- A newly discovered planet may be the most Earth-like yet found in another solar system, scientists believe.
Kepler-186f is almost the same size as the Earth and occupies its star's "habitable zone" where temperatures are mild enough to allow liquid surface water.
If the planet has lakes or oceans, it would increase the chances of life evolving there.
But anything living on the world may have to withstand extra large doses of radiation from its active sun, Kepler-186.
The find is described in the journal Science as "a landmark on the road to discovering habitable planets".
Smaller and cooler than our sun, Kepler-186 is classified as an M-dwarf star, is 795 light years away and is orbited by five known planets.
Kepler-186f, the latest to be discovered, is the outermost plant in the system.
The planet was found by astronomers scouring the Milky Way galaxy for potentially habitable worlds
Using Nasa's Kepler space telescope, they measured the very tiny dimming that occurs when a planet crosses or "transits" in front of its star.
The transit information allowed them to calculate the planet's size and estimate its mass and density.
Kepler-186f was found to be just 10% bigger than the Earth. While habitable zone planets have been identified around other stars, none of them so closely match the Earth in size.
US astronomer Dr Stephen Kane, a member of the Kepler team, said: "Some people call these habitable planets, which of course we have no idea if they are. We simply know that they are in the habitable zone, and that is the best place to start looking for habitable planets.
"What we've learned, just over the past few years, is that there is a definite transition which occurs around about 1.5 Earth radii. What happens there is that for radii between 1.5 and two Earth radii, the planet becomes massive enough that it starts to accumulate a very thick hydrogen and helium atmosphere, so it starts to resemble the gas giants of our solar system rather than anything else that we see as terrestrial."
The habitable zone has also been called the "Goldilocks" zone, because conditions there are just right to permit liquid surface water and, possibly, life.
Of our two closest neighbours in the solar system, Mars is just too cold and its water is locked up as ice, while Venus orbits closer to the sun than the Earth and is too hot.
Kepler-186f seems to orbit the outer edge of its habitable zone. However, being slightly larger than the Earth means it is likely to have a thick insulating atmosphere that would stop its surface water freezing.
Small stars such as Kepler-186 live a lot longer than larger stars, providing more time for biological evolution to take place. This makes them promising places to look for life, according to Kane.
On the other hand, small stars tend to be more active than the sun and liable to produce more solar flares and potentially harmful radiation.
Kepler-186f is part of five-planet system 795 lights years away. The find is described in the journal Science as 'a landmark on the road to discovering habitable planets'. Photograph: Nasa Ames/SETI Institute/JPL-Cal/PA
Sorce: http://www.theguardian.com/science/2014/apr/17/planet-earth-like-discovered-kepler-186f
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/18/science/space/scientists-find-an-earth-twin-or-maybe-a-cousin.html?_r=0
http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-kepler-186f-earth-sized-like-habitable-zone-planet-20140417,0,7889576.story
Nasas finds new planet:
- Edge Guerrero
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Nasas finds new planet:
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^ I have a confession to make, I just can't help but find this kind of stuff really quite crazy:
"Kepler-186 is classified as an M-dwarf star, is 795 light years away"
lol @ them really being able to conclusively know anything, really. I seriously wonder what the probable margin of error is :)
"they measured the very tiny dimming that occurs when a planet crosses or "transits" in front of its star. The transit information allowed them to calculate the planet's size and estimate its mass and density."
Wow!! lol
I admit I am not schooled in this field but I just find it incredible how people can claim any real 'knowlegde' of something so complex as a planet/atmosphere etc from some weak-ass dimming that's supposed to be 795 light years away.
Also, what is the purpose for these mindless searches? If its to find worlds to colonize, that's pretty fucking far away. If it's to search for life, well this is another thing I find ridiculous; this insane assumption that 'life' is likely to only exist on earth-like planets with water etc. I always seem to wonder why different kinds of 'life' couldn't arise in different kinds of environments? They just toss off hundreds of interesting worlds, saying 'too hot', 'too cold' 'too much of this element', 'not enough of that', as if earth conditions really are the only passible recipe. Why couldn't sentient beings survive on different atmospheric conditions? Why couldn't Venus have its own life-forms of a less-dense nature that is compatible with the heat? Why couldn't the temperatures of Mars bring forth a new frequency that can sustain a whole different type of biology? Why couldn't the amazing movements of Jupiter and Saturn be TEEMING with life, just not like us?
I would wonder if we are already surrounded by living planets, but just in forms unrecognizable to the narrow-minded scientific parameters. This whole industry of research and the strange assumption that everything we see in space is 'dead' because its not like us I just find to be very baffling. To me it is all very much alive
Just my uneducated opinion... :)
"Kepler-186 is classified as an M-dwarf star, is 795 light years away"
lol @ them really being able to conclusively know anything, really. I seriously wonder what the probable margin of error is :)
"they measured the very tiny dimming that occurs when a planet crosses or "transits" in front of its star. The transit information allowed them to calculate the planet's size and estimate its mass and density."
Wow!! lol
I admit I am not schooled in this field but I just find it incredible how people can claim any real 'knowlegde' of something so complex as a planet/atmosphere etc from some weak-ass dimming that's supposed to be 795 light years away.
