Jupiter-Sized Planet Orbits Epsilon Eridani 226
Phrogman writes: "SpaceRef is the first to report that a Jupiter-sized planet has been discovered orbiting the star Epsilon Eridani which is located about 10.5 light years from Earth. The planet is oribiting the star at roughly 300 million miles - about the same distance as earth's asteroid belt. The discovery was made by astronomers at McDonald Observatory in Texas in collaboration with other astronomers around the world."
Re:What will we do if there's life on this planet? (Score:1)
Re:There won't be any Earth-type planets there. (Score:1)
Re:There won't be any Earth-type planets there. (Score:1)
Re:I still dispute your conclusion. (Score:2)
I'm not talking about the piddling little difference between a Marslike atmosphere and an Earthlike atmosphere, I'm talking about the difference between a gas giant atmosphere and a rock planet atmosphere. The point was that a Mercury-distance planet might be a rock planet like Mars is.
I was explaining why there might be rock planets for the gas giant to throw around. That should have been obvious.
With a Jupiter-mass planet at the distance of the asteroid belt, you'd have stable planetary orbits from Earth-distance on in.
Just what are you basing that specific distance on? You just pulled it out of your hat, didn't you?
Even that effect has nothing to do with the sun "blowing away" the atmosphere
Ugh, as if "blowing away" meant anything other than "removing". If you want to write a short statement about astrophysics, you have to use imperfect analogies to terrestrial phenomena, and it takes quite a jackass to point out how the analogy isn't an accurate literal description.
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Despite rumors to the contrary, I am not a turnip.
Re:Poll Topic? (Score:2)
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McDonald Observatory? (Score:1)
;)
Who orbits who? (Score:1)
Sol system; Epsilon Eridani system (Score:2)
I myself have been found of the grammatically incorrect 'Sol system;' the solar system around any star would be referred to by the star's name, without transforming it into an adjective. Then again, as people seem fit to refer to our sun as the only Sun, we might as well call it the Sunny system.
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Re:Fantastic! (Score:1)
Signature of impact originating from Epsilon Eridani: Rocky, earth-type planet detected.
Signature of impact including spectral lines of chlorophyll: Earth type planet bearing strong signs of life.
Signature of impact including spectral lines of chlorophyll and return volleys of relativistic weapons: Earth type planet bearing strong signs of intelligent life.
Re:Nope! (Score:1)
And anyway, your argument (if I understand what you're trying to say) falls apart when you realize that gravity from one object affects every other object in the universe, making it perfectly logical that objects don't orbit other objects in a perfectly circular fashion, and thereby making it moot what orbital patterns are changed by changing our reference points (if you understand what I'm trying to say =-) ).
Re:..The bigger picture (heh, as if it could be..) (Score:1)
and the planet itself gives off heat
I don't think this is strictly true. The gas giant itself would not give off much heat - what does come into play is the constant stretching and compressing of a natural satellite by the massive tidal forces involved in orbiting such a monster. This process, in turn, can generate the heat in the satellite to kick off all kinds of interesting stuff....
Re:..The bigger picture (heh, as if it could be..) (Score:1)
Re:Live long and prosper (Score:2)
Re:Fantastic! (Score:1)
Re:There won't be any Earth-type planets there. (Score:1)
The belief that the Sun is "as average as one could get" is as conceited as believing that Earth is the center of the universe. In your case, it is just at the center of the universe of all possible star sizes.
Re:Fantastic! (Score:2)
You're more optimistic than I .... (Score:2)
--Lenny
Re:As Earth's asteroid belt...? (Score:1)
Henceforth, my worldview shall be yo-centric.
My world is already yoyo-centric. It's funny to see the look on peoples' faces when you tell people:
Me: "My world's yoyo centric."
Them: "I don't understand."
Me: "That's because your brain is only a half-yoyo."
Try it yourself! a yoyo-centric world.
Michael Tandy
...another insightless comment from Michael Tandy.
Enogh Aliens for Trek like existance ? (Score:1)
My unscientific guess is that the Galaxy is literally swarming with small rock planets ranging in size from Mars up to 2X Earth. Manyt of these planets will have oceans of water and some life. With 200,000,000 Stars in our Galaxy and 1 in ten for planets, water, life ( as we know it ) and intelligence we would still have 200,000 sets of aliens to find.
