Astronomers discover first potentially life-sustaining planet

[nadinbrzezinski]

WASHINGTON, D.C. (BNO NEWS) – A team of planet hunting scientists on Wednesday announced the discovery of a planet with three times the mass of Earth orbiting in the habitable zone of a nearby star.
The research was funded by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and conducted by investigators from the University of California (UC) Santa Cruz and the Carnegie Institution of Washington.


The discovery was a result of eleven years of observations of the red dwarf star Gliese 581 using the W.M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii, one of the world's largest optical telescopes. The planet is located in an area where liquid water could exist on its surface.

http://wireupdate.com/wires/10736/astronomers-discover-first-potentially-life-sustaining-planet/

Several points on this.

When I wrote Future Nexus THIS was one of the systems I placed a life sustaining planet at. Hell, not at three gravities but two gravities... that was kind of like... go ahead on WHAT world? WOW! What can I say? Now three gravities would not be able to sustain HUMAN life, so the colony is not going to happen, assuming we could cross the distance, but still COOL.

Second: Folks we are very close to actual news that we are not the only planet on this universe with like actual life. In fact, this will be one of the first to have the tender loving attention of the long range sensors that will go into orbit soon. The kind that will be able to look at the ATMOSPHERE and tell us if this place has an actual Oxygen atmosphere... if it has Oxygen, chances are there IS life. And believe it or not we have done a 180 from the oh 1960s when we believed life would be extremely rare, or for that matter... so rare we would be unique.

Third: Now those announcements from oh places like the Vatican that tell us that it would not contradict the ideas in the bible... mark my words, this announcement, there is life AWAY from this system, will change the culture and challenge religions. It is coming, well in my life time. And you know what? 'Bout bloody time we grow up.

Now back to day to day politics...

That said that little announcement by the UN 'boout an Ambassador... it is curious.

[liberal N proud]

1. Lets put a rocket together so we can get there and start destroying that planet too.

We are about finished with this one.

[nadinbrzezinski]

4. At current technology level

it would take well over 1 million years to cross 20 light years, doing very rough math here, probably more.

[Paulie]

12. But if we don't start heading out now, we'll never get there!

Going to Mars is so 20th century... :)

[nadinbrzezinski]

13. RLOL

gen Ships, if we make it that far, that is what it will take... GEN SHIPS, and a one way ticket...

As well as cryogenics if we ever get that right.

Of course if Alcubierre is right and we can find the energy... warp drives. But hey, that's just theory so far.

[leftstreet]

2. Interesting!

Hmm... the Ambassador announcement actually makes more sense now

Fascinating stuff!

[nadinbrzezinski]

6. Yeah I always find this science fascinating

As a sci fi writer keeping up with this is kind of a given... but it is fascinating. NASA deployed Keppler last year, will deploy a deep space sensor capable of reading atmospheres in the next five years. We are VERY CLOSE.

[The_Commonist]

3. It's in the air...

Lots of stories relating to aliens lately.

[nadinbrzezinski]

5. And one job to be done, if there is that announcement coming

is to control panic. I predict at least 1 Billion people panicking regardless.

[midnight]

7. Dosen't the Vatican own paintings that show flying objects in them?

[nadinbrzezinski]

8. Among other things

and the Vatican's astronomer (Jesuit by the way) is quite forward looking... here you go on what Fumes said fairly recently

Vatican astronomer cites possibility of extraterrestrial 'brothers'

VATICAN CITY — The Vatican's chief astronomer says there is no conflict between believing in God and in the possibility of extraterrestrial "brothers" perhaps more evolved than humans.

"In my opinion this possibility exists," said the Reverend José Gabriel Funes, head of the Vatican Observatory and a scientific adviser to Pope Benedict XVI, referring to life on other planets.

"How can we exclude that life has developed elsewhere," he said in an interview with the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano, published in its Tuesday-Wednesday edition. The large number of galaxies with their own planets makes this possible, he noted.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/14/world/europe/14iht-vat.4.12885393.html

This is the SAME Vatican that told Galileo to shove it.

