Kepler probe finds 715 new planets...

[Warped9]

It's been announced that NASA's Kepler probe has just delivered a bonanza of more than 700 new extrasolar planets.

This is but one link: http://www.newsfiber.com/p/s/h?v=ESYGYe4OiIo0=+4dnb+9xMGVo=

Apparently a lot of these new finds are smaller than Neptune size. The find also seems to be bolstering the notion that planetary systems not much different from our own are very common.

 

[T J]

It's sad how little interest there has been about this announcement, it's like no one cares anymore unless it's about some some crap reality show.

Me, I think it's great! It's only a matter of time till we find another Earth. Pity we have almost zero chance of getting there but that's another thread.

 

[Warped9]

It's almost akin to the Lunar landings. After the first couple everyone seemed to become blasé about it.

 

[RoJoHen]

Well, no offense to science, but Kepler has found a lot of planets, and most of the announcements about them are pretty much the same "Kepler found another [potentially Earth-like] planet!"

It's still an important discovery, and I'm sure scientists are learning a lot from it, but the excitement is starting to wear off.

 

[Shik]

I thought it was all at once, & I was all, "HA! The 'Verse EXISTS!"

 

[publiusr]

The spacecraft may be addled, but the initial data will probably still give surprises for months and years to come, as it is more closely examined--at least that is what I hope.

 

[bbjeg]

How well can it see those planets? If there was a satellite in orbit of one, could we see it? That kinda news would slap everyone in the face.

 

[publiusr]

It doesn't really see anything. It detects dimming of stars--you work the rest out with math and infer planetary positions that way. Early on, you looked at stars wobbling--like how a hammer throw athlete wobbles around his own barycenter with respect to him and the hammer.

We see some pixel wide brown dwarfs now, but that is about it.

To resolve a really good image, you need a telescope opposite our Sun from it at the Solar Foci.

http://www.tsgc.utexas.edu/archive/design/foci/

Then too, there is the brute force approach

http://up-ship.com/blog/?p=9363
http://up-ship.com/blog/?p=9379

That will be how you get images of extrasolar planets--huge scopes close to home--or 400-800 AU out

You don't have focal points, but focal lines--and the farther out the better

 

[bbjeg]

How far are we from tech capable of zooming in far enough to notice intelligent life (at least in the space around planets like satellites)?

 

[T J]

I would guess that's a long way off...

 

[Timelord79 (he/him)]

Apparently what we can do is infer atmospheric compositions via spectral analysis.
Life as we know it will affect a planet's atmosphere in specific ways which we can detect in theory.
Also, to borrow a Star Trek term, a planet's energy signature might in theory be indicative of a civilization because of electromagnetic emissions that couldn't be there otherwise.

 

[Warped9]

Apparently what we can do is infer atmospheric compositions via spectral analysis.
Life as we know it will affect a planet's atmosphere in specific ways which we can detect in theory.
Also, to borrow a Star Trek term, a planet's energy signature might in theory be indicative of a civilization because of electromagnetic emissions that couldn't be there otherwise.

I've read much the same thing. The idea is our methods will become sophisticated enough that we'll learn a lot and have a decent idea of what's there long, long before we can actually get there.

 

[bbjeg]

But what's the time difference? How many years does it take for the light from any particular star to get to us? If we did locate life somewhere, we could be witnessing the past of a currently extinct planet, right?

 

[Warped9]

But what's the time difference? How many years does it take for the light from any particular star to get to us? If we did locate life somewhere, we could be witnessing the past of a currently extinct planet, right?

I suppose that would depend on how far away we can or will be able to detect a planet.

 

[bbjeg]

It's neat to find out stars with planets are common and all but I'm starting to think we aren't going to find any major discoveries in our lifetime (past or current life out there).

 

[HarryM]

Most of the Kepler stars are within 2000 light years or so, so any time difference is fairly trivial. Also a great many of the stars are cooler/smaller size than Sol so unlikely to go nova.

There are future missions in the planning/building stage (both space and ground-based) that will search for planets around closer stars and should give more details about them. With a closer exo-planet you can then do certain things like atmospheric composition in general terms. The Kepler mission is more notable as giving an idea of how many stars have planets (lots), not so much details about those planets, except size and orbit. Kepler tended to be limited in what it could detect by both the detectors and also it was not operational long enough (for it's primary mission) to detect planets with a bigger orbits around sunlike stars. You need 3 or 4 years operation to do that (to get 3 transits), it's reaction wheel(s) failed a little too quickly. Most detections are for smaller orbit planets, so the habitable zone detections are around smaller/cooler stars, not quite like Sol/Earth.

 

[PurpleBuddha]

It's neat to find out stars with planets are common and all but I'm starting to think we aren't going to find any major discoveries in our lifetime (past or current life out there).

Considering we are just getting started in the planet finding business I think it is too early to rule out any major findings within our lifetime.