Two Earth-Like Exoplanets Don't Actually Exist 102
Two suspected exoplanets, Gliese 581g and 581d, have been shown to not exist, and are instead misinterpretations of data from starspot activity. From the article: "Gliese 581g doesn't exist," said lead author Paul Robertson of Penn State University in State College, Pennsylvania. Neither, he said, does another planet in the same solar system, known as Gliese 581d, announced in 2009—less clearly hospitable to life, but still once seen by some astronomers as a possible place to find aliens. ... What's happening, they say, is that magnetic disturbances on Gliese 581's surface — starspots — are altering the star's spectrum in such a way that it mimics the motion induced by a planet. The star itself rotates once every 130 days, carrying the starspots with it; the disputed planets appeared to have periods of almost exactly one half and one fourth of the 130-day period. When the scientists corrected for the starspot signal, both planets disappeared.
Yeahhh (Score:3, Insightful)
I love physics, but I've really felt like the exoplanet thing has been irresponsibly laid on pretty thick for the common man (mostly by scientific media and then mainstream media, in order to sell copies/ads, of course).
There's a lot of zeal in announcing newly found planets, pontificating on their atmospheres and doing up artists impressions and whatnot. It's just not good to take back that type of information and say "ah shit, it was actually just a sunspot". It's really the only true vector of doubt in the religious mind - when science corrects itself. This type of stuff does not help.
But then again, it's mostly the mainstream media who create such a house of cards.
Re:Get it right (Score:4, Insightful)
You joke, but, there exists a problem with that idea.
How do you even establish a communication protocol with an entirely alien (technologically) civilization?
We can possibly work on showing a basic data format with numbers first, but after that, what then? Send Fibonacci sequences at each other ad nauseum?
There's some interesting ideas, but, how would we even move beyond mere shouting math at each other? How would we establish even a more advanced data format capable of handling characters? And then, how would we develop an intermediary language?
All of this with hundreds of years in gaps between sending and receiving communications, at that. It's not just hard, it's going to be effectively impossible within the lifespans of the people who sent the first message.