New Planet Discovery - So Called "Super Earth"

[Illuminati]

Very interesting read if you are into Astronomy... I'm taking Astronomy 1 this semester at school, should be cool taking trips to Truman's "mini" observatory for this class. If I make a discovery like this, I'll think of some nerdy name to give it

Back to this article... two problems I see with inhabiting this planet:
1. its 900 Kelvin in its sunlight
2. its 50 light-years away... which is relatively close... just not feasible for our space traveling abilities.

The major benefit I see though... is it can complete its "year" in only 10 days!... sure beats our 365 if you really don't like a particular season!

Anyways, here's the article at CNN

[Wolfgang70]

Ouch! Talk about brain fry!

[infinitevalence]

I was thinking more along the lines of beach.

[Amy]

I think it would be cool if there were some kind of life on that planet that could stand the heat...think of the possibilities!!

[Nexes]

Or maybe there is a smaller planet, closer to the size of earth that they will later find to be in between this one that takes 10 days to orbit and the larger one that takes 650 days to orbit. From this article it seems to me that technology is not quite there to find planets close to the size or earth. This one is the smallest that they've found and it is 14 times the size of earth. They also mentioned that this was a step up in technology to find a planet this small. So it sounds to me that they have had to advance technology further that they've had previously just to be able to see a planet that is 14 times greater than earth. I don't mean to sound utra nerdy but I really do believe that there are other life forms in this universe. Just too big to believe that we are the only ones out there.

[NAiLs]

I don't mean to sound utra nerdy but I really do believe that there are other life forms in this universe. Just too big to believe that we are the only ones out there.

I can't argue this. The chance of us ever finding out is very slim though. What we can see at the "end" of the universe was forming millions/billions of years ago, and we only see it as say, a few days ago. With our current physics, it's impossible to travel faster than the speed of light... which sucks. I like some of the theories of how we can possibly travel faster than the speed of light, one such of pulling space to you, compress it in some sense. )( <-- like that

Also just think of a picture of a pinpoint of space. <-- (click) There are tons of galaxies in that picture! We haven't even explored ours; can you imagine observing other galaxies? It's endless!

Technologies are getting pretty good with deep space observation.... but I think it's gonna be a while before they get the technology to see earth size or smaller planets out there. When is the new telescope even supposed to go up? I also thought Hubble was going to plummet to earth in a couple years; but I haven't read much on either subject.


blah blah... I'm kinda rambling. I love astronomy! Always will!

[Apoptosis]

I don't mean to sound utra nerdy but I really do believe that there are other life forms in this universe.

Why would that be nerdy if you think that? I just got out of college a couple years back with a B.S. in Biology and I'd consider someone very narrow minded if they believed we are the only cell based life form in existence.

This one is the smallest that they've found and it is 14 times the size of earth.

Isn't their a debate going on in the academia world about how light refracts in space over long distances. One basic example of this would be some type of gas out there causing the images to be distorted and thus the size of planets to be "off".