A group of astronomers claim to have detected an earth sized planet orbiting Alpha Centari B. If verified this would be the closest exo planet yet.
http://news.yahoo.com/earth-sized-planet-found-just-outside-solar-system-214232222.html

---

Bob DeWoody

My motto: Never do today what you can put off until tomorrow as it may not be required. This no longer applies in light of current events.

Yes! They found a planet and it's real.

From the article Bob, found.

"If there are any inhabitants there, they're made of asbestos," joked Shostak.


Earth-sized planet found just outside solar system

But they also speculate that other cooler planets are probable in that system. As far as going there is concerned it still may as well be on the other side of the galaxy. But it's looking more like nearby stars have the right stuff for planet formation.

---

Bob DeWoody

My motto: Never do today what you can put off until tomorrow as it may not be required. This no longer applies in light of current events.

But they also speculate that other cooler planets are probable in that system. As far as going there is concerned it still may as well be on the other side of the galaxy. But it's looking more like nearby stars have the right stuff for planet formation.

You have to use your imagination right now when it comes to the cosmos. If there is another planet like Earth with oceans, atmosphere, clouds it's either nearby or very far away. It does look promising but there is so much stuff out there it's incredibly hard to detect them, very fascinating news though.

Perhaps, that planet has a habitable zone between the hot/cold regions.
If checking the planet, someday, should reveal biological
traces in the atmosphere, that possibility might be strengthened.

jm

---

I remember not so long ago that it was considered practically impossible for a binary or trinary system to have planetary bodies and that little or no possibility was given for any of the Centari stars to have planets. How quickly things change when the right tools become available.

---

Bob DeWoody

My motto: Never do today what you can put off until tomorrow as it may not be required. This no longer applies in light of current events.

Dr. Shostak, at the SETI Institute, says they are considering scanning Alpha Centauri with the Allen Telescope Array. They have been looking at the planets turned up by the Kepler Space Telescope. These planets are at an average distance of about 2250 light years. A signal of the same intrinsic power from Alpha Centauri B would typically appear several hundred thousand times stronger than from one these more distant planets, due to the comparatively negligible distance of Alpha Centauri.
Alpha Centauri B has a metallicity 160 percent of the Sun, making the existence of additional rocky planets seem probable; perhaps one or more of them in the star's habitable zone. The Alpha Centauri system is thought to be be about 6 billion years old, apparently allowing sufficient time for intelligent life to develop.

No one caught my error, I see. The Allen Telescope array is too far North for Alpha Centauri to be visible to it. I assume that that Dr. Shostak meant that the SETI institute was considering using an appropriately placed radio telescope, low in the Northern hemisphere, or in the Southern hemisphere to examine Alpha Centauri.

Why not put a radio telescope in a rocket (or perhaps a space shuttle if this program ever should be running again) and send it up into space?

Have radio telescopes ever been brought up into orbit? Is a receiving dish necessary or needed for using or utilizing a radio telescope? You really do not need to have a 305 m dish like Arecibo in order to carry out such a task. A 10-20 m dish should very much suffice when used in space.

Still the received signals need to be transmitted back to earth for further analysis, since like the Arecibo telescope itself, you will need computers in order for the received information to be analyzed further.

The absolute best place to have a radio telescope in operation, from earth's point of view, is the far side of our moon. Virtually no chance of a stray signal from earth getting picked up. It sweeps the entire sky once every 28+ days. It would also be a great place for an optical telescope as there is no atmosphere to compensate for. But it doesn't look like trips back to the moon are likely anytime soon.

---

Bob DeWoody

My motto: Never do today what you can put off until tomorrow as it may not be required. This no longer applies in light of current events.

The absolute best place to have a radio telescope in operation, from earth's point of view, is the far side of our moon. Virtually no chance of a stray signal from earth getting picked up. It sweeps the entire sky once every 28+ days. It would also be a great place for an optical telescope as there is no atmosphere to compensate for. But it doesn't look like trips back to the moon are likely anytime soon.

That's an old idea that keeps on popping up. Unfortunately, the moon would be a logistics nightmare. Also, electrostatic dust and extreme temperature swings are just two irksome problems...

Better and easier is put an array way out in orbit at one of the Lagrange points or even beyond.


Keep searchin',
Martin

---

See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3)