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posted by cmn32480 on Wednesday May 11 2016, @10:11AM   Printer-friendly
from the planets-ahoy! dept.

NASA's Kepler mission has discovered a new batch of verified exoplanets, including nine that are potentially habitable:

NASA's Kepler mission has verified 1,284 new planets – the single largest finding of planets to date. "This announcement more than doubles the number of confirmed planets from Kepler," said Ellen Stofan, chief scientist at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "This gives us hope that somewhere out there, around a star much like ours, we can eventually discover another Earth."

Analysis was performed on the Kepler space telescope's July 2015 planet candidate catalog, which identified 4,302 potential planets. For 1,284 of the candidates, the probability of being a planet is greater than 99 percent – the minimum required to earn the status of "planet." An additional 1,327 candidates are more likely than not to be actual planets, but they do not meet the 99 percent threshold and will require additional study. The remaining 707 are more likely to be some other astrophysical phenomena. This analysis also validated 984 candidates previously verified by other techniques.

[...] In the newly-validated batch of planets, nearly 550 could be rocky planets like Earth, based on their size. Nine of these orbit in their sun's habitable zone, which is the distance from a star where orbiting planets can have surface temperatures that allow liquid water to pool. With the addition of these nine, 21 exoplanets now are known to be members of this exclusive group.

Also at NPR and The Register .

False Positive Probabilities For All Kepler Objects of Interest: 1284 Newly Validated Planets and 428 Likely False Positives (DOI: 10.3847/0004-637x/822/2/86)


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NASA Retires the Kepler Space Telescope after It Runs Out of Hydrazine 15 comments

NASA Retires Kepler Space Telescope

After nine years in deep space collecting data that indicate our sky to be filled with billions of hidden planets - more planets even than stars - NASA's Kepler space telescope has run out of fuel needed for further science operations. NASA has decided to retire the spacecraft within its current, safe orbit, away from Earth. Kepler leaves a legacy of more than 2,600 planet discoveries from outside our solar system, many of which could be promising places for life.

"As NASA's first planet-hunting mission, Kepler has wildly exceeded all our expectations and paved the way for our exploration and search for life in the solar system and beyond," said Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator of NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. "Not only did it show us how many planets could be out there, it sparked an entirely new and robust field of research that has taken the science community by storm. Its discoveries have shed a new light on our place in the universe, and illuminated the tantalizing mysteries and possibilities among the stars."

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 11 2016, @12:57PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 11 2016, @12:57PM (#344567)

    How many within reach of a physical probe in the next 100 years?

    • (Score: 3, Informative) by maxwell demon on Wednesday May 11 2016, @02:10PM

      by maxwell demon (1608) on Wednesday May 11 2016, @02:10PM (#344610) Journal

      According to Wikipedia [wikipedia.org] the closest confirmed exoplanet (which happens alos to be the closest potentially habitable one) is about 10.5 light years away. So if we manage to accelerate a probe to about 10.5% of the speed of light, we can reach it in the next 100 years (but will have to wait another 10.5 years to learn about it). Given that the a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_vehicle_speed_records#Speed_records_relative_to_the_Sun">fastest space probe ever reached 252,792 km/h (157,078 mph), which is just about 0.023% of the speed of light, I'd say unless we make enormous progress in space probe propulsion, the probability of reaching it in the next 100 years is, to a very good approximation, zero.

      Now there are unconfirmed exoplanet candidates at Alpha Centauri, which is 4.3 light years away. So maybe if we are lucky, we have to improve space probe propulsion "only" by a factor of about 200 in order to have a visit in the next 100 years.

      --
      The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
      • (Score: 2) by legont on Wednesday May 11 2016, @10:45PM

        by legont (4179) on Wednesday May 11 2016, @10:45PM (#344923)

        Well, Yuri Milner [wikipedia.org] plans to do just that [nytimes.com]. He is mostly known for mail.ru, but also a big investor in all the usual suspects.

        --
        "Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
    • (Score: 2) by bitstream on Wednesday May 11 2016, @09:01PM

      by bitstream (6144) on Wednesday May 11 2016, @09:01PM (#344871) Journal

      There's some concepts on doing some space-time manipulations to get moving really fast to distant objects. The theories to accomplish this is almost figured out. The really hard part is to use the possible physics in a way that it fits a possible engineering solution. Or one ends up with something like, it can be done but we need the energy that comes from converting the planet Jupiter into energy according to E=mc^2.

      You could also have a look at the development of the electromagnetic thruster without reaction mass [wikipedia.org], that has been tested with success in the laboratory. But that has not yet been tested in space. The point is that it may not be limited by exhaust speed. There's other designs which use plain electromagnetic radiation too. However both methods will be limited to the speed of light. Once you load one video, youtube will suggest more along the same theme.

      Some videos that you may look into. The main concept is to create a warp bubble and manipulate surrounding space as energy efficient as possible or it will not be possible. Keep your head cool and watch for hard science fact and not dreams but don't dismiss anything either just because it doesn't fit with what is supposedly known.

      NASA Warp Drive Project - "Speeds" that Could Take a Spacecraft to Alpha Centauri in Two Weeks [youtube.com]
      NASA unveils its warp drive concept spaceship IXS Enterprise [youtube.com]
      NASA Tests 'Impossible' Engine, Finds Out It's Really Fast [youtube.com]
      NASA Success at Testing EMDrive which may lead to Warp Drive [youtube.com]

      It seems quantum mechanics is a path to learning new things about physics at least.

