Prospects for Finding New Earths Boosted by Brand New Planet-Finding Technique

ScienceDaily ^ | July 9, 2010 | ScienceDaily staff, Royal Astronomical Society, AlphaGalileo

[SunkenCiv]

A team of astronomers from Germany, Bulgaria and Poland have used a completely new technique to find an exotic extrasolar planet. The same approach is sensitive enough to find planets as small as the Earth in orbit around other stars. The group, led by Dr Gracjan Maciejewski of Jena University in Germany, used Transit Timing Variation to detect a planet with 15 times the mass of the Earth in the system WASP-3, 700 light years from the Sun in the constellation of Lyra... Transit Timing Variation (TTV) was suggested as a new technique for discovering planets a few years ago. Transits take place where a planet moves in front of the star it orbits, temporarily blocking some of the light from the star. So far this method has been used to detect a number of planets and is being deployed by the Kepler and Corot space missions in its search for planets similar to the Earth. If a (typically large) planet is found, then the gravity of additional smaller planets will tug on the larger object, causing deviations in the regular cycle of transits. The TTV technique compares the deviations with predictions made by extensive computer-based calculations, allowing astronomers to deduce the makeup of the planetary system.

[SunkenCiv]

This image shows the faint star WASP-3 (magnitude 10.5 or about 60 times fainter than can be seen with the unaided eye) in the centre of the image, made using the 90-cm telescope of the University Observatory Jena. The star is enlarged with better sensitivity and resolution in the inlay in the lower left. WASP-3 is at a distance of 700 light years and is located in the constellation Lyra. North is up, east to the left. The large image is a composite of three images taken using different filters (blue, visual and red) and the small inlay only uses a red filter. (Credit: Gracan Maciejewski, Dinko Dimitrov, Ralph Neuhäuser, Andrzej Niedzielski et al.)

[SunkenCiv]

I think this may be repeat, but I'm posting and pinging anyway, and will just keep a look out for the torches of the angry townspeople.

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[LiberConservative]

Good. I want off this “One World” Communist government-run rock NOW.

[JoeProBono]

[KevinDavis]

2020 is when we find a earth like planet... I'm also thinking it is going to be in Alpha Centauri.. I'm also thinking that in 2070 we have some kind FTL technology or close to it..

[SunkenCiv]

alpha centauri exoplanet

Google

[WesternPacific]

If these new planets or Earths do not have an islamic crescent emblazoned on it, obamarama will insure the funding will be cut from the program.

[givemELL]

This is interesting, and, we would be rewarded perhaps even more if we would look for more rare earth’s on this planet.

[GeronL]

2070??

wah!!!

I want off now. heh.

How long till I can make me a new body and start over?

[KevinDavis]

or if you wish build a ship like they did in Virtuality and go to Alpha Centauri in 5 years.. I prefer that route than waiting for FTL..

[Talisker]

Prospects for Finding New Earths Boosted by Brand New Planet-Finding Technique

[Rembrandt]

Why find a human habitable planet that cannot be reached from Earth in one person’s lifespan? Is that worth 50 Billion bucks when businesses are dying and people are begging for alms?

[Dimez_Recon]

The same reason we bought the Lousiana Territory, claimed the Pacific NW, fought a war for the SW, and bought Alaska. Just because the President is wrecking the country doesn’t mean we should be near sighted.

[saundby]

Consider the effects here if we discover a number of planets both like Earth and others that aren’t. What if study of these other Earths, and Earth-sized but non-Earthlike planets shows that a planet like ours has a very stable climate under a far wider variety of conditions than we’ll ever experience under our Sun. Likewise the non-Earthlike planets show what it does take to really have a runaway freezing or frying effect. And that none of it is anything like what’s posited by climate extremists here and now.

No information exists “in a vacuum.” The Greenhouse Effect and a lot of other scaremongering about the climate comes from studies of Venus. Exactly why Earth and Venus are so different is to some degree a matter of conjecture. So long as we have only these two planets to weigh in on the matter the data are sparse enough to cast it as you wish it.

More data mean less support for lies about Earth’s conditions. We need all the information we can get to inform the political process here on Earth. The better that is done, the better we can do for ourselves here. And if we do well, space travel will take care of itself. ;)