/Darwin (this will probably be a collaborative mission)

The info on the ESA website is out of date. ESA are going it alone with Darwin becuase Nasa budget cuts mean they have indefinitely postponed TPF. ESA want darwin to be launched by 2015, TPF looks like 2025 at the earliest

The scientists who made the coronagraph for the TPF mission say the technology is ready now to use in space and are looking for another mission top put their instrument on.

No one here will be alive to see that planet, sorry.

Wrong! we expect future telescope missions to get direct images of the planet so good you will be able to make out continents/water if they exist. Ok its a while off but they hope to do it within 50 years max.

the only downside is that the gravity is alot heavier due to the mass of the planet. if there were inhabitants there, they could rip us to shreds, and if we were to live there or even go there for that matter, we would have to be really strong. think, we'd get a workout just for being there. we might end up looking like this guys

www.bodybuilding.com...


lol, that'd be a bit too buff for me lol...