Posted on 06/08/2020 10:01:44 AM PDT by Red Badger
The scientists warned that they still require more data to confirm that their discovery is indeed a planet and not some “statistical fluke or a systematic measurement error”.
A massive exoplanet that orbits a star located some 3,000 light years away from our world was discovered by scientists who suggest that it may be potentially habitable, Fox News reports citing a statement issued by the Max Planck Institute.
According to the media outlet, while the planet, KOI-456.4, is "less that twice the size of Earth", orbits a "sun-like" star, making the two practically a "mirror image" of our own planet and sun.
"KOI-456.04 sits in a region of the stellar habitable zone – the distance range around a star admitting liquid surface water on an Earth-like planet – that is comparable to the Earth’s position around the Sun," the researchers say.
They also point out that the planet's host star, Kepler-160, actually emits visible light, thus standing out among "the central stars of almost all other exoplanets" which "emit infrared radiation, are smaller and fainter than the Sun and therefore belong to the class of red dwarf stars".
The scientists warn, however, that they still need more data formally declare KOI-456.04 a planet, as it can possibly turn out to be “a statistical fluke or a systematic measurement error instead of a genuine planet".
"The team estimates the chances of a planetary nature of KOI-456.04 to be about 85 percent pro planet", the team explains. Obtaining a formal planetary status requires 99 percent."
Which means this is not a mirror inmage
What they are really discovering is how rare the Earth is.
With any luck it will be like the Star Trek episode where the same people existed but were polar opposites. That would mean that world is still ran by sane people and Nancy Pelosi there could complete a complete sentence without going blank and Biden’s speeches would actually make sense.
Call Elon Musk. Tell him to forget Mars. Aim for our “mirror image” Get back to us Elon when you get there.
Twice the size? If it’s twice the mass, gravity could be a real downer.
Not sure any Earthlings would wish to live at 2G, but the point isn't colonization. If it's "inhabitable" it could be inhabited by carbon based life forms adapted to that gravity not too altogether different than Earth.
But that would also probably require the miracles of a large protective tide producing satellite, rotating iron core for a magnetic shield, ample coverage of H2O, lots of Hydrocarbons in the crust, and just the right mix of Oxygen, Nitrogen, and CO2 in the atmosphere. There's no other place in our solar system ready made for us and a sufficiently similar one anywhere might well be the stuff of fantasy.
A mirror image is an image of thing itself, reversed in one plane. That’s what they said, but not what they meant.
If the big bang is true. Then I would assume we are on one side and there must be another side. So what is out there?
Does this exoplanet make my butt look big?
I completely overlooked the mirror image concept in your photo, and instead wondered why I needed to see a photo with that raging leftist Julia Louis-Dreyfus.
1. Contradictory descriptions: “massive exoplanet” and “less than twice the size of earth”.
700 earths can fit into Saturn
1,300 earths can fit into Jupiter
63 earths can fit into Uranus
57 earths can fit into Neptune
calling the discovery a “massive exoplanet” is exaggeration in the extreme
2. Two variables alone: type of star and the distance of a planet’s orbit from the star, do not alone make the planet “earth like”. It takes many different attributes to make any planet Earth “like” and none are Earth “like” without most of those attributes.
“mirror image” is actually the biggest exaggeration of the article.
A big step beyond Journey To The Far Side Of The Sun.
Is it blue planet? Does it have a decent sized moon? No moon, no tides. No tides, no wind. No wind, stultifing atmosphere and runaway greenhouse effect.
Fun-house mirror, maybe...
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