Ho, hum. Kepler discovers yet another exoplanet in the habitable zone...

[DreamGypsy]

...and the popular science media explodes!!!

...from Science - An Earth-Sized Planet in the Habitable Zone of a Cool Star:

The quest for Earth-like planets is a major focus of current exoplanet research. Although planets that are Earth-sized and smaller have been detected, these planets reside in orbits that are too close to their host star to allow liquid water on their surfaces. We present the detection of Kepler-186f, a 1.11 ± 0.14 Earth-radius planet that is the outermost of five planets, all roughly Earth-sized, that transit a 0.47 ± 0.05 solar-radius star. The intensity and spectrum of the star’s radiation place Kepler-186f in the stellar habitable zone, implying that if Kepler-186f has an Earth-like atmosphere and water at its surface, then some of this water is likely to be in liquid form.

And Phys.Org responds with First potentially habitable Earth-sized planet confirmed: It may have liquid water:


The artist's concept depicts Kepler-186f, the first validated Earth-size planet orbiting a distant star in the habitable zone—a range of distances from a star where liquid water might pool on the surface of an orbiting planet. The discovery of Kepler-186f confirms that Earth-size planets exist in the habitable zone of other stars and signals a significant step closer to finding a world similar to Earth. The artistic concept of Kepler-186f is the result of scientists and artists collaborating to help imagine the appearance of these distant worlds. Credit: Danielle Futselaar


Yes, people! We're seeing trees...in our imagination.

OK, the tone gets a little more real in the article:

"What makes this finding particularly compelling is that this Earth-sized planet, one of five orbiting this star, which is cooler than the Sun, resides in a temperate region where water could exist in liquid form," says Elisa Quintana of the SETI Institute and NASA Ames Research Center who led the paper published in the current issue of the journal Science. The region in which this planet orbits its star is called the habitable zone, as it is thought that life would most likely form on planets with liquid water.

Steve Howell, Kepler's Project Scientist and a co-author on the paper, adds that neither Kepler (nor any telescope) is currently able to directly spot an exoplanet of this size and proximity to its host star. "However, what we can do is eliminate essentially all other possibilities so that the validity of these planets is really the only viable option."

With such a small host star, the team employed a technique that eliminated the possibility that either a background star or a stellar companion could be mimicking what Kepler detected. To do this, the team obtained extremely high spatial resolution observations from the eight-meter Gemini North telescope on Mauna Kea in Hawai`i using a technique called speckle imaging, as well as adaptive optics (AO) observations from the ten-meter Keck II telescope, Gemini's neighbor on Mauna Kea. Together, these data allowed the team to rule out sources close enough to the star's line-of-sight to confound the Kepler evidence, and conclude that Kepler's detected signal has to be from a small planet transiting its host star.

There's an interesting infographic from the New York Times on the ~1000 exoplanets discovered by Kepler here.

[longship]

1. Not ho hum. This is a big fucking deal.

The star is an M-dwarf, a Red Dwarf star, smaller than Sol (about half the radius) which make up the vast majority of stars in the universe. That in itself is a big deal.

M-Dwarfs are not only the vast majority, but they are also extraordinarily long lived. All the M-Dwarfs ever born are still extant. They are cool, but burn their fuel so slowly they can last for over a trillion years. If a planet exists within an habitable zone, it can be there for a very long time.

There was a time when physics predicted that planets around M-Dwarfs would not be suitable for life (for a variety of reasons). Recent data has turned that thinking around.

There may be some other things about this system that may exclude it from possible life-forming environments, but Kepler was designed to specifically be able to find precisely this kind of system. This is the very first one, hopefully of many.

These things all make this a fucking big deal. Nothing oh hum about it.

[DreamGypsy]

2. It's interesting. A BFD it is not.

This discovery is just the progression of normal science. The ESO prediction of red dwarfs with exoplanets in the habitable zone was made two years ago.

“Our new observations with HARPS mean that about 40% of all red dwarf stars have a super-Earth orbiting in the habitable zone where liquid water can exist on the surface of the planet. Because red dwarfs are so common — there are about 160 billion of them in the Milky Way — this leads us to the astonishing result that there are tens of billions of these planets in our galaxy alone.”

So, with ~60 billion candidates, why would anyone not expect that Kepler et al wasn't going to find one fairly soon. Yeah, it's neat; yeah, it's cool like the star it circles. But it's just science. There will be lots more found because (as of a couple of years ago) they became interesting places to look. Is everyone of those going to motivate the popular science press to create imaginary images of the "new inhabited planet"??

The desire of media to sensationalize discovery is not particularly beneficial to scientific progress.

