http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/technology/technology.html?in_article_id=450467&in_page_id=1965In this article scientists claim to have found a new planet like Earth. I’m not sold on this. They actually found a star that wabbles like it would if a planet were there (so it probably is) and from that they are trying to extrapolate a planet like Earth. I hope they’re right — it would be cool. But aren’t these claims a bit premature?No.. really… I’m asking. I’m no astronomer. Is this a logical assumption or just hype to garner more funding for research (or both)?
The article said they didn’t know if there was life on it or not. I guess I’m just a huge sci-fi geek, but when I read it all I could think was “ISAAC!”
I always had a thing for astronomy, so I actually think this is pretty cool.
After reading the article though, I do think this is just some scientists getting a little too excited, not necessarily trying to get more funding. They are making some premature claims about it in my opinion, but like I said, they’re probably just a little excited.
Here’s another article on it:
http://www.world-science.net/othernews/070425-habitable-planet.htm
would investment in more hubble type equipment be sound or are unmanned probes the way to go.
Sure they don’t say there’s any evidence at all about life on that planet, but with most of these press releases, if you read between the lines, there’s a lot of, “Hint hint! Nudge, nudge! You know what we’re talking about, don’tcha??” They can’t outright say it, but this of course is the reason people find items like this interesting. (I almost called it “news”.)
Alex, you mentioned in another thread about the statistical certainty of life on other planets given the gazillions of stars in the known universe. That’s really just speculation though. In my opinion, there’s absolutely no good reason not to be very skeptical about that kind of reasoning.
Why would anyone choose to believe that there is other life out there in the absence of actual evidence? Some people are very fervent in that belief though. Why is that? Where does this fervor come from?
apple,
I think that it might be the same reason why we invented the god idea. We don’t want to be alone in this huge place. We want to feel that there is more out there, that we are a part of it. But hey, it’s healthier than making up an imaginary friend that punishes you for offending him.
It’s ‘Earth like’ because it’s small enough to be rocky, large enough to hold a thick atmosphere, and is situated within the star’s “Goldilocks Zone” so that there is a possibility for liquid water on the surface. And yes, they can determine all of this just from watching a star wobble back and forth. It’s actually a pretty fantastic discovery, IMO. If we can ever figure out a way to block the light from the star and take a spectrogram of the planet itself then we will find out even more.
The wobble of the nearby star indicates a likely position and mass of the planet relative to the star. The stars luminosity and spectrum of electromagnetic energy can be obtained from more direct measurements of the stars radiation. From these pieces of info one could estimate the temperature of the planet provided there isn’t too much debris orbiting it and blocking the stars radiation from getting to the planet.
Oh and that was about all the article reported … that the temp was expected to be similar to earth’s. Of course in astrophysics if one is off by an order of magnitude or two in one’s predictions one is very happy.
I don’t buy the probability based arguments for earthlike life on other planets. Probability is a measure of our ignorance about a prediction only and a lot of ignorance does not make something more likely. It leaves endless possibilities open … none of which are known to be fact.
David,
“New Earth, or New scheme for government funding?”
Come on David, not everything is a scheme. Though the one about the CIA hiring gypsies to capture fairies so the CIA can use them as agents into people’s dreams to find out terrorists is true. That’s why you have to put carrots in your ears at night. Fairies are terrified of carrots.
Ah, the ages old question. How many fairies can one fit on the tip of a carrot?
What,
It really depends on the size of the carrot.
Actually I have been corrected and discovered that there are an estimated 400 billion planets in the universe, not 300 billion, which means that there are pretty convincing odds that there is intelligent life outside of our own planet. We know for a fact that life arose early on Earth and that if the right conditions are available that there is absolutely no reason that this natural process wouldn’t happen elsewhere. Most people are unaware of the range of conditions on which life here on Earth can thrive and we have many examples of not just simple unicellular life but also of multicellular vertebrate life which is able to thrive on chemosynthetic based ecosystems such as deep sea vents and deep cave systems where no sunlight reaches. There are even extremeophiles able to withstand hot and cold temperatures that most other life would instantly perish in. This new discovery makes no claims of extraterrestrial life but only increases the possibility of it.
