Alien 'water world' found

[Akoto]

Source: MSNBC.com

Astronomers say they have detected a planet just six and a half times as massive as Earth - at a distance so close its atmosphere could be studied, and with a density so low it's almost certain to have abundant water.

The alien world known as GJ 1214b orbits a red dwarf star one-fifth the size of our own sun, 40 light-years away in the constellation Ophiuchus, the astronomers reported in Thursday's issue of the journal Nature.

"Astronomically speaking, this is on our block," David Charbonneau of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, lead author of the study, told reporters this week. "This is a next-door neighbor. For perspective, our own TV signals have already passed beyond the distance of this star."

-snip-

The larger implication of the Nature study is that other super-Earths may be waiting out there with just the right conditions for life. "We found this planet in the first six months," Charbonneau noted. "We had only looked at a small fraction of the stars that we planned to look at through the entire project. That means that either we got really lucky - which is possible - or these planets are common."

Read more: http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2009/12/16/2152989.aspx

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I love stuff like this. Great discovery. :)

[dysfunctional press]

1. "For perspective, our own TV signals have already passed beyond the distance of this star."

i was under the impression that it had been determined that tv signals break up into static after about 1 light year.

[Akoto]

2. Something to debate with Professor Charbonneau, I guess! n/t

[skoalyman]

3. yeah me too if not then we may have other beings watching our tv

stations.What if there favorite show got canceled would they invade us lol jk

[DBoon]

4. 40 light years away means shows from the 1960's

after seeing "Mr. Ed" and "Gilligan's Island" I think any intelligent life on that planet has written us off completely

[undeterred]

6. What if they watched "The Jetsons" or "The Flintstones"?

[guitar man]

31. either that or

They wiped each other out with nukes in the great "Ginger vs Mary Ann" war. :rofl:

[Ellen Forradalom]

42. Our only hope

is that they watched Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In.

[lapfog_1]

43. Already done.

Episode of Futurama.

Bender and the crew (with Fry as the director because he sort of remembered the show) try to provide the series ending episode that the "aliens" missed because the show was prematurely canceled.

[mdmc]

44. ha

:)

[madokie]

46. I was thinking as I was reading that about the others out there that just

may know a lot more about us than we could imagine just from the information we send with our radio and teevee signals

[unblock]

5. i would argue that, for the most part, our tv signals were just static to begin with.

:evilgrin:

more to the point, i don't think he was speaking as to the remaining quality of the signal, only the distance that they would have travelled. noisy tv signals still travel at the speed of light.

[Silent3]

11. I'm not sure how that would have been "determined".

That's at the very least poor wording, since electromagnetic radiation doesn't "break down" as if it were some decomposing material. I suppose there's a point where background noise in the same frequency bands would become stronger than the original signal, but there are still techniques for rescuing very weak signals from background noise.

It might take multiple widely spread radio receivers, for instance, to help resolve our TV signals from a great distance, but there's certainly no hard-and-fast distance at which such a signals would become irrevocably lost.

[tkmorris]

28. Saved me some typing there.

[dysfunctional press]

35. you'd have to ask the folks at seti...

they were the ones who determined it.

i'm sorry if i didn't get the verbiage quite right, as it isn't particularly my field.

another way i've seen it described- it's kind of like dropping a rock in the middle of a fairly placid lake- by the time the ripples reach the shore, they are inperceptible from the regular lapping at the shore- or something to that effect- i'm probably doing a clumsy job of quoting it as well. sorry. :shrug:

[madokie]

47. kinda like how far down they can dig into the hard drive

down through many layers of newer information being left there over a long time too.

[LooseWilly]

32. You obviously have never seen Galaxy Quest.

A fine Historical Document...

[Uncle Joe]

7. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, Akoto.:)

[NRaleighLiberal]

8. Can they see Kevin Costner's doppelganger on the planet?

[sellitman]

9. That planet is just learning about Archie Bunker

That means Sally Struthers is still a babe to them...

