http://www.space.com/10742-kepler-exoplanets-data.html

Quote :

"NASA unveiled a wealth of new data from its planet-seeking Kepler space telescope today (Feb. 2) - observations that significantly increase the number of possible alien planets and identify potential Earth-size worlds, including 54 planets that could be habitable. To date, more than 500 alien planets outside of our solar system have been discovered, but that number could more than double if all the candidate exoplanets from the new Kepler data are confirmed. Amid the 1,200 possible alien worlds, Kepler has already found 68 potentially Earth-size planets. "We went from zero to 68 Earth-sized planet candidates and zero to 54 candidates in the habitable zone - a region where liquid water could exist on a planet’s surface. Some candidates could even have moons with liquid water," said William Borucki of NASA’s Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif., the Kepler mission’s science principal investigator. "Five of the planetary candidates are both near Earth-size and orbit in the habitable zone of their parent stars." The new data also reveal that smaller worlds and multi-planet systems may be more common than previously thought. The data release is based on observations conducted between May 2 and Sept. 17, 2009. "What's incredibly interesting is that they're now going to give us a list of small planets," said Lisa Kaltenegger of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Mass. "Some of them could actually be in what we call a habitable zone. If they were rocky or if they are rocky, they have a potential for being habitats." And while astronomers are ultimately searching for an Earth-size rocky planet in the habitable zone, a lot can be learned from studying planets and systems that are less "We can learn a lot about planet formation and start to understand how these systems form," Kaltenegger said. "So far, we only have our own system, so the more samples we have, the more we can learn about how planets form, how they move, how they migrate." NASA announced the planetary discoveries during a press conference today. At the same time, the space agency and a team of astronomers announced the discovery of a six-planet alien solar system, a find also made using the Kepler observatory. The planetary system was found around the star Kepler-11, which is 2,000 light-years from Earth The Kepler spacecraft is the first NASA mission capable of detecting Earth-size planets in or near the so-called habitable zone – the region in a planetary system where liquid water can exist on the surface of the planet orbiting its host star. Although additional observations are required over time, Kepler is detecting planets and planet candidates with a wide range of sizes and orbital distances to help better understand our solar system's place in the galaxy. During a scheduled contact with the planet-hunting telescope yesterday (Feb. 1), engineers discovered that the spacecraft was in safe mode, with its photometer and star trackers powered off. This is a self protection mechanism that the spacecraft enters when something unexpected occurs, and Kepler is currently rotating along a sun-aligned axis with its solar arrays pointed at the sun. Analysis of all spacecraft data indicates the subsystems remain healthy, NASA officials said. Engineers have begun the recovery process and are evaluating data from the spacecraft subsystems to determine what triggered the safe mode."

2/2/2011 2:04:24 PM

fuck this rock, we're picking out our new apartment now

2/2/2011 2:05:53 PM

Quote :

"During a scheduled contact with the planet-hunting telescope yesterday (Feb. 1), engineers discovered that the spacecraft was in safe mode, with its photometer and star trackers powered off. This is a self protection mechanism that the spacecraft enters when something unexpected occurs, and Kepler is currently rotating along a sun-aligned axis with its solar arrays pointed at the sun. Analysis of all spacecraft data indicates the subsystems remain healthy, NASA officials said. Engineers have begun the recovery process and are evaluating data from the spacecraft subsystems to determine what triggered the safe mode.""

I'll tell you what caused it... ET got pissed we were snooping and sent up a jamming ray of some kind.

2/2/2011 2:07:47 PM

"Potentially"

2/2/2011 2:08:25 PM

Using nuclear pulse propulsion, we could get there in 20,000 years. Where do I sign up?

2/2/2011 2:23:38 PM

Safe mode. They were trying to get rid of some spyware.

2/2/2011 2:28:10 PM

^^^^ Only one man would are give Kepler the raspberry... LONESTAR!

[Edited on February 2, 2011 at 2:30 PM. Reason : *]

2/2/2011 2:30:11 PM

in before smc jumps in and starts ranting about how he hates space flight and all astronauts should be burned at the stake.

