New Earth-Size Planet Found.
Not too big, not too small. Not too hot, not too cold. A newly discovered planet looks just right for life as we know it, according to an international group of astronomers.
Orbiting a star about 500 light-years away, the planet called Kepler-186f is about the same size as Earth. As this artist's interpretation shows, it orbits its star at the right distance for liquid water on the surface. That is an essential condition for life as we know it.
But it is not exactly like Earth, NASA planetary scientist Elisa Quintana said via Skype.
"It's more of an Earth's cousin. It's not an Earth's twin. It shares the same characteristics as Earth, but their parent stars are very different," said Quintana.
Kepler-186f orbits a star that is smaller and cooler than our sun.
But, writing in the journal Science, the astronomers say the planet appears to be a closer relative than most of the hundreds of others discovered so far.
Some are massive gas-covered giants with thick, crushing atmospheres. Others orbit too closely to their stars and are too hot for life.
Two planets discovered last year are in the right orbit and might be good candidates for life, Quintana says, but they are a bit bigger than Earth.
"For the first time, we can actually say we now have a planet that is both Earth-sized and orbits in its star's habitable zone," she said.
It may be the first time, but it probably is not the last, says Massachusetts Institute of Technology astrophysicist Sara Seager. She spoke to VOA via Skype.
"We've been waiting decades to understand how common habitable planets might be, and it's looking like they're really common. And this gives us excitement and motivation to take the next step," said Seager.
The next step would be to look for traces of life in the atmospheres of these distant worlds. That would take a more sophisticated space telescope. But budget cuts threaten that mission, says University of California at Los Angeles astrophysicist Ben in this Skype interview.
"In principle, we could do this in the next couple decades. But in practice, because there's no money, it's not gonna happen. It's not gonna happen in my lifetime, for example," said Zuckerman.
Leaving earthbound concerns behind, NASA's Elisa Quintana believes that when the next-generation space telescope is launched, it will find that we are not alone in the universe.
"I guess I'm an optimist. I think that life is definitely out there. Just looking at the abundance of stars. I mean, hundreds of billions of stars. The likelihood that one of them might have some form of life to me seems rather high. But everyone has their own opinion about that, I'm sure," she said.
http://www.voanews.com/content/new-earth-size-planet-found/1895943.html
So, the planet is earth-sized, and while it's sun is smaller and cooler than ours, the planet is in the habitable zone. That sounds interesting. I'm not familiar enough with life supporting parameters of star systems to really grasp how the smaller cooler sun would affect things. That stuff doesn't fall under the pharmacy or nursing umbrella. Can anyone elaborate?
Shasta
NASA's Kepler Discovers First Earth-Size Planet In The 'Habitable Zone' of Another Star
April 17, 2014
(http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/styles/673xvariable_height/public/kepler186f_artistconcept_0.jpg?itok=ebjnSgu1)
Using NASA's Kepler Space Telescope, astronomers have discovered the first Earth-size planet orbiting a star in the "habitable zone" -- the range of distance from a star where liquid water might pool on the surface of an orbiting planet. The discovery of Kepler-186f confirms that planets the size of Earth exist in the habitable zone of stars other than our sun.
While planets have previously been found in the habitable zone, they are all at least 40 percent larger in size than Earth and understanding their makeup is challenging. Kepler-186f is more reminiscent of Earth.
"The discovery of Kepler-186f is a significant step toward finding worlds like our planet Earth," said Paul Hertz, NASA's Astrophysics Division director at the agency's headquarters in Washington. "Future NASA missions, like the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite and the James Webb Space Telescope, will discover the nearest rocky exoplanets and determine their composition and atmospheric conditions, continuing humankind's quest to find truly Earth-like worlds."
Although the size of Kepler-186f is known, its mass and composition are not. Previous research, however, suggests that a planet the size of Kepler-186f is likely to be rocky.
"We know of just one planet where life exists -- Earth. When we search for life outside our solar system we focus on finding planets with characteristics that mimic that of Earth," said Elisa Quintana, research scientist at the SETI Institute at NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif., and lead author of the paper published today in the journal Science. "Finding a habitable zone planet comparable to Earth in size is a major step forward."
Kepler-186f resides in the Kepler-186 system, about 500 light-years from Earth in the constellation Cygnus. The system is also home to four companion planets, which orbit a star half the size and mass of our sun. The star is classified as an M dwarf, or red dwarf, a class of stars that makes up 70 percent of the stars in the Milky Way galaxy.
"M dwarfs are the most numerous stars," said Quintana. "The first signs of other life in the galaxy may well come from planets orbiting an M dwarf."
Kepler-186f orbits its star once every 130-days and receives one-third the energy from its star that Earth gets from the sun, placing it nearer the outer edge of the habitable zone. On the surface of Kepler-186f, the brightness of its star at high noon is only as bright as our sun appears to us about an hour before sunset.
