Science OT: Way Cool "Close" Star Has SEVEN Earth-Type Planets!!!
Even Hollywood never dared dream this up: NASA today announced that a star "only" 39 lightyears from Earth has 7 planets closely orbiting it -- and each of the planets is 75% to 110% the size of Earth, and at least six of them are "rocky" (hard surfaces like Earth). And at least 3 of them are in the "habitable" zone, meaning, they are at the right distance from the star where the heat from the star keeps water warm enough not to freeze and cool enough not to boil off.
http://www.space.com/35790-seven-earth-size-planets-trappist-1-discover…
There are some weird things about this system. The star is barely bigger than Jupitor, and a thousand times less hot than our Sun. So the 7 planets are all orbiting extremely close; one completes a full orbit in 1.5 days. And the planets are "tidally locked," so each keeps the same face to the star (meaning, each one rotates on its axis at the same rate it orbits the star) -- which is exactly what our Moon does with the Earth. This will cause the star-facing side to be much hotter than the other side, but an atmosphere and/or an ocean can distribute the heat (and there will be a very comfortable zone right at the horizon of where the star-facing side meets the other side).
You can bet NASA and scientists will be training telescopes on this system for years to come. We eventually will figure out which of those planets has an atmosphere, and what gases make up that air. We probably will even figure out mean surface temperatures, and perhaps if any have flowing water. Detecting life at this distance is hard to imagine. If the planets had seasons, you in theory could see changing colors on their surfaces (like forests of trees growing leaves) -- but tidally-locked planets won't have seasons, and given how fast these planets orbit that star, their seasons would only be hours or days long anyway.
A robotic or manned mission to this star will remain science fiction for now. While incedibly close by galactic standards (that star is only 0.13% the distance from the Sun to the middle of the galaxy and Sag A*, the supermassive black hole in it), even our fastest-conceivable small robot would need thousands of years to get there at current technologies.
February 22nd, 2017 at 8:42 PM ^
Actually, the lab simulations indicate that life developing with conditions like earth is possibly inevitable. It doesn't take a miracle. What's probably way less likely is intelligent life existing there and this exact moment, and that they would hear signals and respond. They're almost certainly either in amoeba or small brained reptile dominant stage, or so advanced they've long known we're here and don't give a damn. Even if life could take off on all 3 planets, the odds of being similar stage intelligent is so remote. But sure, let's fantasize about a solar system where each planet has its own fantasies about the gods that exist on the next planet, stonehedge style communication, and finally, instead of a space race, interplanetary war
February 22nd, 2017 at 2:36 PM ^
February 22nd, 2017 at 2:39 PM ^
Football team spring trip 2020?
February 22nd, 2017 at 4:29 PM ^
February 22nd, 2017 at 5:15 PM ^
Word is it's fertile recruiting ground for ess eee cee and pete does his show from there.
February 22nd, 2017 at 2:41 PM ^
Not OT at all, one of the main participants in the discovery announcement is a former Michigan Aerospace/Space Sciences Prof.
Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator of the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington
http://www.engin.umich.edu/college/about/news/stories/2016/september/th…
February 22nd, 2017 at 2:51 PM ^
The next project, of course, is getting there....
February 22nd, 2017 at 2:57 PM ^
February 22nd, 2017 at 3:16 PM ^
I love the Borg episodes. I am currently in the midst or rewatching select episodes of TNG and the one I just finished yesterday is The Best of Both Worlds, part one. That and part two are one of the many highlights of that series.
February 22nd, 2017 at 7:52 PM ^
....especially when victorious at Wimbledon!
February 22nd, 2017 at 2:52 PM ^
February 22nd, 2017 at 2:52 PM ^
Also, the star is named is T-Rappist-1. So we've got that going for us.
February 22nd, 2017 at 3:06 PM ^
Is this the place where Marshall Applewhite and the Heavens Gate Cult are living?
February 22nd, 2017 at 3:09 PM ^
I love this stuff, but how the hell do scientists say that the star there is 1,000 times less hot than our star and actually mean it? There is literally no way for them to know that. One response would be they are guessing based on the size compared to our star, but there is no way to really make an accurate guess that it's 1,000 times less hot.
