
New Telescope Hunts for Earth Sized Planets 104
TENxOXR writes "The French-led Corot mission has taken off from Kazakhstan on a quest to find planets outside our Solar System. The space telescope will monitor about 120,000 stars for tiny dips in brightness that result from planets passing across their faces. The multinational mission will also study the stars directly to uncover more about their interior behavior."
It's too easy (Score:2, Funny)
Re:It's too easy (Score:4, Funny)
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(gestures toward crotch for half a minute)
She thirteen.
The telescope is called...... (Score:2, Funny)
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Planets or Plants? (Score:2, Funny)
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Perhaps there was too much "egg nog" over the weekend.. *grin*
A time-saving tip (Score:4, Funny)
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And even if they were still defined as planets, I wouldn't be too interested in having them wasting efforts in finding those as they'll probably have trouble holding an atmosphere to harbor life anyway. And it's terrestrial planets I'm personally most interested in here. Actually, this kind of space science is what I find most interesting at the moment, given what we can do.
Re:A time-saving tip (Score:4, Interesting)
This kind of reasoning is ubiquitous, but it always bothers me. We only know of one kind of life (terrestrial life), but even that kind of life doesn't require a gaseous atmosphere. Only certain terrestrial species require an atmosphere. Even those species, such as mammals, reptiles, and birds, only require an atmosphere after birth, and get along just fine without it up until then. So on the one hand, assuming that all life is very similar to terrestrial life, I find nothing to suggest that an atmosphere is vital. But on the other hand, seeing that we only have knowledge of terrestrial life, extrapolating at all from that knowledge to the supposed "requirements for life" is not reasonable.
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Although, besides breathing purposes, our atmosphere also protects us from harmful radiation from the sun, as well as protecting the planet from impacts from most stellar objects.
Right, but what does that have to do with possible requirements for alien life? Certainly life as we know it, based on DNA/RNA, can not generally do well in an environment with excess radiation, but that does not mean that DNA is the only way to code life. Hell, a planet with a much higher concentration of lead, and lead on the surface, could result in creatures with an exoskeleton made of lead (or gold, for that matter).
All of the above scenarios make it possible for life forms to exist on the surface o
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Although without an atmosphere I'd be surprised if more than simple microbial lifeforms developed.
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No atmosphere == no liquid water.
In fact, no atmosphere == no liquid anything.
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That's a good point, but it only applies to surface liquids. Now, I suppose that if there is literally *no* atmosphere, then over time you will lose whatever gas/liquid resources you start with. But as a matter of organism survival, any solid planet with geological processes is going have plenty of opportunity for subterranean liquid and gas.
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Could silicon-based life inhabit the lithosphere of a planet? Maybe so. Could there be life deep inside stellar cores or gas giants? Why not? But we don
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This is the thinking that led James Lovelock [wikipedia.org] to formulate his Gaia Hypothesis [wikipedia.org]. His basic premise is that you can discover life on a planet without going t
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The swing over to oxygen breading bacteria is even a bit less understood part in science
since oxygen is naturaly highly oxidative and destroys (like burns) most things.
over time life had evolved and learned how to use it.
But it never started with oxygen life.
So for all those planets out there with no oxygen there is a chance there is life too.
Nice surprise! (Score:3, Interesting)
Btw, of those, NASA's Kepler telescope is the earliest from the space agency, scheduled for launch in October 2008.
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Russia is thriving... (Score:5, Interesting)
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That isn't in dispute. What I wanted to put across is the fact that when it comes to putting equipment into space, no body beats the Russians. In fact, the COROT has been put into space using RUSSIAN hardware.
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60's tech, experience, and low wages (Score:3, Insightful)
Sure, the Americans and Europeans have better technology but it isn't being used. The rockets that are flying are still 60's tech, mostly military derivations at at that. Maybe when SpaceShipThree and it's counterparts start getting into the game, it will be different. For now, no one does 60's space tech better than the Russians.
Re:60's tech, experience, and low wages (Score:5, Interesting)
Sure? So you think that the Americans and Europeans have better tech? I personally, I'm not sure. What I know is that we Americans kind-of blow our own trumpets, which is sad. The Russians on the other hand, just do their thing. Remember when they were the ONLY link to the ISS? They did not blow their trumpets one bit. If it were the Americans it would be a different story.
They still have the biggest and heaviest airplane ever developed - even bigger than the A380, and this was almost 2 decades ago! . No body mentions this! In fact, I thought the Europeans were gonna borrow the design of the A380 from them. Apparently we only seem to thrive at complexity.
Ahh, so what has our 21st century tech achieved? Nothing! It appears to be a beacon of corruption, nepotism and bigotry. You probably would not even appreciate the fact that the ISS would be a failure if the Russians were not involved.
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If Russian tech is so backward, why is it that when they make a sale to the so called rogue states, our state department screams! Here's why: We in most cases, have no answer to such equipment.
These very deadly weapons cannot have been created by a backward nation. They solely
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You do appear to be forgetting that the ISS would not have ever made it up there in the first place without the Americans. Just because the Americans are not perfect, that does not imply that others are better.
strike
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The rockets flying today are based on/derived from 60's military tech in roughly the same way that a 2006 Corvette is based on/derived from the Corvettes of the 1960's - I.E. only in the vaguest of ways.
