First direct image of extrasolar planet.

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Nik

Lifer
Jun 5, 2006
16,101
3
56
Finding an extrasolar planet isn't news.

Though over 300 extrasolar planets have been found using other techniques, this picture likely represents the first direct image of a planet belonging to a star similar to the Sun.
 

jpeyton

Moderator in SFF, Notebooks, Pre-Built/Barebones
Moderator
Aug 23, 2003
25,375
142
116
You might have a more active discussion with hellokeith if you bring up the great Human-Dinosaur War of 3000 BC.
 

PlasmaBomb

Lifer
Nov 19, 2004
11,636
2
81
Originally posted by: SphinxnihpS
Originally posted by: Jeff7
:thumbsup:

Impressive. :)

That's still ridiculously far from its parent start. That's way farther out than Pluto is from our Sun.


I feel a bit dirty now, for looking at these voyeurish pictures of a young, hot, naked planet.

6 times further at Pluto's maximum orbital distance from the sun, so yes, very very far. But the star is only millions of years old. In several billion years the planet should "fall" towards its star, no?

No
 

miketheidiot

Lifer
Sep 3, 2004
11,060
1
0
Originally posted by: Nik
Finding an extrasolar planet isn't news.

Though over 300 extrasolar planets have been found using other techniques, this picture likely represents the first direct image of a planet belonging to a star similar to the Sun.

the bolded part is the news.
 

TechBoyJK

Lifer
Oct 17, 2002
16,699
60
91
Originally posted by: PlasmaBomb
Originally posted by: SphinxnihpS
Originally posted by: Jeff7
:thumbsup:

Impressive. :)

That's still ridiculously far from its parent start. That's way farther out than Pluto is from our Sun.


I feel a bit dirty now, for looking at these voyeurish pictures of a young, hot, naked planet.

6 times further at Pluto's maximum orbital distance from the sun, so yes, very very far. But the star is only millions of years old. In several billion years the planet should "fall" towards its star, no?

No

Hmmmm... If the star grows in mass, shouldn't that additional mass pull the planet closer due to gravity?

 

Juddog

Diamond Member
Dec 11, 2006
7,851
6
81
The other issue is our common assumption that if there was intelligent life on other planetary bodies, that they would be using EM to transmit information. EM would be a poor choice to transmit information any distance approaching even a few light years, for all of the reasons mentioned above. Mainly it takes an increasingly larger amount of power to transmit the signal the farther along you go, and also the main problem of light speed.

Now we have exceeded light speed under laboratory conditions using caesium atoms at 300 times c. Quantum tunneling can also exceed c. Therefore it would be pretty absurd to think that an intelligent life form that has had millions of years of technological equipment would be trying to communicate using electromagnetic waves in the same way that we use them today.
 

Jeff7

Lifer
Jan 4, 2001
41,596
20
81
Originally posted by: TechBoyJK
Hmmmm... If the star grows in mass, shouldn't that additional mass pull the planet closer due to gravity?
The star may accrete additional matter, but the center of mass of the system should remain the same.

I don't know much about orbital dynamics though, so I don't know what its orbit would do over time. Some of it might have to do with tidal effects, and the overall stability of its orbit.

But if I'd snap my fingers and turn that star into a black hole of the same mass, that planet will still keep on orbiting it, since the gravitational attraction would be the same.



DisgruntledVirus - an interesting aside on the Voyager and Pioneer probes: Someone suggested that the most likely ones to find them will in fact be Earth-based life forms, human descendants in the future. We may well develop some relativistic drive technology, and there'll perhaps still exist ancient records of old probes launched at certain times, on complex journeys. They'll enter the data into their quantum-optical-whatever computers, figure out some possible trajectories, and launch swarms of microprobes to search a region of space. Bing, there we go, find Voyager 1 speeding away from the Solar System. Catch it, bring it back, play the record, and get confused as hell by the message.
I think it says "hello" in something like 50 languages.

"What are they saying here? Is this just an unbelievably complex language? Is the message damaged? Oh wait, it just said something coherent. 'ur doin it wrong.' Oh, ok. It then goes on to suggest 'firin mah lasaaahhh.' Curious dialect."

Then the golden record proceeds to Rickroll them.


Originally posted by: DisgruntledVirusAssuming we have the tech already, it would take till the year 3000 for that signal to be reached by the planet in the OP. Ready for the kicker? That planet has to be actively listening. So if intelligent life formed on that planet TODAY, it would be 200,000 years before they could detect us. That is a long time for us to still be around especially after we reach a level we have reached currently. So really it's would be like winning the lottery, and to celebrate you go swimming that day get bit by a shark, and on the way to the hospital you get struck by lightning. It's just such a random event that if it ever happened it would be a very very very lucky thing.
And it assumes that they'd be able to figure out what the hell to send back. Maybe do like the aliens in Contact did, and just send it right back, hugely amplified.
That, or maybe we'd get ahold of a civilization that had only just ventured into the realm of radio astronomy. They get this signal, spend the next 100 years cleaning up the noise and then figuring out what it says, and by that time, they realize that they'll need another 100 years to design and build a transmitter, and the supporting energy infrastructure, that would be able to get the message back.

By that time, oops, we're not listening anymore.

 

SphinxnihpS

Diamond Member
Feb 17, 2005
8,368
25
91
Originally posted by: PlasmaBomb
Originally posted by: SphinxnihpS
Originally posted by: Jeff7
:thumbsup:

Impressive. :)

That's still ridiculously far from its parent start. That's way farther out than Pluto is from our Sun.


I feel a bit dirty now, for looking at these voyeurish pictures of a young, hot, naked planet.