Even if my above math ( very bad math at that
This is a theory based on nothing whatsoever but alas. For years scientists held that the planets around Sul were such a massive fluke we would be lucky to find even 1 other star with planets in our Galaxy.
PS : Scientists tend to disagree loudly on things not yet proven.
Re:What will we do if there's life on this planet? (Score:1)
We've found LOTS of these! (Score:4)
From browsing this thread, I have the idea that this discovery of distant planets is being taken as a first-time thing by some people. I thought it imperative to fill that void in the collective knowledge base.
We've found approx. 35 such planets to date: here's one found in Nov 1999 [sciencenews.org], a whole system found in April 1999 [sciencenews.org], one in 1998 [sciencenews.org], and here [sciencenews.org], and here [sciencenews.org]...
We've found Jupiter-sized planets at Jupiter-like distances, which is neat because it means we could detect our own solar system...
-Jason
okay... (Score:1)
Re:I still dispute your conclusion. (Score:2)
*Sigh*. For the nth time - this is because of fractioning of the protoplanetary disk *BEFORE* planets formed!
Just what are you basing that specific distance on? You just pulled it out of your hat, didn't you?
This is the distance at which the relative gravitational influences of the star and the jupiter-sized planet would be comparable to the relative gravitational influences of Jupiter and Sol. Not difficult to estimate.
Re:What will we do if there's life on this planet? (Score:5)
Re:Live long and prosper (Score:5)
Re:Babylon 5 (Score:1)
Plus Star Trek Voyer will start next week! Mmmmmm! Seven!
Hrm (Score:1)
Re:Send a probe now! (Score:1)
I don't see how Antigravity (Boots, ship or other wise) will help in the real problem.
Well, at the current costs of launching 1kg into space (About "£2000 / $3000 IIRC), to launch parts to build, say, the 'Starship Enterprise' would cost the GDP of every nation on earth, all added together (On top of that, you have the cost of actually making the components). If an antigravity conduit into space could be established using a spinning disk (Which could probably be done quite cheaply if the theory is as it sounds), getting things into space would be cheaper.
I think....
Michael Tandy
...another insightless comment from Michael Tandy.
Re:Sol system; Epsilon Eridani system (Score:1)
There won't be any Earth-type planets there. (Score:4)
There won't.
We've got rock planets here in the inner solar-system because our manly yellow star blew off most of the atmosphere of the nearest planets.
Epsilon Eridani is a little pansy orange dwarf that couldn't blow the atmosphere off of this Jupiter-type planet as close as the asteroid belt.
With a gas giant in the inner solar system, no tiny little rock planet is going to find a stable orbit. It would get tossed out into an eccentric orbit, assuming it didn't just get tossed into the sun.
Of course, by Earthlike planet, I mean a rock planet with a gaseous atmosphere in a stable, near circular orbit at a near-constant distance from the sun (yes, dammit, I call Epsilon Eridani the sun, meaning the big hot ball). There might be an Earthlike planet if you're willing to accept a really big unlivable asteroid like Pluto as "Earthlike".
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Despite rumors to the contrary, I am not a turnip.
Re:Poll Topic? (Score:1)
Re:Poll Topic? (Score:1)
Re:Comparing stars to lifeforms, our star is "manl (Score:1)
Re:Live long and prosper (Score:1)
<g>
Re:This could be a good target for the Seti Radio. (Score:1)
Because while EE is only 10.5ly away, it's in a differant galaxy :)
As Earth's asteroid belt...? (Score:3)
Re:Chances of life? (Score:1)
No, it'll be very, very, balloony looking. This planet is a gas giant (anything that big has to be) so it has no surface (not one life could live on anyway). Any life form would have to be able to float in whatever atmospheric layer it can survive in. If it goes too high, it asphyxiates, explodes, or gets poisoned. If it goes to low, it asphyxiates, implodes, or gets poisoned. A balloon is the most efficient way for a large organism to stay in a layer. This is pretty unlikely to happen, but if there is any life it will most likely have balloon-like structures.
I know the article doesn't say that the planet is jovian, but I'm pretty sure any solid planet that size would probably never form, and if it did, it would probably collapse and turn into a black hole or something. Or maybe it would generate a lot of heat? I'm to lazy to figure out the physics so I'll just shut up.
