Just-Found Planets Near Earth's Size (3 new planets)

Washington Post ^ | 8-31-04 | Shankar Vedantam

[Indy Pendance]

Three planets have been discovered in other solar systems and are the closest ever found to Earth in size, marking an important step in the search for planets that could support life elsewhere in the universe, scientists have announced.

The planets are significantly smaller than the many dozens found so far and might even be rocky, an essential platform for life to evolve. The scientists who discovered the three planets said they were probably too hot to support life themselves, although one has a lukewarm zone that could conceivably support biological organisms.

While the existence of habitable planets elsewhere in the universe has long been hypothesized, the discoveries bring scientists much closer to finding another planet like Earth in another solar system. Given the number of stars in the universe, such planets might well be plentiful.

Many conditions would need to be met for any other planets to support life. Candidates need to be at an optimal distance from a star, and neither too hot nor too cold. They would probably need liquid water and would not trap harmful radiation, as Venus does. Once such a planet has been found, scientists could answer the final question: Was life on Earth a miraculous quirk or the inevitable result of physics, chemistry and celestial geography?

[RightWhale]

We are going to be buried with data soon. While we probably won't find a planet just sitting there waiting for new tenants, we will find so many close enough to earthlike [like Mars or Venus] that it will be hard to keep ourselves focused so exclusively on earth's little problems. A lot more people will be taking an interest in how to get from earth to someplace 50 lightyears away.

[KevinDavis]

I happen to be one of those people who wants to get away from 100 lightyears away... 50 is too close...

[RightWhale]

We shouldn't act surprised if 50 lightyears is too close and fairly soon, too.

[BnBlFlag]

I presume the silver coin is Uranus.

[KevinDavis]

That is true.. I want to get as far away from this rock!!!

[qam1]

But a moon orbiting a planet of the size of Jupiter would have frequent and long lasting eclipses. How could plant life survive when there's always an eclipse?

Not necessarily, If the Jupiter sized planet axis is tilted then the earth like moon would orbit around it's equator and will not have eclipes on a regular basis. But I'm sure life could have evolved (or been created if you prefer) to survive a few eclipes every now and then even if they last days or weeks (our time).

[Nowhere Man]

If that's true then light from the Galaxies is doing the same thing and there isn't as many galaxies as we think. Instead of seeing billions of galaxies we are just seeing the same few galaxies over and over again. Remember galaxies are moving so by the time their light got back to it's starting point they are long gone. If the universe has been around a long time then the light would have "Looped around" many times. So instead of seeing billions of "Real" galaxies we are instead actually just seeing billions of "Echos".

That theory was proposed in the 1920's, it's sort of like seeing the back of your head with light waves that go around the Earth. At one point, scientists thought the Universe only contained the Milky Way sometimes called "an Island Universe." One interesting theoretical question I pondered about is if I was driving my car at 100 MPH into the end of the Universe, assuming it has limits, would I wreck my car and my family need to scoop me off the wall of the Universe with a spatula? B-) Weird I know, but it is something to ponder.

[The Bandit]

Wonder which one Kerry is on?

[Nowhere Man]

Don't forget too that most of our day to day radio communications take place from 100 kc to 1000 Mc where you have everything from broadcast radio, shortwave radio, TV, police, fire, military, ambulance, taxis, amateur radio operators, CB, and whatnot. Also even above 1000 Mc, you have radars of all types. I know there is an international "quiet zone" set aside for the 21cm (1420 Mc) "water hole" band and I think there is another one around 600 - 620 Mc which is around UHF TV channels 37 or 38.

I think the idea of alien comms being found on 21cm was first thought of in Holland, can't remember the astronomer's name, during World War II but because of the war, it was held up until the 1950's. I'm also intrigued at Grote Reber's (Weber's?) first efforts to receive microwaves and VHF signals (160 Mc, 900 Mc, 3300 Mc) from space in the 1930's.

[qam1]

Hey dude, like wow, and really man, the sky is wow like really up there and just think, it's like down below at the same time!

And what if cat was spelled D-O-G

[qam1]

arlier this year some team of scientists reported that this could not be true. It was because of some recent observations somebody had made. They also came up with a range of possible sizes for the universe. (How's that for a detailed recollection? :-)

Well it remains to be seen, These are the same scientist who think the universe is 13-15 billion years old while at same time there are star clusters that are 18 billion years old.

I'm not sure either way but the way to find out is to look for the Milky Way "echo" in one of far way galaxies. Even though galaxies change over time and our galaxy wouldn't look the same as the light looped around, The Milky way has the 2 Magellan clouds and is close to the Andromeda galaxy which also has satellite galaxies so we should be able easily ID them. I not sure anyone has actually looked yet, but it would be an interesting experiment