Kepler-22b - An Earthlike planet?

[CMvan46]

this is the problem I have with these things...on the surface they are nice discoveries and all, but when you look at these things realistically there is no way we'll ever visit these planets, yet alone get to really observe them up close. All of this in turn is nothing but a waste of money and resource.

Ha! If we said that about everything we wouldn't have cars, tv or Internet yet!

 

[Jimlaad43]

Well, they could shoot this at the star system I suppose. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arecibo_message

If there is life with radio detectors there, they will get all our broadcasts first. So, after decades of watching WW2 newsreels, the coronation of Queen Elizabeth 2nd, Assassination of JFK, cold war paranoia, death of Ayrton Senna, 9/11 and other giveaway programmes that show what Earthlings are like, they will not need to send this will they really. They may even see the news broadcast indicating the presence of their planet.

 

[Skython]

Im pretty excited. Imagine there is life on that planet. The possibilities. Maybe an unfunny Michael McIntyre. Or a dumb Famine- no wait that would never happen. But seriously it's an interesting discovery, and I'm looking forward to developments.

Or a funny Jonathan Ross.

 

[RTSolvalou]

Or a funny australian comedian.
Or a Jimoein that doesn't steal jokes and pretend they're his, and that were already widely used a year ago.

Hopefully there will be new elements/minerals there.

 

[Jimlaad43]

Hopefully there will be new elements/minerals there.

Yeah, problem is that we have all elements up to element 112, Copernicium, which has a half-life of 29 seconds and is so big, that it has to be made synthetically in a lab. All elements heavier than Uranium cannot be made in nature, as that is the biggest that can be made in a supernova.
BTW sorry for bursting your bubble.

 

[Grayfox]

 

[Touring Mars]

It's supposed to be too hot for life.

I think you are refering to the discovery announced today of two more planets orbiting another star, Kepler-20, who are among the first Earth-sized planets to be confirmed, but are likely too hot for life. Kepler-22b is a much larger 'super-Earth' planet orbiting another star (Kepler-22) at a distance that is considered to be in the habitable zone, hence the temperatures on that planet are more likely in the right range for life as we know it.

The only way would be if we detected a complex radio signal with an encoded message in it coming from the potential habitants, similar to the movie Contact. At that distance you wouldn't be able to take any photos revealing surface detail. Spectroscopy could potentially reveal its atmospheric composition.

There may come a time where it becomes possible to directly image planets orbiting other stars, and find visual evidence of life, although it is a long way off. Astronomy effectively is spectroscopy i.e. the measurement of light, and hence it will most likely be the route by which we learn of extraterrestrial life (the alternative being that either we visit them or they visit us).

Part of the problem is knowing where to look - but probes like Kepler are already finding loads of new candidates, and even more powerful telescopes will be trained on the best candidates in the future. There may well be a limit to what is physically possible, and it may well be that we cannot image planets directly beyond a certain distance - and that distance may be low enough to rule out all but a tiny handful of candidate planets. That said, if we could directly image the surface of extrasolar planets, I reckon the discovery of extraterrestrial life would follow very soon after.

 

[TheCracker]

Im pretty excited. Imagine there is life on that planet. The possibilities. Maybe an unfunny Michael McIntyre.

Don't you mean a funny, less annoying Michael McIntyre

 

[Alex p.]

Alderaan -

Kepler -

Vegeta anyone lol?

Here...

 

[Alex.]

Im pretty excited. Imagine there is life on that planet. The possibilities. Maybe a funny Michael McIntyre.

Fixed

 

[Dotini]

...the discovery announced today of two more planets orbiting another star, Kepler-20, who are among the first Earth-sized planets to be confirmed, but are likely too hot for life. Kepler-22b is a much larger 'super-Earth' planet orbiting another star (Kepler-22) at a distance that is considered to be in the habitable zone, hence the temperatures on that planet are more likely in the right range for life as we know it.

There may come a time where it becomes possible to directly image planets orbiting other stars, and find visual evidence of life, although it is a long way off. Astronomy effectively is spectroscopy i.e. the measurement of light, and hence it will most likely be the route by which we learn of extraterrestrial life (the alternative being that either we visit them or they visit us).

Part of the problem is knowing where to look - but probes like Kepler are already finding loads of new candidates, and even more powerful telescopes will be trained on the best candidates in the future. There may well be a limit to what is physically possible, and it may well be that we cannot image planets directly beyond a certain distance - and that distance may be low enough to rule out all but a tiny handful of candidate planets. That said, if we could directly image the surface of extrasolar planets, I reckon the discovery of extraterrestrial life would follow very soon after.

The discovery of these super-Earths poses the interesting additional problem that our notion of how solar systems arise, formed during the time when ours was the only one we knew about, no longer appears adequate from a basic physics point of view.

http://www.nature.com/news/super-earths-give-theorists-a-super-headache-1.9636
These ‘super-Earths’ are emerging as a new category of planet — and they could be the most numerous of all (see ‘Super-Earths rising’). Their very existence upsets conventional models of planetary formation and, furthermore, most of them are in tight orbits around their host star, precisely where the modellers say they shouldn’t be.

“It poses a challenge,” says Douglas Lin, a planet-formation modeller and director of the Kavli Institute for Astronomy and Astrophysics at Peking University in Beijing, China. “You can’t just tweak the parameters. You need to think about the physics.”

Respectfully submitted,
Steve

 

[dhandeh]

Fascinating topic, just attempting to understand the basic's behind it all is mind boggling. Now the experts are baffled too! Makes me feel not as bad!

