Friday, April 27, 2007
Labels: new planet
Interesting News : Life on New Planet?
Debating whether suns other than our own have planets has always been like debating whether cats other than your own have kittens. The answer is self-evidently yes.
On Tuesday, a team of European astronomers announced that they had not only found a new planet circling a comparatively nearby star in the constellation Libra, but that that planet is unexpectedly Earth-like. Like Earth, it orbits a comfortable distance from its sun; like Earth, it maintains a surface temperature somewhere between 32 and 104 degrees Fahrenheit. Most importantly, like Earth, it could easily harbor surface water. In the biological arithmetic we know best, warmth and water often equal life.
For all its terrestrial feel, the new planet — unpoetically dubbed Gliese 581c — has a decidedly extraterrestrial look. It is probably more than 1.5 times the diameter of Earth and five times heavier. But unlike our world, which orbits a comfortable 92.9 million miles from the flames of the sun, 581c hovers just 7 million miles from its home star. What prevents it from being incinerated like a match head is that its star is a red dwarf, only about one one-hundredth as bright as the sun. The dim light coupled with the planet's close proximity places it in what astronomers call the habitable zone: the spot at which temperatures remain comfortable and water can remain liquid. All this has led to a fair amount of astronomical hyperventilating. "On the treasure map of the universe, one would be tempted to mark this planet with an X," said Xavier Delfosse, an astronomer with Grenoble University in France and one of the planet's co-discoverers. Dmitri Sasselov of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, went further, enthusing to The New York Times, "It's 20 light-years [away]. We can go there." (Sasselov did not make it clear just how we'd make that 120 trillion mile trip when it still takes us eight months to cover the 35 million miles to Mars.)
Even if we could visit 581c, there would be reasons to wait a bit before we light the rockets. For one thing, just because the planet could have liquid water doesn't mean it does. The body was detected like all extrasolar planets initially are, not by direct observation, but by measuring the infinitesimal gravitational wobble it causes in its home star. We won't get a clearer sense of its makeup until its orbit carries it in front of the star and the brief interference in the wavelength and intensity of the incoming light allows us to make some inferences about its composition. This will also tell us if the planet has an atmosphere and if it is thin and wispy like Mars's or suffocatingly dense like Venus's — neither of which promises good things for the kind of life we're most familiar with.
If the discovery here on Earth of tough little organisms living miles below ground, frozen in polar ice and hanging on in the broiling waters of deep-sea vents indicates anything, it's that biology emerges in very improbable places. The most remarkable thing we may come to conclude about 581c is that whatever secrets it holds may not be that remarkable at all.
Source : CNN News
KB ` stepped on your garbage at
thats impossible
By 
, at
7:49 pm
life on the new planet?! aliens or human living on it? it sounds interesting.
By , at
1:34 pm
" "It's 20 light-years [away]. We can go there." (Sasselov did not make it clear just how we'd make that 120 trillion mile trip when it still takes us eight months to cover the 35 million miles to Mars.)"
It says we cna go there but ...
Other people says that it's too far away . On the website i found this news , one person said , even light needs to take 50,000years to reach there, who cna reach there anyway ?
By , at
1:39 pm
even if there is such a planet, i will be too far to even reach there!!!1
By , at
2:07 pm
even if there such a planet, it will be too far to reach it
By , at
2:10 pm
Can we,human live there?
By , at
9:49 am
If light needs 50,000 years to reach there we'll need more than 50,000 years to reach there. Can we, human, have life there?
By , at
5:14 pm
LIfe at other planet is veri fun but i wish i could see until other aliens ????Possible =) -_-!!
By , at
1:43 pm
So good
By , at
1:43 pm
Can human survive there
By , at
3:41 pm
if i reach there,the aliens will be my friends!!
By , at
4:07 pm
WOW!I guesse that if the ozone layer is too thin already,we have another planet to live......
is there oxygen,nitrogen or other gases?
By , at
4:51 pm
impossible
By , at
2:32 pm
if light take 50,000 years to reach ther we will take at least 100,000 years to reach the new planet
By , at
3:59 pm
Joseph i think is 1 million Year lar
But by the time we reached many people died in the rocket
By , at
9:33 am
if human can lives there that will be great cause i want too feel what is there about
By , at
3:33 pm
wow!sounds interesting!I hope i can stay there!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
By , at
2:06 pm
Cool! if the new planet can live human there it will be great...
By , at
3:19 pm