Re:Interesting (A TINY little correction) (Score:1)
Stars are found (usually) by measuring an irregular pulse coming from the star. E.G: we look at a pulsar, and determine that based on its size and distance it should be pulsing at X rate. Instead, it is pulsing at Y rate, therefore there's something orbitting it.
Also, if there's irregular pulses coming from a star that shouldn't be pulsing......
There's a few different ways of finding planets, Red Shift, etc. I don't know them all....
TTFN
Re:As Earth's asteroid belt...? (Score:1)
I could go on with this theory for a bit more, but i need to finish my coffee...
Need better report :-) (Score:2)
Bruce
Re:Live long and prosper (Score:1)
Neato, maybe there's life in that system (Score:1)
Re:As Earth's asteroid belt...? (Score:1)
Heretic! The Sun orbits the Earth, along with all other planets.
The Earth is the center of the universe
People are so easliy led astray by the likes of Copernicus.
Live long and prosper (Score:5)
Fantastic! (Score:5)
First off, it's more or less in our cosmic neighborhood. 10.5 lightyears!! We could quite conceivably send a probe in that direction well within the next century. Knowing that extrasolar planets exist this close to earth is a very good sign indeed.
The planet is also at a very moderate distance from its parent star -- although I see no data regarding the shape of its orbit. It might well be extremely elliptical, but we can always hope for something vaguely circular. In any case, it should make for some interesting viewing.
For more information about extrasolar planets, consult your local library. No, just kidding, try this site here. [obspm.fr]
First one there gets to name it!
yours,
john
Re:Live long and prosper (Score:3)
Always makes me wonder, where do I apply to become one of They?
Re:On Jupiter-sized planets (Score:2)
Steven E. Ehrbar
Re:Interesting (Score:2)
Re:Fantastic! (Score:2)
Re:Live long and prosper (Score:2)
the movie looked to me like they'd blown the special effects budget - I mean, using the actor who played her father as the alien? how much of a cop-out is that? the least they could have done was put some latex on his forehead...
Actually, that came from the book. Except that in the book, Jodie Foster's character (Ellie Arroway) is part of an international, five person team, and the "aliens" are more like automated tour guides that are welcoming the human race into space. The aliens take on the form of the team members relatives by scanning their memories. This turns out to be a mixed blessing -- another female in the group realizes that her late husband wasn't all that great a guy by interacting with the alien who takes on his form.
Re:I still dispute your conclusion. (Score:2)
Look, jerk, stop misinterpreting what I'm saying to make me look stupid. I don't know whether you're doing it on purpose or you just think I'm a moron because you can't grasp what I'm saying, but it's bloody annoying. If it doesn't make sense the first time you read it without thinking about it, read it again and think for a minute before you post back to "correct" me.
It doesn't matter whether the gasses were blown away before or after the planet formed. I've never cared about that, and it's never made a speck of difference. I only ever mentioned it to establish what planets could form at which distances.
We know that E.E. is a small star with weak radiation. I didn't infer that from the existence of the gas giant; it's known from other observations. Everything we know about the formation of the solar system says that the gas giant could have, and probably did, form in the orbit it is currently in (where the radiation is weaker than that at Jupiter), and any rock planets would have to form much closer in (and my original post on the topic admitted the possibility that they could, at least, form). That only leaves the question of whether any rock planets between E.E. and the gas giant could have a stable orbit.
As for that, I think your analysis of the possibility of stable orbits is naive. Your conclusion might be right, but your method isn't valid. Whether an orbit in a many-body system are stable over millions of cycles is not trivial to calculate, and the effects of a perturbing force like a large planet do not just scale linearly with the force of its gravity.
We're talking about a gas giant close enough and big enought to make the star wobble noticably. That's a very rough gravitational environment for a small planet to find a stable orbit in.
The point can certainly be argued, but can't be resolved with quick back-of-the-envelope calculations.
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Despite rumors to the contrary, I am not a turnip.
Re:There won't be any Earth-type planets there. (Score:2)
Poll Topic? (Score:3)
Sol would seem to be the best, if we didn't have all romance languages to worry about. It even looks like a proper name ("Saul", "Solomon"). Not going to work out, though, because if I'm on a planet in Epsilon Eridani, and I'm speaking spanish, you'd have to differentiate based only on whether I used it with or without an article ("Sol" vs. "El sol").
