Astronomers Find a Second Earth!

[FastFokker]

http://www.cbc.ca/story/science/national/2006/01/25/planet-hunt060125.html

Astronomers find tiny Earth-like planet
Last Updated Wed, 25 Jan 2006 15:06:31 EST
CBC News

The smallest Earth-like planet yet has been discovered outside our solar system, say astronomers who used a new method to find it.

The planet is 5.5 five times more massive than Earth. It orbits a star 28,000 light years away in the constellation Sagitarrius, near the centre of the Milky Way galaxy. (A light year is about 10 trillion kilometres, the distance light travels in a year.)
http://www.cbc.ca/gfx/pix/planet_extrasolar_art_eso.jpg
"This is an important breakthrough in the quest to answer the question, 'Are we alone?'" Michael Turner of the National Science Foundation said in a release.

Like Earth, planet OGLE-2005-BLG-390Lb has a rocky core. Its atmosphere is likely thin, and the surface temperature is estimated at -220 C, probably too cold to support life.

Researchers used a method called gravitational microlensing to detect the planet, which may be a more sensitive way of finding habitable planets that aren't too hot or cold, Turner said.

In 1912, Albert Einstein identified the microlensing technique.

"With this method, we let the gravity of a dim, intervening star act as a giant natural telescope for us, magnifying a more distant star, which then temporarily looks brighter," said team member Andrew Williams of the Perth Observatory in Australia.

Since July 2005, the researchers used three networks of telescopes on Earth to look for the telltale magnifying effect and confirm the existence of the planet. It is the third planet to be uncovered using microlensing.

Astronomers have found more than 160 planets orbiting outside the solar system using an older technique that detects the wobble in stars caused by the planet orbiting them.

But planets need to be relatively large or close to their stars to be detected using the wobble technique.

Researchers want to study such "exoplanets" to try to understand how planets form.

[15-20_God]

does it have any oil?

[biosh]

Great! Let's get a team out there and start destroying that one too!

:)

[FastFokker]

:lol: You guys crack me up.

[Truth]

I wonder if there are sexy female beings on that planet... waiting to get with us Humanoids...

[FastFokker]

Well immediate assumptions are that there is likely no life on it considering it's extremely low temperatures.

Obviously they can't rule out ALL life, so I suppose there could be hot humanoid women just waiting for you to travel 28,000 light years to hook up. :lol:

For some reason when I read this, I didn't get the same thoughts in my head (oil/destroying it/hot humanoids). :D

[biosh]

I wonder if there are sexy female beings on that planet... waiting to get with us Humanoids...
Have you already gone through all 3 billion Earth females?

:confused:

[Madcatmk2]

ESTD's
Extraterrestrial Sexually Transmitted Diseases

[deep]

They've identified no intelligent life or signs of civilization....just empty Starbucks franchises waiting to be filled.

[FastFokker]

They've identified no intelligent life or signs of civilization....just empty Starbucks franchises waiting to be filled.
Sign me up!

Sounds like a great place to me, no people and lots of coffee. :twisted:

[midg8]

Have you already gone through all 3 billion Earth females?

:confused:

None of them will give me the time of day :(

[GTA_]

At -220 degrees its too cold, but then again what makes 'like earth' with kind of climate?

[corrupt123]

bahahahahahah the replies to this thread are AWESOME!

i like the name of the planet too. Why cant earth have a cool name like that?

[gman]

I wonder if there are sexy female beings on that planet... waiting to get with us Humanoids...
It is too cold for you to do anything for her. ;)

[FastFokker]

At -220 degrees its too cold, but then again what makes 'like earth' with kind of climate?
Was earth's climate always the same as it is now? (I'd have to google that to find out an answer for myself)

I believe they claim it to be "earth-like" in that it's the closest to earth out of all the planets found to date. Some factors may be the composition of the core, the atmosphere, it's distance from it's star. The combination of size and orbit are near equivalent to that of earth.

Also, they don't actually know it's temperature, they're just guesstimating it's around -220C.

The planet is 28,000 light years away! It's friggggggggin far so I imagine it's difficult to judge anything, as we are still finding out details of planets within our own solar system.

[CodecX81]

28000 light years, in a straight line would cost est. 264'900'000'000'000'000 km :)

typical speed that a satellite jettisons across the universe is about 28000km/h....

so...thats..
394'196'428'571 days...
1'079'990'215 years..

so I can safely say, with current technology, we won't be seeing this place, not in a billion years!! Ahahaha..ah..

However, if we could travel close to the speed of light (1'079'252'849km/h) then yea. we'd be there pretty quickly. Universe is funny isn't it? JUST out of our reach.

[Carpe Diem]

The planet is 28,000 light years away!

