Hubble Discovers a Hundred New Planets 395
Spudley writes "The BBC is reporting that the Hubble Telescope has discovered over a hundred new exoplanets - a number which almost doubles the total known. Apparently they are also expecting to be able to analyse the atmospheres of up to 20% of them. The discovery will be confirmed within the next seven days."
yay more Planets (Score:5, Funny)
Re:yay more Planets (Score:2, Funny)
Re:yay more Planets (Score:3, Funny)
The Bush administration looks silly by the end of the movie...
Re:yay more Planets (Score:3, Funny)
Re:yay more Planets (Score:3, Insightful)
BTM
Re:yay more Planets (Score:5, Insightful)
You certainly can argue that planet searches are less significant than the origin problem for the whole universe, but then, what isn't? NASA being reluctant to break promises to researchers or go to further extremes in favoring one type of research over all others is a sign they are considering their mandate to serve the public properly. I don't want my state university to stop awarding PhD's in astronomy to anyone who isn't working on cosmology related projects, I dont want other tools, like the Keck scopes on Mauna Loa, to be scrambling to fit in a load of projects, all considered NASA rejects, and so I don't want NASA thinking like the only astronomy worth doing is cosmology.
It'll be interesting... (Score:2, Interesting)
There's an equation . . . (Score:3, Interesting)
Found It!! (Score:5, Informative)
So how many of those 200-odd planets that we know of are capable of supporting carbon-based life? You crunch the numbers . . .
Re:Found It!! (Score:5, Informative)
Although it's certainly an interesting equation to think about, its main problem is that we don't really know what most of the factors are. You can support guesses that result in anything from hundreds of thousands of civilizations in the galaxy, down to it being suprising that there's even one.
Rather than predicting the number of these planets that have life, the observations are more likely to help us get a better idea of what some of those factors are. Actually, though I didn't RTFA, my understanding is that most or all of the planets they discover are gas giants, often bigger than Jupiter. So, it's unlikely that any of them have life on them -- at least, life as we expect to find it. However, it will give us a better idea of how many stars have planetary systems, and studying their atmospheres might give us some clues as to whether the system would contain planets suitable for life.
Re:Found It!! (Score:3, Informative)
Also, life-supporting planets is only one factor of many in the Drake equation. Others are _much_ more contentious, like proportion on which life arises, and proportion of life bearing planets that give rise to civilization. Disagreements on those two tend can be in large orders of magnitude.
Re:It'll be interesting... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:It'll be interesting... (Score:5, Funny)
No signs of intelligent life, then?
Too bad... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Too bad... (Score:5, Informative)
But it's not too bad since there will only be a 4 year gab (or so) between both satelites.
Re:Too bad... (Score:5, Informative)
However, the new telescope won't see in the visible spectrum like Hubble does.
This makes the new telescope less interesting to me.
Re:Too bad... (Score:2)
Don't worry you'll get your pretty pictures (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Too bad... (Score:3, Informative)
As for UV or IR a lot of that gets blocked by the atmosphere, space telescope is the best option.
As for most of the pretty pics you see they are enhanced and shifted so you can see it.
Re:Too bad... (Score:2)
Does this mean salvage rights are available?
Re:Too bad... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Too bad... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Too bad... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Too bad... (Score:4, Informative)
A minor correction: VLT and adaptive optic systems allow ground-based systems to do better than Hubble in the visible portion of the spectrum. For IR and UV stuff that never makes it thru the atmosphere, a space-based telescope is the only option.
Re:Too bad... (Score:3)
Re:Too bad... (Score:3, Informative)
The recent Hubble Ultra Deep Field images--which were very popular with the public--were generated using the ACS (Advanced Camera for Surveys) and NICMOS (Near Infrared Camera and Multi-object Spectrometer). As the name implies, NICMOS is an infrared camera. ACS
Re:Too bad... (Score:5, Informative)
Second, the new JWST will only work in the near infra-red. That is fantastic for cosmology, star formation and certain other sciences, but will not help with the optical and near-UV science that HST can provide.
And finally, while adaptive optics at most new ground based telescopes are doing great things, there are still _severe_ limitations to their use: only small fields of view are available and bright stars need to be nearby in the sky (this greatly limits the fraction of the sky that can be viewed by these systems). Note: yes, sodium laser-based AO systems can fix some of these problems, but the lasers are currently highly problematic and the systems have very low observing efficiency (i.e. useful scientific data per unit of telescope time).
