NASA's Kepler Confirms its First Planet in Habitable Zone of Sun-like Star

reply to post by schuyler

I thought there might be a mathematical formula based on size and/or density.

Whatever our pal warpcrafter thinks are the origins of gravity, Newton’s gravitational equation will work just fine on Kepler-22. The thing we don’t know is the mass of the planet. We can’t calculate it from a density formula because we don’t know what the planet is made of. If we knew the mass of the parent star and the average orbital distance of the planet we could calculate the mass of the planet.

It could well be that Kepler-22 is much less dense than Earth, either because it is made of relatively lighter elements, or contains voids within it – who can tell? Being less dense than Earth would mean it was less massive for its size than Earth, and its surface gravity might be quite close to Earth-normal.

Robert Silverberg invented such a planet, Majipoor, for his bestselling SF novel Lord Valentine’s Castle, and went on to write many more stories set on it, which came to be known as the Majipoor Chronicles. Perhaps when a human probe finally makes it to Kepler-22 it will make contact with a Vroon. I vote for calling Kepler-22 Majipoor.

Originally posted by ngchunter
No one is helped by jumping to conclusions not yet supported by the data. The conclusions reached here are naturally less sensationalist than most conspiracy theories about space and space aliens, but this is real science supported by real data. We've long believed terrestrial sized planets existed in the habital zone of other sun-like stars, but it's quite another thing to actually know they exist and where one can be found.

Scientific data has no voice, so it has to be interpreted. There is never enough data for a scientist to make truth claims because an integral part of science is that it is falsifiable. Thus any scientists claiming that something is or is not "true" is doing so not as a scientist but as a speculator. Scientists deal with facts, which can be interpreted and used to produced true or false speculations. It is a method of inquiry, but it is certainly not the only one. It would be foolish to depend entirely on science to tell us what is "really" going on; that's like putting all your eggs in one basket, and I'm sure we all know why that is risky. We have to figure out for ourselves what the "truth" is, and that generally means weighing one interpretation against another.

I agree with your argument that it is foolish to make assumptions based on pure speculation, but there is generally at least some evidence upon which conspiracy theories are based. For me there are more than enough testimonials and declassified documents to assume that there is a significant body of scientific data being actively barred from the mainstream. If there is evidence of ANY kind being barred, which there certainly is (i.e. classified information, patents, non-disclosure agreements), then the question is "why?" I doubt that it is for national security, as claimed; more likely it is about personal power and control. If data that was previously barred starts increasingly coming into the mainstream, then again the question is "why?" I think many others on ATS are thinking along these same lines.

reply to post by SuchIsLife

Originally posted by SuchIsLife
I may also be wrong here, but is it not possible for a life supporting planet to exist outside of the "habitable zone". i.e A planet with internal warmth - life may still exist such as the deep sea life forms that live near the sulphur plumes here on Earth?

Yes it is possible for life to 'potentially' exist outside the habitable zone if it can keep the water liquid on the surface or near the surface allowing the global air currents to move freely. I could be wrong, but I believe Europa, one of the moons of Jupiter, has cracks on the surface of the ice indicating flowing water below. The water is believed to be warmed buy the contraction and expansion of the planet's axis, which in turn generates geothermal heat. Imagine squeezing a beach ball on the top and bottom. The actual contractions are a result of the tug by Jupiter on the moon, or something to that effect. I'm just going off the top of my head here but thats an example in our own solar system.

That only counts planetary conditions, I remember seeing an episode of Star Trek TNG when I was a kid, and there were space whales, able to live in the vacuum where the water was still in liquid form closer to the sun. Interesting food for thought. The searches are narrowed to planets like earth because:

A) We can be sure that its habitable for our kind of life, as opposed to guessing what an unidentified species might require as conditions for survival, thereby narrowing the search.

B) There is a greater likelihood of being able to interface with species with the same fundamentals as us.

C) Even if we don't find any advanced life, we might get glimpses at our own planets history, for instance if we found an earth like planet that was still at the blue-green algae phase and in the process of developing an atmosphere.

D) Potential exploration opportunities allowed by a human friendly environment.

There are other reasons but these seem to be the best explanations.

Cheers

PS: To me, even finding blue green algae would be exciting, thats biological material on a world without contamination from earth. If we could get some of that material, we could extrapolate the starting conditions of life a lot more clearly.

Originally posted by Romekje
But other life in the Universe was impossible right?

We're special right?

Right......

S+F

Life in this universe had to start somewhere. We very well could be that start. Considering we don't hear from other civilizations...

One thing I don't like is how organizations like NASA spend billions of dollars every year to do things we absolutely do not need to do "right now". We have so much suffering not only in the USA, but all over the world. That money is doing nothing but making people rich who obviously could care less about the planet...

I find it amazing how people worship science to the point where they don't even care how the money is used. Isn't that unscientific in nature?!

reply to post by wagnificent

Scientific data has no voice, so it has to be interpreted. There is never enough data for a scientist to make truth claims because an integral part of science is that it...

Clearly your experience of science has been of a largely theoretical nature. Aside from your stunning demonstration of the nonexistence of demonstrable truth do you have anything about the subject under discussion that you would like to contribute to the thread?

We are having an interesting little discussion here about a planet that may have three bears on it.

reply to post by Astyanax


Thank you. I wasn't taking warpcrafter seriously, despite the lofty tone.

