Earth-like planet discovered around another star!

This is seriously some cool shit. :smokin:

Exoplanets | Sister Earth | Economist.com
Apr 25th 2007 | EARTH
From Economist.com
Is there anybody out there?

IF EXTRATERRESTRIAL life were to exist, it would need a planet on which to evolve. All but one of 200-or-so planets outside the solar system discovered by astronomers so far would be quite unsuitable. That is because these planets are composed of gas. Yet the one whose discovery was announced in the early hours of Wednesday April 25th is different. Astronomers think it is rocky, like the Earth, and that it may harbour liquid water. This makes it the best candidate yet for supporting life.

The planet in question orbits a star called Gliese 581 that lies a mere 20 light years away in the constellation Libra. The temperature of the sun is such that it supports nuclear fusion that generates bright sunlight. By contrast, Gliese 581 is a red dwarf, so-called because the star is small and the fusion reaction proceeds slowly, creating a dim glow. Nevertheless, because the planet is much closer to its star than the Earth is to the sun, it lies in what astronomers call the "habitable zone"-the region surrounding a star where water would be liquid.

Seeing such faint objects is difficult. Astronomers used to detect them by indirect methods, such as picking up a small wobble in the position of the star that indicated it was being pulled very slightly towards an orbiting planet. New telescopes and techniques have found other exoplanets directly, by sensing a slight fading in the luminosity of the star as the planet crosses its face. But these techniques only work with massive planets and, in general, giant planets are gaseous.

Looking for planets orbiting red dwarfs is easier because the stars are less massive. This not only means that any planets orbit much more closely but also that the wobbles are more readily seen. The researchersâ??a team of Swiss, French and Portuguese planet-hunters using a telescope based in Chileâ??used an indirect method called the â??radial velocityâ?� technique. This exploits the Doppler effect familiar when a siren changes pitch as the fire engine on which it is mounted speeds past you. Using this technique, changes in the velocity of the starâ??that is, the wobble caused by the previously unseen planetâ??can be measured extremely accurately.

The planet, dubbed Gliese 581c, has a radius 50% larger than this planet. It has five times the mass of the Earth and orbits its star every 13 days. The same team of astronomers who discovered it had earlier found another planet, this time a gaseous giant similar to Neptune, orbiting the same star every 5.4 days. They say they have strong evidence for another planet in the same system that has about eight times the mass of the Earth and orbits every 84 days. The evidence is reported in a paper submitted to Astronomy and Astrophysics.

According to theory, a planet the size and mass of Gliese 581c should be rocky, like the Earth. It could, too, be covered in oceans, perhaps completely. The mean temperature on the surface of the planet would be between 0°C and 40°C, making it far more hospitable than either Venus or Mars, Earthâ??s nearest neighbours.

The race is now on to detect whether the planet has an atmosphere and whether it contains water. Just a fortnight ago, astronomers using the Hubble space telescope identified water vapour in the atmosphere of an exoplanet, albeit a gaseous exoplanet some 150 light years away. The planet, called HD209458b, passes in front of the Earth every three-and-a-half days, making accurate measurements possible over time.

Even if Gliese 581c turns out to be void of little green men, there is time yet. The sun is thought to be about 5 billion years old and halfway through its lifetime as a â??main sequenceâ?� star. After that it is expected to become a red giant, as the hydrogen that presently comprises it is exhausted and the sun switches to burning helium instead. At that point, the Earthâ??s atmosphere and water will be boiled away, leaving the planet uninhabitable.

Red dwarfs, meanwhile, burn for hundreds of billions of years. This not only gives plenty of time for life to evolve on the recently discovered planet. It may make the place a useful bolthole in some 5 billion yearsâ?? time.

Have my babies.

very very interesting article. I'd like to think there's life somewhere outside of earth

Even if there is no native life there, this could give human beings a destination to strive for in the distant future.

Possibly one of the greatest discoveries in history, buried on the back page of newspapers while the world gives their full attention to the more pressing issue of who will be the next American Idol.

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Originally Posted by CityBoyGoneCountry

Even if there is no native life there, this could give human beings a destination to strive for in the distant future.

Possibly one of the greatest discoveries in history, buried on the back page of newspapers while the world gives their full attention to the more pressing issue of who will be the next American Idol.

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well, what can you do

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Originally Posted by smoke it

well, what can you do

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We can start by building moonbase alpha. This will provide a long-term research facility as well as a jumping off point for Mars and beyond.

Too bad we're spending all our money in that shithole called Iraq...

