Announcement of discovery of 54 possible habitable planets

[ballaratdragons]

BBC announcement

Astronomers have identified some 54 new planets where conditions may be suitable for life.
Five of the candidates are Earth-sized.
HERE: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12354390

And a Star with 6 planets in orbit! http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12333766
:thumbsup:

[mswhin63]

Yes this is really cool, had a look at the keplar data on Planethunters.org and I got a mention for one star :thumbsup: It is such a cool site.

[[1ponders]]

re deleted posts.

Astronomy and Amateur Science Forum is for serious discussion about topics of scientific interest. Please keep spam posts out of the thread.

[ballaratdragons]

Hey, that's cool Malcolm.

One thing I think about with the Kepler method of finding exoplanets is that there are probably an awful lot of planets not being seen because their orbit is only a few degrees off the plane of observation.

Kepler will only see the planets that cross the disk of a star.
If their orbit plane is tilted a fair bit the 'star wobble' would be noticed (also a method for detecting exoplanets). But I wonder how many are missed when the plane is between the two, where the planets cross just a tad below or above the stars disk.
Maybe the stars' wobble still gives them away.

[CraigS]

Re: Uncertainties effecting the planet temperature estimates, (equilibrium temperatures), and thereby, how many may, or may not be, within the habitable zone:



Cheers

[leon]

Well that's good Ken, at least we will have somewhere else to go when this one drowns.

Leon

[mswhin63]

Throughout my observations on the data, I had marked so many possible transits. I am sure this would have been taken into account when determining possible transits. I looked at my data that is a candidate and it is very obvious transit in my opinion. Some of the other transits I have marked are very hard to determin and maybe in the next batch. At the moment the new set of data has some issues (Big gaps) that I believe will be explained (possible Keplar down time) or dealt with so making checking a bit on the hard side.

[ballaratdragons]

and your point is? :shrug:
I have no idea what you copy/pasted post has to do with the thread topic.



:rolleyes: Thanks Leon.

[CraigS]

The quote came from the original paper authored by the researchers ..

Characteristics of planetary candidates observed by Kepler, II: Analysis of the first four months of data (http://arxiv.org/pdf/1102.0541v1)
Also submitted 2 Feb, 2011 on arXiv (http://arxiv.org/abs/1102.0541).

The uncertainties behind the measurements are of first order importance in considering the conclusions.

Cheers

[leon]

Just having a stir Ken, :thumbsup: no need for the rolley eyes mate ;) :lol:

Leon:thumbsup:

[ballaratdragons]

:thumbsup:

I actually find it interesting that the article title contains the words
'Potentially Habitable Worlds'.
Rather an optimistic statement.

I can't say I agree with the title. I'm just posting the announcement.

[tlgerdes]

The only problem with that Leon, is that if it is a habitable planet, then it would likely contain other life that might not want us taking up residence...... depending on where we sit in the food chain ;).

I like lunch, except when I am it.:lol:

[OneOfOne]

It is interesting that such a small percentage of planets will be detected by this method. As there is no reason to think that the planets found are anything special you could extrapolate the percentages to get a realistic idea of just how many have planets. If, by random luck, just 1% of planetary systems would be in the right orientation to transit, you could expect the "real" figure to be 100 times larger. It is just mind blowing, isn't it!

[CraigS]

Not wishing to divert speculative conversations about the possible numbers of planets external to the Kepler dataset, at the heart of the research is clearly, the hunt for habitable environments and ultimately, the search for exo-life.

I notice that Mr SETI himself, Seth Shostak (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/seth-shostak/a-bucketful-of-worlds_b_817921.html) says the following (after reviewing the Kepler dataset results):



Looking at these words in the light of the facts from the review team paper, (posted previously), about the uncertainties in the planetary temperature figures being upwards of at least, 22% based on Stellar size, mass, temperature and planetary albedo .. with the presence/absence of an atmosphere being capable of dwarfing this figure, one is brought back to reality, fairly quickly.

My point here is that comments such as Shostak’s tend to ‘stick’ in the minds of the public (for a very long time).

As likely as he makes it out to be, there is still no scientific basis for his optimistic views.

Cheers

[renormalised]

There's also no scientific evidence to be overly (or even cautiously) pessimistic.

You have to remember that these planet's surface tempts etc, were based on grey-body calculations and are most likely not a true reflection of the actually env' conditions of the planet's themselves.

The only way we're going to be able to know for sure is to physically image these planets and take spectroscopic readings of their atmospheres. That, or actually go there and see for ourselves.

If the comments stick in the minds of the public all well and good. There's more to the politics of science than making headlines. This is just the sort of thing which encourages people to fund the scientific efforts more so than they actually are being done at present. Give people the chance to see what is out there and all the possibilities, and the funding will come eventually.

I would also disagree with Seth's (crude) analysis of 3% of all sun like stars having habitable planets. This result was only from 4 months work, on a patch of sky that only cover 1/400th of the total area of the observable sky and only to a depth of 3000 light years. That's still too statistically small to be of any significance. Might be a different matter once GAIA is launched, but for now it's only promising. What can be said from this is that if the numbers stack up, there are a mind bogglingly large number of planets in our galaxy. Even if only 1 in 100 (or 1 in 1000, 1 in 10^6) of them were habitable, it would still be a huge number of habitable planets present in our galaxy. More than you could count in a lifetime.

