First earthlike planet confirmed

[Moonbeam]

http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/s...9/16/new.rocky.planet/[L=Link]

I wonder if it will slowly draw away from the star like earth is from our sun.

Evidence mounts that we may not be alone, but still we just might be.

Would the real knowledge that we are alone in the universe in having consciousness make any difference in how you see things?

 

[TastesLikeChicken]

Actually it's the first rocky planet confirmed. Calling it "earthlike" really isn't the truth since there's no chance of it harboring life and the scientists claim that it doesn't even have any water.

 

[PJABBER]

Still, another wondrous find and one which allows an expectation of much more to come.

 

[Mr. Lennon]

Considering that there are over a trillion stars in this picture alone...I'm certain that we are not the only ones in this universe. Keep in mind that photo only depicts a very small portion of the sky.

A lot of factors and events have to line up perfectly in order for a planet to inhabit life. Almost so perfectly that you would think that we one the lottery every day for hundreds of years. Regardless....when you consider the trillions and trillions of stars out there....chances of another planet or even many different planets existing with life becomes extremely probable.

 

[MovingTarget]

Interesting. We should be confirming many more of these as the Kepler mission gets underway...

 

[Moonbeam]

Originally posted by: TastesLikeChicken
Actually it's the first rocky planet confirmed. Calling it "earthlike" really isn't the truth since there's no chance of it harboring life and the scientists claim that it doesn't even have any water.

From the article:

"Scientists have discovered the first confirmed Earthlike planet outside our solar system, they announced Wednesday.

An artist's impression shows what the planet may look like in close orbit with its sun.
"This is the first confirmed rocky planet in another system," astronomer Artie Hatzes told CNN, contrasting the solid planet with gaseous ones like Jupiter and Saturn.

But "Earthlike" is a relative term.

The planet's composition may be similar to that of Earth, but its environment is more like a vision of hell, the project's lead astronomer said."

Planets are classified as rocky and gaseous and earth is in the rocky category. That is why this discovery is earthlike so it is the truth, but relative as the article points out.

 

[LunarRay]

every star has the potential to have earth type planets. As in like earth as earth is. Let's see what would have to be. All of Earth's stuff is common Start Stuff so no biggie there. It would have to have the kind of relationship to its sun as earth has with its. And I guess not to forget that to be Earth like you'd have to have Earth like stuff on it. That's not a biggie either. Some comet or what ever hitting after it settled down a bit bringing some RNA and there it is.
I'd imagine not more than a hundred Earth like as Earth is type planets in our Galaxy seems feasible.
I wonder if they have had or will have stuff like we have like TV and Politics and all that stuff?


Edit: I think I'll hop on my Tachyon and scoot on over to a few stars and check them out. I shouldn't take long.

 

[silverpig]

Heh, there's a CoRoT bumper sticker on a POS Ford Tempo I used to own. It's probably been wrecked long ago though.

 

[seemingly random]

I wonder if it will have its own god.

 

[LunarRay]

Originally posted by: seemingly random
I wonder if it will have its own god.

I'd imagine they would only if they also had war and politics and hehehehehe if most of the divisions of people spoke a different language.
Could you imagine a visitor from some other planet far far away relating the Earther mentality to their beings. The look on their faces would astound, I think. Actually, I think a visitor would be here looking for The Guardian of Delite's son. Seems he goes around to the planets in the universe hoping to save them from their selves and hasn't shown up at home yet..

 

[seemingly random]

Originally posted by: LunarRay

Originally posted by: seemingly random
I wonder if it will have its own god.

I'd imagine they would only if they also had war and politics and hehehehehe if most of the divisions of people spoke a different language.
Could you imagine a visitor from some other planet far far away relating the Earther mentality to their beings. The look on their faces would astound, I think. Actually, I think a visitor would be here looking for The Guardian of Delite's son. Seems he goes around to the planets in the universe hoping to save them from their selves and hasn't shown up at home yet..

I wouldn't be so quick to imagine other planet's residents being our mental superiors. As ridiculous as things have become, things could be even worse on other planets. Just because we or they might acquire the technology to visit the other does not necessarily imply that the visitor has advanced emotionally. They could have living gods like we've had here on earth over the millennia who have gotten the itch to take another god's stuff.

 

[sandorski]

Originally posted by: seemingly random
I wonder if it will have its own god.

If it is Xenu, would we all jump on Oprah's couch?

 

[seemingly random]

Originally posted by: sandorski

Originally posted by: seemingly random
I wonder if it will have its own god.

If it is Xenu, would we all jump on Oprah's couch?

I'll eat her couch if xenu exists.

 

[Sinsear]

Crematoria? Triple max slam facility there?

 

[Genx87]

Originally posted by: Sinsear
Crematoria? Triple max slam facility there?

Doesnt appear to be rotating. Chances are high it doesnt have an atmosphere either.

Love the movie though.

