Small planets seen by astronomers

by **Buliwyf** » Tue Aug 31, 2004 2:50 pm

US astronomers say they have found two more Neptune-sized planets orbiting stars beyond our Solar System.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3615940.stm

by **LordShard** » Tue Aug 31, 2004 3:33 pm

They used to have to detect planets the sameway they detected blackholes. Wait for it to pass infront of the star to it makes a blip inth stars light. Now they look to see if the star is wobbling, what will they think of next?

by **Colonel Ingus** » Tue Aug 31, 2004 3:50 pm

The next gen step is a telescope that the optics are so advanced that you could see an earth sized planet itself around the nearer stellar groups.

If they can do that they can use mass spectrometry to analyze any atmosphere present and see what type of elements are present. I.e. a water world like Earth?

Can't wait for this. Super Jupiters and Neptune sized planets aren't nearly as exciting as the possibility of an earthlike world.

Of course no one knows how common the freak occurences that allows the Earth to form the way it did is. Right distance from the sun. Early collision with a large body that allowed the formation of a moon. etc.

Venus is an example of what happens without a sizable moon that helps scrape of atmosphere. Thats not the only reason Venus is the way it is but its one of them.

Make no mistaken assumptions however. The pictures they are going to take will show a dot. There aren't going to be pictures like the Earth from the moon for some time yet.

by **Tour of Duty** » Tue Aug 31, 2004 4:52 pm

Old, but exciting news. I'm allways hungry for more and new news/discoveries about the galaxy and planets, etc.

It kind of surpries me that (in contrary to Earth and our Moon) most planets in our solar system are dead, and have an extrem atmosphere. But their moons, however, have ice, you could 'live' there, and there is a high chance that these moons have living creatures (extremely small tough) living in their solid ice.

by **LordShard** » Wed Sep 01, 2004 12:08 am

Hey Ingus, I saw on the discovery planet, they think the moon is part of anouther earth sized planet that collided into the earth or came near to and was caught into earth's gravity.

A super telescope like you said is next probably won't be next, the problem is our atmophere makes it so the higher the res and ability to magnify the harder it is to see anything through it. You'd have to build a moon base or something like it where there is very little atmophere to see it. Or a new hubble sattalite that include the latest advancements in telescopes.

by Conscious* » Wed Sep 01, 2004 1:29 am

Originally posted by LordShard
Hey Ingus, I saw on the discovery planet, they think the moon is part of anouther earth sized planet that collided into the earth or came near to and was caught into earth's gravity.

A super telescope like you said is next probably won't be next, the problem is our atmophere makes it so the higher the res and ability to magnify the harder it is to see anything through it. You'd have to build a moon base or something like it where there is very little atmophere to see it. Or a new hubble sattalite that include the latest advancements in telescopes.

Yes our atmosphere makes it very hard to see through, eventually there will bases on the moon, give it 50 years, a couple of good presidents and it will be done.

by **Colonel Ingus** » Wed Sep 01, 2004 2:02 am

Actually I was referring to an orbital telescope like the Hubble. NASA has plans for it in their Discovery missions that are upcoming.

Also a long baseline array would allow you to simulate an extremely large antenna. Such as a set of telescopic satellites in the leading and trailing trojan points of Earth would allow you to do. Thats still Sci-Fi for now. The trojan point part that is. Large baseline arrays have been used for years in radiotelemetry.

And there has been a tremendous amount of work in using properly calibrated mirrors and computer filtering to allow Earth bound telescopes the same clarity an orbital telscope would allow you in avoiding atmospheric distortion.

by **SGT DEVILDOG** » Wed Sep 01, 2004 4:07 am

Originally posted by LordShard
Hey Ingus, I saw on the discovery planet, they think the moon is part of anouther earth sized planet that collided into the earth or came near to and was caught into earth's gravity.

.

Actually, The mainstream scientific thought is that we collided with a big massed celestial body and the resulting collision ejected massive amounts of material into the atmosphere, which eventually became the moon.

I have seen arguments for the capture theory but the very slow rotation of the moon, coupled with the fact that we have found the same earth like crust on the moon would tend to lead credence the first theory.

*edit* Did anyone know that our moon is slowly leaving the earth's orbit?

by **CodeRed68** » Wed Sep 01, 2004 7:31 am

Originally posted by SGT DEVILDOG
*edit* Did anyone know that our moon is slowly leaving the earth's orbit?

Yes, I did see something about that on Discovery. I think they said something like an inch a year. If we depend on the moon so much, I wonder how that will affect the water, atmosphere and life on earth?
We hopefully would have advanced enough (this would probably take millions of years) in technology that we would already have found another planet or somehow stop the moon from moving away.

by **jnkcrp** » Wed Sep 01, 2004 8:56 am

You guys are all nuts....the sun revolves around the earth and we are the center of the universe...

by **Buddahead** » Wed Sep 01, 2004 9:53 am

Originally posted by jnkcrp
You guys are all nuts....the sun revolves around the earth and we are the center of the universe...

by **LordShard** » Wed Sep 01, 2004 11:04 am

The earth is slowly falling into the sun and the sun slowly expanding, thatand the moon is slowly leaving our orbit and were due for anouther extinction event any time now. (within the next few hundred thousand years a giant astriod is supposed to hit us again)

by **jnkcrp** » Wed Sep 01, 2004 11:17 am

within the next few hundred thousand years a giant astriod is supposed to hit us again

Well if everything is spinning and rolling out of control aren't we actully hitting the asteroid? I mean why do asteroids always get the blame? Maybe we should learn to just take a left after signalling.

by **Colonel Ingus** » Wed Sep 01, 2004 11:41 am

Well if everything is spinning and rolling out of control aren't we actully hitting the asteroid? I mean why do asteroids always get the blame? Maybe we should learn to just take a left after signalling.

BWAHAHA

Thanks for the laugh jnkcrp I needed it.

There is an actual experiment left on the moon by the Apollo missions that is still running. They set a mirror up on the surface and bounce a laser of it to measure the seperation between the Earth and the Moon. Imagine what the tides were like 500 millions years ago?

by **VlfPlyer** » Wed Sep 01, 2004 12:10 pm

Originally posted by jnkcrp
Well if everything is spinning and rolling out of control aren't we actully hitting the asteroid? I mean why do asteroids always get the blame? Maybe we should learn to just take a left after signalling.

That made laugh so much I think I leaked a little...... better go check.

take a left after signalling...........
:rotflmao:

Small planets seen by astronomers

Small planets seen by astronomers

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