[greyl]

11. Very in depth explanation of many of the most famous examples here:

From "ART and UFOs?
No thanks, only art..."

The first impression is that at the basis of these web sites lies a very simplistic methodology, being any historical or artistic knowledge carefully avoided. The standard practice seems to be: first taking a book concerning art, better if dealing with art works of the 17th or previous centuries; then looking for any strange detail, above all saucer-like objects of any kind. That’s it. This way, obviously, it is easy both to detect strange elements and to declare them “alien” or “unidentified” in respect to the environment or the period in which they appear.

The point is that no one of the authors of these web sites takes into account the symbolic meaning of these strange elements in respect to the art of the period. Worst of all, by considering these elements as the representation of something real or really seen by the artist, they assume that the artist, eg. an Italian artist of the 15th century or an anonymous Byzantine painter, would actually be allowed to insert any non canonical or un-codified element into a religious representation. On the contrary, in past times the commissioners (those who choose the subject and supervised the execution of the art work - in these cases the religious institutions) would have never allowed the author to insert into a work of art anything other than what previously decided, especially in case of religious subjects. In this latter case, in addition, restrictions were even stronger.

At this point one may wonder whether these authors writing about art and UFOs have ever entered a museum or a church. If so, they would be astonished about the infinite amount of “strange” objects included into paintings, statues and art works of any kind…

Next chapters focus on the real subject and meaning of a variety of art works which appear into Italian and other ufology web sites, and are intended as a strong response to those web pages which publish ancient art reproductions without any knowledge of their real subject, meaning and historical value.

www.sprezzatura.it/Arte/Arte_UFO_eng.htm

[Art_from_Ark]

15. Ezekiel saw the wheel way up in the middle of the air

Ezekiel saw the wheel;
Way up in the middle of the air.
Now Ezekiel saw the wheel in a wheel;
Way in the middle of the air.
Chorus
And the big wheel run by Faith, good Lordy;
And the little wheel run by the Grace of God;
In the wheel in the wheel in the wheel good Lord;
Way in the middle of the air.
Who's that yonder dressed in white?
Way in the middle of the air.
It must be the children of the Israelites:
Way in the middle of the air.

Chorus
And the big wheel run by Faith, good Lordy;
And the little wheel run by the Grace of God;
In the wheel in the wheel in the wheel good Lord;
Way in the middle of the air.
Who's that yonder dressed in red?
Way in the middle of the air.
It must be the children that Moses led:
Way in the middle of the air.

Ezekiel saw the wheel;
Way up in the middle of the air.
Now Ezekiel saw the wheel in a wheel;
Way in the middle of the air.

Who's that yonder dressed in black?
Way in the middle of the air.
It must be the children runnin' back:
Way in the middle of the air.

Chorus
And the big wheel run by Faith, good Lordy;
And the little wheel run by the Grace of God;
In the wheel in the wheel in the wheel good Lord;
Way in the middle of the air,
Way in the middle of the air.

[TheMadMonk]

9. Same mass inside

The planet would have to have a density 3 x that of earth and the same radius to achieve 3 gravities.

A surface gravity calculator says such a body would have a surface gravity of about 1.5 to 1.7 gravities depending on actual density. Your colony is back in business.

[nadinbrzezinski]

10. Perhpas

37 days for a year and tidally locked.

Stranger than the world we created in that system.

And for anybody who wants to play this game, or just put in there the actual data, including exo planets

http://www.nbos.com/products/astro/astro.htm

Wonderful program to do that. You just need a GOOD graphics card. Will NOT run on my nettie.

And I don't feel like loading it again on the same machine that's had drives wiped a couple times'

[Johonny]

14. The planet is tidally locked

So I imagine it's not at all Earth like and likely doesn't have liquid water. It's nice that it might be in a orbit where liquid water could exist on its surface, but it's unlikely to be a great place to look for life or even to look to visiting.

[Art_from_Ark]

17. Not only that, but there is no indication of the atmosphere

or land mass to water mass ratio, or dozens of other requirements for life as we know it to exist.