Imagine having to drive your ET girlfreind home and listening to her yap for 28,000 Light years.... :(

[FastFokker]

I was considering something more with the idea of becoming Gods to a new form of life.

Say we resolve as a people to pass on our torch of life to another, and figure out a way to put biological cells which will easily thrive on this planet into a transportation device. So we put this stuff into a capsule that can survive entry through the planets atmosphere and at some point will find its way outside the capsule and become life.

Perhaps over millions of years that life will flourish and become more diverse, perhaps even after billions of years producing intelligent life.

Now that life will wonder why they are there and where they came from, having never known that it was us.

We are their God.

[CodecX81]

I was considering something more with the idea of becoming Gods to a new form of life.

Say we resolve as a people to pass on our torch of life to another, and figure out a way to put biological cells which will easily thrive on this planet into a transportation device. So we put this stuff into a capsule that can survive entry through the planets atmosphere and at someone will find its way outside the capsule and become life.

Perhaps over millions of years that life will flourish and become more diverse, perhaps even after billions of years producing intelligent life.

Now that life will wonder why they are there and where they came from, having never known that it was us.

We are their God.Maybe thats our purpose..
or, perhaps this planet was the result of our planets "parents". Maybe global warming got their ebb to stop flowing warm currents northwards, and they were forced into an ice age/died off..

& we just go back and forth, terraforming planet to planet for time infinite, and never really realizing what went wrong?

[GTA_]

The scientists need come up with a technology for faster travel. It would be a shame if there was no human based space exploration in our life time.

[CodecX81]

The scientists need come up with a technology for faster travel. It would be a shame if there was no human based space exploration in our life time.

two articles:

#1
Discovery of 4th Dimension (http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/view.php?StoryID=20060126-053521-8861r)

#2
French space agency developing plasma engine (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4527696.stm)
The type of plasma engine they're developing is called "Mini-magnetospheric plasma propulsion"

Theoretically capable to propel up to 720'000km/h

So that'd only take 42 thousand
(41'999'620) years :)
In comparison, better...but hey, least we'll be able to get to mars faster!

[Happy13178]

This engine is also theoretically possible...

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/01/06/hyperdrive/

Scientists moot gravity-busting hyperdrive
Mars in three hours - theoretically
By Lester Haines
Published Friday 6th January 2006 15:03 GMT
New year, new job? Click here for thousands of tech vacancies.
The US military is considering testing the principle behind a type of space drive which holds the promise of reaching Mars in just three hours. The problem is, as New Scientist explains, it's entirely theoretical and many physicists admit they don't understand the science behind it.

Nonetheless, the so-called "hyperdrive" concept won last year's American Institute of Aeronautics & Astronautics award for the best nuclear and future flight paper. Among its defenders is aerospace engineer Pavlos Mikellides, from the Arizona State University in Tempe. Mikellides, who reviewed the winning paper, said: "Even though such features have been explored before, this particular approach is quite unique."

The basic concept is this: according to the paper's authors - Jochem Häuser, a physicist and professor of computer science at the University of Applied Sciences in Salzgitter and Walter Dröscher, a retired Austrian patent officer - if you put a huge rotating ring above a superconducting coil and pump enough current through the coil, the resulting large magnetic field will "reduce the gravitational pull on the ring to the point where it floats free".

The origins of this "repulsive anti-gravity force" and the hyperdrive it might power lie in the work of German scientist Burkhard Heim, who - as part of his attempts to reconcile quantum mechanics and Einstein's general theory of relativity - formulated a theoretical six-dimensioned universe by bolting on two new sub-dimensions to Einstein's generally-accepted four (three space, one time).

As New Scientist explains, Heim's two extra dimensions allowed him to couple together gravity and electromagnetism, and permits conversion of electromagnetic energy into gravitational and vice-versa - something not possible according to Einstein's four dimensions, because "you cannot change the strength of gravity simply by cranking up the electromagnetic field".

Heim, then, proposed that "a rotating magnetic field could reduce the influence of gravity on a spacecraft enough for it to take off" - an idea which caught the eye of Wernher von Braun when it was first proposed in 1959 and the rocket scientist was working on the US's Saturn launch vehicle.

After the initial excitement died down, however, Heim moved on to other projects and his hyperdrive theory slowly gathered dust until the arrival of Walter Dröscher in 1980. Dröscher expanded on Heim's work, in the process reactivating two further dimensions the latter had originally discarded. Thus "Heim-Dröscher space" was born - an eight-dimensional concept of which Dröscher says: "If Heim's picture is to make sense, we are forced to postulate two more fundamental forces."

The said extra forces are: "A repulsive anti-gravity similar to the dark energy that appears to be causing the universe's expansion to accelerate"; and a second resulting from the "interaction of Heim's fifth and sixth dimensions and the extra dimensions that Dröscher introduced". Crucially, it "produces pairs of 'gravitophotons' - particles that mediate the interconversion of electromagnetic and gravitational energy".

