The thread for space cadets!

[Borachio]

What's the major space event, Mr P?

 

[Winner]

Holy hell, they've found a planet orbiting Alpha Centauri B! Yes, yes, YES!

http://www.eso.org/public/news/eso1241/

(It's a hot terrestrial planet, too close to the star, but if there's one planet, there may be more which we can't yet detect. The method is biased towards founding massive planets and/or planets close to the star.)

I want to

(Hi, blue aliens, you can't hide from us now )

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Is it exciting because it's close? I'm confused...

We find hellish planets like this all the time.

 

[Crezth]

If one, maybe more. And more likely to be in the Goldilocks region.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Ah I see. That is cool that it's 'close'. But I know we've found planets about 20ly out, maybe a few closer. Don't really see how 4.3 vs 20ish is that big a deal.

Observations won't be that much better, and it won't be any easier to get to.

 

[Crezth]

4.3ly is a lot closer than 20ly. It's theoretically reachable within a generation.

 

[Winner]

Is it exciting because it's close? I'm confused...

We find hellish planets like this all the time.

The method used to detect this is very fine:

The European team detected the planet by picking up the tiny wobbles in the motion of the star Alpha Centauri B created by the gravitational pull of the orbiting planet. The effect is minute — it causes the star to move back and forth by no more than 51 centimetres per second (1.8 km/hour), about the speed of a baby crawling. This is the highest precision ever achieved using this method.

It took the highest precision ever to detect this one. If there are others, they're currently undetectable since the wobbling they're use is too small.

What's exciting is that this is the FIRST EVER confirmation that either Alpha Centauri A or B have planets, meaning planets have formed there. Some models had previously suggested that planetary formation as we know it couldn't have occured due to the close proximity of the two stars.

I'll place my bet here: we will find a terrestrial planet in the habitable zone around one of these two stars in the next 20 years. It would be too much of a waste if there wasn't one, and I want to believe in a fair Universe

 

[Winner]

4.3ly is a lot closer than 20ly. It's theoretically reachable within a generation.

Not closer, but the closest star to Sol (discounting the red dwarf Proxima).

Damn, haven't we all dreamed about planets around Alpha Centauri? The original Civilization ends when you send a ship there, Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri takes place on a planet orbiting the A-star, and countless sci-fi books and films are set there as well.

This has made my day (well, night, but I'll celebrate this properly later)

 

[hobbsyoyo]

4.3ly is a lot closer than 20ly. It's theoretically reachable within a generation.

And a 20ly star is theoretically reachable in a generation as well. If you have the tech to get 4.3ly in a generation, then you also have the tech to bump up the speed to whatever fraction of c you need it to be to get to 20ly in a generation or even less.

The thing that's really mind blowing is that if you get going fast enough, you can actually get there in less than 20 years from your perspective, though many many many more years would have passed for the rest of the universe. Essentially it's warp speed and time travel together.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Damn, haven't we all dreamed about planets around Alpha Centauri? The original Civilization ends when you send a ship there, Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri takes place on a planet orbiting the A-star, and countless sci-fi books and films are set there as well.

This has made my day (well, night, but I'll celebrate this properly later)

You'll have to forgive me for not getting excited about a planet around Alpha Centauri. I just don't care about it in particular, but the method used and the implications of the find are exciting.

The method used to detect this is very fine:
It took the highest precision ever to detect this one. If there are others, they're currently undetectable since the wobbling they're use is too small.

What's exciting is that this is the FIRST EVER confirmation that either Alpha Centauri A or B have planets, meaning planets have formed there. Some models had previously suggested that planetary formation as we know it couldn't have occured due to the close proximity of the two stars.

I'll place my bet here: we will find a terrestrial planet in the habitable zone around one of these two stars in the next 20 years. It would be too much of a waste if there wasn't one, and I want to believe in a fair Universe

I didn't realize how hard it was to pick out the planet. That is exciting because it means we are getting much better at planet detection and that has implications across the board.

I'd also like to say we shouldn't be that surprised we found a planet where we thought there couldn't be one. Hot Jupiters and all that after all.

I'm confident we won't only find a planet in the habitable zone in 20 years, we'll find life on one as well. But I'm an optimist!