[ballaratdragons]

And that is only in our own Galaxy.
Now, how many Galaxies are out there? ;)

[CraigS]

Well … the Kepler discoveries are still exoplanet 'candidates'. When a 'reasonable' number have become 'validated' or 'confirmed', I'd say it has then become legitimate to use the definitive term, 'are'. (Admittedly, I don't know what that number might be, mind you).
:)
The guys who wrote the report, have been diligent in their use of the term 'candidate' exoplanet, presumably, for this reason. (Not so in the media reports etc).

The rest of what you say, could've just as easily been said before the Kepler discovery and is still speculation.

:)

Cheers

[mswhin63]

Drake equation springs to mind. Although is said to be more specific to advanced life.

For SETI, I think the number of worlds they anticipated is much higher than they even forecast, but at least they have something to point to specifically.

[CraigS]

The parameters of the Drake equation are speculative and frequently disputed, (for the same reasons .. no data).

All they can point to is the equation itself .. which really doesn't mean anything without measured parameters.

Cheers

[mswhin63]

Just pointing out the equation, I don't really accept an equation like this unless we receive some evidence relating to such an equation (as you suggest).

I think is more ambitious than realistic but sometimes it is stuff like this that gives up the drive to search. The Kepler program is just another small realistic search step in the final search for real habitable planets or intelligent life. Drakes equation may have been set as a goal.

One thing I would like to see or even make is a narrow field Magnetic field detector. I think this would be a major step in finding habitable planets out of those candidates. The current instrument theory (muon Detectors or some other detector) is a while away unless I have missed something.

[renormalised]

Notice, Craig, I prefaced my statement with the above :):)

However, I'd say the majority of the candidate worlds will turn out to be the real thing...given past history on the subject.

[renormalised]

There's nothing speculative about a little scientific politics :)

Get the public/politicians interested with the possibilities and they'll see the reasoning behind the project. That's the way you get your funds and a little pork barreling never hurt to achieve that aim:)

The rest of what I said was purely scientific and no different to anything else written here:)

If no one considered the possibilities or didn't speculate in science, no one would want to do the work...it would be as boring as listening to a Vulcan trying to make gossip:):P

[renormalised]

Of which we now know a lot more than when Frank Drake first proposed the equation. However, the most important factors of the equation (the last three variables) are still an unknown quantity.

[CraigS]

Yep Carl;

I notice they're expecting them to be reclassified, as well.

(I did notice your preface :) )

We're both saying the same thing, I think. Its just that I'd like to keep myself clear on where the reality finishes and speculation begins.

As far as pessimistic and optimistic speculation is concerned .. one is as valid as the other.

:)

Cheers

[renormalised]

Speculation adds some spice to the reality, gives it a bit of bite:):P

They maybe equally valid but one makes life as a scientist miserable, the other gives them hope and keeps them cheery, motivated:):)

[CraigS]

Errr …. all the factors are still unknown quantities.
:)
'Importance' would suggest a weighting factor .. I'm not aware of any of those yet .. ;)
:)
Cheers

[renormalised]

No they're not....they know how many stars are born each year in the galaxy and they have a reasonable guesstimate of the fraction of stars that have planets that form around them. The next two are more speculative, but the last three are the most important. How do you know how many contactable civilisations are out there if the last three factors are not so fundamental the equation?? Regardless of the other factors, you would really want to know if life developed intelligence (and just how intelligent it was), you'd also want to know that they developed a technology capable of making contact with and just how stable (long lived) their civilisation was. No point in trying to make any sort of contact if there are no advanced civilisations out there or they only last 1000 years before they blow themselves to smithereens. It'd be like talking to a ghost:)

[mswhin63]

True Carl, if we consider our own civilisation and it's suicidal tendencies the time frame to capture intelligence signal would be so small. But i would hope to think that our society can evolve from that.

[CraigS]

So, some follow-up news on this … they're going to use HARPS-N (and doppler shift spectrographic radial velocity detection) to analyse the 'Candidates' produced from the Kepler transit data ...

HARPS-N instrument will help confirm Kepler's planet finds (http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-02-harps-n-instrument-kepler-planet.html)

.. and HARPS-N gets an upgrade to improve its RV detection resolution ..



So, probably won't hear much until the end of next year, folks …

Cheers

[renormalised]

We won't be getting science from HARPS until mid year or later in 2012.

....and then the world ends, but luckily we'll have a few places to goto:):P:P

[CraigS]

Perhaps some validated or confirmed places … but not necessarily habitable.
(I'd include some emoticons .. but some get upset if we're not serious (see post #3)).

Cheers

[renormalised]

That's something we won't know unless we look.

Some of the best serious discussions I've had in science have been inherently funny or turned to humour at some point. If you can't have a serious conversation without some break in the tediousness, then why have it in the first place. Overly serious conversation either becomes boring or devolves into arguments and shouting matches...something which never comes to any fruition or conclusion either way.

[CraigS]

Yep .. agreed.



A little off topic but YES .. I fully AGREE and support these perspectives !

Its time for the rules of the Science Forum to be reviewed as this 'ruling' is asking for us to be something other than HUMAN.

It doesn't get much more unfair than that !!

So called 'Spam', whilst annoying in the midst of value-adding conversations, differs from humour amongst legitimate contributers !

Fair enough, legitimate contributions furthering the knowledge of the topic under discussion should take priority, but that's easy to enforce … just make a legitimate contribution based on knowledge of the topic !!

Deletion of humorous contributions and expecting moderators to take these actions, in my view, is overkill.

We should bring this up in the Website Feedback & Faq's section, as I do feel that the boundaries for Science related discussions aren't clear nor understood … by anyone.

Cheers