Potentially habitable planet found

These are very exciting times we live in.

Those headlines hyping "Earthlike Planet Discovered" kinda pissed me off after I read the accounts. It's more "Marslike" in reality, and as far as they can tell to this point, about as likely as Mars to have or support life as we understand it.

Haven't we heard this headline at least 3-4 times in the past few years?

Sky News, the Rupert Murdoch channel, showed why it wins the News awards every year.

Imagine staff whose job it is to to give the viewers a giggle. They sit there watching the wires. They have no Uncle Geoffrey's daughters in there. These are picked for talent.

This story comes on the screen. One of them thought a bit, got out a piece of paper, calculated how long electromagnetic radiation would take to get to this fantastic discovery of the scientists and ended up with the stuff being broadcast in 1983.

Good idea said the producer picking up phone and asking Archives to dig out some 1983 footage. A little montage is stitched together, a copy and paste job, and Mr Murdoch's faithful followers are treated to a good laugh about how out of date it looks now to us who are actually here in 2007.

He included shots of Mrs Thatcher in order to explain why any intelligent life on this new planet has not bothered to try yet to reached our shores.

"Picked for Talent..."?
"Got out a sheet of paper and calculated..."?
"1983..."?

The star Gliese 851 also cataloged as:
HO Lib, Gl 581, Hip 74995, BD-07 4003, G 151-46, G 152-9, LHS 394, LTT 6112, LPM 564, LFT 1195, Vys/MCC 159, and Wolf 562.
is 20.4 light years away. So electromagnetic radiation would take...hmmm... 20.4 years to reach there from here...they needed to CALCULATE that...yes I could see where that would take real talent...especially since that would make the answer 1987 NOT 1983...but that's probably about as close as a Rupert Murdoch comany ever got to a correct piece of information. PRICELESS.

By the way one big problem with this planet containing any complex life forms is that it orbits a red dwarf star and so to have a temperate climate it would probably be close enough to be bathed in radiation that would not allow for any complex organisms to exist. According to current theory there are very few type of stars that could meet the dual conditions of being in a temperate zone and also be at a distance where radiation would be tolerable. These stars would mostly be G or K type stars.

Thats at least a potential problem.

TheCorrectResponse
Welcome to A2K, TheCorrectResponse; glad to have you here. You appear to have expertise re this topic. Care to share any more information?

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In case you are wondering why scientists are so gaga over this discovery is because it is possible that this planet could support some primitive forms of life. Which would be the biggest thing since the big bang. Also if we could get there we might be able to survive there, it might take shielded structures, but that is a tiny problem compared to creating a breathable atmosphere or manufacturing water. The two big problems.

TheCorrectResponse
I'm surprised that you found A2K to be short on moderates. There are lots of us around even if they aren't as provacative as those on the wings of political thinking. I consider myself to be a pragmatic progressive. More of a social liberal and a moderate fiscal liberal. When I use the term pragmatic, I tend to work at the possible, not just the ideal.


TheCorrectResponse, thanks for the additional information. It's helpful to me as I'm not a scholar. Will earth folks being buying lots on the newly discovered planet soon?

Were you as happy for Stephen Hawkings as I was that he got to experience weightlessness, albeit for only a short time?

The following site is the first thing I go to each morning when I turn on my computer:

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html

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To me a moderate is one who can describe themselves in one word Moderate. If it takes more than that, let alone several sentences you aren't, in my opinion, a moderate. I would classify you with the left hand wing nuts, not to be confused with the right hand wing nuts. See what I mean about a man without a country. I really don't enjoy discussing politics. I would tend to stay on the science side of A2K. But even there most of the responses have an obvious rightwing/leftwing, religion loving/religion hating basis. The science seems to be tertiary at best and the value of the responses dubious to say the least. The judged correctness of the responses seems to have more to do with how the regular click of responders feel about the answers rather than if they are in touch with reality. But that is just me.

That is a wonderful web sight to which you provided the link. When I went to it M81 was the photo of the day. I have been an amateur astronomer all my life. I specialize in galaxies and globular clusters so M81 is verrrry familiar to me. M82, another galaxy is in the same low power field of view with M81 so it is always a fun area to observe.

A few more facts that you may find interesting if you don't already know them: The M stands for Messier, after a French observer who cataloged about 100 of the most spectacular deep sky objects in the northern sky a couple of centuries ago. The funny thing is Messier didn't want to observe these objects and didn't intend for his catalog to be used for deep sky observing. He was a comet hunter. Before a comet develops a tail (and actually not all do) they look like diffuse blobs of various sizes and shapes, a lot like deep sky objects do. He got tired of being fooled by miss identifying the same objects over and over as possible new comets. So he set out to create a catalog of objects to AVOID when searching for comets. Not stuff to look for. Today his catalog is used by novice observers as a list of the easiest deep sky objects to try to observe! Too funny.

