They're surprised they found something? Or they're surprised it exists? ;-)
It's a super-Mercury, instead of a super Earth.
Fantastic! In the next twenty years, they will be discovering *thousands* of planets orbiting thousands of stars.
Well the odds are almost nil we'd ever find an Earth sized planet with a good distance from it's sun.
Intersting find. I imagine the "cool" side might have a chance to develop life if there's no rotation.
"It completes its tight orbit in less than 10 days"
So, winter would only last 2 1/2 days?
Typical August weather in Houston.
The Stars were Twinkling like Christmas Lights on Tuesday over the Western Skies!
It's just a matter of time and improved telescopes and techniques. There are a lot of earth size planets, have to be. Probably this one we are on is uniquely just right for us. Invoking the Anthropic Principle AKA Goldilocks.
Based on the orbital speed and the gravitational mass, I would assume those rapidly aging super earthlings would be short and squashed with a bad temper based on the heat.
So this is what passes as habitable to these scientists? You can get burnt to a crisp and dizzy on the same day.
At least it's not a black hole.
However, I also believe that we will never make contact with any of them (nor they with us) on account of the light barrier. I do not believe the light barrier will be conquered by any form of intelligent life and the many thousands of light-years to get from place to place at sub-light speeds will make intergalactic travel impractical because all living things have a finite life span.
So a year is every ten days. Elections there occur every forty days. Mass 14 times that here.....Ted Kennedy would weigh..............
bmp
There seems to be a problem with the following statement found in the article:
Most of the more than 120 planets found beyond our solar system are gaseous worlds as big or larger than Jupiter, mostly in tight orbits that would not permit a rocky planet to survive.
By "tight orbits" those quoted or the writer apparently mean orbits of small radii, placing the planets near the parent stars. Only rocky planets survive close to their stars because stellar winds blow away the lighter elements found near the surface of gas giants near their stars. A rocky core, if it existed, would remain. It is conceivable that during the formation of our sun and protoplanets, planets near the sun began as gas giants with rocky cores, but their light, gaseous elements quickly (on the astronomical time scale) were blown away as solar radiation increased, leaving behind the rocky planets we know as Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars.
One other point: the distance from mu Ara of the newly discovered planet is not given and I'm too lazy to compute it using the data given; however, if the planet has a period of only 10 days or less, it is extremely close to mu. More than likely the rotational periods of the planet on it axis and around mu are the same because it is locked by the overpowering gravity of the star, just as the Moon is locked to Earth and Mercury to the sun so they always present the same face or hemisphere to their gravationally superior hosts. What a hostile environment it would be on the side of this newly discovered planet that always faces mu Ara!
Hey we now have a place to send katsup-boy & the rest of his friends!