Munich, April 24: An international team of astronomers from Switzerland, France and Portugal have discovered the most Earth-like planet outside our Solar System to date. Posted on 04/24/2007 1:41:01 PM PDT by Sopater
Munich, April 24: An international team of astronomers from Switzerland, France and Portugal have discovered the most Earth-like planet outside our Solar System to date.
The planet has a radius only 50 percent larger than Earth and is very likely to contain liquid water on its surface.
The research team used the European Southern Observatory’s (ESO’s) 3.6-m telescope to discover the super-Earth, which has a mass about five times that of the Earth and orbits a red dwarf already known to harbour a Neptune-mass planet.
Astronomers believe there is a strong possibility in the presence of a third planet with a mass about eight times that of the Earth in the system.
However, unlike our Earth, this planet takes only 13 days to complete one orbit round its star. It is also 14 times closer to its star than the Earth is from the Sun.
However, since its host star, the red dwarf Gliese 581, is smaller and colder than the Sun – and thus less luminous – the planet lies in the habitable zone, the region around a star where water could be liquid!
“We have estimated that the mean temperature of this super-Earth lies between 0 and 40 degrees Celsius, and water would thus be liquid,” said Stéphane Udry from the Geneva Observatory, Switzerland and lead-author of the paper in the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics.
“Moreover, its radius should be only 1.5 times the Earth’s radius, and models predict that the planet should be either rocky – like our Earth – or covered with oceans,” he said.
“Liquid water is critical to life as we know it and because of its temperature and relative proximity, this planet will most probably be a very important target of the future space missions dedicated to the search for extra-terrestrial life. On the treasure map of the Universe, one would be tempted to mark this planet with an X,” added Xavier Delfosse, a member of the team from Grenoble University, France.
According to the research team, the host star, Gliese 581, is among the 100 closest stars to us, located only 20.5 light-years away in the constellation Libra (“the Scales”).
The star has a mass only one third that of the Sun. Such red dwarfs are at least 50 times intrinsically fainter than the Sun and are the most common stars in our Galaxy. Among the 100 closest stars to the Sun, 80 belong to this class.
“Red dwarfs are ideal targets for the search for such planets because they emit less light, and the habitable zone is thus much closer to them than it is around the Sun. Any planets that lie in this zone are more easily detected with the radial-velocity method, the most successful in detecting exoplanets,” said Xavier Bonfils, a co-worker from Lisbon University.
Bureau Report
So that'd make the day'night variability almost nil, and probably give that strong magnetic field I mentioned earlier.
Which is what I said as well.
How are scientists sure that those radio and television transmissions continue to travel?
They will, but will spread out and weaken per unit area as the square of distance. But given what the programming is and its usual content, I suppose it is just as well.
If they saw any of the MSM and figured it out, they would probably show up with Roach spray and end our misery.
You’re welcome.
It's still an awesome discovery, though. Perhaps the next one found will be a little nicer.
Me, I'd prefer ~1G, atmo at 14psi made of 70% N, 25% O2, and 5% N2O, 4:1 ocean to land ratio with several small continents and lots and lots of islands, all orbiting a nice G-class star between 90 and 100 million miles while rotating on its axis once every 20 to 30 hours.
Oh yeah - it MUST have a nickel-iron core to generate a magnetic field. Wouldn't want my Eden getting bombarded by cosmic rays and solar flares.
But with my luck, it would have some kind of airborne Ebola-like virus floating around in the air that kills humans in minutes, or super-fast, hyper-oxygenated species of carnivorous Grendel that thinks of us as tasty little hours d'ouvres.
(Hats off to Niven and Pournelle for that last one)
Anne Francis had nice gams.
That occurred to me as well. Kinda like that old "McDLT" from McDonalds - "keeps the hot side hot and the cool side cool".
The place sounds more like a penal colony for child molesters, mass murderers, and deposed dictators, forced to mine dilithium.
"Welcome to the penal colony of Ruhre Penthe! Work well, and you will be treated well. Work poorly, and you will be exiled to the surface!"
Actually, Venus' g-field at the surface is 90.4% of Earth's.
What happened there was the fact that Venus' rotation period is so slow (243 days, retrograde), and it's so close to the Sun, that its water boiled off early. Any life it might have had died off before it had a chance to develop photosynthesis and lock Venus' CO2 in carbonate rocks.
Slow rotation and close to the Sun, no water. No water, no life. No life, no oxygen, and a runaway greenhouse effect.
End result: the closest thing to Hell that we have in the Solar system, with 900 degree highs and clouds of sulfuric acid.
You forgot:
- Porn star Cicciolina wins a seat in the Italian parliment
- Les Miserables is awarded 8 Tony awards, including Best Musical.
- The marriage of Charles and Diana starts to deteriorate, they begin living alone.
(Something tells me that these three events are related.)
New ‘super-Earth’ found in space [planet found]
BBC News | Wednesday, 25 April 2007 | BBC News
Posted on 04/25/2007 6:07:03 AM EDT by FostersExport
Astronomerhttp://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1823134/posts
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