Another habitable planet is just what we need. I'm getting bored of Earth anyway. It'll take me awhile to get used to living on a planet named "Gliese 581c," sounds like a term that would be used to describe the sound of a serious bowel flush. I wonder what kind of weed awaits us on the distant planet? Are its soils fertile? These are questions I'm hoping to be answered in the near future.

It would be so cool to explore another planet. I would love to be an explorer and chart territory that no person from earth had every seen. If there is life there I wonder what it is like. Is it similar to earth life or radically different? Is there intelligent life there?

What if there are primative "human like" creatures that are only like 4,000 years behind us? We could learn from them and they could learn from us. Or we could rule like gods haha.

Hell yeah, I find this very interessting. Space and the potential of us discovering other life forms is very exciting. I would love to see some major developments with this in my lifetime.

Well, if everyone left on this planet to live on the other one, that means I'll be the last one and have the entire planet to myself!

Really opens up ones imagination, ahhh i just wish i could live to see the exploration of it

man, this is really cool.

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Originally Posted by CannabisCrooz

Really opens up ones imagination, ahhh i just wish i could live to see the exploration of it

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Do you have some kind of terminal illness? If so, we'll letter the scientists and tell them to hurry it the hell up.

i was reading about this last night....

awesome...just awesome....

Our astronauts are still amusing themselves w/ amazingly important discoveries like wether or not a yo-yo will work in zero gravity. Silly crap like a planet somewhere can wait until the folks at NASA are done worshiping themselves.

YouTube - The Hubble Deep Field: The Most Important Image Ever Taken
Watch this and try and tell me that we are the only life in the universe.
Trips me the fuck out.
The numa numa part is gay as fuck but after that 30 seconds its pretty gnarly shit.

that is so cool!
i think science is boring.. except for astronomy.
you just have to wonder what else is out there.
it's limitless, and no matter how much you find out about it, you will never find everything.

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Originally Posted by Oppositional P

Our astronauts are still amusing themselves w/ amazingly important discoveries like wether or not a yo-yo will work in zero gravity. Silly crap like a planet somewhere can wait until the folks at NASA are done worshiping themselves.

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Are you insinuating that astronauts and NASA aren't doing anything productive or aren't doing useful science? Sure, they're not perfect, but the space program is one of the few really productive things that our government does for humanity. I don't know where you get this idea that they're just fooling around with yo-yo's. They're discovering the history of the universe, developing new technologies, working out problems in physics, and building our planet's global communications system.

Long live humanity! Long live the space program!
NASA - Home
ESA Communications Portal
Federal Space Agency
Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency

Besides, this discovery was not made by any government space program. Regular astronomers did this, to expand their knowledge of astronomy. What's the objection to that?

I agree the are working, but I would like to see them put more effort into actually exploring space. A lot of cool gadgets and technology have come out of NASA, but I also would like to us working at getting our ships furthur out there.

Maybe go to other places than the moon, which has a legit argument suggesting it was a fabrication. I don't believe many conspiracy theories, but I think that one has merit.

They have done great things, but they have kind of ignored actually exploring space with the exception of telescopes on hills.

i just read about this today @ lunch. pretty sweet.
i wonder how long it will take to come up with the technology to get to the planet in a reasonable amout of time.

It's not that they don't want to or that they aren't putting enough effort into it. It's that they're drastically underfunded. They receive far less money than any other government organization, and the government expects them to work on so many projects at once that they can't really get everything done that they want to. For example, Bush told NASA that he wants to see a man on the moon again and a man on Mars, but didn't provide them with any extra money to get that done, so they've had to cut current projects to start working on that. It's really sad, actually. We're wasting so much money building the largest military in the world into an even larger military so we can more efficiently battle other countries, when we could be investing in our species' common future in outer space.

For real dude im sure theyre doing all they can with their budget... Billions and billions of dollars, like theyre definitely not just sittin on their asses... NASA is one of the biggest costs in the US budget and teaming with astronomers theyre doin crazy shit im sure that we dont hear about... Damn im high haha

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Originally Posted by Runaway Jim

NASA is one of the biggest costs in the US budget

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No, that's just not true. NASA is tiny these days. They only have a budget of $16.3 billion. That's just $50 for every man, woman and child in the country. Nobody in politics seems to think it's very important.

On the other hand, the military has an annual budget of almost $450 billion (not including the Iraq and Afghanistan wars), amounting to $1500 per person, to build up and maintain a huge arsenal of weapons and trained killers so we can kick the shit out of other countries who are pissed off because we put so much effort into kicking the shit out of other countries, to maintain a nuclear arsenal capable of launching the planet into a nuclear winter that could destroy civilization as we know it. What the fuck are we doing?

