First potentially habitable Earth-sized planet confirmed: It may have liquid water.
83 replies, posted
[QUOTE][QUOTE][IMG]http://cdn.phys.org/newman/gfx/news/2014/firstpotenti.jpg[/IMG][/QUOTE]
The first Earth-sized exoplanet orbiting within the habitable zone of another star has been confirmed by observations with both the W. M. Keck Observatory and the Gemini Observatory. The initial discovery, made by NASA's Kepler Space Telescope, is one of a handful of smaller planets found by Kepler and verified using large ground-based telescopes. It also confirms that Earth-sized planets do exist in the habitable zone of other stars.
"What makes this finding particularly compelling is that this Earth-sized planet, one of five orbiting this star, which is cooler than the Sun, resides in a temperate region where water could exist in liquid form,"
Source:
[URL]http://phys.org/news/2014-04-potentially-habitable-earth-sized-planet-liquid.html[/URL][/QUOTE]
~500ly, or 153.3pc away.
Your avatar fits
[editline]17th April 2014[/editline]
[IMG]http://i.imgur.com/cXEdmQu.png[/IMG]
I wonder what Carl Sagan would say about this.
Maybe it's just the atmosphere and i'm not doubting that it might have water but it looks like a desert planet.
We should find out what the atmosphere contains. Sure it has water and it's in the niche of the star to assume it can sustain life, but what would life over there be breathing?
[QUOTE=DeVotchKa;44571973]Maybe it's just the atmosphere and i'm not doubting that it might have water but it looks like a desert planet.[/QUOTE]
I might be a little off in my explination but, they can't actually see what the planet looks like. Detecting far off planets is actually not very visually interesting. It's pretty much just using calculations gathered from observing a planets silhouette against a star. That's for distance and size at least.
[QUOTE=DeVotchKa;44571973]Maybe it's just the atmosphere and i'm not doubting that it might have water but it looks like a desert planet.[/QUOTE]
Artist's concept.
For all we know, it could just be a boring planet with no atmosphere
[QUOTE=DeVotchKa;44571973]Maybe it's just the atmosphere and i'm not doubting that it might have water but it looks like a desert planet.[/QUOTE]
That's an artists impression of what it might look like.
[QUOTE=DeVotchKa;44571973]Maybe it's just the atmosphere and i'm not doubting that it might have water but it looks like a desert planet.[/QUOTE]
That's an artistic representation, lmao that's saying we can even see the planet at 500 Lu away, I bet they found it with its shadow
Bring out the spectrometers!
Keyword "may".
IF it is habitable though, it looks like the perfect desert planet to revive Firefly.
Imagine the Potential.
Will there be life?
There has been no spectroscopic analysis of the planet; there is only a very high certainty of its size, orbital path, and the size of the sun it orbits.. which lead us to the conclusion that it is in a stable orbit, in a relatively good place for liquid water to exist (if it does).
Still need to figure out how to get there.
[QUOTE=Midas22;44572080]Still need to figure out how to get there.[/QUOTE]
I'm still convinced we'll find a planet perfectly suited for us, get there, and find out it's already taken.
Potential thing might be potentially "confirmed", pending possible future research
[QUOTE=Midas22;44572080]Still need to figure out how to get there.[/QUOTE]
Seems literally impossible at our technological level.
[QUOTE=Awesomecaek;44572132]Seems literally impossible at our technological level.[/QUOTE]
especially with these glorious budget cuts to nasa
because space is dum
nasa is dum
shut up nerds
I swear they found this planet at least 3-4 years ago... I'm almost 100% certain of it. Once I'm at a computer I'll look it up.
[QUOTE=ZakkShock;44572185]especially with these glorious budget cuts to nasa
because space is dum
nasa is dum
shut up nerds[/QUOTE]
Even if we had NASA taking up 100% of GPD we still couldnt get there. 500ly is literally impossible until we have a major physics breakthrough.
[QUOTE=Code3Response;44572293]Even if we had NASA taking up 100% of GPD we still couldnt get there. 500ly is literally impossible until we have a major physics breakthrough.[/QUOTE]
[url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_ship]It's not necessarily impossible to get human beings that far away from Earth[/url]. The trip would last far more than a single human lifetime, that much is for sure.
[QUOTE=Bradyns;44571882]~500ly, or 153.3pc away.[/QUOTE]
How many miles is that :eng101:
Can't we build a high sensitive telescope that can show the planet in it's entirety including landmasses, oceans, etc?
[QUOTE=kidwithsword;44572345][url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_ship]It's not necessarily impossible to get human beings that far away from Earth[/url]. The trip would last far more than a single human lifetime, that much is for sure.[/QUOTE]
Essentially the idea is to get there in one lifetime. Obviously we could have a fleet of ships get there, but at the cost of perspective of "why"
[QUOTE=plokoon9619;44572350]How many miles is that :eng101:[/QUOTE]
500 Light Years = 2939312686591803.5 Miles
153.3 Parsecs = 2939295920752236.5 Miles
Close enough :v:
Source: [url]http://www.calculateme.com/Astronomy/index.htm[/url]
ITO will exist now that we know of this.
[QUOTE=ZyreHD;44572353]Can't we build a high sensitive telescope that can show the planet in it's entirety including landmasses, oceans, etc?[/QUOTE]
Land-based telescopes have a problem with Earth atmosphere because it fucks up view at the space.
You ever remember watching a star flicker blue-red-white? It's because of Earth's atmosphere.
Space-based telescopes have a size problem, since it's pretty hard to put bigass telescopes in space even with rockets.
[QUOTE=Tinbe;44572443]Land-based telescopes have a problem with Earth atmosphere because it fucks up view at the space.
You ever remember watching a star flicker blue-red-white? It's because of Earth's atmosphere.
Space-based telescopes have a size problem, since it's pretty hard to put bigass telescopes in space even with rockets.[/QUOTE]
Can't it be done in pieces? then assemble it in orbit, kind of like we did with the ISS.
[QUOTE=kidwithsword;44572345][url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_ship]It's not necessarily impossible to get human beings that far away from Earth[/url]. The trip would last far more than a single human lifetime, that much is for sure.[/QUOTE]
[url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcubierre_drive]I always liked this idea.[/url] Since it gets you places within the lifetime. Though it is currently rather infeasible, and there's probably a multitude of errors other than the fact it'd require shitloads of energy. A boy can dream.
[QUOTE=Rebi;44572489][url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcubierre_drive]I always liked this idea.[/url] Since it gets you places within the lifetime. Though it is currently rather infeasible, and there's probably a multitude of errors other than the fact it'd require shitloads of energy. A boy can dream.[/QUOTE]
Never mind the negative mass.
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