Doubt Cast on Existence of Potentially Habitable Planet Gliese 581g

Doubt Cast on Existence of Potentially Habitable Planet Gliese 581g

www.space.com

Francesco Pepe, an astronomer who works on HARPS data at the Geneva Observatory, said at the IAU meeting this week that his team could not confirm the existence of Gliese 581g.

(visit the link for the full news article)

Seriously?

These so called scientists get everyone excited over a planet that is the first to be found in this made up hypothetical "goldie locks zone" say it has a 100% chance of having life on it and the truth is they aren't even sure if it even exists at all.

Two thumbs down.

This is one of the reasons I'm not so interested in other solar systems. The idea that we know much of anything about these places is a compleate scam. The "goldilocks zone" is just silly. It's about as scientific as channeling spirits. When we find these "Earth like planets" we really don't have any clue if they are Earth like at all.

But at least we usually know they are there... This is just unbelievable.

www.space.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

Originally posted by fieryjaguarpaw
These so called scientists get everyone excited over a planet that is the first to be found in this made up hypothetical "goldie locks zone" say it has a 100% chance of having life on it and the truth is they aren't even sure if it even exists at all.

This is no surprise at all. First of all the 100% claim was obviously bogus.

But you're being a little harsh on extrasolar planets in general:

"Since Mayor's announcement in 2009 of the lowest-mass planet Gliese 581e, we have gathered about 60 additional data points with the HARPS instrument for a total of 180 data points spanning 6.5 years of observations," said Pepe. "From these data, we easily recover the four previously announced planets b, c, d, and e."
However, he said they do not see any evidence for planet 'g,' the fifth planet in the system as announced by Vogt and his team.

"The reason for that is that, despite the extreme accuracy of the instrument and the many data points, the signal amplitude of this potential fifth planet is very low and basically at the level of the measurement noise," said Pepe.

From your link. So there doesn't seem to be any question about the other planets, just the one closest to the Earth size, 581g.

We already knew the closer in size the planets are to Earth, the longer they will take to confirm. Given more time and data points, it may be possible to confirm if the planet actually exists.

But some people got way too excited about the early announcement of an object that may not even exist. Even if it exists, it's no garden of Eden. If you have ever been standing around a bonfire at night when it's really cold, you're cooking on one side and freezing on the other. Yes it's habitable and you neither burn to death nor freeze to death, but it sort of feels like you're doing both at the same time, it's very uncomfortable. If that planet exists, the habitable zone might be along those lines, it's not going to be very large.

We might know better in a few more years whether it really exists or not. In fact I think it will take quite a few years of data to confirm planets that are even more Earth-like, with longer orbits more like Earth's.

reply to post by Arbitrageur


so keep the masses in a state of confusion in the mean time--thats more like their plan--scarey that THEY even look at another earth-like planet!!

I don't think I was being harsh at all.

The way I understand it is that we can detect a planet because of the gravitational effect it has on it's star. So we can detect it's effects but not actually see it. This greater the effect on the star, the greater the size of the planet. But mass and size don't always corralate and gravity isn't well understood, so even things like the size isn't really known. It's the kind of thing that wouldn't be admissable as evidence in a criminal trial. It's hearsay. It's like Aristoltle teaching the world was flat because to him it looked like it was, so in his mind it must have been. It rubbish.

The goldilocks zone is the worst kind of nonsense. We have no idea if the distance an object has from a star has anything to do with how warm it is. Look at Venus. It's not habitable at all. The Russian probes only lasted a few minutes on it's surface, yet Venus is in our solar systems "goldiloks zone". What about Mars? He rests outside of our systems "habitable zone" but we know it once had liquid water, and there is a better than good possibility that there is microbial life there right now today. How is that possible when Mars lies outside the habital zone? The answer is because this magical zone is made up crap that's presented to the public as scientific knowledge. What about terreforming Mars? I've never heard anyone say it isn't possible with Mars. Even without terraforming during parts of the Martian year sections of the planet get up to temperatures that a human can walk around in.

