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Space Science

Alien Atmosphere Hubbled 230

Posted by Hemos from the water-+-Na-=-fun dept.
b-side.org writes "Yahoo! News has a story on yon giant hubble mirrorscope thingy locating an alien, mostly sodium, atmosphere. X10.com popunder ads also included free of charge." Mm....let's mix that atmosphere with water. T cuts in: This turns out to be the major discovery hinted at a few days ago.
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Alien Atmosphere Hubbled More

Alien Atmosphere Hubbled

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  • Sodium (Score:2, Funny)

    by Skyshadow ( 508 )
    Mmm... Sodium. Anyone else feel like getting some Ramen all of the sudden?

  • Drake Equation (Score:5, Interesting)

    by gandalf_grey ( 93942 ) on Tuesday November 27, 2001 @11:46PM (#2623223) Homepage
    What effects have the recent (relatively) discoveries of extra-solar planets, and now atmospheres, done to change the results that one can get from the drake equation?

    Obviously, it's still highly contraversial. However, now that it seems very likely that there are thousands, millions and billions of planets out there everywhere... we must assume many earth like planets as well, IMHO.

    Anyone care to submit their suggestions as to the number of (potentially) intelligent civilizations lurking around?

    • Still doesn't even provide enough information to even make a guess at variables, let alone the last couple. Any real attempt to use the Drake equation is still just pulling a number out of thin air. Or rather pulling several numbers out of thin air and multiplying them, which is far more scientific. :)

    • Re:Drake Equation (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Robert1 ( 513674 )
      Unfortunately no. It turns out most planets are Jovian, no solid ground means no life (intelligent anyway). Also they've found out that life bearing planets can only thrive within a certain, and very small, strip of the galaxy. If anything over the last few months the chances of finding intelligent life have decreased rather than increased.

      • Re:Drake Equation (Score:4, Funny)

        by Jeremi ( 14640 ) on Wednesday November 28, 2001 @12:04AM (#2623269) Homepage
        It turns out most planets are Jovian, no solid ground means no life (intelligent anyway).


        Let's not be too hasty in discounting life there; perhaps life could have evolved in the form of giant alien gasbags [newt.org].

      • Re:Drake Equation (Score:4, Informative)

        by the_2nd_coming ( 444906 ) on Wednesday November 28, 2001 @12:06AM (#2623281) Homepage
        what has it been restricted to? the outer ring because of the lower amount of radiation?

        1) we have only found mant Jovian planets because our technology make them easiest to find and Terran type planets would have to be implyed in minuet almost imperceptable shifts in the angle of light coming from the Jovian planet as the terren planet passes it in orbit.

        2) Moons around Jovian planets may also house life....moons tend to be made of Rock and most Jovian planets found have been 10-50 times the size of Jupider so those size plantes could easily house an earth sized moon.

        3) the Universe is a huge undefinable place.
      • It turns out most planets are Jovian, no solid ground means no life (intelligent anyway).

        Uh no, it turns out that most planets we can detect are Jovian, ie a thousand times larger than the Earth..

      • Re:Drake Equation (Score:2, Informative)

        by Bartab ( 233395 )
        Unfortunately no. It turns out most planets are Jovian

        You mean that we've seen. Hubble is limited, and is only catching the larger planets, which will pretty much limit it to the Jovians, and most of those much larger than our own. It's likely that we wouldn't see Earth with Hubble from the distance Hubble is currently finding planets. That hardly means Earth doesn't exist.
      • Yeah, but Jovian planets can have lots of moons. Plenty of solid ground possible on them.

      • It turns out most planets are Jovian, no solid ground means no life (intelligent anyway).

        No solid ground DOES NOT mean there can't be life. But there are most likely earth-sized planets out there as well, which certainly would give a better chance of life as we know it. The reason they have only found large planets is because large planets are much easier to find. It's like looking for something in a carpet. It is much easier to find a bowling ball than it is to find a BB.

