Planet Hunters Report Record-Breaking Discovery, Search for other habitable planets

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Message 1460639 - Posted: 4 Jan 2014, 20:11:59 UTC - in response to Message 1460623.  

What do you all think is an essential parameter and it's range for intelligent life to form.


I have added the existence of volcanoes to the list of essential parameters. This is the source of Carbon Dioxide which is essential to get life going on land and sea.


Then I'm thinking of the theory of life originating from the collision of 2 celestial bodies...


Not necessarily. If we use the solar system as an example then volcanoes on rocky planets would be very common. Earth has volcanoes, as did Mars and Venus has an estimated 1500 active volcanoes and there is considerable evidence that Mercury had volcanoes in the distant past.

I'd be surprised to find rocky, roughly Earth sized planets that didn't have volcanoes at least somewhere in their history.



True, but it could be not every rocky planet has a liquid and spinning core I think.


Not all, but many probably do. Mercury and Mars both have magnetic fields (albeit weak fields) which would tend to indicate a liquid, spinning core at least sometime in the past. Though, at least in the case of Mars, it is believed that the planet has cooled to the point where the core is solid.

I would tend to think that rocky worlds roughly earth sized or larger would most likely have liquid cores unless they are very, very old and have had time to cool.
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Message 1461620 - Posted: 8 Jan 2014, 0:28:48 UTC - in response to Message 1460639.  

Earth-sized planets could support life at least 10 times further away from stars than thought, researchers have claimed.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-north-east-orkney-shetland-25639306
Further away planets 'can support life' say researchers
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Message 1505317 - Posted: 17 Apr 2014, 19:04:04 UTC - in response to Message 1394626.  

NASA Finds...

It's like finding a needle in a universe-wide haystack. Researchers have located a planet the size of Earth that could be habitable.

Designated Kepler-186f, the planet is 490 light-years away. But in the search for worlds similar to ours, nothing has come closer.

http://www.cnn.com/2014/04/17/tech/space-earth-size-planet/index.html?hpt=hp_t2
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Message 1505380 - Posted: 17 Apr 2014, 21:50:18 UTC - in response to Message 1505317.  
Last modified: 17 Apr 2014, 21:50:41 UTC

NASA Finds...

It's like finding a needle in a universe-wide haystack. Researchers have located a planet the size of Earth that could be habitable.

Designated Kepler-186f, the planet is 490 light-years away. But in the search for worlds similar to ours, nothing has come closer.

http://www.cnn.com/2014/04/17/tech/space-earth-size-planet/index.html?hpt=hp_t2


Ooh... this is a VERY interesting thread! Only just came across it! Thanks Lynn!

Have only just started looking through the previous posts and they are all really very good and extremely thought provoking! I may end up going over old ground whilst I catch up... I'll try not to, but if I do I hope people won't mind.

Twin planet potentially? (I'm a twin! It's a lot of fun!) Sorry - back to the topic...

The report says:
After spotting it, the institute wasted no time searching for emissions that could indicate the presence of ETs. So far, no emissions have been found.


Am I correct in assuming that the emissions would be things like methane, and/or pollutants similar to those we produce? And if so, which would be the biggest indicator that any suspected life was in fact intelligent (assuming SETI didn't get the opportunity to analyse data from the planetary region concerned)?
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Message 1505386 - Posted: 17 Apr 2014, 22:37:53 UTC - in response to Message 1505380.  

NASA Finds...

It's like finding a needle in a universe-wide haystack. Researchers have located a planet the size of Earth that could be habitable.

Designated Kepler-186f, the planet is 490 light-years away. But in the search for worlds similar to ours, nothing has come closer.

http://www.cnn.com/2014/04/17/tech/space-earth-size-planet/index.html?hpt=hp_t2


Ooh... this is a VERY interesting thread! Only just came across it! Thanks Lynn!

Have only just started looking through the previous posts and they are all really very good and extremely thought provoking! I may end up going over old ground whilst I catch up... I'll try not to, but if I do I hope people won't mind.

Twin planet potentially? (I'm a twin! It's a lot of fun!) Sorry - back to the topic...

The report says:
After spotting it, the institute wasted no time searching for emissions that could indicate the presence of ETs. So far, no emissions have been found.


Am I correct in assuming that the emissions would be things like methane, and/or pollutants similar to those we produce? And if so, which would be the biggest indicator that any suspected life was in fact intelligent (assuming SETI didn't get the opportunity to analyse data from the planetary region concerned)?



490 light-years away. I would not speculate what type of atmosphere, such a planet would have. If there is alien signal, SETI has not found one.
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Message 1505408 - Posted: 17 Apr 2014, 23:22:28 UTC

I still stand by my previous post. NASA can't even determine for sure whether or not Mars has or did have life and I think it is preposterous for them to speculate about a planet 490 LY. distant.
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Message 1505416 - Posted: 18 Apr 2014, 0:01:38 UTC - in response to Message 1505408.  

NASA can't even determine for sure whether or not Mars has or did have life

I believe a more correct statment would be that NASA has not yet been able to determine whether life was or is on Mars. The same logic applies to this project and most other science projects, good, definitive science often takes decades or more. I say be patient and keep looking.
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Message 1505462 - Posted: 18 Apr 2014, 6:03:09 UTC

good, definitive science often takes decades or more. I say be patient and keep looking


+1. We better look for them in a decent, correct manner rather than rushing things and not find anything at all.
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Message 1505479 - Posted: 18 Apr 2014, 6:44:15 UTC

Here from JPL:
New Earth
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Message 1505587 - Posted: 18 Apr 2014, 13:46:32 UTC - in response to Message 1505479.  
Last modified: 18 Apr 2014, 13:50:31 UTC

"It has many properties that resemble Earth."