So bottom line is that HST will be sorely missed by astronomers/astrophysicists. And yes, as a professional astronomer, I will be one of those missing it (even though most of my work is in the radio).
Re:Too bad... (Score:3, Insightful)
Tell you what. When JWST sees first light, I'll be first in line to press the "deorbit" button on Hubble.
Until then, remember that you're not just dealing with an engineering problem (namely, a successful launch and deployment - which isn't rocket sci- oh, wait...), but you're also dealing with a political problem, na
More like... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:More like... (Score:2)
Space isn't empty. (Score:2)
And we are retiring this why? (Score:5, Insightful)
What a shame that the only thing that has frequently motivated us to look to the skies and spend the money to get there is fear and politics.
RMW
Re:And we are retiring this why? (Score:5, Informative)
Hubble is still profoundly useful, and even its proposed successor, the James Webb Space Telescope, cannot probe the same regions as HST. The reason has to do with the filters hooked up to it. James Webb is designed to view the highest redshift objects, so its filters are very red. The "bluest" light it can observe is about 600 nm, which appears yellowish-orange to our eyes, up to about 2000 nm, far into the infrared. HST can observe wavelengths between ~200 nm (ultraviolet) and ~850 nm (near infrared). I don't know why people keep spouting off that the James Webb is a superior replacement to HST, because it probes an entirely different type of light.
It's also worth noting that all of these extra-solar planets are gas giants, comparable to Jupiter-sized objects. The reason people are interested as far as life goes is not that they expect to find life on these planets, but that these planets may be indicators of other, Earth-type planets, in the same solar system.
This is good (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:This is good (Score:2)
Non-sequitur.
More about what? More about astronomy - sure. But more about colonizing space and exploiting space resources? No. Why does it need to be either/or?
Re:This is good (Score:5, Interesting)
I hate to say it, but ...Hubble is just a telescope. There... I said it. It's only real advantages over ground based telescopes are its position above the atmosphere, and greater sky viewing range.
A base on the moon would have HUGE advantages over Hubble. With no atmosphere, and better accessability [slashdot.org] for repairs and upgrades, a moon based telescope would be a far greater asset then Hubble. I'm also sure there are many other research possiblites a new environment like this will provide.
Wow. (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Wow. (Score:4, Interesting)
Hubble should be replaced at some point. My only question (as asked previously here on
Re:Wow. (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Wow. (Score:3, Informative)
The observation wasn't done directly, ie Hubble didn't see bodies orbiting stars. Hubble can see pretty well, but it can't see that well.
How the observation is done is by analyzing minute Doppler variation patterns in the spectral signature of the stars, filtered through an iodine spectral mask.
As the spectral signature of the star drifts from left to right you can determine how many bodies are orbiting, and the approximate masses of those bodies. When you get an occultation (planet passing in front o
Re:Wow. (Score:5, Informative)
They have considered it, thanks. Also scopes on the Antartic high ice cap, and earth-trailing, and at 5 AU, and at L2.
Why is there always an assumption that the folks at NASA are idiots? Or is that just the usual
It's incredibly expensive to softland devices on the moon, compared to orbiting them in space. There's no solar power for two weeks at a time, so you'd have to use nuclear, which limits the amount of power you can get (and nuclear power generators are heavy, so you can't just launch more). Assuming it's a visible wavelength telescope (IR just seems impossible with the temp variations), when you're in the shade, you have to keep things warmed up to room temp, and when you're in the sun, you have to shield them from the sun without blocking your aperture. Being on the moon severely limits pointing capabilities - you have to point where ever the moon is pointing (L2 satellites have to point anti-sun but that's less restrictive). In fact, when the sun is shining down your aperture, can you observe at all? There's no soft lander infrastructure in place (you can't call up Boeing and order a Delta IV with the moon soft landing option), so you'd have to develop that also. It would include landing a multi-ton very precise, irreplaceable mirror and deploying in a gravity field. Just seems like a design, cost, and risk nightmare. All this is robotic of course, unless you also want to pay for the infrastructure to put humans up there. Which would cost about the same as 5 or 10 Hubble equivalents. That would make the telescope the flea on the elephant's back and the first thing to be cut when the inevitable overruns happened.