2/2/2011 2:34:30 PM

Quote :

"Safe mode. They were trying to get rid of some spyware."

its gotta suck to contact the telescope only to get a "reboot windows" message

2/2/2011 3:42:31 PM

Quote :

"Only one man would are give Kepler the raspberry... LONESTAR!"

2/2/2011 4:05:04 PM

correct me if im being dumb, but what does the size of the planet have to do with it being habitable?

is it a gravity issue?

2/2/2011 4:07:23 PM

^yes gravity I think, but more so in terms of holding a habitable atmosphere than a person weighing more or less

2/2/2011 4:10:55 PM

If it is too small it may not have enough of a gravitational pull to support a stable atmosphere.

Too big and the pull might be too much for anything to evolve into a complex lifeform.

2/2/2011 4:11:27 PM

I thought the size and density has more to do with maintaining internal pressure great enough to keep the molten metal center, thus creating a magnetosphere and allowing it to keep an atmosphere. As I understand it Mars went to shit when the core stopped (and when the Walmart shut down).

2/2/2011 4:16:26 PM

ahhhhhh


i figured as much, and after typing it out i sorta figured it out too, but you guys confirmed my thoughts.

thanks


continue

2/2/2011 4:17:32 PM

^^Well there are a lot of reasons, that is one of the more detailed ones.

2/2/2011 4:20:58 PM

Quote :

"I thought the size and density has more to do with maintaining internal pressure great enough to keep the molten metal center, thus creating a magnetosphere and allowing it to keep an atmosphere. As I understand it Mars went to shit when the core stopped (and when the Walmart shut down). "

They are right as are you.

As Wraith said, You need enough gravity/mass to be able to hold onto an atmosphere. Too much gravity, and i don't think life can become complex due to an immense gravitional pull (If it was possible, you wouldn't have bipeds, they'd be low to the ground with many legs or very strong legs at least, for example. We don't know for sure this can't exist I don't believe)

You also need enough size/mass so that you do not lose heat to space quickly (As mars did). It appears that Mars once had flowing water, but becuase they were so small and had low gravity, they lost their atmosphere and the small size meant the core cooled too rapidly. The loss of atmosphere meant evaporation of the water on the surface and the small size meant rapid cooling of the core such that it eventually stopped...thus, no life

Could be wrong, but I don't think the magnetosphere has anything to do with the atmosphere. It just deflects cosmic radiation

[Edited on February 2, 2011 at 7:14 PM. Reason : ]

2/2/2011 7:08:29 PM

Quote :

"Could be wrong, but I don't think the magnetosphere has anything to do with the atmosphere. It just deflects cosmic radiation"

Quote :

"Here on Earth we're protected from the solar wind by a global magnetic field (the same one that causes compass needles to point north). Our planet's magnetosphere, which extends far out into space, deflects solar wind ions before they penetrate to the atmosphere below. Mars isn't so fortunate. Lacking a planet-wide magnetic field, most of the Red Planet is exposed to the full force of the incoming solar wind. "The Martian atmosphere extends hundreds of kilometers above the surface where it's ionized by solar ultraviolet radiation," says Dave Mitchell, a space scientist at the University of California at Berkeley. "The magnetized solar wind simply picks up these ions and sweeps them away.""

http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2001/ast31jan_1/

2/2/2011 7:40:55 PM

nvm

[Edited on February 2, 2011 at 7:45 PM. Reason : nasa>wikipedia]

2/2/2011 7:44:30 PM

the way we're fucking up this one, we should probably be on the lookout for our new digs

2/2/2011 9:18:44 PM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oY59wZdCDo0

I figured this would be a good thread to post this

2/4/2011 10:05:26 AM

Hey guys, I found an Earth-like planet in the habitable zone of a star just like ours!

It's called Venus.

I swear to God, until we get the technology to live there, we don't stand a chance of living on an exoplanet.