I think that it maybe NASA has found one or two properties that mimic Earth. It is important to define and look for the other properties that are necessary for intelligent life to form. These may well number a dozen or more.

Hopefully in time we will be able to search for and verify more and more of these.

I wonder why we have not catalogued any planets in Alpha Centauri. At "just" 4 light years away it should be easier to get a close-up look. We all believe that most stars will have a collection of various planet types.
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Message 1505628 - Posted: 18 Apr 2014, 15:55:32 UTC

Actually an Earth-sized planet [/i]was discovered around Alpha Centauri. Unfortunately, it is too hot for life as we understand it. Other planets may exist around this star, that would be habitable. If there is one planet around a star there are frequently more, waiting to be discovered.
http://www.space.com/18089-earth-size-alien-planet-alpha-centauri.html
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Message 1507328 - Posted: 22 Apr 2014, 19:31:54 UTC - in response to Message 1505628.  

Actually an Earth-sized planet [/i]was discovered around Alpha Centauri. Unfortunately, it is too hot for life as we understand it. Other planets may exist around this star, that would be habitable. If there is one planet around a star there are frequently more, waiting to be discovered.
http://www.space.com/18089-earth-size-alien-planet-alpha-centauri.html



Alpha Centauri, the nearest by solar system... My uncle was just asking me, if we can't find any bacterial life on Mars, how we can find life so far away? Technology it is...but we can't overrule the laws of nature. I would say unfortunately but it's for the best imho
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Message 1507926 - Posted: 24 Apr 2014, 7:03:45 UTC

Solved: Mysteries of a nearby planetary system

Mysteries of one of the most fascinating nearby planetary systems now have been solved. A new study presents the first viable model for the planetary system orbiting one the first stars discovered to have planets - the star named 55 Cancri. Numerous studies since 2002 had failed to determine a plausible model for the masses and orbits of two giant planets located closer to 55 Cancri than Mercury is to our Sun. Astronomers had struggled to understand how these massive planets orbiting so close to their star could avoid a catastrophe such as one planet being flung into the star, or the two planets colliding with each other.


In order to perform the new analyses, Nelson and Ford collaborated with computer scientists to develop a tool for simulating planetary systems using graphics cards to accelerate the computations.


The 55 Cancri planetary system is just 39 light years away in the constellation Cancer. Because it is so close, by astronomical standards the system shines brightly when viewed from Earth, so astronomers have been able to directly measure the radius of its star -- an observation that is practical only for some of our closest stellar neighbours. Knowing the star's radius made it possible for astronomers to make precise measurements of its mass -- nearly the same mass as our Sun -- as well as the size and density of its super-Earth-size planet.

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Message 1508585 - Posted: 25 Apr 2014, 23:06:26 UTC - in response to Message 1507926.  

NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) and Spitzer Space Telescope have discovered what appears to be the coldest "brown dwarf" known -- a dim, star-like body that surprisingly is as frosty as Earth's North Pole. Images from the space telescopes also pinpointed the object's distance to 7.2 light-years away, earning it the title for fourth closest system to our sun. The closest system, a trio of stars, is Alpha Centauri, at about 4 light-years away.

http://www.nasa.gov/jpl/wise/spitzer-coldest-brown-dwarf-20140425/index.html#.U1rpxFca3z8
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Message 1508680 - Posted: 26 Apr 2014, 3:19:22 UTC

I wonder if that could be the burned out ember of the star that caused the nebula that our star was born in to collapse more that 4.5 billion years ago?
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Message 1508875 - Posted: 26 Apr 2014, 17:27:22 UTC - in response to Message 1508680.  
Last modified: 26 Apr 2014, 17:27:55 UTC

I wonder if that could be the burned out ember of the star that caused the nebula that our star was born in to collapse more that 4.5 billion years ago?


If it exists, it would be a white dwarf, not a brown dwarf, and most probably it would be very far away by now.
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Message 1508898 - Posted: 26 Apr 2014, 18:51:40 UTC

Wouldn't a white dwarf eventually cool down passing through the brown dwarf state before becoming a dark cold object?
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Message 1509200 - Posted: 27 Apr 2014, 15:21:40 UTC - in response to Message 1508898.  
Last modified: 27 Apr 2014, 15:25:37 UTC

The spectra are different (brown dwarves are mostly hydrogen, white dwarves are mostly carbon and oxygen with a hydrogen-helium atmosphere; white dwarves radiate as a black body, brown dwarves are more like Jupiter). Also, the Universe isn't old enough to have cold white dwarfs. No known white dwarf has a surface temperature below 3900 K (center temperatures are around 10,000,000 K).
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Message 1509327 - Posted: 27 Apr 2014, 23:34:40 UTC - in response to Message 1509200.  

Thanks for the explanation. Way back in 1970 when I was in college this level of knowledge about the nature of stars was nonexistent.
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Message 1515909 - Posted: 14 May 2014, 9:46:07 UTC

Gemini Planet Imager captures best photo ever of an exoplanet

Beta Pictoris b is a gas giant similar in size to Jupiter, though its star is much younger than ours—just 12 million years old. The picture of it was created with an exposure of just one minute, which is a record for an image of an exoplanet—the planet orbits its star just a little closer than does Saturn in our solar system. It was first discovered in 2006 by researchers working with data from the Hubble Space Telescope and verified three years later by researchers at Europe's VLT. Pictures taken at the time suggested that Beta Pictoris b had to regularly plow through space debris of some sort, causing it to appear murky at times.

Beta Pictoris b was chosen as a first test run due to its designation as an easy target. The research team at Gemini South plan to move on to imaging other exoplanets, eventually taking pictures of at least 600 that appear promising. Doing so will help with better understanding orbit times and perhaps help with refining their ages and masses

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