WASHINGTON (AP) — Astronomers say they have for the first time spotted a planet beyond our own in what is sometimes called the Goldilocks zone for life: Not too hot, not too cold. Juuuust right.
Not too far from its star, not too close. So it could contain liquid water. The planet itself is neither too big nor too small for the proper surface, gravity and atmosphere.
It’s just right. Just like Earth.
“This really is the first Goldilocks planet,” said co-discoverer R. Paul Butler of the Carnegie Institution of Washington.
The new planet sits smack in the middle of what astronomers refer to as the habitable zone, unlike any of the nearly 500 other planets astronomers have found outside our solar system. And it is in our galactic neighborhood, suggesting that plenty of Earth-like planets circle other stars.
Finding a planet that could potentially support life is a major step toward answering the timeless question: Are we alone?
Scientists have jumped the gun before on proclaiming that planets outside our solar system were habitable only to have them turn out to be not quite so conducive to life. But this one is so clearly in the right zone that five outside astronomers told The Associated Press it seems to be the real thing.
“This is the first one I’m truly excited about,” said Penn State University’s Jim Kasting. He said this planet is a “pretty prime candidate” for harboring life.
Life on other planets doesn’t mean E.T. Even a simple single-cell bacteria or the equivalent of shower mold would shake perceptions about the uniqueness of life on Earth.
But there are still many unanswered questions about this strange planet. It is about three times the mass of Earth, slightly larger in width and much closer to its star — 14 million miles away versus 93 million. It’s so close to its version of the sun that it orbits every 37 days. And it doesn’t rotate much, so one side is almost always bright, the other dark.
Temperatures can be as hot as 160 degrees or as frigid as 25 degrees below zero, but in between — in the land of constant sunrise — it would be “shirt-sleeve weather,” said co-discoverer Steven Vogt of the University of California at Santa Cruz.
It’s unknown whether water actually exists on the planet, and what kind of atmosphere it has. But because conditions are ideal for liquid water, and because there always seems to be life on Earth where there is water, Vogt believes “that chances for life on this planet are 100 percent.”
The astronomers’ findings are being published in Astrophysical Journal and were announced by the National Science Foundation on Wednesday.
The planet circles a star called Gliese 581. It’s about 120 trillion miles away, so it would take several generations for a spaceship to get there. It may seem like a long distance, but in the scheme of the vast universe, this planet is “like right in our face, right next door to us,” Vogt said in an interview.
That close proximity and the way it was found so early in astronomers’ search for habitable planets hints to scientists that planets like Earth are probably not that rare.
Vogt and Butler ran some calculations, with giant fudge factors built in, and figured that as much as one out of five to 10 stars in the universe have planets that are Earth-sized and in the habitable zone.
With an estimated 200 billion stars in the universe, that means maybe 40 billion planets that have the potential for life, Vogt said. However, Ohio State University’s Scott Gaudi cautioned that is too speculative about how common these planets are.
Vogt and Butler used ground-based telescopes to track the star’s precise movements over 11 years and watch for wobbles that indicate planets are circling it. The newly discovered planet is actually the sixth found circling Gliese 581. Two looked promising for habitability for a while, another turned out to be too hot and the fifth is likely too cold. This sixth one bracketed right in the sweet spot in between, Vogt said.
With the star designated “a,” its sixth planet is called Gliese 581g.
“It‘s not a very interesting name and it’s a beautiful planet,” Vogt said. Unofficially, he’s named it after his wife: “I call it Zarmina’s World.”
The star Gliese 581 is a dwarf, about one-third the strength of our sun. Because of that, it can’t be seen without a telescope from Earth, although it is in the Libra constellation, Vogt said.
But if you were standing on this new planet, you could easily see our sun, Butler said.
The low-energy dwarf star will live on for billions of years, much longer than our sun, he said. And that just increases the likelihood of life developing on the planet, the discoverers said.
“It’s pretty hard to stop life once you give it the right conditions,” Vogt said.
___
Online:
The National Science Foundation: www.nsf.gov
NASA: http://www.nasa.gov/topics/universe/features/gliese_581_feature.html
Submitting your tip... please wait!
Comments (104)
LJ_4_JESUS
Posted on September 30, 2010 at 9:21amRevelation of John 21:1 And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea.
Report Post »Even so come quickly Lord Jesus
LittleLordFauntleroy
Posted on September 30, 2010 at 9:16amEarth- The Conservative Planet
Report Post »Goldilocks- The Progressive Planet
The shuttle leaves at noon.
redneckgenius
Posted on September 30, 2010 at 8:43amBarry(potus) needs another vacation… lets see if we can get him to go.
