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

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Profile Gordon Lowe
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Message 1938471 - Posted: 6 Jun 2018, 17:20:06 UTC - in response to Message 1930956.  

It should just be possible to characterize the atmospheres

That boggles my mind.


The PBS tv show, "NOVA Wonders", a companion to the well-known NOVA, had a recent episode entitled "Are We Alone?" that did a very good job illustrating how scientists are able to determine the atmospheres.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/wonders/#are-we-alone
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Message 1941406 - Posted: 27 Jun 2018, 1:49:04 UTC - in response to Message 1938471.  

WASP-127b is weird!
. An international team of astronomers has identified traces of metals and possible signs of water in one of the least dense exoplanets ever found, according to a new study.

https://www.space.com/41004-metals-water-huge-puffy-exoplanet-wasp-127b.html
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Message 1948058 - Posted: 5 Aug 2018, 21:11:14 UTC - in response to Message 1941406.  



Scientists identify best exoplanets for Earth-like life



Thousands of exoplanets are now being discovered – there are 3,815 confirmed as of August 1, 2018 – but how many of them are have the right conditions to life?

The data so far shows that the most common planets are super-Earths (larger than Earth but smaller than Uranus or Neptune) and smaller ones, more like Earth. Some of those are in their stars’ habitable zones, where temperatures could allow liquid water to exist. But habitability depends on a range of factors, including temperature, available water, composition, stable climate, etc. Now, scientists have identified a group of exoplanets which have the same chemical conditions thought to have led to life on Earth. The findings were announced on August 1, 2018, by the University of Cambridge.
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Profile Pierre A Renaud
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Message 1953729 - Posted: 4 Sep 2018, 11:01:42 UTC - in response to Message 1953633.  

I've been using the regularly updated NASA Exoplanet Archive https://exoplanetarchive.ipac.caltech.edu/ episodically, but as soon as I can fix compatibility issues I really intend to test drive your apparently sexier EoE recommendation =:) Is the latter's database still limited to +/- 1000 objects as implied by the possibly outdated JPL's description ?

i am not sure if it is here it belongs... any of you have heard about Eyes on Exoplanets program from Nasa ?

https://eyes.nasa.gov/eyes-on-exoplanets.html

i spent like 3-4 hours on this , and this tool is unbelievable !!!! i was searching by name and was getting full 3D information about the host star, its planetary system, habitable zones and rotations/distances... it is like a google earth sky view but 100000X better !! you can surf through the exoplanet lists and see all planetary systems

Apr 3, 1999 - May 3, 2020
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Profile Bob DeWoody
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Message 1953948 - Posted: 6 Sep 2018, 1:20:10 UTC - in response to Message 1401846.  

Even if there are earth-like planets, they would need to be at a comparable point of evolution for us to receive any signals. That is, if they are even 100 years less advanced, they would be sending no signals, and if they are even 1000 years more advanced, they might be sending no signals either (or in a form we would not understand).

For that matter, everyone seems to assume that advanced life forms will be zooming around in rocket ships and inhabiting large cities. I think it is at least as likely that advanced life may learn to subsist will less energy and mobility. The reasons you move around are mainly to get materials to support life, or information on where to get such materials. Advanced life will have all the knowledge available in the universe, and know how to live where they are. There probably won't be that much need for communications at a distance.

I think the main reasons we initially sail over the horizon is our unbounded curiosity, the need to know, up close and personal, what's out there. Then the initial explorers are followed by those trying to make a buck.
Bob DeWoody

My motto: Never do today what you can put off until tomorrow as it may not be required. This no longer applies in light of current events.
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Profile Pierre A Renaud
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Message 1954039 - Posted: 6 Sep 2018, 13:44:12 UTC
Last modified: 6 Sep 2018, 14:33:01 UTC

A short pause down memory lane :

When Gene Roddenberry Explained 'Star Trek' in 1966 - 9/4/2018
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/gene-roddenberry-explained-star-trek-1966-1092983

"Why a journey into space? Because science is now learning that the infinite reaches of our universe probably teem with as much life and adventure as Earth's own oceans and continents. Our galaxy alone is so incredibly vast that the most conservative mathematical odds still add up to millions of planets almost identical to our own — capable of life, even intelligence and strange new civilizations. Alien beings that will range from the fiercely primitive to the incredibly exotic intelligence which will far surpass Mankind."

