Submitted by Plantster: It's got the same climate as Earth, plus water and gravity. A newly discovered planet is the most stunning evidence that life - just like us - might be out there. Above a calm, dark ocean, a huge, bloated red sun rises in the sky - a full ten times the size of our Sun as seen from Earth. Small waves lap at a sandy shore and on the beach, something stirs... This is the scene - or may be the scene - on what is possibly the most extraordinary world to have been discovered by astronomers: the first truly Earth-like planet to have been found outside our Solar System. The discovery was announced today by a team of European astronomers, using a telescope in La Silla in the Chilean Andes. If forced bookies to slash odds on the existence of alien beings. The Earth-like planet that could be covered in oceans and may support life is 20.5 light years away, and has the right temperature to allow liquid water on its surface. This remarkable discovery appears to confirm the suspicions of most astronomers that the universe is swarming with Earth-like worlds. We don't yet know much about this planet, but scientists believe that it may be the best candidate so far for supporting extraterrestrial life.

The new planet, which orbits a small, red star called Gliese 581, is about one-and-a-half times the diameter of the Earth. It probably has a substantial atmosphere and may be covered with large amounts of water - necessary for life to evolve - and, most importantly, temperatures are very similar to those on our world. It is the first exoplanet (a planet orbiting a star other than our own Sun) that is anything like our Earth. Of the 220 or so exoplanets found to date, most have either been too big, made of gas rather than solid material, far too hot, or far too cold for life to survive.

View: Full Article | Source: Daily Mail

wow.

wow.

WOW!.


shame we can't get there. 20.5 lightyears away!. bummer.

Well its time for our lazy asses and go try to create a starship that CAN go that fast. Sadly we have to deal with war and george bush... sadness.

Yeah. Imagine if War funding was all used for scientific research instead. Why not try and build the interstellar engine instead of billion and billions in war.

Saving this world first is a fantasy that will never happen. Keeping an eye on the affairs of the world , while at the same time trying to reach out into space is the only option we have.

Yip time to start preparing the colony plans!

Imagine how cool a red sun must look in the sky!

well, if it's size is 10 times our Sun, shouldn't it be 10 times hotter or smth ? (or not, I don't really know) Also, what is the distance between the star and the planet ?

WOW!!! This is a freaking amazing announcement!!!! Does it really have oceans, or are they assuming it does?!

This is pretty amazing, though... with everyone wanting to get the asap, well... do you really think we're ready to go searching for other life outside our planet? We are still extremely unstable, we've only had a technoligical boom for 100 years and still warring after 3000+ years - against our own speices.

I think we should learn to walk before fitting on that spacesuit and stepping into the enterprise.

If the things keep going the way they are, we wont live enough to see another planet or life forms. We are dying, faster than everyone imagine....

We should first take care of our planet and try to stabilize, stop the global warming, we should invest money with education and health here first.

While my country is spending milions of dolars with the Panamerican games 2007, the same money they could be using to take care of our poor, but for them, the poor, they there is no money....

Its an amazing discoery but I more worried with my planet right now... With the planet my children will grow.

Im sure there is alot of planets like that you just gotta search for them?....we are not civilised enough to go into space I dont think...we got gw and his war...and more war..

When/how are we going to verify it does indeed have oceans?

jeeze 20.5 light years away is pretty damn far

It's not 10 times larger than our sun, the Daily Mail are talking utter nonsense. As it says later in the same article:



Gilese581 is a red dwarf and is both smaller and cooler than the sun. The planet is very close to the star, 14 times closer than the Earth is to the sun and it orbits the star in just 13 days (you would have a lot of birthdays with a 13 day year!)



Again this is total speculation by a journalist at the Daily Mail and not by the scientists involved. The press release from the European Southern Observatory, which discovered this planet, makes no such assumptions. It merely says that the planet is at the correct distance from the star that liquid water (and therefore oceans) could exist there.



Yes and no. With our current technology 193,900,000,000,000 km (120,500,000,000,000 miles) is a hell of long way indeed. In astronomical terms though this is on our door step. Gliese 581 is one of the 100 closest stars to us.

well one day not too far away we will discover intelligent life out there in the universe and we will realize how foolish we have been here on Earth. I don't believe however that human life is in danger of extinction. We certainly have the means to destroy ourselves, but I don't think we are that stupid.

If it is true that this new planet is actually like Earth, I say one thing: I knew it! I knew that Earth wasnt unique of its kind.... I knew that earthlings, humans and animals, werent the only living things in the universe. As the article says, if we found this Earth-Like planet so close to us, imagine, the universe might be filled with these, the universe might be filled with life!

One question..... what did they name this planet?

One would think so, but every great civilizations had a rise and fall during the course of history. Human extinction is much more possible these days with all the technological weaponry certain nations have. It only takes one crazy person to kill us all.

