Planets @ MindSay 
universe
A thought provoking sequel to What If . . .
Astronomers find system with five planets
By Maggie Fox,
Health and Science Editor
55 Cancri
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - NASA scientists said they discovered a fifth planet orbiting a star outside our own solar system and say the discovery suggests there are many solar systems that are, just like our own, packed with planets. The new planet is much bigger than Earth, but is a similar distance away from its sun, a star known as 55 Cancri, the astronomers said on Tuesday. Four planets had already been seen around the star, but the discovery marks the first time as many as five planets have been found orbiting a solar system outside our own with its eight planets, said Debra Fischer, an astronomer at San Francisco State University. Life could conceivably live on the surface of a moon that might be orbiting the new planet, but such a moon would be far too small to detect using current methods, the astronomers said. "The star is very much like our own sun. It has about the same mass and is about the same age as our sun," Fischer told reporters. "It's a system that appears to be packed with planets."
It took the researchers 18 years of careful, painstaking study to find the five planets, which they found by measuring tiny wobbles in the star's orbit. The first planet discovered took 14 years to make one orbit. They said 55 Cancri is 41 light-years away in the constellation Cancer, a light-year being the distance light travels in one year -- about 5.8 trillion miles. The newly discovered planet has a mass about 45 times that of Earth and may resemble Saturn, the astronomers said.
HARBORING LIFE?
It is the fourth planet out from the star and completes one orbit every 260 days -- a similar orbit to that of Venus. "It would be a little bit warmer than the Earth but not very much," said Jonathan Lunine, a planetary scientist at the University of Arizona. The planet is 72 million miles from its star -- closer than the Earth's 93 million miles, but the star is a little cooler than our own sun. "If there were a moon around this new planet ... it would have a rocky surface, so water on it in principle could puddle into lakes and oceans," said Geoff Marcy, an astronomer at the University of California, Berkeley. But the moon would have to carry a lot of mass to hold the water, he said. Water is, of course, key to life.
"This discovery of the first-ever quintuple planetary system has me jumping out of my socks," Marcy added. "We now know that our sun and its family of planets is not unusual." Marcy and other astronomers strongly believe that many stars are hosts to solar systems similar to our own. But small objects such as planets are very hard to detect. Technology that would allow scientists to detect planets as small as Earth is decades away, the scientists agreed.
The researchers have been looking at 2,000 nearby stars using the Lick Observatory near San Jose, California, and the W.M. Keck Observatory in Mauna Kea, Hawaii. They have posted images of what the planets may look like on the Internet at http://www.nasa.gov/audience/formedia/telecon-20071106/. The inner four planets of 55 Cancri are all closer to the star than Earth is to the sun. The closest, about the mass of Uranus, zips around the star in just under three days at a distance of 3.5 million miles.
Animation Descriptions
1. Animation Part 1: Journey to a Star Rich with Planets
In the first part of an artist's animation, we take a journey from Earth's surface to the newest member of the 55 Cancri planetary system.
2. Fifty-five Cancri in the Night Sky
This wide-angle photograph of the night sky shows the location of 55 Cancri, a star where astronomers have found a record-breaking five planets.
3. Animation Part 2: Journey to a Star Rich with Planets
In the second part of the artist's animation, we fly out to see 55 Cancri's habitable zone (green) and the orbits of its planets compared to our own.
4. Our Solar System's Cousin?
This artist's concept illustrates two planetary systems - 55 Cancri (top) and our own.
5. Plentiful Planetary System
This artist's concept shows four of the five planets that orbit 55 Cancri, a star much like our own.
What are the possibilities of there being life other than our own in other star systems in other galaxy's in the endless universe ? Anything is possible. Wouldn't it be interesting to connect with other life in far off places ? To learn or share our thoughts, ideas, technology or belief's. To find answers to our most sought after questions and concerns. To find solutions to our most difficult problems. What would we do if we encountered such life ? How would we react ? Are we open, understanding and civilized enough to be able to accept life from another world ?
Until such an event occurs, the question still lingers in my mind . . .
What If . . . ?
There are many people who believe that the earth cannot be the only inhabited planet in the universe. They say something like "This universe is so enormous. It would be a waste of space if God didn't create life elsewhere." For many reasons I firmly believe that there are no aliens in outer space, no other inhabitants of this universe other than what God made on planet earth. Why do I feel this way?
