More than 100 'Earth-like' planets discovered in past few weeks

More than 100 'Earth-like' planets discovered in past few weeks

More than 100 planets that are a similar size to Earth have been discovered in just the past few weeks, it has been announced.

This is just awsome... Looks like the Keplar telescope is doing its job. My optomism for detection of extraterrestirals just notched up a bit. I do find it intresting though that larger groups are talking about Alien contact (vatican, UN, UK, etc). Seems the info is coming out as snippets to acclimate the people for an eventual announcement / disclosure.

Reason for my optomism:

Scientists now believe that there are likely to be around 100 million planets in the Milky Way that harbour exactly the right conditions for life.And they expect to be able to identify around 60 of these habitable Earth-like planets within the next two years.

Read more: www.dailymail.co.uk...

[edit on 23-7-2010 by Xcathdra]


Thank you impaired for finding the clarification.
Clarification
Clarification - The articel claim of 100 earth like planets found has been clarified. The data from Keplar sugests the possibility, and not an actual find.

[edit on 23-7-2010 by Xcathdra]

As long as they don't have earth like Governments...
Have they spotted any good trout streams yet?

The telescope sounds amazing.

it was inevitable.

I must say on a side note, I feel like we're in something.

I'm interested to see where this leads.

Thank you for the post

Earth like ... or Earth sized?

the title is slightly misleading ....

EDIT: to add .. Apologies .. you used the title the article did ..



[edit on 23/7/10 by Quantum_Squirrel]

reply to post by Myendica


I agree... The pace of information talking about possible extraterrestrial existance seems to be increasing. Now that we know there are Earth like planets, I am curious if SETI /CSETI would focus on these candidates and listen / look.

Originally posted by Quantum_Squirrel
Earth like ... or Earth sized?

the title is slightly misleading ....

EDIT: to add .. Apologies .. you used the title the article did ..



[edit on 23/7/10 by Quantum_Squirrel]

no worries... I think in this case when they refer to Earth like, they are ferring to the sizes. Scientists have already been able to detect atmospheres from the larger planets outside our solarsystem. I would assume (maybe wrong here) that they would be able to check the atmospheres of these candidate planets as well.

[edit on 23-7-2010 by Xcathdra]

This is major. Thank you!
We have this and the whole Vatican deal. Seems they're going to find SOMETHING soon. Probably something primitive on one of Jupiter's or Saturn's moon, though.
Our disclosure will probably be that and the announcement that there are indeed thousands of Earthlike planets - straight confirmation from Kepler and the Terrestrial Planet Finder.

I can't wait!!

Hate to sound or be selfish but I can care less about how many earth like planets they find. My kids or grand kids won't ever get to travel or escape some doomsday scenario by escaping to one of these 100 planets. So why stress it?

What I do find very interesting and has been pointed out already is the fact that we are starting to see or hear about the possibilities of alien life and UFOs.

I really think that something bigger is in the works.

Wait - I found this on Space.com:



www.space.com...

Despite overzealous news headlines this week, NASA's Kepler spacecraft has not indentified more than 100 Earth-like planets in the galaxy.

The planet-hunting telescope, launched in April 2009, has so far confirmed only five alien planets beyond the solar system, mission scientists told SPACE.com.

The erroneous reports of new planets were generated in response to a recent videotaped speech Kepler co-investigator Dimitar Sasselov gave at a TED (Technology Entertainment and Design) conference in July.

"More than 100 'Earth-like' planets discovered in past few weeks," read the headline of a Wednesday article in the U.K.'s Daily Mail newspaper. The Observer, another U.K. paper, also reported the finding.

However, Sasselov was referencing only possible planets among the Kepler data, scientists said.

Well that sucks...

However:

"What Dimitar presented was 'candidates,'" said David Koch, the mission's deputy principal investigator at NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif. "These have the apparent signature we are looking for, but then we must perform extensive follow-up observations to eliminate false positives, such as background eclipsing binaries. This requires substantial amounts of ground-based observing which is done primarily in the summer observing season."

