Posted on 01/11/2006 5:36:45 PM PST by KevinDavis
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A telescope turbo-charger called ET has found its first planet outside the solar system, and something that looks like a suitcase in space is tracking possible faraway Earths, astronomers reported on Wednesday.
These two small, relatively cheap instruments are part of a new wave of tools and techniques joining the accelerating race to find a world like ours that orbits a different star.
Scientists have detected more than 160 so-called extrasolar planets over the last decade. Most have been found by watching for a tell-tale wobble in the stars they orbit. None so far has been a perfect match for Earth in terms of the planet's size and its distance from its star.
But the suitcase in space -- Canada's MOST satellite -- trained its instruments on a star known to have a monster planet in its orbit, and watched for minute changes in the light emitted by the star, Jaymie Matthews of the University of British Columbia told reporters.
As the big planet went around a star called HD 209458, the light dimmed a bit, just as the light given off from a brightly-lit building would dim slightly if a light were turned off in one window. MOST looked for subtle gravitational tugs that might indicate other smaller planets were also circling the star, but detected none.
(Excerpt) Read more at today.reuters.com ...
I'm tired of healing how other planets wobble. It makes all the sober planets look bad.
Is there an earth pool for when they find another earth? Not that they ever will. They might build another earth, but they won't find one just hanging out waiting to be found.
Good question. That is a good idea...
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Other Bizarro Earth already exist.
Unfortunately I would never win such a pool since I would pick a date so far in the future that no one would be around to remember there even was such a pool by then.
If they find another Earth, AREAFIFTYONE is going to seem like a lame joke.
I've been called a cheap tool. Maybe I can help.
Amen...
Why did we invite Bizarro Earth's senators to give advice and consent on our Supreme Court justices?
Does this mean Jupiter is going to explode?
There are endless numbers of terraformable planets right here in our Milky Way. The question is: can humans ever have the technology to travel to them?
My answer is never say never...
If I can thread poach a little...I was a long time SETI addict with a lot of other FReepers. There is now a major project by FReepers and others regarding protein folding and distributed computing. The effort is dedicated to Ronald Reagan.
http://vspx27.stanford.edu/cgi-bin/main.py?qtype=teampage&teamnum=36120
FReepers are ranked nationally (top 558 and growing) in our efforts to help this massive science project. Please join us if you would like to contribute. Here is one of several threads that can help point you to start donating your unused CPUs if you are interested.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/1554097/posts
Put me in the Space Loop please!!
I think Larry's onto something there. ;')
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