6 times further at Pluto's maximum orbital distance from the sun, so yes, very very far. But the star is only millions of years old. In several billion years the planet should "fall" towards its star, no?

No

How so? The star has roughly equivalent mass to the Sun, and the planet is 8 times as massive as Jupiter. Gravity has an effect at nearly infinite distance, so there is attraction (they are orbiting each other, so obviously gravity plays a role here)... So are you saying that two objects orbiting each other do not tend to close the distance between them over time? I would tend to believe that even if the objects start out moving away from each other, so long as there remains a gravitational attraction, and given enough time, the two object will eventually meet. Please explain.
 
Dec 26, 2007
11,782
2
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Originally posted by: Juddog
The other issue is our common assumption that if there was intelligent life on other planetary bodies, that they would be using EM to transmit information. EM would be a poor choice to transmit information any distance approaching even a few light years, for all of the reasons mentioned above. Mainly it takes an increasingly larger amount of power to transmit the signal the farther along you go, and also the main problem of light speed.

Now we have exceeded light speed under laboratory conditions using caesium atoms at 300 times c. Quantum tunneling can also exceed c. Therefore it would be pretty absurd to think that an intelligent life form that has had millions of years of technological equipment would be trying to communicate using electromagnetic waves in the same way that we use them today.

Have links for either? I am interested in those experiments.
 

BigDH01

Golden Member
Jul 8, 2005
1,631
88
91
I think it's ignorant to claim that intelligent extraterrestrial life does not or does exist. I think it's funny to look at how everyone plugs their numbers into the Drake equation. I think this is more a reflection of what people want to believe than it is actual reality. No one knows the probabilities that should be used as we have a sample size of 1 for many of the variables. We have no idea how often life will arise given the necessary conditions, we have no idea how often this life becomes intelligent, and we have no idea how often the intelligence makes it advanced stages without killing itself.

It is human nature to believe that such an intelligence must exist given the sheer size of the Universe and I will grant it would be a huge waste of space. But we just don't know and it is possible that we are alone.

If you ask me, I wouldn't make a claim either way. I certainly hope there is intelligence but I won't make bold claims based on such a small sample size (regardless of the size of the Universe). It would be equally clumsy the claim there is no other intelligent life. I do know that even if there is, it's likely irrelevant as the distances involved would simply be too great for any sort of meaningful relationship unless something revolutionizes how we think and what we know about physics.
 

Juddog

Diamond Member
Dec 11, 2006
7,851
6
81
Originally posted by: DisgruntledVirus
Originally posted by: Juddog
The other issue is our common assumption that if there was intelligent life on other planetary bodies, that they would be using EM to transmit information. EM would be a poor choice to transmit information any distance approaching even a few light years, for all of the reasons mentioned above. Mainly it takes an increasingly larger amount of power to transmit the signal the farther along you go, and also the main problem of light speed.

Now we have exceeded light speed under laboratory conditions using caesium atoms at 300 times c. Quantum tunneling can also exceed c. Therefore it would be pretty absurd to think that an intelligent life form that has had millions of years of technological equipment would be trying to communicate using electromagnetic waves in the same way that we use them today.

Have links for either? I am interested in those experiments.

This article breaks down the experiment in layman's terms.

In regards to quantum tunneling, this book explains it in a fairly simple way and I would suggest reading it. Only the first link I posted is an actual experiment; I don't know of an experiment offhand that has proven quantum tunneling moving faster than light. Of course, wikipedia has a decent article on the basics of quantum tunneling that's worth reading through.
 

Juddog

Diamond Member
Dec 11, 2006
7,851
6
81
Originally posted by: BigDH01
I think it's ignorant to claim that intelligent extraterrestrial life does not or does exist. I think it's funny to look at how everyone plugs their numbers into the Drake equation. I think this is more a reflection of what people want to believe than it is actual reality. No one knows the probabilities that should be used as we have a sample size of 1 for many of the variables. We have no idea how often life will arise given the necessary conditions, we have no idea how often this life becomes intelligent, and we have no idea how often the intelligence makes it advanced stages without killing itself.

It is human nature to believe that such an intelligence must exist given the sheer size of the Universe and I will grant it would be a huge waste of space. But we just don't know and it is possible that we are alone.

If you ask me, I wouldn't make a claim either way. I certainly hope there is intelligence but I won't make bold claims based on such a small sample size (regardless of the size of the Universe). It would be equally clumsy the claim there is no other intelligent life. I do know that even if there is, it's likely irrelevant as the distances involved would simply be too great for any sort of meaningful relationship unless something revolutionizes how we think and what we know about physics.

A lot of people used to have the view that the universe is desolate and empty just a few decades ago; it's only more recently that we have begun to discover extrasolar planets and planets that have similar conditions to the Earth which would be suitable for carbon based lifeforms.

My view is the opposite; I believe the universe is chock full of life. If you look at mold spores for example, they can survive in a complete vacuum. Just take a look at the Earth, and the many diverse areas where life continues to thrive, even in places that were previously thought impossible such as the bottom of the sea by the trenches (creatures such as tube worms that survive without any sunlight).

Life has shown an incredible ability to adapt; it's hard to believe that it wouldn't adapt to other conditions besides our own. It's also easy to picture life forming in ways which we as humans may not even recognize as life, for example picture if you would a pure gaseous life form. If such a life form existed we wouldn't even recognize it as life in the way we look at things in most cases today.
 

hellokeith

Golden Member
Nov 12, 2004
1,664
0
0
Originally posted by: jpeyton
You might have a more active discussion with hellokeith if you bring up the great Human-Dinosaur War of 3000 BC.

For someone who harps on the lack of evidence of WMD's in Iraq, Jpeyton sure does lay his credibility on the line for the similarly non-existent ET evidence.