50 New Exoplanets discovered; 16 are "Super Earths"

[Magón]

Found this while browsing the BBC. Pretty awesome stuff.


Fifty new exoplanets discovered
By Paul Rincon
Science editor, BBC News Website

http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/55329000/jpg/_55329244_55329241.jpg
Astronomers using a telescope in Chile have discovered 50 previously unknown exoplanets.

The bumper haul of new worlds includes 16 "super-Earths" - planets with a greater mass than our own, but below those of gas giants such as Jupiter.

One of these super-Earths orbits inside the habitable zone - the region around a star where conditions could be hospitable to life.

The planets were identified using the Harps instrument in La Silla in Chile.

The new findings are being presented at a meeting called Extreme Solar Systems in Wyoming, US, and will appear in the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics.

Lead author Dr Michel Mayor, from the University of Geneva in Switzerland, said the haul included "an exceptionally rich population of super-Earths and Neptune-type planets hosted by stars very similar to our Sun".

He added: "The new results show that the pace of discovery is accelerating."

Continued: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-14890143

[Smyg]

Me like.

[Magón]

NYT's link.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/13/science/space/13planet.html?_r=1&hp

[ВАЛТЕР]

I am amazed at space. However, thinking about it always makes me realize that we are so small, and chances are that were are not going to get too far from the rock we call home. :/

[Jimmie Higgins]

Just curious, how is "habitable zone for life" determined? Do they mean it could conceivably be hospitable to earth-life because it's in a range of temperatures similar to earth, or do they have some kind of criteria for under what conditions any life can form. I mean bacteria is pretty hardy and couldn't different circumstances theoretically develop life that gains energy in different ways?

[ВАЛТЕР]

Just curious, how is "habitable zone for life" determined? Do they mean it could conceivably be hospitable to earth-life because it's in a range of temperatures similar to earth, or do they have some kind of criteria for under what conditions any life can form. I mean bacteria is pretty hardy and couldn't different circumstances theoretically develop life that gains energy in different ways?

Habitable implies it is in the "Goldilocks Zone" meaning it's not too hot, not too cold. These of course are assumptions because of what we know about where we are located from out sun.

Look up Goldilocks Zone and it should explain it more thoroughly.

[Jimmie Higgins]

We should send some 2001-style monoliths to these planets just in case life exists or might develop there and then might become intelligent... that would really fuck with their heads.

[ВАЛТЕР]

We should send some 2001-style monoliths to these planets just in case life exists or might develop there and then might become intelligent... that would really fuck with their heads.

What all modern civil logic implies we should do is mark them as a threat, say they are plotting against us, then bomb them and take their resources. Then claim how they are just jealous of our Earthly freedom.

Damn, dirty, space aliens, trying to take away my rights....

[#FF0000]

We should send some 2001-style monoliths to these planets just in case life exists or might develop there and then might become intelligent... that would really fuck with their heads.

Coca-Cola bottles are probably cheaper.

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

To be honest, it strikes me as disingenuous to call planets smaller than Jupiter "super-Earths", even if they happen to orbit the right distance from the stellar primary to support Earthlike life.

The ways we currently detect planets (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methods_of_detecting_extrasolar_planets) are fairly crude and indirect - my understanding is that we can determine orbital radius, the mass of the planet (within a margin of error), and if the planet happens to pass between the observer and and the stellar primary, it's radius and therefore density can be deduced.

But this tells us nothing about the composition of the surface or the atmosphere. So far as I am aware there have not yet been spectrographic analyses of the light from star systems containing exoplanets, which would be able to tell us such information.

Because right now "less massive than Jupiter and orbiting the right distance" could mean anything from a "super-Venus" to a warmer version of Neptune.

[StoneFrog]

Coca-Cola bottles are probably cheaper.

A sci fi version of 'the gods must be crazy'

[Rusty Shackleford]

that one planet they focus on would take something like 1.3million years to get to when traveling at 28,000 km/hr constantly.

[Rafiq]

We should send some 2001-style monoliths to these planets just in case life exists or might develop there and then might become intelligent... that would really fuck with their heads.

That's what the Martians were thinking when they built the pyramids :D

[Geiseric]

it comforts me to know that Star Wars is going on somewhere right now.

[Magón]

I think with the way the current US Space program is going, and the current state of man's ability to travel space, it would be interesting and I think, a good idea if NASA and the EU came together to make one big ass telescope to check these planets out.

[Delenda Carthago]

Motherfucker! Now the trots will never relax until the last Earth is socialist...

[Q]

Habitable implies it is in the "Goldilocks Zone" meaning it's not too hot, not too cold. These of course are assumptions because of what we know about where we are located from out sun.

Look up Goldilocks Zone and it should explain it more thoroughly.

The goldilocks zone only works for planets though. Jupiter's moon Europa for example is far outside it, yet may still have a liquid ocean due to the extreme gravitational tideforces that Jupiter is having on the moon, ripping apart its core over and over.

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

The goldilocks zone only works for planets though. Jupiter's moon Europa for example is far outside it, yet may still have a liquid ocean due to the extreme gravitational tideforces that Jupiter is having on the moon, ripping apart its core over and over.

Well, "flexing" would be more accurate than "ripping apart". But yes, the idea of a Goldilocks Zone around stars should not be taken to mean that life could not possibly form outside them.