ESO set to make astounding disclosure!

Originally posted by revmoofoo
DAMN YOU!!! I've just spit coffee all over my keyboard because you made me laugh so hard!

Rev

Sorry dude, couldnt resist, but you know it's going to happen. The Nibirueans will be all over this for the next day or so.

Its peaked my interest whatever it is. I hate waiting!

reply to post by Atzil321


The poster you replied to has a bit of a point. It's fairly frequent that some organization is to announce something groundbreaking and unprecedented, when it reality they hyped up something that doesn't have any definitive proof. It doesn't move things forward too much, though the only upside is that it does keep science in the news, which in turn keeps people talking about it.

reply to post by zilebeliveunknown


The data and study are being published in Nature. By then the actual publication should be out and no one can steal their thunder.

reply to post by UnknownEntity


Now those tweets (I'm guessing those are tweets) give me some hope that it might actually be worth the hype!

I predict this thread will go the same route as the one from last year. European Observatory to Make 'Major' Alien Planet Announcement Monday

After 5 pages of speculation and the usual ATS bickering and sidetracking, we found out that they had discovered a planet around a binary star. Cool. Then all discussion ceased on the topic.

Originally posted by Soylent Green Is People

Originally posted by Soylent Green Is People
...I'm more curious about the inclusion of the ILM guy. I guess we'll find out.

Now that I'm watching the press conference, the inclusion of the guy from ILM (George Lucas' Company Industrial Lights and Magic) makes some sort of sense now...

...the press conference is about a newly discovered planetary system called "Kepler 16", which is a binary star system that happens to have at least one planet -- a planet called Kepler 16b. This is the first time a planet has been found orbiting a binary-star system.

THAT'S the significance of this discovery. Nobody ever new if a binary star system could have planets, although they had no good reason to doubt that they could. However, this discovery shows positively that they can have planets -- i.e., it is "proof of concept".

Kepler 16b is thought to be Saturn-sized, so it probably isn't rocky, but rather a gas giant. However, it is possible that Kepler 16b may have rocky moons, or there may even be additional yet undiscovered planets orbiting Kepler 16, and some of those may potentially be rocky and/or Earth-like.

The point of including the representative from ILM was for a little fun, in as much as the movie "Star Wars" imagined over 30 years ago of a system like this -- Luke Skywalker's home planet of Tatooine was orbiting a two-sun system. I suppose NASA wanted to give a little "tip of the hat" to George Lucas and his vision.

edit on 9/15/2011 by Soylent Green Is People because: (no reason given)

Huff post
Planet with four suns found, by two armchair amateurs ?, is it not this that they are getting excited about

Wee Mad

reply to post by weemadmental


I don't believe so, but maybe. That article gives credit to Kian Jek, from San Francisco, and Robert Gagliano, from Cottonwood, Arizona. That's the "I don't believe so."

Going off of this...

Originally posted by UnknownEntity
3) “@planethunters: We were pretty chuffed. RT @staratlas: @megschwamb Congrats on not just discovering a new world, but such a *cool* new world.”

... and Google searching those Twitter users leads to Luther Huffman and Meg Schwamb

Though, from Meg Schwamb's Twitter it does seem that she is presenting the discovery of that star system. So that's the "maybe."

EDIT TO ADD:

After reading through more of their tweets I think you're right. They each have repeated many of the tweets congratulated them and linking to articles about that new system. Looks like the cat is out of the bag a bit early after all.

reply to post by cmdrkeenkid


I dont think so. The quad sun system was discovered with nasa kepler data and not the eso?

Originally posted by weemadmental
Huff post
Planet with four suns found, by two armchair amateurs ?, is it not this that they are getting excited about

Wee Mad

edit on 15/10/2012 by weemadmental because: (no reason given)

That was Kepler not ESO


The ESO news is still to come most likely a super earth in the Goldilocks zone and perhaps they have been able to analyze or see it's atmosphere...

reply to post by phroziac


Yup, you are correct. My mistake in getting the articles confused. Thanks for helping me sort that out!

Looks like I'm back to that "I don't think so" from before.

I think it was here on ATS that read about a planet that has quadruple suns? Maybe I got it wrong, but there was a coalition of U.S. and European astronomers that found this planet - think it might be this?

reply to post by Clisen33


You probably did here:
Planet with four suns discovered

I believe we've almost ruled that out as of right now. I guess we'll know for sure soon enough though.

Originally posted by MystikMushroom
reply to post by UnknownEntity

 

I'm leaning to an announcement that they have discovered a planet with an oxygen/nitrogen atmosphere.

Cool, but unless we have warp drive we'll never see it.

Nothing "Earth shattering", no "Aliens exist" proof. Nope, just another planet that may be able to support life.

You're right, we have a non-functioning pyramidal teleportation device instead.

reply to post by UnknownEntity


If it was really of significance, in any way to Earth, they would kill the astronomer and we would find out nothing. We are allowed to hear meaningless # that could never help us in any way.

Originally posted by kryton
Even if we find an exact copy of Earth...

What good is it if we can't get there?

Wouldn't these minds be better used for creating a ship to go explore?

I think it would be good because it would mean that there is a possibility of a planet that could hold life similar to ours. We dont have to get there, they could come to us.

reply to post by rollsthepaul


Wow. That is quite the claim you make there!

The major problem with that is usually astronomical finds, while presented by one person or perhaps a small team of people, usually take more than that to accomplish. When something new is spotted the information is disseminated through the scientific circles pretty quickly (part of the original purpose of the internet) so it can be checked, worked over, studied, and verified or disproved.

Aside from comets and asteroids it's very rare that one sole person discover something new. Extra-solar observations require lots of work from lots of people with lots of equipment.

reply to post by UnknownEntity


I'm thinking that they're going for the big one........

Earth sized planet, in the Goldilocks Zone, and that they were able to detect water.

Sometims these things ARE ground breaking and erarh shatteringly exciting, but only to scientists and astornomers who live and breathe this stuff.

If they have found evidence of life on an exo planet then that will be enough to excite me, who cares that we cant get to it (yet) its still amazing that we would KNOW for fact that other life exists.

Originally posted by kryton
Even if we find an exact copy of Earth...

What good is it if we can't get there?

Wouldn't these minds be better used for creating a ship to go explore?

1. Dream
2. Watch battlestar galactica
3. Dream more
4. Wake up and realize we cant even go to mars.
5. Face depression
6. Watch battlestar galactica again

Prepare to be disappointed, That way when they announce the news you wont be disappointed when it turns out to be something we don't already know about, If on the other hand it turns out to be something absolutely amazing (which it wont) like they have found life then we can get excited, But we wont get excited because that isn't going to happen, It's just gonna be another exo planet in the Goldilocks zone which they think really could support life, So don't get your hopes up and as I said earlier, Prepare to be disappointed.

Really hope I'm wrong though, But I won't be.

i have yet to read every reply but is it not the planet that has 4 suns?

sounds exciting!
i just hope its not huge letdown
but they are being very strict about keeping it quiet until the conference
so why do the journalists have to keep it quiet until 7pm cest on Wednesday 17th?
the press conference will surely reveal whatever theyve discovered so im a

Journalists must clearly state in the email that they agree to honour the embargo and will not publish or discuss the research until after 19:00 (CEST) on Wednesday 17 October 2012.

which if im right we will know by 3pm today UK time (its after 2am in the morning here in the UK right now, 16th)

The conference will take place on Tuesday 16 October 2012 at 16:00 CEST.

It dosnt make sense to me that they would tell us yet the journalists cant spread the news