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Astronomers find 'home from home' - 90 light years away!
spaceref.com ^ | 3 Jul 03 | staff

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.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Extended News; Foreign Affairs; Front Page News; Technical
KEYWORDS: astronomy; crevolist; planets; solarsystem; xplanets
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To: ALS
".Here is the only cite reference you have made here that I am aware of."

that's bull. Below is the same link I've always posted when darwoodians slip into denial mode instead of getting up off their lazies and looking for themselves.

It's amusing how far you will reach to find an insult. Here's a good example. By "here", I obviously mean "on this thread". Are you contending that you already posted this new cite on this thread? If so, kindly show me where.

Could you show me in this new cite exactly where Darwin committed plagarism? I have now "gotten off my lazies" and read it a great deal more often than it's merits warrant and cannot find any such reference. If you were not, to be polite, "mistaken", it would be but a moment's matter to point this out to me, but, of course, you do not, because you cannot, because, as I have pointed out before, you are bluffing, and hoping no one bothers to read it.

"the evolution believing atheist cannot find God for the same reason a thief cannot find a policeman." And the same applies for looking for anything that doesn't shine a most favorable light on your god Darwood.

If official global demographics are to be believed, Most evolutionists are believers, including the Pope in Rome. So your homily is largely irrelevant.

341 posted on 07/04/2003 5:36:31 PM PDT by donh (u)
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To: All
What follows is a little compendium of quotes from this thread, each preceded by its post number; and all of these are by one specific poster.

Note: this is not being submitted to a moderator; and it's not the subject of an abuse report. It's just compiled here as a handy reference.

#55: That thread got pulled because you yahoos didn't like the beating you were taking.
#76: It has as much to do with this thread as the morons that accused me of getting a thread yanked. Or did you just conveniently miss that?
#78: It would bother me too if I lurked on conservative boards foisting marxist crap on unsuspecting christians/conservatives.
#82: [H]ypocrite? I have every right to defend myself ...
#89: Hopefully you have a clue now.
#99: ... You never do. Which makes you clueless and irrelevant. shoo fly
#131: If you know the answer then spit it out. Save your insults for that morning shave in front of the mirror.
#199: You are nuts. ... So stop making crap up.
#225: you people never learn.
#226: enough of the lies[.] your side got its collective butt kicked to Uranus in the last one.
#229: shoo fly!
#279: I had not said a word to the pup. get your facts straight for once[.] I thought you said you guys had all discussed this privately? Did you leave out the pup again?
#283: Justify your behavior.
#295: take the pup with you
#299: Right after the spin, lies and tossed insults. How convenient Mr. Altruistic[.] Put your pup on a leash
#336: seek help

342 posted on 07/04/2003 5:40:49 PM PDT by PatrickHenry
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To: PatrickHenry
Ah, a much justified compendium! Thank you, kind sir!
343 posted on 07/04/2003 5:47:21 PM PDT by balrog666 (When in doubt, tell the truth. - Mark Twain)
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To: donh
Yeah. I showed ya already. click the frickin' link already and stop with the dummy games kiddo.
344 posted on 07/04/2003 6:04:43 PM PDT by ALS ("this is a book which contains the basis of natural history for our views" Marx on Origin of Species)
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To: PatrickHenry
Grand Poobah of the ALS Fan Club bump
345 posted on 07/04/2003 6:07:47 PM PDT by ALS ("this is a book which contains the basis of natural history for our views" Marx on Origin of Species)
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To: js1138
Looks like we found your guy, the button abuser. See #342
346 posted on 07/04/2003 6:10:21 PM PDT by ALS ("this is a book which contains the basis of natural history for our views" Marx on Origin of Species)
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To: PatrickHenry
Then there's this non-sequiter:

Prof. Brimley's comment, far from an insult, is the most cogent comment on fine-tuning arguments ever uttered by human tongue. The world isn't "just right" for us: we are right for the world, because evolution has naturally shaped us to conform to it. We are so in tune with the properties of our world that they look like prerequisites.

Response: Your problem seems to be with free speech/thought. Odd for someone who hangs around a message board.

Perhaps someone could help me understand how the response fits the prior post.

347 posted on 07/04/2003 6:16:59 PM PDT by js1138
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To: ALS
In the spirit of PH's contribution, I will just sum up your cite regarding Darwin's supposed plagarism:

Darwin's ideas were similar to Wallace's, Lyell's and Blyth's. Duh. The article uses the word "plagarism", but does not actually present evidence of plagarism, just long-winded, obtuse references to, for example, apparently unpublished notes of Blyth's. Showing, I guess, that plagarism might have been possible.

I guess you could call this the fossil gap argument with colors reversed. Because it was physically/chronologically possible that plagarism happened, therefore, plagarism happened.