        Also they've found out that life bearing planets can only thrive within a certain, and very small, strip of the galaxy

        I don't know the "they" to which you refer, could you provide a reference for such an astounding assertation? The galaxy is a huge place, and there are a myriad of other galaxies around us. Even if your claim were true, there would be plenty of room in the Universe for other life to develop.

    • Re:Drake Equation (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Betelgeuse ( 35904 )
      Allright. I'm going to rant a bit.

      What possible good does the Drake Equation do? We are no where near being able to estimate accurately any of the terms in the Drake Equation. Even the Star Formation term (by far the term with the lowest errors) has gigantic uncertainty built into it. It seems ridiculous to try to make up an equation where you don't know any of the terms. Yes, I agree that it is facinating to consider the possibility of life elsewhere in our Galaxy, but applying an equation to this interest implies a level of knowledge that it just not there.

      I mean, I can make up an equation to calulate anything I want, but if I don't know what the value of any of the terms are, what good is it to anyone?
      • the Drake equasion gives us the types of information we need to discover the statisticle probability that other inteligent life exists. it is not realy ment to be anything more than a set of criteria. and besides, when we know everything about the univers in 2 billion years (provided we do not go extinct) they will lokk back and say, "hey that draker guy was a genious, he was 2 billion years ahead of his time!!"
      • I mean, I can make up an equation to calulate anything I want, but if I don't know what the value of any of the terms are, what good is it to anyone?

        Knowing what the terms are is half the battle. True the results coming out of the equation are useless until we have better data going in, but for now it gives us some room for discussion, grist for the mill, yadda yadda yadda. We can at least have an idea on the bounds from plugging in edumacated (as opposed to educated) guesses in. The only real reason to bother filling values in for now, for sure, is that it's fun :)

    • Re:Drake Equation (Score:2, Informative)

      by ChazeFroy ( 51595 )
      I, for one (and mostly all), cannot wait for NASA's next space telescope, the Next Generation Space Telescope (NGST) [nasa.gov], to take flight. This telescope will answer many questions we currently have. Unfortunately, this will not take place until 2009, but it's still nice to think about :)
    • Seven!

      Wait, no, sorry, I counted ours.

      Six!

      --------
      [McP]KAAOS

    • Re:Drake Equation (Score:2, Insightful)

      by DerKlempner ( 249063 )

      The Drake equation has one important factor missing from it: the "here-and-now" factor. The only part of the Drake equation with regards to time is the "lifetime" of communicating civilizations, or, specifically, "the length of time such civilizations release detectable signals into space" (space.com [space.com]).

      Wouldn't the simple idea be that if alien civilizations were technologically advanced enough and if they sent out detectable signals at all, then they would have to exist right now for us to detect them? The truth is that the vastness of our universe (throughout most of which we will never find "detectable signals" from within the next few million generations) makes the chances that other intelligent life exists fairly good. But the chances of us detecting them, them detecting us, or both detecting each other is fairly slim since we do not know if the time at which both civilizations are technologically able to do so coincides.

      Consider this as well: signals take time to travel. Who's to say that if a civilization on the other side of our galaxy that existed 50,000 years ago but is extinct now ever had the opportunity to send out signals. What if there's intelligent life on an Earthlike planet orbiting Epison Eridani (only 10 light years away), but their civilization takes 500,000 years to become technologically adept enough to build detection or emitting devices? (Comparably, human life needed only 100,000 or so years to develop from animals that used simple tools to today's high-tech humanoids.)

      Maybe we just need to quit debating and keep looking.
      • No, the "here and now" factor is taken into account by the R_* term, which is the rate that stars form. Do the unit analysis: by multiplying that rate (N/year) by the average lifetime of a civilization (years) (along with all the other factors) you get the average number of active civilizations in our Galaxy, at any time, not the total number that have ever existed.

        This also takes care of your other point regarding light travel time, because by definition, the average number of active civilizations in our galaxy is time-invariant.