First off the reason that everyone is thinking this red dwarf is 10-20 times bigger then the sun is not because it is that big. It is actually 1/3 the size of our sun but since the planet is 14 times closer then the Earth and 5 times closer then even Mercury it would APPEAR 10-20 times larger then our sun in the planets sky.
One would think this would mean that the planet would be a molten ball of rock but this isnt the case. This is do to the fact that red dwarfs only produce 2-3% of the suns heat so being this close to it is ideal for life at least from a heat standpoint. But radition and solar flares may cause other problems for this planet. But untill we get the Terrestrial Planetfinder up we will have to wait for pictures and confirmation of water and potential life.

That's a good point. I partially apologise to the Daily Mail journalist. Now I have re-read the original article, you are correct, it is referring to Gilese581 appearing 10 times larger in the planets sky than the sun, not actually being 10 times larger. It is rather ambiguous though (typical British press).


Have you been reading my posts on this planet in the extraterrestrial forum?


Not necessarily. If we are lucky and this planet passes in front of its star. If this happens it may be possible to obtain the combined spectra of the star and planet. By deducting the spectrum of the star alone from that of the combined star/planet then the result is the spectra of the planet's atmosphere. What vapour was discovered in the atmosphere of another planet using just this method. In the case of this planet if we find large amounts of water vapour in the atmosphere (assuming it has one) then it is fairly likely that there is liquid water on the surface.



Slow down here! Saying the planet is in it's star's habitable zone and able to support liquid water on it's surface is a long way from saying it is earth like. This planet is unlike anything in our solar system. Although a rocky world, it is of a planetary type that astronomers call super-earths. It is far more massive than Earth. It has ten times the mass and 1.5 times the diameter. This means that it has a far higher surface gravity.


You can not extrapolate from one result. Until we find more worlds like this we have no idea whether they are common or not. The fact that we found one close by could just mean that we got lucky. If we find 10 nearby then we can start raising our hopes.



It's called Gilese581c. The c is because it is the 3^rd planet found around Gilese581.

Could never agree more. We are used to having war on our planet, but if we think about it, we are killing our own SPECIES over sometimes LAND, or MATERIAL possesions. Such as minerals, or weapons, which are used to kill off more of our own.

Until war is gone, and we dedicate our world funds on research on space travel, we may only find the FIRST alien lifeform to ever be made public, perhaps..... 100 years from now.

I don't know about you guys, but I'm really curious on life on other planets, and 100 years seems kind of... Long.
Too long for me to even be alive by then, or any of you, unless again if they create an anti aging facility or something, so everyone lives forever. <-- Again, if possible, only if WAR funds go onto RESEARCH.

"War funds are an endless source of money"- Forget who said that.

Lets not get too excited by this discovery folks. They really don't know if it is an inhabitable planet or not.

Yeah but it's beginning. Soon there will be hundreds of these planets discovered.

I agree, we should work to build a ship so we can go to that planet and (inevitably) wage wars there also.

Earth

Somehow I doubt that, lol. Unless it turns out to be uninhabitable.

There was a recent documentary that explored what life on an Earthlike planet orbiting a red dwarf might be like. It was interesting. It was theorized that such a planet would not rotate, instead the same side would always face its sun (due to the closeness it would need to be to such a sun to support life). This would cause a giant perpetual, stationary storm to exist on the light side. This means that most life would have to exist around the perimeter of that storm, but not on the dark side where it would be too cold.

why wouldnt the planet rotate?.......

might be to late. But its rlly cool

I'm wondering the same thing. As I understand it they only know it's there because its gravity causes a wobble in the star it is orbiting. I have no idea how they can determine if it has oceans.



I don't know how they determined this, but astronomers determined the planet doesn't rotate.

it would be cool if all the water was freshwater...

hate to break it to everyone but we cnt even make a vehicle to go as fast as light yet alone faster.


and its impossible.

when you reach the speed of light your mass increases so ur speed goes down creating a constant where your mass and speed stop you from goin any faster.


or something liek that.


me and my mate argued about it for ages. i argued that you can go faster.....until he proved me wrong with an science equation thing.

I'm glad we cant get there...the powers that be in their state of hatred would probably try to take the planet over...

According to what I read they didn't give it a name. They just classified by a letter.

As I said earlier, it's called Gliese 581c.



Strictly speaking the planet does rotate, however it rotates once around its axis in the same time it takes to orbit its star. Put another way it has a day and a year of equal length. It would, therefore, always keep one face towards the star whilst the other side would be in perpetual night. This is a similar situation to the one we see with our own Moon which always keeps the same face turned towards the Earth.

The process is caused by tides. Think of the way that the Moon raises two high tides on Earth. It Does this because it pulls the oceans outo of the spherical. There are two "bulges" (corresponding to the two daily high tides), one facing the Moon and one on the exact opposite side of the Earth. These bulges occur not just with the ocean but within the rock, the land imperceptibly rises and falls too.

However due to friction these tides are slowed down slightly and so do not occur exactly in line with the Moon. The result of this is that the Moons gravitaional pull is having a slight braking effect on the Earth's rotation, slightly lengthening its day. The Earth had a similar effect on the Moon but the Earth being more massive it exerted a greater braking force on the Moon than the Moon did on the Earth, which is why the Moon's rotation period is the same as its orbital period. It is know "tidally locked."

