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NASA to announce 'intriguing planetary system' discovery on Thursday

nasa.gov

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Re: NASA to announce 'intriguing planetary system' discovery on Thursday

#21

Post by anigbrowl »

nopassrecover wrote: post #19
anigbrowl wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reason I found it interesting was that the news about 'hundreds' of Earth-like planets (using a very ballpark description of 'Earth-like,' of course) filtered out back in June in the usual fairly low-key fashion. This announcement refers to a 'new discovery about an intriguing planetary system' - in other ones, just one solar system out of the hundreds of possible candidates. Maybe it's nothing more than extreme…

Overlapping orbits would be interesting. They would have to be equal size planets and directly opposite (my mind isnt alert enough to consider 3D right now) the star so as not to collide nor alter the other planet's orbit right?

I have no idea if/how that would work - it was just the first wacky thing that came to mind blush

Re: NASA to announce 'intriguing planetary system' discovery on Thursday

#22

Post by guelo »

anigbrowl wrote: post #10

For any HN readers who are suitably qualified and looking for a new career challenge... Kepler is NASA's Discovery mission to find the first Earth-sized, habitable exoplanets. The SETI Institute is seeking an astronomer/scientist to archive Kepler data and results. The successful candidate will be a member of the Kepler Science Office, located at the NASA-Ames Research Center, and will be an integral part of the Kepl…

I have a feeling the "succeful candidate" already knows and works with many of the interested people.

Re: NASA to announce 'intriguing planetary system' discovery on Thursday

#23

Post by InclinedPlane »

borisk wrote: post #9
myth_drannon wrote: post #6

I'm quoting a person who works on that project: "They discovered a huge number of Earth-like planets. The new count is vastly outnumbers previous estimations even over the gas giants due to imperfect technology." The remaining conclusions are up to you, even if they are not going to be voiced at the conference....

Looks quite likely. They started collecting data in June 2009 and expected that a year of observations will be necessary to confirm a big number of planets. What are your conclusions? We are not alone? There are places for humankind to expand to?

These are Earth-mass planets, not Earth-orbit (1 year period) planets. They need 3 transits for confirmation, which requires at least 2 years and more likely 3 years of observations.

These are "hot Earths" to the previous "hot Jupiters" we had been discovering.

Re: NASA to announce 'intriguing planetary system' discovery on Thursday

#26

Post by 0x44 »

sprout wrote: post #13
waterlesscloud wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends on the definition of "Earth-like", really. Mars is Earth-like in some astronomical contexts.

Well, if you have the resources to get from here to a Mars-like planet, turning it into a habitable world should be trivial, so Mars is Earth-like enough for colonization purposes at least.

That doesn't seem to hold up empirically. We have the resources to get from here to a Mars-like planet (namely, Mars), yet we don't have the ability to trivially turn uninhabitable areas of our own planet into earth-like enough places for human colonization.

Re: NASA to announce 'intriguing planetary system' discovery on Thursday

#27

Post by radu_floricica »

chc wrote: post #15
waterlesscloud wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends on the definition of "Earth-like", really. Mars is Earth-like in some astronomical contexts.

Venus is also Earth-like in the sense we're talking about here, despite being almoet a thousand degrees Fahrenheit hotter.

Earth before life wasn't much to be looked upon, either.

Re: NASA to announce 'intriguing planetary system' discovery on Thursday

#28

Post by DanielBMarkham »

In related news, some types of bacteria proven to survive in space for more than a year. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-11039206

I don't think we're anywhere near an "ET" moment, but I'm excited that we're getting some hard numbers on the types of planetary distributions there are. These numbers can feed models that can be extrapolated. If we end up with a billion earth-mass planets in the galaxy? Well you don't have to be a rocket scientist to see the writing on the wall.

If they'd announce the general news that would be one thing. But if it's going to trickle out system-by-system, that is going to be a huge pain in the ass. Isn't it possible for them just to let their hair down a bit, go out and have a beer, and tell us what it currently looks like? Sure beats having to wait!

Re: NASA to announce 'intriguing planetary system' discovery on Thursday

#30

Post by pierre_M »

markkat wrote: post #25

The suspense is going to kill me. I'm thinking it has to be either a sister-like system, or have a green/blue planet. My money is on the former.

There is absolutely no way to tell the colour of an exoplanet using Kepler or any other telescope we have.
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