A Newly Discovered Planet 40% Larger Than Earth May Be Suitable For Life (npr.org) 87
An international team of scientists says it has discovered two new "super-Earth" type planets about 100 light-years away, one of which may be suitable for life. NPR reports: Unlike any of the planets in our solar system, the nearly 1,600 known super-Earths are larger than Earth, but lighter than icy planets like Uranus and Neptune. Researchers at Belgium's University of Liege announced Wednesday that they found another one while using Earth-based telescopes to confirm the existence of a different planet initially discovered by a NASA satellite in the same solar system.
NASA's satellite found planet LP 890-9b, which is about 30% larger than Earth and orbits its sun in just 2.7 days. ULiege researchers used their SPECULOOS (Search for habitable Planets EClipsing ULtra-cOOl Stars) telescopes in Chile and Spain to take a closer look at the planet with high-precision cameras. That's when the stargazers discovered another planet, LP 890-9c (renamed SPECULOOS-2c by the ULiege researchers), which is 40% larger than Earth and takes 8.5 days to orbit its sun. Francisco Pozuelos, a researcher at the Institute of Astrophysics of Andalusia and one of the main co-authors of the paper, said in a news release that the planet could be suitable to life despite being a mere 3.7 million miles from its sun. Earth, by comparison, is located over 93 million miles away from our sun. "Although this planet orbits very close to its star, at a distance about 10 times shorter than that of Mercury around our Sun, the amount of stellar irradiation it receives is still low, and could allow the presence of liquid water on the planet's surface, provided it has a sufficient atmosphere," Pozuelos said. "This is because the star LP 890-9 is about 6.5 times smaller than the Sun and has a surface temperature half that of our star."
NASA's satellite found planet LP 890-9b, which is about 30% larger than Earth and orbits its sun in just 2.7 days. ULiege researchers used their SPECULOOS (Search for habitable Planets EClipsing ULtra-cOOl Stars) telescopes in Chile and Spain to take a closer look at the planet with high-precision cameras. That's when the stargazers discovered another planet, LP 890-9c (renamed SPECULOOS-2c by the ULiege researchers), which is 40% larger than Earth and takes 8.5 days to orbit its sun. Francisco Pozuelos, a researcher at the Institute of Astrophysics of Andalusia and one of the main co-authors of the paper, said in a news release that the planet could be suitable to life despite being a mere 3.7 million miles from its sun. Earth, by comparison, is located over 93 million miles away from our sun. "Although this planet orbits very close to its star, at a distance about 10 times shorter than that of Mercury around our Sun, the amount of stellar irradiation it receives is still low, and could allow the presence of liquid water on the planet's surface, provided it has a sufficient atmosphere," Pozuelos said. "This is because the star LP 890-9 is about 6.5 times smaller than the Sun and has a surface temperature half that of our star."
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"nd the speculations here on actually traveling to these planets, considering how primitive our technology is presently for extraterrestrial travel and habitation is, remains in the area of rather inferior comic books."
True but that works from the assumption our technology will always remain primitive and we'll never improve and be wanting for somewhere to go. Also going there is one thing, CONTACTING whatever might already be there is an entirely different animal. In many ways it might be far better to com
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"To approach the speed of light with our spacecraft is, by my suppositions, a rather distant accomplishment with our best current technology"
It is unlikely that will happen. It seems far more likely that we'll work out a concept like warping or tunneling or something else we haven't thought of yet which allows us to get from here to there without crossing all the intermediate space. It is hard to say how far away that any other development is when we don't have an incremental path on the map that leads ther
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It seems far more likely that we'll work out a concept like warping or tunneling or something else we haven't thought of yet which allows us to get from here to there without crossing all the intermediate space. ... I really wonder what you learned in school.
If that seems more likely to you
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https://www.sciencealert.com/engineers-have-proposed-the-first-model-for-a-physical-warp-drive
Both space warping and tunneling (aka wormholes) fall within our current understanding of physics. Accelerating a significant mass to anywhere approaching the speed of light really isn't so I wonder what YOU learned in school. Something we haven't thought of yet is ALWAYS a significant possibility. Our physics is not really how the universe works, it is merely a coherent mathematical model which does a decent job p
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Both space warping and tunneling (aka wormholes) fall within our current understanding of physics.
No, they don't.
They are correct solutions to some variations of Einsteins and Maxwells field formulas.
If you had read the article you linked, you probably had stumbled over a line like this: "however, to make such a thing, we need more energy than what is available in the whole known. universe".
So, no: there is no "new physics", that allows anyone in the universe to craft a warp drive or generate a useable worm
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"If you had read the article you linked, you probably had stumbled over a line like this: "however, to make such a thing, we need more energy than what is available in the whole known. universe."
No, I wouldn't. Because unlike you I read it. The proposed model depends on ultra-dense mass.
