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New Survey Suggests Earth-Sized Planets Are Common
On Oct 29, 5:11*pm, "Painius" wrote:
Oct. 28, 2010 Trent Perrotto Headquarters, Washington 202-358-0321 Whitney Clavin Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. 818-354-4673 RELEASE: 10-279 NASA SURVEY SUGGESTS EARTH-SIZED PLANETS ARE COMMON WASHINGTON -- Nearly one in four stars similar to the sun may host planets as small as Earth, according to a new study funded by NASA and the University of California. The study is the most extensive and sensitive planetary census of its kind. Astronomers used the W.M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii for five years to search 166 sun-like stars near our solar system for planets of various sizes, ranging from three to 1,000 times the mass of Earth. All of the planets in the study orbit close to their stars. The results show more small planets than large ones, indicating small planets are more prevalent in our Milky Way galaxy. "We studied planets of many masses -- like counting boulders, rocks and pebbles in a canyon -- and found more rocks than boulders, and more pebbles than rocks. Our ground-based technology can't see the grains of sand, the Earth-size planets, but we can estimate their numbers," said Andrew Howard of the University of California, Berkeley, lead author of the study. "Earth-size planets in our galaxy are like grains of sand sprinkled on a beach -- they are everywhere," Howard said. The study is in the Oct. 29 issue of the journal Science. The research provides a tantalizing clue that potentially habitable planets also could be common. These hypothesized Earth-size worlds would orbit farther away from their stars, where conditions could be favorable for life. NASA's Kepler spacecraft also is surveying sun-like stars for planets and is expected to find the first true Earth-like planets in the next few years. Howard and his planet-hunting team, which includes principal investigator Geoff Marcy, also of the University of California, Berkeley, looked for planets within 80-light-years of Earth, using the radial velocity, or "wobble," technique. They measured the numbers of planets falling into five groups, ranging from 1,000 times the mass of Earth, or about three times the mass of Jupiter, down to three times the mass of Earth. The search was confined to planets orbiting close to their stars -- within 0.25 astronomical units, or a quarter of the distance between our sun and Earth. A distinct trend jumped out of the data: smaller planets outnumber larger ones. Only 1.6 percent of stars were found to host giant planets orbiting close in. That includes the three highest-mass planet groups in the study, or planets comparable to Saturn and Jupiter. About 6.5 percent of stars were found to have intermediate-mass planets, with 10 to 30 times the mass of Earth -- planets the size of Neptune and Uranus. And 11.8 percent had the so-called "super-Earths," weighing in at only three to 10 times the mass of Earth. "During planet formation, small bodies similar to asteroids and comets stick together, eventually growing to Earth-size and beyond. Not all of the planets grow large enough to become giant planets like Saturn and Jupiter," Howard said. "It's natural for lots of these building blocks, the small planets, to be left over in this process." The astronomers extrapolated from these survey data to estimate that 23 percent of sun-like stars in our galaxy host even smaller planets, the Earth-sized ones, orbiting in the hot zone close to a star. "This is the statistical fruit of years of planet-hunting work," said Marcy. "The data tell us that our galaxy, with its roughly 200 billion stars, has at least 46 billion Earth-size planets, and that's not counting Earth-size planets that orbit farther away from their stars in the habitable zone." The findings challenge a key prediction of some theories of planet formation. Models predict a planet "desert" in the hot-zone region close to stars, or a drop in the numbers of planets with masses less than 30 times that of Earth. This desert was thought to arise because most planets form in the cool, outer region of solar systems, and only the giant planets were thought to migrate in significant numbers into the hot inner region. The new study finds a surplus of close-in, small planets where theories had predicted a scarcity. "We are at the cusp of understanding the frequency of Earth-sized planets among planetary systems in the solar neighborhood," said Mario R. Perez, Keck program scientist at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "This work is part of a key NASA science program and will stimulate new theories to explain the significance and impact of these findings." For information about exoplanets and NASA's planet-finding program, visit: http://planetquest.jpl.nasa.gov Many Planeted Thank You to Ron Baalke of sci.space.news ! Happy days *and*... * *Starry, starry nights ! -- Indelibly yours, Paine Ellsworth PS - "To the world you may be one person, but to one * * * * person you may be the world." * * * * Bill Wilson PPS -http://astro.painellsworth.net! * * * * * *http://www.secretsgolden.com! * * * * * * * * * *http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Paine_Ellsworth! Venus is much like Earth almost same diameter. Its gravity is 90% of Earth It can not have a molecule of life.much to hot Mean surface temp. is 900F Carbon dioxide has made it a heat trap.It has no moon It has really no magnetic field (0.0007 of Earth) Here is the kicker It rotates once around in 243 days. Painius this begs the question. Are Venus type planets much more popular than Earth planets?. My answer would be yes. We must search for planets that look like a blue marble.for hopefully they would relate to being more Earth like TreBert |
#3
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New Survey Suggests Earth-Sized Planets Are Common
On Oct 29, 2:11*pm, "Painius" wrote:
Oct. 28, 2010 Trent Perrotto Headquarters, Washington 202-358-0321 Whitney Clavin Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. 818-354-4673 RELEASE: 10-279 NASA SURVEY SUGGESTS EARTH-SIZED PLANETS ARE COMMON WASHINGTON -- Nearly one in four stars similar to the sun may host planets as small as Earth, according to a new study funded by NASA and the University of California. The study is the most extensive and sensitive planetary census of its kind. Astronomers used the W.M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii for five years to search 166 sun-like stars near our solar system for planets of various sizes, ranging from three to 1,000 times the mass of Earth. All of the planets in the study orbit close to their stars. The results show more small planets than large ones, indicating small planets are more prevalent in our Milky Way galaxy. "We studied planets of many masses -- like counting boulders, rocks and pebbles in a canyon -- and found more rocks than boulders, and more pebbles than rocks. Our ground-based technology can't see the grains of sand, the Earth-size planets, but we can estimate their numbers," said Andrew Howard of the University of California, Berkeley, lead author of the study. "Earth-size planets in our galaxy are like grains of sand sprinkled on a beach -- they are everywhere," Howard said. The study is in the Oct. 29 issue of the journal Science. The research provides a tantalizing clue that potentially habitable planets also could be common. These hypothesized Earth-size worlds would orbit farther away from their stars, where conditions could be favorable for life. NASA's Kepler spacecraft also is surveying sun-like stars for planets and is expected to find the first true Earth-like planets in the next few years. Howard and his planet-hunting team, which includes principal investigator Geoff Marcy, also of the University of California, Berkeley, looked for planets within 80-light-years of Earth, using the radial velocity, or "wobble," technique. They measured the numbers of planets falling into five groups, ranging from 1,000 times the mass of Earth, or about three times the mass of Jupiter, down to three times the mass of Earth. The search was confined to planets orbiting close to their stars -- within 0.25 astronomical units, or a quarter of the distance between our sun and Earth. A distinct trend jumped out of the data: smaller planets outnumber larger ones. Only 1.6 percent of stars were found to host giant planets orbiting close in. That includes the three highest-mass planet groups in the study, or planets comparable to Saturn and Jupiter. About 6.5 percent of stars were found to have intermediate-mass planets, with 10 to 30 times the mass of Earth -- planets the size of Neptune and Uranus. And 11.8 percent had the so-called "super-Earths," weighing in at only three to 10 times the mass of Earth. "During planet formation, small bodies similar to asteroids and comets stick together, eventually growing to Earth-size and beyond. Not all of the planets grow large enough to become giant planets like Saturn and Jupiter," Howard said. "It's natural for lots of these building blocks, the small planets, to be left over in this process." The astronomers extrapolated from these survey data to estimate that 23 percent of sun-like stars in our galaxy host even smaller planets, the Earth-sized ones, orbiting in the hot zone close to a star. "This is the statistical fruit of years of planet-hunting work," said Marcy. "The data tell us that our galaxy, with its roughly 200 billion stars, has at least 46 billion Earth-size planets, and that's not counting Earth-size planets that orbit farther away from their stars in the habitable zone." The findings challenge a key prediction of some theories of planet formation. Models predict a planet "desert" in the hot-zone region close to stars, or a drop in the numbers of planets with masses less than 30 times that of Earth. This