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Extrasolar planet hunters are excited about a not-so-hot discovery. For the first time, they’ve found a relatively cool extrasolar planet that they can study in detail.
sciencenews The finding is a milestone, says study co-author Hans Deeg of the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias in Tenerife, Spain, because it is the first time astronomers have found an extrasolar planet that not only is cool enough to be similar in composition and history to the familiar solar system gas giants Jupiter and Saturn, but also passes in front of the star it orbits.
Although a number of extrasolar planets with moderate temperatures have been discovered, only a planet that passes in front of — or transits — its star can be studied in depth. The starlight that filters through the atmosphere of the planet during each passage reveals the orb’s composition, while the amount of starlight that is blocked outright indicates the planet’s size.
All the other transiting planets seen so far have been “weird — inflated and hot” because they orbit so close to their stars, notes study collaborator Didier Queloz of the Geneva Observatory in Sauverny, Switzerland. Deeg, Queloz and their colleagues report their findings in the March 18 Nature.
The planet, found with the COROT satellite and dubbed COROT-9b, lies 1,500 light-years from Earth and never gets closer to its star than Mercury’s average distance from the sun. That puts the surface temperature of the planet in a relatively temperate range, somewhere between 250 kelvins and 430 kelvins (-23˚ to 157˚ Celsius). Although the gaseous planet isn’t expected to be habitable, its atmosphere could contain water vapor.
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Originally posted by SLAYER69
Hey I know they have found plenty of planets outside our solar system, many the size of Jupiter and way beyond. I've read here many times people discussing possible life on other planets. Now it seems they have found one right in the sweet spot of where scientists generally agree a planet that may support should be.
Now what if they find a Earth replacement?
Would you go?
Do we have a right to it?
Originally posted by QuantumDeath
If you do mean, right for colonization. We don't have that right. Not until we change our ways, otherwise, we will be kept here on Earth to rot in the spilling of our own blood, bathe in man made pools of radioactive fallout, and continue to live on a dying world from factories, producing the choking black smog of death.
As far as discovering other planets, we just wont have the opportunity to colonize, pillage, and rape another world till left dying.
Originally posted by Faiol
billions planets in our galaxy, billions of galaxies that we can see
so ... do the math
do u really think that only this planet have life ?
Originally posted by Foxe
reply to post by QuantumDeath
The universe is ours for the taking, if scum gets in the way then they can burn with the rest of the universe.
Our species has the right to survive, YOUR species. If xenos do not want to live with us or cooperate then they can burn. If we run into a bigger species out there than us, then we either cope or die. I'd rather die trying to make my species worth the time our planet or creator or whatever put into us, than die sitting here rotting away.
As for this planet: I would assume very much so there is a chance of air borne life on a gas giant in a close to liveable conditioned atmosphere. Highly probable. I hope we find more
[edit on 18-3-2010 by Foxe]
Originally posted by sphinx551
Have they found Planet Iarga (about 10 light years from Earth)?:
www.galactic.no...
Or is the government suppressing this one in secret?