Thanks colorado tanker.
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Posted on 07/31/2015 4:43:42 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Earth just got a new next-door neighbor.
Astronomers have found the closest rocky planet outside our solar system using the Spitzer Space telescope. The planet, known as HD 219134b, orbits a star just 21 light years away, and NASA is calling a "potential gold mine of science data."
The planet is probably a bad place for life as we know it: it’s 1.6 times the size of Earth and more than four times the mass. Plus its three-day orbit is too close to its host star for liquid water to form, even though the star is cooler and smaller than our sun. Planets like this, referred to as super-Earths, are ubiquitous throughout the galaxy, but we still don't know a lot about them. This new neighbor could help us better understand the formation of planets and solar systems in general.
Today's discovery comes just one week after NASA announced what researchers referred to as "Earth 2.0." That planet — officially named Kepler-452b — was found by NASA's other famous planet-hunting space telescope, Kepler. Kepler-452b is much more like Earth than HD 219134b, as it maintains a 385-day orbit in the habitable zone around a star that is just 20 percent brighter than our sun.
But HD 219134b is much closer to us than Kepler-452b, which is some 1,400 light years away. That proximity to us makes HD 219134b a prime specimen. "It can be considered a kind of Rosetta Stone for the study of super-Earths," Michael Gillon, the lead scientist for the Spitzer detection, said in the announcement.
Scientists will train both ground- and space-based telescopes on HD 219134b to gather more information about it; for instance, it may be possible to find out if it has an atmosphere by watching the planet move across its host star. The planet could also someday be studied in greater detail by the James Webb Space Telescope, set to launch in 2018. Michael Werner, the project scientist for the Spitzer mission at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory said HD 219134b "will be one of the most studied [exoplanets] for decades to come."
Astronomers also learned that there are at least three more planets in the same solar system as HD 219134b. Two of them are much smaller and orbit closely to the parent star as well — one orbits the star once every 6.8 days and is around 2.7 times as massive as the Earth, while the other is in a 47-day orbit and is nine times the mass of the Earth. The fourth world in the system is gigantic — 62 times the mass of the Earth — and takes 1,190 days to orbit the star at a distance of 200 million miles away.
Just 21 light years away? That means it would only take us about 18000 years to get there.
Hey, how’s the weather up there?
It is in the neighborhood, but it's still 126,000,000,000,000 miles away (quite a hike).
Launch a probe today and it will get passed by a faster than light probe built 150 years from now.
And? And so what? A spider bite on my left thigh.
...unless you hitchhike.
Twenty-one light years = the distance light travels for 21 years at 186,000 miles per second. So how many seconds are a in a year? Do you even have that many decimal places on your calculator or computer? Are they even TRYING to be serious?
Scientists Confirm ‘Impossible’ EM Drive Propulsion
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/3317354/posts
NASA developing faster-than-light space travel technology
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/3286906/posts
‘Impossible’ rocket drive works and could get to Moon in four hours
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/3317709/posts
ping
Actually, using current technology, if developed the way it was envisioned in Project Orion, it would take about 650 years. Not counting the time needed to build on the initial research and develop a functioning nuclear pulse powered spaceship. Still a long time though!
Dear NASA Scientists
It is estimated there are over 100 Trillion planets in the Universe.
If you guys do a news conference after every one you see in your telescopes, it’s gonna get really, really tedious.
Let us know when something waves, or looks back!
Thanks,
The Human Race.
Just 21 light years away? That means it would only take us about 18000 years to get there.
++++
No. You just need use one of my Super Galaxy Warp Drive Interstellar Spacecraft which can reach 99.987% of the speed of light.
Time flys for you. A few weeks maybe. You need to take it easy when you take and land and that slows you down.
The other good news. When you return your 30 year mortgage will have been paid off and your teen age kids will be older than you are.
If the inhabitants of that planet is watching they can be seeing the first season of Friends.
We need to find volunteers to go visit the planet.
Thanks colorado tanker.
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Don’t go there!
It’s so very lonely
You’re 21 light years from home
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