Now where are the advantages? Or did you just say that because you think there are some but you really haven't thought about what they are, but hey, Hubble on the moon! That sounds cool! Right up there with "move the Hubble to the ISS" in terms of bad choices.
Overachiever (Score:5, Funny)
MUST SHUT DOWN HUBBLE! (Score:4, Funny)
Are they still planning on scrapping this thing? That would be sad.
Re:MUST SHUT DOWN HUBBLE! (Score:5, Informative)
Hopefully the upgrades will be good enough to complement the James Webb Space Telescope [nasa.gov] scheduled to launch in 2011. I can't wait to see if they redo "deep field" picture with this, it would be truely stunning.
SETI (Score:3, Interesting)
Okay then... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Okay then... (Score:2)
0/2 = 0. You may rest easy: our planetary prestige is undamaged!
Re:Okay then... (Score:3, Interesting)
Like some people would say it increases the importance of earth, as everything else was obviously created as scenery just for us.
Others would say that until life is discovered on another planet, we can be as egotistical as we want about our presence. We can speculate all we want, but the fact is that there aren't any signs of life that we've encountered, and that makes us quite unique. On the other hand, others would look at that and say that it's because life only
Re:Okay then... (Score:5, Insightful)
Secondly, seeing as how the ping time between solar systems is in the order of thousands of years, there will never be any meanfull interaction or exchange between planets. I mean we can watch them and they can watch us, but since it will be centuries before a response comes back, there is no real chance for real communications. Transportation is even worse. If you really wanted to, you could travel across the universe and end up in a place completely different than it was when you left, and every one you left has been dead for centuries. So it would be the most awesome retirement ever, but you can throw out any concept of trade or diplomicy between planets.
It's one of those cruel ironies, that after years of dreaming about space creatures, we found out nearly simultaneously that statistically they are certain to exist, and physically they are certain to never play any role in our lives.
Unless we find some big loophole that allows us to get around relativity, the earth really is an island to itself, and while it may be one of millions, it is the only one that will ever have any significance whatsoever to us. That makes it pretty darn important in my eyes.
-jackson (don't have my password to 'pavon' at the moment)
Re:Okay then... (Score:3, Insightful)
whenever I read something like this, I think of what somone living a couple of millenia ago would have thought of the Earth with its unreachable distant lands and mysterious and endless oceans. They would have thought that their villag
Here there be Dragons (Score:3, Insightful)
Unless we find some big loophole that allows us to get around relativity, the earth really is an island to itself, and while it may be one of millions, it is the only one that will ever have any significance whatsoever to us.
Of course, six hundred years ago everyone was convinced that the earth was flat, and that if you sailed too far you'd fall off the edge.
I'll grant that science plays a significantly bigger role these days than it did back then, and that we know a bit more now about how much we don'
Re:Okay then... (Score:4, Insightful)
Heck - they may have spent a thousand years of a large governmental program sending "signals to aliens", just to give up. And that was 600 million years ago.
Re:Okay then... (Score:3)
Image of Earth captured by Voyager 1 [nasa.gov]
We succeeded in taking that picture [from deep space], and, if you look at it, you see a dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever lived, lived out their lives. The aggregate of all our joys and sufferings, thousands of confident religions, ideologies and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilizations, every kin
so wait... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:so wait... (Score:2)
And those others that were recently discovered, there isn't enough data to say how they will behave (if they will scape to outter space or whatever)
Re:so wait... (Score:2)
Atmosphere? (Score:2)
Re:Atmosphere? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Atmosphere? (Score:5, Informative)
But once you've found a planet that big, you can look even more closely and see what color changes you observe during the dim period. You can chalk that up to wavelengths of light absorbed by the planet's atmosphere, which you can use to hazard a guess as to what the planet's made of.
In all likelihood it's pretty much the same as Jupiter, which is to say pretty much like the sun itself: mostly hydrogen and some helium. But you might be able to detect faint signals of nitrogen, oxygen, maybe some carbon, and perhaps a bit of ammonia. The ratios of hydrogen to helium will suggest a lot about the way the planet was formed.
Re:Atmosphere? (Score:2)
If your imaging is refined enough, and you know specific wavelengths of light that are lost in the dimming, you can conclude the atmosphere of the thing which absorbed some of the light.
