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New Telescope Hunts for Earth-Sized Planets

Posted by CmdrTaco on Wed Dec 27, 2006 12:55 PM
from the do-you-see-what-i-see dept.
Space
TENxOXR writes "The French-led Corot mission has taken off from Kazakhstan on a quest to find planets outside our Solar System. The space telescope will monitor about 120,000 stars for tiny dips in brightness that result from planets passing across their faces. The multinational mission will also study the stars directly to uncover more about their interior behavior."
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  • Borat joke in 5...4...3...2...1
  • .....Interstellar Learnings of The Univers for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan
  • I really need to lay off the coffee or something, 'cause I read "looking for Earth sized Plants". I thought "Dude! that's one big plant". Okay, back to work now...

  • A time-saving tip (Score:4, Funny)

    by $RANDOMLUSER (804576) on Wednesday December 27 2006, @01:14PM (#17378990)
    They shouldn't bother looking for any Pluto-sized planets - there aren't any.
    • Duh ;)

      And even if they were still defined as planets, I wouldn't be too interested in having them wasting efforts in finding those as they'll probably have trouble holding an atmosphere to harbor life anyway. And it's terrestrial planets I'm personally most interested in here. Actually, this kind of space science is what I find most interesting at the moment, given what we can do.

      • Re:A time-saving tip (Score:4, Interesting)

        by E++99 (880734) on Wednesday December 27 2006, @01:51PM (#17379372) Homepage
        I wouldn't be too interested in having them wasting efforts in finding those as they'll probably have trouble holding an atmosphere to harbor life anyway.


        This kind of reasoning is ubiquitous, but it always bothers me. We only know of one kind of life (terrestrial life), but even that kind of life doesn't require a gaseous atmosphere. Only certain terrestrial species require an atmosphere. Even those species, such as mammals, reptiles, and birds, only require an atmosphere after birth, and get along just fine without it up until then. So on the one hand, assuming that all life is very similar to terrestrial life, I find nothing to suggest that an atmosphere is vital. But on the other hand, seeing that we only have knowledge of terrestrial life, extrapolating at all from that knowledge to the supposed "requirements for life" is not reasonable.

        • No atmosphere == no liquid water.

          In fact, no atmosphere == no liquid anything.

          • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

            by E++99 (880734)
            No atmosphere == no liquid water.

            In fact, no atmosphere == no liquid anything.

            That's a good point, but it only applies to surface liquids. Now, I suppose that if there is literally *no* atmosphere, then over time you will lose whatever gas/liquid resources you start with. But as a matter of organism survival, any solid planet with geological processes is going have plenty of opportunity for subterranean liquid and gas.
          • Europa is an example of something that has no atmosphere, but does have liquid water under the ice. You're right to think that there has to be something to contain the liquid, so that it doesn't boil off into space, but solid works just as well as gas for that task.
        • If a planet has an atmosphere, it's possible that life on that planet will cause it to be in a non-equilibrium state (chemically speaking). This is something that would not be too hard to detect from earth (i.e. lots of oxygen in an atmosphere won't last long w/out life). Our efforts should therefore be focussed on what we can, in principle, detect.

          Could silicon-based life inhabit the lithosphere of a planet? Maybe so. Could there be life deep inside stellar cores or gas giants? Why not? But we don

          • If a planet has an atmosphere, it's possible that life on that planet will cause it to be in a non-equilibrium state (chemically speaking). This is something that would not be too hard to detect from earth (i.e. lots of oxygen in an atmosphere won't last long w/out life). Our efforts should therefore be focussed on what we can, in principle, detect.

            This is the thinking that led James Lovelock [wikipedia.org] to formulate his Gaia Hypothesis [wikipedia.org]. His basic premise is that you can discover life on a planet without going t

          • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

            by bhiestand (157373)

            Although, besides breathing purposes, our atmosphere also protects us from harmful radiation from the sun, as well as protecting the planet from impacts from most stellar objects.

            Right, but what does that have to do with possible requirements for alien life? Certainly life as we know it, based on DNA/RNA, can not generally do well in an environment with excess radiation, but that does not mean that DNA is the only way to code life. Hell, a planet with a much higher concentration of lead, and lead on the surface, could result in creatures with an exoskeleton made of lead (or gold, for that matter).