- God created the universe, therefore it can hardly be "big" to Him. As humans we may struggle to comprhend the vastness of space because of the limited time/space dimensions in which we live. However, God cannot be measured so the fact that the universe is big is a moot point.
- The Bible tells us that because of Adam's sin, a curse was put on the whole creation, that it "groans and travails" under the curse of sin (Romans 8:18-22). Because extraterrestrials would not have come from Adam's line, they would not have inherited Adam's sin nature. It would not be fair for them to be affected by Adam's curse, yet we are told that this curse affects all creation .
- Christ came to earth to redeem mankind, descendants of Adam. Therefore Christ's death on the cross would not include ET's.
- Eventually the present creation will be destroyed (2 Peter 3:10). Does this mean that Christ's sacrifice might be repeated elsewhere for other ET's? I don't think so as we are told that Christ died once for all ( Romans 6:10) and on the earth (1Peter 3:18). The redeemed church is called Christ's bride (Ephesians 5:22-33) and will be in a marriage that will last eternally. Christ will not be a ploygamist by having brides from other planets.
- Nowhere in the Bible do we find that God has made a way for other species or even the fallen angels to be redeemed. (Hebrews 2:16)
God created man in His image and likeness (Genesis 4:22) six thousand years ago and man still has not developed the technology to develop faster-than-light spaceships to get to other planets. If aliens had that technology then they must be vastly superior to mankind in intellect making them even more in God's image than we are. But then Psalm 8:5 tells us that man was made only a little lower than the angels and was crowned with glory and honour. So would the ET's be higher than mankind but lower than the angels in the pecking order? If so, then mankind would be under the aliens rule due to their superior intelligence and technology. That can't be because it was man who was ordained by God to have dominion over the earth (Genesis 1:28) not aliens.
Or did the ET's creation take place a long time before that of mankind. But that is impossible as the Earth was created on day 1. The planets and stars were not created until day 4.
Quite frankly, it is storywriters and Hollywood movies along with their special effects, that portray imaginary alien lifeforms as being real. And this comes from the evolutionary idea that if life "evolved" here on earth then there is no reason why it could not have done so elsewhere. The entire focus of creation is mankind on this Earth; the living forms on Earth's beautifully balanced biosphere are part of our created life support system. (Creation Magazine March-May 2007, page14)
for more information see: creationontheweb.org or read the book by Gary Bates called Alien Intrusion which is available at the above website.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- European astronomers have found the most Earth-like planet outside our solar system, and here's what it might be like to live there:
The "sun" wouldn't burn brightly. It would hang close, large and red in the sky, glowing faintly like a charcoal ember. And it probably would never set if you lived on the sunny side of the planet.
You could have a birthday party every 13 days because that's how fast this new planet circles its sun-like star. But watch the cake -- you'd weigh a whole lot more than you do on Earth.
You might be able to keep your current wardrobe. The temperature in this alien setting will likely be a lot like Earth's -- not too hot, not too cold.
And that "just right" temperature is one key reason astronomers think this planet could conceivably house life outside our solar system. It's also as close to Earth-sized as telescopes have ever spotted. Both elements make it the first potentially habitable planet besides Earth or Mars.
Astronomers who announced the discovery of the new planet Tuesday say this puts them closer to answering the cosmic question: Are we alone?
"It's a significant step on the way to finding possible life in the universe," said University of Geneva astronomer Michel Mayor, one of 11 European scientists on the team that found the new body. "It's a nice discovery. We still have a lot of questions."
There's still a lot that is unknown about the new planet, which could be deemed inhospitable to life once more is learned about it. But as galaxies go, it's practically a neighbor. At only 120 trillion miles away, the red dwarf star that this planet circles is one of the 100 closest to Earth.
The results of the discovery have not been published but have been submitted to the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics.
Alan Boss, who works at the Carnegie Institution of Washington where a U.S. team of astronomers competed in the hunt for an Earth-like planet, called it "a major milestone in this business."
The planet was discovered by the European Southern Observatory's telescope in La Silla, Chile, which has a special instrument that splits light to find wobbles in different wavelengths. Those wobbles can reveal the existence of other worlds.
What they revealed is a planet circling the red dwarf star, Gliese 581. Red dwarfs are low-energy, tiny stars that give off dim red light and last longer than stars like our sun. Until a few years ago, astronomers didn't consider these stars as possible hosts of planets that might sustain life.