    • Re:Drake Equation (Score:1, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      I'm reading Isaac Asimov's Extraterrestrial civilizations (1979), and he ends up with 530 000 "planets in our galaxy on which a technological civilization is now in being". Tho I dislike his use of the principle of mediocrity so much, the rest of the stuff is very well argued. Given the massive planets found so far, I'm sure he'd reduce his 1 300 000 000 "number of 2nd-generation, population I, sunlike stars in our galaxy with a useful ecosphere and an Earthlike planet circling it within that ecosphere."
      --
      I am Jack's username [slashdot.org]

    • Re:Drake Equation (Score:3, Informative)

      by markmoss ( 301064 )
      There isn't a major effect, because with the instrumentation we have, all we can see is planets as big as Jupiter or bigger, and usually in orbits closer to the sun than Venus. So we're only able to see uninhabitable planets in solar systems rather unlike ours, and this doesn't say much about the prevalence of solar systems like ours.

      It does finally settle one 300-year old astronomical debate: whether planet formation happens in freak accidents such as near-collisions between stars, or as a normal part of star formation. Astronomers strongly leaned towards the latter hypothesis, because calculations and computer simulations don't show the near-collision scenario as leaving planets in stable orbits, while it is fairly easy to get a star with planets to condense from a simulated gas & dust cloud. Now that we know lots of stars do have some sort of planet, freak accident theories are definitely ruled out.
  • I can't really say I'm suprised. Most planets detected outsided our solar system are massive giants anyway, so one would assume that they were Jupiter-ish. These planets would most likely be gas giants anyway, so this seems more a confirmation of common sense than any breakthrough.

    I mean, it's cool, but when they find a small, water based world with an atmosphere, then I'll get excited. As for now I'll just shrug and say, "figures".
    • We're only finding Jovian and up sized masses because they're easier to find than small Earth-sized bodies.

      The interesting thing is the number of jovian types that are really close in. "Hot enough to melt the change in their pocket." This might be another artifact of our detection methods -- a close-in jovian is going to cause a larger wobble, and be detected easier.

      Oh for a big telescope on the Moon!
    • The point is that this is a stepping stone. This particular planet and this particular atmosphere are totally irrelevent to anythign and everythign. What is importent is the developement of the TECHNOLOGY behind this discovery. The fact that we were ABLE to ditect it means we are going forward and may someday soon have a way to detect earth-like planets. Or other nifty stuff.

  • wtf? (Score:5, Informative)

    by deglr6328 ( 150198 ) on Tuesday November 27, 2001 @11:48PM (#2623227)
    Could you possibly have chosen a more incoherent and factually incorrect submission for posting? The atmosphere is not mostly sodium as "b-side.org" seemingly just guessed. The reason sodium was measured is because it is relatively easy to detect. NASA has [nasa.gov] a more informative story.

    • Re:wtf? (Score:1, Redundant)

      by b-side.org ( 533194 )
      And I quote:

      The planet, about the size of Jupiter and orbiting close to the star HD209458, has an atmosphere loaded with sodium and is inhospitable to earthly life, officials at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration said at a briefing.

      YIMV.

    • Re:wtf? (Score:4, Funny)

      by Incongruity ( 70416 ) on Wednesday November 28, 2001 @12:51AM (#2623402)
      LOL! I'm with you, deglr6328.

      I also loved the "photo" that is included along with the Yahoo! news story...it's an "artist's impression" of the distant planet. Oh but it gets better... below the 'photos' section there's a 'audio/video' link to an AP story entitled "Chemicals Found on Faraway Planet ".

      In all seriousness, this discovery is really interesting, at least to me. Then again, every time the Hubble is used in something new, I am impressed considering its rocky beginings and the amazing in-orbit mirror replacement that had to be done just to get it working. All that aside, the story that this submission is linked to makes me cringe.

      Call it geek ellitism if you must but it just seems like such a dumbed-down treatment of the story in some ways. Most of the content is really cool, but the headlines/bold-points (like "INHOSPITABLE, BUT STILL BREAKTHROUGH") and the extra stuff (as mentioned before) are laughable. Am I wrong or is this a little...well...lite?

      I'm really not trying to troll; the point seemed worth mentioning/discussing.

