KEPLER FOUND A "MEGA-EARTH"

I would love there to be a catalog of all the planets and planet types, to see how unusual Earth really is.

That means I would two and a half times heavier there. At the rate I'm going I don't think I could handle that.

No it doesn't. It is 17.5 times more massive. You would be a lot heaver than 2.5 times.

Well, that's even worse then, isn't it?

Now that we have the means, we will be finding more and more in the "goldilocks" zone (not that this one is)> Im satisfied that we can determine size and mass.

The heavier the planet, the easier it is to spot with the methods they use. At least, I think so.

They made a big deal about this on the CBC because the second orbital telescope with which the details of this planet were obtained is run by the Canadian space agency. It was interesting how they used an entirely different method to assess the nature of the planet than that used by Kepler to find it.

There was a scientific study recently (within the past year) that considered what would be the optimal features of a habitable planet.

They determined that we could do a lot better than Earth, and said that a larger planet would be much better (but presumably not more massive like this new discovery is). They also felt that a widespread sprinkling of small seas was preferable to a few large oceans.

I tried to track down the original study when it came out, so I could see their exact recommendations and assess how realistic I found their study to be, but I ended up at a journal wanting me to pay to read the article, and wasn't quite that interested.

is using the Schwartzchilde metric to determine R* only valid for magnetic radius distances less than (say) 1000 lightyears?
Im not sure I follow the entire analysis because there has to be an effective limit of validity for this entire "redshift Mass" calculation. NO?

When Brian Cox announced that we are likely the only technological species in this galaxy, it was maddening that journalist only went for the sensational aspect (and got that wrong) rather than giving even a brief précis of his reasoning. However, the longer i have cogitated on this (and i've devoted some of my time continuously for more than 30 years), the less likely it seems to me that there will be as many habitable planets as many people like to speculate.

Whether or not, it is highly unlikely that we will visit very many of them, if any at all.

"habitable" is defined by our selfish needs. A methane environment, reducing conditions, may be temporary conditions, but be suitable to some kind of life just as free oxygen and retained water are indicative of planets with active dynamos, and, at least one example showing complex life forms.

"Habitable" may also merely define a variable period of time for the appearance nd decline of our own "Goldilocks zones".
We have at least one other planet in our system where an atmosphere and free water has been stripped away probably by solar winds.

Heres a thought in our group consideration of galactic life. What if, as we begin to travel about our galactic neighborhood, we find that oxyribonucleic acids are THE ubiquitous substance that defines "life". In other words, what if ALL life in the galaxy that we begin to find, is organic and DNA based??

Or RNA-based; we already know that RNA organism exist on earth. Influenza viruses and the ebla virus are RNA based. While it is true that they need a host to replicate, that may just be an evolutionary product of finding the optimal conditions for replication. RNA-based replication may be optimal without host organism under certain conditions of atmosphere which no longer exist on our planet.

I didn't mean to ask a "set up" but my own feelings kind of follow what Venter has said
"DNA is going to be ubiquitous Universe wide"
Fairbanks said that
"Its actually the difficult thing to "select" left handed chirality ofr all the proteins and amino acids involved in life". manufacture of DNA, after that (according to many biochemists dipping into the foundations of life) is more or less, a cupcake. (Ive always wondered why the Creationists haven't jumped on this and the fact of convergent evolution as arguments "FOR" Id)

Im starting the discussion that we recognize that, once the amino acid chirality is "selected", an RNA or DNA world is inevitable and not an ID "implant'

If by the one planet you are referring to Mars, the collision hypothesis is based in part on the fact that the floor of the Vastitas Borealis on Mars is from 10,000 to 20,000 feet below the elevation of the "chaoses" of the Martian southern hemisphere. The hypothesis of the formation of our moon from a planetesimal collision posits that the event took place about 4.5 billion years ago. The collision hypothesis to explain the relative lack of a Martian atmosphere and of water on Mars posits a planetesimal collision in roughly the same era--from 3.5 to r billion years ago. The planetesimal collision hypothesis for planetary formation in our star system is now widely accepted. That would suggest that for whatever the origin of organic molecules may be, life is unlikely to arise and remain until the planetesimal phase of system formation is largely over.

I rather accept another explanation for Mars lack of a mag field. Its more a simple geophysics observation based on the fact that Mars once DID have a molten core, and enjoyed all the protection from solar winds but no longer

One of the problems with determining the chirality (nd the similarity of any "living state" ) based on aminos and proteins and the ubiquitousness of oxyribonucleics. IS THAT WE GOTTA BE THERE.
The LIBS system (laser Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy) the teams are using in the Rovers are pretty clever gizmos based on "Ablation technology". (We douche the in situ soils with a hp laser without collecting samples) and then we analyze the "Smoke" given off from the zapping. So we inspirate a given volume of "smoke" nd analyze it for chirality (s well as a big bunch of other stuff.
Seeing organix chemistry with left handed chirality, says one thing but if it shows right handedness in the aminos, that says something else entirely. (Its a second genesis according to the JPL people). Its the formation of life based on right handed organixs and proteins which is unearth -like.
So, doing such work in deeper space will take a rover-like presence because its very locality dependent and sample availability so we can energize and ablate.

Uhm . . . i wasn't commenting on the lack of a magnetosphere on Mars.

You're unlikely to get that kind of probe (resembling the Martian rovers) because interstellar distances are too great. Twenty or more light years out, and, given our current technology, you'd need an enormous expenditure to get a probe out there in anything under about 30 years--then 20 years for the data to come back. I don't see, in our present geo-political state, anyone making that kind of expenditure, nor anyone planning that far down the road.

I would love to think that we did that, even though i'd not live long enough to see any results. But i'm pessimistic about that sort of thing because human history shows us to be usually short-sighted and selfish.

One of my prime objection to the so-called Fermi paradox is that he didn't, apparently, think about social structures when positing the likelihood of technological civilizations sending out colonizing missions.

sadly , not in a hundred generations. Maybe more will develop wome really funky interstellar propulsion systems (So, say we can reach a planet 500 lightyears away with a proper "in-situ" probe. Itd still tke nother 500 years or so to get the goddamm data back home. .
Small steps I guess, until (and maybe not until) we discover some loopholes in physics.

I think the fact that Kepler is back up and running is bigger news than the details of that particular exoplanet. No offense to the planet, of course. I'm just thinking getting Kepler back means we're likely to find a lot more, and likely more in the goldilocks zone. I'm pumped. Or as pumped as I can be this time of night.