NASA has discovered 7 Earth-like planets orbiting a star

Seven more barren planets detected. Not sure how this is news. These announcements by NASA get so tiresome.

NASA is lame! I trust more in the secret space whistle blowers than I ever will trust NASA, again.

originally posted by: Cobaltic1978

originally posted by: ThoughtIsMadness
The cool thing is the size of the sun and the temperature at which it burns.

Being such a small star and the habitable zone being so close would force the earth like planets to orbit the Sun in like days as opposed to our 365.25.

very cool stuff

4 seasons in one week.

Actually no seasons...ever, the planets will be tidally locked (same side always facing the sun) so they won't experience seasons at all. they won't experience sunsets or sunrises either for the same reason.

a reply to: welshreduk

And you know this because you can predict the future? It is nothing but speculation.

The planets MAY also be tidally locked to their star, which means the same side of the planet is always facing the star, therefore each side is either perpetual day or night. This could mean they have weather patterns totally unlike those on Earth, such as strong winds blowing from the day side to the night side, and extreme temperature changes.

Could this be our home? Someday my question will be answered. As a child I would have a reoccurring dream. A dream that felt so real, that, while I don't dream it anymore I still remember vivid details. I would always dream that I was at a place like Earth but I could see in the skies other planets or moons. Whenever I see movies like Avatar its almost like it takes me back.

Yes, very odd and these dreams are probably 30 years old now. But for whatever reason I strongly believe there are humans elsewhere as well.

I wonder how gravitationally stable that system of planets is? Seven planets in such a relatively small volume of space must result in significant gravitational perturbations between each of them on a regular basis...

a reply to: muSSang

Wasn't there a TV show which predicted this ??

It seems everything else has been predicted by a show in one way or another.

I think it was the one about the birth of the cylons( can't remember the name).

originally posted by: Cobaltic1978

originally posted by: ThoughtIsMadness

The cool thing is the size of the sun and the temperature at which it burns.



Being such a small star and the habitable zone being so close would force the earth like planets to orbit the Sun in like days as opposed to our 365.25.



very cool stuff

4 seasons in one week.

That sounds like a nice place for a vacation (holiday):

-- Spend the first two days skiing
-- Then play a few rounds of golf in the pleasant springtime air.
-- The spend a couple of hot summer days at the beach.
-- The finish the week with a "fall foliage" stroll though the woods.

originally posted by: welshreduk
originally posted by: Cobaltic1978

Actually no seasons...ever, the planets will be tidally locked (same side always facing the sun) so they won't experience seasons at all. they won't experience sunsets or sunrises either for the same reason.

Bah! You ruined my vacation/holiday.

Found this video that explains the Limits of Humanity reach in space, very good!

darn, cant get Youtube link to work, search for:

How Far Can We Go? Limits of Humanity

originally posted by: Soylent Green Is People

originally posted by: Cobaltic1978

originally posted by: ThoughtIsMadness

The cool thing is the size of the sun and the temperature at which it burns.



Being such a small star and the habitable zone being so close would force the earth like planets to orbit the Sun in like days as opposed to our 365.25.



very cool stuff

4 seasons in one week.

That sounds like a nice place for a vacation (holiday):

-- Spend the first two days skiing
-- Then play a few rounds of golf in the pleasant springtime air.
-- The spend a couple of hot summer days at the beach.
-- The finish the week with a "fall foliage" stroll though the woods.

originally posted by: welshreduk
originally posted by: Cobaltic1978

Actually no seasons...ever, the planets will be tidally locked (same side always facing the sun) so they won't experience seasons at all. they won't experience sunsets or sunrises either for the same reason.

Bah! You ruined my vacation/holiday.

Sounds like Iowa this week lol. We've had mid 70's, Thunderstorms, fall back to 50's today and 30's this weekend. Oh and we are now under a Blizzard warning for the Northern part of IA.

originally posted by: carewemust
a reply to: schuyler

I am serious! If the planet completes an orbit in one month, calendar-wise, our life expectancy would be over 700 years.

You are playing with semantics. Sans any other issues our lifespan would be exactly the same as it is now. Re-defining a year to be a month doesn't change that. It's like claiming people born on February 29th have a very short lifespan because they usually die at about 20.

a reply to: LardoCalorissian

I'm not sure if you are being intentionally dense but its clear what the JWT will do. Detecting the chemical fingerprints of water, methane, oxygen, ozone, etc; these are the signatures of living organisms. It's clear by your use of "breathing" as part of the description that your view of life is very restrictive. Nothing says life has to exist like it does in Earth.

originally posted by: HawkeyeNation

originally posted by: Soylent Green Is People

originally posted by: Cobaltic1978

originally posted by: ThoughtIsMadness

The cool thing is the size of the sun and the temperature at which it burns.



Being such a small star and the habitable zone being so close would force the earth like planets to orbit the Sun in like days as opposed to our 365.25.



very cool stuff

4 seasons in one week.

That sounds like a nice place for a vacation (holiday):

-- Spend the first two days skiing
-- Then play a few rounds of golf in the pleasant springtime air.
-- The spend a couple of hot summer days at the beach.
-- The finish the week with a "fall foliage" stroll though the woods.

originally posted by: welshreduk
originally posted by: Cobaltic1978

Actually no seasons...ever, the planets will be tidally locked (same side always facing the sun) so they won't experience seasons at all. they won't experience sunsets or sunrises either for the same reason.

