Astronomers Spot First Possible Exoplanet Outside Our Galaxy (theguardian.com) 28
A possible Saturn-sized planet identified in the distant Whirlpool Galaxy could be the first exoplanet to be detected outside the Milky Way. From a report: The exoplanet candidate appears to be orbiting an X-ray binary -- made up of a normal star and a collapsed star or black hole -- with its distance from this binary roughly equivalent to the distance of Uranus from the sun. The discovery opens up a new window to search for exoplanets -- planets orbiting stars beyond our Sun -- at greater distances than ever before. Although nearly 5,000 exoplanets have been detected so far, all of them are in the Milky Way galaxy -- with few further than about 3,000 light years from Earth.
An exoplanet in the spiral Messier 51 (M51) galaxy -- also called the Whirlpool Galaxy because of its distinctive shape -- would be about 28m light years away. Dr Rosanne Di Stefano of the Center for Astrophysics at Harvard and Smithsonian in Cambridge, US, who led the research, said: "Since the 1750s, it has been conjectured that the dim distant nebulas, now called galaxies, are island universes: large, gravitationally-bound stellar populations similar to our home, the Milky Way. Our discovery of the planet candidate ... gives us the first peek into external populations of planetary systems, extending the reach of planet searches to distances roughly 10,000 times more distant."
An exoplanet in the spiral Messier 51 (M51) galaxy -- also called the Whirlpool Galaxy because of its distinctive shape -- would be about 28m light years away. Dr Rosanne Di Stefano of the Center for Astrophysics at Harvard and Smithsonian in Cambridge, US, who led the research, said: "Since the 1750s, it has been conjectured that the dim distant nebulas, now called galaxies, are island universes: large, gravitationally-bound stellar populations similar to our home, the Milky Way. Our discovery of the planet candidate ... gives us the first peek into external populations of planetary systems, extending the reach of planet searches to distances roughly 10,000 times more distant."
And they don't know if it's really there (Score:3)
Because they only saw one orbit, they'll have to wait years until it transits again to see if it's real.
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But hopefully "they" saw as too? ;-)
10 million years later... (Score:2)
Further = better? (Score:3)
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Definitely great value to conform that planet creation is not specific to Milky Way. As a study object yea, that's harder by many orders of magnitude.
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For the purposes of sending a probe or ship there, a different star in this galaxy and another galaxy have no practical difference for the foreseeable future. For everything besides that, yes, it still has scientific value.
I dunno, propelling micro solar sail probes with a giant fk’n laser and rocketing them to the alpha Centauri system not under their own power seems like it’s doable. We’d need a bit better nuclear battery tech In each one, weight optimized and miniaturized for space. Better and bigger lasers preferably in space, but nothing revolutionary. You’d let them go a few weeks apart and could then relay signals back along the line with no slowing needed so they blow thru the system but ar
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That would allow you a shorter time-of-flight. But would require a MUCH shorter time of investigation.
The plans I've seen call for launching lasers (well, masers, but "Meh") in Solar space, but almost immediately (a few years) after leaving the Solar system, the "solar sails" are flipped to start decelerating under the influence of the light from Alpha Centauri A. Obviously, the decelerating force increases sharply as you appro
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That would allow you a shorter time-of-flight. But would require a MUCH shorter time of investigation.
Sure, but you have many probes so it’s not a problem. Yes, even lasers drop off with the square of distance so the propellant wouldn’t work the whole way and you would likely turn them around but at the same time the light wouldn’t likely be enough to slow them to stay in the system. Probably better to get results decades earlier and have reduced observation time per probe at least in my opinion.
beyond any credible nuclear battery I've heard of (name your isotopes ! ?)
RTG tech lasts for about 15 years already [energyeducation.ca]
and could easily be built to last hundreds if nee
Little green men do not need to send a probe (Score:2)
To get here they just need to send us a signal. Which contains the computer program that they are. We execute it and bingo they are here. Can travel very large distances, at the speed of light.
(There is a very short time frame between the development of radio and computers taking over, about two hundred years, nothing in 4 billion years. So any little green men are almost certainly computers.)
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Did you spend any time in the several years leading up to either the (134340) Pluto or (486958) Arrakoth fly-by missions, watching the way the mission controllers were having to use early approach imagery to revise the route and observation schedules? And that was with just a few light-hours delay on top of the decision time.
I'll be generous and
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Learn to thread messages. If your display of the page doesn't indicate threading properly, then try switching to the original interface, not whatever the new interface shows.
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There is a _profound_ distinction between a planet or star in this galaxy, and a star or planet in another galaxy or part of the way there. The nearest part of the Andromeda galaxy, our closest neighbor, is roughly 40 times the distance to the most distant part of the Milky Way. Probes are less likely to last 40 times as long.
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Our closed neighbours are the magellenic clouds. A mere 300,000 light years. And they are quite easy to see in a dark southern sky.
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That is a good point: It's still three or four times the range of the furthest stars in the Milky Way galaxy.
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For any practical terms, they are all useless.
The "occultation" method of detection is inherently little affected by distance - as long as you can get your star's image onto a small number of pixels of your detector, often enough so that you can develop a sufficiently long, detailed light curve (brightness versus time). That's going to get really challenging the further away the source is, but theoretically we might be able detect a planet i
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There ain't going to be any humans in 2300, let alone 3000. Didn't you get the memo about computers?
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More seriously, I doubt that "uploading" is going to affect the bottom 90% of the population (by various socio-economic measures). Personally, I'm perfectly happy being in the middle 50%.
orbiting an X-ray binary (Score:2)
Not very habitable then
The most important question (Score:1)
is whether the inhabitants of these distant worlds recognize all 57 genders, or are primitive backward people who only recognize 56.
Cool (Score:2)
I mean, if confirmed this is cool, but I have a strong feeling that the margin of error for detection at this range means that its unlikely that this is accurate.
How many of these "first possible exoplanets" have (Score:2)
If interested, RTFP, not journalistic recycling. (Score:2)
ABSTRACT
Many lines of reasoning suggest that external galaxies should host planetary systems but detecting them by methods typically used in our own Galaxy is not possible. An alternative approach is to study the temporal behavior of X-rays emitted by bright extragalactic X-r