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3 new "habitable" planets found only 40 light years away

Jon

Jon

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http://news.mit.edu/2016/scientists-discover-potentially-habitable-planets-0502


Is there life beyond our solar system? If there is, our best bet for finding it may lie in three nearby, Earth-like exoplanets.
For the first time, an international team of astronomers from MIT, the University of Liège in Belgium, and elsewhere have detected three planets orbiting an ultracool dwarf star, just 40 light years from Earth. The sizes and temperatures of these worlds are comparable to those of Earth and Venus, and are the best targets found so far for the search for life outside the solar system. The results are published today in the journal Nature.
The scientists discovered the planets using TRAPPIST (TRAnsiting Planets and PlanetesImals Small Telescope), a 60-centimeter telescope operated by the University of Liège, based in Chile. TRAPPIST is designed to focus on 60 nearby dwarf stars — very small, cool stars that are so faint they are invisible to optical telescopes. Belgian scientists designed TRAPPIST to monitor dwarf stars at infrared wavelengths and search for planets around them.
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crimsonaudio

crimsonaudio

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I'm a space geek, but I wish the people writing these articles were a little more cautious when throwing terms about. As Bamaro alluded above, just because a planet is in the 'habitable zone' (which is kind of a primitive concept to begin with) that doesn't mean anything wrt the planet's ability to sustain life...
 
Jon

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crimsonaudio said:
I'm a space geek, but I wish the people writing these articles were a little more cautious when throwing terms about. As Bamaro alluded above, just because a planet is in the 'habitable zone' (which is kind of a primitive concept to begin with) that doesn't mean anything wrt the planet's ability to sustain life...
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thats why I put "habitable" in quotes in the OP
 
CajunCrimson

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crimsonaudio said:
I'm a space geek, but I wish the people writing these articles were a little more cautious when throwing terms about. As Bamaro alluded above, just because a planet is in the 'habitable zone' (which is kind of a primitive concept to begin with) that doesn't mean anything wrt the planet's ability to sustain life...
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life as we know it.....

Perhaps after ID2 -- we might have a better understanding.....Jeff Goldblum always attaches himself to movies with sound science
 
Bamaro

Bamaro

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I have little doubt that we will someday find complex life on one or more of the moons of Saturn and Jupiter. Especially those with a frozen crust with an expected "ocean" underneath (ie Europa, Enceladus etc).

Here on earth:
In January, scientists in Antarctica discovered something amazing: fish living in a dark pocket of seawater under nearly a half-mile of ice.

Scientists from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and other universities bored a hole into an isolated nook where glaciers ooze off the coast and form the massive Ross Ice Shelf, a slab of floating ice the size of Spain. The hidden spot, 500 miles in from the ice’s edge, is far removed from life-sustaining sunlight, so the researchers expected to find only microbes. But when they sent down an aquatic robot, its camera revealed fish, crustaceans and other animals. It is the farthest under an ice shelf that animals have ever been found.
http://discovermagazine.com/2016/janfeb/41-fish-found-deep-beneath-antarctic-ice-shelf
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Bama Reb

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crimsonaudio said:
I'm a space geek, but I wish the people writing these articles were a little more cautious when throwing terms about. As Bamaro alluded above, just because a planet is in the 'habitable zone' (which is kind of a primitive concept to begin with) that doesn't mean anything wrt the planet's ability to sustain life...
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Or just exactly how far 40 light years is in today's space flight travel time and what would be the effects wrt a human's ability to survive such a lengthy space flight.
 
G

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Bama Reb said:
Or just exactly how far 40 light years is in today's space flight travel time and what would be the effects wrt a human's ability to survive such a lengthy space flight.
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Voyager 1 has been traveling for almost 40 years and is still less than a light day from earth. So if its headed that way, check back in 16,000 years or so. :)
 
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