[muriel_volestrangler]

18. There is no 'land mass to water mass ratio' as a requirement for life

Given that much of life on earth, almost certainly including the first life to develop, has nothing whatsoever to do with land, or the atmosphere, but remains in water (or rock) for its entire life-cycle, land and a particular atmosphere aren't a requirement. Some form of circulation for the chemicals involved in the life would be needed; that may include an atmosphere, but could just be ocean currents.

As the article points out, liquid water would probably exist in the region between the face in permanent light, and that in permanent darkness. Perhaps an atmosphere would be useful here for getting heat to circulate over a wider area.

[Art_from_Ark]

19. I disagree

Even most of the early life in the oceans was dependent on the nutrients that were supplied by land. Today, the areas with the greatest abundance of marine life are nearly always in continental shelf areas where nutrients are constantly being replenished by rivers that transport sediments and other vital materials from land interiors.

[muriel_volestrangler]

20. 'Nutrients supplied by land'?

If you mean by rock, yes; but rock doesn't have to be uncovered (ie 'land') to have minerals in. I've never seen anything saying dry land was a pre-requisite for life (and some have posited that deep sea vents are a good candidate for where life started, a long way from any land).

And saying some areas have more abundant life is completely different from talking about requirements for life. Yes, some kind of circulation should help, because otherwise the life would eventually run out of resources where it is. But a planet with a high temperature difference between 2 hemispheres should get that easily.

[nadinbrzezinski]

22. Wrong, most of very early life on earth were

extremofiles...

Google the term, I am serious.

If there is life on this world, it will be a form of extremofile. Life exists in places that most of us could not conceive off... like at where the continental shelf emerges way down at the bottom of the ocean. That form of life is down right weird. Some life also lives INSIDE rocks, and those bacteria are RELATED to the earliest forms of life on Earth...

[dave29]

38. I would not disallow for other lifeforms

since it is tidally locked, while our normal earthlike behavior is not present... it is an extremely stable system, in which the "dusk" and "dawn" areas could potentially be breeding grounds.

An argument against would be evolution requires "adversity" to kick into gear... but we've never had a laboratory to test the theory, other than our own backyard.

[Posteritatis]

32. We also have no idea how requirement-y any of those requirements are

Proclaiming universal rules off a sample size of one is silly.

[nadinbrzezinski]

21. First off, if it has life, it will NOT be life like oh Earth's that would be

silly. Since it is tidally locked, most likely, if there is life... it is in the umbra zone of the world. Locked to the star, too damn hot, away from the star, too damn cold... but the permanent umbra... tantalizing.

Second, we still do not have the sensors to LOOK INTO the atmosphere of that world. That is coming, next five years. You can bet that will be like the first target to see IF, and that is a big IF, there is an actual atmosphere, and if that atmosphere has two big indicators for life: Oxygen and water.

This is the FIRST world though that we find in a LIFE ZONE, that COULD POTENTIALLY have life.

[Beetwasher]

26. The Fact That We Found This One Though Means Almost Certainly There Are Many Others

The chances of finding a "goldilocks" world would be almost nil if there weren't a lot of them.

Drakes equation probably needs an update.

[nadinbrzezinski]

29. Yep, absolutely

The announcement that we have found extra solar life is coming... five years would be my guess.

Exciting times we live in... and the effect on at least three major world religions will be amusing to watch. Why I think the Vatican has been trying to get ahead of this one. They KNOW the effect on the Bible Story, if you know what I mean.

[Beetwasher]

35. Oh Man, Watching The Bible Thumpers Go Berserk Will Be Something

Save the alien souls!

[dave29]

39. +50

I think astronomically speaking, the discovery is "imminent"

[Posteritatis]

30. Found this one so soon after the better planethunting gear went up, too

We're obviously a long way from any answers, but I kind of like that we can start filling in at least educated guesses for some of the Drake numbers.

[nadinbrzezinski]

31. Yep, and he is still alive

so I would not be too shocked if he starts doing some of the revision SOON.

[Beetwasher]

33. Seems Like Major Revisions Might Be In Order

In fact, this discovery so soon could mean the odds go up significantly, and that may be an understatement.