Also, what is the purpose for these mindless searches? If its to find worlds to colonize, that's pretty fucking far away. If it's to search for life, well this is another thing I find ridiculous; this insane assumption that 'life' is likely to only exist on earth-like planets with water etc. I always seem to wonder why different kinds of 'life' couldn't arise in different kinds of environments? They just toss off hundreds of interesting worlds, saying 'too hot', 'too cold' 'too much of this element', 'not enough of that', as if earth conditions really are the only passible recipe. Why couldn't sentient beings survive on different atmospheric conditions? Why couldn't Venus have its own life-forms of a less-dense nature that is compatible with the heat? Why couldn't the temperatures of Mars bring forth a new frequency that can sustain a whole different type of biology? Why couldn't the amazing movements of Jupiter and Saturn be TEEMING with life, just not like us?
I would wonder if we are already surrounded by living planets, but just in forms unrecognizable to the narrow-minded scientific parameters. This whole industry of research and the strange assumption that everything we see in space is 'dead' because its not like us I just find to be very baffling. To me it is all very much alive
Just my uneducated opinion... :)
- Edge Guerrero
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Masato wrote:^ I have a confession to make, I just can't help but find this kind of stuff really quite crazy:
"Kepler-186 is classified as an M-dwarf star, is 795 light years away"
lol @ them really being able to conclusively know anything, really. I seriously wonder what the probable margin of error is :)
"they measured the very tiny dimming that occurs when a planet crosses or "transits" in front of its star. The transit information allowed them to calculate the planet's size and estimate its mass and density."
Wow!! lol
I admit I am not schooled in this field but I just find it incredible how people can claim any real 'knowlegde' of something so complex as a planet/atmosphere etc from some weak-ass dimming that's supposed to be 795 light years away.
- It's just a theory, a estimative, they can be wrong, just like those cientists that have said that a megalodon was a 150 ton monster
But i don't have expertise on the field eiter, i am just s cetic guy^^[/b]
Also, what is the purpose for these mindless searches? If its to find worlds to colonize, that's pretty fucking far away. If it's to search for life, well this is another thing I find ridiculous; this insane assumption that 'life' is likely to only exist on earth-like planets with water etc. I always seem to wonder why different kinds of 'life' couldn't arise in different kinds of environments? They just toss off hundreds of interesting worlds, saying 'too hot', 'too cold' 'too much of this element', 'not enough of that', as if earth conditions really are the only passible recipe. Why couldn't sentient beings survive on different atmospheric conditions? Why couldn't Venus have its own life-forms of a less-dense nature that is compatible with the heat? Why couldn't the temperatures of Mars bring forth a new frequency that can sustain a whole different type of biology? Why couldn't the amazing movements of Jupiter and Saturn be TEEMING with life, just not like us?
- We have the idea that we are alone in this imense universe(or multiverse like the comics?:))
Theres probably thousands of forms of life, that maybe don't have space travel or technology, or maybe they have and don't care to make contact with us
- The idea that we can, and probably some day will use all the natural recurses of this planet and instead of trying to avoid this, we can simply go to another one and keep doing the same thing we been doing since the beggning of history, destroy.
I would wonder if we are already surrounded by living planets, but just in forms unrecognizable to the narrow-minded scientific parameters. This whole industry of research and the strange assumption that everything we see in space is 'dead' because its not like us I just find to be very baffling. To me it is all very much alive
- I belive, just like i wrote in the other paragraf, there are another forms of life.
It's like the old frase, man are afraid of what they don't know.(or something like that)
Just my uneducated opinion... :)
- The article i posted is just opinion to, they dind't set they foot on the planet in question to really know how he actually is.^^
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Don't be selfish, preserve this world for the next generations.
I'll never long for what might have been
Regret won't waste my life again
I won't look back I'll fight to remain
Don't be selfish, preserve this world for the next generations.
I'll never long for what might have been
Regret won't waste my life again
I won't look back I'll fight to remain
^ good post Edge, thanks for the reply
I just get frustrated sometimes when I see scientists muddying up huge assumptions with their claim on knowledge/understanding.
If we don't figure out how to live sustainably on this planet I think we have no business colonizing any other.
If we don't figure out how to live peacefully with our own species/planetary wildlife, I think we have no business looking for ETs.
I just get frustrated sometimes when I see scientists muddying up huge assumptions with their claim on knowledge/understanding.
If we don't figure out how to live sustainably on this planet I think we have no business colonizing any other.
If we don't figure out how to live peacefully with our own species/planetary wildlife, I think we have no business looking for ETs.
- Edge Guerrero
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- Joined: Tue Oct 22, 2013 7:14 am
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Masato wrote:^ good post Edge, thanks for the reply
I just get frustrated sometimes when I see scientists muddying up huge assumptions with their claim on knowledge/understanding.
If we don't figure out how to live sustainably on this planet I think we have no business colonizing any other.
If we don't figure out how to live peacefully with our own species/planetary wildlife, I think we have no business looking for ETs.
- We actually do that, we destroy a island, country, totaly decimate the life forms, and simply go to another, with a contiuous circle of destruction and total desrespect, the only thing is that with space travel, that vicous circle is going in universal scale instead of the global one.
We have decimated several species in this world; Dodo, Tazmanian tiger, the barbary lion http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbary_lion(irony that humans batizade another animal as barbary).
If we can't even take care of our home, can we take care of a strange home?
- I rent this space for advertising
Don't be selfish, preserve this world for the next generations.
I'll never long for what might have been
Regret won't waste my life again
I won't look back I'll fight to remain
Don't be selfish, preserve this world for the next generations.
I'll never long for what might have been
Regret won't waste my life again
I won't look back I'll fight to remain
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