 

[Jaskalas]

It's a rock and we're excited? Stupidity.

I'll be happy when something earthlike is actually discovered.

 

[BigDH01]

Originally posted by: Zeppelin2282
Considering that there are over a trillion stars in this picture alone...I'm certain that we are not the only ones in this universe. Keep in mind that photo only depicts a very small portion of the sky.

A lot of factors and events have to line up perfectly in order for a planet to inhabit life. Almost so perfectly that you would think that we one the lottery every day for hundreds of years. Regardless....when you consider the trillions and trillions of stars out there....chances of another planet or even many different planets existing with life becomes extremely probable.

Given that there are so many planets in the galaxy and we have no evidence of ET life, I would say it doesn't really matter.

Even if the solution to Fermi's Paradox isn't "we are alone," it still means that either space travel is much more difficult than we think, colonization happens much slower than we think, intelligent life occurs much less often than we think, or that life kills itself much more often than we think. Given the vast distances between planets, I'm given to believe that ET life doesn't really matter. If they exist, they are simply too far away to have any real impact or even be detected by us.

Don't get me wrong, it's not that I don't think it's a question worth asking, it's just that I don't think the answer will ever be found.

 

[dainthomas]

Originally posted by: Genx87

Originally posted by: Sinsear
Crematoria? Triple max slam facility there?

Doesnt appear to be rotating. Chances are high it doesnt have an atmosphere either.

Love the movie though.

Hatzes, explaining that one side of the body is always facing the star and the other side always faces away, said the side "facing the sun is probably molten. The other side could actually have ice" if there is water on the planet.

I wonder how wide the habitable band would be with that kind of temperature difference?

 

[GoPackGo]

Originally posted by: Jaskalas
It's a rock and we're excited? Stupidity.

I'll be happy when something earthlike is actually discovered.

Vulcans should be showing up in a 100 years or so right?

 

[Moonbeam]

Originally posted by: dainthomas

Originally posted by: Genx87

Originally posted by: Sinsear
Crematoria? Triple max slam facility there?

Doesnt appear to be rotating. Chances are high it doesnt have an atmosphere either.

Love the movie though.

Hatzes, explaining that one side of the body is always facing the star and the other side always faces away, said the side "facing the sun is probably molten. The other side could actually have ice" if there is water on the planet.

I wonder how wide the habitable band would be with that kind of temperature difference?

Not wide at all because there is probably no atmosphere and if there were wind levels would be tremendous.

 

[TechBoyJK]

I firmly believe that we will find, or at least that there is intelligent life on other planets. I would suspect that there are planets that we could possibly survive on.

I absolutely do not believe, however, that we will ever find a planet that we could wake up on, and not immediately know that we weren't on earth.

There is a documentary called the "priveledged planet" that outlines the reasoning why. There are sooooo many factors that make the Earth the way it is that the likelihood, even considering the massive amounts of stars, etc. that there is another duplicate earth out there is so slim to none that you can essentially bank on there not being another 'earth'.

 

[totalnoob]

Thats a pretty big assumption techboy.. There is no reason to assume earth is "unique". I don't think you realize how farking huge the universe is and what an insignificant speck our galaxy (let alone our solar system) is in the grand scheme of things. This should start to give you perspective..

http://img297.imageshack.us/img297/6254/353424.jpg

 

[MovingTarget]

Originally posted by: Jaskalas
It's a rock and we're excited? Stupidity.

I'll be happy when something earthlike is actually discovered.

I don't think that it is stupid. It is a verification that we now have the capabity to discover extrasolar rocky planets and gain some basic informaiton about them. Without this, we will not be able to discover anything earthlike out there. Hopefully that discovery isn't far off.

 

[TastesLikeChicken]

Originally posted by: Moonbeam

Originally posted by: TastesLikeChicken
Actually it's the first rocky planet confirmed. Calling it "earthlike" really isn't the truth since there's no chance of it harboring life and the scientists claim that it doesn't even have any water.

From the article:

"Scientists have discovered the first confirmed Earthlike planet outside our solar system, they announced Wednesday.

An artist's impression shows what the planet may look like in close orbit with its sun.
"This is the first confirmed rocky planet in another system," astronomer Artie Hatzes told CNN, contrasting the solid planet with gaseous ones like Jupiter and Saturn.

But "Earthlike" is a relative term.

The planet's composition may be similar to that of Earth, but its environment is more like a vision of hell, the project's lead astronomer said."

Planets are classified as rocky and gaseous and earth is in the rocky category. That is why this discovery is earthlike so it is the truth, but relative as the article points out.

Yes. It's about as "Earthlike" as Mercury. In fact, "Mercurylike" would have been a much better description since there are far more similarities between the two; unless the Earth you live on orbits @ 2 million miles from the sun, is tidally locked, and is molten on one side and freezing ass cold on the other.

 

[Modelworks]

3600 degrees F is so earth-like.