Report Post »Spirit-of-76
Posted on September 30, 2010 at 8:38amNot a collosal waste of space. God made it collosal so we would have no doubt of His existence. God’s general revelation of Himself is nature.
Report Post »Graythinker
Posted on September 30, 2010 at 8:29amBeam me up scotty I am ready…..
Report Post »RobR
Posted on September 30, 2010 at 7:52amMaybe NASA can stop stroking the muslim world just long enough to check this planet out.
This way when “ We the People ”, through the newly elected Republican party can impeach and then banish the Grimm’s Fairy Tale currently entrenched in our White House.
Report Post »Maybe the GEESE Know More than the BEES Know
Posted on September 30, 2010 at 7:28amas an artist, I love your work. the detail, movement and feeling of true Americana. do you ever work with color or paints?
Report Post »grandmaof5
Posted on September 30, 2010 at 7:18amGreat pictures! I, too, hope you do well and live your dream.
Report Post »Jack27
Posted on September 30, 2010 at 7:04amOnly 20 light years away, why wait we could send our first settlers now, it should be the smartest people we have, and who could beat Obama and his czars out on that one. Great find.
Report Post »mutt
Posted on September 30, 2010 at 6:56amThis planet has obviously been named after Joe Biden, which would explain why his mind is so far out there.
Report Post »roninshaman
Posted on September 30, 2010 at 6:15amYour struggle is obviously not because of lack of talent. I’ve done a few dozen portfolio reviews in my career and art direction of some incredible talent, so believe me when I say, you are good.
Report Post »Keep it up and keep the Faith.
benrush
Posted on September 30, 2010 at 4:56amIf you could hie to Kolob, in the twinkling of an eye……….
Report Post »Joseph_Plumb_Martin
Posted on September 30, 2010 at 10:33amSo we finally get to talk to your man-god? Wonder how ol Joe Smith is doing?
Report Post »JJ Coolay
Posted on September 30, 2010 at 3:48amFawcett: very cool drawings. I love the horses.
Report Post »ThePlainTruth
Posted on September 30, 2010 at 3:05amWe had better hope that Russia, China or maybe even Iran will let us hitch a ride as we killed our own space program.
Why is it that I never see the why did Obama do this?
If he can spend money like he is doing then why cut the constellation mission back to the moon???
Then pay Russia 50 million for a ride to the space station?
Answer:
1. We need Russia for one reason, they are strategically placed and we need to them for our war in Afghanistan.
2. We owe China so much cash, we know the hold all of the aces, they can pull the plug on the dollar anytime they want.
But why are Russia and China racing to the moon???
Research helium 3, that is why they are racing, whomever gets there first with a mining operation will run the globe in 40 years.
Report Post »Thats why Obama cut it, to simply buy us some time and delay our eventual fall.
Okpulot Taha
Posted on September 30, 2010 at 3:10amPLAIN TRUTH asks, “But why are Russia and China racing to the moon?”
There is a severe shortage of cheese in Russia and in China.
No shortage here, politicians cut the cheese for us everyday.
Okpulot Taha
Report Post »Choctaw Nation
Okpulot Taha
Posted on September 30, 2010 at 2:27amGliese 581g our next door neighbor! Gliese 581g is not the only planet in the Gliese solar system which could support life. Only 20 light years away, we could send a message in just under 10 minutes. A responsible message to send to the good peoples of Gliese 581g is,
“Danger! Stay away from our planet. We are all lunatics.”
Okpulot Taha
Report Post »Choctaw Nation
JJ Coolay
Posted on September 30, 2010 at 3:59amUnder 10 minutes?
What kind of messaging service are you using that travels at 200 billions miles per second?
The speed of light only moves at 186 thousand miles per second and that’s pretty screaming fast.
Report Post »JJ Coolay
Posted on September 30, 2010 at 4:22amThe sun is 93 million miles away…but for the sake of argument lets round that to an even 100 million miles away.
Report Post »If the message moved at 200 billion miles per second, the rate at which you said would take under 10 minutes to get from here to a planet that’s 120 trillion miles away, a message could reach the sun in 1/2000s of a second. Or, it would circle the earth 8 million times in one second.
Okpulot Taha
Posted on September 30, 2010 at 9:28amJJ COOLAY nibbles on my bait, “Under 10 minutes? What kind of messaging service are you using…?”
Gliese 581g is on the Verizon 4G Network which is twice as fast as the speed of light! God said so.
Okpulot Taha
Report Post »Choctaw Nation
JJ Coolay
Posted on September 30, 2010 at 10:13amSweet…. so now you’re up to almost 400k miles per second. Gettin there!
