Newly discovered planet 'Kepler-22b' is eerily similar to Earth, NASA finds

Why did they use the word 'eerily"? That is the only eerie thing to me.

Originally posted by antar
Why did they use the word 'eerily"? That is the only eerie thing to me.

"Eerily" in that it is hauntingly familiar and earth like. In the same way you and I are eerily similar to a duckbill platypus, or a pineapple. In that we are both living organisms. Every time I look at a a house fly I get chills down my spine at how similar we are.....It is eery, really.

Originally posted by snowen20
Nothing about this planet is eerily similar to earth sorry to say.
Another BS discovery trying to equate Earth to things that are not only unknown but too different as well. I expected this much already.

Eerily similar means..................Blue sky, lots of water, Continents, 300+ days a year, and most of all...........Size.
Standing by for the flames.

When you find the above let me know.

Did you not even read the article? Ask and you shall receive:

The planet's year of 290 days is even close to ours. It likely has water and rock.

Obviously we don't know everything about this planet yet, but those three factors alone do seem very similar to Earth conditions.

This is an amazing discovery for mankind. I can't help but wonder what is next that we discover about these Earth-like planets? Microbial life? Sentient intelligent life? I can't wait to see what the future of these discoveries hold!

Hello, Terrorist.

It's radius is 2.4 times the size of Earth's, so it's actually much larger.

Sorry, I guess I was thinking in relation to planets, "larger" is pretty subjective.

No, it's in our own galaxy, the Milky Way.

That was indeed my blunder, I meant solar-system, not galaxy.

That's just an artist's representation.

Doesn't really change the fact, at least for me. =)

reply to post by ErroneousDylan


Just realized I might have come off a little....not nice. Sorry bout that, I was just trying to clear misconceptions up.



Anyway, to the naysayers, this is indeed an interesting find, and it's far better than the previous habitable world claims because the last two were either A): tidally locked AND the planet hadn't been confirmed, or B): not orbiting in the habitable zone for the whole orbit.

Originally posted by duhdiggitydan

Originally posted by snowen20
Nothing about this planet is eerily similar to earth sorry to say.
Another BS discovery trying to equate Earth to things that are not only unknown but too different as well. I expected this much already.

Eerily similar means..................Blue sky, lots of water, Continents, 300+ days a year, and most of all...........Size.
Standing by for the flames.

When you find the above let me know.

Did you not even read the article? Ask and you shall receive:

The planet's year of 290 days is even close to ours. It likely has water and rock.

Obviously we don't know everything about this planet yet, but those three factors alone do seem very similar to Earth conditions.

This is an amazing discovery for mankind. I can't help but wonder what is next that we discover about these Earth-like planets? Microbial life? Sentient intelligent life? I can't wait to see what the future of these discoveries hold!

Yes I did read it thanks.
Did you read my post? .........................................300+ days...(Not) 290. Im looking for eerily similar man, that is about as close to similar as this planet comes and it is not close enough.

The post above mine makes me realize I should stop sounding like a5 star douche bag.

It is a neat find I'll admit, yeah it's cool. Just not as cool as I would like. Not what I was expecting that's all, I'm just not feeling it. Nothing personal to anyone..Hope no one takes my whining the wrong way.

It is as close as we can get now, and who knows in the next days months years we may find something totally similar to earth. If I am alive at that time Ill stop splitting hairs and talking semantics.

Originally posted by Terrorist
reply to post by ErroneousDylan

 

Just realized I might have come off a little....not nice. Sorry bout that, I was just trying to clear misconceptions up.



Anyway, to the naysayers, this is indeed an interesting find, and it's far better than the previous habitable world claims because the last two were either A): tidally locked AND the planet hadn't been confirmed, or B): not orbiting in the habitable zone for the whole orbit.

No, it's quite alright! I am glad you pointed out the false-information I posted. I would hate to deceive anyone. Sadly, I can't edit it for another 4 hours it seems, so your post will have to do as a reference. Thank you!

reply to post by snowen20


So in this vast universe on it's incredibly long timeline, you wouldn't count 10 days off as being close enough to what your criteria is for a planet similar to Earth? This planet is similar to Earth. There is no denying that even based off of the limited data that we currently have. We will only continue to learn more about this planet (hopefully) and continue to reveal more and more similarities to our conditions here at home. This is hardly a "BS discovery."

Are you afraid of what we might find if we continue to explore this planet?

ETA: That question was meant to be serious, not taken as a snide remark, btw. Just curious to know your thoughts as to why you seem upset about the discovery.

Pretty cool. They're finding a lot of possible Earth Mark II's lately (I stress possible because we're only just finding life on our planet where we thought there couldn't be any before, life forms composed of things other than carbon as we first thought etc). I guess they could be all around us, you just have to know what you're looking for. Like trying to find the pink flower in a sea of red flowers.

Originally posted by TheOven
I think we should start shooting missiles at it now.

Just in case

That is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard.

Why do you want to shoot missiles at another planet? Not that it would even reach it....

