More cool astronomy news: earth sized planet 15 light years away

[AlGore-08.com]

http://www.indianexpress.com/full_story.php?content_id=72656

Found: Earth’s distant cousin by 15 light years

Astronomers in the United States on Monday announced a milestone in the quest for life beyond Earth as they unveiled the discovery of the smallest planet yet outside the solar system.

Said to be the ‘‘most Earthlike planet ever found’’, the new planet, orbitting a dim red star in Aquarius known as Gliese 876, is the third and innermost member of a shrunken version of our own solar system. Its detection gives scientists hope that others like it, and Earth, are common in the universe.

(snip)

The new planet, according to the data, circles Gliese every 1.9 days, putting it slightly less than 2 million miles from the star. By comparison, Earth is 93 million miles from the Sun.

This planet is about 70 per cent bigger than Earth, Marcy estimated, and is made of silicates, iron and nickel, like the terrestrial planets in our own system. At such a close distance, the planet could be tidally locked, keeping the same face toward its star at all times. One would expect its to be an inferno. However, Gliese 876 is small and dim, about 1/50th the luminosity of the Sun. Marcy said that heat levels on the side of the planet facing the star would be at ‘‘chicken-roasting temperatures’’, between 400 to 700 degrees Fahrenheit (approximately 200 to 370 degrees Celsius).

That is too warm for liquid water or ice, but it could be cold on the nightside of the planet, which, as Marcy said, ‘‘faces the darkness of the universe.’’

(More... )

[Dudley_DUright]

1. Geoffrey Marcy and his team are getting better and better

at finding smaller and smaller planets using their Doppler wobble technique. Very impressive stuff. For more info see

http://exoplanets.org/

[MisterP]

2. not TOO Earth sized: 15x heavier and loads bigger

and go to www.extrasolar.net; it's got scads of exoplanets!

[CrownPrinceBandar]

3. Very cool...............

15 light years is an unspannable distance now. But who could say what will be in 100, or 500 years? Maybe somebody will finally get the gumption and tech together to make a reach for the stars by then.

[icymist]

4. The Freepers found this too and believe it's their home planet.

Let's start a collection to send them back home!

[whatgives]

6. I thought that is where Tom Cruise is from

[Name removed]

5. Deleted message

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[dxstone]

7. Sounds close enough to me!

(In terms of both distance and size and all that...)
Earth used to be such a nice place...

So... when do we leave?
d