Recent Russian launch failures (Score:1)
The facts don't support your assertion at all. Russia's has had many recent launch failures. Here is a short list.
US Atlas and
Re:Recent Russian launch failures (Score:5, Informative)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlas_(missile) [wikipedia.org]
Russian engines (Score:1)
The Atlas V does in the first stage. The 70 preceding Atlas II launches used Rocketdyne. Ofcourse Pratt and Whitney manufactures it in Palm Beach. The real business end of the launcher, the Centaur upper stage uses the Pratt and Whitney RL-10A. The Russian equivalent, the Proton Breeze M upper stage, has a wretched reliability record.
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Nor, except on cost, does Russia beat any other nation. Their LOV [loss of vehicle] rate hovers right around 1% - the same as the US and the EU.
No, there aren't really huge sums of money to be made - as the cu
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No, I think anyone with familiarity with the space programs of both the "west" and the Soviets...er....Russians would say that reliability is one of their strong points - once the technology has been established. For various reasons, the 'western' space agencies are always improving and tinkering, while the Russian space pr
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Altough it had more advanced rocket designs then NASA (turbo charged rockets).
These days there is not much left over from this kosmonaut space agencie
NASA has its money problems too that space shuttle costs just to much
It takes away lots of money from other science projects.
ESA is quite commercial has not realy a funding problem, they often launch small scale science missions. Overall ESA has launched lots of missions but its not publicing it that much as NASA d
Can we tell how much water is on these planets? (Score:5, Interesting)
So say we find Earth sized planets? What's the next step? See how warm they are? If they are a certain temperature (where water is a liquid, a small temperature range in the grand scheme of things) then look a little closer?
TLF
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Re:Can we tell how much water is on these planets? (Score:4, Interesting)
Here's the news of the first atmospheric measurement by Hubble in 2001, and then keep in mind it's not even specially equipped for these things like these "next gen missions": http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases
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Re:Can we tell how much water is on these planets? (Score:4, Informative)
The Terrestrial Planet Finder is far more interesting than putting human boots on mars or the moon, IMO. Cheaper too. Unfortunately NASA doesn't seem to be in much of a hurry to built it.
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Water doesn't seem to be that rare in our solar system. They're suggesting Mars has it but it's frozen. On closer planets it wou
No point in the search (Score:2, Redundant)
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If this is a troll, I bit, haul me in...
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even if... (Score:3, Insightful)
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who cares???
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Two words, plus slashdot (Score:4, Insightful)
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Days?
Are you sure? The closest star (except Sol) is Proxima Centauri, which is 4.2 light years away from here. This means that light itself takes 4.2 years to cross that distance. So, to get there you need at least 4.2 years at light speed. Slower is invariably going to take longer. Sure, 4.2 years is about 1500 days, so "in days" might be accurate to your definition.
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If we travelled close enough to the speed of light, to people on earth it would appear to take a time approaching 4.2 years. To the people in spaceship, it will take a time approaching zero time.
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0.9999c gives:
octave:3> 4*365*sqrt(1-0.9999^2)
ans = 20.647 [that's days]
octave:4> 4*365*sqrt(1-0.99999^2)
ans = 6.5293 [days again]
So 99.999% of the speed of light would get you there in 6.5 days. I'd call that "mere days".
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I have a question about that: In a vacuum it makes sense, but the speed of light is slower in other materials based on their refractive index. Then the time dilation must surely be less than 100%?
Can anyone enlighten me about this?
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The first is that the statement " the speed of light is slower in other materials based on their refractive index" is actually misleading. It's more that the light _always_ travels at speed c, but keeps getting absorbed and then re-emitted by atoms. This absorbed-delay-re-emit makes the _average_ speed below c. But at any particular time, the light is travelling at speed c, or is instead converted to kinetic energy in an atom. Thus you don't get any time dilation
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I know where one is (Score:1)
anthropomorphism at its best! (Score:1)
COROT telescope (Score:1)
Borat says... (Score:1)
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And I can't make a joke without being called names
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That guy also said, "Airplanes are interesting toys, but of no military value."
Don't forget this from the same month but different battle:
"I have only two men out of my company and 20 out of some other company. We need support, but it is almost suicide to try to get it here as we are swept by machine gun fire and a constant barrage is on us. I have no one on my left and only a few on my right. I will hold."
1stLt. Clift
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Spoken like a true Anonymous Coward. You make yourself irrelevant.
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We were in the area at the time... liberating your miserable ungreatful butts. Well at least you're spreading the good will by helping to liberate and Iraq. Oh, wait, you're not. You first argued for appeasing Saddam, and now that the Iraqis are going to hang Saddam, you're arguing for appeasing Al Qaeda. Al Qaeda, meanwhile, is not even ASKING for appeasement, like Hitler did
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Now I get it, that is why the US invaded Iraq.
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a.) It was a joke.
b.) Lots of stereotypical comments are made about Americans on a daily basis.
Either develop a sense of humor or practice what you preach.