'Goldilocks' planet just right for life?

[Beth]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100929/ap_on_sc/us_sci_new_earths


WASHINGTON – Astronomers say they have for the first time spotted a planet beyond our own in what is sometimes called the Goldilocks zone for life: Not too hot, not too cold. Juuuust right.

Not too far from its star, not too close. So it could contain liquid water. The planet itself is neither too big nor too small for the proper surface, gravity and atmosphere.

It's just right. Just like Earth.

"This really is the first Goldilocks planet," said co-discoverer R. Paul Butler of the Carnegie Institution of Washington.

The new planet sits smack in the middle of what astronomers refer to as the habitable zone, unlike any of the nearly 500 other planets astronomers have found outside our solar system. And it is in our galactic neighborhood, suggesting that plenty of Earth-like planets circle other stars.

[Arpheus]

I guess that's where they are gonna be sending all of us when this big LAb self destructs here in a few years heh?:p

[Ethereal Blue Being]

Beth thanks for the Goldilocks planet find. This article is very interesting. It's star is a brown dwarf which it says is around much longer than our type of star (sun)and therefore has a better chance of life developing. There is a lot of info there.

[Humble Janitor]

It's an exciting time to be alive and be optimistic!

Perhaps people were onto something with the 2012 stuff, except that it's starting NOW!

;)

[irishspirit]

An Earth-size planet has been spotted orbiting a nearby star at a distance that would makes it not too hot and not too cold — comfortable enough for life to exist, researchers announced today (Sept. 29).

If confirmed, the exoplanet, named Gliese 581g, would be the first Earth-like world found residing in a star's habitable zone — a region where a planet's temperature could sustain liquid water on its surface. [Illustration of planet Gliese 581g.]

And the planet's discoverers are optimistic about the prospects for finding life there.

"Personally, given the ubiquity and propensity of life to flourish wherever it can, I would say, my own personal feeling is that the chances of life on this planet are 100 percent," said Steven Vogt, a professor of astronomy and astrophysics at the University of California, Santa Cruz, during a press briefing today. "I have almost no doubt about it."

His colleague, Paul Butler of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, in Washington, D.C., wasn't willing to put a number on the odds of life, though he admitted he's optimistic.

"It's both an incremental and monumental discovery," Sara Seager, an astrophysicist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, told SPACE.com. Incremental because the method used to find Gliese 581g already has found several planets most of the known planets, both super-Earths, more massive than our own world outside their stars' habitable zone, along with non-Earth-like planets within the habitable zone.

"It really is monumental if you accept this as the first Earth-like planet ever found in the star's habitable zone," said Seager, who was not directly involved in the discovery.

Vogt, Butler and their colleagues will detail the planet finding in the Astrophysical Journal.

The newfound planet joins more than 400 other alien worlds known to date. Most are huge gas giants, though several are just a few times the mass of Earth.

http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/earth-like-exoplanet-possibly-habitable-100929.html

[Beth]

Merged threads :)

[irishspirit]

thanks Beth, couldn't see the other. My bad!

[Fredkc]

'Tis a joy to be simple,
'Tis a joy to be free.
'Tis a joy to merge threads,
Towards a simpler tree.

Poor Beth has been on a tear, of late. gathering together multiple posts on single subjects.
I think we're keeping her up ;)
Fred

[Fredkc]

"Personally, given the ubiquity and propensity of life to flourish wherever it can, I would say, my own personal feeling is that the chances of life on this planet are 100 percent," said Steven Vogt,
"Life is it's own answer." - Ray Bradbury, Martian Chronicles

[morguana]

Keep up the good work mods :)

and beth will enjoy reading up on this find, love info about space
:wub:
m

[conk]

"Yes dear, Muffy and I are vacationing on Goldilocks this season. We should be back in 29,000 years. See you then"!

[truthseekerdan]

http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2010/9/29/1285791209593/An-artists-impression-of--006.jpg

News link here (http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2010/sep/29/earth-like-planet-gliese-581g)

[Beth]

Merged :doh:

[Eric J (Viking)]

Well all I can say is that there is defanately someting going on here folks check here... I smell a big rat!!

http://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?6071-October-Surprise...

Toooo many stories floating around about ET's Saucers and life elsewhere...and all with 'mainstream' outlets!!!!


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QHVWB2pY1xM&feature=sub

viking

[Studeo]

Does ET live on Goldilocks planet? How scientists spotted 'mysterious pulse of light' from direction of newly-discovered '2nd Earth' two years ago

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1316538/Gliese-581g-mystery-Scientist-spotted-mysterious-pulse-light-direction-newEarth-planet-year.html#ixzz116NCkrtx

[Daft Ada]

Ahhhh! so that's where they are all coming from :-)

[Ethereal Blue Being]

It will be interesting to see how long until they announce an Earth like planet much closer say...five light years or less. And I'm sure there will be a logical reason as to why it wasn't found before this one.

[truthseekerdan]

Two weeks ago, U.S.-based astronomers announced the discovery of the first Goldilocks planet circling another star: just the right size and just the right temperature to harbor alien life. But yesterday at an exoplanet meeting in Turin, Italy, Switzerland-based astronomers announced that they could find no trace of the prized planet in their observations of the same planetary system.

All the excitement has been over the subtlest of wiggles in the motion of the star Gliese 581 that lies just 20 light-years from the sun in the direction of the constellation Libra. A consortium of institutions led by the Observatory of Geneva in Switzerland had already discovered four planets circling Gliese 581 by sorting out the subtle motions of the star that are induced by the gravitational tugs of any orbiting planets.

More... (http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2010/10/recently-discovered-habitable-world.html)