desert was thought to arise because most planets form in the cool, outer region of solar systems, and only the giant planets were thought to migrate in significant numbers into the hot inner region. The new study finds a surplus of close-in, small planets where theories had predicted a scarcity. "We are at the cusp of understanding the frequency of Earth-sized planets among planetary systems in the solar neighborhood," said Mario R. Perez, Keck program scientist at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "This work is part of a key NASA science program and will stimulate new theories to explain the significance and impact of these findings." For information about exoplanets and NASA's planet-finding program, visit: http://planetquest.jpl.nasa.gov Many Planeted Thank You to Ron Baalke of sci.space.news ! Happy days *and*... * *Starry, starry nights ! -- Indelibly yours, Paine Ellsworth PS - "To the world you may be one person, but to one * * * * person you may be the world." * * * * Bill Wilson PPS -http://astro.painellsworth.net! * * * * * *http://www.secretsgolden.com! * * * * * * * * * *http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Paine_Ellsworth! nightbat Correct Painius so few about to effect so many the Profound Earth Science Team Officers, including cadet clueless saul. so poetic the Captain |
#4
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New Survey Suggests Earth-Sized Planets Are Common
On Oct 29, 2:11*pm, "Painius" wrote:
Oct. 28, 2010 Trent Perrotto Headquarters, Washington 202-358-0321 Whitney Clavin Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. 818-354-4673 RELEASE: 10-279 NASA SURVEY SUGGESTS EARTH-SIZED PLANETS ARE COMMON WASHINGTON -- Nearly one in four stars similar to the sun may host planets as small as Earth, according to a new study funded by NASA and the University of California. The study is the most extensive and sensitive planetary census of its kind. Astronomers used the W.M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii for five years to search 166 sun-like stars near our solar system for planets of various sizes, ranging from three to 1,000 times the mass of Earth. All of the planets in the study orbit close to their stars. The results show more small planets than large ones, indicating small planets are more prevalent in our Milky Way galaxy. "We studied planets of many masses -- like counting boulders, rocks and pebbles in a canyon -- and found more rocks than boulders, and more pebbles than rocks. Our ground-based technology can't see the grains of sand, the Earth-size planets, but we can estimate their numbers," said Andrew Howard of the University of California, Berkeley, lead author of the study. "Earth-size planets in our galaxy are like grains of sand sprinkled on a beach -- they are everywhere," Howard said. The study is in the Oct. 29 issue of the journal Science. The research provides a tantalizing clue that potentially habitable planets also could be common. These hypothesized Earth-size worlds would orbit farther away from their stars, where conditions could be favorable for life. NASA's Kepler spacecraft also is surveying sun-like stars for planets and is expected to find the first true Earth-like planets in the next few years. Howard and his planet-hunting team, which includes principal investigator Geoff Marcy, also of the University of California, Berkeley, looked for planets within 80-light-years of Earth, using the radial velocity, or "wobble," technique. They measured the numbers of planets falling into five groups, ranging from 1,000 times the mass of Earth, or about three times the mass of Jupiter, down to three times the mass of Earth. The search was confined to planets orbiting close to their stars -- within 0.25 astronomical units, or a quarter of the distance between our sun and Earth. A distinct trend jumped out of the data: smaller planets outnumber larger ones. Only 1.6 percent of stars were found to host giant planets orbiting close in. That includes the three highest-mass planet groups in the study, or planets comparable to Saturn and Jupiter. About 6.5 percent of stars were found to have intermediate-mass planets, with 10 to 30 times the mass of Earth -- planets the size of Neptune and Uranus. And 11.8 percent had the so-called "super-Earths," weighing in at only three to 10 times the mass of Earth. "During planet formation, small bodies similar to asteroids and comets stick together, eventually growing to Earth-size and beyond. Not all of the planets grow large enough to become giant planets like Saturn and Jupiter," Howard said. "It's natural for lots of these building blocks, the small planets, to be left over in this process." The astronomers extrapolated from these survey data to estimate that 23 percent of sun-like stars in our galaxy host even smaller planets, the Earth-sized ones, orbiting in the hot zone close to a star. "This is the statistical fruit of years of planet-hunting