 

[Crezth]

And so is a 20ly star. If you have the tech to get 4.3ly in a generation, then you also have the tech to bump up the speed to whatever fraction of c you need it to be to get to 20ly in a generation or even less.

I don't think that's self-evident, but I concede the point.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

I don't think that's self-evident, but I concede the point.

I also concede the point that 20ly is a lot closer than 4.3ly.

 

[PlutonianEmpire]

What's the major space event, Mr P?

Spoiler Major plot spoiler :

Guy makes Heroic Sacrifice to save the universe and set off an intergalactic rebellion.

Holy hell, they've found a planet orbiting Alpha Centauri B! Yes, yes, YES!

http://www.eso.org/public/news/eso1241/

(It's a hot terrestrial planet, too close to the star, but if there's one planet, there may be more which we can't yet detect. The method is biased towards founding massive planets and/or planets close to the star.)

I want to

(Hi, blue aliens, you can't hide from us now )

Surprise surprise.

I click the link, page wont load.

Guess traffic overload, based on Winner's post.

 

[bugwar]

Holy hell, they've found a planet orbiting Alpha Centauri B! Yes, yes, YES!

http://www.eso.org/public/news/eso1241/

(It's a hot terrestrial planet, too close to the star, but if there's one planet, there may be more which we can't yet detect. The method is biased towards founding massive planets and/or planets close to the star.)

I want to

(Hi, blue aliens, you can't hide from us now )

If the link is still down, you can try:
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/10/earth-exoplanet-alpha-centauri/

 

[Winner]

I didn't realize how hard it was to pick out the planet. That is exciting because it means we are getting much better at planet detection and that has implications across the board.

I'd also like to say we shouldn't be that surprised we found a planet where we thought there couldn't be one. Hot Jupiters and all that after all.

I'm confident we won't only find a planet in the habitable zone in 20 years, we'll find life on one as well. But I'm an optimist!

If we're lucky, the public relations credit earned will later be useful in getting together funding for real-imaging omni-directional space telescopes for finding and studying exoplanets.

We need to find Chiron ASAP if we are to send Unity there by 2040

EDIT: To illustrate the technological challenge, here's a bit from the NY Times article on the discovery:

Mr. Dumusque and his colleagues found the planet by the so-called wobble method, using a specially built spectrograph called HARPS on a 140-inch diameter telescope at the European Southern Observatory in La Silla, Chile, to track the host star as it is tugged to and fro by the planet’s gravity. After four years and 450 observations, they found that in the case of Alpha Centauri B, that tug imparts a velocity of about 20 inches a second, a leisurely walking speed.

That is the smallest wobble the Swiss team has ever observed.

A planet only four times as massive as the Earth would produce the same amount of wobble if it was out in the habitable zone and would thus be detectable by their instrument, Mr. Dumusque said. But it would take a long time. “If you want to find a planet at 200 days,” he said referring to the orbital period, “you need 8 to 10 years.”

Whole article here.

 

[El_Machinae]

It's mainly cool because Alpha Centauri has a special place in our hearts. That's most of it.

 

[strijder20]

Yes, we've basically discovered a gigantic cooker and further reinforced our assumption that there are many planets in the universe. Not much to see aside from symbolic value.
Or does the presence of one planet make the presence of more planets more likely?

 

[El_Machinae]

hobbsyoyo, do you have a Google XPrize group in your area?

 

[Winner]

It's mainly cool because Alpha Centauri has a special place in our hearts. That's most of it.

It's also the lightest planet ever found using the doppler spectroscopy method, which is also significant.

Or does the presence of one planet make the presence of more planets more likely?

It kind of does. It signifies there was a protoplanetary disc dense enough to allow for formation of terrestrial planets. That's good. It also isn't a hot jupiter, which would probably mean there are not smaller planets, which reinforces hopes there might be more earth-sized planets further away. Of course there is absolutely no guarantee of that and we'll just have to look closer and observe longer to find out what else is there.

---

Anyway, I present a challenge for all of us here:

what do you think is the best way of getting a probe to the Alpha Centauri system by the end of this century? The goal isn't just a fly-by, but achieving a stable orbit around one of the two stars, releasing smaller probes to study any/all planets there in great detail, and relay the findings back to Earth. Assume virtually unlimited funding and steady political support for the project.

 

[Crezth]

Antimatter drives yo.

more serious answer later