Three Neptune-sized Planets Found Nearby 337
WillAffleckUW writes "CNN reports the discovery of three Neptune-sized planets found in orbit around a sun 41 light years away. The star they orbit is similar to our Sun, and the planetary distribution is probably similar to our Solar System. Recent observations by NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope last year revealed that HD 69830 also hosts an asteroid belt, making it the only other sun-like star known to have one. No word on if they have habitable moons, or monoliths yet."
for those of you complaining about "nearby" (Score:5, Insightful)
Think of it like this. We'll use another word whose meaning is varaible in a similar way: close. A scafolding platform collapses and a pile of bricks comes within one foot of crashing down on you. You might say, "Wow! that was close." You throw a pitch in a ball game and you throw wide one foot left of the strike zone. No one would call that close. You'd need to be in a range of, say, a centimeter from the plate for a pitch to be called close.
Re:What's the point of all this? (Score:2, Insightful)
But ... (Score:4, Insightful)
Also, three Neptune sized planets probably would not protect such a terrestrial world against frequent life-exterminating collisions as our Jupiter and Saturn (and to a lesser extent Uranus and Neptune) have done. Neptune is no where near Jupiter's size, and Jupiter has almost certainly saved us from death.
I'll help you move there (Score:3, Insightful)
I would also help you move here on earth. Assuming the distance you want to move is the same percentage distance of the earth that 41 light years is to the galaxy.
Seriously, it about context. What was the article talking about, finding something in the galaxy. There for nearby will be relative to the size of the galaxy.
Man, nobody understands context anymore.
Re:What's the point of all this? (Score:4, Insightful)
Neptune-MASSED not SIZED (Score:3, Insightful)
From the Article:The newly discovered planets have masses of about 10, 12 and 18 times that of Earth and they zip around the star in rapid orbits of about 9, 32 and 197 days, respectively. Based on their distances from the star, two inner worlds nearest the star are rocky planets similar to Mercury, the scientists suspect.
The significance of the distinction is that rocky planets may be much more likely to harbor earth-like life than are gas giants. Of course, being so close to their home sun that they have a 9 or 32-earth day year, it seems likely that the "earth-like" life may be mere bacteria living in subsurface water [sciencenews.org], rather than human-like meat-bags getting suntans on the surface.
How is it like our Solar System? (Score:4, Insightful)
Assuming we can spot Neptune sized planets, if we were looking at our Solar System, we would see four planets well outside the "habitable" zone. Here we see three big rocky planets where only one is "just inside" the habitable zone--and I rashly assume it's just within the too-hot side (the outermost planet has a year of 197 days, compared to Venus's 224).
How is this "similar"? Seems pretty different to me...
Feeding (Score:3, Insightful)
People who complain about the government supporting people who are incapable of working is really quite inexpensive, since there are very few people who can't work. It's things like the military, health care, and public works that suck up all the tax revenue. Welfare is insignificant.
I'm so sick of compassionless conservatives bitching about the couple of dollars per year that they pay for welfare, while at the same time endorsing the wars that cost tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars paid per person for wars.
Here's an experiment, to convince you that the myth of the lazy jobless guy is just that -- a myth. Approach someone without a job (preferably one who isn't insane, as so many homeless folks are). Offer them a fulltime job (no benefits necessary) at minimum wage doing something that is within their capabilities. I guarantee that 90% of the welfare / disability recipients you make this offer to will accept your job offer. Of course, no one will ever make those offers, since most people are profoundly bigoted against the jobless -- which in turn is what KEEPS those people jobless. And disabled people are, for the most part, simply incapable of doing enough useful work to justify a salary that would keep them housed and fed. And so no one offers them jobs either. It's nothing to do with laziness. And if you don't believe me, just try my experiment. Go down to the local homeless shelter and try it (but avoid the schizophrenics -- they don't really count, being too crazy to know what's going on).
Wars (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Let's use some familiar units people! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:What's the point of all this? (Score:2, Insightful)
My answer: yeah - if you could get them all to the Cape, and have them all eat Aluminum and LH2 and LOX!
You need to understand that governments do NOT work on the principle of monetary equity: if they saved 500 Million dollars here, NO ONE says "OH, that means we can send 500 Million to the staving people in _________ (place country name here)!"
There is no political will in any nation to EVER do this kind of thing. Also, money spent on this kind of "research" invariably tends to spin off into all sorts of other areas. The benefits to mankind of non-obvious-payoff research is incalculable (and no, not because the number is "0"!) and humans are curious by nature.
So, it is entirely disingenuous to try and match X dollars spent on "space" to X dollars NOT spent somewhere else. The world just does not work like that.
Tree-huggers and people-feeders still don't seem to understand this though - and thank fuck none of them are in power anywhere on the planet!
Remember: give a man a fish, and he will eat for a day. But teach a man to fish, and he will spend all day in a boat drinking beer.
Re:What's the point of all this? (Score:4, Insightful)
Space travel is a fraction of the budget. The RIAA makes more money every year than the NASA budget for any given year. And they've contributed nothing to man kind like NASA research has. Just, you know, for some perspective: We waste more money on shitty music than the government spends on NASA and research.
Re:Let's use some familiar units people! (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Nearby (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Neighbors? (Score:1, Insightful)
Given the above post, I assume all of these increasingly smarter A.I. still won't be able to spell worth a damn.
Re:Let's use some familiar units people! (Score:3, Insightful)
82 years + Age of message sender must stay Age of reciever who isn't yet senile and/or still cares!
Re:Welcome to Earf (Score:3, Insightful)
I understand that, but what makes you think this model is sustainable? How many more world wars can we sustain before we either detroy ourselves or knock ourselves back into the bronze age? Heck, just look at the environment. Do you think we will ever realy solve enivonrmental problems without advancing to some state of global cooperation rather than competition?
and the pacifists reach a state of equilibrium (stagnation) with their environment for a few million years before the other races find them and wipe them out.
But you have very little to base this prediction on. Perhaps the word "pacifist" is getting in the way here. Maybe it is too foofy for you bringing up images of hippies smoking dope all day long. HOw about just "peaceful" or "educated." So many wars happen because people are just plain ignorant (and desparate). Look at Europe, for example. They've FINALLY found peace after hundreds of years of nearly constant warring. Look at Japan. They have almost no military. Are they stagnating? Hardly. It is the US, the most warlike modern nation, which is falling behind.
So I don't buy this idea for a second that we must continue fighting and competing with our brother in order to avoid "stagnation." Technology through war is the old way. Just like worshipping kings and queens is the old way. We have a good degree of freedom. Now it is time to work on achieving peace. It is either that of destroy outselves like probably many intelligent life forms in the universe already have.
Let me put it this way. Even if we do maintain our competative and warlike tendencies, chances are that most of the intelligent life forms out there are hundreds, thousands, and maybe millions of years more advanced than us. We couldn't compete. THere is no sense in even trying. And if we go out into space with guns blazing, they might just decide to squash us like annoying bugs. I could easily imagine otther intelligent species having a policy which states: "If a budding intelligent species doesn't destroy itself and doesn't drop its warlike attitude, we must destoy it ourselves for the safety of all intelligent-kind." I'm sure someone already knows we are here.
-matthew