New Planet Discovered

This is awesome. I love discoveries like this. Suddenly, I feel really, really small. Also, i wonder if there IS life on it. I hope there is, its would be nice not to feel so alone in space D:

Im guessing the picture shown wasn't the planet?
 
Again? *yawns*

Edit: Why does it say we only have eight planets in our solar system??
 
Instinct said:
This is awesome. I love discoveries like this. Suddenly, I feel really, really small. Also, i wonder if there IS life on it. I hope there is, its would be nice not to feel so alone in space D:

Im guessing the picture shown wasn't the planet?
Click to expand...

The new planet is a super gas giant. We dont currently have the technology to detect earth sized planets although its just a matter of time before we do. Also the dicovery of an extra solar planet in itself isnt that exciting as we're now discovering them at an average rate of 1 a week with a total of around 250 discovered so far. What has got astronomers excited is that fact that this is the fifth planet to be dicovered around this particular star which confirms that solar systems like our own should be very common throughout the universe. Added to that theres a rather large gap where a planet could and should be right in the 'habitable zone'. Computer models of solar system formation suggest that planets should be pretty evenly spread out depending on its size and the speed at which the planet is moving. This suggests that there could be small earth sized planet in the right distance to support life around a star that is very similar to our own... The major difference between our solar systems though is that this system is a binary star which means the system has 2 suns with all the planets discovered orbiting the larger of the 2. Star wars double sunset anyone??

More here on the subject.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/55_Cancri
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7082257.stm

As for 8 planets in our solar system, Pluto got downgraded to a 'planetoid' because its not a true planet.
 
[Matt] said:
although its just a matter of time before we do.
Click to expand...

"Time, [Matt]? Is it really only... time... again?"
Sorry :p

It's always a matter of time before anything. You mean a short amount of time? Or we're nearing it?
 
Thing about light years is that it's how long light takes to travel, that fu**in fast, and then I read about stuff that's millions and billions of light years away. Mind blowing. Give me super fast ship nao.
 
DEATHMASTER said:
Thing about light years is that it's how long light takes to travel, that fu**in fast, and then I read about stuff that's millions and billions of light years away. Mind blowing. Give me super fast ship nao.
Click to expand...

*hands you airboat*
 
what solar system is it attatched too? Seems pretty impossible if its rotating around our sun...considering its distance.
 
To far away.

It needs to be less than 10 light years away if we're ever going to have a chance of visiting it.
 
That's not ever going to be possible. Having something that close, I mean. If it were there, we'd have seen it.

And besides, it'll still take us ten years travelling at an "impossible" velocity
 
it would take us 10,000 years to reach alpha centuri with the fastest spacecraft on the drawing board, and that is only 4 light years away.
 
Wormhole generators are our only hope!
 
Raziaar said:
Because stupid idiots decided Pluto "isn't a planet". Morons.
Click to expand...
There are bodies in the solay system that are bigger than Pluto but still aren't called planets. Why should Pluto be an exception?
 
The Monkey said:
There are bodies in the solay system that are bigger than Pluto but still aren't called planets. Why should Pluto be an exception?
Click to expand...

Because we declared it a planet for 100 or more years... come on...
 
NO! For the last ****ing time, Pluto is NOT a planet.

It cannot be for one simple reason:

It is beyond the Terrestrial planetary line yet has terrestrial characteristics. It is even beyond the current Jovian line. From a definition standpoint, it's not a planet, just another member of the Oort cloud.

There are thousands of icy rocks in our Oort cloud that are bigger, "Pluto" was just accidentally discovered first and was assumed to be a planet.
 
It's a planet! It's a planet! LA LA LA LA <plugs his ears> I can't hear you! It's a planet! Pluto is a planet and a beautiful planet at that! An Icy Wonderworld of a Planet!
 
Wait, this is the same forum that rips down religion but you wont accept the fact that Pluto is not a planet?

I do remember at some point they where calling it a dwarf planet, or even a binary planet because it's 'moon' and Pluto both revolved around a common center but I don't remember what happened to that.


Cool find, btw. Space is always neat.
 
Pluto isn't technically a planet and it made sense to declassify it but I think we should have left it as one anyway for old time's sake.
 
Whats really interesting about the size of space is that it has been increasing at an ever increasing rate for about 13-14 Billion years!

So, lets just say that it is expanding at the speed of light (186,282.397 miles per second, or roughly one foot per nanosecond.) and thats been going on for 13-14 billion years! That equates to about 670,616,629.2 mph. That in turn equates to 5,874,589,152,000 miles per year. Now multiply that by 13,000,000,000. Holy moly. Thats big.

*Note. Thats all speculation, but it should be somewhere around there.

Couple interesting questions:

1. If you were riding on one of the first photons released by the Big Bang, what would you see?

2. What is space expanding into?

Man, space is awesome.
 
OTCEscape said:
So, lets just say that it is expanding at the speed of light (186,282.397 miles per second, or roughly one foot per nanosecond.) and thats been going on for 13-14 billion years! That equates to about 670,616,629.2 mph. That in turn equates to 5,874,589,152,000 miles per year. Now multiply that by 13,000,000,000. Holy moly. Thats big.
Click to expand...

I think of a googolplex, and suddenly the universe seems infinitely small.
 
Raziaar said:
I think of a googolplex, and suddenly the universe seems infinitely small.
Click to expand...

True.

1. A googol is 10 to the hundredth power:

10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,
000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000.

/wish Monies!
 
It's just another one of God's illusions to test our faith.
 
OTCEscape said:
True.

1. A googol is 10 to the hundredth power:

10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,
000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000.

/wish Monies!
Click to expand...

A googolplex is a 1 with a googol 0s after it, right?
 
I wonder how far off we are technology-wise before we can reach the speed of light in a vehicle.
 
-Psycho- said:
I wonder how far off we are technology-wise before we can reach the speed of light in a vehicle.
Click to expand...

Actually reaching the speed of light?
As a crude simple acceleration of a craft prob never as it requires infinite energy.

Some technology that allows you to bend space, alcubierre drive etc, would take massive amounts of energy and would be most likely be a long while off yet, if at all.
'Breakthrough' phyiscs are required for us to see anything like this, something that we do not already know of or understand as what we currently know and understand does not allow ftl travel, even theoretically.

Sorry for the pessimism.
 
41 lightyears is just a walk across the street in galactic terms
 
-Psycho- said:
I wonder how far off we are technology-wise before we can reach the speed of light in a vehicle.
Click to expand...

Particles with mass cannot travel at the speed of light according to relativity. As has been mentioned before probably the best method of intersolar travel will be the ability to warp space time or if indeed string theory proves to be true, extra dimensional travel....
 
[Matt] said:
Particles with mass cannot travel at the speed of light according to relativity. As has been mentioned before probably the best method of intersolar travel will be the ability to warp space time or if indeed string theory proves to be true, extra dimensional travel....
Click to expand...
So only energy can travel at the speed of light? It it because mass with physical particals simply cannot handle that speed, or is it physically impossible? like comparing apples to oranges? Given if human civilization even lived long enough, there may be revisions to physical theories that were developed today, and decades ago. Scientifically, we are still a very young civilization with much to learn. Hell, we can't even cure the common cold yet, much less develope theories for inter-stellar space travel. Though these are two different fields of study, all principles are probably centered around physics.
 
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