...now we know.
Posted on 09/22/2009 2:11:12 PM PDT by antiobamacare
Astronomers have confirmed that a planet orbiting a distant star has a rocky structure similar to that of Earth, a find that shortens the odds on extraterrestrial life being discovered.
New observations of a planet named Corot-7b, which circles a star 500 light years away in the constellation Monoceros, or the Unicorn, have shown that its density is similar to the Earth’s, indicating that it is also a solid, rocky world.
The discovery is important for the prospects of discovering life elsewhere because Corot-7b is the first exoplanet — a planet beyond our solar system — orbiting another star that has been found to have the sort of solid structure that might harbour living things.
(Excerpt) Read more at timesonline.co.uk ...
Somebody needs to explain what “earthlike” means to the writers.
What...just because we found this one planet?
There must be billions of others just like it.
...now we know.
It shortens odds because it is proof of concept that rocky worlds are reasonably common.
I actually liked the stuff.
Since they cannot determine whether this thing has an atmosphere, my guess is that it simply means a terrestrial planet and not a gas giant.
radar sure comes in handy
I wouldn’t expect to find life on this one anyway. She’s a might close to the star for comfort.
LOL. Carvell is fugly.
The majority of what they find are gas giants, it’s very good that they found a rocky planet. Lots of very bizarre worlds out there, this one is really close to it’s sun, and uninhabitable. Humanity might need a new home someday, if we could ever figure out how to get to it. My only hope for space travel is that there are some things about the universe that have not even occurred to us.
Does it have a Stargate? Well, does it?
Paging Tom Cruise...
Your alien mothership is calling.
DIBS!!
Neither of these techniques is going to find an earthlike planet, which would be a rocky planet of about 0.8 - 3.0 earth masses that is about 100 +/-20 million miles from a G-type yellow or yellow-orange star about the size of our sun. It's just too far from its sun for our present-day techniques to detect its occultation, and any tidal effects would be miniscule.
There may be earthlike planets somewhere, but it's possible we may never know about them until we build very large telescopes on the dark side of the moon. And even then, we may not detect them.
Also, if there are earthlike planets, I tend to agree to with Brownlee and Ward, that such planets are rare and most likely have no life, and if they do, it's just bacterial or plankton-like life.
By the way, I'm not a professional, just an interested amateur scientist.
Oh No! Planet Unicorn! My least favorite skits on Red Eye!
“Does it have a Stargate? Well, does it?”
Ask the Air Force. ;)
so much media hype of finding earth like planets. Almost every few months we hear media reports of it
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