Europe's Cheops Telescope Will Profile Distant Planets (bbc.com) 37
Europe is launching a space telescope on Tuesday to further study distant planets that have already been discovered. The BBC reports: The telescope will ride to orbit on a Russian Soyuz rocket from French Guiana. Lift-off is scheduled for 05:54 local time (08:54 GMT). Cheops (short for Characterizing ExOPlanet Satellite) is a joint endeavor of 11 member states of the European Space Agency (ESA), with Switzerland in the lead.
The University of Bern, together with the University of Geneva, has provided a powerful photometer for the telescope. The instrument will measure the tiny changes in light when a world passes in front of its host star. This event, referred to as a transit, will betray a precise diameter for the planet because the changes in light are proportional to the surface of the world. When that information is combined with data about the mass of the object - obtained through other means - it will be possible for scientists to deduce a density. [...] The mission has been given a list of 400-500 targets to look at over the next 3.5 years. Most of these worlds will be in the size range between Earth and Neptune, sometimes called "super Earths." From all the exoplanet surveys conducted to date, this grouping would seem to dominate the statistics.
The University of Bern, together with the University of Geneva, has provided a powerful photometer for the telescope. The instrument will measure the tiny changes in light when a world passes in front of its host star. This event, referred to as a transit, will betray a precise diameter for the planet because the changes in light are proportional to the surface of the world. When that information is combined with data about the mass of the object - obtained through other means - it will be possible for scientists to deduce a density. [...] The mission has been given a list of 400-500 targets to look at over the next 3.5 years. Most of these worlds will be in the size range between Earth and Neptune, sometimes called "super Earths." From all the exoplanet surveys conducted to date, this grouping would seem to dominate the statistics.
Re: Ummm......l (Score:5, Funny)
Yep. And if you are standing next to someone youâ(TM)re not seeing that person but a slightly delayed version of that person. Oftentimes the communication seems to be light years apart though.
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Yep. And if you are standing next to someone youâ(TM)re not seeing that person but a slightly delayed version of that person. Oftentimes the communication seems to be light years apart though.
Well that explains Trump rallies.
Launch called off (Score:2)
In all the flurry of off-topic posting, nobody seems to have bothered to post a note stating that the launch (you know, the satellite launch we're talking about?) was called off.
https://www.cnn.com/2019/12/17/world/europe-cheops-telescope-launch-delay-scn/index.html
"During final countdown operations, the Soyuz launcher's automated sequence was interrupted at 1 hour 25 minutes before liftoff, Arianespace, the satellite company operating the launch, said in a statement. The new launch date will be announce
Re:Ummm......l (Score:4, Insightful)
You're *NOT* seeing that "planet" as it is *NOW* but as it was 100 years ago.
If we assume that humans aren't living on that planet it's quite likely to still be the same in 100 years time, rather than stripped of its resources, wildlife, and 3C hotter.
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Planets tend to change very, very slowly, their development happening in timespans that are measured in millions of years.
Unless of course there's allegedly intelligent life on it, then it can change much more rapidly, but unless they're even stupider than us, what we can see from here won't change that much. Just because they fuck up the ecosystem doesn't mean they change its density or mass.
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A Dyson sphere is impossible. Even if you had the mass of the sun available (read: about 100 times of the planetary mass of our system) you could not even remotely build a Dyson sphere around it. It becomes very obvious when you do the math.
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Unless of course there's allegedly intelligent life on it, then it can change much more rapidly, ... Just because they f*** up the ecosystem ...
Different parts of the ecosystem are ALWAYS f***ing each other up. That's how they work Intelligent life is just a lot better at it.
Fortunately, it is also able to figure that out and be careful about it, doing it in a way that improves things even more for itself - and by extension for other pieces of it that are important to it.
It can even do it without fighting
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Not true. There is no *now* as you think of it. It would take light 100 years to reach the planet so *now* IS 100 years ago.
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You have it all wrong. You're looking at now. Everything that happens now is happening now [youtube.com].
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This is actually true. Not sure why you got down voted.
Probably by a pedantic Special Relativityist.
At 100 lightyears apart (as viewed from here), "now" depends on the velocity and position of the observer and the two planets. An event that we're just observing "now" would be "just moments ago" to an observer traveling at near lightspeed in the same direction as the light. (He's also see the planets as being very close together, too.
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Because what he said was stupid. By his standards, everything we know about the universe is always "completely out of date" because the speed of light is limited. In reality, it is not at all relevant whether we're looking at an exoplanet as it existed a hundred years ago, or ten, or a thousand. It has no effect on our observations or scientific interest. We get the information we get, when we get it. And in any case, it's very difficult to imagine a scenario where a planet's size would dramatically change
Same as the Kepler mission (Score:2)
(It's not a repeat of these missions, since it will be making transit measurements of different stars, but it is using the identical technique to do so).
Re: Same as the Kepler mission (Score:1)
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Until (if ever?) we have something faster-than-light, we can only see the past. That's just the way the universe works!
Incidentally, I remember reading that when "the point of view" of light is considered, no time would have passed between the departure of light and its observation. I don't know whether that's a valid view.
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If they can see that much detail from a cheap one, why not pay for a decent telescope?
You answered your own question. Because it would cost more.
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If they can see that much detail from a cheap one, why not pay for a decent telescope?
You answered your own question. Because it would cost more.
Whoosh. AC was referring to a Cheops telescope. As opposed to a Kostafukton telescope.
Yeah, they're both lame.
The P.C. have pulled this since the mid '50s (Score:2)
If so, just stop. American is the accepted demonym for citizens of the USA.
Indeed. The populations of the rest of the countries of North, South, and Central America also call the people of the U.S. "Americans" (when they aren't calling them something else, of course.).
The P.C. have pulled this since at least the mid '50s, back when they were suckering the elementary school kids into using their Halloween trick-or-treating to collect money for the U.N.
I recall feeling bad for the "other ignored and offended
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The P.C. have pulled this since at least the mid '50s, back when they were suckering the elementary school kids into using their Halloween trick-or-treating to collect money for the U.N.
No, the trick-or-treaters were not collecting money for the UN. They were collecting for UNICEF, [unicefusa.org] a UN agency that provide humanitarian and developmental aid to children around the world. The money went to a highly-respected charity, not the administrative coffers of the UN.
Re: The P.C. have pulled this since the mid '50s (Score:1)
Precise diameter for the planet (Score:2)
There they go, assuming that these planets are round.
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Nah, they're still flat but we're seeing them all face-on. Epicycles? What epicycles?
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The crux of interstellar travel (Score:2)
If you divide all distances by 200 billion,
Our sun would be the size of a pea.
The nearest star would be another pea 125 miles away.
The earth would be the size of a grain of cinnamon, 2 feet from the pea
ten people laying end to end would be the size of an atom.
So we are talking about a few sentient atoms living on a cinnamon grain mining that grain for material and energy, and hurling themselves 125 miles to vicinity of the other pea, to land on the other cinnamon grain.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]