Solar System with seven planets found!

* Nasa to make announcement about 'intriguing' discovery A solar system containing up to seven planets orbiting a sun-like star has been detected 127 light years from Earth. The planetary system is believed to be the largest ever discovered beyond the sun. Astronomers have confirmed the presence of five planets and have tantalising evidence of two more. And it comes as Nasa has said that it plans to make an announcement about an 'intriguing' planetary system that it has discovered using the Kepler space telescope Read more: www.dailymail.co.uk...

Sounds like this might be the big announcement. Obviously, we won't know until tomorrow, but nonetheless it's fascinating. NASA will most likely have much more information regarding the subject tomorrow.

Awesome discovery! 127 light years from earth - we won't be going there soon. This must be the big news we were expecting.

reply to post by ShadowKingpin


well it shows not all solar systems are like ours. No room for an earth sized planet in the HZ. Shame

Originally posted by crazydaisy
Awesome discovery! 127 light years from earth - we won't be going there soon. This must be the big news we were expecting.

But we'll be going there sooner that we once thought! 127 light years suddenly doesn't sound quite so far. I mean, I know it would take 127 years for LIGHT to get there, and our craft can only move at about 1/30000 of that speed, meaning it's a.... 3,810,000 year trip with our current tech, but.... 127 lightyears, not so bad.

Good news but I find it hardly suprising the discoveries in general recently and also to come. Everything.
There is something else that may be of interest for you all regarding mars. Spaceweather.com. 75% bigger? Jupiter hit with a meteor funny really galileo was long gone, or was it also we have the moon apparently shrinking and a recent discovery of a massive sun 700 times bigger than our own. We also have the disasters globally and last but certainly not least the Bible.
Seems toooooo much of a coincidence for me to be wrong.

reply to post by jazz10


Would it be possible for you to clarify your statement please? What about Galileo? I saw the report on the Moon may be shrinking, btu Mars? Any way I think Thursday moring's annoucements about what new systems Keplar has discovered will be fascinating.

reply to post by jazz10


science.nasa.gov...

Mars is not going to be 75% bigger. This is spaceweather.com debunking that as a hoax. Everyone knows about that hoax. (I like them describing the hoax as a neurological virus -- it's a bad meme!)

The moon is shrinking almost irrelevantly. It makes no difference day to day, or year to y ear, or even century to century.

I have no idea what the sun 700 times bigger than our own is supposed to indicate. We've long known of stars well over 1000 times larger than ours.

By the "disasters globally and the bible" I'm sure you mean revelations, but with the other data you're just forcing things that can't even be forced. It's like you've got this square peg and this round hole, and you're not even bothering with the whole, you're just swallowing the peg.

Does Dark Matter Really Matter?

Given that the theory of dark matter relies on the assumption that only 4.6% of our universe is visible matter, do these discoveries start to bring it into question? Have they got the 'measurements' of mass completely wrong in our galaxies?

IRM

reply to post by InfaRedMan


Um

No, that doesn't really work. That's not h ow these things work. The calculations how how much of our universe's mass is visible matter are not affected in any grand way by this discovery. It probably does lead to a little adjustment, but not enough to obliterate the dark matter theory.

I do think dark matter is probably a faulty theory, though. Not many reasons for that, just an inkling.

Hypothetically speaking, say there was an intelligent alien race on one of these planets. If we were to attempt to communicate with them, given the vast distance, would the quickest response time be around 254 years?

Originally posted by Big Raging Loner
Hypothetically speaking, say there was an intelligent alien race on one of these planets. If we were to attempt to communicate with them, given the vast distance, would the quickest response time be around 254 years?

Either way, it won't matter. The Governments of the world will be the ones contacting and keeping it away from us.

[edit on 8/25/2010 by ShadowKingpin]

Originally posted by Big Raging Loner
Hypothetically speaking, say there was an intelligent alien race on one of these planets. If we were to attempt to communicate with them, given the vast distance, would the quickest response time be around 254 years?

Assuming that physical, non-faster-than-light communication is the only way to communicate, yes. I'm not saying it isn't the only way, just that under those circumstances, you're right. (But they'd also take time to compose a message, and so forth, so longer than that!)

reply to post by Solasis


So in essence, although you don't agree with me, part of you kinda does? In any case, I'm simply asking a question, not making an assertion. I can imagine that we are going to be finding a whole heap of mass in the form of planets that science previously calculated did not exist. Personally I'm not a fan of dark matter theory. It's the magical answer to highly flawed and speculative math.

IRM

reply to post by InfaRedMan


Well, I disagree that this could be evidence is all

Originally posted by yeti101well it shows not all solar systems are like ours. No room for an earth sized planet in the HZ. Shame

No room for an earth-sized planet, but there's no reason one of those "Neptunes" in/near the Goldilocks Zone can't have a very large moon orbiting it that could be a home for life, much like Pandora in Avatar, which was a moon around a gas giant.

Originally posted by InfaRedManGiven that the theory of dark matter relies on the assumption that only 4.6% of our universe is visible matter, do these discoveries start to bring it into question? Have they got the 'measurements' of mass completely wrong in our galaxies?

The mass of all the planets and other material in a solar system is only a tiny fraction of the mass of the star they orbit. The Sun accounts for 99.86% of the total mass of our Solar System. Even if you allow for other stars having solar systems more or less as massive as our own (Jupiters and Saturns included), it doesn't really change the estimations of the mass of the visible matter in a galaxy (stars and dust) vs. the invisible matter (Dark Matter) by enough to make a difference. It's only a fraction of a percent.

Another HUGEEEEEEEEEEEEE blow to Alien skeptics IMHO they will be reeling from this news trying to minimize its potential impact on their inane 'theories' lmao cant wait..