2/4/2011 1:16:19 PM

zing

2/4/2011 1:26:35 PM

Quote :

"Hey guys, I found an Earth-like planet in the habitable zone of a star just like ours! It's called Venus. I swear to God, until we get the technology to live there, we don't stand a chance of living on an exoplanet."

It's likely that Venus at some point in history supported liquid water. But your overall point is valid, just because a planet is in a habitable zone doesn't mean that it will have anywhere near similar geology to Earth. Maybe its rotation will be very rapid or nonexistent. Maybe it will have no moons and thus no significant tidal forces. Maybe a runaway greenhouse effect (like Venus) or a dispersion of atmosphere (like Mars) will have occurred and be irreversible. Maybe there is no molten core, nor plate tectonics or anything even remotely like that.

But if it happened here it's possible it could happen similarly enough somewhere else. An even bigger problem is getting there in a *ahem* timely fashion.
Gliese 581 is one of the closest, and it's 20.5 ly away.

At a current maximum velocity of around 100km/s with ion propulsion, it would take just about 60,000 years to get there, and you'd have to collect fuel along the way because you can't pack 60,000 years worth of xenon fuel on a ship.

The Universe is a very very very big place.

[Edited on February 4, 2011 at 2:10 PM. Reason : WHOOPS, 3000 is one ly]

2/4/2011 2:06:46 PM

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Orion_(nuclear_propulsion)

.1c=30,000 km/s

but still, we're talking 200 years to get to Gliese 581. I totally agree that we might as well colonize venus and mars before building a generation ship that is supposed to last hundreds of years.

[Edited on February 4, 2011 at 2:25 PM. Reason : asfasdf]

2/4/2011 2:25:29 PM

Quote :

"It's likely that Venus at some point in history supported liquid water. But your overall point is valid, just because a planet is in a habitable zone doesn't mean that it will have anywhere near similar geology to Earth. Maybe its rotation will be very rapid or nonexistent. Maybe it will have no moons and thus no significant tidal forces. Maybe a runaway greenhouse effect (like Venus) or a dispersion of atmosphere (like Mars) will have occurred and be irreversible. Maybe there is no molten core, nor plate tectonics or anything even remotely like that."

ok, so... you made me want to elaborate. You bring up important stuff.

We've already been evaluating the rotation of exoplanets, and atmosphere is under intense scrutiny. As this science advances, we'll certainly be able to tell what exoplanets are like Earth, or Mars, or Venus (and other unpredicted ones). So I don't think we'd ever head out on a spaceship, get there, and be like "ah shit guys, this place is hot". And I do think we'll find plenty of earth-like planets in the neighborhood, but we could find more Venus-like planets and the ratio is totally unknown at this time. But the most likely scenario is that after we filter for Earth mass and orbit and luminosity, then we'll filter for rotation, water, atmosphere (of what, pray-tell if Oxygen only exists with life), and once we've done this, we'll have a suitable candidate or more.

But then it will be too far away. You'll trade off closeness (yay relativity) for habitability and vice versa. And by the time you finish this process, Mars and Venus are going to start looking comparatively delicious.

[Edited on February 4, 2011 at 2:45 PM. Reason : ]

2/4/2011 2:45:23 PM

2/4/2011 2:55:03 PM

So let's say we do decide to colonize a planet in another solar system, and we send a ship out there, and it takes a few hundred years to get out there..

If we find a faster means of transportation in those few hundred years, do you think that we as the human race would

a) Pick up the other guys on the way out there?
b) Get there first and throw them a surprise party?

I like to think b

2/4/2011 3:18:40 PM

I vote get there before them and pull a "Planet of the Apes" prank.

2/4/2011 3:21:37 PM

^^ This is actually strongly plausible.

Relativity dictates that if you have a perfect engine, then you can get to any destination while experiencing a negligible amount of time yourself (only acceleration and deceleration, during the trip the universe is a pancake).

However, I've looked at the calculations before, and in order to get to like .99c while experiencing 1g of acceleration it would take over a year. And that's assuming you have a perfect engine. So the first people to leave may be taking a generation ship or something like that.

