earth-like planet found 600 LY away

Raging_Ninja

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-16040655

Kepler 22-b: Earth-like planet confirmed

Astronomers have confirmed the existence of an Earth-like planet in the "habitable zone" around a star not unlike our own.

The planet, Kepler 22-b, lies about 600 light-years away and is about 2.4 times the size of Earth, and has a temperature of about 22C.

It is the closest confirmed planet yet to one like ours - an "Earth 2.0".

However, the team does not yet know if Kepler 22-b is made mostly of rock, gas or liquid.

During the conference at which the result was announced, the Kepler team also said that it had spotted some 1,094 new candidate planets - nearly doubling the telescope's haul of potential far-flung worlds.

Kepler 22-b was one of 54 exoplanet candidates in habitable zones reported by the Kepler team in February, and is just the first to be formally confirmed using other telescopes.

More of these "Earth 2.0" candidates are likely to be confirmed in the near future, though a redefinition of the habitable zone's boundaries has brought that number down to 48. Ten of those are Earth-sized.

'Superb opportunity'

The Kepler space telescope was designed to look at a fixed swathe of the night sky, staring intently at about 150,000 stars. The telescope is sensitive enough to see when a planet passes in front of its host star, dimming the star's light by a minuscule amount.

Kepler identifies these slight changes in starlight as candidate planets, which are then confirmed by further observations by Kepler and other telescopes in orbit and on Earth.

Kepler 22-b lies at a distance from its sun about 15% less than the distance from the Earth to the Sun, and its year takes about 290 days. However, its sun puts out about 25% less light, keeping the planet at its balmy temperature that would support the existence of liquid water.

The Kepler team had to wait for three passes of the planet before upping its status from "candidate" to "confirmed".

"Fortune smiled upon us with the detection of this planet," said William Borucki, Kepler principal investigator at Nasa's Ames Research Center.

"The first transit was captured just three days after we declared the spacecraft operationally ready. We witnessed the defining third transit over the 2010 holiday season."

The results were announced at the Kepler telescope's first science conference, alongside the staggering number of new candidate planets. The total number of candidates spotted by the telescope is now 2,326 - of which 207 are approximately Earth-sized.

In total, the results suggest that planets ranging from Earth-sized to about four times Earth's size - so-called "super-Earths" - may be more common than previously thought.

As candidates for planets similar to Earth are confirmed, the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (Seti) has a narrower focus for its ongoing hunt.

"This is a superb opportunity for Seti observations," said Jill Tarter, the director of the Center for Seti Research at the Seti Institute.

"For the first time, we can point our telescopes at stars, and know that those stars actually host planetary systems - including at least one that begins to approximate an Earth analogue in the habitable zone around its host star.

Brilliant news, hope more discoveries like it keep coming.

Hande hoche!

We need to start preparations for a pre emptive attack.

starbelgrade

Too

many

paragraphs.

Raging_Ninja

Hande hoche! wrote: »

We need to start preparations for a pre emptive attack.

kinetic kill weapons ftw.

NothingMan

So the planet is like earth and has a similar temp. But is 2.5 times the size. Now I'm no scientician but wouldn't that mean twice the gravitational pressure, meaning any life would need to be 2.5 times stronger than ourselves.... We're DOOMED!!!

Wetai

Now we just need an FTL drive..

Blackdragon

NothingMan wrote: »

So the planet is like earth and has a similar temp. But is 2.5 times the size. Now I'm no scientician but wouldn't that mean twice the gravitational pressure, meaning any life would need to be 2.5 times stronger than ourselves.... We're DOOMED!!!

I dont know why they are reporting it as "Earth Like"........they dont even know if it is a Gas or solid planet as of yet.

subway

Are they sure it's not Chinese lanterns again?

AnonoBoy

Brilliant. I reckon if we go to Warp 7 we can get there before the budget cuts kick in.

I bags being President For Life!

admiralofthefleet

if we leave now will we be back in time for christmas

Raging_Ninja

Blackdragon wrote: »

I dont know why they are reporting it as "Earth Like"........they dont even know if it is a Gas or solid planet as of yet.

Hyperbole - planet is in the habitable 'goldilocks' zone, 2.5 times the size, regular orbit of 290 days, close enough for the journos to call it earth-like.