Any other ideas? "Earth System", "Terran System" both seem wrong because it's the star, not earth, that we're refering too. "Human system" or similar science fiction stuff sounds totally wrong because the whole idea only matters if we get to another star. You don't call Europe "the white man's continent".
I sort of like "home system" or something with that sort of meaning, but I can't think of anything that works. We could always just steal a word for sun from a dead language (is "helios" a word in modern greek?).
The we have the whole problem of renaming a good portion of the natural sciences as soon as we get to Mars: Geology, Geography, Geophysics, and so on.
First question: are they good to eat? (Score:3)
Third question: do we have better weapons than they do?
Fourth question: are they an enlightened, peaceful society that has evolved beyond the memory of war?
If you have answered yes to one of questions 1 or 2 and yes to one of questions 3 or 4, the obvious indicated action is invasion.
I've seen a lot of old movies about contact with aliens, and I they all pretty much go the same way. I think that we, as weird space aliens, have a duty to run amok, eat a few of them, and kidnap the most attractive of their females.
Oh, I forgot a few very important questions.
5) is their version of the common cold a deadly disease to us?
6) (if you answered "yes" to 4) do they have an an ancient weapon of great power which can be reactivated by an epic quest undertaken by one of their most dashing young males whose favorite female we kidnapped and a sufficient number of expendable henchmen?
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Despite rumors to the contrary, I am not a turnip.
Velocity, not brightness. (Score:4)
What's actually being detected isn't a brightness change - it's a doppler shift in the star's emission lines as it moves towards and away from us due to the influence of the orbiting planet.
You have the right reason for nondetection; it's just a different parameter being measured
Re:What will we do if there's life on this planet? (Score:4)
Since no alien race has contacted us yet, they're probably all less advanced than we are.
Wow. Is humanity really this cocky?
Should we educate them, and perhaps send religious missionaries? Or are these other lifeforms even capable of salvation?
I think that statement proves that all aliens are much more advanced than us! :)
Orbital perturbations. (Score:2)
You can most certainly resolve this with "back-of-the-envelope" calculations.
It is only the _relative_ masses and positions of the objects that matter. Absolute scale is irrelevant - it just imposes a scaling factor on time. This means that I can make valid conclusions by comparing the Eridani system to the Sol system.
The only variable in the Eridani system that differs from the Sol system is the relative masses of the star and the gas giant planet, and this doesn't change much - Epsilon Eridani is about 0.75 solar masses, according to a quick web search.
Thus, I would be very surprised if my conclusion _didn't_ hold.
We're talking about a gas giant close enough and big enought to make the star wobble noticably. That's a very rough gravitational environment for a small planet to find a stable orbit in.
The key word is "noticeably".
We've had spectrographs for many, many decades, and *only* *now* have instruments sensitive enough to detect the extremely slight perturbation of spectral lines due to planetary nudging of parent stars.
The effects of a gas giant planet are not as severe as you make them out to be.
Vulcan (Score:3)
Re:Orbital perturbations. (Score:2)
With comments like this, I don't see any point in continuing this discussion. You obviously have no conception of the complexities of planet formation and orbital dynamics and how fragile a stable orbit is if you think you can just make a few linear extrapolations and come up with valid answers.
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Despite rumors to the contrary, I am not a turnip.
Different time frame for separation. (Score:3)
Actually, according to the literature I went through when writing a project on star systems in high school, the gasses are blown out of the inner solar system _before_ planets start to form.
Blowing the atmosphere off of an already-formed planet won't happen under anything short of very extreme circumstances. Jupiter could be sitting in Venus's orbit and still remain intact. In the primordial disk, however, there's nothing to hold gases in one place, so they can be moved easily.
So, I think that there is a very good chance of finding rocky planets around Epsilon Eridani.
Just don't wear a red shirt (Score:2)
Who'd want to rub shoulders with Meat Monkeys? (Score:4)
I personally suspect that the radio phase of civilization is fairly short. If you only have a 2 or 3 century window after which a civilization discovers quantum communications or something, chances of actually finding a civilization based on RF would have to be vanishingly small. However, once you discover quantum communications (Or whatever) you can instanteously tune in to the furthest reaches of the Universe. And THEN you find out that the universal internet is clogged with live qkpth porn and make vlbork fast schemes and tune out in disgust.
