Spitzer Detects Shadow of 'Super-Earth' in Front of Nearby Star

www.sciencedaily.com ^ | May 5, 2011 | Staff

[wendy1946]

That’s an astounding feat.

[martin_fierro]

"I HEREBY DUB THEE ... PLANET PIMP!"

[wbarmy]

Why in the world do they call it a super-earth? It is too large for use by humans, the gravity would be too high. It has too little water and is too far from the sun and is too cold. It has no relationship to Earth at all. Calling it a naked Neptune is reasonable.

They want so badly to find an earth normal planet that they are going to build expectations constantly by using the word, Earth.

[Don Corleone]

We are not alone! Boo!

[laweeks]

I thought you meant Eliott Spritzer (or whatever)

[Red Badger]

They want so badly to find an earth normal planet that they are going to build expectations constantly by using the word, Earth.

They have no other word to describe a large rocky planet............

[Carley]

LOL....I thought this was info on Client #9

[sasquatch]

We are not alone!

We were not alone 42 yrs ago.

[allmost]

Ping.

[Constitution Day]

Haha!

[onedoug]

¨Where are they?¨ —Enrico Fermi

[Red Badger]

I thought you meant Eliott Spritzer (or whatever)

He discovers black holes................

[MrB]

How about “rocky”? :)

Another word they could use is “terrestrial”.
I agree with Gabby Johnson - they’re trying to make extra-solar earths more of a possibility than they are.

[RobRoy]

>>Why in the world do they call it a super-earth?<<

Simple. From Earth comes man. from Super Earth comes Superman.

It’s actually Krypton and was not destroyed.

8 times the mass. Why do you think he’s so strong?

[RobRoy]

>>They have no other word to describe a large rocky planet............<<

How about “large rocky planet”?

[RobRoy]

>>I agree with Gabby Johnson - they’re trying to make extra-solar earths more of a possibility than they are.<<

Yep, I clicked on this thread because of “super earth” in the title. If they had said they merely found another large planet I would not have clicked on it.

[Red Badger]

The technology at this point may not be quite good enough to detect a ‘earth-sized’ planet within the Goldilocks Zone. This planet is the smallest they have found so far. That doesn’t mean there aren’t any smaller, it’s just that they cannot yet detect them. If you read the full article, another team, using a different system, analyzed this same planet and their indications are that it is even smaller than Spitzer’s team’s calculations.........

[Red Badger]

That’s 3 words..............

[Red Badger]

Spitzer’s out there looking for black holes. That’s why he’s at CNN...............