I arrange ten upside down cups and ask is there a red ball under any of these cups? I now arrange one million cups upside down on a table and ask is there a red ball under any of them?
“It really depends on the size of the
carrot.”
But fairies are like fish they grow more in less confined environments.
What,
Well you’re the one that arranged the cups, so you tell us.
As for the fairies, I guess that means you’ll need a REALLY big carrot.
“Well you’re the one that arranged the cups, so you tell us.”
I put no red balls under any of the cups and whether there was one or one million cups I still put no red balls under them. Now substitute me with the universe. Either the universe put life on other planets or it did not. The number of planets does not change anything except maybe the number of places you will need to examine to answer these questions.
Am I wrong?
“As for the fairies, I guess that means you’ll need a REALLY big carrot.”
Well at first the fairies may be small and numerous (a possiblity at least) but as they grow to fit their environment fewer new fairies can be accomodated. One can see that a steady state fairy population would be reached sooner or later assuming the carrot remained the same size. Do fairies eat carrots? Hmmm … we should bring in an expert for this. Where’s Phreedy when you need him?
What,
Of course they don’t eat carrots. They’re deathly afraid of them. As for growing to fit their environment, I’m going to have to take your word for it.
“Of course they don’t eat carrots. They’re deathly afraid of them.”
Well then what are they doing on the carrot tip in the first place. For crying out loud!
Comment from: reason
I can’t believe such a question can be asked…
Kind of reminds me of when Shella Jackson-Lee was watching the Mars rover at Houston Control and asked…”can you drive the rover to where the astronauts placed the American flag…?”
In my opinion the “big story” is that the planet was found orbiting a red dwarf star. This discovery means that we need to pay more attention to red dwarfs, and less to “main sequence” stars. (like our own)
Its’ been a while since I took astronomy, but I seem to remember that something like 80% of stars in “our neck of the wood” are red dwarfs. (That means we might find a habitable planet within 20 to 100 light years.)
Also if it’s a funding conspiracy, it is an ESA project, I don’t think we can’t take credit for it.
Actually for once I agree with Dave…announcements like this usually preceed the request for more funding…
What I find interesting in the article is the lack of discussion about hos a “bloated” red star forms…
Even if this planet is in the “Goldilocks Zone” now, it would have been a frozen rock before the star grew to it’s present size…
It is a red dwarf star, not a red giant. Two totally different stars formed in totally different ways.
It will take thousands of years to get to this planet.
So, we will build a really large spacecraft, assembled at a big space station.
We will need gardens big enough to absorb our poop as fertilizer.
Load up thousands of people, and head out.
Once again, the ship will travel thousands of years, generations will come and go. No one can go to another planet, personally.
Cascadia…yes, they are. And I stand corrected…
The article is actually all over the map when it describes the star…
bigjac:
Not neccesarily… with new fission powered ion drive technology coupled with chemical booster rockets,(for initial thrust) you can theoretically travel at nearly the speed of light.
Also: remember to think forth dimensionally. Time slows down as your speed increases.
(sorry spell check is down)
They’re always asking for more funding. Always. So announcements about new athelete’s foot cremes “always precede” requests for new funding too…
Stick to whatever it is you do, and leave the science to the scientists.
Kryptonite discovered!
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070424/od_uk_nm/oukoe_uk_britain_kryptonite;_ylt=Aunwjv3aSvX5qs_Nr3VHMuTMWM0F
This story has the same issues every news story today has. The media add the “glitter” to anything they touch. It is bad science, to make claims you cannot back up. That said, this is a good discovery. I would love to see them gather some light from this planet. The great science being done is the ability to sense small bodies like this planet. The real question is how many will we find locally? When we have a short list of possible planets that may have life, then we worry about sending probes.
I am not thinking this will happen in my lifetime, but telescope technology is moving much faster than propulsion tech. I may live to see light from such places, it will have to be enough.