:evilgrin:

[TommyO]

21. Just wait until they get to

"Do you want to make more money? Sure, we all do"

and later as Sally, the Hutt, Struthers on South Park

[NOW tense]

10. I'm ready to move... n/t

[MercutioATC]

12. You might want to read the article first...

"Those planets orbit stars like our own sun, but the brightness of GJ 1214b's parent star is hundreds of times dimmer. The planet is also much closer to the star than any of our own solar system's planets, orbiting at a distance of only 1.3 million miles (2 million kilometers). That combination suggests that the planet's surface temperature would be about 400 degrees Fahrenheit (200 degrees Celsius), Charbonneau's research team reported."

I'm all for warm weather, but that's a little warm for me.

[NOW tense]

41. darn n/t

[BreweryYardRat]

13. Cool. What's the fastest fraction of light-speed we can accelerate an unmanned probe to?

Edit: 400 degrees Fahrenheit surface temp? So much for colonization.

[proteus_lives]

22. For human colonization maybe.

But if we could someday use robotics for scientific research and industrial exploration?

Worth looking at.

[guitar man]

30. shhh!!!

Don't let that tidbit about the temperature get out. Let's name it "Galt's Gulch" and start building the ship to send them on their way. :evilgrin:

[sofa king]

40. According to Wikipedia...

Nuclear pulse propulsion has been technically feasible since the 1960s and refined designs might blast a vehicle up to 8-10% c. The first suggestion came around in only 1947, just a couple of years after the first atomic bomb, and was studied by NASA in the '50s under the name Project Orion.

Project Daedalus was a fascinating design from the BIS, most interesting because it was supposed to complete a journey to Barnard's Star in 50 years or less, so that scientists working on the project might hope to receive its signals upon arrival. It had a target velocity of 12% of the speed of light. Its payload was envisioned as a massive 500 tons of instruments and autonomous machines, with a hundred times that much deuterium/helium3 fuel at the outset. Of course, it wasn't going to be able to stop or even slow down much, so its visit to the system would be pretty short.

Laser propulsion using light sails also seems to have the theoretical ability to boost up to 10% c, and using a few nifty tricks like releasing the sail and reflecting it back onto a smaller sail, one can decelerate with them, too. The beauty of laser propulsion is that you don't have to carry all of your own fuel, so changing velocity is a little easier; the downside is that if someone back home decides to turn off the lights a quarter of the way there, you're not going to get anywhere fast and you're not going to stop when you do get there.

Keeping an array of multi-gigawatt lasers running for a hundred years to get to Alpha Centauri looks like your most probable bet on leaving the neighborhood anytime soon--and by "soon" I mean within the next thousand years. All of the projects above were envisioned with the idea that the energy required for construction and deployment would come practically free from all that oil we had around. I figure that in another twenty most of us left will be cannibals fighting over the last sharp knife.

[formercia]

51. Then you have to slow down.

Those two pilots who overshot their destination might be good candidates for a test run.

[wpsedgwick]

14. Thanks!

This is great stuff. Thanks for posting this!

[Luciferous]

15. Cool! Thanks for posting nt

[AngryAmish]

16. This is why I want to live in the fute

There is no way to explore this planet. I want to go.

Will some of the math boffins out there start working on a warp drive, stat? I want to get with some waterworld space womens.

[ItNerd4life]

17. I agree. I wish we could go visit now or within my lifetime. nt

[cowcommander]

18. Sadly, we may not see it at all

Star Trek has really fucked up the public's perception on space travel, there is no solid, fundamental basis for "warp drives" or anything similar in reality. All of it is purely theoretical guesswork, unfortunately.

[AngryAmish]

20. In space, no one can hear you masterbate

[sasquatch]

19. Are they going to invade us over the ending of Ally McBeel from the late 90's

[hughee99]

23. I loved that episode of Futurama. n/t

[sasquatch]

25. Finally, a reply

"Prepare the watercooler, so we may discuss things."
:D

[brooklynite]

24. 40 LY's... That means 1969 TV

They're watching "Get Smart", "Green Acres" and "I Dream of Jeanie"...

