'Twin' solar system 'like ours'

'Twin' solar system 'like ours'

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Undiscovered planets may lie hidden in a "twin" solar system 10.5 light years from the Earth, scientists believe.

Epsilon Eridani looks very like a much younger version of our own star system, say astronomers in the latest edition of the Astrophyiscal Journal.

It possesses a rocky asteroid belt identical to the one that lies between Mars and Jupiter, and an outer ring of icy material similar to the Kuiper Belt at the edge of our Solar System. In addition it has a second outer belt of asteasteroids containing 20 times more space rock than the inner one.

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This is pretty cool. We all know there are exo planets every where, but this solar system is relatively close. (In astronomical terms)
We could learn alot about ourselves by studying this,

Co-author Dr Dana Backman, from the SETI (Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence) Institute, said: "This system probably looks a lot like ours did when life first took root on Earth."

and we can all see this one.

Epsilon Eridani, which is visible to the naked eye, is slightly smaller and cooler than the Sun but much younger. Whereas the Sun formed around 4.57 billion years ago, Epsilon Eridani is only around 850 million years old. The star's asteroid belts were found using the Spitzer space telescope.

ukpress.google.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

lets send a man and a women so they could become adam and eve on a planet there and we could become God

by the way this is pretty cool

[edit on 28-10-2008 by robertnesta]

Thats a pretty cool find imo. I love hearing about space stuff like this.

I wonder what type of planets are there. Lets hope we can find some more about this place hey.

10.5 light years away!?

Holy geez that's close! And we weren't aware of it before?

Well, I guess all that's left now is to find out if there's a planetary body within the same relative distance to it's sun as Earth is to Sol... and of course, check what materials the planet contains.

Imagine if we found another suitable planet to inhabit...

... mmm... we'd probably just end up screwing that one up too.

Ya know, that's where vulcans come from

I'd love to find a habitable planet there. I'd jump on the ship to go.

[edit on 28-10-2008 by midnightbrigade]

This type of solar system in the article is probably very common throughout the Universe. It just seems to be the norm... balls of rock, gas, and other things are gravitationally held by a huge ball of fire. I believe this is just how it is and that there are zillions and zillions of these little solar systems out there.

I also believe that the so-called "habitable zone" is where most life exists throughout the Universe. There could be strange extremophiles that live on hot planets very close to their star, but I would think the norm is a planet being just the right distance from it's star in relation to its size and brightness, like the Earth and the Sun.

[edit on 28-10-2008 by Diplomat]

Originally posted by Diplomat
This type of solar system in the article is probably very common throughout the Universe. It just seems to be the norm... balls of rock, gas, and other things are gravitationally held by a huge ball of fire. I believe this is just how it is and that there are zillions and zillions of these little solar systems out there.

Its looking very much like this is the case. We are finding more all the time. What excites me most about this one is its proximity to us. Somethig we can study easier that others and is potentially accessable. Maybe not in our life time but soon enough. with some patience our descendents may have a probe there. n the mean time we can study this alot better than something on the other side of the galaxy.

Great Thread

Incredible the very small distance from Earth too,

It will surely be a target for the several new Planet finder telescopes being launched...

I keep saying we are going to discover that the road to the cosmos wasn't made quite as difficult as people believe and we need to just apply all our efforts to outer space...

I bet anything we find a habitable world within that same distance be it this system or another.

1/10th the speed of light 100 years

1/20th the speed of light 200 years

1/100th the speed of light 1,000 years

Long that last one, but within the realm of a building an ark manning it with, 4-10 people and not reproducing beyond what a city sized craft could hold, it's within our ability to do...

Only a 10 year lag in communication too

How ideal the age of this system, a chance to affect the development of the system... if interfered with early on, this system could have had multiple planets capable of supporting life with ease, Mars probably was for sure...

It would be not so difficult of a task to, defend these early worlds from asteroid strike that could ruin them or cause them (comet strike) perhaps on small rocky worlds that needed some more water

But far easier to have lets say...prevented Mars from being hit and ruined for life than it would be to repair it now, ditto for preventing the runaway greenhouse on a Venus...

Originally posted by midnightbrigade
I'd jump on the ship to go.

And if you took the current fastest ship, it would only take over 180 thousand years to get there. lol

I know 10.5 LIGHT YEARS may seem like a small distance off, but it might as well be 1000 light years off. Conventional technology will never get us there.

Originally posted by johnsky
10.5 light years away!?

Holy geez that's close! And we weren't aware of it before?

Hah those are the words straight out of my head!

Considering how close this solar system is, and we were not aware of it, I don't think we should be surprised if Planet X shows up tomorrow chillin next to the Moon!...

[edit on 28-10-2008 by Lucid Lunacy]

reply to post by grimreaper797


Hmmm I guess I was either underestimating the distance or overestimating our space cars.

Oh well... it sounded close

I always knew I had a twin out there somewhere.
Lets get someone over there pronto!

- lee

Great just what we need is another planet we can go to and destroy The human race can not even look after our own planet or our own people

We should be looking at our Mother earth before we go looking out side

reply to post by duffster


Maybe we should be doing both!

reply to post by Lucid Lunacy


Yes you might be right but i think it's going to take the human race along time to clean up it's act,thats if we dont wipe our self out first

reply to post by duffster


You sound rather cynical for a love n light person!

I think you should leave that big city and take a champagne cruise over in the Hawaiian Islands to re-charge that positive energy

reply to post by duffster


Oh stop it... such negativity

We are in the situation we are in ( was just talking about this in another thread) because we are over crowded and need territory to breed and live on, it's in our nature to roam and to explore

and the Galaxy is so ridiculously vast and filled with Billions of worlds that if we leave we will never find ourselves in this predicament of being Out of "Space" ever again for tens of thousands of years or more, maybe never...

the whole we can't handle this world nonsense is just demeaning and self hatred

a small house with 20 people and some beer is a Nice party

a small house with 50 people that just ran out of beer is a Fight



The Galaxy alone is incomprehensibly vast

and it seems, it has no lack of worlds to inhabit

reply to post by mopusvindictus


I'm sorry that you don't agree that we should clean up before we move Now you might call that Negativity but i call it a Reality

Yes you are very correct that the universe has so much space but i'm saying don't you think we should do some thing here on earth before we set up some other place?

reply to post by duffster


What if we are able to collect resources from space exploration that helps 'clean up' our planet?