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)?
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.