DeathProof

Earth's Near Twin?

I was expecting this to happen sooner or later. Your thoughts?

Ustwo

The planet weighs about 45 times the mass of Earth and completes one orbit every 260 days

Our twin needs slimfast.

The title should be 'Really Big Ass Planet in Goldilocks Zone'.

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Infinite_Loser

I wonder how we'd be able to live on a planet that massive... Surely the gravity would crush us?

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inBOIL

The planet itself is not strongly considered a candidate for supporting life.

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tecoyah

It will likely....have moons

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Ustwo

So the title should be....

"Really Big Ass Planet Found in Goldilocks Zone, Which Might have a Moon Which We Haven't Detected, But If Its There, Might Have Liquid Water"

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Plan9

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Whatever you can carry.

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Nimetic

I guess that in the scheme of things, it's the same order of magnitude - mass wise. And I think their key point is that the temperature is "ok".

Gravity wise.... it's not necessarily 45 times as much as Earths. Might be, might not be. Dunno. Apart from density, it's going to depend somewhat on the diameter. Unless we have that, I strongly doubt that surface gravity can be calculated.

But I may be wrong.

albania

No, I think you're right on the money. The density probably doesn't come much into it since the safe bet is that it can be approximated well enough by a uniform object. In fact for a sphere of uniform mass the force of gravity is simply determined by the distance from the center of the sphere and the mass of the sphere. The neat part is that this is true even when you're inside the sphere if you know how much mass is below you!

Push-Pull

Hey Man, I got five kids.....

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Willravel

I've got another planet just like Earth. It's called Jupiter. It's the same as Earth, only it has the volume of 1,317 Earths. And it's a gas giant.

Plan9

Pluto isn't a planet anymore!

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Whatever you can carry.

"You should not drink... and bake."

genuinegirly

Couldn't they come up with a more exciting name?

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Willravel

Pluto got hosed.

Martian

Yeah, even I think Pluto kinda got shafted. It's all Eris' fault.

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I wake up in the morning more tired than before I slept
I get through cryin' and I'm sadder than before I wept
I get through thinkin' now, and the thoughts have left my head
I get through speakin' and I can't remember, not a word that I said

- Ben Harper, Show Me A Little Shame

Sion

"The planet weighs about 45 times the mass of Earth"


since weight and mass are two different things, this sentence is meaningless.

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Martian

Journalistic inaccuracy. Given that weight is subjective, I think it's safe to interpret the sentence as referring solely to the planet's mass.

__________________
I wake up in the morning more tired than before I slept
I get through cryin' and I'm sadder than before I wept
I get through thinkin' now, and the thoughts have left my head
I get through speakin' and I can't remember, not a word that I said

- Ben Harper, Show Me A Little Shame

KellyC

Excellent training ground for the Z Warriors.

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BadNick

This announcement/discovery doesn't really surprise me or impress me. With billions and billions and billions of galaxies, a large number will have stars with similar solar systems to what we have here. Some of those will have water, some might have life forms. Unless we find some loophole in physics that we don't know of now, we can't communicate with or get to any of these places. I think we might even find such a loophole/way to get there some day.

Martian

This isn't in another galaxy. In fact, despite the article's claims, it's hardly even a distant corner of our own. Our galaxy spans 100 000 light years; 40 ly is a proverbial stone's throw. Still, you're right that it was really an inevitable discovery.

__________________
I wake up in the morning more tired than before I slept
I get through cryin' and I'm sadder than before I wept
I get through thinkin' now, and the thoughts have left my head
I get through speakin' and I can't remember, not a word that I said

- Ben Harper, Show Me A Little Shame

DaveOrion

Oh yes, and this is no doubt the home planet of Dylan Hunt, Captain of the Andromeda (as played by Kevin Sorbo). He's from a heavy gravity planet so this must be the one!

Although I do prefer Doyle (played by Brandy Ledford)......