That makes sense, but doesn't change my conclusion (Score:2)
While I didn't mention it, obviously a weaker star can still blow out the gasses from closer-in planets (a Mercury-distance planet there might get the treatment Mars did here). That's why I left the possibility of Pluto-like (or even more eccentric) planets.
The relevance of the weak gas-pushing power is that it left a Jupiter where it would make a real mess of any sort of inner solar system (and I do believe that it formed there and wasn't thrown in by near passes of several distant gas giants; E.E. is only about half as bright as Sol).
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Despite rumors to the contrary, I am not a turnip.
What kind of backwater uses quantum comm.? (Score:2)
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Despite rumors to the contrary, I am not a turnip.
On Jupiter-sized planets (Score:5)
Re:There won't be any Earth-type planets there. (Score:3)
Epsilon Eridani is a little pansy orange dwarf that couldn't blow the atmosphere off of this Jupiter-type planet as close as the asteroid belt.
No, but it could blow the atmosphere off one of the closer-in smaller planets. Like the planet Vulcan, where it is hot and the atmosphere is thin. Obviously the atmosphere is not thin because most of it was blown off. The atmosphere was blown off during the early stages of the Epsilon Eridani system formation. Later, gases were released from the planet's interior as it cooled.
Now hurry up and invent the warp-drive.
This just isn't news anymore... (Score:2)
I still dispute your conclusion. (Score:3)
At asteroid-belt distance hardly counts as "in the inner solar system". All that this gas giant does is make the band in which stable orbits can occur a little narrower. Inner planets can most certainly still exist stably.
While I didn't mention it, obviously a weaker star can still blow out the gasses from closer-in planets (a Mercury-distance planet there might get the treatment Mars did here).
Mars is bereft of atmosphere because it its escape velocity is low enough that the atmosphere can boil off - solar influence has nothing to do with it.
The only planet that has had substantial solar influence on its atmosphere is Mercury, because it's *extremely* close to the sun. Even that effect has nothing to do with the sun "blowing away" the atmosphere - on the contrary, it _heats_ the atmosphere so that individual molecules can more readily reach the planet's escape velocity.
With a Jupiter-mass planet at the distance of the asteroid belt, you'd have stable planetary orbits from Earth-distance on in. The star is cooler, so atmospheres will be cooler, and more easily retained unless you're *really* close to the star.
I'm afraid that your arguments about atmospheres being "blown away" just don't make any sense. See above.
Re:As Earth's asteroid belt...? (Score:2)
You'd wonder what relativistic time-effects any Einsteinian observer would have on a yoyo.
Anyone ever brought a yoyo aboard a space shuttle trip?
Re:What will we do if there's life on this planet? (Score:2)
And who says we are already in contact with beings from other worlds.
What about
I'm not saying that any of these are anything but a ficticous story, but it still is an alternative to saying that we are have never been contacted by "aliens". Of course you need to believe that the US government is capable of a "grand conspiracy".
We should UPS life there (Score:2)
The Sun orbiting the Earth (Score:2)
The Sun is so much more massive than the Earth (about 99% of the mass of the entire solar system... including Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune) that you need to keep track of the gravitational effects of all of the other planets at the same time.
With a heilocentric viewpoint you can simplify the calculations (at least on an initial basis) to only take into account the mass of the sun. In fact, you don't even have to take into account any planetary body when you are calculating rough orbits. Only when you are trying to determine the possibility of other objects (such as what was used to discover Neptune... and erronously used to discover Pluto) is the mass of the other planets even used. And you have to use many significant digits in your calculations for this to be even remotely useful.
None the less, this is a valid viewpoint to suggest that the Sun and everything else in the universe orbits the Earth.
Isaac Asimov knew all along (Score:2)
I'm a big fan of Isaac Asimovs sci/fi writings, and in one of his books (in the Foundation series I think, but I could be wrong - I'm at work now) they're searching for the Earth. According to that story, one of the very first systems colonized by man had the old poetic name of 'Epsilon Eridani'.
Re:What will we do if there's life on this planet? (Score:2)
Why aren't we asking these questions about the chimpanzees, whom we know to actually exist?
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Hmm (Score:2)
Dim Star... useless planet. (Score:3)
Epsilon Eridani, located at right ascension 3h33', declination -9 47', range roughtly 10.7 LY, which works out to sol-centered galactic-aligned cartesian coordinates (- 7.641i - 0.2749j - 7.485k) LY (over-precise), is spectral class K2, so this planet, at Earth's distance out, would be somewhat colder than Earth. There is hope that other, more useful planets are in the system, but I wonder if the gravitational influence of the gas giant would have swept that area clean...