I really don’t think we should be disappointed that images and evidence is scarce now. The tech achievement that this is should be respected. This is how we learn. Enjoy what we do know. Always look for more.
“Also: remember to think forth dimensionally. Time slows down as your speed increases.”
True, but in order for it to make a difference between time that passes on the ship and the time that passes on Earth, they ship would have to travel near or at the speed of light. The current speed of our space shuttles is about 40,000 times slower than the speed of light, so the ship would have to be in flight for a LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONG time to make any real difference in time (I think it was something like 1 billion years of travel would equal only a 1 year difference).
Remember too that while your speed increases, so does your mass, and the possibility of hitting even a pebble in space a super speeds will destroy the shuttle.
Wormholes are the only answer.
That said, I think it is very possible that life, be it intelligent or not, does exist on another planet. In an estimated 400 billion planets, I would think it unlikely that Earth is the only planet at the perfect distance from a star that would be capable of life.
I think it’s unlikely that there is another planet with humans that use the same languages as we do though, and I think that is what people are getting hung up on. Last I check, plants were a form of life, so even one single blade of grass on another planet would mean life exists on it.
phreedm,
Comment from phreedm at 04/25/07
@ 07:49:
“I can’t believe such a question can be asked…”
Comment from phreedm at 04/21/07
@ 21:39:
“Slip of the tounge?”
Yes, I can’t believe you asked such a question with such poor grammar either, but we should all be excused at least once in our lives. I forgive you phreedm.
This is an interesting test of scientific skepticism. I remember not long ago the existence of just this type of planet was hypothesized as the most likely “life-capable” planet we would find. Now, they found one, so the big question is are the astronomers really reading the evidence, or are they seeing what they hope to see.
Scientists are human, and can become “believers” in their own way. Like the Martian bacteria and cold-fusion, this may be a premature announcement. The articles I read did mention that this finding is not yet published, so we will see how it stands up to peer scrutiny.
But, all the same, I hope it is an earth-like planet (Class M, haha)
Phil Plait (who is an astronomer) over at badastronomy.com seems to think it’s true. His title does provide for some wiggle room:
HUGE NEWS: first possibly Earthlike extrasolar planet found!
http://www.badastronomy.com/bablog/2007/04/24/huge-news-first-possibly-earthlike-extrasolar-planet-found/
I’m sure if you have any questions about the science and how the came to these conclusions, Phil would be more than happy to answer them.
The big factor is the temperature on the surface. It’s between 34 and 104 degrees F. The 13 days to make a year has me concerned. Now some non-phreethinking person will justify Noah being 980 years old somehow.
It is not surprising that this could be a terrestrial-type planet. The reason it’s taken longer to find it than gas giants is that they’re harder to spot. They cause less wobble in the parent star.
Given that the elements required for life: hydrogen, carbon, oxygen, and nitrogen are also the most highly abundant elements, and given that we have found complex organic compounds throughout our own small solar system, it is highly life that similar planets to our own will also harbor life of some sort.
When we find a few dozen more of these we’ll be able to extrapolate how common earth-like planets are in our part of the galaxy. From that we can estimate the number of earth-like planets in the galaxy as a whole. This will allow us to fill in another factor in the Drake Equation, the equation that estimates the number of technologically advanced civilizations in the galaxy.
What’s even more amazing is that this planet was found orbiting a red dwarf. Red dwarfs are the most common type of star in the universe. This could imply that earth-like planets are fairly common, and therefore life is fairly common.
You guys are mutilating the Special Theory of Relativity.
In the NY Times article on this discovery the scientists were cautiously optimistic, in my opinion. They spoke more about the potentials this discovery portends than about any “hard facts” it revealed; the discovery opens thousands more questions than it answers, which is good, science-wise, but dangerous when the science-haters and other irresponsible people get to mucking around and twisting and distorting tentative scientific claims in this regard.
So maybe we should all just cool our own jets and let the astronomers do their work. There is much yet we do not know about this new planet, and only time and careful research will fill in the blanks.