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Space

Earth-Like Planets May Be Common Outside Our Solar System, Scientists Discover (vice.com) 52

Scientists have directly observed the rocky guts of exoplanets, which are worlds from different star systems, by watching the fallout of these objects crashing into the corpses of dead stars. From a report: This mind-boggling technique has revealed that exoplanets are similar in composition to planets in our own solar system, implying that worlds like Earth may be plentiful in our galaxy, according to a study published on Thursday in Science. "It's pretty cool because this is really the only way to measure the geochemistry of exoplanetary bodies directly," said lead author Alexandra Doyle, a graduate student of geochemistry and astrochemistry at UCLA, in a phone call. Co-author Edward Young, a professor of geochemistry and cosmochemistry at UCLA, added that the study represents "the first time such an advanced way of looking at the geochemistry of these bodies has been used," in the same call.

We are living through a golden age of exoplanet discoveries. Thousands of exoplanets have been detected, including an Earth-sized world orbiting the closest star to the Sun. But it is still extremely difficult to capture details about the interior composition and dynamics of these worlds. Unlike other planetary properties such as mass or atmospheric composition, a planet's geochemistry cannot be deduced just by looking at an object passing in front of its host star. White dwarfs, as it turns out, can help plug this information gap. These objects are the remains of stars that have blown up and collapsed into tiny, dense spheres about the size of Earth (our own Sun will embark on this transition in about five billion years). The pyrotechnic deaths of these stars scramble the orbits of many objects in our solar system, such as asteroids and planets. Some of these worlds may end up hurtling toward the star's posthumous white dwarf, which tears them apart over the course of about 100,000 to one million years.

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Earth-Like Planets May Be Common Outside Our Solar System, Scientists Discover

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  • by Sique ( 173459 ) on Thursday October 17, 2019 @04:38PM (#59320314) Homepage
    ... the planets in our Solar System which are Earth-like, e.g. Mercury, Venus, Earth itself and Mars, are quite different from each other. Just because the newly discovered exoplanets are Earth-like, doesn't mean that they are inhabitable for the likes of us. And if we discover more about those exoplanets, we will probably at first discover a hundreds more ways to be totally different from Earth.
    • by rossdee ( 243626 )

      Mercury is too small to be called Earth-like. Even if it was in the habitable zone it wouldn't have held an atmosphere. Mars didn't have an atmosphere for very long.

      We haven't found that many exoplanets in the right size range (bigger than Mars, but smaller than 2 x Earth) because they are a lot harder find than Gas Giants.
      It is likely that there are more Europa-like moons around some of those Gas Giants than there are suitable Earth-like planets within the habitable zone. Especially as dmaller stars habita

    • ... the planets in our Solar System which are Earth-like, e.g. Mercury, Venus, Earth itself and Mars, are quite different from each other. Just because the newly discovered exoplanets are Earth-like, doesn't mean that they are inhabitable for the likes of us. And if we discover more about those exoplanets, we will probably at first discover a hundreds more ways to be totally different from Earth.

      "Earth-like" is not "exactly like Earth."

    • by Tablizer ( 95088 )

      It's like pointing out most heavily burned supper tastes similar.

  • So all earth supremacists can shut up now!

    • by Tablizer ( 95088 )

      We have the Chosen Planet; all other planets are shit-holes full of 3rd-rate losers, believe me. I kinda like Mars because it's a beautiful orange, but it's a bit small. Size is for winners. We should build a Dyson Wall around Earth and make Jupiter pay for it so those scaly ugly Lizardians don't get in. Worst Aliens Ever, scored 3 zeros in the latest Orion poll. Really bad skin. Plus they keep trying to take the Tribbles on my head back home. My tribbles love me, everyone knows it, I never ever yell at the

  • What the Hell are we waiting for, let's get a probe out there! 5 million years later....
  • Please correct the article link. Currently goes to an article titled "NASA Scientists Created a Super-Hot Exoplanet Atmosphere on Earth".
  • There's only one "Earth-like" planet in our solar system - it's called EARTH.
  • If not, then drawing any conclusions from this highly speculative "news" may be premature ;-)
  • ... is the cold.
    .
    .
    Sorry, low hanging fruit.

  • C-3PO: Jabba has decreed that you are to be terminated immediately.

    Planet: Good. I hate long waits.

    C-3PO: You will therefore be hurtled toward the star's posthumous white dwarf.

    Planet: Doesn't sound so bad.

    C-3PO: In its orbit, you will find a new definition of pain and suffering, as you are slowly torn apart over the course of about 100,000 to one million years.

    Planet: On second thought, let's pass on that, huh?

    .
  • They didn't discover shit. They're CONJECTURING.

  • The Rare Earth Hypothesis [wikipedia.org]

    The Rare Earth hypothesis argues that the origin of life and the evolution of biological complexity such as sexually reproducing, multicellular organisms on Earth (and, subsequently, human intelligence) required an improbable combination of astrophysical and geological events and circumstances.

    The Rare Earth hypothesis is a possible explanation for the Fermi Paradox [wikipedia.org].

  • by kenwd0elq ( 985465 ) <kenwd0elq@engineer.com> on Thursday October 17, 2019 @08:48PM (#59320996)

    Back in the early days of theorizing about extraterrestrial life, the discussions about the Drake Equation covered all the various factors to consider in how likely extraterrestrial life might be. It was always assumed that planets were unlikely to exist.

    Now we know differently. The Kepler Space Telescope used an "occultation" method of discovering planets; we could see the tiny decrease in a star's light as a planet passed between the star and the Kepler. THINK about that for a moment. What other star systems might be able to discover Earth by that method? Look up into the sky, and follow the constellations of the zodiac, those constellations on the ecliptic. Now look for some stars that are EXACTLY on the ecliptic. Damned few - but those are the ONLY systems that might be able to detect the Earth's transit across the Sun from their perspective.

    Back to the Kepler; the planets that we've detected are the ones on THAT system's ecliptic! Given that star systems can form in ANY orientation, there should be very few systems where THAT system's ecliptic matches - exactly - the Earth. And how many planets has Kepler discovered?

    THOUSANDS. The only reasonable assumption is that almost EVERY star has planets, and maybe LOTS of them. How may stars in the Milky Way? Every time our telescopes get better, we discover even more stars. There are probably a trillion stars in the Milky Way, and on average, there's probably at least that many planets.

    Given that many planets, there's certainly a FEW similar to the Earth. There may even be some within 100 light years of Earth. But those systems ecliptics don't intersect the Earth, so Kepler doesn't see them.

    • by rootb ( 6288574 )
      Perhaps one in a billion stars doesn't have planets
    • To give this a little more context, from wikipedia:

      Of the approximately half-million stars in Kepler's field of view, around 150,000 stars were selected for observation. More than 90,000 are G-type stars on, or near, the main sequence. ... As of October 2017, Kepler has discovered 5,011 exoplanet candidates and 2,512 confirmed exoplanets

      I couldn't quickly find a count of how many systems those (potential) exoplanets are distributed across.

      But, yes, that's ~1% of observed stars found to have at least one

    • More proof that Toys For Bob are prophetic. If I recall correctly, there was a discovery of a diamond world several years ago.
  • I think this story is pointing to the wrong article; the correct one is apparently at https://www.vice.com/en_us/art... [vice.com].

    Should we assume that none of the previous commentors read the source article?

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