Report Post »BetterDays
Posted on September 30, 2010 at 1:10amGod calls Earth a world, he GOD goes on to say there are ten thousands of worlds, so this isn’t news to me. Other than we, after 6000 of sins decay, thinking WE are the smartest beings ever (leftist theology), find a planet that we can’t see, can only conjecture about, and because it fits the “paramiters” we “think” are right for life we are therfor ready to ship out. This really points to the sad state of affairs here doesn’t it? Anyway, does anyone here really think GODs gonna let “sin” wander His universe?
Report Post »Deutscher
Posted on September 30, 2010 at 1:19amIt’s late. But that makes no sense to me.
Report Post »Joseph_Plumb_Martin
Posted on September 30, 2010 at 1:58amYay they found Kolob
Report Post »stringjr
Posted on September 30, 2010 at 11:39amWhat are you rambling about?
Report Post »gmh5760
Posted on October 1, 2010 at 7:40amFirst of all, your opening sentences are full of babble and gibberish. Nothing more.
Report Post »Second, we ARE the most intelligent beings (so far discovered). But I feel that for some we make exceptions, such as yourself.
Third: NOBODY except people like you have even mentioned “shipping out”. Of course the question rises as to how long it would take to get there because the level of our excitement about the discovery somewhat depends upon this information. Much more exciting when its almost in your back yard. Most will be excited over the discovery alone, and its implications. Imaging, we may no longer live in universe where we are unsure if we are alone in it.
Fourth: There is NOTHING wrong with conjecture, as ALL of our great ideas pass through this phase. It is part of the “imagination-to-reality” process.
Fifth: Are you suggesting that the “parameters” that we “think” are suitable for life are incorrect? These are not guesses. They are simply the tolerances of the beings. We are well aware of the conditions required to support ourselves. No guessing there.
Sixth: “…does anyone here really think [gods] gonna let ‘sin’ wander [his] universe?” What the HELL are you talking about?!?! Who said there was a god? We are talking about science here, not about unproven theories and ideologies based on imaginary friends.
Last, but certainly not least: WHAT sad state of affairs are you talking about? You really have a problem with exploration, don’t you? Or is it the third dimension (up) of it that bothers you? Where would we be without exploration? The only exploration the human race should regret is when you dad explored your mom. Kill yourself.
Goldenyears22
Posted on September 30, 2010 at 1:10amI did and you are good. I hope that your works will become famous and you don’t have to struggle any more.
Report Post »Mike777
Posted on September 30, 2010 at 12:49amYAY maybe we can send all the progressives there to spread the wealth.
Report Post »pamela kay
Posted on September 30, 2010 at 12:44amMaybe all the progressives will go there. Crap, we won’t have any one from hollywood to make movies. We probably will still have most of country music though. Oooooooo but wait, the progressives have alot of money. They will still try to destroy us. They could never be satisfied with only ruling one planet. They would at first think that we unworthy souls will be to stupid to survive, but when we do they will never be able to let all the hate go. I wonder what they will call their new world? They might want to consider that all the dictators from all the crazy radical countries will have the money to go too. Sounds like a new movie straight from hollywood doesn’t it? I’ll take my chances here in the land that I love. I will put my trust in God as I always have and face what comes in the best way that I can.
Report Post »AMERICA4EVER
Posted on September 30, 2010 at 12:32amI read it would take 220 years to get there if we started now. That means the first year into the journey, Washington would already have figured out how to tax us when we get there.
Report Post »JJ Coolay
Posted on September 30, 2010 at 3:52amGonna need a faster spaceship.
Report Post »JJ Coolay
Posted on September 30, 2010 at 4:36amBased on the Space Shuttles speed of less than 18 thousand miles an hour it would take 600 years.
Report Post »JJ Coolay
Posted on September 30, 2010 at 4:56amWhoops….missed a few zeroes in my math.
It would actually take 600 thousand years in the space shuttle.
18 thousand miles and hour is 432,000 miles per day which is about 157 million per year
It would take 6 years to travel a billion miles.
600 years to travel 100 billion miles.
6000 years to travel 1 trillion and that’s 1/120th of the trip.
Unless we build a spaceship that can travel at around a billion miles per hour (which would still take about 15 years to get there) then we’ll never get there.
Report Post »Psychosis
Posted on September 30, 2010 at 5:47am@JJ Coolay WHO CARES HOW LONG IT TAKES do you care how long it takes for crap to reach its destination once you flush or are you just happy the stink is gone? lol
Report Post »JJ Coolay
Posted on September 30, 2010 at 6:58amPyshosis: If it meant shipping off the crap in Washington… nope!
