E-mail updates
Follow on Twitter
Subscribe to RSSThe European Southern Observatory's "ESOcast" focuses on dozens of planet discoveries.
European astronomers have announced the discovery of more than 50 new planets beyond our solar system, including 16 that are just a notch above our own planet in mass. They say their record-breaking findings suggest that more than half of the stars like our sun possess planets, and that many of those worlds are less massive than Saturn.
The pick of the litter is a planet that's already been in the spotlight: HD 85512 b, a world at least 3.6 times as massive as Earth that's located 36 light-years away in the constellation Vela. HD 85512 b is the only one of the 16 super-Earths on today's list that is located in its star system's habitable zone. That's the area around a star where scientists believe water could exist in liquid form, which would make a rocky planet potentially livable.
HD 85512 b's status came to light a couple of weeks ago in a paper submitted to the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics, but the team behind the discovery provided more details about that super-Earth and the dozens of other worlds in papers presented today at the Extreme Solar Systems II conference in Wyoming.
The findings came from the team behind the High Accuracy Radial Velocity Planet Searcher, or HARPS, which is installed at the European Southern Observatory's 11.8-foot (3.6-meter) La Silla Observatory in Chile.
"The detection of HD 85512 b is far from the limit of HARPS, and demonstrates the possibility of discovering other super-Earths in the habitable zones around stars similar to the sun," University of Geneva astronomer Michel Mayor said in today's news release from the ESO.
Super-Earths, which range from Earth's mass to worlds 10 times more massive, are of particular interest to planet-hunters because it's thought that they could be even more conducive to the development of life than our own planet. When the search for extrasolar planets began more than 15 years ago, the telescopes used for the task could only detect giant planets like our own solar system's Jupiter. Since then, the techniques and tools used for the search have become much more sensitive.
HARPS, for example, can detect the slight gravitational wobble caused by planets as small as Earth, if they have incredibly close-in orbits. HARPS' observations of 376 sunlike stars has led the team to conclude not only that more than half of such stars are surrounded by planets (maybe as many as 70 or 80 percent), but also that about 40 percent of sunlike stars have at least one planet less massive than Saturn.
One of the team members, Lisa Kaltenegger of the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy and the Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, told journalists today that the latest round of findings marked a new age in the search for habitable planets.
"We are actually entering an incredibly interesting time in our history," she said.
Keeping track of the habitables
ESO's Markus Kissler-Patig said the discovery of HD 85512 b could be one of the first entries in "a good catalog of habitables" marked for further study. Kissler-Patig is the project scientist for the ESO's European Extremely Large Telescope, or E-ELT, which is slated to be built over the next decade at a cost of 1 billion euros ($1.4 billion).
HD 85512 b "is in the zone where we can directly image it," Kissler-Patig said, and that means astronomers could theoretically analyze its atmosphere for the signatures of life, such as the presence of oxygen, methane and water vapor.
The HARPS team members were able to figure out the minimum mass and orbital characteristics of HD 85512 b, but they couldn't determine its density, composition or the nature of its atmosphere — which means astronomers will have to wait for the completion of E-ELT or similar high-resolution observing instruments to confirm that the world is truly habitable.
Francesco Pepe, a colleague of Mayor's at the University of Geneva, said that the HARPS team's discoveries include 10 worlds described in papers submitted to Astronomy and Astrophysics, including HD 85512 b, and 49 planets reported today at the Wyoming conference. Eight of the new planets were detected as part of the Swiss-led CORALIE search effort in Chile, he said. The ESO says this is the largest number of extrasolar planets reported at one time.
Pepe said the findings pointed up a fresh mystery for planet-hunters to ponder: the existence of a "planet desert" between low-mass worlds and gas giants. Relatively few planets have been found at a level around 30 times the mass of Earth. "It may point towards different formation mechanisms" for planets like Earth and Neptune vs. planets like Jupiter and Saturn.
HARPS isn't the only instrument engaged in the search for extrasolar planets: Two space telescopes, NASA's Kepler and the European Space Agency's Corot, are detecting planets by looking for the telltale dimming of their parent stars. Kepler and Corot can determine how big a planet is, but they can't tell how massive it is. In contrast, HARPS can determine the mass but not the size.
Unfortunately, Kepler can't be used to confirm HARPS' discoveries, nor can HARPS confirm Kepler's. The good news is that the William Herschel Telescope in the Canary Islands is being outfitted for a HARPS North instrument that will begin operation next year and facilitate the follow-up of Kepler detections.
Today's revelations bring the official tally of extrasolar planets to 645.
Other findings from the Extreme Solar Systems II conference:
• Over at the "Dynamics of Cats" blog, Steinn Sigurdsson quotes Kepler team members as saying they have identified 1,781 candidate planets, with up to 27 of those confirmed. Among the reported candidates are 123 potential worlds that are less than 1.25 times as wide as Earth, and 121 that are in the nominal habitable zones of their parent stars.
