Rich exoplanet system discovered (BBC) {five planets}

[eppur_se_muova]

By Victoria Gill
Science reporter, BBC New

Astronomers have discovered a planetary system containing at least five planets that orbit a star called HD 10180, which is much like our own Sun.

The star is 127 light years away, in the southern constellation of Hydrus.

The researchers used the European Southern Observatory (Eso) to monitor light emitted from the system and identify and characterise the planets.

They say this is the "richest" system of exoplanets - planets outside our own Solar System - ever found.

Christophe Lovis from Geneva University's observatory in Switzerland was lead researcher on the study. He said that his team had probably found "the system with the most planets yet discovered".
***
more: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-11070991




Well, technically, the *second* most.:)

[Warpy]

1. So far, they can detect only the giant planets

but it seems most single stars have planets and it would be preposterous to think none of those planets out there among the billions of galaxies has life, even though we'd have a hard time recognizing it as such.

[zeemike]

2. It is preposterous to think our solar system in unique.

There are probably millions of planets like ours in just this galaxy alone and probably many of them with creatures on them that we would recognize as life.
It has always puzzled me that science is reluctant to think thoughts like that.

[Warpy]

3. Too many scientists have those religious chains, I guess,

that prevent them from moving beyond the earth centered view of the universe.

Personally, I keep wondering if the UFO sightings aren't scientists wondering if life can possibly exist in such a corrosive environment of free oxygen and liquid water.

We're nowhere near ready to confront such beings. We can't even communicate with other species here, and we share a planetary reference point with them.

[zeemike]

5. i think it is the UFO that keeps them from moving beyond the earth

Most scientist could not stand the ridicule they would receive if they embraced that idea.

I always think back to that old movie "The Day The Earth Stood Still"
A truly advanced race would have passed through this kind of world in their development or would have been destroyed because they failed to change.

[Warpy]

6. Exactly, and I'm all too aware that we're likely the rough draft

for intelligent life on this planet. While technologically adept, we're really not all that smart on an individual basis and we're far too violent.

Opposable thumbs were a neat thing to evolve, but tentacles might eventually prove superior.

But yes, scientists are terrified of being told they're fools talking about little green men when most of the time, they're really talking about unicellular organisms on exoplanets.

[Bill McBlueState]

11. I'm an astronomer

I'm not aware of any colleagues who are reluctant to think there is life elsewhere in the universe.

[derby378]

7. If those gas giants have moons, one of them might be able to support life

All that moon needs is an atmosphere and a magnetic field generated either by itself or its parent planet. Titan, for example, has access to Saturn's magnetic field, and it also has an atmosphere, albeit one incapable of sustaining human life.

[formercia]

4. Rich System?

Is it enough to get the Banksters' attention? Lets hope the leave on the next star transport.

[Ready4Change]

8. All 5 in a similar orbit?

The article says that all 5 are about Neptune sized, and all 5 are at about the same orbit as Mars is from our sun. That's oddly symmetric, the sort of thing I've heard isn't likely to stay stable very long. In other words, over the amount of time a planetary system takes to develop, and then exist, most of those 5 should have interacted and flung each other into different orbits long ago.

Assuming we understand how such things work, it seems that the odds against such a system forming are vast. Granted, it's a big universe, so it doubtless could happen, and probably has. But the odds against it happening close enough to us to observe? Very unlikely.

Now perhaps I've read too much science fiction. But a theme in many stories is that of a civilization that has access to massive power, but lacks living space. One idea is a shell that completely encloses their sun, in order to capture all of it's emitted power, and to provide a huge about of living space. Larry Nivens 'Ringworld' was a step down from that, being just a band around the sun at orbital distance.

Perhaps these 5 worlds are a step down from Nivens? Could be a race that somehow developed on a world with the mass of our Neptune. Or could be a race that developed on a moon of a Neptune like gas-giant. They could have started small, by bringing in second, third, Nth conveniently sized moons into orbit around their parent gas giant. At some point they found they couldn't add more moons. So, using the planetary engineering skills they'd mastered dealing with moons, they pull in a new gas giant, and start populating it with moons.

If, say, they deal in fives, either out of social reasons (like we deal in 10s) or because that's a number they find works in orbital mechanics, they could have 5 moons around each of these Neptunes, for a total of 25 habitable worlds. Or perhaps they've only had a need for 5 Neptunes thus far. A 6th could be in the works. Or perhaps they've run out of conveniently placed planetary bodies, and 5 Neptunes plus their moons was all they could build with the materials at hand.

Seems far fetched. But, if our universe really does provide no means of faster than light travel, building habitable worlds inside your own system might be more feasible for a highly advanced species?

[txlibdem]

9. All 5 are orbiting at distances from their sun that are less than that of Mars

From the link:

It has at least five "Neptune-like planets" lying within a distance equivalent to the orbit of Mars

Plus, there is a planet with 1.4 times the mass of Earth orbiting so close to the star that each year is only 1.2 days long, according to the article.

I'd like to hope that one of the moons in that system could have an Earth-like atmosphere, a magnetic field sufficient to keep out the radiation from both the sun and the gas giant planet it orbits, and an ozone layer to provide protection from UV radiation that would kill any hope of land-based life ever evolving (or surviving if we visited there). Perhaps the people who live there have blue skin...

[Ready4Change]

10. Oh. WITHIN the orbit.

That could place them in places that might not interfere. More likely/makes more sense. Thanks for pointing that out!