Earth-sized planet found around Alpha Centauri B

News article on Earth-sized Planet in Alpha Centauri B

I bet they eventually find out that this planet or another one in this solar system is in the Goldilocks Zone.

reply to post by Stari

WASHINGTON (AP) — European astronomers say that just outside our solar system they've found a planet that's the closest you can get to Earth in location and size. It is the type of planet they've been searching for across the Milky Way galaxy and they found it circling a star right next door — 25 trillion miles away. But the Earth-like planet is so hot its surface may be like molten lava. Life cannot survive the 2,200 degree heat of the planet, so close to its star that it circles it every few days.

1. I hope this is not what all the hype is about or I will be mighty pissed.
2. A little effort into the OP will go a long way.
3. If this is the big news then personally I'm a little disappointed

No disrespect OP - you are not the source but the messenger.
A few "ex-text" additions and some more of your own thoughts would be good though - just so you can hook-in as many fish as possible - ya know what I mean

reply to post by Stari


And the catch?

But the Earth-like planet is so hot its surface may be like molten lava. Life cannot survive the 2,200 degree heat of the planet, so close to its star that it circles it every few days.

booo.

reply to post by Sublimecraft


This probably is the big news release... You expected something better?
Paper

Are we talking Celsius or Farenhiet?

Either way that place is worse than mercury by a longshot.

And to think that my favorite game, Alpha Centauri, could have come true

So is this the big announcement?

Is it?

If it isn't then does anyone know what the big revelation is or did I miss the whole thing?

again ? how many times have they found it now , 4 ?

The fact that they found an Earth sized planet is kind of a big deal. I don't recall hearing about them having yet detected a planet as small as ours. And also, I'm not going to complain about them hyping it up because Alpha Centauri has a special place as the nearest star system to ours.

reply to post by Mkoll


Thank you Mkoll, I believe it is a big deal because I keep up with space.com and I have never heard of astronomers finding an Earth sized planet around another Star before.

Space.com's news on Alpha Centauri B

Yes, this is the "big" news since it's also on the Nature Journal, as was mentioned on the ESO site.

HOWEVER, there are (at least) two points why this is relatively exciting:

* Alpha Centauri is extremely close, i am hyped having read that they are now already speculating about missions, interstellar travel etc....as i "predicted". Such a find is a HUGE motivation for science and research that we might do interstellar space travel sooner - as opposed to the notion that the nearest planet would simply be "insanely" far away.

* They said there are LIKELY more planets in this system, not so close to the star.

I don't know about you, but knowing that our closest neighbor star has planets is quite exciting. The universe becomes more and more "alive" throughout the last few years. When i was a kid and looking up to the stars with my small telescope, no one even speculated let alone KNEW whether planets outside our own solar system actually exist. It becomes more and more star-trek and this IS exciting!!

reply to post by boncho


I'm wasn't expecting "Now hear this, we've found a planet, it has a sun, this planet is about the same size as us & its not too far away - its too hot though"

I suppose I'm hoping for: "An alien planet with humanoid life has been discovered, SETI and the governments of Earth have been in contact for months and they have just sent us there invasion fleet - arriving over northwest Louisiana last night - a major cover-up is currently underway so as not to alarm the sheeple"

Or something like that.........

Anyway, the article was written on the 16th & I thought a non-disclosure agreement was in force until today (17th)

back at ya bro.

So how many alien abductees have claimed that their abductors came from Alpha Centauri?

That constellation is named so many times, not just in alien abductions, but isnt there also some ancient civilisations that also refer this constellation?

Isnt this also the constellation that supposedly the Pyramids of Giza are aligned with?

Just trying to join the dots.

Originally posted by cavalryscout
So is this the big announcement?

Is it?

If it isn't then does anyone know what the big revelation is or did I miss the whole thing?

Alpha Centauri B is less than 5 light years away (that's verrrrry close). No planets were ever confirmed around Alpha Centauri before. The idea that the closest star to us potentially has several planets (at least one earth-sized planet) is certainly a big deal.

Yeah -- astronomers could have "guessed" that Alpha Centauri possibly had planets. However, in science, confirmation is everything.

Originally posted by Melbourne_Militia
So how many alien abductees have claimed that their abductors came from Alpha Centauri?

That constellation is named so many times, not just in alien abductions, but isnt there also some ancient civilisations that also refer this constellation?

Isnt this also the constellation that supposedly the Pyramids of Giza are aligned with?

Just trying to join the dots.

This is not about whether i believe in Alien abductions or not, or whether there is something to the entire phenomenon or not...BUT..it's "logical" that Alpha Centauri is mentioned often since it's rather known UNLESS someone has really basically no knowledge of astronomy *at all*

And the stories of alleged Aliens, IMHO they involve everything from Orion, "The Andromeda Galaxy" (my favorite), the Pleyades, Zeta Reticuli etc. It's FAR MORE "astonishing" that all those aliens always come from rather known constellations, stars etc. and never from unknown ones.....