The discovery of the new planet, named 581 c, is sure to fuel studies of planets circling similar dim stars. About 80 percent of the stars near Earth are red dwarfs.
The new planet is about five times heavier than Earth, and gravity there would be 1.6 times as strong as Earth's. Its discoverers aren't certain if it is rocky like Earth or if its a frozen ice ball with liquid water on the surface. If it is rocky like Earth, which is what the prevailing theory proposes, it has a diameter about 11/2 times bigger than our planet. If it is an iceball, as Mayor suggests, it would be even bigger.
Based on theory, 581 c should have an atmosphere, but what's in that atmosphere is still a mystery and if it's too thick that could make the planet's surface temperature too hot, Mayor said.
However, the research team believes the average temperature to be somewhere between 32 and 104 degrees and that set off celebrations among astronomers.
Until now, all 220 planets astronomers have found outside our solar system have had the "Goldilocks problem." They've been too hot, too cold or just plain too big and gaseous, like uninhabitable Jupiter.
The new planet seems just right -- or at least that's what scientists think.
"This could be very important," said NASA astrobiology expert Chris McKay, who was not part of the discovery team. "It doesn't mean there is life, but it means it's an Earth-like planet in terms of potential habitability."
Eventually astronomers will rack up discoveries of dozens, maybe even hundreds of planets considered habitable, the astronomers said. But this one -- simply called "c" by its discoverers when they talk among themselves -- will go down in cosmic history as No. 1.
Besides having the right temperature, the new planet is probably full of liquid water, hypothesizes Stephane Udry, the discovery team's lead author and another Geneva astronomer. But that is based on theory about how planets form, not on any evidence, he said.
"Liquid water is critical to life as we know it," co-author Xavier Delfosse of Grenoble University in France, said in a statement. "Because of its temperature and relative proximity, this planet will most probably be a very important target of the future space missions dedicated to the search for extraterrestrial life. On the treasure map of the Universe, one would be tempted to mark this planet with an X."
Other astronomers cautioned it's too early to tell whether there is water.
"You need more work to say it's got water or it doesn't have water," said retired NASA astronomer Steve Maran, press officer for the American Astronomical Society. "You wouldn't send a crew there assuming that when you get there, they'll have enough water to get back."
The new planet's star system is a mere 20.5 light years away, making Gliese 581 one of the 100 closest stars to Earth. It's so dim, you can't see it without a telescope, but it's somewhere in the constellation Libra, which is low in the southeastern sky during the mid-evening in the Northern Hemisphere.
Even so, Maran noted, "We don't know how to get to those places in a human lifetime."
But, oh, the view, if you could. The planet is 14 times closer to the star it orbits. Udry figures the red dwarf star would hang in the sky at a size 20 times larger than our moon. And it's likely, but still not known, that the planet doesn't rotate, so one side would always be sunlit and the other dark.
Two teams of astronomers, one in Europe and one in the United States, have been racing to be the first to find a planet like 581 c outside the solar system.
The European team looked at 100 different stars using a tool called HARPS (High Accuracy Radial Velocity for Planetary Searcher) to find this one planet, said Xavier Bonfils of the Lisbon Observatory, one of the co-discoverers.
Much of the effort to find Earth-like planets has focused on stars like our sun with the challenge being to find a planet the right distance from the star it orbits. About 90 percent of the time, the European telescope focused its search more on sun-like stars, Udry said.
A few weeks before the European discovery earlier this month, a scientific paper in the journal Astrobiology theorized a few days that red dwarf stars were good candidates.
"Now we have the possibility to find many more," Bonfils said.
Yesterday it was announced that Pluto would no longer be a part of that solar system. WTF? What the heck did Pluto ever do to anyone? I don't know about you but I've always had a soft spot for Pluto. The little guy. The runt of the litter.
Pluto is getting a raw deal and as far as I'm concerned will always be a planet and a part of our solar system. What will it be next? Really.....
lol, so our solar system lost its ninth planet yesterday. How weird is that!?!? Now, the old acronym "My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us Nine Pizzas" can't be used...perhaps they'll change it to "My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us Nachos!"
lol...I've been desperately trying to finish Chapter 13...but I think I need to sit down and figure out where this story is going! lol. I need to review that before I'm goign to be able to get more done. For those of you who are actually interested, I haven't abandoned hope...yet! so, please, Be PATIENT! lol. later!
Showing 1 - 5. [ Next ]