"Being in the habitable zone does not mean we know this planet is habitable. The temperature on the planet is strongly dependent on what kind of atmosphere the planet has," said Thomas Barclay, research scientist at the Bay Area Environmental Research Institute at Ames, and co-author of the paper. "Kepler-186f can be thought of as an Earth-cousin rather than an Earth-twin. It has many properties that resemble Earth."
The four companion planets, Kepler-186b, Kepler-186c, Kepler-186d, and Kepler-186e, whiz around their sun every four, seven, 13, and 22 days, respectively, making them too hot for life as we know it. These four inner planets all measure less than 1.5 times the size of Earth.
The next steps in the search for distant life include looking for true Earth-twins -- Earth-size planets orbiting within the habitable zone of a sun-like star -- and measuring the their chemical compositions. The Kepler Space Telescope, which simultaneously and continuously measured the brightness of more than 150,000 stars, is NASA's first mission capable of detecting Earth-size planets around stars like our sun.
Ames is responsible for Kepler's ground system development, mission operations, and science data analysis. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., managed Kepler mission development. Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. in Boulder, Colo., developed the Kepler flight system and supports mission operations with the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Colorado in Boulder. The Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore archives, hosts and distributes Kepler science data. Kepler is NASA's 10th Discovery Mission and was funded by the agency's Science Mission Directorate.
The SETI Institute is a private, nonprofit organization dedicated to scientific research, education and public outreach. The mission of the SETI Institute is to explore, understand and explain the origin, nature and prevalence of life in the universe.
For more information about the Kepler mission, visit:
http://www.nasa.gov/kepler
(http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/kepler186f_comparisongraphic_0.jpg)
The diagram compares the planets of our inner solar system to Kepler-186, a five-planet star system about 500 light-years from Earth in the constellation Cygnus. The five planets of Kepler-186 orbit an M dwarf, a star that is is half the size and mass of the sun. [Click link below for more.]
Image Credit: NASA Ames/SETI Institute/JPL-Caltech
A long long time ago...
(well a few decades back :P)
NASA and "Expert' Scientists around the World said that the odds of there being Other Planets out there, let alone entire systems... where impossibly high
Today...
We have already cataloged:
1135 planetary systems / 1821 planets / 467 multiple planet systems
It is getting mighty CROWEDED out there
I used to be on top of it but now I am so far behind I will never catch ip
Good thing THESES GUYS are
EXTRASOLAR PLANET CATALOG (http://exoplanet.eu/catalog/)
Well said Zorgon, , we were also told we couldn't break the sound barrier too!
Oh well, , , , ,
Tell me something I can't do, , BEFORE I do it, , , like building the boat I have been living on for the past 20 years, , FOCLMAO
Quote from: zorgon on August 31, 2014, 01:46:44 AM
A long long time ago...
(well a few decades back :P)
NASA and "Expert' Scientists around the World said that the odds of there being Other Planets out there, let alone entire systems... where impossibly high
Can we get a real quote on that? It would be interesting to see who said that.
Quote from: ArMaP on August 31, 2014, 12:30:13 PM
Can we get a real quote on that? It would be interesting to see who said that.
Many said that back in those days, , ,
Just as it was said we couldn't break the "sound barrier" by many.
Old books are the only place to find that out, and old science journals. :)
Quote from: Norval on August 31, 2014, 03:48:19 PM
Many said that back in those days, , ,
I know that, but I also know that is easy to say that NASA and expert scientists said it, and I don't remember seeing it anywhere. :)
The notion of the habitable zone is a complete nonsense. I'll try to find the time to write a thread on it soon. Basically there are places outside the habitable zone in our Solar System where there might well be water and therefore possibly life.
A good example of a place outside the so called habitable zone is Europa (which is one of the many Moons of Jupiter).
(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/54/Europa-moon.jpg/275px-Europa-moon.jpg)
Europa probably has a water ocean on it beneath an icy crust. We already know that there are entire ecosystems on Earth that don't require sunlight so the distance from a star is irrelevant to whether life can exist. In fact life may well have originated on Earth in such a place.
(http://www.indiana.edu/~g105lab/images/gaia_chapter_13/tubeworms.jpeg)
A closeup of a tubeworm colony. Tubeworms host the microorganisms that metabolize sulfides in their tissues in exchange for organic compounds that the bacteria fashion from the vent chemicals and seawater. They also live on organic matter from microbial flocs that get spewed into the water by the hot springs
SOURCE: http://www.indiana.edu/~g105lab/images/gaia_chapter_13/vent_communities.htm
(http://www.indiana.edu/~g105lab/images/gaia_chapter_13/scalewrm.jpg)
A newly discovered species of scale worm that had already colonized a the new lava flow in August 1998 (see above)! It appears to graze the microbial mat covering the new lava flow. (Juan de Fuca Ridge)
SOURCE: http://www.indiana.edu/~g105lab/images/gaia_chapter_13/vent_communities.htm
QuoteDeep Sea Vent Communities: Did Life Originate in the Abyss?
