A Neptune and a Jupiter transit a Sun-like star in this artist's concept. Earth is only a quarter the diameter of Neptune; star-dimmings caused by planets that small are hard for even Kepler to detect reliably. [S&T: Steven Simpson]
Posted on 10/01/2011 9:07:19 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
"It's just amazing," observes Michel Mayor of the Geneva Observatory in Switzerland, who, back in 1995, discovered the first-ever exoplanet orbiting a normal star. "Fifteen years ago, there were just a handful of people working in this field; now there are well over a thousand." ...The main message I took away from the Jackson Lake conference is that everybody is losing count as far as extrasolar planets are concerned. Yes, the canonical Extrasolar Planets Encyclopedia lists an exact number: 687 confirmed as of September 23rd. But it changes often now, and in jumps. At a virtual press conference organized by the European Southern Observatory, Swiss astronomer Francesco Pepe announced the discovery of 16 new super-Earths in a batch of 50 new planet discoveries by the super-sensitive European HARPS radial-velocity spectrograph at the La Silla Observatory in Chile. One of these worlds, said Pepe, orbits its orange-dwarf star in the habitable zone, more or less, so liquid water might possibly exist on its surface. But at the same time, HARPS team leader Mayor, during his presentation, mentioned not 16 but 19 new super-Earths, and later that day he revised that number upward to 20.
(Excerpt) Read more at skyandtelescope.com ...
A Neptune and a Jupiter transit a Sun-like star in this artist's concept. Earth is only a quarter the diameter of Neptune; star-dimmings caused by planets that small are hard for even Kepler to detect reliably. [S&T: Steven Simpson]
Even as of last February, NASA's Kepler spacecraft had identified 1,235 exoplanet candidates (yellow and dark-blue dots), far more than the count of transiting exoplanets known prior to the mission (lighter violet dots). Click on the image for a larger version. Planet diameters are plotted vertically, orbital periods are plotted horizontally; these early discoveries orbit closer to their stars than Earth orbits the Sun. (The Jupiter, Neptune, and Earth illustrations at right are not to scale with each other.) [NASA / Wendy Stenzel]
 |
||
| · join · view topics · view or post blog · bookmark · post new topic · subscribe · | ||
| Google news searches: exoplanet · exosolar · extrasolar · | ||
And thanks to Obama we can only HOPE to travel to the stars or even the other planets one day.
I think a maned mission to Mars will happen first.
And for all that was found, there are likely thousands of moons and Earth-sized worlds right in the the same field of view, just waiting for better techniques to find them!
It will be nothing short of a world-changing event when we start directly imaging them directly.
“I think a maned mission to Mars will happen first.”
Unlikely considering we no longer use space shuttles and there is no alternative on the horizon. But at least Obama is promising lots of shovel ready jobs!
Truly asounding for those of us who grew up with the nine planets.
“We already have the means to travel among the stars, but these technologies are locked up in black projects and it would take an act of God to ever get them out to benefit humanity….. anything you can imagine we already know how to do.” Ben Rich, former Head of the Lockheed Skunk Works
HUH??? Is that a real quote? Where did you find it or hear it?
Amazing, if true.
The Shuttle made space access more expensive ($500 million per launch is the new black); the ISS was conceived as the antithesis for President Reagan’s proposed Space Station Freedom and helped keep the Russian space program running, a real spit in our eye. The ISS consumed most of the Shuttle launches, and was expensive in its own right, accomplished nothing much, and if anything diminished US prestige. Two Shuttle disasters didn’t exactly enhance our prestige, either.
An orbiter just for astronauts makes more sense, and would require a much smaller, cheaper booster. And most launches are crewless, and the boosters used for those don’t have to come back down. The STS was mostly dead weight, and ate up the mass budget along with the NASA budget.
Zero won’t be President forever (although there are people I know who want him to be, guess why?) and his idiotic choices for NASA suggest it will require a complete housecleaning and reorganization after the POS is out of office. He has damaged the US government, US foreign policy, and our liberty, and has been making steady war on the sciences throughout his term. Science isn’t important to him, only Islam.
The only ticket to another star (and a nearby one at that) which is currently within reach is a plasma drive for a probe (unmanned, obviously); the nearest star is the red dwarf Proxima Centauri, and even a plasma-drive probe would take a really long time to get there. Plasma engines are capable of firing for years on end, but the acceleration is a slow process, and an onboard source of electricity has to be relied on during all that time.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ion_thruster
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/03/10/ad_astra_nasa_vf200_announcement/
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/11/25/vasimr_vx_200_fullbore_efficiency/
That’s the next story I plan to post... :’)
And I wholeheartedly agree — the first discoveries were bigger than Jupiter, then as more observers got involved with better and better technology and new ideas, the detection limit kept getting smaller, a process still going on today.