By the same token, it's possible I might be all the mass murderers in recent history: no contrary evidence suggests otherwise, after all.

What really strikes me about this cite is that, in the unlikely event that it's case were to be made, it does absolutely nothing to dethrone evolutionary theory. It is just an irrelevant ad hominem attack on the first guy to bulldog it into common consideration.

In that regard, it kind of reminds me of your general behavior--eschewing arguments or evidence in favor of mining the far reaches of irrelevant absurdity for the chance at an insult, so I can see why you might actually think this silly exercise in imaginative pettifogging is somehow a devastating argument.

348 posted on 07/04/2003 6:20:31 PM PDT by donh (u)
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To: BJungNan
It's our own reflection

It's like the eternal sci-fi novel come to life. We get to see a set of characters interact just as they always do, but without some of the control of our day-to-day industrial context. Load the colonists on their ship and watch them continue their arguments long centuries after the original subject was forgotten. Hatfield-McCoy, Gunfight at the OK Corral, Serbs versus somebody 500 years ago, Muslims versus somebody 800 years ago. On and on it goes, lightyear after lightyear. Who knows, when they finally arrive at their new planet the first thing they will do after leaving the ship and breathing in the fresh air is duke it out. A thousand years later their progeny will still be arguing. That's what the mirror reflects.

349 posted on 07/04/2003 6:26:22 PM PDT by RightWhale (gazing at shadows)
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To: ALS
Yeah. I showed ya already.

Excuse me? You complied with my request and showed me, exactly, in the cite you offered, where the tangible evidence of plagarism actually exists? Could you point out where, in this thread or any other, you did so? I seem to have missed it. Since you know that you have done so, surely it can't be a severe strain on your resources to show me where? Since fame and fortune awaits anyone who were to unambiguously make such a demonstration, I'd think you'd be eager to show it off.

350 posted on 07/04/2003 6:27:07 PM PDT by donh (u)
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To: donh
Oh, the joys of virtual ignore PLACEMARKER
351 posted on 07/04/2003 6:31:46 PM PDT by PatrickHenry
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To: PatrickHenry
Oh, the joys of virtual ignore PLACEMARKER

Ditto for the wondeful day I had. Hope yours was equally satisfying.

352 posted on 07/04/2003 6:35:20 PM PDT by balrog666 (When in doubt, tell the truth. - Mark Twain)
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To: js1138
Perhaps someone could help me understand how the response fits the prior post.

I believe I can help with that. I hypothesis that the point it to pick a fight. Therefore, it is not necessary or efficient to try to understand the deponent's evidence or the reasoning arising therefrom. Devoting intellectual resources to understanding an argument would be a mis-use of resources if the point is to sting and run until one of the stingee's can be pursuaded to ring the abuse bell.

The hallmark of this would be a constant bombardment of shallow, insulting patter, featuring a great deal of repetition, leveraging off of a tiny collection of actual cites, intended more for camoflage and crowing than for substantial evidence related to the subject at hand.

353 posted on 07/04/2003 6:37:58 PM PDT by donh (u)
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To: Our man in washington
But do I get half credit...?

Hey, I give full credit for any HHGTTG reference. I only give half credit for Monty Python jokes. Those are no brainers.

354 posted on 07/04/2003 8:52:43 PM PDT by Bloody Sam Roberts (I have my own GPP...installed by Sirius Cybernetics!)
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To: balrog666
VI placemarker
355 posted on 07/05/2003 8:01:21 AM PDT by js1138
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To: js1138
And another VI placemarker
356 posted on 07/05/2003 10:56:16 AM PDT by Aric2000 (If the history of science shows us anything, it is that we get nowhere by labeling our ignorance god)
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To: RightWhale
Fletcher Christian and his motley mass of mutineers exhibited this behavior exactly.
357 posted on 07/07/2003 11:16:35 AM PDT by Doctor Stochastic (Vegetabilisch = chaotisch is der Charakter der Modernen. - Friedrich Schlegel)
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To: Doctor Stochastic
Of course, Doctor Peristaltic is always the innocent party.
358 posted on 07/08/2003 11:09:04 PM PDT by ALS (http://designeduniverse.com Featuring original works by FR's best. contact me to add yours!)
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To: Sam Cree
From whence cometh Angels? They don't dwell upon the Earth, at least not upon the spacetime Earth that we measure and quantify. So, what is their where/when?
359 posted on 07/08/2003 11:17:58 PM PDT by MHGinTN (If you can read this, you've had life support from someone. Promote Life Support for others.)
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To: ALS
Pitcairn
360 posted on 07/09/2003 6:23:58 AM PDT by Doctor Stochastic (Vegetabilisch = chaotisch is der Charakter der Modernen. - Friedrich Schlegel)
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