Report Post »I’m just shootin the shizzle about how far away 120 trillion miles is…… pretty unfathomably far.
toongoon
Posted on September 30, 2010 at 5:48pmI’ve got a big box with real cool dials drawn in it and I cut out a window so I can see out at the other planets and meteors. I also drew an american flag on the outside and rocket flames too. I’ll offer it to the president and he can go visit the new planet. Its all ready to go now.
Report Post »Deutscher
Posted on September 30, 2010 at 12:30amAgreed! Otherwise a colossal waste of space
Report Post »spendthrift
Posted on September 30, 2010 at 12:28amMaybe we can send all of the progressives there and have their followers propel the progressive agenda from the rear end.
Report Post »Deutscher
Posted on September 30, 2010 at 12:34amAw come on. It’s a nice science piece.
Report Post »What does that even mean “ propelled from the rear end”?
Sunnyr
Posted on September 30, 2010 at 12:37amlol! I was just going to post the same thing. We can dream!! This country would be so great without all the trash and they would probably be happier too.
Report Post »Deutscher
Posted on September 30, 2010 at 12:50amReally? We can’t even have a science piece without name calling?
“trash” ? This is how you think of people you disagree with? What would you do with your daughter if she had progressive ideas, call her trash?
Can’t we be proud of our scientific accomplishments and do the bashing elsewhere?
Report Post »BlueStrat
Posted on September 30, 2010 at 12:51amAh-HA!!
A destination for our new NASA project…a Progressive-filled “B-Ark”!
Now, how to convince the Progressives that a giant space-goat is about to eat Earth…
Report Post »Mithra
Posted on September 30, 2010 at 2:41amMaybe it’s where the Christians will go when the rapture happens.
Report Post »JJ Coolay
Posted on September 30, 2010 at 3:51amMithra… you mock. But someday you won’t.
Report Post »SaneRoger
Posted on September 30, 2010 at 12:26amInteresting. I wonder if they have Quiznos there?
Report Post »Huckabee Gingrich 12
Posted on September 30, 2010 at 1:55amMaybe that’s where all the closed franchises are moving to. The last time (and it really was the last time) I ate at a Quiznos, I was disgusted not only by the food, but by the slovenly appearance of the unshaven, tattooed/pierced person who prepared it. I get a little nauseous just thinking about it.
Report Post »thesixfour
Posted on September 30, 2010 at 8:54amtattoos do NOT make you a gross person. I wish people would stop this stereotype. tattoos dont “come off” and most tattoo shops these days have pretty high safety and health standards or they’d be out of business.
Now piercings and being unshaven/unclean in food service… thats a different story. (hair and possible nasty metal that’s been hanging in a most likely infected hole in their body falling off them into your food – ick)
Report Post »Deutscher
Posted on September 30, 2010 at 12:21amFirst
Report Post »joseph Fawcett
Posted on September 30, 2010 at 12:26amSecond,
Report Post »Deutscher
Posted on September 30, 2010 at 12:27amWell almost first:-)
Report Post »Huckabee Gingrich 12
Posted on September 30, 2010 at 1:41amAre you posting from a second grade classroom?
Report Post »TomBombadil
Posted on September 30, 2010 at 12:18am“‘It’s pretty hard to stop life once you give it the right conditions,’ Vogt said.”
Sure, a complex strand of over 250 proteins arranged in exactly the right order to be the very minimum form of life known to man, randomly developing such complex chemicals and reactions as to create a single cell that will eventually, again randomly, figure out that sticking multiple cells together works better CAN be hard to stop. It’s also bloody impossible to start.
Unless you’re, say, God.
It‘s cool that we’re discovering planets, though. I approve!
joseph Fawcett
Posted on September 30, 2010 at 12:25amLove your comment! Amen to that!
Report Post »Psychosis
Posted on September 30, 2010 at 12:54amITS PERFECT..SHORT SLEEVE WEATHER!!!!!!!!
Now if we could just get the liberals, progressives, communists, and socialists along with their great leader obama and the rest of idiots on a big ship and send them there so they could create their utopia
on their own it would be great.
im willing to cough up a couple thousand dollars and a whole bunch of my time to help them with a one way ticket lol
Report Post »Mithra
Posted on September 30, 2010 at 2:40amAnd I wonder if their inhabitants have invented a god yet to explain the things they don’t understand amd to pray and sacrifice to.
Report Post »Okpulot Taha
Posted on September 30, 2010 at 3:03amMITHRA delights me, “And I wonder if their inhabitants have invented a god yet to explain the things they don’t understand amd to pray and sacrifice to.”