Maybe dimming was just a primary detection (Score:2)
Re:Atmosphere? (Score:2)
Re:Atmosphere? (Score:2)
How do they analyze the atmospheres of... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:How do they analyze the atmospheres of... (Score:3, Informative)
I wonder... (Score:2)
This doesn't surprise me (Score:4, Interesting)
If you've ever read anything about star formation the co-effect of planet formation seems a no-brainer. Just eddies in an accretion disk. It would seem more unlikely to me that an accretion disk would perfectly aggregate into a lone star. In fact, you can apply this to other things, such as ring formation, and more sporadically I would imagine, life. The universe is a BIG place.
Re:This doesn't surprise me (Score:3, Funny)
Let it die (Score:5, Funny)
Sorry now (Score:5, Funny)
Wonderous (Score:5, Interesting)
This is even beyond Carl Sagan's reasoning of the likleyhood of the existence of life in the Universe. It is hard to imagine the possible abundance of extra terra life, but this theory is reasonable, and this discovery is one step closer to proving it.
I just wish I could be around to witness the presentation of absolute proof that life exists elsewhere in the Universe.
Re:Wonderous (Score:3, Interesting)
Zips up space suit (Score:2)
I have always loved space and the notion of other planets and potentially with life. I hope we find one that does have an atmosphere that can support life.
Even if we do not make it in my lifetime, to know it is there, waiting, is an amazing thing indead.
I am feeling inspired right now - I am glad I read that article
*May* have discovered; confirmation in Autumn (Score:3, Interesting)
The BBC article also notes that confirmation may not come "until Fall", not in 'seven days' as you have.
This smells more like a press release than meaningful, peer-reviewed astronomy to me. I suspect it's a piece of "hey, let's keep Hubble" propaganda.
Submitter misread article (Score:5, Informative)
This is incorrect, probably based on a misreading of this quote: "If this is confirmed, in seven days we will have doubled the number of planets known in nine years."
The article states that Kailash Sahu, the astronomer who made the discovery, did so during an observation period of seven days. According to the director of the Space Telescope Science Institute, they don't expect final results until September or October.
"Hubble Discovers a Hundred New Patents" (Score:5, Funny)
Sunspots? (Score:4, Insightful)
Some of the stars observed were seen to dim slightly in brightness. It is thought that a planet passing in front of the star is responsible for the dip in its light output.
Couldn't this "dip" be caused by sunspots?
Planets passing in front of stars? (Score:3, Interesting)
Think about it. Just between the Earth and the Sun, Venus only passes between our line of sight with the sun twice every hundred years (isn't that the correct figure)? I mean, it passes by in inner orbit, but it only actually eclipses the sun twice in that period. The rest of the time, it's either above or below the sun.
Now, with Venus, we're in fairly similar planes of orbit. But with other stars, the odds of the plane being in our line of sight AND a planet happening to pass right between us and the star while they're looking, the odds of that have to be pretty damn low.
I mean, I'm sure they realize this, but I'd have to think they had to look at tens of thousands of stars to catch 100 planets passing by, at least. Am I missing something?
Re:Planets passing in front of stars? (Score:3, Insightful)
Luckily, I don't think the astronomers are looking one star at a time for only an instant - it's probably a computer comparing a helluvalot of observations of a large area and looking for variations in the illumination of any stars in that area. You're still limited by the plane of the system, but in terms of transit, you're limited only to planets with an orbital period less than or equal to
Re:Planets passing in front of stars? (Score:3, Informative)
Probably not, the planet only has to pass in front of the star's corona for us to notice, and a lot of these might be hot giants (orbiting very close to the star) - which I'm leery to count as a real discovery.
In addition, a greater majority of planetary orbits will be laying on the galactic plane. Our system isn't, which means that we
Uh, no. (Score:5, Informative)
For those who follow this field, I'll remind you of the OGLE project, which has been doing the same thing from the ground. They found 60 likely planetary candidates (out of a similar number of stars monitored), but only two of those actually look like they could be planets. All the rest are either grazing-incidence binaries or blended binaries. The higher resolution of Hubble may help the blend problem to an extent, but I highly doubt the number of actual planets is anywhere near 100.
They also have little chance of confirming whether these are actually planets, as you need to do extremely high-resolution spectroscopy in order to confirm its existence via the radial velocity method. Even Keck can only do that for stars down to ~16th magnitude, and according to the observing proposal [stsci.edu], this survey is going down to 23rd. They might be able to get precise-enough light curves to reject false positives based on color-curve changes, but I'd like to see it before I believe it.
