Posted on 07/04/2014 10:52:46 AM PDT by BenLurkin
Two potentially habitable planets in the Gliese 581 system are just false signals arising out of starstuff, a new study said. Gliese 581d and 581g are (study authors said) instead indications of the star’s activity and rotation. It’s the latest twist in a long tale about the system as astronomers struggle to understand how many planets could be orbiting the star.
“Our improved detection of the real planets in this system gives us confidence that we are now beginning to sufficiently eliminate Doppler signals from stellar activity to discover new, habitable exoplanets, even when they are hidden beneath stellar noise,” stated Paul Robertson, a postdoctoral fellow at Penn State University, in a press release.
...
Planets were first announced around the system in 2007 (by a research team led by Geneva’s Stephane Udry) including Gliese 581d. The system has been under heavy scrutiny since a team led by Steven Vogt of the University of Santa Cruz announced Gliese 581g in September 2010. Both 581d and 581g were considered to be in the “habitable” region around the dwarf star they orbited, meaning the spot that’s not too far or close to the star for liquid water to exist. “These ‘Doppler shifts’ can result from subtle changes in the star’s velocity caused by the gravitational tugs of orbiting planets,” wrote Penn State in the press release yesterday. “But Doppler shifts of a star’s ‘absorption lines’ also can result from magnetic events like sunspots originating within the star itself — giving false clues of a planet that does not actually exist.”
(Excerpt) Read more at universetoday.com ...
As the tech improves we’ll find more planets we don’t see now and not see the ones that don’t exist.
Even if they existed and were habitable what’s the point of making such of a big deal about it when we have no means of getting there?
Well the consensus was that they were there. The issue was settled.
I dont like this anti-science behavior. Not at all!
Fare thee well Gleise 581d, we hardly knew ye.
Actually the fact that they’re debating it seems to indicate exactly the opposite of consensus. Exactly the way science should work.
Tell that to the endangered indigenous species suffering from the effects of the Gliesel warming .....
/johnny
Even if astronomers found a habitable planet in each solar system they observed it still wouldn’t much of difference to us since we can’t get there.
We will get there. A hundred years ago, people would have laughed at you for talking about going to the moon. We will eventually develop technology for interstellar travel. However, it might not be necessary because they may come visit us first.
I agree, but we haven’t even settled on the Moon or Mars!
What use is a baby? It eats, it poops, it sleeps. They aren't very useful.
But times change, and they eventually become useful.
/johnny
I hoping that we can invent super luminal/faster than light travel otherwise the relativistic effects of getting anywhere near c is not going to be good.
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