Posted on 01/07/2013 12:04:14 PM PST by NormsRevenge
LONG BEACH, Calif. (AP) — Astronomers hunting for Earth-like planets now have many places to look. A new estimate released Monday suggested the Milky Way galaxy is home to at least 17 billion planets similar in size to our planet.
It doesn't mean all are potentially habitable, but the sheer number of Earth-size planets is a welcome starting point in the search for worlds like our own.
Scientists have yet to find a twin Earth — one that's not only the right size but also located in the so-called Goldilocks zone, a place that's not too hot and not too cold where water might exist in liquid form.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
from JPL Nasa’s Kepler program web site
NASA’s Kepler Mission Discovers 461 New Planet Candidates
01.07.2013
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/kepler/news/kepler-461-new-candidates.html
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NASA’s Kepler mission Monday announced the discovery of 461 new planet candidates. Four of the potential new planets are less than twice the size of Earth and orbit in their sun’s “habitable zone,” the region in the planetary system where liquid water might exist on the surface of a planet.
Based on observations conducted from May 2009 to March 2011, the findings show a steady increase in the number of smaller-size planet candidates and the number of stars with more than one candidate.
“There is no better way to kickoff the start of the Kepler extended mission than to discover more possible outposts on the frontier of potentially life bearing worlds,” said Christopher Burke, Kepler scientist at the SETI Institute in Mountain View, Calif., who is leading the analysis.
Since the last Kepler catalog was released in February 2012, the number of candidates discovered in the Kepler data has increased by 20 percent and now totals 2,740 potential planets orbiting 2,036 stars. The most dramatic increases are seen in the number of Earth-size and super Earth-size candidates discovered, which grew by 43 and 21 percent respectively.
The new data increases the number of stars discovered to have more than one planet candidate from 365 to 467. Today, 43 percent of Kepler’s planet candidates are observed to have neighbor planets.
“The large number of multi-candidate systems being found by Kepler implies that a substantial fraction of exoplanets reside in flat multi-planet systems,” said Jack Lissauer, planetary scientist at NASA’s Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif. “This is consistent with what we know about our own planetary neighborhood.”
The Kepler space telescope identifies planet candidates by repeatedly measuring the change in brightness of more than 150,000 stars in search of planets that pass in front, or “transit,” their host star. At least three transits are required to verify a signal as a potential planet.
Scientists analyzed more than 13,000 transit-like signals to eliminate known spacecraft instrumentation and astrophysical false positives, phenomena that masquerade as planetary candidates, to identify the potential new planets.
Candidates require additional follow-up observations and analyses to be confirmed as planets. At the beginning of 2012, 33 candidates in the Kepler data had been confirmed as planets. Today, there are 105.
“The analysis of increasingly longer time periods of Kepler data uncovers smaller planets in longer period orbits— orbital periods similar to Earth’s,” said Steve Howell, Kepler mission project scientist at Ames. “It is no longer a question of will we find a true Earth analogue, but a question of when.”
The complete list of Kepler planet candidates is available in an interactive table at the NASA Exoplanet Archive. The archive is funded by NASA’s Exoplanet Exploration Program to collect and make public data to support the search for and characterization of exoplanets and their host stars.
Ames manages Kepler’s ground system development, mission operations and science data analysis. NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, Calif., managed Kepler mission development. Ball Aerospace and Technologies Corp. in Boulder, Colo., developed the Kepler flight system and supports mission operations with JPL at the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Colorado in Boulder.
The Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore archives, hosts and distributes the Kepler science data. Kepler is NASA’s 10th Discovery Mission and is funded by NASA’s Science Mission Directorate at the agency’s headquarters in Washington.
JPL manages NASA’s Exoplanet Exploration Program. The NASA Exoplanet Archive is hosted at the Infrared Processing and Analysis Center at the California Institute of Technology.
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and what then if we find one?
Nothing. Unless there is a revolution on our understanding of fundamental physics we will never get out of our solar system.
Nasa Kepler web site
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/kepler/main/index.html
Kudos to whoever chose to use the better “Earth sized planets” term.
I get irritated with the use of terms like “earth like” unless they’re clear about the theoretical nature of the discussion.
Indeed. God Himself couldn’t have invented a better system for permanently separating any advanced civilizations. Unless He did.
SnakeDoc
And since everything we need is on the Earth, in great abundance, there is no reason, beyond raw curiosity (nothing wrong with that), to leave it.
I have no doubt that there are billions of planets supporting life in the universe, but they are all millions of light years away, so as far as we are concerned they do not exist.
We should go there and conquer them.
Unless there is a revolution on our understanding of fundamental physics we will never get out of our solar system.
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I hear ya.. We need to slip it in a higher gear or peel back a dimension or two to scale the rungs of the multiverse and see revealed all its layers of glory..
but.. in actuality, We’re more like a type 1 infantile civilization on a celestial scale of 0-4 ratings for civilizations and their capabilities, which means we ain’t got that much on cock roaches and insects when it comes to jumping to the stars on our own.. yet we exist somehow .. for now... global varming or not. ;-]
We could send all the liberals there.
bump
Were not even a type 1, we can’t control our own weather yet.
1. Find an Earth-sized planet
2. Must be away from the galactic center (to reduce radiation)
3. Must be away from the center of the galactic arms (radiation)
4. Probably best if it was not part of a multi-star system (orbital stability)
5. Must have water as a liquid (needed for life)
6. Must have much larger planets outside its orbit (to capture asteroids/comets/meteorites from coliding)
7. Must be old enough (tectonic stability, time to sweep out space debris)
8. Must have a large enough moon (to stabilize axial wobble), but not so large as to be considered a double planet (tectonics, weather)
and finally
9. Must be close enough to us (to be observable and remotely relevant).
Billions? I’ll guess that there’s two or three, if any at all.
There is a revolution in our understanding concerning real warp drive: 10X the speed of light or higher and not violating Einstein’s ‘speed of light’ speed limit. Physicists say it’s possible and NASA is experimenting with it in the lab. It sounds crazy, but so did things like space travel, atomic energy and breaking the speed of sound.
If they work cheaper than the Chinese it will be "Project GAFTA" (Galactic American Free Trade Agreement).
And since everything we need is on the Earth, in great abundance, there is no reason, beyond raw curiosity (nothing wrong with that), to leave it.
You mean other than our sun expected to die out in another 5+ billion years?
Mars and Venus are also in the Goldilocks Zone, but things haven’t been “just right” for them.
All of these Super-Earths that they are finding would also pose an interesting issue with the possibility of life, but gravity so great that an “escape to space” would never be possible. I wonder at what gravitational force it would be impossible to achieve orbit through an atmosphere using hydrogen/oxygen rocket engines.
Due to the limitations of travel greater than the speed of light and the short relative life span of humans inter galactic travel is the stuff of science fiction and fantasy.
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