But if technology is advancing quickly, then while you're chugging through the interstellar medium like a tugboat, Earth has probably hit the technological singularity. Then they're gona be all like the Borg zippin all over the place and keeping human zoos and shit.

2/4/2011 3:42:35 PM

Quote :

"So let's say we do decide to colonize a planet in another solar system, and we send a ship out there, and it takes a few hundred years to get out there.. If we find a faster means of transportation in those few hundred years, do you think that we as the human race would"

I'd think that in those few hundred years we'd probably develop a means of communication with them them using the same technology. Then we could be like "Wait up guys, we didn't need you afterall. Sorry!"

2/4/2011 4:26:45 PM

Realistically I see getting to even .1c in the next 300 years an impossibility.

Who knows though? Maybe the Shaw-Fujikawa Slipstream Drive will be invented out of the blue and we'll discover FTL travel and totally hose Einsteinian physics.

2/4/2011 4:37:32 PM

I wonder how nuts things would be on Earth if faster than light travel were discovered tomorrow. Like how long would it take to develop a spacecraft and utilize it? That would be some crazy shit.

2/4/2011 7:39:03 PM

Y'all really should read this book. It covers a bunch of stuff about the little tiny details of space travel & how to go to & live on mars. I just finished reading it. It's really good & she's funny.

2/4/2011 7:48:26 PM

Nuclear pulse propulsion



We were closer to .9c in the 60s than we are now. Now we can't even keep the Pu stockpiles we need for nuclear batteries for robotic missions.

2/4/2011 8:12:23 PM

we can always make more of that...

Quote :

"At a current maximum velocity of around 100km/s with ion propulsion, it would take just about 60,000 years to get there, and you'd have to collect fuel along the way because you can't pack 60,000 years worth of xenon fuel on a ship."

errr you're not percieving the problem quite right, you only need fuel during the acceleration and deceleration phases.

mrfrog has the best overall grasp of the technical requirements. the real trick as he puts it is getting a 'perfect' engine set up with the most optimal fuel type.... ideally this is some sort of fusion drive.... of which we aren't ready to even use for power much less as a method of propulsion....

2/5/2011 12:24:09 AM

Quote :

"But if it happened here it's possible it could happen similarly enough somewhere else. An even bigger problem is getting there in a *ahem* timely fashion. Gliese 581 is one of the closest, and it's 20.5 ly away. "

Gliese 581c is also likely tidally locked (Based on its location, it's almost a certainty), meaning that the chances of intelligent life (maybe all life?) there are very, very slim. As I understand it, life could likely only survive in the terminator zone, and even so, in an atmosphere you'd likely have very very high winds due to the boiling/freezing sides of the planet constantly trying to disperse heat to go along with massive storm systems. I know some think that 581g might be able to harbor life, but we can't even verify it's a rocky planet and it's also likely tidally locked

581c & g are two of the best examples we have of a rocky planet that could support life, but it's definitely not going to be Earth v. 2.0. Doubt it would be worth a 60,000 year or whatever one-way journey

While we cannot statistically be the only life in the Universe it's absolutely mind-boggling how perfect everything is for us to be here.


[Edited on February 5, 2011 at 12:52 AM. Reason : ]

2/5/2011 12:34:44 AM

Well, clearly, the existence of god is implicit

2/5/2011 1:44:39 AM

^^, I would hardly call the Earth "perfect." A vast majority of the surface area of this planet is uninhabitable for humans. Natural disasters take us out on a constant basis. I am more impressed by human resilience than I am the "perfection" of this world.

2/5/2011 9:10:36 AM

^^^what's wrong with not having tides?

2/5/2011 9:26:47 AM

^tidally locked means the same side of the planet is always facing the sun. which means one side is hot as fuck and the other is always cold.

2/5/2011 10:14:58 AM

^, ^^

Yep, think about the moon. The moon orbits the Earth, but it does not rotate about it's axis....it is tidally locked to the Earth. We always see the same side of the moon from Earth.

