...utterly...
Posted on 05/07/2017 10:08:38 AM PDT by BenLurkin
[T]he team conducted a detailed analysis of the system that showed how it has an architecture remarkably similar to what astronomer believe the Solar System once looked like.
Led by Kate Su – an Associate Astronomer with the Steward Observatory at the University of Arizona – the team includes researchers and astronomers from the Department of Physics & Astronomy of Iowa State University, the Astrophysical Institute and University Observatory at the University of Jena (Germany), and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Ames Research Center.
...
[P]revious studies of Epsilon Eridani indicated that the system is surrounded by rings made up of materials that are basically leftovers from the process of planetary formation. Such rings consist of gas and dust, and are believed to contain many small rocky and icy bodies as well – like the Solar System’s own Kuiper Belt, which orbits our Sun beyond Neptune.
Careful measurements of the disk’s motion has also indicated that a planet with nearly the same mass as Jupiter circles the star at a distance comparable to Jupiter’s distance from the Sun. However, based on prior data obtained by the NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope, scientists were unable to determine the position of warm material within the disk – i.e. the dust and gas – which gave rise to two models.
In one, warm material is concentrated into two narrow rings of debris that orbit the star at distances corresponding respectively to the Main Asteroid Belt and Uranus in our Solar System. According to this model, the largest planet in the system would likely be associated with an adjacent debris belt. In the other, warm material is in a broad disk, is not concentrated into asteroid belt-like rings, and is not associated with any planets in the inner region.
(Excerpt) Read more at universetoday.com ...
I find it curious that these scientist can be soo certain of another “Solar System”, only 10 lights away and the existence of a 9th planet in our own solar system remains a mystery.
Beware of eagerness to find a body double. It makes for good press, but isn’t good science.
Are baby solar systems where dark matter comes from?
Yes. And you have to change the diapers frequently to get rid of the dark matter.
Planet “Plimsoul”
Good one! Have to admit it took me a second to get it.
What a good time for music....
For the same reason it’s easier to find your car keys under a street light rather than out in the weeds at night. “Little” solar systems have a star to work with while it’s very dark out in the Kuiper belt, as seen from here.
Our fastest traveling probe to-date is New Horizons, clocking 36,000 Mph.
If New Horizons were pointed at the Epsilon Eridani system, it would do a fly-by approximately 190,000 years from now.
That’s how far away 10 light years is.
I thought Alpha Centauri was the closest system, at about 40 light years. Lost in Space said so.
Home of The Munchkins..........
Awesome.
Very helpful information. /s
With the astrophysicist community talking about solar systems like ours with earth like planets, there is one question: How do we investigate such systems that are light years away? By the time we get any explorer craft back from a round-trip exploration mission, there might not be humans available to analyze the data.
Look, it was just a few years ago where we had no proof whatsoever other solar systems even existed. Now we know these systems seem to exist through out the entire universe. Should we have said at the time, "Why bother, we won't be able to get there and back for thousands or millions of years anway?" This was all done without sending anyone anywhere. If you're waiting for a manned spacecraft or even a unmanned spacecraft to go to the stars and return with data, you have a very long wait.
It's why non-manned missions in our own solar system are conducting research and collecting data and transmitting it back electronically. So much data we'll be studying it for years to come. As technology currently exists, humans could never go or do what our unmanned spacecraft are doing.
Bottom line here, if you're talking about going to the stars it will be done by relying on optical and other types of telescopes and unmanned spacecraft, to visit, study, and research interstellar space outside of our own solar system, for hundreds of years to come.
We are alone...
Why did you put [sic] after only? Makes no sense.
Because ten light years is a loooooong way from here. Not “only”
...utterly...
It is just visible matter and invisible matter. Dark matter is a racist description in today’s universities.
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