[MrScorpio]

16. Pandora, here we come nt

[nadinbrzezinski]

23. Again at current tech level for interstellar engines

it would take over one million years ONE WAY. You got that long?

[Paulie]

24. We all have that long, no problem

Of course we'll be in a state of high entropy, but lets not quibble over technicalities. :P

[nadinbrzezinski]

25. Well we are star dust after all

:-)

It just that when stories like this emerge, we see the immense ignorance of things like this by most people in this country.

It is like maddening and stuff.

I mean just because Star Trek has warp drives (According to Alcubierre theoretically possible if we managed to find all the energy in the universe and put it IN ONE SHIP, he's been revising his math though, so we seem to need less energy but not much less), don't mean we have them like fer real.

And I write Sci Fi from time to time. I've designed a few FTL drives for fiction. I realize they are... fictional so far. That said I think I am onto something with the 'Brane drive. Spoke to an actual physicist about it... again, there is this little issue with energy.

[dave29]

45. You should see my plans for the QeT

(Quantum Entanglement Telescope) aka "Cutie"

a gyroscopically stabilized golden-section array of space-based lenses (spread across our solar system) acting as interferometer for a user who wears goggles on planet earth. User looks in a direction, and image stabilization technology allows him to focus on any area of the sky with resolutions thousands of times better than any earth based telescope. Looking at the ground would not be a problem since the image is beamed, ftl, via quantum entanglement, to the goggles from space. Of course, current technology only allows for useless information to be sent ftl... but I'm counting on that changing ;)

Fun times!

[Beetwasher]

27. Must Be A Lot Of These Worlds Out There If We Found One Already

(Well two including earth!) Very exciting.

[nadinbrzezinski]

28. Rocky worlds are very common

that was the consensus a few years ago.

Why I said things have really changed. Back in the 1960s, before a chap by the last name of Drake came along, we believed they were very rare.

Only reason we have found more Jovian Giants is... the equipment. We have finally launched equipment that can discern things at the level of super earths, and soon things that will be smaller.

[dave29]

34. Have you seen the bit about the laser signal from the same solar system

while the sources are mostly dubious, the scientist is not... he found a "signal" in the optical spectrum coming from gliese solar system in late 2008. He has been looking for it since, and getting his original findings peer reviewed.

I am NOT a UFO conspiracy theorist, but I was an astronomy minor... and I am finding all of this fascinating.

[nadinbrzezinski]

37. No but the problem whit the laser

is dispersion so it has to be a VERY POWERFUL laser to do that.

And if he found a bona fide signal... and they find HE DID... it will change everything.

I got my history degree, masters and all, but some of it was in the history of science... I did my thesis in intellectual history, but because of the history of science (Galileo's case was like fascinating)... I can almost smell general panic when this is announced with about a billion people. A few million will ignore it, like it changes nothing... but medium to long term will change religions.

Now if this is a later signal, it left Gliesse 20 years ago... are any of our signals reaching Gliesse by now? I don't think radio is, YET. IN fact, I read somewhere that radio seems to disperse into background by three light years point... but my memory might be failing me.

[dave29]

41. not sure on the radio signals...

but anything optical would most certainly have gotten there by now. We also sent a signal directly there in 2008 after discovery of the rocky planet outside the habitable zone. Depending on how you feel about quantum entanglement and "spooky action at a distance"... that message could have been "received" by advanced technologies.

All of this stuff deserves high skepticism. However, the odds of a signal like that (not found elsewhere in all of SETI searching) coming from what appears to be a solar system with potential for habitable planet... it is tantalizing indeed.

And re: Galileo... one of the most interesting stories in human history.

This fellow, should his discovery of this signal pan out... would be a modern Galileo with the added bonus of the modern media circus. Poor sod!

[nadinbrzezinski]

48. Of course quantum entanglement, we know the theory

but we ain't have the tools. If you are a civilization advanced even a thousand years ahead of us technologically...

[Beetwasher]

36. I'm A Bit Shocked We Found One So Quickly And So Relatively Nearby!

Incredibly exciting! I now have to believe there really are a lot of planets within the zone.