Deep sky objects viewed even through the largest professional telescopes look NOTHNG like they do in photographs. These photos gather light for long periods, sometime 100's of hours over many nights, although usually just several hours in one evening. Since you are using your visual cons to observe at low light levels colors can generally not be seen, certainly not the rich colors in the photos, for example. Also many photos are processed to give false colors to help differentiate different regions or chemical constituents.

This doesn't mean that the sights aren't stunning. Saturn, although small, is BREATHTAKING visually and NO photo is even close to a view of the real thing in a telescope. Many globular clusters look like 4th of July sparklers frozen in time.

Just understanding what it is you are looking at can keep you staring at a misty blob for a long time. Using my 171/2 inch Dobsonian (just think BIG honkin' scope) I can spot 3C273, the brightest quasar whose light we see tonight stared out over 2 billion years ago. What do I actually see? I very dim slightly blue star looking object. Still it's well worth the trouble. While I think people in general aren't much to speak of, the universe is too cool to be believed!

TheCorrectResponse
We owe to Hubble all the wonder we non-scholars can see---and they wanted to let it die. I know the new telescope will be even better, but I love the dear old Hubble and hope it can be returned to Earth and retired to the Smithsonian Space Museum, my favorite D.C. visit.

Another science I'm interested in, as a non-scholar, is mano-technology. I've been trying to learn more about how mano sun energy collection will replace current solar panels to make it affordable and universal. Finally, we may find a way to end our dependence on oil.

Mano-technology will open the door to new science, medicine, energy, etc. This wasn't even dreamed when I was in high school in the 1940s.

BBB

Mano-technology?

Stuh505


Oops, you caught me. I must have been horny when I wrote Mano instead of Nano.

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanotechnology

TheCorrectResponse,
I am very impressed with your posts few though they may be, I do hope you stick around as your clarity and insight are most welcome!

Sunrise from the Surface of Gliese 581c
Sunrise from the Surface of Gliese 581c

Illustration by Karen Wehrstein
http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h229/KarenWehrstein/gliese58104blog-1.jpg

Explanation: How might a sunrise appear on Gliese 581c? One artistic guess is shown above. Gliese 581c is the most Earth-like planet yet discovered and lies a mere 20 light-years distant. The central red dwarf is small and redder than our Sun but one of the orbiting planets has recently been discovered to be in the habitable zone where liquid water could exist on its surface.

Although this planet is much different from Earth, orbiting much closer than Mercury and containing five times the mass of Earth, it is now a candidate to hold not only oceans but life enabled by the oceans. Were future observations to confirm liquid water, Gliese 581c might become a worthy destination or way station for future interstellar travelers from Earth. Drawn above in the hypothetical, the red dwarf star Gliese 581 rises through clouds above a calm ocean of its planet Gliese 581c.

Chumly
Thank you for the compliment and not just because it's nice to have one's ego stroked. In my most recent professional reincarnation I design and develop training for corporations, government, and the military. So focus and clarity are probably good things when you are teaching: pharmaceutical research teams how to do a drug study, engineers and mechanics how to troubleshoot and maintain cockpit avionics, banks how to make international monetary transfers, and fire control officers how to use the Navy's AGIS platform.

Also I can also tell you from experience if someone from the DIA (the military equivalent of the CIA) asks how you feel about secrets, the response: "Secrets are great! I love hearing them and I love telling them" is not exactly what they are looking for. Go figure. Talk about taking yourself too seriously! And nothing makes you feel as important as having a "bird" colonel escort you wherever you go. I went to the bathroom a lot while I was there .


BBB
Don't hold your breath waiting for Man to get to Gleise 581. If the world's resources were turned to the problem of getting a robot ship there in a reasonable timeframe, say a voyage of 50-100 years, we could probably launch the ship 100 or so years from now. A manned flight, if possible, would take the same effort and probably be more in the 1000 year launch frame.

Remember manned flight is not just constrained by available technology but by the physiology of man himself. It is currently possible to create jets that have much better performance characteristics than the fighters now in use. The problem is the pilots could not withstand the forces involved.

However if you are looking for land on the new planet don't go to strangers. I can fix you up with some beautiful ocean side property.

I my humble opinion Jupiter's moon Europa is our first best chance of finding some form of life and it's a LOT closer. P.S. I can fix you up with some property there too.

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Since you have an interest in so many things I have a couple of books that you might like to read, if you haven't already. They are: "The Brain" and "The Mind", both by Dr. Richard. Restak. The first is now about twenty years old the second about 15, but both are still very relevant. They are also fascinating beyond belief (I read each in one sitting; I just couldn't tear myself away, even if that is an old cliché. Both are also written at a conversational level and Restak is a wonderful author. Amazon probably has copies; the paperback versions are probably dirt cheap too.

Books by Richard Restak:
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_b/103-4224379-0395026?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=Richard.+Restak&Go.x=7&Go.y=5

Did you ever read The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind by Julian Jaynes? I read it when first published decades ago and was fascinated by it. I wondered if schizophrenics have a recessive ancient gene from the bicameral brain?

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