Planet outside solar system is habitable

2010: How scientists spotted 'mysterious pulse of light' from direction of newly-discovered '2nd Earth'

An astronomer picked up a mysterious pulse of light coming from the direction of the newly discovered Earth-like planet almost two years ago, it has emerged. Dr Ragbir Bhathal, a scientist at the University of Western Sydney, picked up the odd signal in December 2008, long before it was announced that the star Gliese 581 has habitable planets in orbit around it. A member of the Australian chapter of SETI, the organisation that looks for communication from distant planets, Dr Bhathal had been sweeping the skies when he discovered a 'suspicious' signal from an area of the galaxy that holds the newly-discovered Gliese 581g. The remarkable coincidence adds another layer of mystery to the announcement last night that scientists had discovered another planet in the system: Gliese 581g - the most Earth-like planet ever found.

Read more: www.dailymail.co.uk... l#ixzz1MduvTz2p

Originally posted by RUDDD
2010: How scientists spotted 'mysterious pulse of light' from direction of newly-discovered '2nd Earth'

An astronomer picked up a mysterious pulse of light coming from the direction of the newly discovered Earth-like planet almost two years ago, it has emerged. Dr Ragbir Bhathal, a scientist at the University of Western Sydney, picked up the odd signal in December 2008, long before it was announced that the star Gliese 581 has habitable planets in orbit around it. A member of the Australian chapter of SETI, the organisation that looks for communication from distant planets, Dr Bhathal had been sweeping the skies when he discovered a 'suspicious' signal from an area of the galaxy that holds the newly-discovered Gliese 581g. The remarkable coincidence adds another layer of mystery to the announcement last night that scientists had discovered another planet in the system: Gliese 581g - the most Earth-like planet ever found.

Read more: www.dailymail.co.uk... l#ixzz1MduvTz2p

edit on 17-5-2011 by RUDDD because: (no reason given)

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reply to post by RUDDD

The signal detected by Ragbir Bhathal did not come from the direction of the Gliese system. Not anywhere near the Gliese system. It came from 47 Tucanae, about half way across the sky from Gliese.

Gliese RA 15 19 26.82 Dec -07 43 20.2
Tucanae RA 00 24 .0567 Dec -72 04 52.6

In December 2008 a sharp laser look alike signal emanating from 47 Tucanae was detected. However, further searches in the same region have failed to detect the signal again.

www.lpi.usra.edu...

Imagine if we stopped trying to kill each other off, and funneled the war money in to bettering our lives and educations. What leaps in the sciences would we be able to make if we shifted our goals from conquering & obliterating to expanding our minds? Perhaps if we had done precisely this decades, or better yet, centuries ago, we could be on our way to investigate the Gliese system firsthand.

Originally posted by Slipdoggety
It is a pity that this planet would take 300 000 years to get too.

we need to throw a few seeds that way, maybe crash a seed rocket into it, as well as some limestone.

Limestone sucks up Carbon, I think. Always made me think, Why did they put limestone on that Pyramid?

www.geopolymer.org...

reply to post by Phage


I thought the same when I first heard how they discovered it a few years ago. They can't even see the actual planet so how the hell do they know what kind of atmosphere it has?!

ETA:

I hate to rain on the parade (you know I do)

No, you like to urinate all over it from a great height.

Could sustain earth-like life =/= habitable by humans. The average surface temperature on this planet is about 400F, and the atmospheric pressure is that high water won't boil. However, that doesn't at all exclude the possibility of life. Look at it this way: there's a species of fungus in Pripyat that's adapted to feed on gamma radiation.

reply to post by Havick007


One of the biggest steps Man will ever take will be to go from "We are all there is" to "We are but one in a sea of many". Denial is something we do really well though, so it will take a long time to get there.

Thanks for articles OP. Star and Flag

Originally posted by Jax27
Imagine if the US forgot about trillion dollar wars and put up a trillion dollar space telescope at a moon base instead. Humans, so much potential but never lift a finger to it.

A trillion dollar telescope would show us so much and would give us so much knowledge of the universe. I really wish that todays nations would work together to make such a telescope.

reply to post by RUDDD


This link to the daily mail should work,

www.dailymail.co.uk...

Originally posted by Havick007

Planet outside solar system is habitable

bigpondnews.com

A planet 20 light years away is the first outside the solar system to be officially declared habitable by European scientists.

The 'exoplanet' Gliese 581d has conditions that could support Earth-like life, including possible watery oceans and rainfall, they say.

Your thread title is misleading.

Space.com: Is the Rocky Alien Planet Gliese 581d Really Habitable?

The work remains speculative.

To determine conclusively if Gliese 581d is truly habitable, future work will probably have to detect and characterize its atmosphere directly. And that is likely years off, since it requires the development of new and advanced telescopes.

If you go to the experts on space, you will realize that 'they are only speculating'. Nothing is official. Its a working theory. Nothing definitive.

reply to post by Section31

I beg to differ,
The story is about the french teams research, and they are sticking to their conclusions, as in their published results and the article also says other teams corroborate the findings. Other researchers are questioning the methods used, all normal enough I should think. The OP is not being misleading at all.

This is amazing and space exploration really fascinates me - if only we were all born in a time when it is a norm and people take trips to exoplanets for their holidays, instead we are stuck in this age of greed and materialism which will probably result in us never achieving the space age. As a few others have said, I think humanity needs to sort out its own problems before we head to the stars - so many brilliant minds and trillions of dollars are wasted on new weapon technology which results in nothing but destruction; humanity is spending all its resources on destruction as opposed to creation and the flourishing of a positive human race.

However this is probably our innate nature that we will have a lot of difficulty breaking free from as in the grand scheme of things we are very young indeed. Even if this particular planet does not contain life, I am adamant that there will be millions more that do considering the unimaginable size of the universe, it's just sad we will probably never see it.

reply to post by smurfy

No.

The story is about the French team's use of a computer model to run various possible scenarios, one of which assumed a dense CO2 atmosphere.

The new study assumes that Gliese 581d, which is about seven times as massive as Earth, has a thick, carbon-dioxide-based atmosphere. That's very possible on a planet so large, researchers said, but it's not a given.

www.space.com...

The trouble is, we do not know what sort of atmosphere (or even if there is one) the planet actually has. Without a dense CO2 atmosphere, the model is not accurate. Therefore the thread title is not accurate. The planet may support liquid water, if....

As posted before:

To determine conclusively if Gliese 581d is truly habitable, future work will probably have to detect and characterize its atmosphere directly. And that is likely years off, since it requires the development of new and advanced telescopes.

Your a bit late, this is old news, i heard about this news in like october

Makes you think what kind of species are there if its habitable. Then again, who's to say that planets that arent habitable for us wouldnt be for other species made up of different elements. Awesome find, thank you for sharing!

reply to post by Phage


Oh well the thought was fun while it lasted.

zazzafrazz cancels her Barbarella space suit order.......

reply to post by zazzafrazz

No. No.
Do not cancel that order.

reply to post by XRaDiiX


If there is intelligent life somewhere else in the Universe, the even more important question is: are they as friendly as we hope them to be? Or are they naturally violent and will they destroy competitors in the Universe?

Our radio signals travel with the speed of light since the beginning of the 20th century through the Universe so if there is intelligent life in our part of the milky way they will know of our existence. Now hope that they are friendly. We can't hide anymore if they are not as friendly as we hope.

Did you read it thoroughly? It said that we can't breathe the atmosphere and it's 20 light years away. That planet could have been destroyed by an astroid for all we know! I don't believe this one bit.