Walter Koenig, Leonard Nimoy, DeForest Kelley, George Takei, Nichelle Nichols, Gene Roddenberry, and Carl Sagan
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0755981/mediaviewer/rm2259003904
Apr 3, 1999 - May 3, 2020
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Message 1954054 - Posted: 6 Sep 2018, 14:54:55 UTC

The person in the photo shot identified as Carl Sagan looks more like Arthur C. Clarke to me. Carl Sagan wasn't that tall.
Bob DeWoody

My motto: Never do today what you can put off until tomorrow as it may not be required. This no longer applies in light of current events.
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Message 1954099 - Posted: 6 Sep 2018, 17:26:57 UTC - in response to Message 1954054.  
Last modified: 6 Sep 2018, 17:29:39 UTC

Oh wait - I do see Sagan. He's over there behind Bones!
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Message 1954107 - Posted: 6 Sep 2018, 18:00:47 UTC
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Message 1954155 - Posted: 7 Sep 2018, 0:52:02 UTC - in response to Message 1393874.  

Everyone talks about these habitable zones, but they would mainly support life as we know it. What about life as we don't know it? All sci fi films and TV have hunmanoid lifeforms with two arms and two legs, mainly because human actors have to play them, so they go OTT with the headwear. Why shouldn't ET be giant slugs living in methane oceans?


So the questions become "do they have 'hand' equivalents"? And can they make 'fire' (the beginning of technology)?

Tom
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Message 1954200 - Posted: 7 Sep 2018, 5:12:57 UTC - in response to Message 1954054.  

The person in the photo shot identified as Carl Sagan looks more like Arthur C. Clarke to me. Carl Sagan wasn't that tall.

Sagan didn't wear glasses, Clarke does, however too much hair. The person is actually James D. Fletcher, NASA Administrator.
https://www.space.com/12991-nasa-space-shuttle-enterprise-35-years.html
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Message 1954439 - Posted: 9 Sep 2018, 0:15:01 UTC - in response to Message 1954200.  
Last modified: 9 Sep 2018, 0:20:06 UTC

Great link. And as Gordon pointed out, Bob, Sagan can be (on the b&w photograph) spotted behind Bones (and Fletcher).

The person in the photo shot identified as Carl Sagan looks more like Arthur C. Clarke to me. Carl Sagan wasn't that tall.

Sagan didn't wear glasses, Clarke does, however too much hair. The person is actually James D. Fletcher, NASA Administrator.
https://www.space.com/12991-nasa-space-shuttle-enterprise-35-years.html

Apr 3, 1999 - May 3, 2020
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Message 1955689 - Posted: 16 Sep 2018, 11:58:47 UTC

The Closest Exoplanet to Earth Could Be “Highly Habitable” - September 14, 2018
A new study suggests Proxima Centauri b could sustain liquid water on its surface
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-closest-exoplanet-to-earth-could-be-highly-habitable/

Ever since the discovery of the exoplanet—known as Proxima Centauri b—in 2016, people have wondered whether it could be capable of sustaining life.

Now, using computer models similar to those used to study climate change on Earth, researchers have found that, under a wide range of conditions, Proxima Centauri b can sustain enormous areas of liquid water on its surface, potentially raising its prospects for harboring living organisms.
http://exoplanet.eu/catalog/proxima_centauri_b/
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Message 1955707 - Posted: 16 Sep 2018, 15:20:46 UTC

Not a word in the linked article, though, about the fact that Proxima Centauri is a flare star that varies dramatically in its energy output. The flares might strip away any atmosphere, which would also lead to the loss of surface water by sublimation into space. Even if this did not occur, such radically varying stellar output could make it difficult for life to sustain itself on the surface.
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Message 1956476 - Posted: 20 Sep 2018, 14:34:39 UTC - in response to Message 1955707.  

