Invisible planet discovered

According to MSNBC, an invisible planet has been discovered by the Kepler probe.

As per their site:

By Mike Wall

updated 2 hours 50 minutes ago 2011-09-08T20:21:58
For the first time, scientists have definitively discovered an "invisible" alien planet by noticing how its gravity affects the orbit of a neighboring world, a new study reports.

NASA's Kepler space telescope detected both alien planets, which are known as Kepler-19b and Kepler-19c. Kepler spotted 19b as it passed in front of, or transited, its host star. Researchers then inferred the existence of 19c after observing that 19b's transits periodically came a little later or earlier than expected. The gravity of 19c tugs on 19b, changing its orbit.

The discovery of Kepler-19c marks the first time this method — known as transit timing variation, or TTV — has robustly found an exoplanet, researchers said. But it almost certainly won't be the last. [The Strangest Alien Planets]

"My expectation is that this method will be applied dozens of times, if not more, for other candidates in the Kepler mission," said study lead author Sarah Ballard of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Mass.

Amazing! I wonder what they will find next!!

reply to post by ScubaGirl


I wanna know how long it'll take before someone, who hasn't read the story, starts talking about Planet X, elenin, and other idiocy. Good article though, S+F.

I don't get it I thought this method has been known for years - hundreds of years actually

reply to post by KILL_DOGG


Good point....didn't even think of that! So much for my first official post!

reply to post by spyder550


Not on this scale. We're talking about calculating gravitational effects for planets that are thousands upon thousands of light years away. Hell, we have had trouble detecting gravitational effects within our own solar system until the past decade or so.

yeah,

visibility is totally relative.

What, no pic????

kepler.nasa.gov...
Its a bit of an oxymoron, but we found an invisible planet. Funny. Link also.

Cheers!

It mentioned a host star, so it's obvious why we can't see it. No distance mentioned and no link. Why is this amazing? It's how they find 99% of the alien planets.

Here is an image of it.

reply to post by KILL_DOGG

It has to be something more specific to closer or very close worlds, here's the link,

kepler.nasa.gov...

There appears to be a particular technique, but I'm not sure exactly what they are getting at, maybe looking at the whole project might help!

Originally posted by ScubaGirl
According to MSNBC, an invisible planet has been discovered

Pics or it didnt happen.

This explains it better,

www.cfa.harvard.edu...

Originally posted by KILL_DOGG
reply to post by ScubaGirl

 

I wanna know how long it'll take before someone, who hasn't read the story, starts talking about Planet X, elenin, and other idiocy. Good article though, S+F.

edit on 9/8/2011 by KILL_DOGG because: (no reason given)

edit on 9/8/2011 by KILL_DOGG because: (no reason given)

Well congrats, you're the first.

looks like the mothership.

Originally posted by KILL_DOGG
reply to post by ScubaGirl

 

I wanna know how long it'll take before someone, who hasn't read the story, starts talking about Planet X, elenin, and other idiocy. Good article though, S+F.

edit on 9/8/2011 by KILL_DOGG because: (no reason given)

edit on 9/8/2011 by KILL_DOGG because: (no reason given)

Just goes to show that MSM is mostly to blame for a layman's misinterpretation of science.

Laymans Interpretation:
Invisible planet discovered = Invisible to naked eye = Nibiru is another example of an invisible planet (science has already found one invisible planet so we know that they exist). Oh noe's Elenin has an invisible planet behind it. No wonder we can't see it (although people claim to take *pictures* of it everyday).

It all just makes me chuckle.

-saige-

i think they rely on the change in expected orbital period to extrapolate the "invisable" planet,
it cannot be detected by the planet passage induced change of light "eclipse" of the planet in front of the sun,
the second "invisable" planet is unseen but required to explain the orbital quirk of "being too slow" from transit to transit

i think thats what it means

xploder

Originally posted by ScubaGirl
According to MSNBC, an invisible planet has been discovered by the Kepler probe.

As per their site:

By Mike Wall

updated 2 hours 50 minutes ago 2011-09-08T20:21:58
For the first time, scientists have definitively discovered an "invisible" alien planet by noticing how its gravity affects the orbit of a neighboring world, a new study reports.

NASA's Kepler space telescope detected both alien planets, which are known as Kepler-19b and Kepler-19c. Kepler spotted 19b as it passed in front of, or transited, its host star. Researchers then inferred the existence of 19c after observing that 19b's transits periodically came a little later or earlier than expected. The gravity of 19c tugs on 19b, changing its orbit.

The discovery of Kepler-19c marks the first time this method — known as transit timing variation, or TTV — has robustly found an exoplanet, researchers said. But it almost certainly won't be the last. [The Strangest Alien Planets]

"My expectation is that this method will be applied dozens of times, if not more, for other candidates in the Kepler mission," said study lead author Sarah Ballard of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Mass.

Amazing! I wonder what they will find next!!

Is that a reason that there is no picture of it? Because it is "invissible"? How the heck have they found something invisible?

located 650 light-years from Earth

Well finally, you're not going to see that. MSMBC is such a crap network non-news.

So exactly how can they confirm it if it is invisible?