The groundwork done, Dröscher then teamed up with Häuser to produce the award-winning "Guidelines For a Space Propulsion Device Based on Heim's Quantum Theory."

So far so good - in theory. However, as NS notes: "The majority of physicists have never heard of Heim theory, and most of those contacted by New Scientist said they couldn't make sense of Dröscher and Häuser's description of the theory behind their proposed experiment."

Furthermore, Dröscher and Häuser's proposed practical experiment to prove their theory requires "a magnetic coil several metres in diameter capable of sustaining an enormous current density" - something which the majority of engineers say is "not feasible with existing materials and technology".*

So, Mars in three hours? As NS puts it: "Dröscher is hazy about the details", but "suggests that a spacecraft fitted with a coil and ring could be propelled into a multidimensional hyperspace" where "the constants of nature could be different, and even the speed of light could be several times faster than we experience". Then, he says, a quick three-hour jaunt to Mars would indeed be on the cards. ®


Mars is about 60,000,000 miles away from us. 3 hours = 180 minutes. 60,000,000 miles / 180 minutes = 333,333.3333333 miles per minute, or over 5,000 miles per second. Not quite at light speed levels (186,000 miles/sec), but a step in the right direction...

[biosh]

I was considering something more with the idea of becoming Gods to a new form of life.

Say we resolve as a people to pass on our torch of life to another, and figure out a way to put biological cells which will easily thrive on this planet into a transportation device. So we put this stuff into a capsule that can survive entry through the planets atmosphere and at some point will find its way outside the capsule and become life.

Perhaps over millions of years that life will flourish and become more diverse, perhaps even after billions of years producing intelligent life.

Now that life will wonder why they are there and where they came from, having never known that it was us.

We are their God.
We are not fit to be mere inhabitants of our own planet, much less gods of some other planet. Maybe we could be demons, though...

:twisted:

[FastFokker]

We are not fit to be mere inhabitants of our own planet, much less gods of some other planet.
I think we'd be better at playing the God role, because after sending the capsule, we would be left out of the equation.

Just as a childs duty is to become an adult and produce children, perhaps we have grown old and it's time to produce a child.

Time to shoot some seeds off earth and towards as many viable eggs as possible for fertilization. A billion or more years later, if they develop intelligent life, perhaps they will carry on the process.

Or we could just be celibate and die off from our own self induced cancers.

[MooseTits]

I have a question, sorry if it sounds stupid but here goes...

If this planet is 28,000 light years away, does that mean that the pictures we're getting of this planet are from 28,000 years ago?

[ragin_pyro]

I have a question, sorry if it sounds stupid but here goes...

If this planet is 28,000 light years away, does that mean that the pictures we're getting of this planet are from 28,000 years ago?

Not stupid, and yep, these pics are 28,000 years old, if we could actually see the planet..it could (just say) have been destroyed yesterday, and we wont know for 28,000 years (well, unless we like, have some sorta advancement in technology)

[CodecX81]

I have a question, sorry if it sounds stupid but here goes...

If this planet is 28,000 light years away, does that mean that the pictures we're getting of this planet are from 28,000 years ago?

Mmm I don't think so...

It takes 8.3 light minutes for light to travel from the Sun to the Earth. So would that mean the sun we see, is the sun from 8.3 minutes ago. :)

[aquariaguy]

What's the point of finding other "Earth's" if we can't take it over!!

We gotta keep on track for Mars. Someone's gotta tell Bush that Mars has WMD's and lots of OIL!!

[15-20_God]

We gotta keep on track for Mars. Someone's gotta tell Bush that Mars has WMD's and lots of OIL!!

it won't matter because he won't be able to point out Mars on a map.

[gman]

Not stupid, and yep, these pics are 28,000 years old, if we could actually see the planet..it could (just say) have been destroyed yesterday, and we wont know for 28,000 years (well, unless we like, have some sorta advancement in technology)

Yes.

[gman]

Mmm I don't think so...

It takes 8.3 light minutes for light to travel from the Sun to the Earth. So would that mean the sun we see, is the sun from 8.3 minutes ago. :)

Also, yes.

[FastFokker]

Hey they've found a new, Super-Earth!

Scientists Find 'Super-Earth' 9,000 Light-Years Away
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,187786,00.html
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-2084188,00.html

Funny how history repeats itself! :D

[Badman]

I could see this being a key part to the humans future. Right now its probally going thew some ice age, and after a couple thousand years when it warms up, and humans need a second resourse, then we would actually go to it ;)

[boonjaca]

Great! Let's get a team out there and start destroying that one too!

:)

I wonder if the Klingons live there... :D