[tkmorris]

29. I like to imagine them watching Lancelot Link.

[dougkeenan]

53. 1969 TV means "Star Trek" ends for the Ophiuchans

Expect network hate mail back from that direction ... soon

[Hassin Bin Sober]

26. I, for one, welcome our new (boiled?) Fish overlords!

[damntexdem]

27. Have they located Kevin Costner yet?

;-)

[Peace Patriot]

33. It would be interesting to sit down and watch "I Spy," and "I Love Lucy," and

"Star Trek" the First, and "'Space Patrol," and "The Lone Ranger," and other '50s and '60s TV shows, and imagine what an intelligent alien race could extract from this information. I mean, really. I don't think they would dismiss any of it as stupid; they would be fascinated with all of it--as we would be, if we got something similar from another planet--and there would be entire universities devoted to interpreting these broadcasts and figuring out what earthlings are all about. Imagine their joy at a breakthrough translation of our languages, and other milestones, like the discovery that most of the broadcasts are drama and comedy but some are "news" of actual events on earth. This could make a REALLY fun scifi novel or TV SERIES. CBS & brethren could make use of all their old black and white footage! Call the show "Alien Translation," set on "GJ 1214b," where steam-based critters have evolved into intelligent beings who can tolerate high temperatures. (When they die, they evaporate?) And base each episode on their studies of particular earth broadcasts, or their receipt of a batch of astonishing new messages, or the impacts of these items on their own society, or on the steamy sex lives of individual translators and analysts.

The overarching story in this novel-like series would be the quest to compose an appropriate message to earthlings, to be launched at a certain date in the future, when all were satisfied with the message. Their first ideas would be very wrong, based on their notion that "The Carol Burnett Show" or Marx Brothers' movies were real events. Dissenters who suspected the truth and who claimed that these were NOT real events would lose their research grants, but would eventually be proved right. Gradually they would refine "the message," as they figure things out. Their whole society might go into doom and gloom mode when they discover what mushroom clouds portend or what the Vietnam War is all about. They might go through periods where they give up on us, and the study of earth broadcasts gets de-funded and becomes a fusty old dusty, cobwebby pursuit of eccentric academics in the basements of libraries. Decades go by in which the "alien archives" fall into disuse. Then they get "Monty Python's Flying Circus" and this spawns a new movement of renewed studies in the belief that earthlings have achieved sanity.

Hell, this is GREAT idea! I'm laughing just sitting here thinking about it.

Somebody want to pitch it to the SciFi channel or HBO?

[Systematic Chaos]

36. That is fucking epic!

I think you're on to something...at least in my warped imagination!

I don't know if your idea would fly with the masses, but it might have a strong niche appeal.

Wish I could help you with contacts, but I don't know squat about pitching TV ideas.

[Peace Patriot]

37. Yup, ain't it fun? If "Numb3rs" can do it for mathematicians, why can't "Alien Translation" do it

for linguists?

---------------------

Did you ever see the "Numb3rs" episode on the perils of electronic voting? Great episode. Great show.

I avoided TV for about twenty-five years. Then they started making a lot of intelligent shows, when production busted out of the alphabet network prison. Still can't stand commercials, so I rent them from Netflix. "Rome." "Six Feet Under." "Battlestar Galactica." "CSI: Las Vegas." "Northern Exposure." "Star Trek: TNG." "West Wing." The cable competition has improved the network shows. And I just discovered "Numb3rs"!

I used to live in Hollywad, long ago. No contacts there any more, though. Oh, well. Maybe some genius will find this on the internet and run with it. It's okay by me. I can't wait 'til it comes out on DVD!

[librechik]

34. Cool! So next year when we throw this planet away, we can move to a better one!

Isn't that swell? We don't have to work on cleaning up Earth after all!!

[Synicus Maximus]

38. I hope it is better than the movie

[MARALE]

52. I was thinking along the same lines

I think Kevin Costner should be the first to visit!

[chrisa]

39. Awesome!

It would be really cool to find a new ecosystem abundant with different types of creatures on a distant planet.

Of course, humans may never be able to travel that far. Even if we did, the creatures on a distant planet would likewise not be our friends, assuming that they're like the animals here!

[kentauros]

45. They found Solyaris!

I bet it's been studying us for a long time ;)

Солярис, Solyaris

[Dorian Gray]

48. Cool....

I love reading about this stuff as well!

[fl_dem]

49. scientific breakthroughs thrill me

I know I'm weird like that......I just love em, they give me goosebumps...and I am so excited for our future generations as they will go where no man has gone before...they will overcome this health care and economic fiasco, I have little faith left, but I do have it in our children's ability to overcome.

[fascisthunter]

50. I Really appreciate Science

it's probably why I watch mainly science shows.