Formation of new Earth only 424 light years away!

Im a believer of the Anthropic principle and I would like to know more about why astronomers assume this new planet is an Earth like planet. How can one tell how the planet will turn out? I'm sure we share the same minerals and gasses as many other planets.

New Earth

So they can find a dust belt around a star 424 light years away, yet they still have problems finding earth sized planets...cool read!

I just don't understand how they do it. It involves exploration that exceeds optics and revolves more around space craft in my mind.

Im a believer of the Anthropic principle and I would like to know more about why astronomers assume this new planet is an Earth like planet. How can one tell how the planet will turn out? I'm sure we share the same minerals and gasses as many other planets.

We do share the same minerals and gases as other planets, just they are all in quantities which do not allow human or intelligent life to form or survive.

Thanks Octavius, it's all alchemy for sure. But how can they measure? We have spectrescopes for radiation, telescopes to squash it together, but detecting elements, I can't seem to remember how they would do this..

Colour? Atomic mass? The way gravity reacts to them? The way they react to surrounding entities?

There is no way to be sure of an element.

We have hundreds of comparative measures, you do them all and pick the most likely from the list of Elements.

Originally posted by GiantPanda1979
So they can find a dust belt around a star 424 light years away, yet they still have problems finding earth sized planets...cool read!

Dust belts are HUGE in comparison to planets even gas giants. I would bet it's easier to spot a dust ring then it is to spot a gas giant.

Just think of it like this. Imagine an array of 9 LEDs. Up close you can see each individual light source but the farther away you go, the more it looks like just one light source. Basically the same principal hold here I believe.

makes sense! thanks for putting it in perspective.