Scientists have long assumed that life on Earth originated in the oceans and the recent discovery of communities of microbes and animals that congregate around hot spring vents in the deep sea has buoyed speculation that the earliest life on our planet may have occurred in the depths of the ocean in the absence of sunlight. Deep Sea hot spring vents are places on the seafloor where hot water exits the ocean crust and comes to the surface. The hot water forms when seawater is heated in young ocean crust (usually close to spreading centers and areas of volcanic activity). Associated with these vents are living communities that exist thousands of meters beneath the surface of the sea, first discovered them in the late 1970's. Up to that time it had always been assumed that life required sunlight, but we now know the communities that live near these deep sea vents can exist on thermal and chemical energy provided by the vent. Thus, there life does not necessarily need sunlight and photosynthesis to prosper.
http://www.indiana.edu/~g105lab/images/gaia_chapter_13/vent_communities.htm
So there you have it. The habitable zone is a complete nonsense. :)
I love debunking so called "scientific truths". These stupid notions harm real science. They are astronomers. They should talk to biologists if they want information on life. ::)
The above information also makes a mockery of astrobiologists estimates of how much life is out there as they mostly base their assumptions on a small habitable zone. There are Far more potential places for life before we even start to discuss the possible non-water based life forms that might exist.
Wow guys, I'm really enjoying posting again now there is no drama here. I'm certainly not missing being trolled by a certain former member. :P
Quote from: Pimander on August 31, 2014, 06:34:40 PM
The notion of the habitable zone is a complete nonsense.
I don't think it's a complete nonsense, it's just a statistical simplification that, as all simplifications, can be used as a reference but not as a rule. :)
Quote from: ArMaP on August 31, 2014, 06:49:02 PM
I don't think it's a complete nonsense, it's just a statistical simplification that, as all simplifications, can be used as a reference but not as a rule. :)
OK, I'll word it another way. The current estimates of a habitable zone around stars is almost certainly incorrect. Therefore any estimates based on it are also incorrect.
As scientists if we find out that a widely used idea is incorrect we should change the text books and stop publishing numbers we are fairly certain are misleading.
When I was teaching 14 to 16 year old kids science I found it uncomfortable when teaching something to them that I knew was not correct. I had no choice though because the GCSE Science examinations expected the kids to repeat the incorrect information.
I know science changes rapidly but we have known about this for a long while now. For NASA to be basing public information on incorrect science is scandalous. NASA spend a lot of money on public understanding of science so they should at least try to get it right in my opinion.
I added an incorrect caption to my previous post which I have corrected now.
QuoteUp to that time it had always been assumed that life required sunlight, but we now know the communities that live near these deep sea vents can exist on thermal and chemical energy provided by the vent. Thus, there life does not necessarily need sunlight and photosynthesis to prosper.
And now we know that there are some fungus (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiotrophic_fungus) that use melanin to convert gamma radiation into chemical energy. :)
Quote from: ArMaP on August 31, 2014, 08:57:21 PM
And now we know that there are some fungus (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiotrophic_fungus) that use melanin to convert gamma radiation into chemical energy. :)
The potential biotechnology implications of that discovery are so exciting. I love how we are constantly finding new ways life adapts.
I suspect it is a matter of time before we start to find more life forms that can adapt to the near vacuum in orbit (not just bacteria surviving but actual reproduction and feeding). Imagine what the implications for the habitable zone would be if we find that out. I hope I live to see that one.
Quote from: Pimander on August 31, 2014, 09:06:54 PM
I suspect it is a matter of time before we start to find more life forms that can adapt to the near vacuum in orbit (not just bacteria surviving but actual reproduction and feeding). Imagine what the implications for the habitable zone would be if we find that out. I hope I live to see that one.
You mean something like an "improved version" of this (http://www.thelivingmoon.com/forum/index.php?topic=7207.msg100640#msg100640)? :)
Quote from: ArMaP on August 31, 2014, 09:32:51 PM
You mean something like an "improved version" of this (http://www.thelivingmoon.com/forum/index.php?topic=7207.msg100640#msg100640)? :)
That kind of thing yes. 8)
how about this for a start?
Mars Meteorite Weird Cell-Shaped Structure Discovered
http://www.thelivingmoon.com/forum/index.php?topic=7226.0
I think the meteorite evidence is disputed so far. It could be life but it isn't "proof", according to many.
When the Hill's meteorite was announced as having life President Clinton gave an address to the nation about it I think. Since then the evidence has been called into question. :-[
Poor old Billy, "I did not have sexual relations with that woman", Clinton. :o