Bah! You ruined my vacation/holiday.

Sounds like Iowa this week lol. We've had mid 70's, Thunderstorms, fall back to 50's today and 30's this weekend. Oh and we are now under a Blizzard warning for the Northern part of IA.

Ahhh...those beautiful Iowa beaches

Actually this guy says the closest 3 are tidally locked but the outer planets are supposedly not. youtu.be... Also being a red dwarf sun it will be one of the longest lived suns in the galaxy barring some type of collision.

A tidally locked planet with water/ice etc etc would have some kind of weird weather IMO if the water could exist along the terminator/edge of the sun facing side..

originally posted by: LardoCalorissian
originally posted by: muSSang

Your 5 year old will explain to me how we will be plucking the signatures of living, breathing organisms from the planet’s atmospheres 35 lightyears away?



This is what they say in your link,



"Spitzer, Hubble, and Kepler will help astronomers plan for follow-up studies using NASA's upcoming James Webb Space Telescope, launching in 2018. With much greater sensitivity, Webb will be able to detect the chemical fingerprints of water, methane, oxygen, ozone, and other components of a planet's atmosphere. Webb also will analyze planets' temperatures and surface pressures – key factors in assessing their habitability."



Nothing about plucking signatures of living breathing organisms from atmospheres......


Seems like you have a habit of making things sound more exciting, making stuff up.

There are certain ratios of atmospheric gasses that (as far as we know) can only be caused by life processes. For example, an abundance of free oxygen in the atmosphere of a planet seems to only be achievable through the processes of life like on Earth.

We don't know of other ways that much oxygen could end up in a planet's atmosphere, so if we find a planet with a certain abundance/ratio of gaseous oxygen, then it (as far as we know) would need to be a planet with life.

originally posted by: LostonEarth
a reply to: LardoCalorissian

I'm not sure if you are being intentionally dense but its clear what the JWT will do. Detecting the chemical fingerprints of water, methane, oxygen, ozone, etc; these are the signatures of living organisms. It's clear by your use of "breathing" as part of the description that your view of life is very restrictive. Nothing says life has to exist like it does in Earth.

This is true...

HOWEVER, we are searching for "life as we know it" because it is the type of life (or signatures for that life) we can recognize once we see it. It's very difficult to create tests for "life as we DON'T know it", because what specifically would you test for? It seems the possible definitions for "life as we DON'T know it" are so vague that we may be looking at an atmosphere of a planet with this strange life and not even know the significance of what we are looking at.


That's not to say that astrobiologists think that the only life out there is "Life as we know it". Those astrobiologists obviously KNOW that other weird life could exist, because that life actually did exist on the early Earth.

The early Earth was once mostly devoid of atmospheric oxygen, and in fact much of the kind of life that existed on Earth at the time would have found oxygen to be toxic.

So they know other types of life could exist, but being able to recognize that life using the indirect means we have at our disposal, or means we may have in the near future, would be extremely difficult. So they look for life that is relatively easy to recognize -- which is "Life as we know it".

How can you detect oxygen (or other atmospheric elements) trillions of miles away?

originally posted by: muSSang
Astronomers at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Nasa) have detected no less than seven roughly Earth-sized worlds orbiting a dwarf star in the system, it was announced today.

A similar discovery was made last year :

Promising Worlds Found Around Nearby Ultra-cool Dwarf Star

It may well involve the same 'ultra-cool dwarf star'.
And about NASA's achievement :

TRAPPIST (TRAnsiting Planets and PlanetesImals Small Telescope) is a project driven by the Origins in Cosmology and Astrophysics group (OrCA) at the Department of Astrophysics, Geophysics and Oceanography (AGO) of the University of Liège (Belgium). Mostly funded by the Belgian Fund for Scientific Research (F.R.S.-FNRS) and the Liège University, TRAPPIST is devoted to the detection and characterization of planets located outside our solar system (exoplanets) and to the study of comets and other small bodies in our solar system. It consists of two 60cm robotic telescope located at the ESO La Silla Observatory in Chile and at Oukaïmden Observatory in Marroco.

TRAPPIST

Hence the name ... a reference the Trappist beers

a reply to: InachMarbank

Actually, its relatively simple.

When light passes through an atmosphere, that atmosphere filters out certain parts of the spectrum, to varying degrees. Different chemicals being present, results in different parts of the spectrum being absorbed by it. By examining the light received by telescopes and the like, from a given location or body, scientists can figure out what chemicals are present, by seeing which parts of the spectrum have been absorbed.

Great news!

So how does this fit in the great scheme of things? We already know, at least metaphysically, that other 'beings' exist, other dimensions are there albeit out of plain sight. Why is NASA choosing to release this information? ...I wonder what will unfold out of this.

a reply to: 1and2

Other dimensions have absolutely nothing to do with this release of information. These planets exist in this temporal and dimensional locality, not in some other realm, hidden beyond reach. They are right there, in what we can call normal space, not in some other place, where physics works in stranger ways than it does here, in this universe.

Also, the existence of other life in the universe has nothing to do with other dimensions either. It is a matter of whether or not we can find it in THIS universe, that is the crucial question that needs answered. We MUST remain RIGIDLY on topic, if our discussions on this subject are to have any merit or value to them whatsoever.