Centauri System has a planet!

[fdrpi]

If this should really be posted somewhere else, my apologies. I thought here was the best place to put it.

A planet was discovered orbiting Beta Centauri! Beta is the sister star of Alpha in the Centauri system. There is also Proxima Centauri, but it is much smaller than the other two. The system is the closest to our Sun, at "only" four light years.

I got very excited about this news. It is amazing from both a science and science fiction perspective.

Anyway, just wanted to express my excitement.

 

[Petek]

Your post is fine and is on-topic for this forum. Here's a link to a New York Times article about the discovery. Unfortunately, this planet is not Planet since its surface temperature is approximately 1200 degrees. However, it's still possible that another planet will be discovered in the star's habitable zone.

 

[Doctor Phibes]

A planet was discovered orbiting Beta Centauri! Beta is the sister star of Alpha in the Centauri system. There is also Proxima Centauri, but it is much smaller than the other two. The system is the closest to our Sun, at "only" four light years.

Sorry, have to be an astronomy pedant here. The star in question is not Beta Centauri, but Alpha Centauri B, the second brightest star in a triple star system - the third being Proxima, Alpha Centauri C, about 0.1ly out from the other two components and the closest star to the Sun. Alpha Centauri A, by the way, is a close match for the Sun, though B is significantly dimmer. In the current confusing exoplanet designation, the planet is therefore Alpha Centauri Bb - the lower case letters run in order of discovery and start at b.

Beta Centauri is a real system, but far more distant from us and much brighter than either of the Alpha stars.

But anyway, this is great news, something I've been hoping for for years. The planet found is far too near the primary star to sustain liquid water, too hot. But where there is one planet, perhaps there are others, maybe around both stars.

For a long time, astronomers have argued about whether planets are possible in a binary system like AC. Well now we know they are...

 

[fdrpi]

Yeah, you're right. I just figured that out a couple hours ago.

As an astronomy fanatic, I am disappointed with myself. Oh well, there's always next time.

 

[Doctor Phibes]

Yeah, you're right. I just figured that out a couple hours ago.

As an astronomy fanatic, I am disappointed with myself. Oh well, there's always next time.

Don't worry, it's easy to slip up. Astro designations are a minefield. Stars can have proper names (e.g. Sirius), Greek letters (e.g. Alpha Centauri), Flamsteed numbers (e.g. 61 Cygni) and any number of catalog numbers (e.g. Wolf 359) and one star system can have many of them simultaneously. I've seen an exoplanet discovery reported twice in the media because different sources used different designations for the same star.

EDIT: Funny, only popped over here to see how to get SMAC running on my Win7 system (which I successfully now have done). Haven't played for years and had a hankering. And it coincides with this discovery, it's an omen I tell you...

 

[Nyanko]

Good news that Alpha Centauri has a planet around it. Using the method they used to find the planet is useful for only planets close to the sun if I recall correctly. Point some powerful telescopes at Rigel Kentarus and they'll likely see more. The Space Telescope they have been using to find all these planets elsewhere is not pointed towards any of the nearby stars, unfortunately.
Stick telescopes at Tau Ceti (12ly) And Epsilon Eridani (10ly) while they're at it, that star is likely to have a full planetary system around it.

 

[Doctor Phibes]

Good news that Alpha Centauri has a planet around it. Using the method they used to find the planet is useful for only planets close to the sun if I recall correctly. Point some powerful telescopes at Rigel Kentarus and they'll likely see more. The Space Telescope they have been using to find all these planets elsewhere is not pointed towards any of the nearby stars, unfortunately.
Stick telescopes at Tau Ceti (12ly) And Epsilon Eridani (10ly) while they're at it, that star is likely to have a full planetary system around it.

Well, most exoplanets have been found so far using ground-based telescopes, by more than one institution, though NASA's Kepler and ESA's Corot spacecraft have chimed in more recently. And no telescope is pointed in one fixed direction as you suggest.

There's more than one method of funding exoplanets indeed, and you're right that they all work better if the planet is closer to the primary - except for direct observation which isn't much of an option with current technology. And they all favour bigger planets to one degree or another. In addition, they select for orbital plane - in general it's hardest as the orbital plane gets more at right angles to our line of sight, easiest to see this with NASA's Kepler mission, as this relies on the planet dimming the star by passing in front of it:

http://kepler.nasa.gov/

With regard to Tau Ceti and Epsilon Eridani, they have not been neglected. Tau Ceti has a dust disk, but no planets detected so far. The exoplanet community was hoping a space mission would resolve more, but it's on hold.

Epsilon Eridani has not merely a huge dust disk - one gas giant planet has been found, along with evidence for two asteroid belts and a cometary belt. It's not going to be too pleasant around EE tho, there's a lot of small stuff whizzing around so an earth-sized planet, if it exists, is likely to get visited by a lot more dinosaur-killers. Not sure it's the right place to park Babylon-5...

By the way, I find this site handy for staying up to date on nearby stars including Alpha Centauri:

http://www.solstation.com/stars.htm

 

[green1]

Good news that Alpha Centauri has a planet around it. Using the method they used to find the planet is useful for only planets close to the sun if I recall correctly. Point some powerful telescopes at Rigel Kentarus and they'll likely see more. The Space Telescope they have been using to find all these planets elsewhere is not pointed towards any of the nearby stars, unfortunately.
Stick telescopes at Tau Ceti (12ly) And Epsilon Eridani (10ly) while they're at it, that star is likely to have a full planetary system around it.

Tau Ceti is surrounded by debris fields. If the Progs are from a planet in there, they probably had to dodge dino-killer class astroid hits every few decades.

 

[fdrpi]

Phibes: When you say space mission to resolve the mystery of Tau Ceti, what does that mean? What kind of space mission? I would assume another satellite like Kepler, but the implication at least to me was a probe to cross the void between systems (which would be awesome ).

 

[Doctor Phibes]

Phibes: When you say space mission to resolve the mystery of Tau Ceti, what does that mean? What kind of space mission? I would assume another satellite like Kepler, but the implication at least to me was a probe to cross the void between systems (which would be awesome ).

No, that's far beyond current capabilities, sadly, unless we'd be happy to wait 10,000s of years and could build something that lasts that long. I indeed meant another scope in local space, earth orbit likely.

Of these three...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Interferometry_Mission
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrestrial_Planet_Finder
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darwin_(ESA)

...the two NASA missions were definitively cancelled in 2011 after years in the doldrums, while ESA's is still nominally possible, but showing no progress. A sad state of affairs.