Earth-like planet just 12 light-years away
news.sciencemag.org
Earth-like planet just 12 light-years away
1–10 of 19 posts
Re: Earth-like planet just 12 light-years away
#2I wonder if SETI focuses in the direction of Earth-like planets, or if they just search the entire sky?
Re: Earth-like planet just 12 light-years away
#3title is linkbait-y.
It's saying that there MIGHT be some planets orbiting that star, but there's so much noise in the data that it's likely just noise and nothing else.
Re: Earth-like planet just 12 light-years away
#4I wonder if SETI focuses in the direction of Earth-like planets, or if they just search the entire sky?
This should give you an idea:
Re: Earth-like planet just 12 light-years away
#5You see, this is the benefit you get from not having experienced the 70's, everyone knows that the Grey Aliens come from Tau Ceti. Sheesh.
Fortunately, I think the last bit of annoying 70's alien phenomena will be past on December 22nd. Then we can all put to rest any question there might have been that we were visited by ancient astronauts.
Re: Earth-like planet just 12 light-years away
#6You see, this is the benefit you get from not having experienced the 70's, everyone knows that the Grey Aliens come from Tau Ceti. Sheesh. Fortunately, I think the last bit of annoying 70's alien phenomena will be past on December 22nd. Then we can all put to rest any question there might have been that we were visited by ancient astronauts.
"Then we can all put to rest any question there might have been that we were visited by ancient astronauts."
Good luck with that.
Re: Earth-like planet just 12 light-years away
#7If we can reach 10% of the speed of light in a few hundred years, maybe at that time we can have one-way missions like the suggested Mars trips now.
Such a trip might require a fusion power source though.
Re: Earth-like planet just 12 light-years away
#8If I did my calculations right then at 17,000 mph it would take 474,568.57 years to get there.
Re: Earth-like planet just 12 light-years away
#9If I did my calculations right then at 17,000 mph it would take 474,568.57 years to get there.
After a journey that long, it would be a bit of a downer if the planet turned out to just have been noise!
Re: Earth-like planet just 12 light-years away
#10title is linkbait-y. It's saying that there MIGHT be some planets orbiting that star, but there's so much noise in the data that it's likely just noise and nothing else.
That is not how I read it at all.
The scientists took a lot of measurements over a long period, and carefully tried to remove as much noise as possible. After this, they think the remaining perturbation can be explained by a system of smallish planets. One of those planets looks like it could support life in a similar way to how Earth supports life.
There is a chance this perturbation is just noise, but the authors obviously think that the planetary system hypothesis is strong enough to ask the community for collaborating or contradictory data.
The title could have hedged its bets by adding 'might be' or similar terminology, but I honestly don't think that adds much to the conversation.
[edit]
I was going to include the famous "title ending in '?'" rule of thumb, but missed the fact that the actual article and the title here differ. The actual title is of course "Another Earth Just 12 Light-Years Away?" which makes much more sense given the content.
The submitted title, I thus agree, is linkbaity.