NASA telescope detects 5 sizzling exoplanets

[Kadie]

NASA telescope detects 5 sizzling exoplanets
David Perlman, Chronicle Science Editor

Tuesday, January 5, 2010


NASA's new space telescope Kepler has discovered five odd fiery-hot planets in its epochal search for life-sustaining planets in the depths of the Milky Way, scientists reported Monday.

"One of the planets is amazingly light - like Styrofoam," said William J. Borucki, the astronomer from NASA's Ames Research Center in Mountain View who conceived the Kepler mission 25 years ago and now leads it.

"And all five simply glow," he said, "they're like looking into a blast furnace - but that's simply no place to look for life."

The five exoplanets, as they are known, are the first that scientists have detected from Kepler's signals, and they are evidence of the strange solar systems that may exist far beyond our own, the scientists say.

The newfound planets are far larger than Earth. The smallest is the size of Neptune, four times Earth's size, and the three biggest are much larger than Jupiter, which is 10 times the size of Earth.


Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/01/05/MNST1BDDNU.DTL&tsp=1#ixzz0bkjrkPNT

[Soylent Brice]

1. K&R

[Peace Patriot]

2. "...but that's simply no place to look for life." Oh, you never know.

There are recently discovered extremophiles on earth that live in extremely hot environments. And then there is the "echo from the future" theory, laid out in Arthur C. Clarke's "Childhood's End." The thesis of that story is that a race of superior beings who look just like Lucifer will one day shepherd humanity to a higher plane of existence, but this boon for earth's children will not include earth's parents or other adults; to them, it is a tragedy--they lose their children, plus they don't get to join the cosmic dance. It is the end of human history, from their point of view ('childhood's end"), all of which was merely phase #1 of a cosmic plan. When the Lucifer-like beings arrive on earth, to accomplish this task at the behest of higher beings than themselves, they refuse to show themselves during the first parts of the transition, so as not to scare humanity to death. Clarke says that the image of Lucifer as an evil being--the ultimate evil--had "echoed" from the future into humanity's consciousness, in the past, creating Christianity's image of the Devil. Those who had imagined the Devil with leathery skin, horns and tail were getting some kind of telepathic or trans-time message from the future, re: the end of the human race (except for its children) and the emotional agony that this will bring.

So, consider our notion of Hell as a very hot place, where "sinners" burn for eternity. Maybe that image is an echo from the future, of our meeting the beings who have evolved on, and exist in, these super-hot environments, and maybe something bad happens (in the future)--by accident or design--which has caused us (back here in time before this happens) to associate hot, burning environments with evil? I.e., our notion that "devils" can exist amidst the "fires of Hell"--all of Lucifer's "fallen angels" who torment human souls in that environment--is telepathic evidence (so to speak) of the existence of life on these (or other) very hot planets. And maybe some day we will discover that there are all sorts of clues to the future in past human culture, and will learn how to "read" these clues. Maybe we are already in some kind of contact with "aliens" in a communication pathway that we don't understand and tend to downgrade and scoff at as superstition and "not science." Is telepathy, perhaps, the secret to traveling vast distances of time-space that our physical bodies cannot traverse?

[itsrobert]

3. LOL

You have an active imagination.

[Leftist Agitator]

4. Dude, lay off the acid!

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

6. Hell, even Clarke disowned that idea.

Not that the book wasn't a fun read, but it's hardly a basis for anything scientific.

[EOTE]

7. I'm adding that one to my 'must read' list.

I'm a big fan of Clarke, but I've never read that one. Seems to go a bit beyond typical sci-fi. I'll definitely be checking it out.

[Dogtown]

8. Dude......

[Kadie]

9. I am going to have to re-read that after I have had more coffee...

or something.

:D

[mikelgb]

10. not to mention the fact that Earth was once a molten furnace too

and what we see in space is looking back in time.

[Peace Patriot]

11. Good point! What's happening there now? nt

[W_HAMILTON]

12. It's hard to comprehend.

All these images and reports you see, do they note the actual age of the planets, stars, etc?

It's just a hard concept for me to wrap my brain around.

[myrna minx]

5. K&R n/t