"watery world" discovered

[watermelony2k]

read all about it here:

http://edition.cnn.com/2009/TECH/12/16/super.earth.discovery/index.html

nice to see that the search for earth-2 is narrowing down

 

[SilentP]

The universe is beginning to feel more homely

 

[bryce]

I just read about this myself on CNN.


I'm still all "*HOLY CRAP!!!" and all...

 

[JCBos]

I read it yesterday too. I had to re-read it twice because it seemed like such a big deal but wasn't really prominently displayed. I'm like, "we found an earth-sized planet potentially with water and that's not huge news?!" And it's only 40 light years away?

 

[SilentP]

I suppose the inhospitable angle of it makes it maybe not as newsworthy to some, but the fact that such a planet is that close, and we only found it now rather than earlier because we didn't bother to check? Come on, it's got to make you wonder how many planets are on our doorstep that we didn't know about.

 

[Jadzia]

We should name the planet Krypton.

 

[Brandonv]

Very cool news.

It is really amazing how many extrasolar planets have been discovered. Just check out this article (Wikipedia) and look at the size of that list. And looking at the graph that shows the rate of discovery by year, it looks to me like you could fit an exponential curve to it!

We should name the planet Krypton.

It would be cool if they started giving these planets names.

 

[Christopher]

Note that this isn't actually an Earthlike planet, but an "ocean planet" of the type theorized six years ago by Leger and Kuchner (and featured in my recent novel Star Trek Titan: Over a Torrent Sea)-- a planet whose mass consists primarily of water (and perhaps other volatiles) in ice, liquid, and gaseous form. In this case, the planet is estimated to be 3/4 volatiles by mass, only 1/4 rock. If anything, it's closer to Neptune than Earth.

I suppose the inhospitable angle of it makes it maybe not as newsworthy to some, but the fact that such a planet is that close, and we only found it now rather than earlier because we didn't bother to check?

That's hardly fair. It's only in recent years that our instruments and techniques have gained the sensitivity to detect a planet this (comparatively) small. And there are thousands of stars to check just nearby, and it takes anywhere from months to years of observations of each one to confirm the presence of a planet.

Come on, it's got to make you wonder how many planets are on our doorstep that we didn't know about.

This much, however, is true. We're finding more all the time. There are currently two or three active efforts to identify planets around Alpha Centauri, our nearest neighboring system (and years of prior observations have ruled out the possibility of anything the size of a gas giant at Alpha Centauri, unfortunately for James Cameron).

 

[Samurai8472]

We should name the planet Krypton.

How appropriate with your name(Ice Queen). We should call it "Enterprise"

 

[bryce]

I can't believe how jaded people have become to to this stuff.

 

[Michael_One]

The late Stephen Dole wrote Habitable Planets For Man back in 1964 and he projected that terrestrial planets larger than Earth would be mostly oceanic; this new world is a data point hinting his theories are correct.

If you'd like a copy for yourself, a free PDF download of this book is available at:

http://www.rand.org/pubs/commercial_books/CB179-1/

 

[ThunderAeroI]

Notice the article says the planet DOES NOT have water on it!

Its only within the water possible zone.

 

[Christopher]

The late Stephen Dole wrote Habitable Planets For Man back in 1964 and he projected that terrestrial planets larger than Earth would be mostly oceanic; this new world is a data point hinting his theories are correct.

No, this is substantially different. Dole never conceived of a planet made mostly of water by mass. He was thinking of rocky planets with a layer of ocean on the surface, like Earth but more so. This is a planet that consists mostly of ice or water with only a small rocky core. That's a pretty novel concept, so much so that it was only codified and named six years ago.

Notice the article says the planet DOES NOT have water on it!

Its only within the water possible zone.

Sorry, no. It's actually not in the habitable zone of its star; it's too close. The reason it's believed to be made mostly of water is that its estimated density is far too low for it to be a rocky world. The most probable configuration that would give that density value is a world consisting of 25% rock and 75% water and volatiles, more or less. There's a possibility it could be something else -- maybe a bigger rocky core and a more diffuse atmosphere -- but that's less likely.

 

[Starbreaker]

I will reserve judgment until I visit there.

 

[Jetfire]

Cool news. I don't know why more money isn't going toward space travel...some people act like it is not worth it...imagine finding an earth like planet with resources we need or as a place to go to as a second home. Forget about government private enterprises need to focus on this too.

I would like a planet named after me one day...or all people with my first name...we will go with the greek(I think this is how it is spelled) Matthaios(Matthew).

 

[Ar-Pharazon]

....because for many years, astronomers assumed that planets only would be found orbiting stars that are similar in size to the sun.

This is funny to me. What point of reference do they have when making an "assumption" like this?

They've only just started being able to see planets around other stars.

 

[Christopher]

It wasn't an "assumption," it was a model based on what evidence they had. Scientists never assume their models are absolute fact, but they go with the models they have until they gain evidence to the contrary, because they're the best estimates available. Our models of planetary-system formation suggested that smaller stars would form smaller bodies around them rather than planet-sized ones, because there was less material to work with. There's still a lot we don't know about planet formation, but that was the leading -- though not the only -- model based on the evidence we had before. Now we're gaining new evidence and scientists are refining their models to fit that evidence. What more could any reasonable person expect?

 

[gastrof]

Someone said a few posts ago that the planet wasn't reported as having water, but the story I read said it did.

The odd thing is that the story also said that it had ice, and yet that the planet was too hot to support life as we know it.

Ummm...

How can the planet have [water] ice and yet be too hot to support life like ours?

What? The poles are the only place that are frozen the the rest of the planet is somehow much, much hotter than Earth?

I don't get it.

 

[skep155]

Meh Kepler will find much more exciting stuff. I'll save the champagne for 3 years time when Kepler is finding planets the same size as Earth in the goldilocks zone. If there's anything interesting within 10 light years then we know where our first interstellar probe will be heading.

 

[Christopher]

Well, technically Pioneer 10 & 11 and Voyager 1 & 2 could be considered interstellar probes, since they're all on trajectories out of the Solar System, though none of them has verifiably crossed the heliosheath into interstellar space as yet. And the New Horizons probe to Pluto is scheduled to leave the Solar System in 2029.

But yeah, aside from that, point taken. The most likely discoveries that would trigger the development of an intentionally interstellar mission would be:

1) The discovery of an Earthlike planet around one or more stars of Alpha Centauri.

2) The discovery of one or more brown dwarfs closer to us than Alpha Centauri is.

Both of these have a reasonably high probability of happening, probably within the next few years.