      • I agree.

        I submitted this story at around 5pm yesterday and linked to the official NASA news release. Apparently it didn't have enough pretty artists renderings so mine was rejected.

        Rich...
    • All in all, both the NASA press release and the PR from STSci are incredibly dumbed down and uninformative (where the hell is the link to the original article ?!?).

      For those interested in the real stuff, the preprint of the publication is available from the main authors website [caltech.edu] (look for research papers) at CalTech [caltech.edu].

  • We are probably surrounded by many planets with an atmosphere. If a solar system is capable of having a Jupiter type planet, what about an Earth type planet? It isn't THAT far of a stretch.

    As Carl Sagan says (or was it just Contact?) "If it is just us, it seems like an awful waste of space."

    div
    • We are probably surrounded by many planets with an atmosphere.

      We certainly are. The only planets in our own Solar System that lack atmospheres are Mercury and Pluto, assuming you're among those that still count Pluto as a planet and not a gargantuan comet [slashdot.org].

      If you mean other planetary systems, then we have no data to say one way or another. We have no techniques for detecting extra-Solar planets smaller than Jupiter.

      If a solar system is capable of having a Jupiter type planet, what about an Earth type planet? It isn't THAT far of a stretch.

      If by "Earth type planet" you mean a relatively small rocky body rather than a gas giant, you're probably right. If you mean a planet capable of supporting life as we know it, then it is a bit of a stretch, at least in the planetary systems we've actually observed. If Jupiter were much closer to the Sun than it is, conditions on Earth would be far different than they are -- that is, if Earth existed at all. It may well be that it was Jupiter's influence that prevented a planet from forming where the asteroid belt is now. The Jupiter-like planets we've seen in other systems are generally far closer to the Sun than Jupiter is. No terrestrial planets are likely to exist inside their orbits. Outside their orbits it would be too cold for liquid water to exist.

      • No terrestrial planets are likely to exist inside their orbits. Outside their orbits it would be too cold for liquid water to exist.

        Nevertheless, they could still have moons that could fit the bill.

        All said and done though, I still agree that the odds are fairly long of finding a planet either specs coming even close to matching earth. They probably do exist (it's a big universe, you know), but not too many I guess, and not easy to find.

  • A sodium atmosphear?? (Score:3, Funny)

    by the_2nd_coming ( 444906 ) on Tuesday November 27, 2001 @11:49PM (#2623230) Homepage
    Guess we could not colonize this planet since our people would be dead from Heart attacks and Hypertention in about 2 weeks ;-)

    • Re:A sodium atmosphear?? (Score:5, Funny)

      by TandyMasterControl ( 136043 ) on Wednesday November 28, 2001 @01:45AM (#2623497) Homepage
      We can also safely eliminate Planet HD234562345 as the long sought lair of Pulvetton's Giant Space Slug.

    • Why must people confuse sodium with salt? Sodium is an element while salt is a crystal compound.
      • Because they think Chlorine is just something you put in swimming pools. And aparently can't remember basic chemistry: Na + Cl = NaCl
      • Probably because they think it is "salt" that causes hypertension, when it is actually "sodium" that should be avoided. They get confused because the bulk of a person's sodium intake is salt, so "salt intake" roughly equals "sodium intake". But of course, nutrition guidelines have to be accurate, which is why the nutrition info labels say "sodium" not "salt".

        Oh, wait, the original poster didn't mention "salt", did he?

        So who is confused?

  • more info (Score:2, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    from the Guardian [guardian.co.uk]

    KWA: Karma Whore's Anonymous

    - crayz

  • Cool, but why aren't we out exploring? (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Why are we just looking around? We have the technology! Let's at least go to Mars. Consider that eventually Earth will die. Sooner or later we must be prepared to go somewhere else. I think we should start now.

    Also consider we live in an infinite universe. There are infinite worlds, and infinitly many of them can support life, and infinitly many of them DO support it. Infinity, think about it.
    • "Why aren't we out exploring?" Did I really read this? I'll tell you why. Did you build a spaceship capable of interstellar travel this morning and not tell anybody? No? Okay, well did you at least write a check to NASA for the $50 billion that they estimated the Mars direct mission would cost? No? Well, then there's a couple of reasons.

      Let me guess... account manager? or marketing maybe? I know it's some job where you wear a tie to work and make a lot of loud phone calls...
    • We do not live in a universe that has infinite number of anything, universe may be unbounded or bounded, but that is irrelevant. Everything in this universe has a finite, although possibly variable, number.

      That should not stop us from exploring though. The reasons that we are not going to mars are financial reasons, lack of comittment and the fact that our space technology is so primitive that it is stupidly expensive. An interstellar voyage is perhaps an impossibility unless relativity is proven to be wrong, or people start to think in terms of millions of years as the unit of personal achivement times (I wish I attended english classes more often, I hope you can decrypt the sentence preceeding this one.)

    • *Why are we just looking around? We have the technology! Let's at least go to Mars. Consider that eventually Earth will die. Sooner or later we must be prepared to go somewhere else. I think we should start now.*

      Firsters: The earth will die in a billion years or so.. dont start picking out gravesites yet. We have a far far better chance of being killed off by ourselves, or by the Earth, the great macro-organism that it is finally rearing up and removing us as the parasites we are, than lasting until the sun does its "puff up! puff up! THEY HATE THAT!" move.

      2) Umm.. mars.. yeah.. we managed to drop a probe through an ice shelf (maybe) and lose it. You really wanna be on the first lander down? Can you think of anyone who *does* want to be on the first lander down?

      3) The solution may lie more in science fiction than science fact. Generation ships, ringworlds, or wheels.. that will probably happen long before "terra" forming and habitation of other planets.

      (This is assuming the Aliens dont show up with "boobs, beers, or buns, no-one rides for free" stickers on their ships and invite us out for a quick joyride.)

      Realistically tho: We have a *hell* of a lot more research and development and scientific knowhow to work through before we are ready to ship people to Mars. Even the fact that we routinely put stuff in orbit is less due to the scientific ability than to the fact that things seem to *not* go cataclysmically wrong very often.
      (Not dishign on Nasa.. they are at the very top of my "respected" list.. but its a pure miracle we even got our guys off the moon in the first place!)

      maeryk
  • The more significant discovery was that of the extra solar planet in the first place... Is it surprising that a massive planet as this has an atmosphere?

    I did not see any other elements besides sodium mentioned in the yahoo or nasa articles.. Perhaps their spectroscopy instruments have detected something else? How many planets in our solar system have detectable amounts of Na in the atmosphere? Inquiring minds want to know ;)
    Time to dive into nasa's site..
    • Venus dingbat. S o d i u m D i o x i d e. It was first detected by scientists way back when by watching it pass in front of the Sun and watching what light got absorbed. The Sun even has detectable amounts of sodium in itself.
      • Yes, I can read. Maybe I should have phrased the question as "Is it common to find sodium in known planetary atmospheres?" Venus is one... others? Is the sodium indicative of anything? What other substances were found in abundance in this newly discovered atmosphere? I'm an ee undergrad, not an exo-chemist nor astronomer.

        Not surprising that the sun contains sodium, considering its mass, heat and numerous nuclear reactions.. ;)
        • The Earth's got a bunch of sodium too but what used to be in the atmosphere ended up in rocks and the ocean for the most part. The outer gas giants have quite a bit of sodium in various forms (oxides, chlorides, and hydroxides) though percentage wise not having more than the Sun. Rich sodium lines in the atmosphere could mean massive nimbus like clouds full of sodium dioxide rain or some such. Looking at atmospheric components of the planet will lead to a much better understanding of that solar system's dynamics and maybe a bit of its history. If we can get a better idea of the chemical components of extra solar planets we can start looking for trends and maybe figure out where the best place to look for new planets and for that matter where to find terrestrial planets. It may also lead to a reassertion of our solar system. If every other solar system has more of some element in it than ours we might say "how odd" but then realize it is our solar system that is odd and maybe why we're living in it currently.

