First Earth-Sized Planet Found in the Goldilocks Zone

[Rohirrim]

-- It's like finding a needle in a universe-wide haystack. Researchers have located a planet the size of Earth that could be habitable.
Designated Kepler-186f, the planet is 490 light-years away. But in the search for worlds similar to ours, nothing has come closer.
"This is the first definitive Earth-sized planet found in the habitable zone around another star," said Elisa Quintana of the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) Institute at NASA. "Finding such planets is a primary goal of the Kepler space telescope."
"This discovery not only proves the existence of worlds that might be similar to our own but will undoubtedly shape future investigations of exoplanets that could have terrestrial surface environments," the institute said in an announcement Thursday.
http://www.cnn.com/2014/04/17/tech/s...html?hpt=hp_t2

I still await the day we locate a planet that is artificially illuminated. Only a matter of time.

[crush17]

This is amazing.

Send out the probes!

[extralife]

I still await the day we locate a planet that is artificially illuminated. Only a matter of time.

except that is not even close to possible with current technology. kepler doesn't even "see" the planets it discovers, it notices a shift in the light of the star the planet orbits as the planet transits.

[Rohirrim]

except that is not even close to possible with current technology. kepler doesn't even "see" the planets it discovers, it notices a shift in the light of the star the planet orbits as the planet transits.

We'll figure it out.

[maven]

Invade!

[broncosteven]

How many FTL jumps do we need to plot out to get there before the Cylons do?

[Requiem]

How many FTL jumps do we need to plot out to get there before the Cylons do?

About tree fitty.

[Kaylore]

I still await the day we locate a planet that is artificially illuminated. Only a matter of time.

We can't tell the Earth is artificially illuminated from our own moon.

[broncosteven]

About tree fitty.

That is going to take a lot of Tylium ore!

[Rohirrim]

We can't tell the Earth is artificially illuminated from our own moon.

Sure we can. We just use some of that cool space stuff.

[Eldorado]

We can't tell the Earth is artificially illuminated from our own moon.

That's no moon!

[broncosteven]

We can't tell the Earth is artificially illuminated from our own moon.

Depends on the phase of the moon.

Plus some of that light is coming back to the Earth from the Earth to start with, it is called "Earthshine" and that is what allows you to see the darker portion of crescent phases.

It would be hard to differentiate the artificial light coming off a planet from that far away. I still think radio waves or microwave type of transmissions will be the thing that uncover a civilization but we may not get them until after the civilization has expired.

Just think we have only been sending out radio waves for just under 100 years now. That is a fraction of a second in the Cosmos Calendar that NDT uses on the Sagan remake show.

[Kaylore]

That's no moon!

[broncolife]

Great, more illegal aliens

[maven]

I'll put this in here:

http://phys.org/news/2014-04-astrona...d-impacts.html

This Earth Day, Tuesday, April 22, three former NASA astronauts will present new evidence that our planet has experienced many more large-scale asteroid impacts over the past decade than previously thought… three to ten times more, in fact. A new visualization of data from a nuclear weapons warning network, to be unveiled by B612 Foundation CEO Ed Lu during the evening event at Seattle's Museum of Flight, shows that "the only thing preventing a catastrophe from a 'city-killer' sized asteroid is blind luck."

Since 2001, 26 atomic-bomb-scale explosions have occurred in remote locations around the world, far from populated areas, made evident by a nuclear weapons test warning network. In a recent press release B612 Foundation CEO Ed Lu states:

"This network has detected 26 multi-kiloton explosions since 2001, all of which are due to asteroid impacts. It shows that asteroid impacts are NOT rare—but actually 3-10 times more common than we previously thought. The fact that none of these asteroid impacts shown in the video was detected in advance is proof that the only thing preventing a catastrophe from a 'city-killer' sized asteroid is blind luck.