ESOcast 35: Fifty New Exoplanets

ESOcast 35: Fifty New Exoplanets

www.eso.org

Astronomers using ESO’s leading exoplanet hunter HARPS have today announced more than fifty newly discovered planets around other stars. Among these are many rocky planets not much heavier than the Earth. One of them in particular seems to orbit in the habitable zone around its star. This ESOcast we look at how astronomers discover these distant worlds and what the future may hold for finding rocky worlds like the Earth that may support life.

(visit the link for the full news article)

The European Southern Observatory (ESO) will hold a press conference at 10 a.m. EDT (1400 GMT) Monday to "report significant new results in the field of exoplanets," ESO officials said in a media alert.

The results were obtained with the High Accuracy Radial Velocity Planet Searcher instrument, better known as HARPS, officials said. HARPS is a spectrograph on ESO's 11.8-foot (3.6-meter) telescope at La Silla Observatory in Chile.

Participating in the press conference will be:

Francesco Pepe, Geneva Observatory, Switzerland
Lisa Kaltenegger, Max Planck Institute for Astronomy, Heidelberg, Germany
Markus Kissler-Patig or Joe Liske, ESO
Kissler-Patig or Liske will discuss the future of exoplanet research with ESO's European Extremely Large Telescope, ESO officials said. This instrument will be the world's largest telescope, boasting a 129-foot (39.3-meter) main mirror. It will be built on Chile's Cerro Armazones mountain, and could begin operations by early in the next decade.

ESO didn't give any further details about what Pepe and Kaltenegger will discuss. Both scientists are actively involved in the search for potentially habitable alien planets — those on which liquid water, and perhaps life as we know it, could exist.

According to NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, astronomers have discovered 564 confirmed alien planets to date, with more than 1,000 more candidate worlds suggested by data from the Kepler space observatory.

www.eso.org
(visit the link for the full news article)

I think it's only a matter of time before they find a planet in the proper habitable range and with liquid water; a planet that almost certainly will contain some form of life.

reply to post by NeoVain


Looks like ESO's overloaded - "page not found."

Too bad you just posted the original press release.

Good try tho.

Here is the first thread created on this very subject.

www.abovetopsecret.com...

Sounds like it was another "yawner" as expected... we know exoplanets are out there. We don't need special hyped up press conferences every time they find a new one. Exoplanets are no longer rare gems to be celebrated every single time. They should save the "press conferences" for when they find a planet with intelligent signal coming from it. Until then, general web articles on sites like yahoo, space.com will do. I'm tired of the trying to get us excited over nothing exceptional.

And no doubt millions of people believe this hogwash because - "the tv people say so".

reply to post by NeoVain


Nice job....you beat my post by more than an hour. Good Job! Star and flag 4u
www.abovetopsecret.com...