Earthlike Planet Found Orbiting "Nearby" Star

[Taco John]

"Earth's Bigger Cousin" Discovered
Smallest extrasolar planet yet detected a rocky world that's relatively nearby

06.14.2005 @10:43 AM

A rocky planet that's the most Earthlike yet has been discovered just 15 light years away.

The planet, 7.5 times as massive as Earth, travels in a nearly circular orbit just two million miles from its parent star, Gliese 876.

"This is the smallest extrasolar planet yet detected and the first of a new class of rocky terrestrial planets," says Paul Butler of the Carnegie Institution in Washington, who helped find the planet. "It's like Earth's bigger cousin."

Team leader Geoffrey Marcy of the University of California, Berkeley says that the planet's discovery helps answer an ancient question.

"Over 2,000 years ago, the Greek philosophers Aristotle and Epicurus argued about whether there were other Earthlike planets," he says. "Now, for the first time, we have evidence for a rocky planet around a normal star."

Life support?

The new planet is part of a system known to include two other Jupiter-sized bodies.

The planet is unlikely to harbor life, as it circles its star in two days so closely that its surface temperature is likely 200ºC to 400ºC.

But the ability to detect the small planet's influence on its parent star gives researchers confidence that they can find even smaller rocky planets more hospitable to life.

Butler and Marcy detected the first planet around in Gliese 876 1998 and another in 2001.

Three years ago, data suggested the smaller, third planet orbited the star.

A paper on the planet has been submitted to the The Astrophysical Journal.

The planet's discovery was reported in a press conference at the National Science Foundation in Arlington, Virginia.




In this artist's conception, a newly discovered planet around the M dwarf Gliese 876 is shown as a hot, rocky, geologically active world glowing in the deep red light of its nearby parent star. The heat and the reddish light are among the few things about the new planet that are certain; depending on the thickness and composition of its atmosphere, if any, it could range from being a barren, cratered ball of rock like Mercury or the Moon, to being a featureless, cloud-shrouded cue-ball like Venus.

[Jason in LA]

Cal needs to get their priorities straight. They are out there looking for planets, while Mack Brown was on the phone getting voters to drop Cal down to 9th in the polls. Brown got just enough voters to do that so Texas could leap frog Cal and get into the Rose Bowl. What are they thinking over there at Cal? Planets? We don't need no stinkin' planets. We need PAC 10 teams in the Rose Bowl.

[Rock Chalk]

When the VLT goes fully online and the TPF is finished and launched around Jupiter's orbit, we are going to see many many times more "earth-like" planets.

15 ly away is pretty damn close. I really didnt expect to find any terrestrial type planets that close to us. From what systems have been discovered out there, terrestrial type planets I think are going to be far more rare than the huge gas giants.

[DBroncos4life]

Sweet we nned to get there and trash that planet! :boohoo:

[NaptownChief]

And all this time I just thought that was Rat's glass eye...Learn something every day..

[Alkazar]

We dfinately need to find a planet that isn't gonna cost quintillions of dollars to colonize, just quintillions to get there.

[PatsWin2002]

Originally Posted by Alkazar

We dfinately need to find a planet that isn't gonna cost quintillions of dollars to colonize, just quintillions to get there.

This will have to do until then:

[Dukes]

Originally Posted by PatsWin2002

This will have to do until then:

I'd rather be humiliated in public

[Rock Chalk]

Getting there? No, its not possible. Right now we cant even get to the nearest star (Sirius trinary star). There is not enough matter in the universe to propel us that far (literally, chemical rockets cant get us there). Now, if we go fusion or plasma or, far distant future, anti-matter, we may be able to get there with a travel time of say, 150 years or so, and thats just to see if that rock is like Earth or Mars or Venus.

I say, lets refine the viewing technology and make sure we got ourselves another habitable planet first before we even attempt to make any ships capable of getting there.