  • uh, Tim...? i'm confused (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    T cuts in: This turns out to be the major discovery hinted at a few days ago.

    would that be the plantery atmosphere or the X10 ads?

  • Sodium (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Jucius Maximus ( 229128 )
    From the NASA Article [nasa.gov]:

    "When the color of the light was analyzed by STIS, the telltale "fingerprint" of sodium was detected."

    I'm no chemistry or space exploration expert, so can someone please answer this for me: Do they mean Na+ or actual elemental sodium? I wouldn't expet to find water or anything that would sustain carbon-based life on a planet whose atmosphere had significant amounts of elemental sodium.

    • Elements have unique atomic absorption and emission bands. Much of the analytical science done today uses elemental analysis to determine this. It is pretty standard.
      • what i think he means to say is that they would have the same signature. If i remember correctly from chem class, thats abotu right. If its got one or two or 97 electrons in its orbits, it will still emit the same wavelength of light when an excited electron drops down a level.
    • Sodium is higly reactive, so elemental sodium in an atmosphere is out of question unless whole planet is made of sodium, which is impossible too. So they must have found sodium ions.

    • Re:Sodium (Score:4, Insightful)

      by markmoss ( 301064 ) on Wednesday November 28, 2001 @08:52AM (#2624243)
      There's a better article in nytimes.com (registration required). The Hubble's spectrograph is detecting tiny traces of sodium in the planet's atmosphere as it transits between the star (its sun) and us. They set it to look for sodium, because that has the strongest spectrum lines of any element. The article didn't say, but I think these must be absorption lines where the starlight shines through the atmosphere of the planet, around the edges as it transits. I would assume it is ionic sodium -- you just plain don't find sodium in any other form.

      The planet is Jupiter-sized, and close to it's sun, so the atmosphere is hot enough to melt copper. Not a good place to visit... But with the present methods for detecting extra-solar planets, any we can spot will be too big and too hot.

      Mostly, planets are detected because their mass as they orbit makes the star jiggle just a little (the star and the planet orbit the common center of gravity -- which is still somewhere inside the star, but not the exact middle). The stars motion doppler shifts it's light, and so there is a periodic shift in the star's spectrogram. The bigger the planet is and the closer to the star, the more jiggle -- someone in another solar system looking at ours with instruments of similar capability wouldn't detect Earth because it's too small, and might miss Jupiter because it's orbit is too wide and slow.

      This particular planet was detected by a different method; it happens that the planet's orbit causes it to transit between the star and Earth, blocking a small part of the star's light. If the planet is big enough, this drop in the star's intensity is detectable. But such an orbital alignment must be something like a one in a million shot...

  • And so let us remember... (Score:3)

    by blamanj ( 253811 ) on Wednesday November 28, 2001 @12:08AM (#2623289)

    Sir Humphrey Davy [huji.ac.il],
    Abominated gravy,
    He lived in the odium,
    Of having discovered Sodium
    -- Edmund Clerihew [thinks.com] Bentley

  • Another article for this news (Score:3, Informative)

    by headkase ( 533448 ) on Wednesday November 28, 2001 @12:09AM (#2623292)
    Wired [wired.com] also has a story on this article here [wired.com].

  • Any astronomers want to clarify... (Score:3, Informative)

    by AlphaBrav ( 8012 ) on Wednesday November 28, 2001 @12:14AM (#2623311) Homepage
    this?
    They saw sodium in the atmosphere, but actually a bit less than expected for a Jupiter-class planet, which might indicate high-altitude clouds above the alien planet that could have blocked some of the light.

    OK, if they are viewing the star's light through the atmosphere, and using the differrence to detect the composition of the atmosphere, then it's absorption. And anything that would "block" wavelengths, means the absorption would increase, and provide a reading showing that it would have more sodium, not less. Am I wrong? Maybe I am wrong, but the more I think about it, the more I feel the statement above just doesn't add up. Seems this reporter may be the typical reporter reporting on a subject she may not actually comprehend - and she's the one that's supposed to be informing us!
    • And anything that would "block" wavelengths, means the absorption would increase, and provide a reading showing that it would have more sodium, not less.

