Posted on 10/01/2010 3:22:54 AM PDT by tlb
An astronomer picked up a mysterious pulse of light coming from the direction of the newly discovered Earth-like planet almost two years ago, it has emerged.
Dr Ragbir Bhathal, a scientist at the University of Western Sydney, picked up the odd signal in December 2008, long before it was announced that the star Gliese 581 has habitable planets in orbit around it.
Dr Bhathal had been sweeping the skies when he discovered a 'suspicious' signal from an area of the galaxy that holds the newly-discovered Gliese 581g.
The remarkable coincidence adds another layer of mystery to the announcement last night that scientists had discovered another planet in the system: Gliese 581g - the most Earth-like planet ever found.
Dr Bhathal's discovery had come just months before astronomers announced that they had found a similar, slightly less habitable planet around the same star 20 light years away. This planet was called Gliese 581e.
He went on: 'We found this very sharp signal, sort of a laser lookalike thing which is the sort of thing we’re looking for - a very sharp spike. And that is what we found. So that was the excitement about the whole thing.'
For months after his discovery Dr Bhathal scanned the skies for a second signal to see whether it was just a glitch in his instrumentation but his search came to nothing.
But the discovery of Earth-like planets around Gliese 581 - both 581e and 581d, which was in the habitable zone - has also caught the public imagination.
Documentary-maker RDF and social-networking site Bebo used a radio telescope in Ukraine to send a powerful focused beam of information - 500 messages from the public in the form of radiowaves - to Gliese 581.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
To reiterate..... they are us.Or, obversely, we are them
Wake up. He's in the White House.
We have Obamao, that’s enough outer space visitor for me.
Astronomers observed flashes of light, too - on Mars, just before the invasion in “Ware of the Worlds”.
Something to think about. Reagan said it best in is speech to the U.N. General Assembly.
Coincidence?
That’s Crazy Eddie
“Greek and Roman myths all claim there were no seasons prior to the flood. “
maybe off topic but a bell went off in my head.
Where did you get this information?
it’s a bit fuzzy.........
it’s clearing up.............
it’s a “I Love Lucy” episode..........
(massive disappointment)
This is amazing, we have a big mystery associated with this planet already. We can build telescopes to determine the chemical makeup of it’s atmosphere, if it shows to be similar to our planet.... Wow!
Tidal locked to the primary would lead to overheating on the sun side and ice-ball on the back side, with maybe a strip of livable land between. I think you are thinking of axle tilt causing no seasons.
Was the pulse of light from the nuclear war destroying their civilization? Damn muslim extremists.
I have the original comic release preserved. I wonder how much it is worth?
PLEASE PM me if you want on the “We discovered life in space, there is no god” ping list. Warning, this is a very, very high volumn list as it accompanies nearly every press release coming out of every space agency ...
I wouldn’t know if there is intelligent life out there. There doesn’t seem to be very muchdown here...
“The world is totally loony.”
It is indeed. ;-/
This is not big news. Scientists continually find new planets. It has more the scent of the way the media and WH played up NASA findings of extraterrestrial life just prior to the 1996 elections.
Cue Monty Python’s Galaxy Song. Let’s pray there’s intelligent life somewhere out in space, ‘cause there’s bugger all down here on Earth!
/nit pick
Mainly Hesiod and Ovid although Plato and others consistently refer to antediluvians as “nurselings of Kronos (Saturn)”...
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