February 22nd, 2017 at 3:18 PM ^
February 22nd, 2017 at 3:37 PM ^
LOL Literally.
February 22nd, 2017 at 3:41 PM ^
I gave you an up vote, but come on...another Uranus joke?
February 22nd, 2017 at 3:25 PM ^
The spectrum and intensity of light would give a good estimation. That part's easy. Measuring the composition of the planets through the way light and gravity interact with them is the part that boggles my mnd.
February 22nd, 2017 at 3:37 PM ^
The radiative energy distribution emanating from a blackbody is accurately described by Planck's Law of Blackbody radiation, which is to say that the spectrum of light emanating from a blackbody (which is a reasonable first approximation for a star) is a strict function of temperature.
So, the light "signature" we read from the star (adjusted for the relative velocity of the star, called the "red shift" or the "doppler effect") actually tells us the temperature of the surface of the star.
Finally, to say the star is 1000x less hot, is not to say that the surface temperature is 1000x less (that would only be like 250 degrees C), but instead it is to say that the radiative flux (the total heat transfered) to an orbiting body is 1000x less. Given the relative sizes of the star and the planet, and the distance between them (called the view factor) makes calculating the equilibrium temperature of the planet relatively straightforward.
February 22nd, 2017 at 3:39 PM ^
I love reading about stuff like this, but your explanation has me like...
Scientific explanations are not my forte.
February 22nd, 2017 at 3:48 PM ^
Color, as we perceive it, is due to the fact that light waves cover an entire spectrum of wavelengths. You see green or red or whatever based on the wavelength of light coming from the object.
Similarly, the light coming from the star is a distribution of "colors" depending on the temperature of the star. By measuring the light signal coming to us from a star, we are able to determine the "color" of the star. That color/intensity distribution of wavelengths of light gives us a pretty good guess as to the temperature of the star.
February 22nd, 2017 at 4:08 PM ^
Too late to edit the above post, but 1000x less the surface temperature of our sun would be like 5 K, which is close to what is called absolute 0, about 270 degrees celcius below freezing. So ya, that's clearly not what they meant.
February 22nd, 2017 at 10:28 PM ^
I read your post thinking you knew something about physics and we're going to drop some knowledge when you said "There is literally no way for them to know that." in regards to surface temperature. Then, presented with an explanation (thank you mgocommunity for knowing something about everything) you respond, "Scientific explanations are not my forte." I was expecting you to be able to refute what the article was saying but nope, you just called out all of astrophysics for no apparent reason. Weird.
February 22nd, 2017 at 3:48 PM ^
Draymond to confirm this.
February 22nd, 2017 at 8:47 PM ^
Not really, because the atmosphere within the planet has a huge impact. Venus and Mars would be "habitable zone" to ET, but Venus of course is a hellhole and Mars is unbreatheable. So the elements within the atmosphere will be critical, but the 1-e (i think it is) in the middle is the perfect location/size to be comparable to earth
February 23rd, 2017 at 12:20 PM ^
I used the words "equilibrium temperature" because that is what they have calculated here: http://www.trappist.one/#system
"Equilibrium" is surely meant to be the equilibrium temperature between two blackbodies, which assumes no atmosphere, since we don't have enough data to do a spectroscopic analysis of the composition of the planets' atmospheres.
Because I keep using the word "blackbody," I should probably define it for those interested: a blackbody is a body in thermal equilibrium with its surroundings that absorbs all incident radiation and, since it is in equilibrium, emits an equal amount of radiation. This is not strictly true of heavenly bodies, but it is a good first approximation. The coefficients determining the relation with electromagnetic energy of a blackbody are then absorbtivity=emmissivity=1 and reflectivity=transmissivity=0. Which is to say no light waves pass through or reflect off a blackbody; all are absorbed, and an equal amount should be emitted to maintain equilibrium.
February 22nd, 2017 at 11:09 PM ^
Why "red shift"? Doesn't that assume shortening wavelength? Seems like it could be blue shift too....star moving away.
February 23rd, 2017 at 12:57 PM ^
"Red shift" means shifting towards lower frequency/longer wavelengths of light. Because the universe is expanding, most things are moving away from us, so most things are red shifted.