      That depends on what is absorbing. If the high-altitude clouds are similar to those on our sky, they cause absorption through scattering. This would mean the absorption is broad-band.

      The astronomers are probably comparing spectra taken during the planetary transit and before/after that to derive the planetary spectrum. High-altitude clouds would reduce the planetary spectrum, including any lines.

    • I am not an astronomer, but I do know Chem. If a star puts out light, it really encompasses all wavelengths. So if there is Na in the atmosphere, it will adsorb the light, but then emit it at a lower freq. Atoms do this in bands and have characteristic ones that identify them. Perhaps this was glossed over...
  • Just a couple months ago there I was watching the first episode of Enterprise and thinking how stupid it was for there to be a layer of sodium in the atmosphere.

    Of course, leave it to the Star Trek folks to get the distance all wrong.

    • Re:Sodium?!?!!! (Score:1, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      There is a layer of sodium in the earths atmosphere at an altitude of ~90km. This has been used to create artifical guide stars for adaptive optics systems.

      Adaptive optics systems compensate for distortion by the atmosphere increasing the resolution of ground based telescopes. To do this they need a bright point source (star) close to the object you are looking at to measure the distortions (the closer the better so that you are looking through the same bit of atmosphere). Using natural guide stars only a small fraction of the sky is close enough to a sufficiently bright star. Laser guide stars are not in regular use yet, but have been tested. A sodium laser is used to stimulate emission from a point in the sodium layer in the atmosphere creating an artificial guide star which is above the turbulent layers that cause distortion. This will allow astronomers to use adaptive optics for objects anywhere on the sky.

  • priorities? (Score:4, Funny)

    by belterone ( 176605 ) on Wednesday November 28, 2001 @12:40AM (#2623372) Homepage
    That makes them far too hot for life as we know it. Not only would any hypothetical human traveler to this planet die but the planet's intense heat would quickly melt any coins in the person's pockets, the scientists said. Yeah, that's what I worry about when I'm somewhere where (1) I can't breathe and (2) has winds that can rip me to shreds in seconds and (3) has no solid surface for 100's of miles beneath me... Gaah! My quarters!

  • Telescopes and spaceships (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Sarcasmooo! ( 267601 ) on Wednesday November 28, 2001 @12:45AM (#2623389)
    It's depressing to think that we can see so far, and will be seeing even further soon enough, while travel is still such an impossible thought. I'm no expert, but I'm sure someone here can tell you that it'd take a group of human explorers 50 generations on a spaceship to reach some of the places we can see. Point being, is the future a place where all sorts of alien worlds (including ours) will be staring at eachother through a telescope with no way of meeting?

    Maybe that's for the best though, cause it'd give us a chance to maybe get to know eachother and avoid the possible interplanetary war that might result if we were to just plop down onto someone else's homeworld. Why am I speculating about this as if it were even remotely possible yet? Good question, me. I think I should stop typing now.

  • Good thing! (Score:1, Flamebait)

    by Renraku ( 518261 )
    Its a good thing that alien atmosphere can't be slashdotted!

  • More info (Score:3, Informative)

    by anzha ( 138288 ) on Wednesday November 28, 2001 @02:01AM (#2623526) Homepage Journal

    How amusing. I submitted this earlier and got it rejected. oh well.

    This link [spaceref.com] I was using has a nice story attached. Also for more general info about extra solar planets try Jean Schneider's here [obspm.fr] or its mirror here [harvard.edu].

    I'm getting funky time outs all over the place, so its hard to tell whether or not things are up. Unless you guys have gotten so good at slashdotting a site that you do it BEFORE a site has been posted. ;)

  • Transplantable life (Score:3, Interesting)

    by stonecoldt ( 525628 ) on Wednesday November 28, 2001 @02:08AM (#2623543)
    Did anyone see the great BBC documentary on exploring/colonizing Mars that was shown over the weekend? Not only was it great to see some nerd candy on TV, but they raised a couple of good points that I think may be relevant to the current discussion.

