solar system lookalike found

solar system lookalike found

news.bbc.co.uk

Astronomers have discovered a planetary system orbiting a distant star which looks much like our own.

They found two planets that were close matches for Jupiter and Saturn orbiting a star about half the size of our Sun.

Martin Dominik, from the St Andrews University, UK, said the finding suggested systems like our own could be much more common than we thought.

And he told a major meeting that astronomers were on the brink of finding many more of them.

(visit the link for the full news article)

exciting news, looks like we may not be unique afterall.

news.bbc.co.uk
(visit the link for the full news article)

what if we are looking at our solar system in the future/past...if it's billion light years away, maybe it's us, through the looking glass?

Originally posted by adkchamp
what if we are looking at our solar system in the future/past...if it's billion light years away, maybe it's us, through the looking glass?

Could well be, either way this is an exciting find.

reply to post by orby1976


it is exciting but im always thinking about this theory, how we see ourselves...and we can see the future if we want to (like see if earth's still in its place or if the sun dies) and i bet we've the future, well the scientists or NASA did...

i dunno but it is indeed fascinating

reply to post by adkchamp


That is an intelligent thought

What if we are the simulated version of that solar system? We could be looking at our creators. Scientists have spoken about the possibilities of us living in a simulated world.

if it is looking into the past or future, we could learn how it all began, or perhaps see our demise.

Originally posted by adkchamp
what if we are looking at our solar system in the future/past...if it's billion light years away, maybe it's us, through the looking glass?

I not sure how the mechanics of this would work but it sounds very interesting. Just to think, we could see our Sun and homeworld being born. If its the future now that really would be something. Hopefully it doesn't randomly nova.

reply to post by adkchamp


I don't think we could see ourselves in the future or the past. We're seeing the light from stars from many years ago, the number of years based upon how many light years they are away from us. The sun is only 93 million miles away from us, so it gets here rather quickly compared to those other stars.

You could never look out into space and see our solar system unless you manufactured a giant mirror or found something either artificially or naturally reflecting our light somewhere distant in space, because then the light would actually have to travel all the way to the destination of reflection and back to your eyes again... and that time frame would have to be somewhere in the range of 6 billion years given the current projections of how old our solar system may be.

Cool thought, but nothing to do with actuality.

[edit on 7-4-2008 by LastOutfiniteVoiceEternal]

reply to post by LastOutfiniteVoiceEternal



Ive been entertaining this idea, what natural "plausible" devices might change the way light travels in such a way that it returns to its source.

Ive been thinking, what about a gravitational anomaly? Black Holes and dark matter? What else out there could mess with light?

A hypothesis:
If space/time is curved, couldn't a beam of light curve naturally in space over the distance of billions of light years only to return to it's source? So, let's say in the early years of our solar system's formation the light emanating from then has travelled a huge circuit of the universe only to become visible to us now. Therefore, we are looking at ourselves a long time ago.

reply to post by TheComte


ummm....'TheComte'....sounds like you're working out a Science Fiction short story, and just looking for ideas to flesh it out???

Or, it's a legitimate question....well....short answer....light doesn't travel all the way round the Universe in order to reach your doorstep so you can ask the question in the first place....make sense?

Think about it, and try again....

To see ourselves in the past, our entire solarsystem would need to have traveled to where we are now faster then the speed of light.

Or the light emited by us when we were in that ancient position has to have been slowed down considerably.

The later being only possible in labs and never been withnessed in nature, the first being impossible no matter how you look at it, the idea is nice and dreamy, but science its not.

reply to post by weedwhacker


No, no short story. I think what I proposed is legitimate, if space/time is indeed curved. Like a previous post mentioned, gravitational wells, stars, could act on light to curve it. In an infinite time scale, it could conceivebly reach us again after billions of years travelling. Why not?
Light beams go off in every direction, not just aimed straight at us.

reply to post by TheComte


Well if space time is curved in the way that you propose and all light should circulate until eventually reaching us, then I'd extrapolate that all light beams are aimed directly at us, some just reach us faster than others.

[edit on 7-4-2008 by LastOutfiniteVoiceEternal]

Originally posted by LastOutfiniteVoiceEternal
reply to post by TheComte

 

Well if space time is curved in the way that you propose and all light should circulate until eventually reaching us, then I'd extrapolate that all light beams are aimed directly at us, some just reach us faster than others.

[edit on 7-4-2008 by LastOutfiniteVoiceEternal]

Yes, exactly. And some could fail to reach us for billions of years, just circulating around until finally becoming visible. Who knows, just speculating.

Anyways, I too think it's an exciting discovery. Coupled with the recent detection of a methane molecule on a distant planet, I am confident we will soon find evidence of life on other planets. We just need to find planets with suitable atmospheric conditions and look for that molecule. Won't be long now.

Some very good thoughts on what this could be have been put forward,
that's the beauty of the ATS site, everybody has their own oppinion, and it
makes a great debate. Personally though, i dont think it is a past or future
milky way we are seeing. I think it is what it says "a look-alike".
And hopefully more planets orbiting the star will be discovered very soon.

Originally posted by adkchamp
what if we are looking at our solar system in the future/past...if it's billion light years away, maybe it's us, through the looking glass?

If the universe was a lot smaller than it is, it could be possible to look at ourselves a long time ago. Sort of like sitting in the center of a spherical mirror, and seeing the back of your own head in every direction. This star system is only five thousand light-years away, in our own galaxy. We wouldn't be able to detect planets if it belonged to another galaxy.

If this is the case and its only five thousand light-years away how come we didn't discover it sooner, i dont mean like 20 or so years because we didn't have the technology then, but within the last 5 or so years.
It does make for an interesting point of view though.
perhaps some experts could could share their knowledge