[NaptownChief]

Originally Posted by AlecRaenos

Getting there? No, its not possible. Right now we cant even get to the nearest star (Sirius trinary star).

I'm just wondering what would be tougher....Getting to that planet or the Chiefs getting back to the Super Bowl?

[Alkazar]

Originally Posted by NaptownChief

I'm just wondering what would be tougher....Getting to that planet or the Chiefs getting back to the Super Bowl?

Obviously the Chiefs getting back to the SuperBowl. Thats why they celebrate thier Superbowl every year when they split with the Broncos.

[Old Dude]

Originally Posted by Taco John

...
The planet ... travels in a nearly circular orbit just two million miles from its parent star, Gliese 876.
...

When I first read this, I thought it said "Griese 876."

Which gave me this really awful image of the star tripping over the planet on its way out of a party.

[epicSocialism4tw]

Originally Posted by Jason in LA

Cal needs to get their priorities straight. They are out there looking for planets, while Mack Brown was on the phone getting voters to drop Cal down to 9th in the polls. Brown got just enough voters to do that so Texas could leap frog Cal and get into the Rose Bowl. What are they thinking over there at Cal? Planets? We don't need no stinkin' planets. We need PAC 10 teams in the Rose Bowl.

Cal sure showed how much they deserved that bid by being destroyed by the 4th or 5th best team in the Big 12. The Pac 10 is weak. The only reason that the conference is included with the big boys is because of the LA media's overhyping and USC's teams.

[Billy Clyde Puckett]

Originally Posted by Taco John

"Earth's Bigger Cousin" Discovered
Smallest extrasolar planet yet detected a rocky world that's relatively nearby

The planet is unlikely to harbor life, as it circles its star in two days so closely that its surface temperature is likely 200ºC to 400ºC.

.

Sounds like Texas to me.

[Rock Chalk]

Originally Posted by Big Guy

Sounds like Texas to me.

[Billy Clyde Puckett]

Originally Posted by AlecRaenos

Sorry - couldn't resist the wide open shot.

[Jason in LA]

Originally Posted by angryllama

Cal sure showed how much they deserved that bid by being destroyed by the 4th or 5th best team in the Big 12. The Pac 10 is weak. The only reason that the conference is included with the big boys is because of the LA media's overhyping and USC's teams.

That's besides the point. Brown cheated the system. I can understand people changing their votes to putting Cal 5th, but that wouldn't have helped Texas. Are you going to say that after the regular season ended Cal should have been 9th? That's insane. What ever happened after that is besides the point.

As for the PAC 10 being weak, the only school that has beaten USC the past two years is Cal. And Cal damn near beat them again this past year. USC has rolled over everybody outside of the PAC 10.

[Rock Chalk]

You know I was thinking, this thing is only 2 million miles from the star it orbits.

Earth, by contrast, is 93 million miles from the star it orbits (Sol, the Sun). The possibilities for life on this planet are extremely weak at best, and the only life that might possibly be able to survive in this irradiated inferno would be microbial and likely not helpful.

I mean, its a step and all in the right direction, but to find planets truly like ours, that is, capable of sustaining complex organisms, our technology may not be sufficient for...yet. I noticed they found this planet by the slight exaggeration of the larger known gas giants on the parent star's wobble was not exactly right, though close, it was off just enough to warrant further observations which yielded the secret of this small, rocky, world. (small being comparitive to its gas giant neighbors)

I wonder if, in my lifetime, they will see another blue speck orbiting some distant star with sure signs of oceans and continents and seasons and ultimately, life. Mostly I dont care as I already firmly believe these planets do exist in some places in the galaxy, but Im more interested in witnessing societies reaction on the whole to this knowledge..if and when it ever happens.

[Pezman]

Originally Posted by AlecRaenos

Getting there? No, its not possible. Right now we cant even get to the nearest star (Sirius trinary star). There is not enough matter in the universe to propel us that far (literally, chemical rockets cant get us there). Now, if we go fusion or plasma or, far distant future, anti-matter, we may be able to get there with a travel time of say, 150 years or so, and thats just to see if that rock is like Earth or Mars or Venus.