    The BBC program said that when we finally do colonize mars, we'll probably bring a couple of species with us - mainly some *very* strong strains of plants (wheat i think) that can thrive in the martian soil (when enclosed in a greenhouse of course). And bees - yep, bees, because they're tough, easy to keep, make honey, and can pollinate plants. (I thought it was interesting that they had already scoured the earth for some organisms that they thought could do well there.)

    And also, the documentary said that the answer to the question of whether there is life on Mars may not be known for a long long time because on this planet, life hides in corners of the Earth that you'd never expect, like the antarctic, or inside a bubbling geyser. You'd basically have to dissect all of Mars to be sure it's lifeless.

    So after watching the documentary and then reading this article, I think it's clear that despite this planet's radically different atmosphere, not only *could* life exist there, but that some species from our world and their world may be more transplantable than you'd think.

  • er (Score:2, Funny)

    by Scoria ( 264473 )
    X10.com popunder ads also included free of charge

    That's the first message we've transmitted to them?! Now we look like a bunch of cheap, evil, manipulative bas... err.. yeah. Nice discovery.

  • A few things... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by joh3n ( 201817 ) on Wednesday November 28, 2001 @03:12AM (#2623671)
    1) The sodium bit: It's not that the planet's atmosphere is mostly sodium, it's just that sodium is rather easy to detect as compared to other elements (we use it to identify stars all the time). Also, given the spectral coverage of STIS (the spectrograph used to make the measurement), Na was probably the only strong line they could go for in one setting.

    2) Why this is a big deal: Yes, we know there are gas giants elsewhere, but that's not the point. It's more of a proof of concept that we can measure the properties of an atmosphere of a planet outside the solar system. Plop a more sensitive instrument up there and you can go for smaller planets....and hopefully find signatures of methane and oxygen...boo-yah.

    3) The unexpected bit (from the astronomers point of view) Hubble found it. Hubble's great and all, but spectra is not it's bread and butter. Most of us in the astro community were betting on Keck to find this first since a 10 meter on the ground with larger spectral coverage kicks the crap out of a 2.5 meter (Hubble)
  • Not only would any
    hypothetical human traveler to this planet die but the planet's intense heat
    would quickly melt any coins in the person's pockets, the scientists said.

    Call me crazy, but I think the point could have been made with a better example. Simply saying 'pocket change would instantly melt' or something similiar would have made much more sense. As it is, it sounds like the first explorers to land on the planet are supposed to be people that look like they were just pulled off the street. Seriously, who's going to land on a new planet wearing something that even HAS pockets, and even carrying change in those pockets.

    • hey, you might get thirsty on a super heated planet and need to buy a drink
      • Man. It would really suck if they wanted exact change, and you'd search your flaming, disintegrating pockets for that melted dime in the hope that they'd still take it, but just then you got ripped to shreds by the wind and gravity while simultaneously exploding into tiny burning pieces from all the sodium, and you never got your drink.

  • Nice to see (Score:4, Funny)

    by Lord Bitman ( 95493 ) on Wednesday November 28, 2001 @05:07AM (#2623877)
    Nice to see that "Hubbled" is a verb now. We need more verbs.

  • More info... (Score:3, Informative)

    by csmiller ( 315238 ) on Wednesday November 28, 2001 @07:10AM (#2624055) Homepage
    Sites in Europe [obspm.fr] or USA [harvard.edu], both have a French language version. They have a 26page PDF detailing it.

  • no earth-like planets yet (Score:3, Informative)

    by peter303 ( 12292 ) on Wednesday November 28, 2001 @11:24AM (#2624888)
    Not because they aren't there, but because they are very hard to detect with current technology (doppler shifts, light curves). The easy planets to find are very large (big doppler shifts) and fast- orbits of months or less.
  • no joke.

    I'll never forget 10th grade chemistry class when the teacher put the Na (metal) in the H2O beaker...not sure if it was his first time or not but the reaction was intense.

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