ISN'T IT BEN RICH WHO SPOKE ONLY A FEW YEARS AGO AT A MEETING IN CALIFORNIA AND SAID WE HAD THE TECHNOLOGY `TO TAKE E. T. HOME'? That's exactly correct, Linda. I have that quote right here. Mr. Ben Rich passed away in 1995 and before he passed away, he dropped a number of bombshells. This took place at Wright-Patterson AFB back in 1993. He gave a slide presentation there and also at the UCLA School of Engineering Alumni speech – he gave on March 23, 1993. At the very end of his presentation, in both of these venues, he completed his slides with the following quote: `The U. S. Air Force has just given us a contract to take E. T. back home.'
He also mentioned, "We already have the means to travel among the stars, but these technologies are locked up in black projects and it would take an act of God to ever get them out to benefit humanity… ...anything you can imagine we already know how to do."
And he also mentioned at the UCLA speech, `It is time to end all secrecy on this as it no longer poses a national security threat and to make the technology available for use in the private sector.' That's exactly what we're talking about here.
He was telling us about a whole level of aircraft, of spacecraft, of advanced propulsion systems that are so far advanced. He even mentioned technologies that are 50 years beyond even what we could possibly dream of. Now, when you hear that coming from the Director of the Skunk Works, I think it is important to really take that to heart. This gentleman knew something and he was trying to tell us something. And I think this is the space program that none of us have a clue about in the civilian sector. This is what Ben Rich was trying to tell us about.
Ben Rich "father of stealth technology" and former vice-president of the Lockheed corporation made a few statements to Jim Goodall. He said "we have things out in the desert that are 50 years beyond what you can comprehend" "and wont be made public for another 50 years" "If you've seen it in Star Trek or Star Wars, we've been there and done that.
In another interview Jim Godall said this: "Ben Rich told me twice before he died: 'We have things at Area 51 that you and the best minds in the world won't even be able to conceive that we have for 30 or 40 years, and won't be made public for another 50." A friend of mine at Lockheed told me: "We have things in the Nevada desert that are alien to your way of thinking far beyond anything you see on Star Trek."
One time I interviewed a retired senior master sergeant who had been at Groom Lake three different times as an Air Force safety specialist. ... At first he was real nervous, but when he warmed up he told me: 'We have things that would make George Lucas envious.' I know one retired guy who worked at Lockheed for 30 years, most of the time at Area 51 ; he's very proud of what he's done, and he wants the story of the place to be told so that his grandchildren will have some idea of what he was involved in. In the summer of '86 I asked him if he believes in UFOs. He said, 'They absolutely, positively do exist !' I said, 'Can you expand on that?' And he said, 'No, I've said too much as it is.' "
Of course this technology could only come from UFOs. But those statements lead me to another question. What about teleportation (beam me up scotty!) If Ben Rich said anything you see on Star Trek, we've already done, that leads me to believe that teleportation is possible. To a small degree we already know its possible because Scientists did it in a lab with protons. No wonder the ancients thought extraterestrials were gods.
About Ben Rich Benjamin R. (Ben) Rich graduated from Berkley with a degree in mechanical engineering in 1949 at the age of 25. Rich originally wanted to become a doctor. In 1949 Rich decided to get a master's degree from UCLA specializing in both "aeronautical engineering and dateing soriety girls." Rich came to Lockheed in 1950 after recieveing a degree aeronautical engineering. In December 1954 he was summoned to the Skunk Works by Kelly Johnson as a 29 year old thermodynamisist earning $87 dollars a week. Kelly had requested to borrow from the main plant "a thermodynamicist, preferably a smart one" to solve an unspecified problem. Ben Rich's first assignment with the Skunk Works was the intake on the XF-104 Starfighter. Rich would soon work on the U-2, the A-12, YF-12, Sr-71, and D-21 programs. He joined the SR-71 program in it's inital stages in 1958, and as a thermodynamicist, personally suggested that the Blackbird family of aircraft be painted black to reduce surface temperatures.
In 1975 Rich succeeded Johnson as the head of Skunk Works and as a Lockheed vice president in 1977. Rich during this period focused the Skunk Works on the creating the F-117A. In 1977 when the XST made it's first flight, retired Kelly Johnson slapped Rich on the back and yelled "Well, Ben, you got your first airplane." In 1984-86 he served as interm president of Lockheed's Advanced Aeronautical Company, after which he promptly returned to head up Skunk Works once again. In May 1990 when the Skunk Works became a independent company, Ben Rich was named the company's first president and "Chief Skunk." In December 1990 while the first deployment of F-117A's were heading to Saudi Arabia for DESERT SHEILD, Rich retired from Skunk Works.
Ben Rich (and the entire F-117A team) won the 1989 Collier Trophy, was a fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA), recieved the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) national aircraft design award in 1972, was selected the 1988 Wright Brothers annual lecturer by both the AIAA and the British Royal Aeronautical Society, and in 1991 was elected an honorary fellow of the AIAA. In 1994, Ben Rich published his memoirs "Skunk Works."....
Interesting. I haven’t ever heard that... thanks.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