            All of the above scenarios make it possible for life forms to exist on the surface o

  • Nice surprise! (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Jugalator (259273) on Wednesday December 27 2006, @01:16PM (#17379010) Journal
    I wasn't aware of this mission at all, and was just sitting here waiting for the James Webb Telescope, the Terrestrial Planet Finder observatories, or the Kepler mission.
    Btw, of those, NASA's Kepler telescope is the earliest from the space agency, scheduled for launch in October 2008.
    • Oh oh, I knew there was at least one more -- ESA's Darwin project. It's possible NASA's TPF and ESA's Darwin project will end up as a collaboration though, given the similarities in goals. I wouldn't be against that; better put your money bags together to make something awesome than do separate half-assed jobs. ;-)

  • Russia is thriving... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by bogaboga (793279) on Wednesday December 27 2006, @01:30PM (#17379172)
    When it comes to space launches, no nation beats Russia on cost, reliability and efficiency. One thing still bothers me...why haven't the US or EU nations been successful on this front? There are huge sums of money to be made but the Russians still beat us (the USA) in this game. Why?
    • The EU nations not successful? The Corot is an ESA mission!

      • The EU nations not successful? The Corot is an ESA mission!

        That isn't in dispute. What I wanted to put across is the fact that when it comes to putting equipment into space, no body beats the Russians. In fact, the COROT has been put into space using RUSSIAN hardware.

    • It's a bit like outsourcing manufacturing to China except there is no learning curve. The Russians already have the expertise and infrastructure built in the Soviet era.

      Sure, the Americans and Europeans have better technology but it isn't being used. The rockets that are flying are still 60's tech, mostly military derivations at at that. Maybe when SpaceShipThree and it's counterparts start getting into the game, it will be different. For now, no one does 60's space tech better than the Russians.

      • Re:60's tech, experience, and low wages (Score:5, Interesting)

        by bogaboga (793279) on Wednesday December 27 2006, @02:43PM (#17380080)

        Sure, the Americans and Europeans have better technology but it isn't being used.

        Sure? So you think that the Americans and Europeans have better tech? I personally, I'm not sure. What I know is that we Americans kind-of blow our own trumpets, which is sad. The Russians on the other hand, just do their thing. Remember when they were the ONLY link to the ISS? They did not blow their trumpets one bit. If it were the Americans it would be a different story.

        They still have the biggest and heaviest airplane ever developed - even bigger than the A380, and this was almost 2 decades ago! . No body mentions this! In fact, I thought the Europeans were gonna borrow the design of the A380 from them. Apparently we only seem to thrive at complexity.

        The rockets that are flying are still 60's tech, mostly military derivations at at that.

        Ahh, so what has our 21st century tech achieved? Nothing! It appears to be a beacon of corruption, nepotism and bigotry. You probably would not even appreciate the fact that the ISS would be a failure if the Russians were not involved.

        • "You probably would not even appreciate the fact that the ISS would be a failure if the Russians were not involved."

          You do appear to be forgetting that the ISS would not have ever made it up there in the first place without the Americans. Just because the Americans are not perfect, that does not imply that others are better.

          strike
          • As I said, these Russians hardly blow their own trumpets. Americans are consumed with consumerism. Tetris, a Russian invention, never got all the publicity it got till the Americans got involved. We Americans are good at publicity.

            If Russian tech is so backward, why is it that when they make a sale to the so called rogue states, our state department screams! Here's why: We in most cases, have no answer to such equipment.

            These very deadly weapons cannot have been created by a backward nation. They solely

      • The rockets that are flying are still 60's tech, mostly military derivations at at that.

        The rockets flying today are based on/derived from 60's military tech in roughly the same way that a 2006 Corvette is based on/derived from the Corvettes of the 1960's - I.E. only in the vaguest of ways.
    • Russians wil works for much less money. Same reason China beats the US when it come to making shoes.

    • When it comes to space launches, no nation beats Russia on cost, reliability and efficiency.

      Nor, except on cost, does Russia beat any other nation. Their LOV [loss of vehicle] rate hovers right around 1% - the same as the US and the EU.

      One thing still bothers me...why haven't the US or EU nations been successful on this front? There are huge sums of money to be made but the Russians still beat us (the USA) in this game. Why?

      No, there aren't really huge sums of money to be made - as the cu

    • Of course the easy answer is that they don't care as much about safety, which is balderdash. You think Russians don't care as much about their lives as anyone else? Obviously, they do.

