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NASA - 41 New Transiting Planets in Kepler Field of View
August 23, 2012 at 4:46 pm
41 New Transiting Planets in Kepler Field of View
NASA Wrote:Two newly submitted studies verify 41 new transiting planets in 20 star systems. These results may increase the number of Kepler’s confirmed planets by more than 50 percent: to 116 planets hosted in 67 systems, over half of which contain more than one planet. The papers are currently under scientific peer-review.
Nineteen of the newly validated planetary systems have two closely spaced transiting planets and one system has three. Five of the systems are common to both of these independent studies.
The planets range from Earth-size to more than seven times the radius of Earth, but generally orbit so close to their parent stars that they are hot, inhospitable worlds.
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RE: NASA - 41 New Transiting Planets in Kepler Field of View
August 23, 2012 at 5:03 pm
Wow - this is the sort of thing the news should be reporting! Sod the Jubilympics and pictures of naked spoiled Royals!
At the age of five, Skagra decided emphatically that God did not exist. This revelation tends to make most people in the universe who have it react in one of two ways - with relief or with despair. Only Skagra responded to it by thinking, 'Wait a second. That means there's a situation vacant.'
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RE: NASA - 41 New Transiting Planets in Kepler Field of View
August 23, 2012 at 5:13 pm
I want more information about kepler 22b. A planet that so happens to be earth like and in the habitable zone of it's star. It could contain life.
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence - Carl Sagan
Mankind's intelligence walks hand in hand with it's stupidity.
Being an atheist says nothing about your overall intelligence, it just means you don't believe in god. Atheists can be as bright as any scientist and as stupid as any creationist.
You never really know just how stupid someone is, until you've argued with them.
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RE: NASA - 41 New Transiting Planets in Kepler Field of View
August 23, 2012 at 5:23 pm
(This post was last modified: August 23, 2012 at 5:24 pm by Jackalope.)
(August 23, 2012 at 5:13 pm)Ace Otana Wrote: I want more information about kepler 22b. A planet that so happens to be earth like and in the habitable zone of it's star. It could contain life.
Whether it's Earth-like or not is still debatable. However, as Kepler continues to search, we should expect to see more planets in habitable zones found. Slower-orbiting planets require a lot more observation time to find.
Kepler 22b
Wikipedia Wrote:It is thought that the object has a mass similar to that of Neptune[10] (~35 Earth masses[11]). Another possibility is that Kepler-22b is an "ocean-like" world. It might also be comparable to the water-rich planet GJ 1214 b although Kepler-22b, unlike GJ 1214 b, is in the habitable zone. If it has an Earth-like composition, the compression of material in the interior of the planet would give an overall mass greater than 40 Earth masses.[12] Such a planet would also produce surface gravity greater than 7 times that on Earth. This is ruled out to at least 1-sigma uncertainty by radial velocity measurements of the system,[6] suggesting Kepler-22b does not have Earth-like composition. It is likely to have a more volatile-rich composition with a liquid or gaseous outer shell;[8] this would make it similar to Kepler-11f, the smallest known gas planet.
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RE: NASA - 41 New Transiting Planets in Kepler Field of View
August 23, 2012 at 5:42 pm
(This post was last modified: August 23, 2012 at 5:43 pm by Ace Otana.)
Hmm, I swear I heard a certain planet that has a similar mass to earth and is within the habitable zone. Might not be 22b but another. I'll look into it some more.
Anyway, I think it's only a matter of time before we get a confirmed earth like planet, and hopefully with life on it.
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence - Carl Sagan
Mankind's intelligence walks hand in hand with it's stupidity.
Being an atheist says nothing about your overall intelligence, it just means you don't believe in god. Atheists can be as bright as any scientist and as stupid as any creationist.
You never really know just how stupid someone is, until you've argued with them.
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RE: NASA - 41 New Transiting Planets in Kepler Field of View
August 23, 2012 at 5:53 pm
Kepler-22 lies around 619.7 ly from Earth 'in' the constellation of Cygnus. It is a class G5 star, with a luminosity of 0.667, taking our Sun as luminosity of 1, and a surface temperature of 5,770 Kelvin. Its radius is 0.98 of our Sun, approximately 681,000 km and has a rotation period of 23.3 days.
Kepler-22b has a radius of 15,290 km, a surface temperature of 251 Kelvin and a rotation period of 1.151 days. It orbits around 0.849 au from its parent star and is simulated in Celestia like this:
Clearly the surface texture is purely hypothetical since we can't observe it in that much detail.
If it's not Kep-22b you wanted, once you do figure out what planet you've got in mind, I'll try to simulate that one for you.
All data taken from Celestia, the free space simulation program. Information and updates regarding new exoplanet discoveries were downloaded from CelestiaMotherlode.net.
At the age of five, Skagra decided emphatically that God did not exist. This revelation tends to make most people in the universe who have it react in one of two ways - with relief or with despair. Only Skagra responded to it by thinking, 'Wait a second. That means there's a situation vacant.'
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RE: NASA - 41 New Transiting Planets in Kepler Field of View
August 23, 2012 at 6:00 pm
(August 23, 2012 at 5:42 pm)Ace Otana Wrote: Hmm, I swear I heard a certain planet that has a similar mass to earth and is within the habitable zone. Might not be 22b but another. I'll look into it some more.
Other than the composition of 22b, there's another issue - we only know that the semi-major axis of it's orbit is in the habitable zone. If it's orbit has significant eccentricity, that's going to be an issue as well.
(August 23, 2012 at 5:42 pm)Ace Otana Wrote: Anyway, I think it's only a matter of time before we get a confirmed earth like planet, and hopefully with life on it.
Yep, hopefully within the next few years for the former.
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RE: NASA - 41 New Transiting Planets in Kepler Field of View
August 23, 2012 at 6:09 pm
Consider that just a few years ago the idea of the existence of any exoplanet was still in the realms of science fiction; now we have all these confirmed worlds and lots more possible suspects. To channel Agent K from Men In Black: imagine what we'll know tomorrow.
At the age of five, Skagra decided emphatically that God did not exist. This revelation tends to make most people in the universe who have it react in one of two ways - with relief or with despair. Only Skagra responded to it by thinking, 'Wait a second. That means there's a situation vacant.'
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RE: NASA - 41 New Transiting Planets in Kepler Field of View
August 23, 2012 at 6:36 pm
(August 23, 2012 at 6:09 pm)Stimbo Wrote: Consider that just a few years ago the idea of the existence of any exoplanet was still in the realms of science fiction; now we have all these confirmed worlds and lots more possible suspects. To channel Agent K from Men In Black: imagine what we'll know tomorrow.
Nearly 20 years, now! Point well taken, though.
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RE: NASA - 41 New Transiting Planets in Kepler Field of View
August 28, 2012 at 1:56 am
I read somewhere that we might have telescopes powerful enough in 50 years to actually see these planets in detail.
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"The lord doesn't work in mysterious ways, but in ways that are indistinguishable from his nonexistence."
-- George Yorgo Veenhuyzen quoted by John W. Loftus in The End of Christianity (p. 103).
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