"And as far as I like to speculate with my tiny knowledge about physics: there never will be, neither for man kind nor any other race on the universe"
That's great. About as significant as my Cat's equally unsubstantiated opi
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As far as I can tell you don't even believe in engineering progress let alone the potential that what is 'possible'
Engineering progress does not make the impossible possible.
It only makes the possible things possible.
That is a very simple thing. The one who is believing is you, and you are not believing in engineering but in wonders.
The problem is it requires a lot of negative energy in one place, something that's simply not possible according to existing physics.
And further down:
Unfortunately, it introdu
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"That is a very simple thing. The one who is believing is you, and you are not believing in engineering but in wonders."
You are being deliberately obtuse. Nothing makes the impossible possible but engineering and experimental science advances do redefine our capabilities and move things from the 'can't be done' to 'can be done' category.
"The problem is it requires a lot of negative energy in one place, something that's simply not possible according to existing physics.
And further down:
Unfortunately, it intr
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"This one: They're confident that far into the future, the warp drive will become a reality. sounds more like an addition of the editor/author than a statement of the scientists :P"
And did you bother actually looking at the original article or the paper? That is fair paraphrase of the sentiments expressed by the scientists.
"How exactly do you compress again a planet sized thing into a sphere of 10m?"
Planet-sized? No, it needs the MASS of a small planet like Earth not the volume. But nobody has claimed we cu
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Planet-sized? No, it needs the MASS of a small planet like Earth not the volume.
Yeah sure - and what is the practical difference?
And obviously when I wrote size, I used it as synonym for mass. A no brainer.
But nobody has claimed we currently know how to build one. So just keep on beating that strawman with tongue hang out mockery as you've scored some point. You haven't, you likely never will and you should stick to outwitting clerks at your sweet spot of outwitting some of the clerks at the truck stop.No
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Re: What about this Earth? (Score:2)
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Perhaps but space warping is already a real and observable thing, it falls in the category of engineering challenge and would allow us to accomplish getting from A to B without going FTL.
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To be clear... while I am saying space warping is an engineering challenge I'm NOT claiming we are even remotely close to SOLVING that challenge.
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You could also move somewhere other than Australia, ya know?
Re:What about this Earth? (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm not sure where you get the idea from that they're looking for a different planet so we can ditch Earth. But it's probably just some sarcasm that goes over my head.
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Still, pretty much out of reach for any meaningful interactions.
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To be fair, whether it's 5ly or 500000ly doesn't practically matter at this point anyway :D
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I guess that depends on how you define meaningful interaction. 210 years for round trip communication might not be meaningful for us as individuals but could certainly be meaningful for humanity.
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In any case, when I was noting the sarcasm thing I was drawing the loose connection to some "memes" that you might see on the internet complaining about billionaires like Musk and Bezos seemingly investing billions int
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If you are talking about GOING there then sure. I just meant attempting to communicate on the slim hope something intelligent might be there, understand and reply. 105ly of buffer against needing to fear each other having hostile intentions could actually be a good thing there.
Granted the odds aren't spectacular but targeting these potentially life sustaining planets for such efforts definitely has a higher probability than just random sky sweeps into the black like SETI. It also seems more likely that we'd
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At the rate we're going, we could send a communication to them, and even if there's someone there to send a signal back right at the moment it reaches them, we could be back to living like the stone age by the time the signal comes back at us. Their scientists will be wondering, some 330 earth years from now when no "got your tap-back, here's a response" comes, if their equipment malfunctioned when they received the initial signal.
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There's no such thing as being any number of light years from a constellation. A constellation is a set of stars that appear near each other to an Earthbound observer looking up at night. The stars are not actually anywhere near each other, because it turns out the universe is three dimensional and stars are not simply holes poked in the firmament through which the light of heaven shines.
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This should give you points in space with accurate enough angles (for this purpose) relative to the origin which then results in an apparent relative distance between those points (neglecting the fact that the information from those starts is hundreds of years out of sync).
From that it ought
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I went to the original paper to see what "40% larger" meant. Turns out it means radius (or diameter, duh); the paper gives a mass estimate of 25 Earths. If I'm reading it correctly, that's a 2 sigma upper limit, so most likely mass is smaller...how much smaller, I don't know. Still sounds like you'd be pretty heavy. Maybe it's Harkonnen.
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Also, the amount of light received wil
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The climate of a planet that's tidally locked to its parent star could be weird with the far side permanently cold, while the near side gets some heat. I would expect very strong winds there.
Regardless in the recent years there have been hypothesis that red dwarf systems might be a primary candidate to look for "life signs" (whatever that may be) due to the long lifetime of such small stars they could provide a very large (temporal) window in their
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Re: What about this Earth? (Score:2)
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Maybe, I dunno, we should first focus on making this Earth habitable long-term?
Yes! Ban astronomy for the sake of the environment! Force all astronomers to plant 1,000,000 trees each to make up for their crime!
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We need better classifications. (Score:2)
Re:We need better classifications. (Score:5, Informative)
The "super" in super-earth just refers to mass, not atmosphere, temperature, or anything else. A super earth is an extrasolar planet with a mass between 1 and 10 times Earth's mass. Wikipedia has a list of planet types [wikipedia.org]
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> How about calling it a Class M planet?
You, sir, win this thread.
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Slashdot is supposed to be a tech site. If you think it's ok to call a star a Sun (except for the Sun) then you why the hell use any correct naming?
SPECULOOS? (Score:3)
Are they hunting for planets or for cookies?
Seriously, sometimes it seems like people spend more time coming up with tortured acronyms than they spend doing actual science.
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Practically nobody outside the Benelux is going to get this, unless you provide a Link [wikipedia.org] to what Speculoos is...
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Considering I had some with my coffee this afternoon here in Austria I think you should expand that radius a bit...
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"Are they hunting for planets or for cookies?"
Liège is a catholic university, they have even cookies that are alive.
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You're right, my bad.
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Now I have the image of Cookie Monster [google.com] peering at a telescope!
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This is a job for...AI!
I tried the caption "Cookie Monster looking through a telescope" at several text-to-drawing websites. Most are pretty lame, but Craiyon at least showed the famous Cookie Monster and a telescope (but he was eating it...maybe that's appropriate?). But wombo.art created the most reasonable picture, where CM (with four eyes) is at the right end of the telescope, and you could imagine he's looking through it.
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No thanks (Score:2)
The gravity on that planet must suck. I want a planet with less gravity, not more.
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"The gravity on that planet must suck. I want a planet with less gravity, not more."
Why?
You'd never have to work out.
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Depending on its composition it might well be lower instead of higher.
The material its made of matters.
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I wonder if the gravity on one side of the planet is (noticeable) higher than the other? That is, on the dark side, you've got the gravity of the planet + sun pulling you towards your bed. On the light side, you've got planet - sun holding you onto your folding e-bike.
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The planet and everything on it is in orbit around the same star, therefore nothing in orbit will feel the star's pull any more than an astronaut orbiting the Earth would. It might have some pretty crazy tides though.
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The problem with super-Earths is that their gravity might so strong that it's impossible to leave their surface using rocket-powered spacecraft.
https://www.realclearscience.c... [realclearscience.com]
https://www.space.com/40375-su... [space.com]
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I wonder... (Score:4, Funny)
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They're currently working really hard on reducing their population to make it fit their limited space, cut them some slack.
"a NASA satellite in the same solar system." (Score:2)
Took me a few reads too understand what that meant. Was wondering what satellite they could have possibly been referring to.
Tidally locked. Hard pass. (Score:5, Informative)
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Assuming 1.4G (just translating 1.4x size as 1.4G, am aware that size does not equal mass and this is just simplification), it's not impossible for humans to visit - although a long stay will be alot tougher.
It will be like carrying a 30KG body suit with me at all times if I was standing there.
As for tidal lock, the terminator line where day changes to night may be a viable place for life. This assumes there is some sort of life sustaining atmosphere.
Anyway this is all just guessing at possibilities. Doubt
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Eh.
I carry an extra 30 kg everywhere I go. I do ok.
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The radius is calculated to be slightly under 1.4 Earths. That means its mass is 1.4^3 times as great. According to the article, the upper limit (2 sigma) on the mass is 25x Earth. But I'm not sure how that works out in terms of the surface gravity, since the surface is 1.4x further away from the center. Still, it's likely to be quite high.
There was a story in Analog about a high G world once, with centipede-like intelligent inhabitants who were trapped by their environment and had no idea of the outsid
They need to stop hyping these weak findings. (Score:3)
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It means the planet could be habitable, as opposed to some icy gas giant like Jupiter. With SPECULOOS-2c there is a chance for earth-like life. Not on Jupiter.
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Jupiter is a huge ball of organic soup mixed in with hydrogen. Its quite possible some form of life could evolve in the dense gases further down though it would be nothing like on earth.
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The article describes a search for flares on the parent star; the astronomers found no evidence of any. It's reportedly a very old star, so maybe it's slacking off in old age.
Can you stand of this planet? (Score:2)
I've heard about exoplanets being habitable up close and very fast orbit around a cool star, and wondered about the forces you'd expe
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We wouldn't have discovered the planet if the forces in either it's orbit or rotation were too great for gravity to keep objects on its surface. because the planet itself would have pulled apart and scattered.
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If those numbers were right, then you'd weigh a quarter pound or so less at night than you do during the day (at least near the equator). That's because the centrifugal force of the Earth in its orbit is directed toward the night side. But in fact the centrifugal force of Earth's motion in its orbit is almost exactly balanced by the Sun's gravitational force--that's why it's a stable orbit. (Almost: the Earth's orbit is slightly elliptical.)
Sure, but (Score:2)
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I think the message is BSOD.