work," said Marcy. "The data tell us that our galaxy, with its roughly 200 billion stars, has at least 46 billion Earth-size planets, and that's not counting Earth-size planets that orbit farther away from their stars in the habitable zone." The findings challenge a key prediction of some theories of planet formation. Models predict a planet "desert" in the hot-zone region close to stars, or a drop in the numbers of planets with masses less than 30 times that of Earth. This desert was thought to arise because most planets form in the cool, outer region of solar systems, and only the giant planets were thought to migrate in significant numbers into the hot inner region. The new study finds a surplus of close-in, small planets where theories had predicted a scarcity. "We are at the cusp of understanding the frequency of Earth-sized planets among planetary systems in the solar neighborhood," said Mario R. Perez, Keck program scientist at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "This work is part of a key NASA science program and will stimulate new theories to explain the significance and impact of these findings." For information about exoplanets and NASA's planet-finding program, visit: http://planetquest.jpl.nasa.gov Many Planeted Thank You to Ron Baalke of sci.space.news ! Happy days *and*... * *Starry, starry nights ! -- Indelibly yours, Paine Ellsworth PS - "To the world you may be one person, but to one * * * * person you may be the world." * * * * Bill Wilson PPS -http://astro.painellsworth.net! * * * * * *http://www.secretsgolden.com! * * * * * * * * * *http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Paine_Ellsworth! There’s no question as to what surplus molecular/nebula mass, spent stars and those pesky nova/supernova have contributed a great many cosmic body parts, including rogue protons, neutrons, electrons and those carbon buckyballs that all sorts of other elements (including ice) can bond with. Perhaps there even more rogue mass than gravitationally bound mass in our galaxy. According to others that devote years of their mostly public funded expertise and some of our best technology in order to study and extensively research a given theory or notion to death, 1 in 4 stars like ours offers an Earth like planet, and that’s not including whatever red dwarfs and of those much larger than our sun should have to offer, plus there’s all of them pesky rogue items from spent or exploded stars that have to exist unless having since gotten vaporized or their having survived as captured by some other solar system. Perhaps as many as one out of a thousand stars is offering a similar enough solar system worthy sun to that of our own. Considering 500e9 stars = 500e6 planet worthy solar systems, and if only one out of 5 of those is hosting an Earth like planet is 100e6 naked Goldilocks certified as wet Eden/Earth like planets within our galaxy. Unfortunately there are few if any of those within 100 ly of us, so that even multi-generational starships are not going to be viable unless 0.5 c velocity becomes doable (limited as to robotic probes because of the lethal radiation created by such velocity). There are actually few if any identical stars, planets or moons, and certainly no such identical solar systems as to compare anything to a given cosmological standard, because there simply is no such cosmological standard. For all we know, our solar system could be the most odd-ball and the least likely to survive the true test of time (it certainly could have used a better sun so that at least two wet planets and their moons could have been naked Goldilocks worthy for tens of billions of years, whereas instead we’ll be lucky to get another couple billion before it starts getting downright unbearable). However, extremely large and massive stars like Sirius(B) most likely started out with hosting a few gas giants plus other heavy element saturated planets or even a few as having Earth sized moons, some of which likely survived the expedited sudden demise of their extra massive star. My estimate of all the Ceres and larger items as rogue survivors of those short lived stars is 128e9256e9 per galaxy, and the James Webb Space Telescope(JWST) will likely spot some of those rogue items for us, along with the external StarShade improvements for JWST and other observing instruments making those previously obscured Goldilocks exoplanets appear. All included, there could actually be more rogue mass than captured or orbital/tidal bound mass in our galaxy. By many acceptable applied physics standards and technology, even the toasty planet Venus is perfectly intelligent goldilocks worthy, although not as naked or as snookered and dumbfounded past the point of no return as are most Earthly redneck goldilocks that are deathly afraid of their own shadow and worse of whatever voodoo faith-based cabal or political mafia that they belong to. ~ BG |
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