Astronomers seek Earth-like planets

Astronomers seek Earth-like planets

www.earthsky.org

Drake Deming: We’re on the hunt for Earth-like planets around other stars.

That’s astronomer Drake Deming of the Goddard Space Flight Center. Deming is a lead scientist on NASA’s EPOXI mission.

Drake Deming: Well, EPOXI s a mission with a funny name, but it’s doing two different things. The first thing that it’s doing is that it’s going to go to Comet Hartley 2 and make images of the comet. Meanwhile, the second thing that it’s doing is to look at bright, nearby stars that have planets that transit them, that pass in front of them. And it’s searching those systems to find other planets that may transit — planets down to the size of Earth.

Using a detector similar to what’s typically on a digital camera, attached to a telescope, EPOXI will image the total brightness of stars along its path likely to have planets.

Drake Deming: And when a planet transits, or passes in front of a star, that total brightness drops by a small amount. We can make very precise measurements, and thereby detect those objects.

One star that might have an Earth-sized planet is the red dwarf star Gliese 436. This star is already known to have a Neptune-sized planet in orbit.

Drake Deming: But what will be new and exciting is that we know from other indications that there is another planet in this system, and everyone is trying to find it.

If found, Deming said the planet could be our nearest Earth-sized neighbor in space – about 33 light years away.

(visit the link for the full news article)



[edit on 16-4-2009 by ^anubis^]


[edit: title to same as source]
Headline: Please use the original story headline from your source.

[edit on 16-4-2009 by 12m8keall2c]

"Drake Deming: But what will be new and exciting is that we know from other indications that there is another planet in this system, and everyone is trying to find it."

What do they mean by that? Are they talking about the planet Nibiru? and how do they know there is a planet out there but they've never seen it?

www.earthsky.org
(visit the link for the full news article)

Greetings, Nibiru or planet X is supposed to be a brown dwarf or similar failed star that orbits our sun (Sol) every 3600 years, they're looking for Earth sized planets from other star systems.

Ah edit to see that they are talking about an possible other planet in our solar system... well that could be Nibiru they are talking about, then

[edit on 16-4-2009 by star in a jar]

It tells you in the article how they can detect planets and since they aren't looking at our solar system then its probably not Nibiru.

Not that it even exists of course

reply to post by ^anubis^


From what I am reading I think they are talking about a planet in the system where they found the Neptune size planet. Not our solar system. Then again, I could be wrong.

Originally posted by ^anubis^
"Drake Deming: But what will be new and exciting is that we know from other indications that there is another planet in this system, and everyone is trying to find it."

What do they mean by that? Are they talking about the planet Nibiru?

Drake Deming: We’re on the hunt for Earth-like planets around other stars.

One star that might have an Earth-sized planet is the red dwarf star Gliese 436. This star is already known to have a Neptune-sized planet in orbit.

reply to post by ^anubis^


Astronomers found our outer planets because they noticed a wobble in the inner planet's orbits meaning something was pulling on them. Now they have noticed this same wobble on each of the outer planets also. Knowing how small pluto is it could not possiably have enough gravity to alter Neptune's orbit therefore there still must be something bigger out there.

Nibiru I'm not sure. It seems to me if Stichen was right it would be obvious where to look because of it's size and if I'm correct he says it's on a more vertical plane than our solar system and orbits in the oppisite direction. I think that would cause a different wobble to Neptune than say Uranus causes to saturn. On the other hand maybe thats what they did notice and it is bearing down on us. I have seen some "images" of what they say is a possiable brown dwarf star in our near solar system. The sheeple would freak out about impending doom so the secret is safe for now.

reply to post by dariousg


Agreed. The OP is getting caught up in the phrasing.

They are talking about the other system, not our own.

English is a funny language.

Hopefully the Niribuites have a simple unified language.

reply to post by ^anubis^


Not to be a butthead but I am pretty sure the thread title needs to be the same as the news article.

As for the article itself its discussing a planet in another star system. Nibiru if I remember correctly is believed by Sitchin to be in our system but out in the Oort cloud or beyond the Kuiper belt.

[edit on 16/4/09 by MikeboydUS]

reply to post by MikeboydUS


yea lol but nobody wanted to read the thread with the original name which was the article name, so i changed it and than people came over lol

if we do live on other planets will there be other life forms who will feel like we invaded their territory?, question is would we like someone coming to our planet for a better source of life? probably not, we would kill any alien life form who came to this planet, it's our nature to be scared by the unknown so whats to say other life on planets won't do the same.

Chart .. Our Sun in main sequence

On this page:

rst.gsfc.nasa.gov...


The Sun just does not look like it has any brothers and sisters.
Or else they would be noted.

The gift of life on earth is rudely defiled to think a possible 2nd creation
can exist.

The largest number of individual stars in galaxies fall in a narrow range between just under 1 solar mass to about 10 solar masses. During their evolution to Red Giants, they follow this internal history of burning (fusion) of the initial Hydrogen:

From the NASA link A5.
So looks like we have a chance at alien life love with so many
suns crowding around 1 solar mass range.
Is this anticipation of alien planet life like "Dum and Dummer"
when a chance for love is one in a million:
"Wow, So there is a chance."



[edit on 4/17/2009 by TeslaandLyne]