NASA's newest planet-hunting mission has reported detecting its first alien world — a "super-Earth" that is likely evaporating under the heat from its star, a new study finds.

http://www.foxnews.com/science/2018/09/20/nasas-new-planet-hunter-just-found-its-1st-alien-world-evaporating-super-earth.html
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Message 1958326 - Posted: 4 Oct 2018, 1:58:28 UTC - in response to Message 1957471.  

Using NASA’s Hubble and Kepler space telescopes, astronomers have uncovered tantalizing evidence of what could be the first discovery of a moon orbiting a planet outside our solar system.

This moon candidate, which is 8,000 light-years from Earth in the Cygnus constellation, orbits a gas-giant planet that, in turn, orbits a star called Kepler-1625. Researchers caution that the moon hypothesis is tentative and must be confirmed by follow-up Hubble observations.


Astronomers Find First Evidence of Possible Moon Outside Our Solar system

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Message 1962323 - Posted: 28 Oct 2018, 21:44:51 UTC - in response to Message 1958326.  

does this news matter?

The tally of potentially habitable alien planets may have to be revised downward a bit.

To date, NASA's prolific Kepler space telescope has discovered about 30 roughly Earth-size exoplanets in their host stars' "habitable zone" — the range of orbital distances at which liquid water can likely exist on a world's surface.

Number of Habitable Exoplanets Found by NASA's Kepler May Not Be So High After All
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Message 1962338 - Posted: 29 Oct 2018, 0:01:27 UTC

Other than being nice to know the truth of the matter it doesn't seem to me to make much of a difference to life on earth. Whether there is only one other rocky planet or moon where life exists or a million such places, as long as they are more than just a few light years away we will most likely never get to go there or even make contact with ET if they exist. Although I still hope such a discovery is forthcoming as time passes my doubts about making contact dwindles.
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Message 1962619 - Posted: 31 Oct 2018, 6:12:44 UTC - in response to Message 1962403.  
Last modified: 31 Oct 2018, 6:13:17 UTC

subspace still has to be proven to exist, no ?

Correct.

subspace
/ˈsʌbspɛɪs/
noun
noun: sub-space

1. Mathematics

A space that is wholly contained in another space, or whose points or elements are all in another space.

2. in science fiction

A hypothetical space–time continuum used for communication at a speed faster than that of light.

The Star Trek universe is of course an imaginary version of the future by scriptwriters for entertainment. But they go to great lengths to make it believable. And who knows, some of it may come true, I don't know and probably neither do you.

But the base fact is unless and until we crack FTL travel & Comms, we ain't going nowhere.

+1
But even so we still have a lot of local space to explore and places we can inhabit.
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Message 1963406 - Posted: 5 Nov 2018, 9:43:34 UTC - in response to Message 1962403.  

A hypothetical space–time continuum used for communication at a speed faster than that of light.
The Star Trek universe is of course an imaginary version of the future by scriptwriters for entertainment. But they go to great lengths to make it believable. And who knows, some of it may come true, I don't know and probably neither do you.

But the base fact is unless and until we crack FTL travel & Comms, we ain't going nowhere.
As I was reading your interesting exchanges I thought "Hey, that quantum entanglement thing would be an excellent way to implement FTL communication !", but apparently, no.

Crucially, (when) people talk about using entanglement for faster-than-light communication (what) they (talk about) is a measurement procedure that forces a particular outcome. That is, they want Alice to use some woo-woo mystical process to ask her particle "What is your state?" and make it come out to be 1, thus instantaneously forcing Bob's particle (in a galaxy far, far away) into state 1 as well. If such a procedure existed, you could, in fact, exploit it to send messages (with disastrous consequences for causality); fortunately, God plays dice with the universe, and the results of a quantum measurement are unavoidably random. Which means that while Alice and Bob end up with measurements that are perfectly correlated, no information passes between them. They can only see the correlation when they get back together and compare lists, and they have to do that at or below the speed of light.
Dang, my coffee suddenly turned colder than death. Thankfully, a ST:TNG marathon session should mitigate the dreadfulness of it all.
Apr 3, 1999 - May 3, 2020
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