I could go on... Like for instance, everyone knows that a significant amount of heat comes from inside a planet. That's where lava comes from. One of the dangers of working in mines is the heat generated from inside the Earth. So it doesn't take a rocket surgeon to figure out that a planet could be way outside a systems "habitable zone" and still be warm. There is evidence of this all over our own system.

Why would you believe anything that came from someone that works with harp?

we know that is military controlled and the lie about what its used for

HARPS not HARRP

But yeah, why would any of us belive anything they say when we read stuff like this.

Originally posted by fieryjaguarpaw
I don't think I was being harsh at all.

The way I understand it is that we can detect a planet because of the gravitational effect it has on it's star. So we can detect it's effects but not actually see it. This greater the effect on the star, the greater the size of the planet. But mass and size don't always corralate and gravity isn't well understood, so even things like the size isn't really known.

Not exactly. The Radial Velocity technique tells us something about the mass, like the minimum mass.

www.superwasp.org...

Radial-velocity: A planet orbiting a star exerts a small gravitational pull which causes the star to wobble very slightly about the system's centre of mass (barycentre). If the planet is aligned edge-on to the Earth we can observe this wobble as a 'Doppler' shift in the emitted light. As the star is pulled away from us its spectrum is shifted towards the red end and as it is pulled towards us it is shifted to the blue end. The gravitational pull from the planet is minute and so very accurate spectroscopic measurements are required. This is the most common type of detection technique and is responsible for the most planets to date. By measuring the radial velocity of a star it is possible to determine the exoplanet's orbital period but only a minimum mass (as the system's inclination is not known). It is also not possible to determine the size of these planets.

The photometry technique can tell us something about the size:

Photometry: This is the 'Transit' technique as used by SuperWASP. When a planet passes in front of its parent star edge-on, a decrease in the star's brightness can be detected. Periodic decreases in brightness can indicate the presence of a planet and measurements of the light-curve and spectral type of the star can indicate the size and orbital period of the planet.

Those are the most common but there are other techniques listed at that link.

The bigger, more massive, easier to detect planets can give us relatively high confidence about the information we have because of the fact that they are easy to measure, so these are the planets you're being too hard on. It's not as much guesswork.

The harder to detect planets, you're not being too hard on. Because they're harder to detect, it's more fair to accuse the findings of having greater uncertainty.

It is thought the most likely location for life to exist is on small 'Earth-like' rocky planets within a region of the stellar system known as the 'Habitable zone' where temperatures are suitable for liquid water to form.
Unfortunately these planets are extremely difficult to detect.

reply to post by Arbitrageur


OK, so we might have a rough estimate on an object's size and mass, but to go from that to calling anything "Earth like" is just absurd.

And I notice you're not even trying to attempt and defend this so called "golilocks zone" nonsense.

reply to post by fieryjaguarpaw

I understand the Goldilocks zone and I think the Earth is in it, but even if Gliese581g exists, I don't think the "Goldilocks zone" really is appropriate for its star, because the star is so weak, the zone would be too small for Goldilocks.

But 5 or 10 years from now we might find a more earth-like planet around a more sun-like star, and then if it has the right orbital period I think we can claim Goldilocks zone then, but not yet.

Gliese 581g if it exists, has an orbital period of what, 3 days? That's not very Earth-like.

reply to post by fieryjaguarpaw


who called it earth-like?

technically its a super earth and the poeple who claim to discover it are well aware of that.

tbh you need to educate yourself on the subject before criticizing anyone involved in exoplanetary science.

reply to post by yeti101


Are you serious? I can find tons of articles where they refer to finding "Earth Like " planets.

Here is one I found in about half a second of searching.

Kepler’s Early Results Suggest Earth-Like Planets Are Dime-a-Dozen

Maybe you should educate your face.

reply to post by fieryjaguarpaw



sorry but you posted a link to a kepler article. The kepler team did not announce this planet (Gliese581g) which is the topic of this thread.

reply to post by yeti101


Are you just trying be a troll?

Everything I've posted is directly related to the views I expressed in the OP.