It's a function of the gravity of two close objects with pretty complicated math, but scientists believe it's a certainty Gleise 581c is tidally locked to its STAR, Gliese 581

So you have a planet that is always day on one side and baking, then a night that hasn't seen sun for billions of years. While its being debated how hot the day side is, you can pretty much guess the day side is really really really hot and night side is hundreds of degrees below freezing. Gliese 581 isn't as large or hot as our sun, but these planets are alot closer to it.

The "Terminator Zone" I mentioned is the very thin zone where the light/dark meet. That thin band would likely be the only place with temperatures moderate enough to be habitable.

[Edited on February 5, 2011 at 11:03 AM. Reason : ]

2/5/2011 10:46:46 AM

20 light years is an uncomfortably in-between distance. Even a 60 year mission at much less than light speed would take vast improvements in technology, and as has been pointed out, by the time it gets there it may be obsolete. The further you are from light speed the more likely Earth is to catch you in 10 years just to tell you they don't need you anymore.

But there are increasing marginal returns beyond a certain technology level. This is the level at which you both push the acceptable acceleration and approach the speed of light. Anything further than what falls outside of this distance is almost just as reachable as anything else in the universe to those aboard the craft.

I might get flamed for this, but assuming the above level of technology, intergalactic travel could actually be easier. Why? Just fly out of the galactic disk and you have much less to bump into, duh.

There are also definable physical limits to the "performance" of a spacecraft. E=mc2 actually dictates some limits on propellant-energy-payload ratios. Now, that doesn't mean that you couldn't constantly push the envelope closer to 1.0c by having the equivalent of a 50 gallon jug of hybrid fusion fuel and ion propellant with 1 grain of sand of payload. But this is the same problem we have with going to Mars with chemical propellants, and getting into space in the first place.

If you think about it long enough, you should come back to the need for space-faring self-replicating technology. You need some kind of sustainable closed system in space before thinking about strapping a massive rocket to such a system and sending it to the furthest reaches of the universe. This you should find depressing, because at the point that such technology is mastered the need for terrestrial environments may have diminished significantly (except for human zoos), so the search for extrasolar terrestrial environments may be a purely academic pursuit.

But hey, I could be wrong. Perhaps I've underestimated the cowboys in the world, willing to deep freeze themselves and arrive on an Oxygen-less planet (hey, it's got water right!).

[Edited on February 5, 2011 at 12:42 PM. Reason : ]

2/5/2011 12:40:45 PM

Quote :

"The moon orbits the Earth, but it does not rotate about it's axis..."

it does rotate. it just so happens that it takes the same time to make one rotation around it's axis as it does one revolution around the earth.

2/5/2011 1:02:54 PM

Quote :

"I might get flamed for this, but assuming the above level of technology, intergalactic travel could actually be easier. Why? Just fly out of the galactic disk and you have much less to bump into, duh."

yea, I do think this is a bit ridiculous. we're talking about using spacecrafts based on existing technology to go to nearby stars in a century or two.

visiting the closest galaxy would take 25,000 years (even at light speed)...

2/5/2011 1:14:13 PM

Quote :

"visiting the closest galaxy would take 25,000 years (even at light speed)..."

FACEPALM!

a) It would take xxx years to what observer
b) I believe the distance will have to be more than 25k light-years, and unless you are going 2.5 million light-years you're only talking about satellite galaxies (not that there's anything wrong with that).
c) The point... is that 2.5 million light years versus 10 million light years actually doesn't matter that much

2/5/2011 1:20:16 PM

Quote :

"it does rotate. it just so happens that it takes the same time to make one rotation around it's axis as it does one revolution around the earth. "

Interesting

I never knew that. Apparently it rotates at just the right speed to keep the same face facing Earth.

2/5/2011 2:01:32 PM

exactly

2/5/2011 2:50:48 PM

astronomy 101/102 itt

2/5/2011 8:45:11 PM

^high school freshman Earth Science ITT

2/5/2011 11:23:15 PM