"Super Earths" found nearby

QUOTE

Astronomers find 'super-Earths'

From correspondents in Washington

June 16, 2008 05:42pm
Article from: Reuters

* Trio of "super-Earths" orbiting nearby star
* Suggests Earth-like planets may be very common
* Planets discovered are bigger than Earth

RESEARCHERS today said they discovered a batch of three "super-Earths" orbiting a nearby star, and two other solar systems with small planets as well.

They said their findings, presented at a conference in France, suggest that Earth-like planets may be very common.

"Does every single star harbour planets and, if yes, how many?" asked Michel Mayor of Switzerland's Geneva Observatory.

"We may not yet know the answer but we are making huge progress towards it," Mr Mayor said in a tatement.

The trio of planets orbit a star slightly less massive than our Sun, 42 light-years away towards the southern Doradus and Pictor constellations.

A light-year is the distance light can travel in one year at a speed of 300,000km per second - or about 9.5 trillion kilometres.

The planets are bigger than Earth - one is 4.2 times the mass, one is 6.7 times and the third is 9.4 times.

They orbit their star at extremely rapid speeds - one whizzing around in just four days, compared with Earth's 365 days, one taking 10 days and the slowest taking 20 days.

Mayor and colleagues used the High Accuracy Radial velocity Planet Searcher or HARPS, a telescope at La Silla observatory in Chile, to find the planets.

More than 270 so-called exoplanets have been found. Most are giants, resembling Jupiter or Saturn. Smaller planets closer to the size of Earth are far more difficult to spot.

None can be imaged directly at such distances but can be spotted indirectly using radio waves or, in the case of HARPS, spectrographic measurements. As a planet orbits, it makes the star wobble very slightly and this can be measured.

"With the advent of much more precise instruments such as the HARPS spectrograph ... we can now discover smaller planets, with masses between 2 and 10 times the Earth's mass," said Stephane Udry, who also worked on the study.

The team also said they found a planet 7.5 times the mass of Earth orbiting the star HD 181433 in 9.5 days. This star also has a Jupiter-like planet that orbits every three years.

Another solar system has a planet 22 times the mass of Earth, orbiting every four days, and a Saturn-like planet with a three-year period.

"Clearly these planets are only the tip of the iceberg," said Mr Mayor.

"The analysis of all the stars studied with HARPS shows that about one third of all solar-like stars have either super-Earth or Neptune-like planets with orbital periods shorter than 50 days."

So who else is wondering how many more "earth like planets", or "planets with similar conditions to near exact conditions as earth" or now "super earths" they are going to announce they have found, before they announce they found "beings similar to humans" living on one of these planets? user posted image

If you look closely at that greyish planet in the bottom left, you can see a face smirking...

"They orbit their star at extremely rapid speeds - one whizzing around in just four days, compared with Earth's 365 days, one taking 10 days and the slowest taking 20 days"

"The analysis of all the stars studied with HARPS shows that about one third of all solar-like stars have either super-Earth or Neptune-like planets with orbital periods shorter than 50 days"

They don't sound very earth-like to me. greekturkish/nixweiss.gif

So to those of you who know this stuff, what will the gravital pull be like, if they have oxygen mix in the atmosphere, massive permanent storms creating a constant mayham etc.

Dude to complete an orbit in just 4 days that means that the planets must me really really close to the sun. That means 1000 C on the surface.

Mercury takes a few months to complete an orbit and its surface temperature is 150 C or something.

These planets must be hell planes.

If they are big, then they must have a higher speed, just to stay in the orbit.
It also depends on the size of the star wich they accompany.

What we know for certain about the universe is about the size of a pebble of sand on a beach. Even our own solar system is full of surprises. It's always throwing curveballs to our astronomers.

@Zeus

I think it would be very naive to think that our planet is the only one like it. I'm betting there are millions if not billions of earth like planets out there which support some form of life close to ours and some that would probably freak us out if we knew about them.

Kaya I'll go one step further and say there is probably life out there somewhere.
For example, they say there was once life on Mars or whatever, that it had rivers and oceans etc. So there must be others planets like that. Well they have found other planets like Earth. Maybe those planets are in the early stages of evolution with micro organisms or something?

Seriously, does anyone believe we are the only "beings" in the universe? I'm not talking about green or grey aliens in movies or reptilians like some whakos.

Well statistically it is more than possible that there is life out there, but how will we reach them when the nearest is 42 light years away (an impossible distance for us).

And we are really phucket when they reach us. greekturkish/eeps.gif

there isnt really any solid proof that there was water on Mars.

the idea that there was comes from there being canyons and valleys there.