I say, lets refine the viewing technology and make sure we got ourselves another habitable planet first before we even attempt to make any ships capable of getting there.

Its all about folding the fabric of space and time if we are to make serious travel through space. Or creating a way to "beam" our particle matter and reorganizing it at a set point. The problem lies there. At this point, getting the nanoparticles reorganized to recreate living tissue after having been disassembled is still very far away. That has to be the key to long distance travel IMO.

[StL Bronc Fan]

"Earth's Bigger Cousin"*

*Insert Jason Whitlock joke here

[Rock Chalk]

Originally Posted by Pezman

Its all about folding the fabric of space and time if we are to make serious travel through space. Or creating a way to "beam" our particle matter and reorganizing it at a set point. The problem lies there. At this point, getting the nanoparticles reorganized to recreate living tissue after having been disassembled is still very far away. That has to be the key to long distance travel IMO.

"Folding" space is so far into the future that I cannot even fathom it. The required amounts of energy would be astronomical, galactical even universal in nature. To go from one point in space to another point in space without regard to distance at all and without moving is just...well Christ man its hard to even imagine.

As for beaming our bodies out somewhere, thats all well and good but Im gonna wanna come home so thats probably not a viable optiom as there would be no way to come home. If the technology of being able to download our brains into computers comes to fruition, then theoretically we can send our minds at the speed of light (where time stops for that which is moving that speed) anywhere we wanted and eventually have it return to Earth with all the details of its journey.

Granted, our hot bodies back on Earth would long be dead before any details returned, but that is one way to send our intelligence out there...theoretically.

We are just so far away from being able to leave and return to other stars in even a remotely acceptable time frame that I no longer give it much thought. Huge advances need to come in physics, propulsion, alloys, nanotech, radiation shielding, artificial gravity and life support that leaves us with a very daunting task.

Our grandchildren's grandchildren will probably still be on this rock and this is considering they may live to be 300 years old.

[FADERPROOF]

Originally Posted by Jason in LA

Cal needs to get their priorities straight. They are out there looking for planets, while Mack Brown was on the phone getting voters to drop Cal down to 9th in the polls. Brown got just enough voters to do that so Texas could leap frog Cal and get into the Rose Bowl. What are they thinking over there at Cal? Planets? We don't need no stinkin' planets. We need PAC 10 teams in the Rose Bowl.

They should be focused on how to not get blown out in bowl games by Texas Tech...again.

[Jason in LA]

Originally Posted by FADERPROOF

They should be focused on how to not get blown out in bowl games by Texas Tech...again.

The point is the system is broke when a coach can make phone calls and get other coaches to drop a team 5 spots after they won a game.

[epicSocialism4tw]

Originally Posted by Jason in LA

The point is the system is broke when a coach can make phone calls and get other coaches to drop a team 5 spots after they won a game.

Here's the situation for those of you only concerned with football in California. Texas had consecutive seasons deserving of a BCS bid and was 'cheated' out of one the season before. The national media thinks that they lose to OU and it's over for them. Texas is a top quality football program in what is consistently one of the top two conferences in college ball. The only thing that they had not done is beat OU, who was a national title contender for the 2nd straight year.

I live in Texas, and I see them play here on TV. Forget Cal. Texas gets top teir recruits. Texas has excellent coaching and tradition. Texas is the american football capital of the world.

They proved their worth by taking a quality Michigan team out in the Rose Bowl. What did Cal do? Go undefeated against every poor team they played and lost against the one decent team?

[FADERPROOF]

Originally Posted by Jason in LA

The point is the system is broke when a coach can make phone calls and get other coaches to drop a team 5 spots after they won a game.

Be happy for that, if TTU whipped them like that, I couldn't imagine what Texas would've done to them.