Sci/Tech Super-Earth Detected in Habitable Zone of Nearby Star.

tom_mai78101

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Santa Cruz, CA—An international team of scientists has discovered a potentially habitable super-Earth orbiting a nearby star. With an orbital period of about 28 days and a minimum mass 4.5 times that of the Earth, the planet orbits within the star’s “habitable zone,” where temperatures are neither too hot nor too cold for liquid water to exist on the planet’s surface. The researchers found evidence of at least one and possibly two or three additional planets orbiting the star, which is about 22 light years from Earth.

The researchers used public data from the European Southern Observatory and analyzed it with a novel data-analysis method. They also incorporated new measurements from the W. M. Keck Observatory’s High Resolution Echelle Spectrograph (HiRES) and the new Carnegie Planet Finder Spectrograph at the Magellan II Telescope. Their planet-finding technique involved measuring the small wobbles in a star’s motion caused by the gravitational tug of a planet.

The team includes UC Santa Cruz astronomers Steven Vogt and Eugenio Rivera and was led by Guillem Anglada-Escudé and Paul Butler of the Carnegie Institution for Science. Their work will be published by Astrophysical Journal Letters, and the manuscript will be posted online at arxiv.org/archive/astro-ph.

 
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Dan

The New Helper.Net gives me great Anxiety... o.O;;
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No one should ever say "nearby" and "star" in the same sentence... 22 light years is about 22 light years (- 200,000,000 kilometers or so) farther than we are capable of traveling. Talk about hyperbole...
 

xPass

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No one should ever say "nearby" and "star" in the same sentence... 22 light years is about 22 light years (- 200,000,000 kilometers or so) farther than we are capable of traveling. Talk about hyperbole...

What's that?
 

Darkrider

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No one should ever say "nearby" and "star" in the same sentence... 22 light years is about 22 light years (- 200,000,000 kilometers or so) farther than we are capable of traveling. Talk about hyperbole...

light travels at 300,000 km per second
a day has 86,400 seconds
a year has +-365 days

so 300,000 km/s * 86,400 s/day * 365 days/year * 22years = 208,137,600,000,000 km away. Think you missed a couple zeroes in your maths

Anyways. When we talk about hundreds, thousands and millons of years light away, 22 years is pretty close (search for the closest stars and you will see)
 

Varine

And as the moon rises, we shall prepare for war
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No one should ever say "nearby" and "star" in the same sentence... 22 light years is about 22 light years (- 200,000,000 kilometers or so) farther than we are capable of traveling. Talk about hyperbole...

And these are the people who hinder our ability to expand outside of the minor constraints of Earth.
 

Jedimindtrixxx

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the planets mass is 4.5 times that of earth... does that mean i would weigh 800 pounds there??? do not want. unless it means i become super strong just from living there. then i can return to earth and become a superman equivalent
 

Varine

And as the moon rises, we shall prepare for war
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the planets mass is 4.5 times that of earth... does that mean i would weigh 800 pounds there??? do not want. unless it means i become super strong just from living there. then i can return to earth and become a superman equivalent

Depends on it's density.
 
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