-- Sunlighter
Comparing stars to lifeforms, our star is "manly" (Score:2)
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Despite rumors to the contrary, I am not a turnip.
In other news (Score:3)
Re: Maybe the possibility of direct observation?! (Score:3)
Interesting (Score:2)
I really hope they'll discover some form of life somewhere...even some sludge sucking germ on Titan would have drastic implications.
Dennis
Re:Live long and prosper (Score:2)
Yeah, 22 years after Roswell.
*EVERY* TV show is after Roswell. Hell, is "I Love Lucy" supposed to prepare us for an invasion of Cuban nightclub singers?
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Re:Fantastic! (Score:2)
Of course, you'd have to figure out how to transmit without vaporizing your antenna...
What will we do if there's life on this planet? (Score:2)
Since no alien race has contacted us yet, they're probably all less advanced than we are.
This raises an interesting moral question: would it be wrong to assimilate extrastellar life? Suppose they're just little above chimpanzees, and really don't have any real cognizant thought. They're not human; would diverting their limited thought to improve life on Earth be truly harmful? Should we educate them, and perhaps send religious missionaries? Or are these other lifeforms even capable of salvation?
nice (Score:2)
Re:..The bigger picture (heh, as if it could be..) (Score:2)
You're right, at great depths the hydrogen gas in Jupiter's atmosphere is forced into a liquid metallic state by the immense pressure. However, Jupiter does actually have a core made of rock that is believed to be about four times as heavy as the Earth. I think it would probably be liquid at those temperatures and pressures though (like the core of the Earth).
The hydrogen can act as a metal as it can lose an electron to empty its innermost electron shell (remember the periodic table, where hydrogen appears twice - it can also gain an electron to complete its innermost electron shell, so it acts as a non-metallic element too). The large swirling mass of liquid metal is believed to be the cause of Jupiter's immense magnetic field and strong radio emissions.
Re:Hrm (Score:4)
Well, now that one has been found so close, everyone on the planet is going to start directing radio broadcasts there in hopes of getting a SETI response. I think that qualifies as spam.
I wonder whether their response will be a cease-and-desist from the galactic equivalent of the FCC. What's the penalty for a RF DoS attack on a solar system?
ps - If any Epsilon Eridanites are reading this... MAKE MONEY FAST!
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..The bigger picture (heh, as if it could be..) (Score:3)
So this thing is Jupiter-sized, and pretty far away from its sun, so its probably a gas giant. "Duhh, so what, we cant land on it then." Well, yes, thats correct..we can't land on it. It doesnt have a surface..Just like with Jupiter, if you tried to land on it, you'de go straight through it. Its made entirely out of gas, not rock, or ice. The big deal about this, is that most Jupiter-sized planets also have Jupiter-like characteristics, i'm guessing, which means they more than likely have a large number of satellites, and the planet itself gives off heat. The same as Europa may harbor life sustained by Jupiter's heat, the moons of this newly discovered planet also have a chance of sustaining life.
Then again, even if we had the technology to span such distances in person, it would take hundreds of years to even build up a decent speed... we'd have to accellerate the spacecraft in a way that was survivable by human beings, mind you. I dont know anyone who wants to spend the next hundred years with their cheeks plastered to their skulls, trying to strain like theyre on the toilet... minute after minute, hour after hour, month after month.
I think i'll stay here..but I get first dibs on real estate.
My 48,500 rupees,
Bowie J. Poag
[slaps forehead] in short... yeah! (Score:2)
It wouldn't be too comfortable, though. Not lots of light for photosynthesis, but with enough greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere it could probably be warm enough for liquid water.
Damn, there might be somewhat Earthlike life on a satellite of E.E.!
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Despite rumors to the contrary, I am not a turnip.
Re:Live long and prosper (Score:2)
Actually, I'm under the impression that all television was aired after Rosewell...
Re:Need better report :-) (Score:2)
Mr Cowing noted in the article that they discovered a large dust cloud orbiting Epsilon Eridani back in 1998, and noticed a large bright spot they thought might indicate a large planet. I sincerely hope they have managed to capture an actual image of the planet itself. There will be more information forthcoming on this issue very shortly I am sure.