Yes, and their Gliese god is bigger than our god.
Christians be forewarned, if you send your Christian soldiers to conquer Gliese 581g your heavenly soldiers will have their self-righteous butts kicked clean over the Gliese 581g moon.
Okpulot Taha
Report Post »Choctaw Nation
JJ Coolay
Posted on September 30, 2010 at 3:43amlol Psychosis…. me too!! I’ll donate. The ship needs to leave soon though!
Report Post »JJ Coolay
Posted on September 30, 2010 at 3:44amOkpulot…. what does that even mean????
Report Post »M.Witherington
Posted on September 30, 2010 at 6:00amScientists have already tried for decades putting all the amino acids, proteins, minerals, and whatever else they can think of into containers and keeping precise temperatures: then zapped the soup with everyting from electricity to gama rays and they only got really bad soup. Life begins and ends when God says so, not chance.
Report Post »starman70
Posted on September 30, 2010 at 8:25amFor M. Witherington,
AMEN brother, well said! Scientists are nor GOD and they will never be able to do what GOD can do!
Report Post »the real Deimos
Posted on September 30, 2010 at 8:27amThere are scientific laws that govern this universe, gravity, thermodynamic, etc. One of those laws is The Law of Biogenesis, and it states that life comes only from life, period. Life can not spontaneously arise out of non-living material. So unless some supernatural act of creation made life on that planet, there isn’t any.
Report Post »Onward2Victory
Posted on September 30, 2010 at 8:37amMaybe we can move there after the left completes their colonization of earth.
Report Post »Indomitus
Posted on September 30, 2010 at 10:09amWe have obserrved an estimated 100,000,000,000 (100 Billion) galaxies, each with 100,000,000,000 (100 Billion) stars. That is 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 (10 Septillion) stars, spread out over such a distance in space-time that it took light itself 15,000,000,000 years to travel from the furthest of these to reach our electronic eyes, And every single one of these stars is so large it defies a proper conceptualization in the human mind. And we humans are so intelligent and so wise. we think we really understand all that is and all that is possible within the immense span of not only this one Universe, but in all the infinity of space-time and beyond.
Well, kudos to you – both you scientific fundamentalists and you religious fundamenatlaists – you who populate these pages with your definitive assertions of certitude regarding all that is: the gross the subtle, and the sublime. You are much smarter than I, and you obviously have all the answers …
“Reason is the light that must be shone upon the path, not used to blind us to it; faith gives us the strength to follow where it leads. Blind faith, whether in reason or in God, will leave you in darkness all the same.” Indomitus Ingenuus
Report Post »IKW
Posted on September 30, 2010 at 10:38amNow who is to say that we are the only thing God ever created? Thinking that God only created us is tremendously arrogant and I prefer to NOT put limits on God…I‘m fearful that He may not agree with me so I’ll just be over here doing the work while others find it prudent to define the undefinable, to limit the Almighty. :-)
IKW
Report Post »killray
Posted on September 30, 2010 at 11:13amhigh 5
Report Post »stringjr
Posted on September 30, 2010 at 11:35amIDIC – Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations. Widen your horizons.
Report Post »ILFarmer
Posted on September 30, 2010 at 6:30pmactually, you can’t see anything beyond ~13billion LY away thus dating the universe to that age. God can still exist. The earth isn’t flat, we aren‘t at the center of the solar system and the sun isn’t at the center of the galaxy or universe. We are infinitesimally small in this universe and if God is all seeing and all knowing, what is to say that God didn’t create other worlds, other lifeforms, and other cultures beyond that of humans? Humans are special on Earth, but in the entirety of the universe, special we aren’t, but unique we are.
What’s neat is that this planet is within our radio bubble (how long we have been transmitting signals strong enough to leave the boundaries of Earth; approx. 70 years). So if another life form was advanced enough to transmit and receive radio signals from earth, they would have been able to respond back by now as well. However, life could still be too undeveloped there to do so, or too advanced to use radio communications as we know them. Or if there was a civilization there, they could be long gone by now too. Humans have only existed on Earth for a measly 10,000 years. A small bump on the geological road. But to think that there isn’t other life out there for use to find is immature.
Agree with me or not, but that’s how i see things.
Report Post »gmh5760
Posted on October 1, 2010 at 7:03amWe humans actually do pretty well at playing god. About reaching the point where it would be fair to say we are neck and neck. Not too much more that he has done that we haven’t.
Report Post »patty
Posted on October 1, 2010 at 7:37amGOD IS AWESOME!!!!!!…He made the earth and us why not make more earth type planets!
Report Post »