In June the Kepler team announced the discovery of 706 planet candidates – objects that preliminarily have the right signature to be alien worlds.

[edit on 7/23/2010 by impaired]

reply to post by impaired


Ouch.. Thanks for finding that clarification.

Either way though he is saying that the Keplar data possibly shows the presence of these planets. I guess we will have to wait and see if the data is correct.






[edit on 23-7-2010 by Xcathdra]

Originally posted by impaired
This is major. Thank you!
We have this and the whole Vatican deal. Seems they're going to find SOMETHING soon. Probably something primitive on one of Jupiter's or Saturn's moon, though.
Our disclosure will probably be that and the announcement that there are indeed thousands of Earthlike planets - straight confirmation from Kepler and the Terrestrial Planet Finder.

I can't wait!!

They are slowly building up to making it seem like it's okay to think life on other planets is possible but okay. And then they will spring the news of life found and/or that this life is intelligent.

Originally posted by Xcathdra
reply to post by impaired

 

Ouch.. Thanks for finding that clarification.

Either way though he is saying that the Keplar data possibly shows the presence of these planets. I guess we will have to wait and see if the data is correct.
[edit on 23-7-2010 by Xcathdra]

Oh yeah - over 700 candidates is still seen as gold in my eyes.
The Dailymail could have gotten a leak for all we know, though.

Either way, when the data is released, I'm sure it's going to blow us away!

[edit on 7/23/2010 by impaired]

reply to post by Xcathdra


I think 15 years from now, they will be talking about E.T.'s and other planets, as if it has been common knowledge for a while.

NASA's Deep Space Camera Locates Host of 'Earths'

Scientists celebrated Sunday after finding more than 700 suspected new planets -- including up to 140 similar in size to Earth -- in just six weeks of using a powerful new space observatory.

Source

Intresting that Nasa would try to walk to statement back, then go forward with this announcement. Going back to the conversation about slowly releasing information with potentially massive impact on the Earths population.


[edit on 25-7-2010 by Xcathdra]

[edit on 25-7-2010 by Xcathdra]

if anyone says

"MAYBE THERE IS LIFE OUT THERE BESIDES US AFTER ALL!!"

i'm going to slit my wrist because its PRETTY OBVIOUS.


There is always a bigger pond, with bigger fish.

reply to post by hoghead cheese


LOLOLOLOLOL Just what i mean

/slitwrist

thanks bro

heres the TED presentation about the candidates & he also talks about the prospects of life on other planets. Good stuff Starts around the 8 minute mark

www.ted.com...

[edit on 25-7-2010 by yeti101]

A new topic has been made with this subject. Since more people are discussing this there rather than here, we should move to that forum:

Updated Post

I just read a book about the new planet-finding technologies. Kepler will be seen as a success, which may cause the US government to invest in a more expensive project that can detect near planets of the sort. When Kepler notes a transit, a planet moving across the face of a star, it sees light dim. If it can then calculate the change in spectrum during that time, it may be able to tease out info about a planet's atmosphere. Another new method for detecting planets is so sensitive that it can tell when a star is being slightly pulled by an orbiting planet, which causes the star to move only 4 miles per hour toward us.

Kepler's possible new breakthrough are cause for some new calculations. If Kepler is only looking at 156,000 stars at thousands of light years distance (a small area of sky), it means that's only a straight-on view. Kepler was designed to view a small, distant patch of sky so that it would get many stars in one direct line of sight. It takes up to 1 1/2 years to wait for a transit (a full orbit), and that would only account for the planets that rotate around in our (idealized) plane of view, essentially. In other words, if the 1 out of up to 1000 stars ratio holds, then we must account for the many more planets rotating out of that straight-on plane. Add to that, planets that haven't yet completed a revolution into Kepler's line of sight. In short, we have to consider that this galaxy probably has many advanced life forms in it. Which is very good news!