/end threadjack

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LazyBoy

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Nimetic

I think I'm more impressed that it was detectable. For sure, there are ways and means, but it's tiny object at a great distance. And a planet is neither massive (relatively speaking) nor bright.

Racnad

Getting exitied about the possibility of life based on the possibility of water on a possible moon of this planet is like getting excited about the $10 million I might possibly win from the lottery ticket I bought today.

Infinite_Loser

I'm not big on astronomy so I'm probably wrong, but I thought a planet's gravity was determined by it's size in relation to the distance from it's parent star. Seeing as how the planet in question is closer to it's star than Earth is to the sun and is much more massive, I simply assumed the gravity on the planet was larger. I'm probably wrong, though.

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Martian

You're right.

About being wrong, I mean. The star does exert a gravitational pull on the planet, but when dealing with the planetary surface it's not a significant factor. It's the mass of the planet and the distance from it that are the big numbers in the equation.

__________________
I wake up in the morning more tired than before I slept
I get through cryin' and I'm sadder than before I wept
I get through thinkin' now, and the thoughts have left my head
I get through speakin' and I can't remember, not a word that I said

- Ben Harper, Show Me A Little Shame

Challah

Other planets are pretty nifty, but we have a few issues here on Earth that we should probably look into before investing too much in space travel. Just sayin'.

Plan9

We should try this one first.

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Whatever you can carry.

"You should not drink... and bake."

Martian

For the sake of clarity here, nobody is seriously considering actually sending anything to 55 Cancri. We're just not that good yet; anything we built would be fast enough to get there within a reasonable timeframe. The planet itself is incapable of supporting life as we understand it and while there is a possibility of moons we're a very long way off from actually being able to detect them.

No, the sole reason this is significant is because of the location of the planet's orbit, which is direct evidence that planets other than Earth have formed within the proper zone to have water in liquid form. While that may not actually seem like that much to get worked up about, until now we didn't actually know if our little ball of dirt was unique in that regard.

__________________
I wake up in the morning more tired than before I slept
I get through cryin' and I'm sadder than before I wept
I get through thinkin' now, and the thoughts have left my head
I get through speakin' and I can't remember, not a word that I said

- Ben Harper, Show Me A Little Shame

ring

Spinning magma core?

which deflects the crud that would strip its atmosphere?

Sounds like it had better be 'TILTED'

What a project.

casual user

it seems that these dicoveries are happening in rapid succession. at this pace, they might have a candidate for new earth pinned down by the time i die

Martian

Gravity. So long as a planetoid has sufficient mass, it will develop an atmospheric envelope due to gravity holding the necessary gasses to the surface. This planet will be a gas giant, meaning it has a much larger and thicker atmosphere than our little rock. This, again, is primarily due to mass.

Unlikely. Our current technology allows us to detect planets that are sufficiently massive, but rocky Earth-like planets are a whole 'nother issue.

Stars a very big and very bright. Planets are not. Our current technology allows us to detect the very minute oscillations caused by very large planets. For small planets, this effect is negligible. Also, we can detect the minute shadow cast by a very large planet passing in front of a star, but a planet the size of Earth passing in front of even a very small and dim star would be a bit like a mosquito flying in front of a searchlight. And then, even if we do find a planet and devise a way of determining it's composition to decide whether it would be suitable for life (also currently impossible), we'd still have to figure out a way to get there in a timeframe that isn't longer than all of human existence to date. Barring some sort of technological windfall, expecting this to happen within the next century is wildly optimistic.

__________________
I wake up in the morning more tired than before I slept
I get through cryin' and I'm sadder than before I wept
I get through thinkin' now, and the thoughts have left my head
I get through speakin' and I can't remember, not a word that I said

- Ben Harper, Show Me A Little Shame

Sion

party pooper

__________________
He's the best, of course, of all the worst.
Some wrong been done, he done it first. -fz

I jus' want ta thank you...falettinme...be mice elf...agin...

Bear Cub

Can't we just send her by herself, and appoint her president of the new world?