We are the richest country on the planet, and what are we doing with our vast reserves of wealth? Are we feeding the poor, combatting diseases in the Third World, or assisting humanity in its transition to an interplanetary species? No. Our politicians are too worried about silly things like power and patriotism.

As Carl Sagan, my personal hero, put it:

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The choice is with us still, but the civilization now in jeopardy is all humanity. As the ancient myth makers knew, we are children equally of the earth and the sky. In our tenure of this planet we've accumulated dangerous evolutionary baggage â?? propensities for aggression and ritual, submission to leaders, hostility to outsiders â?? all of which puts our survival in some doubt. But we've also acquired compassion for others, love for our children and desire to learn from history and experience, and a great soaring passionate intelligence â?? the clear tools for our continued survival and prosperity. Which aspects of our nature will prevail is uncertain, particularly when our visions and prospects are bound to one small part of the small planet Earth. But up there in the cosmos, an inescapable perspective awaits. National boundaries are not evident when we view the Earth from space. Fanatic ethnic or religious or national identifications are a little difficult to support when we see our planet as a fragile blue crescent fading to become an inconspicuous point of light against the bastion and citadel of the stars. There are not yet obvious signs of extraterrestial intelligence, and this makes us wonder whether civilizations like ours rush inevitably headlong to self-destruction. I dream about it, and sometimes they're bad dreams.

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Originally Posted by Ganj

Do you have some kind of terminal illness? If so, we'll letter the scientists and tell them to hurry it the hell up.

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no but i don't think ill live long enough for us to figure out a way to travel 20 light years.

Sadly true, even though 20 light years is just around the corner, galactically speaking.

SPACE WEED.

I am certain that its just a matter of time now that we WILL be discovering life on the planets and moons in our own solar system. And with the discoveries made here on Earth in the past handful of years of life existing in what was thought to be totally inhospitable and extreme places, I think it all but clinches it. Inside of caves void of sunlight, around hot and volitle volcanic vents miles down in the oceans, in pools of sulfuric acid. Life has even developed where there is no water or oxgen. I wouldn't be surprised if life was brought to our planet (and solar system) from somewhere else in our galaxy or even the universe, perhaps from another universe dimension and/or time that we don't even know about. And when I say life, I mean "life as we know it". The universe is so big that there are probably forms of life that we can't even begin to imagine or comprehend!

Our earth is such an insignificant part of the grand scheme of things to small to even measure, yet at the same time to us humans we ARE the center of the universe.


P.S. Oh, and hi all - my first post. Long time lurker rearing my ugly head at last :D

wtf is space weed u fool! mr t wants to know

There HAS to be life out there. Its nearly impossible for there not to be! There are billions and billions of stars out there.
And with those stars come solar systems. Our solar system is nothing out of the ordinary, its basic.
And there should be billions of other ones just like it. Meaning there are MILLIONS of habitable planets out there.

And maybe even extra-terestrials just like us. Watching tv, eating the same stuff, smoking space weed! :thumbsup:

The universe is infinate.

Therefore - somewhere out there there is a planet that is simply one, giant trichome.

hahahahahh id love that nasa reports that the space probe blazer 1 has been cought bt thc1 in the outer smoke rings, wait we have a msg back

wtf need tachos?!!

LOL

I wish I could afford a ticket to go there before I die...

skink... u are triocrome ! and ur fat so u already there

Science fiction writers are going to have an abundance of new story ideas from this. I already have one of my own, but I don't know how plausible it is.

Does anyone happen to know the shelf life of a frozen human embryo?

well that means if we blow up this world.. probalby soon, we could just movve to another planet and destroy it. ooh humans are going to live for a very long time

now i want to toke with aliens

Imagine if this world come to an end and before that people discover that it is possible to transfer all human beings to another planet, or maybe they will just modify the moon and put all kind of gas on it so people can live on it,...i guess technology will be great for another thousand of years so it will be possible,..but then we discover that there's also another life form living in the outer space just looking at us and obseerving how we do our everyday life and they are eager to help us when it comes to and end,.....years of observation they learn how to speak english and they started using it,...they also introduce us to all kinds of living things out there in the galaxy and theres like billion of species and we are like just one of them,.....

its possible that there is sumthin outder, believe me when the time comes we will be invaded or helped by them,...

oh space what a magnificent thing it is.
my mind jus goes when i stare up at them stars at night when im blitzed as a mother fucker. just boggles my mind on how big outer space is. its endless and i still cant believe it till this day.
But wat a great find and a great thread. :thumbsup:

It's the fact that it's endless that makes it so incomprehensible. ENDLESS. It just NEVER stops. I cant get my head around it.