Scientists Discover Exoplanet Less Than Twice the Mass of Earth 201
Snowblindeye writes with this excerpt from the European Southern Observatory:
"Well-known exoplanet researcher Michel Mayor today announced the discovery of the lightest exoplanet found so far. The planet, 'e,' in the famous system Gliese 581, is only about twice the mass of Earth. The team also refined the orbit of the planet Gliese 581 d, first discovered in 2007, placing it well within the habitable zone, where liquid water oceans could exist. Planet Gliese 581 e orbits its host star — located only 20.5 light-years away in the constellation Libra ('the Scales') — in just 3.15 days. 'With only 1.9 Earth-masses, it is the least massive exoplanet ever detected and is, very likely, a rocky planet,' says co-author Xavier Bonfils from Grenoble Observatory. Being so close to its host star, the planet is not in the habitable zone. But another planet in this system appears to be. ... The planet furthest out, Gliese 581 d, orbits its host star in 66.8 days. 'Gliese 581 d is probably too massive to be made only of rocky material, but we can speculate that it is an icy planet that has migrated closer to the star,' says team member Stephane Udry. The new observations have revealed that this planet is in the habitable zone, where liquid water could exist. '"d" could even be covered by a large and deep ocean — it is the first serious "water world" candidate,' continued Udry."
Good news (Score:5, Funny)
Call me when we find an auric world. (Score:5, Funny)
Water worlds always have the crappiest minerals. Oh look more alkalines. Yay. It won't be worth spending the fuel to land on Gliese 581 d, much less the cargo hold space. Gliese 581 e might have iron and other metals, but being so close to the star it probably has major hot spots. So that's probably not worth landing on either until we meet the Melnorme and buy some tech off them.
Oh well. Eliminating planets to explore is good too. There's a lot of stars in the sky, you know, and only so much time to explore them before the UrQuan return.
Re:Astronomy (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Let's blow this popsicle stand (Score:5, Funny)
As in Moonraker, we send the sexy geniuses first, right? Or do we send the Telephone Sanitizers and hairdressers, like in HHGG?
Well according to the travel register, you're booked on the first flight! Take that however you want.
Re:Call me when we find an auric world. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Planets and moons (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Wanna see more: Celestia (Score:1, Funny)
Oblig. That's no Exoplanet... (Score:2, Funny)
... it's a Beowulf Cluster.
What, you were maybe expecting something else?
Re:Call me when we find an auric world. (Score:5, Funny)
We should check out Vega.
No. What happens on Vega, stays on Vega.
Re:Extraterrestial life (Score:5, Funny)
I think it would be a good idea to send a rocket with a screen and dvd player or something, with a big red button on it that plays it.
Yeah, because if a big thing from another planet lands and I look inside and see a big red button attached to some unknown device, I'm gonna just press that puppy right away :-)
Re:but what about Earth 2... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Extraterrestial life (Score:2, Funny)
The star is about 20 light years away. That's a 20-year round trip for radio communications,
40 years round trip. That's a long time to wait for a response. Imagine we sent out a message announcing our presence and saying hello:
"Hello? This is humanity, we are [blah, blah - lots of info about us and Earth]..." ..... .....
40 years later and you get the response:
"Hi!"
How pissed would you be?
Re:Strange biology (Score:3, Funny)
The Dave Lister count is also much Higher for Red Dwarves.
Re:Astronomy (Score:4, Funny)
It's 20 (or so) light years from Earth. According to this [theregister.co.uk] article, we've probably already pissed off any inhabitants...
We still have what, ten years left to invent an FTL drive and get there to preemptively apologize for reality television, right?
Re:Extraterrestial life (Score:2, Funny)
You wouldn't but I would, then I'd lick the casing. My dog might even widdle on the side of the probe or hump one of its legs.
I'm pretty sure one constant throughout the universe will be that life invariably leads to unbelievable stupidity.
Re:Astronomy (Score:3, Funny)
It's 20 (or so) light years from Earth.
To put that in a context that ordinary nerds without astronomy backgrounds can understand, it's 37,842,113,600,000,000,000,000,000 beard seconds [wikipedia.org] from Earth.
Re:So they found my mother-in-law? (Score:2, Funny)
How often does she call you DJCouchyCouch?
Re:Extraterrestial life (Score:3, Funny)
Imagine we sent out a message announcing our presence and saying hello:
"Hello? This is humanity, we are [blah, blah - lots of info about us and Earth]..." ..... .....
40 years later and you get the response:
"Hi!"
How pissed would you be?
Not as pissed as I would be if the response was a message telling us how our civilization could grow larger, last longer, and bring more pleasure to our partners.
Re:Wanna see more: Celestia (Score:1, Funny)
So THAT's how it's done! Amazing...
Here you go (Score:2, Funny)
.
Re:Call me when we find an auric world. (Score:3, Funny)
No, there's probably just a bunch of Vegans there.