The same process will occur with a planet and a star. In the case of the Earth, because it is so far from the Sun, the Sun has a very limited effect tidal locking effect on the Earth. However in the case of a planet orbiting very close to it's star, such as Gliese 581c and Gliese 581 this tidal locking effect will be much greater, meaning that there is a strong possibility that such a planet will always have one face pointing at its star.

I know I will get beat up with this post...please be gentle..

This is one of many earthlike planets in the universe, let's not jump the facts.

We all looked to Mars as an Earth..it turned out to be similar but not equal.

This new planet is bigger than Earth, more gravity and it is still not known the context of the atmosphere, nor the real temperature. Much less, what is in the atmosphere, does it have one and does water actually exist on the surface.

We all are looking for that oasis in the universe that is Earth. Another Earth, blue skies, water, land and life. It just might be there, but this one is just not it. It would require similar conditions that exsit in this solar system. Although I might be very wrong, but I see this as the truth. Just my opinion...

why don't we start to send "probes"? yeah it will take a long time to get there but it may be worth it in the end. what's a couple million to the U.S. government these days? especially when it is a possible new establishment. but would it not be smart to send something to do a recon of the planet?

wouldn't really be worth it, untill we develop something that can make space travel more efficient and faster. Look at Voyager, it's been heading out of our own solar system for almost 20 years (still hasn't left our solar system), so it'd take around... say 100 years to get to this new star, around 30 years to begin and send the information back to earth - if it all goes smoothly, which isn't very often.

So it'd be around 130years before we get any information back. By then the craft would be outdated and it's data lost in the technological boom we've been having for 50-100 years.

Actually, it'd take a lot more. The star is twenty LIGHT YEARS from here. None the less, your point is valid. By the time the probe we launch would get there we would hvae developed far more advanced propulsion systems that would have gone there and sent back the info long before a probe launched now would ever even get there.

Just to be a wise guy, I'll add this. That planet and its star may not even be there now! What we are seeing is what the system looked like TWENTY YEARS ago! A lot of unexpcted stuff can happen in twenty years.

I heard this on the news today,that a team of Portugueses,Frenchs and Switzers found a Earth-Like planet that could have water and it could have a temperature between 0º and 40º Celsius.

I agree whole heartedly. I get depressed thinking about it!

I think that is wonderful news. I never thougt I would actully hear anything like this in this lifetime. I think it is a good thing that our government can't reach that planet. They would just destroy it, like they have ours. Can't breathe the air. Bad water to drink, that makes people sick. Cars and tons of polution. I wonder if we have really progressed that far here. More suicides than ever. Maybe a faster world like we live in. Isn't always the answer to great success. Maybe it can turn into great disaster for us. When the government polluted our oceans. What makes you think they would not try to pollute other planets, and their oceans as well.

See thats why we OVERTHROW the governments or just get the F off the this planet in a giant colony ship filled with people are are insane enough to take the challange and life in space.... sadly we would kill eachother on the colony because we are a waring species. If we were a peaceful species then why do we war over stupid things like religion, land, race, and bordom?

O RLY?

for Voyager it would take 25K years to reach the NEAREST star. And I bet this one's a bit further away. SO even if we use some uuber ion propulsion drive, it would take many K years...

I don't know how fast the Voyager is actually going, so I just used an example that showed how fast technology evolves in a short amount of time - 'specially since we have capable industries and ever-advancing computing.

xD but yeah, it'd take a hella lot longer than 100 years

Actually the prospect of using our current technology to get to another starsystem is entirely dependent on how
long we will have technology that is equal to or better then our current technology. Meaning that if we end up
destroying ourselves(or at least our high technology) do to war,disease, or any number of other things it
would make sense to send a current generation spacecraft or at least a probe.
But if we manage to stay on our upward technological curve then yes it would be almost meaningless to send a current
generation anything to other star systems. I say almost because in the thousands of years it would take for a spacecraft
from our time to get to another star our civilization could have already fallen and another would have taken its place.
In this case our probe would be of great interest to the next human civilization and would likely guide it in many ways.
Also regardless of civilizations and tech levels a current probe filled with all of our current information and history
would be very interesting and useful for historians of any civilization.

What is the size of this planet??

Waspie Dwarf if the planet is so big and it has so much gravity but also being closer, very close to the star woudnt the star's gravity also act on the surface of the planet and anulating some of the planet's own gravity?

Not at all. The planet is in orbit around the star so the tendency of the planet to go flying off in a straight line is exactly balanced by the gravity of the star. It may have pretty good tides though.

hmm... seems this planet isn't so earth like after all.



So this means that the real discovery here is a terrestrial planet... not a planet that can support ET. lol i imagine ET would stop his planet from going on the evening news anyways, who needs a buch of hippy tourists from earth showing up in a couple thousand years, just to say hey maan i knew u existed.