Hubble secret out!

[blobrana]

Hum,

it looks like The Hubble Space Telescope may have discovered as many as 100 new planets orbiting stars in our galaxy, after observing thousands of stars in the central  bulge of the Milky Way.

And if confirmed it would almost double the number of planets known to be circling other stars to about 230!.

The discovery will lend support to the idea that almost every sunlike star in our galaxy, and probably the Universe, is accompanied by planets.  

And on those planets....

[Speelgoedmannetje]

In theory that is I think
They compute the minimal swinging of a star possibly caused by a major planet (in our solar system that would be Jupiter)

[KennyR]

Blobrana wrote:
The discovery will lend support to the idea that almost every sunlike star in our galaxy, and probably the Universe, is accompanied by planets.

And on those planets....

...and on those planets, nothing much, since to be detected by the orbital 'wobble' technique a planet has to be several times the size of Jupiter!

If such a large planet is so close to the star its probably unlikely that there are rocky planets within the habitable zone. They'd have been hoovered up by these giant gas beasts long ago.

Instead of finding where there might be life, Hubble might be telling us where it definitely won't be.

[blobrana]

Hum,
yea perhaps...
either way , it`s important...




[BTW, i`m a believer in galactic lifeforms - including those on gas giants...] :-)

[KennyR]

[BTW, i`m a believer in galactic lifeforms - including those on gas giants...]

Oh, those gas giants where the surface temperature is a couple of hundred degrees C, laced with hydrogen cyanide clouds, the gravity is 20 times Earth's, and the background radiation caused by the magnetic field is more than an unshielded nuclear reactor? ;-)

[T_Bone]

KennyR wrote:

[BTW, i`m a believer in galactic lifeforms - including those on gas giants...]

Oh, those gas giants where the surface temperature is a couple of hundred degrees C, laced with hydrogen cyanide clouds, the gravity is 20 times Earth's, and the background radiation caused by the magnetic field is more than an unshielded nuclear reactor? ;-)

 :lol:

So what's your point? ;-)

[bloodline]

KennyR wrote:

[BTW, i`m a believer in galactic lifeforms - including those on gas giants...]

Oh, those gas giants where the surface temperature is a couple of hundred degrees C, laced with hydrogen cyanide clouds, the gravity is 20 times Earth's, and the background radiation caused by the magnetic field is more than an unshielded nuclear reactor? ;-)

Sounds like Glasgow in the summer to me :-)

[PMC]

blobrana wrote:

[BTW, i`m a believer in galactic lifeforms - including those on gas giants...] :-)

Once again citing Arthur C Clarke, in 2010 he describes lifeforms living in Jupiter's atmosphere which are essentially living zeppelins, and part of a huge ecosystems of similar lifeforms, "none of which are any more substantial than a soap bubble".

I'm absolutely intrigued by what could be lying under Europa's ice crust as scientists are confident that there is a liquid ocean there.  With the huge gravity of nearby Jupiter massaging the moon's core there is also the possibility of geothermal activity releasing energies to support life in much the same way that deep ocean vents do in Earth.

[gizz72]

Greetings Blob,

Maybe there is a higher intelligent life forms that do exists that can communicate by radio frequencies, but there is also a high probability chance such a life form would indeed exists on/under those planets. :idea:

Even if they do, they'd be too far from earth to be heard or we'd be looong gone by the time such signal(like ..hello world...) is detectable. Unless we travel to those systems with "Warp" engines. >Whoosh<

BTW, any word from SETI from those planets? I bet, they got all ears there? :-)

Regards,

Gizz

[whabang]

@Kenny
Well, it ain't impossible that those gas gigants have moons. It is possible that the gravity of such a "super planet" could cause enough friction in an eventual moon that both survivable temperatures, and a protecting magnetic field could exist.

Just not very likely, though... :-D

[blobrana]

>>Just not very likely, though...

Hum,
 don't know about that - i presume that the star systems too would have `Oort Clouds` (by default, in the process of planet formation)...and that some would have been captured by orbiting gas giants, and coalesced into miniature (awe) `planetary` systems...

And perhaps even as i speak/type the alien invasion fleet is being launch...

i look forward to the launch of the next generation space telescopes to find out.
 :-)

[whabang]

blobrana wrote:
>>Just not very likely, though...

Hum,
 don't know about that - i presume that the star systems too would have `Oort Clouds` (by default, in the process of planet formation)...and that some would have been captured by orbiting gas giants, and coalesced into miniature (awe) `planetary` systems...

And perhaps even as i speak/type the alien invasion fleet is being launch...

i look forward to the launch of the next generation space telescopes to find out.
 :-)

Basically "not very likely"  means one in a million. And there are more than a million stars in the Milky way.
We shouldn't forget about the thousainds of systems that look very much like ours. That's where I'd look first!

[PMC]

whabang wrote:

Basically "not very likely"  means one in a million. And there are more than a million stars in the Milky way.
We shouldn't forget about the thousainds of systems that look very much like ours. That's where I'd look first!

There are more stars in the skies than grains of sand on all the beaches on Earth.  

Finding something is only a matter of time IMHO, if one in every million stars have planets, and one in every million of those has life and one in every million of those supports a technoligically advanced civilization then there's still a chance that we aren't alone in this galaxy.  

[blobrana]

Hear, Hear!,
"there`s more stars than all the snowflakes that have ever fallen on planet earth, and that includes the Amiga Corporate website."

At last count[?] there was 400 billion stars in this milky way galaxy...

[PMC]

blobrana wrote:
At last count[?] there was 400 billion stars in this milky way galaxy...

I didn't realise there were so many...  How big is the Milky way, isn't it something like 100 million LY across?

If the human history of Earth is anything to go by, the existance of civilizations may be all too brief for a two way radio conversation with someone tens of hundreds of light years away.