Original Hubble Proposal for this project (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.stsci.edu/observing/phase2-public/9750
A big aspect of this proposal *not* mentioned in the BBC article is the importance of metallicity on star formation - in other words, what star environments (old vs. young) form more planets.
Fear, the Moon and Mars (Score:3, Insightful)
We have a viable space system gathering dust because of a paralyzing fear that something might go wrong on another shuttle mission. Do you think Russia, China, even India are holding their collective breaths waiting for us to make a decision on our space program?
The Apollo fire proved that from crippling failure success can be born. We picked ourselves up, analyzed what went wrong and forged ahead. The crew of Columbia were well aware of the risks of space flight and took those risks willingly.
We've mourned long enough, it's time to fix what's wrong and honor the memories of Columbia by renewing meaningful space science again without fear.
Re:The mighty galaxy (Score:2, Insightful)
I can see the new acronym now.. (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:I can see the new acronym now.. (Score:2)
Re:The mighty galaxy (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, getting kids interested in other planets so they study science is a worthless endevor.
Re:The mighty galaxy (Score:2)
I didn't say anything about the planets in our solar system. Just the ones so far away that we don't know anything about anyway. I still say there is no practical reason for this.
Re:The mighty galaxy (Score:5, Insightful)
If nobody had ever worked on areas that have no immediate practical purpose, we'd still be focused on optimizing the designs of pointed sticks and stone hammers.
Re:The mighty galaxy (Score:2)
I'm glad you weren't in charge back in the day!
"What? A new route to India? That's way on the other side of the world! We don't know anything about what's out there across the water! What could we possibly gain from this?"
"What? A manned trip to the moon? That's millions of miles away! We don't know what's out there in
Re:The mighty galaxy (Score:2)
Wait.. Doesn't 384,400 km == Millions of miles? Stupid metric system! =P
Re:The mighty galaxy (Score:3, Insightful)
Oh please there are much more important things for people in education to focus on then some planet hundreds of light years away. What practical reason would they have for teaching (what little they know) about the contants of a planet's atmosphere in another galaxy.
That was meant to be sarcastic, I hope. If we force education on our childrent to focus solely on the exactly what they need to know to be another cog in the machine, and not a thing more, we will be turning out a generation of proles. Thing
Re:The mighty galaxy (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:The mighty galaxy (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm glad there are still teachers with this attitude out there. Cries of "what practical use is that?" are disheartening. I don't know if it's just that I'm getting older and more cynical, but it seems to be more common. If there isn't an application for a discovery in the next quarter, no one's interested in it.
It's not just the things we may discover that we can't predict that are important, the process of discovery and learning is important. Without the process, we wouldn't have science as we know it. Just a bunch of people running around with alchemy sets and healing crystals.
We need to preserve and pass on the sense of awe and wonder that comes from pursuing knowledge for it's own sake. It teaches us to think, gives us perspective, and allows us to see humanity in a broader context than profits and dominance.
So, from someone who had too many teachers that answered that question with "It will be on the test", thank you.
Re:Class M (Score:5, Informative)
None. If you RTFA, you'll see that the method used is to measure a dimming of a star, which can (but doesn't have to) be from a planet passing in front of it. For this to be measurable over the natural fluctuations of a star, the planet will have to be a giant.
Of course, the precense of one or more giant planets in a system increases the chance of habitable planets, as the giants acts like vacuum cleaners, keeping the smaller ones relatively undisturbed.
Regards,
--
*Art
Re:Class M (Score:2)
Re:Class M (Score:2)
It would be interesting if, when we do find one, that habitable planets ended up being referred to like that.
Re:WHAT... (Score:3, Informative)
The up to date list (minus these recent 100) can be found at exoplanets.org [exoplanets.org]
Re:WHAT... (Score:3, Informative)
The first exoplanets were discovered by Alexander Wolszczan in 1991, around PSR B1257+12.
They're pulsar planets, yes, but they're planets. Give the guy credit.
Story here [psu.edu]. Curious that the first discovered planets were Earth-sized. Also the planetary system is very much like Earth's. Dead, yes, but still encouraging.
Re:The Main Question is ... (Score:2)
They were initially on a peacefull mission to exapand our digital audio encoding software. it went all wrong, some would say horribly. The use of Analog playback devices were used to destroy them.