NASA Telescope Confirms Alien Planet in Habitable Zone (Earth like?)

Yahoo! News / Space.com ^ | December 6, 2011 | Mike Wall

[2ndDivisionVet]

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. — NASA's planet-hunting Kepler spacecraft has confirmed the discovery of its first alien world in its host star's habitable zone — that just-right range of distances that could allow liquid water to exist — and found more than 1,000 new explanet candidates, researchers announced today (Dec. 5).

The new finds bring the Kepler space telescope's total haul to 2,326 potential planets in its first 16 months of operation.These discoveries, if confirmed, would quadruple the current tally of worlds known to exist beyond our solar system, which recently topped 700.

The potentially habitable alien world, a first for Kepler, orbits a star very much like our own sun. The discovery brings scientists one step closer to finding a planet like our own — one which could conceivably harbor life, scientists said.

"We're getting closer and closer to discovering the so-called 'Goldilocks planet,'" Pete Worden, director of NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif., said during a press conference today.

The newfound planet in the habitable zone is called Kepler-22b. It is located about 600 light-years away, orbiting a sun-like star...

[2ndDivisionVet]

Is this as big as it sounds?

[cableguymn]

I don’t know. but they wrongly assume that conditions would have to be earth like for life to live.

I call BS on that.

They would only have to be earth like for US to live there.

[AlexW]

“Is this as big as it sounds?”
__________________________________

What is so big about it?
It is only logical that there are other “earth like” planets
in the universe.

Before one gets al excited and thinks this explains ET and
all the UFO tails on Kook to Kook, keep in mind that EVEN IF
they could travel the speed of light, it would take them 600 years to just get here.

Even as far back as the mid fifties it was “speculated” that
a planet could exist as close as 11 light years away.
Radio enthusiast were told to listen for signals, as it had been 22 years since high powered TV transmissions had started.
The theory was that 11 years for those transmission to get there, and 11 years for them to try a return signal.
Of course, it was all for naught.

[AnotherUnixGeek]

NASA's planet-hunting Kepler spacecraft has confirmed the discovery of its first alien world in its host star's habitable zone — that just-right range of distances that could allow liquid water to exist

Liquid water is assumed to exist under a crust of ice on Europa, one of Jupiter's moons, as well as other gas giant moons. The opportunity to check for life on these moons is obviously far better than on a planet orbiting another star.

Is this as big as it sounds?

Personally I don't think so - it always stood to reason that there would be thousands if not millions of earth-sized planets in earth-sized orbits around Sol-sized stars in our galaxy alone, simply because there are so many stars in our galaxy and planets don't appear to be unique to our system. Unless we have a way to inspect the planet at close range for life (and we don't), what's changed?

[IamCenny]

Radio transmissions degrade after a distance, we would have to intercept a laser beam to get a transmission or any sort of intelligible message, or signal. And a highly focused laser beam.

Of course, radio signals can be highly focused, but over 11 light years the signal will be so distorted that it won’t even really exist.

11 light years = 64522656000000 miles = 2688444000 earth diameters.

There are signals that have been out of the ordinary, from space. The most remarkable being the WOW signal.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wow!_signal
http://www.damninteresting.com/the-wow-signal/

I can’t think of the name of the scientist who came up with the equation for intelligent life in a galaxy, using what humans believe to be true about what it would take for intelligent life to exist. It’s not a generous estimate.....I think it’s Clark or something. But IIRC it’s 10, 10 intelligent species in our galaxy.

Finding a radio signal like the WOW signal would be pretty damn rare. If it’s an intelligent signal.

As long as the guess estimation is even nearly close to being correct. Which it’s probably not....interesting though.

[csense]

...the Drake equation.

[annieokie]

THis is just WONDERFUL, so wonderful it is almost to great to explain.

I see in this new planet, the PERFECT placeto send the OCCUPIERS. Send them all for a free ride off to "IDOCRACY WORLD". They want "FREE", well give them FREE, they can now OCCUPY a whole new world, No round trip tickets. Let them OCCUPY to their sweet little hearts content. Send Peanut Butter.

Let's not waste time, sign them up NOW.

[IamCenny]

Hey, I got the number of characters right! = D

[csense]

Truth be told, I forgot his name too and had to do a quick Bing search :)

[AlexW]

“Radio transmissions degrade after a distance,”
____________________________________

Yes, and I have no expectation of our ever detecting radio waves from distant civilizations.
As a ham radio operator that concentrated on DX communications, I was excited just to talk to the other side of earth.

I am also familiar with the “wow” signal.
Looking at it on computer printout, I suspect it is nothing more then a anomaly.
I do, however, support the activities of SETI, but have no real expectations.

[Isabel C.]

...keep in mind that EVEN IF they could travel the speed of light, it would take them 600 years to just get here.

Ever heard of wormholes?

[Jonty30]

The assumption comes from the thought that the universe is universal in the physical, chemical and biological laws that govern life.

Meaning that the general laws that allow life here, must also be applicable elsewhere for life to exist elsewhere.

But it’s not expected that life elsewhere is exactly earthlike, but that there’s a relatively narrow range. For example, life on another planet could have to live with gravity being 3 times what we experience, but it’s probably safe to assume that life couldn’t exist on a particular planet if it tried to exist on a planet with 500 times earth’s gravity.

[AlexW]

“Ever heard of wormholes?
__________________________________________

Yes, I failed to include the ideas of worm holes and parallel
universes...All part of the Kook to Kook concepts.
They always have to think up new explanations for ET and the UFOs.

As for myself, I will be a believer only when I see it.
That is highly unlikely in MY lifetime.

[6SJ7]

I can’t think of the name of the scientist who came up with the equation for intelligent life in a galaxy, using what humans believe to be true about what it would take for intelligent life to exist. It’s not a generous estimate.....I think it’s Clark or something. But IIRC it’s 10, 10 intelligent species in our galaxy.

It's the Drake Equation. The trick is the value returned by the equation varies dramatically with the supplied parms and we can only guess at most of the values. So you can basically get any answer from zero to tens of thousands of intelligent alien species in the galaxy.

[hope]

Revelations 21:1
And then I saw a new heaven and a new earth.

[ExCTCitizen]

We better get Mr Spock and Star Trek to visit Kepler. Hope there’s intelligent life on it — there isn’t any in Washington!!! :-)

[IamCenny]

ya i know, i don’t feel like looking it up, but it’s like number of stars in the galaxy, divided by number of solar systems divided by number of planets, or something.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks 2ndDivisionVet. This is another topic on Kepler 22b, but I'm pinging it anyway. :')

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