Earth 2 Anyone?

[goffee]

The Spitzer team have an exciting announcement coming out tomorrow, see: <br /><br />http://www.ascribe.org/cgi-bin/beho....132958&time=15<br /><br />Anyone think that they've imaged a planet at Earth-orbit distance racing around a sun that's the same type as ours? Watch those odds on alien life existing plummet.<br /><br />Goffee<br />Welcoming our distant alien overlord cousins!<br />

 

[elguapoguano]

Looks to be a dead link. Is there another reference? <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <font color="#ff0000"><u><em>Don't let your sig line incite a gay thread ;>)</em></u></font> </div>

 

[goffee]

<br /><br /><br />work damn you... http://www.ascribe.org/cgi-bin/behold.pl?ascribeid=20050413.132958&time=15

 

[grooble]

Intriguing. Wonder what it is?

 

[spacefire]

it takes 7 days to have the press conference from the announcement?!?!?! <br />they've probably discovered a planet like Jupiter in an orbit like Jupiter's which would, rpesumably, allow life to evolve on a planet like Earth, provided such planet exists in that solar system. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p>http://asteroid-invasion.blogspot.com</p><p>http://www.solvengineer.com/asteroid-invasion.html </p><p> </p> </div>

 

[jurgens]

im assuming they need to get materials ready and need more time to verify and analyze the data.

 

[spacefire]

it wold make mroe sense to abnnounce the press conference After they are sure of what the data suggests <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p>http://asteroid-invasion.blogspot.com</p><p>http://www.solvengineer.com/asteroid-invasion.html </p><p> </p> </div>

 

[kdavis007]

We shall see......

 

[yurkin]

This probably concerns the first photograph of and extra-solar system planet. Spitzer confirmed it not to long ago and if you are going to do a press conference then they’ll have to wait till it’s extra-confirmed.<br /><br />Spitzer doesn’t have the resolution to see an Earth.

 

[grooble]

No i don't think it will be that, the teaser says the found a Sun the size and age of our own, and "another similarity". <br /><br /><i>The new finding involves a star about the size and age of our Sun, with another intriguing similarity. </i><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />

 

[grooble]

Anybody want to speculate on when we might indeed find and have images of an earth type world? Imagine, images of a green and blue orb, it'd be fascinating. <br /><br />When will we have telescopes capable of finding earth worlds? <br /><br />I think if they found an earth type world then space funding would increase exponentially, they'd be global efforts to get to the new world, interstellar probes, better telescopes.<br /><br />To me, finding an earth type world would be 2nd only to finding sentient life out there in the galaxy.

 

[najab]

><i>When will we have telescopes capable of finding earth worlds?</i><p>Somewhere between 2015 and 2020. Do some Googling on "ESA Darwin" and "Terrestrial Planet Finder".</p>

 

[grooble]

Excellent. I get a buzz from thinking about the discoveries that will be made over the next 50 years, in fact starting today i'm going to keep a Diary of discovery. I'm 22 right now, i wanna make it to 70 at least, gotta keep fit!

 

[toymaker]

Also look at this :<br />http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/news/display.cfm?News_ID=9736<br />"The football field-sized starshade would be made of thin, opaque material and contain an aperture, or hole, in the center roughly 30 feet in diameter to separate a distant planet's light from the light of its adjacent parent star, Cash said. A detector spacecraft equipped with a telescope would trail tens of thousands of miles behind the orbiting starshade to collect the light and process it.<br /><br />Such a system could be used to map planetary systems around other stars, detect planets as small as Earth's moon and search for "biomarkers" such as methane, water, oxygen and ozone. Known as the New Worlds Imager, the system also could map planet rotation rates, detect the presence of weather and even confirm the existence of liquid oceans on distant planets, he said.<br /><br />"In its most advanced form, the New Worlds Imager would be able to capture actual pictures of planets as far away as 100 light-years, showing oceans, continents, polar caps and cloud banks," said Cash. If extra-terrestrial rainforests exist, he said, they might be distinguishable from deserts."<br /><br />

 

[grooble]

I hope they build that thing, could they work out the Gravity of a planet and whether it has oxygen?<br /><br />I'm sure you could work out gravity by such means as measuring its rotation rate, distance and size from star, planet size.<br /><br />

 

[jurgens]

Wow, sounds awesome, NASA better get to work on it!! I would personally love to see an extra solar earth like planet in my lifetime =)

 

[jurgens]

just an asteriod belt...

 

[grooble]

Sigh...

 

[yurkin]

Well maybe it <i>was</i> an Earth 2. <img src="/images/icons/smile.gif" />

 

[jurgens]

until the aliens committed a nuclear holocaust.

 

[najab]

I wouldn't sigh too much, an asteroid belt is actually big news - you can't have an asteroid belt in a planetary system with a hot, eccentric 'Jupiter', which is the type of stellar system we've been detecting up till now.<p>The presence of an asteroid belt means that the bulk of the mass orbiting that star is travelling in more or less circular orbits, and there was/is plenty of material for planetary formation. That might be an interesting target for a nulling interferometer.</p>

 

[toymaker]

Grooble -don't worry it's just the beginning. The next 20 years are going to give us more and more discoveries.

 

[goffee]

Hang on a sec, we have a Jupiter and an asteroid belt in this system or do you mean something else? As it is it'd be cool to see physical evidence of planetary accretion in action. Shut up a few more creationists maybe.

 

[chrisxp]

Why would they need to be "shut up"? Their view is no different from your view. Each believes in their ideas.<br /><br />When neither side wishes to respect the other side's view of our origins, how can either side be telling The Truth? They're more interested in their causes and egos, than the persuit of pure knowledge.<br /><br />CXP

 

[najab]

I'm not sure if there's a Jupiter in this system, probably not since the asteroid belt is so thick. The point is that this is the first system we've found so far where an Earth <b>could</b> exist - all the others have had a 'hot Jupiter' in an eccentric orbit which would preculde formation of terrestrial planets.