Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known
Founder: Joseph Barone
Contributors: crookedindifference, bumerangue, propagandery, rocketmagic, rostenbach
Catching Elephant is a theme by Andy Taylor
New data suggest the confirmation of the exoplanet Gliese 581g and the best candidate so far of a potential habitable exoplanet. The nearby star Gliese 581 is well known for having four planets with the outermost planet, Gliese 581d, already suspected habitable. This will be the first time evidence for any two potential habitable exoplanets orbiting the same star. Gliese 581g will be included, together with Gliese 667Cc, Kepler-22b, HD85512, and Gliese 581d, in the Habitable Exoplanets Catalog of the PHL @ UPR Arecibo as the best five objects of interest for Earth-like exoplanets. http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2012/07/-image-of-the-day-the-kepler-5-nasas-short-list-of-potential-habitable-exoplanets.html#more
With all these exoplanets, where the hell is the alien life?
If there’s one thing the Kepler mission has taught us, it’s that planets are everywhere. Lately, it seems like if we’re not discovering new exoplanets, we’re finding evidence that there are hundreds of billions of them outthere (many of them probably even Earthlike), and we just haven’t found them yet.
xkcd.com presentes this image that shows all known planets, including those in our solar system. Click image for larger version.
Two hidden planets discovered in old Hubble data
“According to the researchers, this is the only alien multi-planet system of which astronomers have direct images.”
Hopefully the first of many exoplanets that we get images of!
ESO video report on HD 85512 b and other exoplanets recently discovered.
This “hot Jupiter” of an exoplanet is called SWEEPS-10 for a reason.The planet, roughly 1.6 times heftier than the gas giant Jupiter, circles the star it is gravitationally anchored to in just over 10 hours. In other words, one SWEEPS-10 year is 835 times shorter than Earth’s… talk about how time flies.
Naturally, planets hugging so close to their star are some of the hottest out there. This object likely measures in at about 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit on the cosmic thermometer.Because it’s so close, the planet’s outer layers of gas are likely being blown into space by solar winds, as this artist’s rendition implies.
Credit: NASA/ESA/A. Schaller
NASA Chat: The Quest for Planets
A new planet discovery will be announced Monday Jan. 10 during the ‘Exoplanets & Their Host Stars’ presentation at the American Astronomical Society (AAS) conference in Seattle, Washington.
Natalie Batalha of the NASA Kepler Mission Team will be online answering your questions about this new planet finding on Monday, Jan. 10 from 3:30 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. EST / 12:30 p.m. to 1:30 p.m. PST. Natalie will be chatting with you live from the conference in Seattle.
Re: Gilese 581g | The Astronomist
Back when Gilese 581g was discovered, a huge fuss was made about finding “Earth’s twin”, on which the chances of life were “100%”. The backlash to the media response has been swift and forceful, quite rightfully. I’ve said it before to trust nothing you hear about science and in this article The Astronomist expands on that. He spells out the things that the media glazed over, for the media sells stories, not facts. The distortion of science in the minds of those who fail to understand it is partially the fault of the media and the potential discovery of Gilese 581g is no exception. Telling people that this so-called “goldilocks planet” exists and then saying “well me might have been wrong, heh heh” gives off the appearance that science is fallible and uncertain. The truth of the matter is that the planet was potentially discovered and if it does exist we can guess and infer what the conditions of the planet may be like, but we don’t know for sure.
This is what makes science so special and unique. To keep a religion alive, one must remaining unquestioning and faithful, whereas science is kept alive by skepticism and an unending search for the empirical truth. I know it’s nice to be hopeful that the universe is exactly as we wish it to be, but the universe doesn’t have to adhere to our whims. That doesn’t make it any less magnificent and beautiful.
Give this a read if you’re interested in the actual science of extrasolar planets.