Re:As Earth's asteroid belt...? (Score:2)
It's all a question of frames of reference. Since it's all moving in directions we can't really perceive anyway, it is just as logical to define Earth as the fixed point as it is to define the Sun as such. We simply say the Sun is fixed in space as a matter of convenience for us, since it being the fixed object allows us to describe every planet as maintainig a (more or less) circular path in space.
Re:Fantastic! (Score:3)
We sent a multi-ton spacecraft out of the solar system. Two of them in fact. We sent a further two somewhat lighter spacecraft out of solar system as well.
Think of the speed you could get if you put a nuclear type rocket behind a 1 gram fully functional payload.
Perhaps you could reach a substantial fraction of the speed of light, allowing a mission to be completed within 100 years.
That would make it just possible for someone being born today to still be alive when our first stellar probe is radioing the results back to earth.
When you consider that there are people alive who existed before cars, it's simply astounding.
How They Discover Planets (Score:4)
Generally planets are so much smaller than the star they orbit that any affect they have on the stars brightness is very minimal, if any, and thus differences in relative brightness are not a good way to detect extrasolar planets.
Re:As Earth's asteroid belt...? (Score:2)
Yep, one of the original "Toys in Space" experiments. Back in the 1980s they did a mission that included bringing up a bunch of toys that demonstrated different physical principals, and filming them for use in classrooms. In the 90s they did a similar mission with some different toys.
Other toys (than the yoyo) on the Toys in Space experiment included magnetic marbles, a ball and jacks, a motorized 'Hot Wheels' car in a loop of track, a 'Wheelo' disk held to a wire frame track with a magnetic axle, a paddle ball (or whatever it's called -- wooden paddle with a rubber ball held by an elastic cord), and a couple of others.
Some (including the yoyo) worked just fine in zero-gee (yoyo's don't really rely on gravity, you have to throw them to give them enough energy to overcome drag on the string), others didn't (the ball and jacks were problematic).
The video is available from NASA, I've seen it a couple of times.
Nope! (Score:2)
Anyway, we CAN notify that the earth is orbiting the sun, not vise-versa. And a Jojo-sitizen could easily notise he's livinging on a moving jojo
Motion is arbitrary, sine motion is relative. However, that goes only for _linear_ motion. Motion without acceleration/retardation.
Acceleration has the same effect on mass as has gravity. It is, in contrary to mere motion, significant, that is, the refference points are NOT arbitrary.
And orbiting is equal to acceleration (Directed at the center of the orbit).
--The knowledge that you are an idiot, is what distinguishes you from one.
Re:Need better report :-) (Score:2)
Re: Serious answers to stupid questions. (Score:2)
It's not unreasonable to assume that the rules of chemistry are pretty much universal, and within those bounds, carbon/hydrogen/oxygen/nitrogen based biochemistries are the most probable (variations on those, eg subbing silicon for carbon, or fluorine for oxygen, tend to produce insufficiently interesting variety of compounds, at least in the sort of environment we'd be interested in occupying.) And from that it's a safe bet that the biochemistry that evolved on Earth is the most probable (if not the only) one that can evolve under those conditions.
But even within the bounds of DNA/RNA and recognizable amino acids, there's a heck of a lot of room for variation in proteins and relative amounts of the other elements that lifeforms depend on. So your answer to (1) is probably correct, ditto your answer to (5). (After all, how many people get infected by, say, tobacco mosaic virus or Dutch elm disease?)
Babylon 5 (Score:3)
BTW: All those interested: B5 will be rebroadcast on Sci-Fi starting Sept 25th. 7:30pm, daily, I think.
Thats nice, but (Score:2)
The problem is that a jupiter sized star is most likely all gas, hydrogen mostly. What i am waiting for is a earth or mars sized planet only about 10 light years away! Then we could send some probes! (i am not talking right now, but within the next century)
Isn't is amazing that we can debate planet exploration but none of us will ever live to see the 'Star Trek' vision of space in our lives?
Re:What will we do if there's life on this planet? (Score:2)
What if bombarding us with tons of space dust every day is an alien culture's idea of "communication"? They're sending us messages in the patterns of dust which falls into our atmosphere every day!
And here we sit, ignoring it day in and day out. "Damn those earthlings, they don't understand our language at all!"