Jon Lomberg
An artist's conception shows storms on a brown dwarf.
• Astronomers say they have observed brightness changes on a failed star, also known as a brown dwarf, that may indicate a storm grander than any seen yet on a planet. The stormy brown dwarf is known as 2MASS 2139.
"We found that our target's brightness changed by a whopping 30 per cent in just under eight hours," the University of Toronto's Jacqueline Radigan said in a news release. "The best explanation is that brighter and darker patches of its atmosphere are coming into our view as the brown dwarf spins on its axis."
Radigan is the lead author of a paper being presented this week at the Extreme Solar Systems II conference.
More about alien planets:
- Previously: Super-Earth on the 'edge of habitability'
- Interactive: How scientists search for other worlds
- 'Invisible' planet discovered using new technique
- Background: Looking for alien Earths? Here they come
Authors of “The HARPS search for Earth-like planets in the habitable zone, I — Very low-mass planets around HD20794, HD85512, HD192310" include F. Pepe, C. Lovis, D.D. Ségransan, W. Benz, J. L. Bertaux , F. Bouchy, X. Dumusque, M. Mayor, D. Queloz, N.C. Santos and S. Udry.
Authors of "The HARPS search for southern extra-solar planets XXXIV. Occurrence, mass distribution and orbital properties of super-Earths and Neptune-mass planets" include M. Mayor, M. Marmier, C. Lovis, S. Udry, D.D. Ségransan, F. Pepe, W. Benz, J. L. Bertaux , F. Bouchy, X. Dumusque, G. Lo Curto, C. Mordasini, D. Queloz and N.C. Santos.
Authors of "High amplitude, periodic variability of a cool brown dwarf: Evidence for patchy, high-contrast cloud features" include Jacqueline Radigan, Ray Jayawardhana, David Lafreniere, Etienne Artigau, Mark Marley and Didier Saumon.
Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter or adding me to your Google+ circle. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for other worlds.
Leave a Comment:
Heaveto
The only reason why you're searching for intelligence elsewhere is because it's something you lack.
If we could get there to the new lovely planet, we would probably just find more Taliban, so what the he**'s the use, and there you go again another war to fight.
Q is the pain in Jean Luc's butt.
this is ridiculous:
a "slight gravitational wobble" is caused by planets that "have incredibly close-in orbits", an "artist" develops a computer generated graphic of an UNSEEN object based on all kinds of prefabricated assumptions and suddenly the universe is chock-full of "earth-like" planets that everyone assumes to be conducive to life?
ya'll been watching WAAAAAY too much sci-fi!
Actually, these are very clever observations that are close to the edge of our present-day limits. This interactive has been around for, oh, about 10 years, but it still might be helpful in explaining how planet-hunters conduct their quest. The way you know it's outdated is that the interactive graphic says astronomers have detected more than 30 extrasolar planets. The count is now up to almost 650:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11022898/ns/technology_and_science-space/t/search-other-planets/
I hope they have dinos, everybody likes dinos
It is an arrogant assumption by religious zealots, who assume we are superior, and alone in a vast Universe. Who is to say that at 4+ billion years, another planet(s) life would evolve at a quicker time scale, and be technologically advanced to explore with curiosity.
I believe that a planets gravity is not only based on size, but on the density of the core. Who is to say that a super planet has a less dense core, thereby making the gravitational field less?
Also, given the above assumption, the "Golden ratio", would apply. All else being equal.
I believe you're wrong w/that assumption, I have read that I believe it is Venus, which is like 100 times the size of the earth and mainly gaseous is like the vacuum cleaner of our solar system, absorbing 95% of stray asteroids, they also use it to propel space probes into further outer orbits, if the direction is correct the huge planet slings the probe instead of sucking it in, get the idea.
(psst - Poorboy - you mean Jupiter, not Venus. Otherwise all aces!...)
Thank you Michael, just couldn't remember which planet, your an ace.
Hey! This great! Now we know there are at least fifty destinations for Al Gore.
Yes, but the one that suits him best is located in our own solar system. It is the planet Uranus, where he would wind up losing a little weight (something on the order of 20Lbs, I'd estimate), something he has needed to do for some time. Uranus is full of methane in its atmosphere, a powerful greenhouse gas, so he should stay nice and warm there even though it is 1.9 billion miles from the sun. After all, that's where he's kept his head all these years, the rest of him might as well go there too.
I find it hard to believe that this science fiction article merited more than three feedback comments.
juliop says, "With 3.6 times the mass, a 200 lb man would way 720 lb and would probably die in a short time of landing". It can be rigorously proven, that for any rocky planet of density similar to that of Earth...and that is not a bad assumption, considering what we know of the rocky planets of our own inner solar system (Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars), the surface gravity goes up only as the cube root of the mass, and therefore the 3.6 earth-mass rocky planet can be expected to have a surface gravity of 1.53g +/- 0.2g depending on exact density.