And the pyramids are (according to one theory) in the shape of Orion.

Originally posted by flexy123

...BUT..it's "logical" that Alpha Centauri is mentioned often since it's rather known UNLESS someone has really basically no knowledge of astronomy *at all*...

Quite true.

Alpha Centauri has always been a favorite of popular mainstream science fiction, due to it being the closest star system to Earth (Lost in Space and Babylon 5, for example).

People in the mainstream are familiar with Alpha Centauri because it is the closest star system to us, so it gets used by sci-fi writers who are targeting a mainstream audience, which in turn causes it to be even MORE known by the mainstream.

reply to post by Stari


well .. the closest earth-sized planet to us is Venus... not to mention Mercury is comparable in size to our Moon.
what if we could "mate" the two when we have the ability to do so in ... say... a few millenia... heh.. .

reply to post by Sublimecraft


I would actually just settle with oxygen atmosphere and not thousands degrees + or - 0 celsius. Essentially, if there aren't giant ice towers made out of stuff normally found liquid here or volcanic plumes of sulphur that choke a high pressure atmosphere.... I'd be happy.

Originally posted by boncho
reply to post by Sublimecraft

 

This probably is the big news release... You expected something better?

Paper

That link goes to a really terrific paper on how the discovery was made. It was fiendishly difficult to detect the evidence of the planet, buried in the noise of multiple sources.

This is big news because it means we now have equipment & methods with...

...the precision to detect a new category of planets: Habitable super-Earths.
The optimized observational strategy used to monitor Alpha Centauri B is capable of reaching the precision needed to search for habitable super-Earths around solar-type stars using the radial-velocity technique. However, it requires an important investment in observation time, and thus only a few targets can be observed over several years. Recent statistical analyses and theoretical models of planetary formation suggest that low-mass rocky planets and especially Earth twins should be common. We are therefore confident that we are on the right path to the discovery of Earth's analogues.

Discovery will take some time. Even with the required sensitivity, detection & confirmation using the radial-velocity technique requires monitoring the target star for many revolutions of the planet around it. This is easy when the planet is close to the star and only takes a few Earth-days to complete an orbit (3 days, 5 hours and ~40 minutes in the case of this new planet). That's why so many of the exo-planets we've discovered (list) are in hot-house orbits around their parent stars - not because they are more common than more distantly orbiting worlds, but because they are easier to detect and confirm.

To illustrate, if alien astronomers studied our solar system from afar using comparable instruments, they would have the sensitivity to detect Jupiter & Saturn, but it would take a very long time. We have only been detecting exoplanets since the mid-1990s. Since then, Jupiter has not circled the Sun twice, and Saturn has only completed ~half of one orbit. They would not yet have sufficient data to confirm the existence of these planets.

A super-Earth in Alpha Centauri B's "Goldilocks zone" would have a period of ~200 Earth-days. It might take a decade of dedicated observation to confirm its existence. Of course, if it's "only" a regular Earth analogue, we might not yet have the sensitivity to detect it using the radial-velocity technique.

I still hope that in the next decade or two we might have orbiting optical telescopes large enough to directly detect/image nearby exoplanets.

This is my exact prediction from the ESO thread- nothing evven remotely suprising or world changing, wow shocked........NOT!

How is this in any way world changing?

Because scientist are twits that don't believe somthing obvious is true unless there is proof.

This is the stupidest "Big News" of the last 10 years, unless you caount the MUFON "disclosure" which was of course also not worth linning the bottom of the bird cage with.

We all know they know a lot of actual "Big News" items they keep hidden from us for no reason, and always act like it is a nonissue, yet every time they find somthing that was obviously out there, "OMG It Is Amazing!!!!!!".

Whatevs, these people are stupid. This wasn't worth any more mention than any other extrasolar find, we have all known since before they even even found a single extrasolar planet, that they were there, that there were earth sized planets, that there are earths in the goldilocks zone.

Be real for 1 second, the galaxie is to large for every conceivable planetary type imaginable not to exist in its boundries, and many more we can't even consider yet.

What a waste, too bad it is even dumber than I expected.

Hey big news guys! There are also planets with moons outside our solar system! Remember you heard it herfe first, when they make the world shaking anouncement in the next 2 years.

This is amazing, truly amazing.
I'm making myself a drink right now to celebrate.

For those who are interested in astronomy this is quite huge because A. Centauri is the closest star to our Sun, only a bit over 4 light years away. Just four freaking ly!
Also, the question about it's planetary population is one that have obsessed Astronomers for quite a long time.
There was some evidence for a jupiter-mass planet orbiting Proxima Centauri, but I believe the possibility was discarded some time ago.

What's more, there is still a chance to discover more planets in either star.
So this, for me, is actually pretty exciting.
S&F