Just in case? How about if there is life there they should worry about us since we like to invade everything and claim it our own. Why not just leave the planet alone?


OP I look forward to finding out more information on this find! The Universe is one huge place, the possibilities are endless!

reply to post by ErroneousDylan


oh wow, that is the best news I have heard all day.... beam me up Scotty!!


just bought the spaceship making for dummies and reading it right now!

I just read an article on Yahoo! News, entitled NASA Telescope Confirms Planet in Habitable Zone, by Mike Wall of Space.com. If that article is trustworthy, and Space.com has always seemed reasonably accurate to me, then there are a couple things I believe should be pointed out about this announcement concerning the planet Kepler-22b.

The very first thing I noticed is that the article I read claims NASA confirmed the very first planet outside of our Solar System located within the theorized "habitable zone". It claims this confirmation comes after only 16 months of operational data (that's less than a year and a half for the slow), but then goes on to state that to flag a potential candidate the planet must make a transit three times in just a few months in order to be flagged as being within the theorized zone. In other words, the object must pass in front of the star at least three times within a certain time period to make the list. In this case, that means that Kepler-22b passed in front of its star 3 times in just 16 months. The article then goes on to say that there are already 48 candidates which have fulfilled this criteria. I assume they have not been confirmed?

The other thing I wanted to mention is that the picture of the planet is an artist's impression. The scientists really have no idea what the planet looks like or what it contains that would be necessary for life to exist, at least so far as I am aware of.

But what really caught my attention is that the same article mentions that Kepler's nominal mission ends in November 2012, but the Kepler Team is preparing a proposal to extend the mission for another year or more, meaning they are going to make a proposal to extend their jobs! If that doesn't make the announcement suspicious, I don't know what does...

I thought I was going crazy there for a minute, because I was experiencing some major dejavu when ATS sent me this on facebook. Luckily the thread I read before is still quite active. Here it is:

NASA's Kepler Confirms its First Planet in Habitable Zone of Sun-like Star

reply to post by HillbillyHippie1


your post absolutely deserves a star!

well done for raising valid points...

I am dobbing on you for being smarter than the average bear. xxx

reply to post by HillbillyHippie1

But what really caught my attention is that the same article mentions that Kepler's nominal mission ends in November 2012, but the Kepler Team is preparing a proposal to extend the mission for another year or more, meaning they are going to make a proposal to extend their jobs! If that doesn't make the announcement suspicious, I don't know what does...

That's actually quite routine. You see, the mission is returning an impressive amount of interesting data, and it's normal for them to want the mission to get an extension. Nothing suspicious about that at all.

Originally posted by snowen20
The post above mine makes me realize I should stop sounding like a5 star douche bag.

It is a neat find I'll admit, yeah it's cool. Just not as cool as I would like. Not what I was expecting that's all, I'm just not feeling it. Nothing personal to anyone..Hope no one takes my whining the wrong way.

It is as close as we can get now, and who knows in the next days months years we may find something totally similar to earth. If I am alive at that time Ill stop splitting hairs and talking semantics.

edit on 6-12-2011 by snowen20 because: (no reason given)

Sorry, ignorance (?) and bizarre answers SOMETIMES take me by surprise here on the forum.

Not that i call you ignorant, but you are aware that not even "some" years ago we didn't even have the capability to actually DETECT other planets around other stars? (We could only guess!)

Now...technology in discovering so called exo-planets in a extreme fast rate, and this is the first time we have scientific PROOF of a planet which is "very much" like Earth in all kinds of aspects...and people here on the forum are replying "meh" "mooh" "blaaah". What the hell is going on with people here?

Sidenote:

I heard that the announcements of discoveries of new planets by Kepler are LOOOOONG delayed since the mission does not make any announcements without 100% confirming and double-checking their finds. In other words, they have likely already discovered many more exo-planets...but for the official announcement it could take a year. (I THINK i remember they make the official announcements once a year..would have to google now)

Originally posted by TheOven
I think we should start shooting missiles at it now.

Just in case

I'm kind of with you on this one.

By the time we have the tech to get there,

Earth will be quite buggered

I believe once we do find a way to get there, we will colonize it

and if there are locals they will not stop us.

Thats how we humans roll, and always have

check this site out, very cool:

phl.upr.edu...

Listing of the current exo-planets sorted by Earth similiarity. the distances to Earth are staggering tho. With the exception of gliese 581 which is a surprising 20ly close. That's stuff for fantasy imagining those planets and how and whether we would ever get there and see them.

Originally posted by weirdguy

Originally posted by TheOven
I think we should start shooting missiles at it now.

Just in case

I'm kind of with you on this one.

By the time we have the tech to get there,

Earth will be quite buggered

I believe once we do find a way to get there, we will colonize it

and if there are locals they will not stop us.

Chances are 90000% that the "other" race is smarter than us...so i don't think it will be that easy to "colonize" them Look around what a stupid race humans are...we cant even live right on our own planet...