[nadinbrzezinski]

40. Alpha centuari has been the usual suspect for New Earth

for insert here science fiction. There are reasons why not... three star system, et al. But I got to wonder about Barnard's Star.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barnard's_Star

Yes it is a red dwarf... but so is Gliese...

And it is a SINGLE star.

[Posteritatis]

42. With a planet in the right position, red dwarves might even be safer bets

At least for simple life. They're tremendously stable systems, with much, much more time for life to arise and hang around, even in marginal areas..

[Beetwasher]

46. Actually, That Makes A Lot Of Sense

n/t

[dave29]

43. in a lot of ways Red Dwarves are better candidates for life

than stars like our sun. They tend to be more stable, for one

[Beetwasher]

47. delete

Misunderstood.

[4lbs]

44. I never thought that Earth was the only planet in the universe capable of sustaining intelligent

life. It's not even the only one in our own galaxy.

The number of stars is too great for our own star to be the only one with a solar system containing at least one planet with life on it.

There are more than 100 billion galaxies in the observable universe, each with an average of 100 billion stars, for the lowest estimates (some very large galaxies contain as many as 400 billion stars). A recent German calculation put the number as high as 500 billion galaxies! However, I'm only going to use the 100 billion number, which will be sufficiently high for my point.

That's at least 10^22 stars in the universe (100 billion galaxies times 100 billion stars per galaxy). Yet, we are supposed to think that ours is the only one with a planet with intelligent life? Yeah, right.

Even in our own Milky Way galaxy, we have at least 100 billion stars. Some estimates put it as high as 200 billion stars or more.

So, out of at least 100 billion stars, our Sun is the only star that has a revolving planet with intelligent life? Hardly.

I actually think there are at least 100 such planets with life similar to ours in our own galaxy. Reaching them and communicating with any intelligent life form on them would be extremely difficult and impractical, if not impossible. The Milky Way is approximately 100,000 light-years across, meaning if you were able to go at the speed of light, it would still take you 100,000 years to reach from one end to the other. That means any radio transmissions or broadcasts would take at least that long, and the same length of time to return.

Our Sun is "only" about 30,000 light-years from the center of the Milky Way galaxy.

Thus, if we detected possible intelligent life on a planet near a star that was just 50 light-years away, it would take at least 50 years for any transmission from Earth to reach them, and at least another 50 years for the return signal. That's at least a full century to know the answer to "Can you hear me now?" Talk about long distance calling plans!

[nadinbrzezinski]

49. Let me guess you got a GOOD grounding in science

go have that conversation with yer neighborhood fundie.

Hell my older brother would be fun! Chosen people and all you know. And of course the story of Exodus is like true and shit... :sarcasm:

Bible thumper will either ignore this or have a crisis of faith.

[LongTomH]

50. Interested in the possibilities for "Breaklhrough Propulsion?"

Check out the Centauri Dreams website. They have news on a wide range of topics: exoplanets, exobiology, interstellar travel (including 'FTL' or warp drives). Their most recent post is about the habitable planet in the Gliese system.

Centauri Dreams is the newsletter for the Tau Zero Foundation:

The Tau Zero Foundation is a volunteer group of scientists, engineers, entrepreneurs, and writers who have agreed to work together toward practical interstellar flight and to use this quest to teach you about science, technology, and our place in the universe. By posting the latest developments and unfinished advancements here, we give students the starting materials to begin their own discoveries. By showing both how daunting and incredible this challenge is, we hope to increase attention on protecting the habitability of Earth while planning journeys into the galaxy. By reaching for the stars we will create benefits every step of the way.

One of the founders of the Tau Zero Foundation is Marc Millis, former head of NASA's Breakthrough Propulsion office. I sat in on a presentation by Marc Millis at an International Space Development Conference (sponsored by the National Space Society) years ago. The presentation was titled: "Warp Drive When," which is also the title of two of Millis's information pages: here and here.

[nadinbrzezinski]

51. thanks for the site

[nadinbrzezinski]

52. Drake Equation...

well I have a nice app with it on my pod

I entered all the usual parameters, the way they were... save one. I went max for the number of planets in the life zone...

I got 8624 intelligent civilizations on this galaxy.

WOW.