To further illustrate the point that surface gravity does not closely track planetary mass, the "ice-giant" planet Uranus has a mean diameter 4.0 times that of Earth, and a mass 14.54 times as much as Earth. This works out to the much more massive and much larger Uranus having a surface gravity of only 91% that of Earth.
Out of the Billions of Stars and Galaxys there has to be life somewhere if 50% of Stars have some sort of planet that would be billions and billions of planets. They also could be extinct and died out millions of years ago or just starting life as we might know it. The only problem is we can never get there to find out. Anyone care to guess how many years it would take, lets say 100,000 miles per hour it would take to get to a star 50 light years??? 50 light years = 50 x 3600 x 24 x 365 x 186000 / 100,000. Hmmm this could take longer then man has been around. We will really never know unless someone comes knocking on our door. Forget traveling at anywhere close to the speed of light, period. Anyone remember the 1st Twilight Zone Episode? It was "WHERE IS EVERYBODY?" Answer is they are out there, you just can not see them. Not in this lifetime anyway. Now, where were those Planets anyway?
Great! I'll book my ticket on priceline.com, where you, too, can save tens of dollars. Hurry up! They are going fast.
I'm bored. It wasn't spam y'all.
I've always considered life on other worlds to be inevitable.
Our current technology only allows us to detect the largest planets and even in doing that we can say with certainty that most stars have planets around them. I'd be willing to go out on a limb and say that due to the manner in which stars form it is highly likely that every star has a number of planets around them. Some will be more and some will be less. Some will have larger planets and some will have smaller and some will have a mix of large and small planets.
Even if the odds that a given planet can sustain any form of life are astronomical there are far to many stars to even think that it is unlikely that there isn't another planet out there with some form of life.
When I speak of some form of life I'm not talking about human level intelligence. I'm talking about everything from planets with microbreal life all the way up to advanced civilization or even life that is completely different from our own. Maybe we'll get lucky and somewhere along the way of searching first dozen or so planets that can support some form of life we'll actually find someone that we can have an argument with. Because let's face it that is our nature.
How many show evidence of man made global warming?
I had heard that rotation speed is also a factor in the gravity equation. Am I wrong on that?
Yes, strongest at the equator, but generally not enough to matter.
It's funny to me how all of the science fiction movies are about alien races that come to earth to drain it of it's resources and then move on to do the same to other planets. Oh wait a minute!!! that is what we are trying to do.....Earth is almost drained and we are looking for another planet.
The main resources would be water an air, and it hasnt been proven even on mars that those exist outside our solar system. so what exactly would our planet have to offer ?????
If there is intelligent life out there, and they know about us, we were probably quarantined a long time ago... not even safe as meat.
im ready to go when do we leave,i don"t care what we have to do but just do it.we need to go,we need to go now.no time to wait,i"ll be the guinny pig.
My family leaves tomorrow. wear a sweater, its cold in uranus
The gravity of this newly discovered super earth is really not known since everyone seems to be using theoretical assumptions. Until we figure out how to corroborate our findings and remove these assumptions i.e. the planet has equal density to ours, then we can begin the process of contacting potential civilizations on other said planets that have the best variables that mimic our own earthlike reality. In other words, once we find some decent planets, closer than this super earth to us, maybe we can stick out our thumbs and hitch a ride with one of their spaceships... Anyone seen the movie Contact?
We should send an "Adam and Eve" to this super earth and if it isn't already populated with intelligent beings then Adam and Eve could do the horizontal tango and begin a race of humans on this new super earth. I think I would like to volunteer my services for Adam and I'll contact Megan Fox to see if she would like to be Eve....
It is cool to find planets that could possibly support life, but this is extended science and not practical. Good from far but far from good?
We have to learn how to crawl before we learn how to walk! I would like to see science and space exploration on the more practical side. Moon, Mars, Europa, Titan. Order of operations, practical science!
Im sick of the liberal marsians screwing up the planet. If Gorak gets in office im moving my family to uranus
So that mean there are more 'big bang' theories. Man, I am tired of telling my kids about new theories. :(
Im sure the solar system is infinite several million light years away, The question ............ Is there life out there????
Several tens to hundreds of light-years, maybe.
When the earth has a good custodial mindful of the future and all its inhabitates, then maybe we could then explore other planets to pilfer and plunder at will.
We are still trying to figure out how the universe even works and how to fix the problems we have on Earth. Why don't all of you inquiring and bright minds focus on home before we figure out the existence of someone else's home. Live and let live! "In the hopes of reaching the moon, men fail to see the flowers that blossom at their feet." -Albert Schweitzer