      • (Score: 2) by legont on Wednesday May 11 2016, @11:14PM

        by legont (4179) on Wednesday May 11 2016, @11:14PM (#344940)

        And all the necessary energy may be just here [wikipedia.org] (search for Alcubierre Drive) - no Jupiter destruction necessary.
        Of course, it will create a certain signature and aliens will show up to invite us into the community...

        --
        "Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
        • (Score: 2) by bitstream on Thursday May 12 2016, @02:02AM

          by bitstream (6144) on Thursday May 12 2016, @02:02AM (#344983) Journal

          How will energy be had from the Casimir effect?
          And how to change the energy density of vacuum?

          • (Score: 2) by legont on Friday May 13 2016, @12:15AM

            by legont (4179) on Friday May 13 2016, @12:15AM (#345445)

            It was intended as a partial joke and I am not qualified for the "scientific" discussion.
            However, the basis for it was that energy in theory is z(-3) which is 120 orders of magnitude more than what is observed. Once they used analytic continuation though, they got results that agree with the experiments. Now speculations are that perhaps energy is z(-3) after all and what we observe is a projection from some higher dimension universe. Hence my "proposal" to pump it from over there exactly like in Ian Banks novels. Anyway, that's how it was described to me by some adepts over a few drinks)

            --
            "Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
            • (Score: 2) by bitstream on Friday May 13 2016, @01:47AM

              by bitstream (6144) on Friday May 13 2016, @01:47AM (#345468) Journal

              How does one even get the ability to affect anything like this? or even pump it?

  • (Score: 2) by Thexalon on Wednesday May 11 2016, @01:37PM

    by Thexalon (636) on Wednesday May 11 2016, @01:37PM (#344590)

    Why is it, with planets all over the galaxy that could harbor life, we still can't make a good Pan-galactic Gargle Blaster?

    --
    The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
    • (Score: 2) by darkfeline on Wednesday May 11 2016, @03:04PM

      by darkfeline (1030) on Wednesday May 11 2016, @03:04PM (#344637) Homepage

      You don't have a lemon and a gold brick?

      --
      Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Wednesday May 11 2016, @04:13PM

    by MichaelDavidCrawford (2339) Subscriber Badge <mdcrawford@gmail.com> on Wednesday May 11 2016, @04:13PM (#344682) Homepage Journal

    aluminize mylar can be made quite thin and so lightweight.

    Put of bunch of really large aluminized mylar disks in orbit around the sun, in such a way that they blink a sequence of prime numbers.

    The planets aren't all in the same direction, so we would need a set of orbiting disks for each habitable planet.

    --
    Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
    • (Score: 2) by Immerman on Wednesday May 11 2016, @04:47PM

      by Immerman (3985) on Wednesday May 11 2016, @04:47PM (#344718)

      Well, assuming anyone was there to see it, and they were looking at us, that would definitely get their attention. That's not communication though, that's a unilateral bullhorn shouting "I am here" to anyone in the orbital plane. Communication requires being able to then modulate the signal so that you can transmit meaningful information, which is *much* more difficult. Still, if we saw someone else announcing themselves like that, it would probably be much easier to get the funding for the massive transmitters necessary to send them a signal.

      On the other hand, I'm not sure there's much in the way of cost-savings to be had - even mylar gets massive (and massively expensive) in the sort of planet-sized sheets necessary to noticeably "blink" a star. After all you have to block enough light to stand out against the noise from the star itself. Plus you're going to have to equip them with station-keeping engines of some sort in order to compensate for the solar sail effect of all the light they'll be blocking.
        Even a moon-sized sheet in an Earth-like orbit would be reflecting ~10^16W of solar power - that's a lot of force for something without much mass.

      • (Score: 2) by Thexalon on Wednesday May 11 2016, @10:54PM

        by Thexalon (636) on Wednesday May 11 2016, @10:54PM (#344929)

        It would get their attention if they happened to be looking at us at just the right moment.

        But so would the last century or so of radio and television broadcasts that have leaked out into space. So why not just save ourselves a lot of time and money and not do anything?

        --
        The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
        • (Score: 2) by Immerman on Thursday May 12 2016, @12:55AM

          by Immerman (3985) on Thursday May 12 2016, @12:55AM (#344969)

          What right moment? The "signal" would be sent over the course of a year, and repeat for as long as the shades remained in orbit, while being visible to any civilization conducting something like a Kepler-style planet-hunting program. It would get attention by virtue of the fact that there's an obviously artificial set of large objects orbiting the sun in an arrangement probably designed *specifically* to get that attention.

          As for our radio broadcasts, there's a pretty good chance they wouldn't be detectable from even the closest stars. Certainly our own technology wouldn't be up to the job. The sun is simply broadcasting such immense amounts of radio noise that it would completely drown out our signals. It's not a major problem on Earth simply because the inverse-square law means that terrestrial signals are getting a hundred-million-fold effective amplification based on proximity.

          From what I can find on Google, the most powerful TV and radio transmitters operate in the 100s of kW range, and the most powerful military radars in the range of a few MW. The 10^16W signal from a moon-sized sunshade shade would thus be around 10 billion times more powerful than our most powerful transmissions, and about 10,000x greater than the total human power consumption on Earth.

          *Slightly* easier to detect at interstellar distances, to the point that the Kepler program would be able to detect it if someone else constructed one around a nearby star.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 11 2016, @06:04PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 11 2016, @06:04PM (#344786)
  • (Score: 2) by bitstream on Wednesday May 11 2016, @09:06PM

    by bitstream (6144) on Wednesday May 11 2016, @09:06PM (#344874) Journal

    I want to know two things:
    A) Is it free of lawyers and lowbrow people?
    B) What's their immigration policy?

    Your sincerely //Earthling