Blue is higher energy/shorter wavelength than red, and indeed, objects moving towards us will be "blue shifted."
To be honest, because this system is so (relatively speaking) close to us, it is probably on a very similar trajectory, and there is probably not much shifting going on at all. But, astronomy is not my field, and that's just a guess. I'd be interested in a more thorough explication if anyone here is inclined.
February 22nd, 2017 at 6:11 PM ^
So I guess that's not UM GRAD from Sydney.
February 22nd, 2017 at 3:20 PM ^
Oh goodie. Now we have a home for when our sun explodes.
If anybody already lives there, we will just push them out onto ever smaller reservations until we control the whole thing.
It's what we do.
We'll let them run some casinos on Mars later out of guilt.
February 22nd, 2017 at 3:26 PM ^
I just read an IEEE Spectrum article about space travel. The article states that "Tiny spacecraft, each integrated on a chip and accelerated by laser light" could travel at 0.2 times the speed of light. We could reach that other solar system in 200 years. It would take another 40 for information to get back to us. None of us would be alive, but our great-great-great-great-great-grandchildren would appreciate our forethought or curse us for alerting our solar enemies to our existence.
http://spectrum.ieee.org/aerospace/space-flight/5-hurdles-to-reaching-t…
February 22nd, 2017 at 9:08 PM ^
If they're so advanced to be a threat to us from so far away, they've long known we're here and just don't give a damn. They don't need us to alert them of anything
Likewise, if we're ever able and for some reason tempted to colonize it, they would be at most like the Nav'ii and have no idea we're here until we dropped a big ole bio/chemical weapon on them to make unresisted access to the resources (this part's not quite like "Avatar")
A realistic mutually beneficial contact, or one that blows up in our great-great-great grandkid's face, is hard to imagine
February 22nd, 2017 at 3:28 PM ^
Harbaugh already planning educational spring training trip to Trappist-1.
February 22nd, 2017 at 3:29 PM ^
For those wondering this system is 40 light years away. For reference Voyager, the farthest human made vessel, has traveled approximately 18 light hours. We're still a long long way before manned exploration to here is remotely possible. That said, it's conceivable that we could deliver and receive electronic communications with any hypothetical intelligent life forms in the system before the turn of the next century.
February 22nd, 2017 at 3:38 PM ^
February 22nd, 2017 at 3:37 PM ^
February 22nd, 2017 at 3:51 PM ^
I think it would take more than a genetic mutation to make humans able to make us of gases besides O2. The processes that cater the transportation and use of oxygen in the body are numerous and complex. A more feasible option would be to synthesize oxygen from the materials found on any planet, either on a small scale (personal or building size) or on a planetary scale (terraforming).
February 22nd, 2017 at 10:12 PM ^
Or wear a spacesuit. :)
February 23rd, 2017 at 3:26 AM ^
to reach the speed of light. You may have to prduce your own big bang to go faster than light. If we could do all of the above to reach these planets, it would be easy to mutate ourselves to inhabit one of these planets.
February 22nd, 2017 at 3:38 PM ^
But how do you establish a recruiting pipeline? The quintessential Russian answer: recruiting pipeline finds YOU.
Not sure we're ready to meet them. Certainly Belichick will attempt to lead the way. Stay tuned.
February 22nd, 2017 at 3:44 PM ^
Really awesome discovery.
There may or may not be any kind of life on these particular planets, but findings like this reinforce my certainty that there is absolutely, positively no way we are alone in this universe. A couple hundred billion stars in this galaxy alone, itself just one of a hundred billion or more galaxies in the observable universe...
I hope that there is some secret to cracking interstellar/intergalactic travel, that we can discover it use it to find what else is out there. And that what we find is sufficiently similar to us that we can recognize it for what it is and find a way to communicate. That's a lot of things to hope for, but I've been a good boy this year.
February 22nd, 2017 at 4:06 PM ^
but then I remember the movie Mars Attacks! and I get scared.
February 22nd, 2017 at 4:58 PM ^
February 22nd, 2017 at 8:12 PM ^