Well they have now found this with their rover on Mars..

user posted image

If one uses logic. The more advanced a species are, the more civilized it will be.
Think about it... in order to reach such an immence state of advanced technology, an advanced species has to have lived for a considerable period in prosperity and peace.

Humans are quite primitive in terms of interstellar travel. We hardly know anything about the universe and back it up with hard evidence. All we have is our puny theories and our childish telescopes.

We were riding horses 80 years prior to this day. Humans are just plainly insignificant to the other species out there.

Thats until we found the UNITED FEDERATION OF PLANETS. greekturkish/bluebiggrin.gif

Fuck San Francisco, I want the headquarters in Athens bitch. greekturkish/cool28.gif

QUOTE (Zeus @ June 20, 2008 06:21 pm)

Well they have now found this with their rover on Mars..

user posted image

"The picture that has Nasa's nerds amazed"! greekturkish/laugh.gif

Does this not sum it perfectly. greekturkish/laugh.gif

Anyway, from what little I admittingly know, Mars does have its ice caps

So the "white stuff" does appear on Mars, therefore what is there to exactly be "amazed" about? greekturkish/nixweiss.gif

what does this ice composed of is the issue i think. it could be methane ice or sth else.

QUOTE

Blow to 'bugs from Mars' theory

A novel experiment has dealt a setback to a theory that life on Earth was kickstarted by bacteria that hitched a ride on space rocks.

The "pan-spermia" hypothesis is that cells were transported to the infant Earth on rocks that were bumped off other planets or even came from another star system.

The theory gained a boost in 1996 when a group of US scientists proposed that a famous meteorite found in Antarctica may have held traces of fossilised bacteria that once lived on Mars.

Seeking to find out more, European scientists have devised "artificial meteorites" to see what happens when rocks bearing fossil traces and living bacteria are exposed to the fiery heat of entering Earth's atmosophere.

In research to be unveiled today, they attached small rocks two centimetres (0.8 of an inch) thick to a Russian unmanned Foton M3 capsule that was launched in September 2007 and returned to Earth 12 days later.

The samples were imbedded on the capsule's heat shield, which reached a peak velocity of 7.6 kilometres per second, or 27,200 kms, per hour during the controlled descent.

One sample comprised a 3.5-billion-year piece of sedimentary rock from Pilbara, Australia, that contained carbonaceous microfossils.

The other was a piece of lake sedimentary rock from the Orkney Islands, Scotland, containing chemical traces of past organisms.

The back of both rocks was smeared with a living bacterium called Chroococcidiopsis -- a hardy, primitive species that lives on the underside of stones in the desert, surviving on tiny droplets of moisture.

Some scientists have considered it, or a relative of it, to be a good candidate for a Martian germ.

Recovered and analysed after the return, the Pilbara sample was found to be covered with a creamy-white fusion crust about half a millimetre thick but, underneath, its microfossils were intact.

The Orkney samples lost nearly a third of its mass, but otherwise survived, as did its biomolecules.

But there was bad news for the Chroococcidiopsis. The bugs were burnt to a crisp, although their carbonised outline remained intact.

"The STONE-6 experiment suggests that, if Martian sedimentary meteorites carry traces of past life, these traces could be safely transported to Earth," said investigator Frances Westall, of the Centre of Molecular Biophysics in Orleans, France.

"However, the results are more problematic when applied to pan-spermia," she said a press release.

"STONE-6 showed at least two centimetres (0.8 of an inch) of rock is not sufficient to protect the organisms during (atmospheric) entry."

The study was scheduled to be presented on Thursday at the European Planetary Science Congress in Muenster, western Germany.

So far 39 meteorites have been found on Earth that have been attributed, through their chemical signature, to a Martian origin.

The notion is that they were knocked off the planet in the distant past by an asteroid impact. They then wandered in space before landing here.

But all of these meteorites are of basalt, or volcanic origin.

None is sedimentary, a term for rocks that are laid down in beds or strata as a result of wind, water or gravity. This has perplexed scientists, as there is abundant evidence for sediments on the Red Planet.

The outcome of the STONE-6 experiment, though, shows that Martian sedimentary rocks could survive entry through Earth's atmosphere.

The Foton capsule generated temperatures of around 1,700 degrees Celsius (927 degrees Fahrenheit), although its speed was somewhat slower than that of a meteorite.

Meteorites normally attain a velocity of 12-15 kms per second (42,800-53,600 kph) depending on their angle of descent.

A third piece of rock, a control sample of basalt, was lost during the descent.

http://www.theage.com.au/world/blow-to-bug...jn.html?page=-1

What a shock! greekturkish/eek.gif

I'll be damned, so the human race did not originate from Mars. Oh well, it's back to Genesis for me.