NothingMan wrote: »

So the planet is like earth and has a similar temp. But is 2.5 times the size. Now I'm no scientician but wouldn't that mean twice the gravitational pressure, meaning any life would need to be 2.5 times stronger than ourselves.... We're DOOMED!!!

Also need to know the mass of the planet.

g = GM/r^2

Rabidlamb

Raging_Ninja wrote: »

Hyperbole - planet is in the habitable 'goldilocks' zone, 2.5 times the size, regular orbit of 290 days, close enough for the journos to call it earth-like.

Think of all that warm porridge, 2.5 times denser than normal porridge.

ejmaztec

Those Keplerians are probably the lizard people that David Icke bangs on about, which means that they spotted this place a long time before we spotted theirs.:(

Vicxas

You know what this means.....





ALIENS

Cookie_Monster

Raging_Ninja wrote: »

Also need to know the mass of the planet.

g = GM/r^2

and spin rate, wouldn't a higher spin rate produce a larger centrifugal force to somewhat offset the additional gravity or would it not be enough to notice regardless

NothingMan

Blackdragon wrote: »

I dont know why they are reporting it as "Earth Like"........they dont even know if it is a Gas or solid planet as of yet.

Aliens made of gas :eek:!!! We're DOOMED.... in gas form.

Ellis Dee

NothingMan wrote: »

So the planet is like earth and has a similar temp. But is 2.5 times the size. Now I'm no scientician but wouldn't that mean twice the gravitational pressure, meaning any life would need to be 2.5 times stronger than ourselves.... We're DOOMED!!!

Not necessarily. I don't know whether "2.5 times the size" means 2.5 times the mass (sloppy writing by the author of the article!), but if it does, it does not mean that the gravity would be 2.5 times as much. The Earth has a mass 80 times that of the Moon, but the gravitational pull is only about six times greater. Similarly, Mars has a mass only about one-tenth that of the Earth, but the gravity there is 38% of Earth's.:):)

working fool

I'm confused ?
Would the dole be x2.5 and how expensive will petrol be ?

Ellis Dee

NothingMan wrote: »

Aliens made of gas :eek:!!! We're DOOMED.... in gas form.

Look on the bright side: if they do invade, we can just give them away to the multinationals like we did with the Corrib gas. :):)

Turtyturd

Good news everybody...no wait it's not. I can't feel anything but apathy towards this.

Swampy

So how long will it take to get there by current space shuttle speed (assuming infinite food, fuel and oxygen)?

jester77

You'd need a fairly decent tank of fuel to get you there.

foxyboxer

doomed.....dooooooooooooooooomed.

Turtyturd

Swampy wrote: »

So how long will it take to get there by current space shuttle speed (assuming infinite food, fuel and oxygen)?

1 billion years according to my calculations...however if we strap a few flux capacitors onto the shuttle it could be cut down to a week and a half.

jester77

Swampy wrote: »

So how long will it take to get there by current space shuttle speed (assuming infinite food, fuel and oxygen)?

Let's see, it's 3516 trillion miles away (give or take a few miles), space shuttle can do a max speed of 17,500 miles per hour, so that means it would take roughly 22935420 years to get there... open to correction

Raging_Ninja

jester77 wrote: »

Let's see, it's 3516 trillion miles away (give or take a few miles), space shuttle can do a max speed of 17,500 miles per hour, so that means it would take roughly 22935420 years to get there... open to correction

No friction in space so no such thing as 'maximum speed' bar the speed of light.

You need to calculate using delta-v (acceleration). Then you need to factor in decelleration at the halfway point in order to come to a rest relative to the destination.

CreepingDeath

Maybe we can convince them to join the Eurozone and loan us a few quid.

mathie

jester77 wrote: »

You'd need a fairly decent tank of fuel to get you there.

And buy it before the budget hikes.

Vicxas

Well to reach it we need to invent some fast ass travel method. Regular propulsion just wont cut it really

DoesNotCompute

admiralofthefleet wrote: »

if we leave now will we be back in time for christmas

Ah yes, "admiral", but by the time you return to Earth, 400 years "real-time" will have passed.

Some admiral you are. :P

AeoNGriM

starbelgrade wrote: »

Too

many

paragraphs

Not good with books then, no? :rolleyes: