Coolest. Thing. Ever. No, Really. Coolest. Thing. Ever.

[filkertom]

Astronomers have discovered another solar system.

Five thousand light years away. Structured like ours. Somewhat smaller.

There really, really could be other populated worlds out there.

I mean, yeah, we're SF fans, the odds are in its favor, et cetera. We know; we always knew.

But, until the past several years, we've been having trouble just finding other planets.

And now we've got another solar system.

Yeah.

Comments

[madrona.livejournal.com]

Um...correct me if I'm wrong, but don't planets *usually* show up in solar systems?

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

Up to this point, no. They've found single planets, which I guess counts as a solar system of one planet. But not a batch with outer gas giants and plenty of available space for inner planets.

[shockwave77598.livejournal.com]

We cannot detect them directly because they are so tiny. We detect the biggest ones indirectly by following the wobble of the starlight. We don't yet have any way of detecting something Earthsized. There was a previously reported earthsized planet detected by noting the decrease in starlight as the planet moved in front of the star. But there is some doubt whether the rare lineup was the cause, or far more probable, sunspots.

[mythdude.livejournal.com]

Not usually. A solar system refers to a star and the amount of debris and/or stellar objects caught in it's gravity. There are stars out there that might have nothing more than asteroid belts floating around them and the occasional dwarf planet.

[shockwave77598.livejournal.com]

We can't use the detection method used here too often though. The technique is to use the gravity of a foreground star to bend the light of a star almost behind it. As you might guess, stars don't line up single file in our sky all that much.

[dan-ad-nauseam.livejournal.com]

And the Doppler technique that has detected most other extrasolar planets is biased in favor of large planets close to the star.

[sazettel.livejournal.com]

They are finding more and more planets out there. The evidence that life might not only be out there, but be common is growing.

F'r instance, in our own neighborhood, as we know, the evidence of a large, salt-water ocean on Europa is pretty solid right now. Everywhere there is water on Earth, there is life. EVERYWHERE. You don't need light, you just need water and motion and a little chemsitry, and on Europa you've got at least two out of three.

I got to talk to RIchard Greenburg, who literally wrote the book on Europa. His opinion is that ice is thinner than is popularly thought, that it takes less than a foot of ice or water to effectively sheild the radiation from Jupiter, leaving open the very real possibility of life in the water, and perhaps in the ice itself. The book, BTW, is Europa: the Ocean Moon, and is very readable and highly interesting.

Never mind possibly fossils on Mars. Never mind 5000 light years away, as cool as that is. It is very, very possible we've got NEIGHBORS.

[shockwave77598.livejournal.com]

All we gotta do is say there are little brown men with oil up there, and we'll be landing enmass within a decade :)

[mythdude.livejournal.com]

I so wish we could send a submersible probe into Europa's waters. :( That would be so cool just to see if even algae is growing there!

Which planet was it that recently was confirmed to have an ocean of pure ammonia? Was it Titan? I can't remember. I just remember watching the probe pictures on the NASA website that showed vast, swirling beaches with greenish surf on them. It'd be the perfect vacation spot for people who like their weather a bit chilly.......like in the -1000 celsius range! :D (so exaggerating, don't remember how cold it is but dang it's cold!)

[tigertoy.livejournal.com]

We've found hundreds of gas giants already. What's impressive about this discovery is that we can identify planets at such a distance, not the planets we found. But the reason it was directed at something so far away is that it depends on a rare coincidence of stellar position; the chances of lining up a star close enough that it could let us see another earth is, if I understand the process, incredibly small.

[annearchy.livejournal.com]

Klaatu barada nikto!

[nimitzbrood.livejournal.com]

Klaatu barada...necktie!

[fair-witness.livejournal.com]

When I hear news like this, I love living in the 21st century.

[maiac.livejournal.com]

When are the Vulcans arriving? Or have they already been here, looked around, and said, "The logical choice is to wait until they're more civilized"?

[selenesue.livejournal.com]

They are going to have a LONG Wait.

[wormquartet.livejournal.com]

Holy crap!

-=ShoEboX=-

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

And didn't they find some sort of extraterrestial proto-microbes or something a while ago? It gets better all the time.

[eruvanna.livejournal.com]

Sweet Googly Moogly!!! That's fantastic.

One of the jobs I applied for

[capplor.livejournal.com]

is called "The Kepler Project", which is looking for earth-like planets around other stars.

http://kepler.nasa.gov/

[umbran.livejournal.com]

There really, really could be other populated worlds out there.

Or, for the cynics among us... http://xkcd.com/384/

[umbran.livejournal.com]

I should note - I think that he idea that we happen to be that unique is preposterous. But xkcd is still funny.

[liddle-oldman.livejournal.com]

In the newly discovered system, a planet about two-thirds of the mass of Jupiter and another about 90 percent of the mass of Saturn are orbiting a reddish star at about half the distances that Jupiter and Saturn circle our own Sun. The star is about half the mass of the Sun.

They found Krypton!

[wildcard9.livejournal.com]

Oh, great. That means the newly discovered planet already blew up, but we just haven't seen the boom yet. I wonder when Clark Kent will arrive here (if he isn't here already).

[smoooom.livejournal.com]

Life else where isn't just a nice idea. IHMO It's a fact. Way cool that wwe've found a solar system like ours, I look forward learning more. I'm just not that hyped about the life possibility, cause I know it's out there.

[unclelumpy.livejournal.com]

Refuted and/or condemned by fundamentalists in 5... 4... 3...

[cjfringe.livejournal.com]

This is the first solar system we've found that's like ours. It's got a Jupiter-like planet and a Saturn-like planet. But the whole thing is about half the size of ours, according to the article.

Obviously, that's the dev environment.

(Sorry, in the midst of programming and couldn't resist the geek programmer humor.)

[unclelumpy.livejournal.com]

The highest form of life in the universe is man.

The lowest form of life in the universe is a man who brings a baby to a movie theatre.

[gardnerhill.livejournal.com]

Oh good. That means we can die out as a species after all. (There are days when I think we deserve to.)

[sylverwolfe.livejournal.com]

HOLY CRAP!!! That is TOO freaking cool.
I'm gonna geek out about this all weekend. Pity I don't work with any eggheads who are gonna understand my glee...
Thanks for the heads-up!