Posted on 07/03/2003 10:22:13 AM PDT by RightWhale
Astronomers find 'home from home' - 90 light years away!
Astronomers looking for planetary systems that resemble our own solar system have found the most similar formation so far. British astronomers, working with Australian and American colleagues, have discovered a planet like Jupiter in orbit round a nearby star that is very like our own Sun. Among the hundred found so far, this system is the one most similar to our Solar System. The planet's orbit is like that of Jupiter in our own Solar System, especially as it is nearly circular and there are no bigger planets closer in to its star.
"This planet is going round in a nearly circular orbit three-fifths the size of our own Jupiter. This is the closest we have yet got to a real Solar System-like planet, and advances our search for systems that are even more like our own," said UK team leader Hugh Jones of Liverpool John Moores University.
The planet was discovered using the 3.9-metre Anglo-Australian Telescope [AAT] in New South Wales, Australia. The discovery, which is part of a large search for solar systems that resemble our own, will be announced today (Thursday, July 3rd 2003) by Hugh Jones (Liverpool John Moores University) at a conference on "Extrasolar Planets: Today and Tomorrow" in Paris, France.
"It is the exquisite precision of our measurements that lets us search for these Jupiters - they are harder to find than the more exotic planets found so far. Perhaps most stars will be shown to have planets like our own Solar System", said Dr Alan Penny, from the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory.
The new planet, which has a mass about twice that of Jupiter, circles its star (HD70642) about every six years. HD70642 can be found in the constellation Puppis and is about 90 light years away from Earth. The planet is 3.3 times further from its star as the Earth is from the Sun (about halfway between Mars and Jupiter if it were in our own system).
The long-term goal of this programme is the detection of true analogues to the Solar System: planetary systems with giant planets in long circular orbits and small rocky planets on shorter circular orbits. This discovery of a -Jupiter- like gas giant planet around a nearby star is a step toward this goal. The discovery of other such planets and planetary satellites within the next decade will help astronomers assess the Solar System's place in the galaxy and whether planetary systems like our own are common or rare.
Prior to the discovery of extrasolar planets, planetary systems were generally predicted to be similar to the Solar System - giant planets orbiting beyond 4 Earth-Sun distances in circular orbits, and terrestrial mass planets in inner orbits. The danger of using theoretical ideas to extrapolate from just one example - our own Solar System - has been shown by the extrasolar planetary systems now known to exist which have very different properties. Planetary systems are much more diverse than ever imagined.
However these new planets have only been found around one-tenth of stars where they were looked for. It is possible that the harder-to-find very Solar System-like planets do exist around most stars.
The vast majority of the presently known extrasolar planets lie in elliptical orbits, which would preclude the existence of habitable terrestrial planets. Previously, the only gas giant found to orbit beyond 3 Earth-Sun distances in a near circular orbit was the outer planet of the 47 Ursa Majoris system - a system which also includes an inner gas giant at 2 Earth-Sun distances (unlike the Solar System). This discovery of a 3.3 Earth-Sun distance planet in a near circular orbit around a Sun-like star bears the closest likeness to our Solar System found to date and demonstrates our searches are precise enough to find Jupiter- like planets in Jupiter-like orbit.
To find evidence of planets, the astronomers use a high- precision technique developed by Paul Butler of the Carnegie Institute of Washington and Geoff Marcy of the University of California at Berkeley to measure how much a star "wobbles" in space as it is affected by a planet's gravity. As an unseen planet orbits a distant star, the gravitational pull causes the star to move back and forth in space. That wobble can be detected by the 'Doppler shifting' it causes in the star's light. This discovery demonstrates that the long term precision of the team's technique is 3 metres per second (7mph) making the Anglo-Australian Planet Search at least as precise as any of the many planet search projects underway.
Why don't you ignore him if you don't like what he has to say? Seriously? Many of us here enjoy his posts and are equally as annoyed as you are with YOURS. Difference is...we don't have happy-abuse-clickfest-parties....(but we easily could). Truth is... while you might claim that ALS is why the threads get pulled, you fail to see that it's your own whining that causes it. Why would you whine? Especially for ALS's posting on that thread. He broke NO rules (unlike you bringing that bag into this thread). Try to focus on this one thing....... There are MANY here who don't share YOUR views. We are just as entitled to OUR say. Here's the difference.... When YOU and your side break the rules, WE get over it and handle it like DEBATE forums do. Whe WE break the rules, YOU guys WHINE and CRY and turn into frothing-mommyseeking-hypocrites.
These threads will ALWAYS be heated. The topic is heated. It's the nature of the beast. Get over it or ignore it.
I don't even see anything wrong with heated discourse.
I have no need to private message you.
Happy July 4th. Eat, drink and be merry
I asked you a serious question, and you gave me a silly response
Where?
I would like to hear from conservababe about whether it is appropriate to call jennyp a loon.
me saying "jerry lewis" is hardly something to run home to momma about. Is that the best you clowns can do?
I would like to hear from conservababe about whether it is appropriate to call your opponents clowns. And whether a mocking answer is appropriate to a fact-based question.
Fact is, I was attacked in #38. I had not been in here. It was an unsolicited attack.
True. But whattajoke had not discussed the change of tone at that time. I had not discussed any part of today's happenings with him.
Another fact... Aric is the one that assailed me. I had not said a word to the pup.
Not on #38 and not before you did the Jerry Lewis thing.
get your facts straight for once
My facts are straight.
I thought you said you guys had all discussed this privately? Did you leave out the pup again?
No, but I think we are all trying. I do believe that using the terms pup, loon and clown is inappropriate.
I don't either. That's why it is so strange to have threads pulled. I assure you that I have never complained to admins over heated words or name calling.
Our planet would have seemed dead to them until today.
Of course it is impossible to think about travelling there, but radio transmissions travel at the speed of light so anything we pick up from each other occurred 90 years ago.
They will not be able to see our first television broadcasts (from 1927) until 2017.
If we went at warp 32, would we meet ourselfs comming back??
oops
I left out ...."and Free".
GOD bless America
I think that all of us could use a bit of the old cheek turning. In the scheme of life it really isn't important who starts name calling, but who has the good sense to quit first. Let's be freepers first on the fourth.
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