 

[Schwartz]

The discovery of Kepler-22b is almost as amazing as the Subaru Impreza 22B-STi

 

[Villain]

Fascinating topic, just attempting to understand the basic's behind it all is mind boggling. Now the experts are baffled too! Makes me feel not as bad!

It's exciting. Being baffled is a great way to learn. 'Tis a good day for astronomy.

 

[Ellis]

Maybe on this planet there lies a video game about a dragonborn taking an arrow in the knee and a guard being an adventurer?

 

[sumbrownkid]

The discovery of Kepler-22b is almost as amazing as the Subaru Impreza 22B-STi

This.

But I'll say it here folks, if oil is discovered there, expect NASA to get added funding from oil companies...

 

[Matty]

The odd thing is though, surely if we're 600 light years away we can only see that planet as it would have been 600+ years ago correct? So saying there is or isn't life would be a rough guess, and when we see it from a better telescope it's still gonna be hard to say how civilised they are as if they were looking at earth from a telescope it would be the 1400's? Correct?

Think do they play gran turismo on the Xbox and Forza on a ps3?

 

[Schwartz]

Think do they play gran turismo on the Xbox and Forza on a ps3?

I don't think Yazunori Kamauchi would ever let that happen.

 

[Matty]

I don't think Yazunori Kamauchi would ever let that happen.

Don't you mean Kazunori Yamauchi?

Nevermind I get it now

 

[Lain]

Very awesome discovery.

Regarding the possibility of us colonizing that planet... it's possible. It'd take forever, but assuming we could at least maintain half light speed for the vast majority of the trip, we could be there in as little as 1200 years.

Then it'll only be another 600 years for them to send back a message to Earth confirming that they've arrived in one piece... assuming we're still here.

Obviously with a journey that lengthy, we're gonna need a ship that can be self-sustaining for at least that long. Perhaps the crew would be cryogenically frozen for the bulk of the voyage, only being awoken for landing or in case of dire emergency.

 

[PeterJB]

The odd thing is though, surely if we're 600 light years away we can only see that planet as it would have been 600+ years ago correct? So saying there is or isn't life would be a rough guess, and when we see it from a better telescope it's still gonna be hard to say how civilised they are as if they were looking at earth from a telescope it would be the 1400's? Correct?

Think do they play gran turismo on the Xbox and Forza on a ps3?

Correct, if it happens to be roughly identical to the Earth, then we would be seeing them in the middle ages. For all we know they could be staring right back at us and seeing the same thing.

 

[E28]

Correct, if it happens to be roughly identical to the Earth, then we would be seeing them in the middle ages. For all we know they could be staring right back at us and seeing the same thing.

In which case they're seeing us as people who'll believe anything that's said by some guy who's had 'a vision from god'.

 

[BobK]

The odd thing is though, surely if we're 600 light years away we can only see that planet as it would have been 600+ years ago correct? So saying there is or isn't life would be a rough guess, and when we see it from a better telescope it's still gonna be hard to say how civilised they are as if they were looking at earth from a telescope it would be the 1400's? Correct?

Think do they play gran turismo on the Xbox and Forza on a ps3?

Keep in mind that we cannot actually see this planet at all. We've only inferred its existence from the minute dimming of its sun as the planet transits its face.

I find it ridiculous that almost every article you find on exoplanets has an image or three of the planets in question. In every instance these images are artists' conceptions, meaning they're completely made up, they're purely fictional. There is only one expolanet that we've directly imaged to my knowlege, and the image is perhaps a half dozen pixels while the planet itself is several times as large as Jupiter if I recall correctly.

But yeah, whatever we do see would be 600 years old.

 

[Dennisch]

Keep in mind that we cannot actually see this planet at all. We've only inferred its existence from the minute dimming of its sun as the planet transits its face.

I find it ridiculous that almost every article you find on exoplanets has an image or three of the planets in question. In every instance these images are artists' conceptions, meaning they're completely made up, they're purely fictional. There is only one expolanet that we've directly imaged to my knowlege, and the image is perhaps a half dozen pixels while the planet itself is several times as large as Jupiter if I recall correctly.

But yeah, whatever we do see would be 600 years old.

That. The same goes for rendering of possible life on other planets.

 

[Sam48]

You know we're being overly optimistic about life elsewhere when we believe a planet we cannot really see, is 600 light years away, may have no atmosphere, may be similar to Neptune, could be completely gaseous, or completely lifeless all together, is considered one of our best discoveries yet.

 

[Dennisch]

We need a bigger telescope in space.

 

[PeterJB]

The James Webb Telescope is on it's way.

 

[Dennisch]

The James Webb Telescope is on it's way.

2014 is it? We need it now!

 

[Matty]

In which case they're seeing us as people who'll believe anything that's said by some guy who's had 'a vision from god'.

No that would be the years 30-33AD your on about. They'd see us sometime around the 1400's. 👍

 

[homeforsummer]

You know we're being overly optimistic about life elsewhere when we believe a planet we cannot really see, is 600 light years away, may have no atmosphere, may be similar to Neptune, could be completely gaseous, or completely lifeless all together, is considered one of our best discoveries yet.

I was going to debate your use of the word optimism, but instead I'll change it around slightly.

The concept of life elsewhere isn't optimistic in the slightest (given the enormity of space), but assuming that one of the tiny handful of "Goldilocks zone" planets we've learned much about has life is pretty optimistic, for the same reason (incredible odds of finding a planet with life amongst the billions of possibilities).

Even then, life is a very loose term. There's a likelihood that basic life could be found elsewhere in our own solar system, let alone on another planet. Now intelligent life is a different matter.