      No, I think anyone with familiarity with the space programs of both the "west" and the Soviets...er....Russians would say that reliability is one of their strong points - once the technology has been established. For various reasons, the 'western' space agencies are always improving and tinkering, while the Russian space pr
  • Far as I know, the amount of water on the surface of the Earth is vital to life as we know it. The water keeps the temperature relatively even across the entire globe. This is especially important because it keeps the day side cool and the night side warm.

    So say we find Earth sized planets? What's the next step? See how warm they are? If they are a certain temperature (where water is a liquid, a small temperature range in the grand scheme of things) then look a little closer?

    TLF
  • "It is known that there are an infinite number of worlds, simply because there is an infinite amount of space for them. However, not every one of them is inhabited. Therefore, there must be a finite number of inhabited worlds. Any finite number divided by infinity is as near to nothing as makes no odds, so the average population of all the planets in the univese can be said to be zero. From this it follows that the population of the whole universie is also zero, and that any people you may meet from time to
    • I notice that this entire mishmash of faulty syllogisms is enclosed in quotation marks. Could the OP satisfy the curious and reveal whom is being quoted?

      If this is a troll, I bit, haul me in...
    • Douglas Adams carefully ignored the fact that infinity doesn't work like that. Even if 99% of an infinite number of planets are uninhabited, that still leaves an infinite number of planets inhabited. It sounds weird, I know, but there's lots about infinity that's counterintuitive.

  • even if... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by FudRucker (866063) on Wednesday December 27 2006, @01:52PM (#17379378)
    even if a planet was found that could support life we will never be able to get there, at least not until "Faster than light-speed" space travel is possible, will i highly doubt will ever happen...

    • Two words, plus slashdot (Score:4, Insightful)

      by silentounce (1004459) on Wednesday December 27 2006, @02:16PM (#17379784) Homepage
      Generation ship [wikipedia.org]
    • If we had a ship that went close to the speed of light, we could get to the stars pretty quickly - in days (for the passengers) if the ship was fast enough.
        • To us here on earth, it takes the light 4.2 years. But to light itself, it takes no time at all.

          If we travelled close enough to the speed of light, to people on earth it would appear to take a time approaching 4.2 years. To the people in spaceship, it will take a time approaching zero time.
          • But to light itself, it takes no time at all.

            I have a question about that: In a vacuum it makes sense, but the speed of light is slower in other materials based on their refractive index. Then the time dilation must surely be less than 100%?

            Can anyone enlighten me about this?
            • There's several things going on here.

              The first is that the statement " the speed of light is slower in other materials based on their refractive index" is actually misleading. It's more that the light _always_ travels at speed c, but keeps getting absorbed and then re-emitted by atoms. This absorbed-delay-re-emit makes the _average_ speed below c. But at any particular time, the light is travelling at speed c, or is instead converted to kinetic energy in an atom. Thus you don't get any time dilation
            • It's not an overstatement since I didn't specify what percentage of the speed of light:

              0.9999c gives:
              octave:3> 4*365*sqrt(1-0.9999^2)
              ans = 20.647 [that's days]
              octave:4> 4*365*sqrt(1-0.99999^2)
              ans = 6.5293 [days again]

              So 99.999% of the speed of light would get you there in 6.5 days. I'd call that "mere days".
      • Ya idiots have excellent knee jerk reactions. If it were not for tired old jokes the stupid would have no sense of humor at all. One of my favorite tag lines is the quote of a French commander during WW1 "My center is giving way, my right is in retreat, situation excellent! I shall attack"
        • "Mon centre cède, impossible de me mouvoir, situation excellente, j'attaque."
          That guy also said, "Airplanes are interesting toys, but of no military value."

          Don't forget this from the same month but different battle:
          "I have only two men out of my company and 20 out of some other company. We need support, but it is almost suicide to try to get it here as we are swept by machine gun fire and a constant barrage is on us. I have no one on my left and only a few on my right. I will hold."
          1stLt. Clift
      • You tell them. People who actually find that crap funny are an embarrassment. Some of us study our history and know that nobody was ready for the blitzkrieg in 1940.
      • "Nothing oblige you to be pitifully as ignorant as xenophobe."

        a.) It was a joke.
        b.) Lots of stereotypical comments are made about Americans on a daily basis.

        Either develop a sense of humor or practice what you preach.

      • I love France, I have lived in the country and have tons of friends there. French cuisine and wine is the best in the world and the women are goddesses.

        And I can't make a joke without being called names :)

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