Originally posted by wagnificent
Scientific data has no voice, so it has to be interpreted. There is never enough data for a scientist to make truth claims because an integral part of science is that it is falsifiable. Thus any scientists claiming that something is or is not "true" is doing so not as a scientist but as a speculator. Scientists deal with facts, which can be interpreted and used to produced true or false speculations. It is a method of inquiry, but it is certainly not the only one. It would be foolish to depend entirely on science to tell us what is "really" going on; that's like putting all your eggs in one basket, and I'm sure we all know why that is risky.

I'd trust science for drawing a conclusion about a claim like this over woo any day of the week.

reply to post by azulejo


Venus and Mars are both in our inhabitable/green zone.

Mars is too small (it is believed) to hold an atmosphere.

Venus (it is believed) has too heavy of an atmosphere, and is way too hot due to green house effects.

Odds are that this planet would be more like Venus than Earth.

That Green zone might be a little too big.

Originally posted by Romekje
But other life in the Universe was impossible right?

We're special right?

Right......

S+F

There are VERRRY few people who think:

"Other life in the Universe [is] impossible"

and/or

"We're special"

Polls show that most educated people (those who understand the size and scope of the universe) think that life exists elsewhere. In addition, almost ALL scientists think the intelligent life almost certainly exists somewhere outside of Earth.

I'm not sure where this erroneous idea comes from that there are a lot of people who think there is NO intelligent life elsewhere in the universe, or why it keeps coming up in threads like this.

I'm not sure whose nose you are rubbing in this.

reply to post by D.Wolf


That is one of the biggest questions being asked in the scientific community right now. What is the definition for life and habitable planets? It could be far from what we know and understand and it seems like the mainstream are now pondering these things with a more serious tone and I am loving it. Science has gone leaps and bounds as far as space exploration and analysis goes in just the last few years alone. These are exciting time.

Originally posted by RenegadeScholar
We need better telescopes!!

Dont dont use telescope for that, they use infra-red radar-like satellite, that look for diminished light return to detect something passing in front of stars wich indicate a planet is there.... no telescope bro

Originally posted by Flint2011
reply to post by D.Wolf

 

That is one of the biggest questions being asked in the scientific community right now. What is the definition for life and habitable planets? It could be far from what we know and understand and it seems like the mainstream are now pondering these things with a more serious tone and I am loving it. Science has gone leaps and bounds as far as space exploration and analysis goes in just the last few years alone. These are exciting time.

Yes -- these are exciting times.

I agree that it is very difficult to exactly say what is a "habitable zone", because the only frame of reference we have is or own planet. Scientists understand this is a big issue, but there isn't much they can do about it at the moment, so they are doing the easy thing and looking for "life as we know it" (whatever that means).

It is MUCH MUCH more difficult to look for "life as we DON'T know it" (I mean, what signs are you even looking for), so for now, they are limited in their search.

reply to post by Soylent Green Is People


Indeed but they are pondering other method of searching for possible life in other ways which is exciting. the discussions and research on life in all aspects is being observed and put forward. It was not that long ago that this same scientific community forbid to entertain things like this in such a manner. That is exciting. I am quite aware of what we know of life in our own terms and trying to search for it in correlation to that understanding but that is not the limitation now.

Well i find news like this exciting.

Hope i am still around when the day comes that we find another form of life on another planet

Sorry, nasa doesn't have the technical skills or equipment to make such an assessment on a far away body out in the solar system... They are years away from that type of information..they haven't even harness the moon and now want tell tell us some garbage about a place that probably doesn't exist except in theory !

Originally posted by RenegadeScholar
We need better telescopes!!

I agree, they can take a picture that far away but can't do closups of mars gadgets,structures, buildings, trees, plants, pyramids and the list goes on. Fuzzy, blurred out, inked out and I'm burned out trying to look through all the blurriness. But a planet light years away they can take a photo that has no fuzziness. Amazing to say the least

Originally posted by Cosmic4life
Who the hell cares ? it's 625 light years away.

Unless some-one comes up with Warp Drive, it's another non-event.

Cosmic..

there you go again with your attengion seeking peopke like you annoy me. You would rather tfy and be different, rather than see that this is great news. You say its a waste of time for nasa. Well tell us what nasa should be doing, if not looking for life in space?

Source: New York Times

"Kepler 22b, as it is known, is 2.4 times the size of the Earth. It takes 290 days to orbit its star, which is slightly smaller and dimmer than the Sun."

That would probably make the star a class G star.

"The Sun is a class G star, a type that makes up about 7 percent of all stars. Earth orbits near the inner edge of the habitable zone, and Venus and Mars may come close, depending on whether researchers use optimistic or conservative estimates for the habitable zone.

Massive, class A stars are about 20 times brighter than the Sun, with wide habitable zones. But the stars are rare and short lived, leaving only billion years for orbiting planets to form and for life to develop.

Large, class F stars are also rare, making up only 2 percent of all stars. But with a lifetime of several billion years, the stars provide ample time for life to form, making them tempting targets for planet hunters."

Class G star, in relation to size on this scale

"Smaller, dimmer stars have relatively small habitable zones but are very numerous and long lived. About 90 percent of stars are K or M class, including HD 85512 and Gelise 581. Class K, G and F stars are thought to be the best candidates for harboring habitable planets."

Flat Earth > Heliocentric universe > Discovery of galaxies > Discovery of planets around other stars > Discovery of planets around other stars in the habitable zone...

We know that life on Earth can exist in a wide range of conditions. On Earth it's everywhere. Here we may have a planet with conditions similar to Earth.

If anyone wants to join me I'll be outside with my head in the sand....

reply to post by yourmaker


And probably some covert operation with ARV's already did a flyby to check it out!