New Earth planets found.

3 more earth like planets have been found this time only 42 light years from us, they are larger than our planet and rotate around their sun much faster than us.

They seem to be finding more and more on a daily basis the answer as to if we are alone could be found on these planets if we could get there?

Article is below:

news.ninemsn.com.au...

Great find.

However, and being completely ignorant and a poor science student - what are the implications of a short revolution around the sun?

Does it matter?

Could the names of the planets be sold off to large corporations?

to life? short revolutions shouldn't matter a whole lot to any life that would have developed on the planets, they've evolved in this situation.

reply to post by Mr Gunter


You have come up with a great question. Only answer I can think of as I'm in the same boat as you would be that the days would be short if it spins on an axis like we do? Maybe gravity would be heavier?

Could give you motion sickness

This should become a prime objective now! Achieve contact with that world and see if we get a reply back. If it's not inhabited then this could become our new world. :O

Of course we have to develop the ships first hehe

Originally posted by Mr Gunter what are the implications of a short revolution around the sun?

Well for a start,you could live to be 7,500 on one.

Seriously?? 4 days solar orbit?
That's incomprehensible

You'd have to hope for a normal 'earth day' rotation speed.. and not one to match the 'year'..
Otherwise one day would be 26 minutes long..
Not much chance of a lie in on Sundays there..

I've seen several stories like this since they started finding exoplanets, and I've noticed that most of them seem to be large (makes sense, as bigger ones are more easily detected) and very, very close to their star (not so easily explained, at least by me). Why are so many of these planets so close to their star? Mercury is our closest one and if memory serves, it orbits in 2 or 3 months, whereas Neptune takes something like 150 years. Is there something about planets closer to their sun that makes them easier to detect from Earth? I'd think it would be the opposite, myself.

news.yahoo.com...

The more they discovery the better and more interesting the Universe becomes and the greater the likely hood that other intelligent life forms may exist out there.

the meathed involved in finding the planets is the pull the planets excert on the star they orbet . causing a bulge wich is what is accutly seen from earth not the planet its self .
so ovesly its easer to find larger planets that orbet closer to there parent star
then smaller planets that orbet say 93 million miles out.
ps no life on these to close to the star . wate till the planet finder goes into accetion in just a few moew years then welll strt finding more earth type and distences from there stars.

However, and being completely ignorant and a poor science student - what are the implications of a short revolution around the sun?

Short revolution means they are extremely close to the star these planets will be much hotter than mercury no chance of liquid water on the surface. Also they will be tidally locked to the parent star like the moon is to earth. 1 side will always be in daylight the other permanent darkness.

Is there something about planets closer to their sun that makes them easier to detect from Earth? I'd think it would be the opposite, myself.

yes, the detection method is measuring the wobble of the star as the planet tugs while it orbits. If its closer the wobbles are more frequent and also bigger making them much easier to detect.

[edit on 16-6-2008 by yeti101]

Okay, that wobble thing makes sense. It actually sounds vaguely familiar, so I probably used to know it, once, but I forget a lot of things!

Makes me wonder, though, if so many stars have planets so close to their sun, why doesn't our solar system have any that close? I guess it's probably just that that is all we detect, so it seems like there are lots, when in fact they may be in the minority.

reply to post by DragonsDemesne



Only putting it out there. Could it be because it may be a younger solar system and the planets have not moved out as of yet? I pretty sure that is how our solar system started did it not?

reply to post by cnm1976
Interesting and informative post cnm1976
here is some more info on this topic from ESO
[img]
The perturbations induced by the planets are really tiny - the mass of the smallest planets is one hundred thousand times smaller than that of the star - and only the high sensitivity of HARPS made it possible to detect them," says co-author François Bouchy, from the Institut d'Astrophysique de Paris, France.
Indeed, each planet induces a motion of the star of only a few metres per second.
At the same conference, the team of astronomers announced the discovery of two other planetary systems, also with the HARPS spectrograph. In one, a super-Earth (7.5 Earth masses) orbits the star HD 181433 in 9.5 days. This star also hosts a Jupiter-like planet with a period close to 3 years. The second system contains a 22 Earth-mass planet having a period of 4 days and a Saturn-like planet with a 3-year period as well.
"Clearly these planets are only the tip of the iceberg," says Mayor. "The analysis of all the stars studied with HARPS shows that about one third of all solar-like stars have either super-Earth or Neptune-like planets with orbital periods shorter than 50 days."
A planet in a tight, short-period orbit is indeed easier to find than one in a wide, long-period orbit.
"It is most probable that there are many other planets present: not only super-Earth and Neptune-like planets with longer periods, but also Earth-like planets that we cannot detect yet. Add to it the Jupiter-like planets already known, and you may well arrive at the conclusion that planets are ubiquitous," concludes Udry.

These astronmical discovories are giving us much more insight of what is going on in our universe, all we have to do observe with great care and inteligible interaction>>angelc01

reply to post by DragonsDemesne



it is still a minority, around 30% of sun like stars have "hot jupiters" or planets in tight orbits.

Could it be because it may be a younger solar system and the planets have not moved out as of yet?

current theories are the opposite, scientists think those planets started further out and migrated inwards

reply to post by yeti101


So has our solar system stop moing towards the sun or are we still moving could this cause the planet to be warming up as signs of global warming if this is true what you say?

reply to post by cnm1976



our systems planets are in a very circular orbit around the sun which means they wont move or migrate much at all. Its likely the hot jupiter systems have more eliptical orbits and have gradually migrated.

I find it absolutely amazing that these 3 planets were found in the same solar system!

As amazing as it is, we have to remember that if these planets were in our solar system, they would ALL lie closer to the sun that Mercury....and as HD 40307 is only slightly smaller than the sun we can assume that these planets are inhospitable to intelligent life (as we know it)

Also, when they are called "Super-Earths" they are more like Neptune...

I imagine that the impact of being so close to their star would cause these planets to be tidally locked, meaning that there is no day / night cycle to speak of...

Still, the future of exo-planet hunting is looking good!