[longship]

3. Okay.

Of course, there are billions of these. But finding the first shows how far we've come in the past few decades. That's always a BFD, as far as I am concerned.

You obviously disagree. That's fine. If it was so ho hum, why did you bother posting if you did not want a discussion?

Regards.

[DreamGypsy]

4. I have great respect for the amazing progress of science and technology, but...

...(and perhaps my presentation in the original post was too subtle or unclear in capturing this) I have serious doubts about the way that progress is presented in popular media.

I suspect, we might actually share some of these sentiments. I glanced at your profile and noticed your most recent journal entry which I will paraphrase from Newton Minnow's speech on his 100th birthday in 2026:

When science writing is good, nothing — not fantasy, not thrillers or science fiction — nothing is better.
But when popular science writing is bad, nothing is worse.

The article in which I first encountered the reported discovery was from the New York Times, entitled Scientists Find an ‘Earth Twin,’ or Maybe a Cousin. How cute. The article opens with another 'artist's rendition' of blue oceans, cloud cover, and suggestive land masses.

So, I did what I usually do when presented with this type of pablum, which is to search for the research announcement. After a couple other poorly written pieces, I got to the Phys.org article which was slightly better written, but still opened with the depiction of the red-tinged star, the 4 sister planets aligned in the sky, and the lake surrounded by leafy lifeforms in the foreground. At least there was a citation with the title of the research report, so I found the abstract in AAAS Science.

Yeah, the abstract was not exciting, not graphic, but it presented the relevant information and a link to supplementary materials, which I picked up since the full article required subscription/payment.

In science writing there are lies (occasionally), fantasy, science fiction, and science. It's unfortunate that one has wade some distance to get to the last, particularly since many readers won't immediately perceive or care about the difference and certainly not expend the energy to get to the science.

So, that's the story of my "Ho hum".

[longship]

5. Well, the media pretty much screws up any science story.

They always grab for the cheap cultural reference and yes they go for the sensational headlines which do not exactly tell the truth.

But this is a big deal because it is a first. Remember Apollo 11? Big deal, right? Apollo 13, too? Right? How many remember Apollo 17? Or any of the others.

You are correct. Science reportage is horrible. But don't let that take away what has been discovered here. When science works this amazingly well, it is a big deal.

And yes, the headline writers should have painful, slow death inflicted upon them.

[DreamGypsy]

6. Well, everybody alive at the time, and still alive, remembers Apollo 1.

And, yes, everybody alive at the time, and still alive, remembers Apollo 11.

Both were first instances of new technology with new, bad and good, results.

Discovery of K-186 is just another application of well tested technology with many successful results. Sure, it's a different type of target, but the discovery involved nothing new. So, of course, a successful landing on the 67th moon of Jupiter, or the 67th landing on the 1 moon of earth isn't terribly memorable, unless the probe encounters totally unexpected conditions.

It will be big deal when the first earth-origin spacecraft lands on K-186. I sincerely hope that future generations of Homo sapiens will experience that encounter.

Until then, as a Byrds fan, I relive Apollo 11 every time I hear...Armstrong, Aldrin, and Collins*

*Sorry for the mention of a 'deity' in reference to Space Control at Houston; I personally maintain that such an intervention was neither required nor occurred.

[longship]

7. I'll see your Byrds, and raise you another.

CTA 102

[DreamGypsy]

8. OK, I'll see your CTA...nothing but a darned quasar...and raise you two...

...Mr. Spaceman (lip-synced), a McGuinn, a Hillman, a Clark, and a Clarke:

[longship]

9. Touché, my friend.

My quiver is empty. No more Byrds from me at this time.

Well played.


I really enjoyed the colloquy.

[DreamGypsy]

10. We'll meet again, don't know where, don't know when...

...but there is always a connection through song.

Please accept this Crosby as a token of my respect:

[DreamGypsy]

11. How could I forget...in 1996 we ventured to the moon, unto the Sea of Crises..

...like children from the womb;
we journeyed cross the grateful plain beneath the mountain range,
and then we saw the pyramid, it looked so very strange...

...it was here for thousands of years, before our life began,
waiting very patiently for evolving man.

When the galaxy was young, they looked upon the earth
and saw that its position was promising for birth.
They searched for life, but finding none, they left a beacon bright,
Its signal had not been disturbed in the eternal night.

How wise they were to choose this place, they knew when we arrived
That our atomic energy we'd harnessed and survived.
I look out on the Milky Way for people of the dawn
And know that they will come someday ...

...from Notorious Byrd Brothers, Space Odyssey: