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NASA’s Kepler Mission Discovers Bigger, Older Cousin to Earth

nasa.gov

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Re: NASA’s Kepler Mission Discovers Bigger, Older Cousin to Earth

#11

Post by myth_buster »

aidos wrote: post #2

Live audio here http://www.nasa.gov/news/media/newsaudio/index.html?2015-07-... And slides here (currently on Figure 10) http://www.nasa.gov/keplerbriefing0723 EDIT booooo - audio stream has gone down EDIT yay!

The slides (specially #5/9/11) gives a very good info for people to understand the significance.

  The size and extent of the habitable zone of Kepler-452 
  is nearly the same as that of the sun, but is slightly bigger because 
  Kepler-452 is somewhat older, bigger and brighter. The size of the orbit of 
  Kepler-452b is nearly the same as that of the Earth at 1.05 AU. Kepler-452b 
  orbits its star once every 385 days.
Close to 300K people tuning in!

Re: NASA’s Kepler Mission Discovers Bigger, Older Cousin to Earth

#12

Post by blueintegral »

jpreiland wrote: post #10

To rephrase another comment in the other submission - how do we know/can we infer so much about a planet so far away when we are just now getting reasonable pictures of Pluto? Looking at the images (aside from the artist interpretation), it looks like they're just guessing based on size and location?

I believe they're basing it on size, temperature, and the assumption that the planet is rocky.

Re: NASA’s Kepler Mission Discovers Bigger, Older Cousin to Earth

#13

Post by jdavid »

jpreiland wrote: post #10

To rephrase another comment in the other submission - how do we know/can we infer so much about a planet so far away when we are just now getting reasonable pictures of Pluto? Looking at the images (aside from the artist interpretation), it looks like they're just guessing based on size and location?

Sounds like age, size, density/mass, orbit/location

Re: NASA’s Kepler Mission Discovers Bigger, Older Cousin to Earth

#14

Post by toufka »

jpreiland wrote: post #10

To rephrase another comment in the other submission - how do we know/can we infer so much about a planet so far away when we are just now getting reasonable pictures of Pluto? Looking at the images (aside from the artist interpretation), it looks like they're just guessing based on size and location?

We had a good idea of what pluto looked like for decades. But no photo to confirm; the fact it was red, rocky, pocked, etc. We know characteristics about distance, composure, mass, energy, etc. using spectroscopic techniques. Those spectroscopic techniques are applicable to those planets way out there as well.

Re: NASA’s Kepler Mission Discovers Bigger, Older Cousin to Earth

#16

Post by jdavid »

myth_buster wrote: post #11
aidos wrote: post #2

Live audio here http://www.nasa.gov/news/media/newsaudio/index.html?2015-07-... And slides here (currently on Figure 10) http://www.nasa.gov/keplerbriefing0723 EDIT booooo - audio stream has gone down EDIT yay!

The slides (specially #5/9/11) gives a very good info for people to understand the significance. The size and extent of the habitable zone of Kepler-452 is nearly the same as that of the sun, but is slightly bigger because Kepler-452 is somewhat older, bigger and brighter. The size of the orbit of Kepler-452b is nearly the same as that of the Earth at 1.05 AU. Kepler-452b orbits its star once every 385 days. Close to…

My viewer says 4.3K

Re: NASA’s Kepler Mission Discovers Bigger, Older Cousin to Earth

#18

Post by sktrdie »

Meh, given the hype for this press-release, I was hoping for something more extraordinary frankly. Not that finding other exoplanets isn't amazing, just that we're all waiting to find out whether we are alone or not in the universe.

Finding out that other advanced civilizations exist out there would bring such an amazing new meaning to life. If I could ask for one wish, it would be to find out if we're alone or not. Somehow knowing we're alone would be a large one to swallow, but the universe works in ways that it doesn't care about our feelings.

Re: NASA’s Kepler Mission Discovers Bigger, Older Cousin to Earth

#19

Post by uptown »

sktrdie wrote: post #18

Meh, given the hype for this press-release, I was hoping for something more extraordinary frankly. Not that finding other exoplanets isn't amazing, just that we're all waiting to find out whether we are alone or not in the universe. Finding out that other advanced civilizations exist out there would bring such an amazing new meaning to life. If I could ask for one wish, it would be to find out if we're alone or not.…

Read: "Where are all the aliens?" http://qz.com/452452/where-are-all-the-aliens/

"We’re rare, we’re first, or we’re fucked."

Re: NASA’s Kepler Mission Discovers Bigger, Older Cousin to Earth

#20

Post by peeters »

jpreiland wrote: post #10

To rephrase another comment in the other submission - how do we know/can we infer so much about a planet so far away when we are just now getting reasonable pictures of Pluto? Looking at the images (aside from the artist interpretation), it looks like they're just guessing based on size and location?

One thing to keep in mind is that there is one thing that happens with exoplanets that can never happen with Pluto: the planet can pass between its star and us (i.e. eclipse the star). This gives a lot of information about the planet's composition, because light from the star will scatter/change color according to the planet's composition. See this image: http://seagerexoplanets.mit.edu/images/transitschematic.gif.

Now maybe you can do that with Pluto using some far-off star for reference, not sure. Also, I'm not sure if in this specific example the exoplanet made a transit of its star, or if it was detected by other means (usually by measuring its gravitational affect on the star, i.e. its star "wobbles").

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