Earth-like world could be 'most important planet found outside solar system'

[zenitzz]

GJ 1132b is close enough for telescopes to observe any atmosphere it might have, which could help scientists spot signs of life on other planets in the future

A rocky Earth-sized planet that circles a small, nearby star could be the most important world ever found beyond the solar system, astronomers say.

The planet lies in the constellation of Vela in the southern sky and is close enough for telescopes to observe any atmosphere it has, a procedure that could help spot life on other planets in the future.

Named GJ 1132b, the alien world is about 16% larger than Earth, and at 39 light years distant, is three times closer than any other Earth-sized rocky planet yet found around another star. At that distance, it is hoped that telescopes will be able to make out the chemistry of its atmosphere, the speed of its winds and the colours of its sunsets.

Astronomers spotted the planet as it moved across the face of a red dwarf star only a fifth the size of the sun. Though much cooler and fainter than the sun, GJ 1132b orbits so close to its star that surface temperatures reach 260C.

The searing temperatures are too hot for the surface to retain liquid water, making it inhospitable to life, but not so hot as to burn off any atmosphere that formed on the planet.

“If this planet still has an atmosphere, then we might find other, cooler planets that also have atmospheres and orbit small stars. We can then imagine interrogating the atmospheres for molecules that come from life,” said Zachory Berta-Thompson at the MIT’s Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research

Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/nov/11/earth-like-world-gj1132b-could-be-most-important-planet-ever-found-outside-the-solar-system

[BADecker]

None of this is important, although it might be very exciting to the dreamers.

Why isn't it important? 'Cause odds are that nobody in the near future will ever go there.

The moon shots back in the '60s were all a lie. We never went to the moon. NASA BSed us and scammed us by faking it all.

Shut down the space program. It's all a lie. If anyone can do it on his own - a private company - let him do it. But stop wasting the taxpayer's money to enrich the fat-cats who have lied to us for decades.

[AncilVTwo]

None of this is important, although it might be very exciting to the dreamers.

Why isn't it important? 'Cause odds are that nobody in the near future will ever go there.

The moon shots back in the '60s were all a lie. We never went to the moon. NASA BSed us and scammed us by faking it all.

Shut down the space program. It's all a lie. If anyone can do it on his own - a private company - let him do it. But stop wasting the taxpayer's money to enrich the fat-cats who have lied to us for decades.

what makes you think it was a lie. and why are you against learning about the universe we live in? science has brought the human race so far and surely in my opinion the money is being well spent.

[BADecker]

None of this is important, although it might be very exciting to the dreamers.

Why isn't it important? 'Cause odds are that nobody in the near future will ever go there.

The moon shots back in the '60s were all a lie. We never went to the moon. NASA BSed us and scammed us by faking it all.

Shut down the space program. It's all a lie. If anyone can do it on his own - a private company - let him do it. But stop wasting the taxpayer's money to enrich the fat-cats who have lied to us for decades.

what makes you think it was a lie. and why are you against learning about the universe we live in? science has brought the human race so far and surely in my opinion the money is being well spent.

Google and Youtube all the evidence that it was a lie. In addition, the present Orion moon/Mars space capsule is a backward step from things like the shuttle.

Why do you think I am against learning about the universe we live in. We have enough to study right here - and enough humanitarian acts to do here - without thinking about going out there, which is nearly impossible without a lot more study here.

Science has brought many advancements in some ways. But it has taken us backward in other ways, like our understanding and worship of God.

[thefaucetrunner]

That really is amazing, what an astonishing time to be alive. It's stuff like this that makes me quite hopeful. Another recent story I read was about the ITER project; an international project of Europe, USA, Japan, China and Russia to create a fusion reactor. The pilot plant will be built by 2030.

If we pull that off, we really will be entering a new era; not having to worry about climate change anymore, being able to power deep-space exploration, amongst other things.

[galdur]

Well, it´s like 250 Trillion miles away so I´m not sure how important it is. Maybe mildly interesting for about fifteen minutes.

[European Central Bank]

I don't care if people think it's irrelevant now. Humans have real trouble thinking beyond the end of their own lifetime. Who knows where it might lead in the far future?

[Gronthaing]

Well, it´s like 250 Trillion miles away so I´m not sure how important it is. Maybe mildly interesting for about fifteen minutes.

Point isn't going there. Or colonizing it. It's looking at the atmosphere of the planet if it has one. Then learn more about it and how to study the atmospheres in other planets. And maybe learn ways of finding life more easily because of the influence it can have in the atmosphere.

We have enough to study right here - and enough humanitarian acts to do here - without thinking about going out there, which is nearly impossible without a lot more study here.

The sooner we start visiting other planets the better. And colonizing them if possible. The alternative may be taking the same path the dinosaurs did.

[BADecker]

Well, it´s like 250 Trillion miles away so I´m not sure how important it is. Maybe mildly interesting for about fifteen minutes.

Point isn't going there. Or colonizing it. It's looking at the atmosphere of the planet if it has one. Then learn more about it and how to study the atmospheres in other planets. And maybe learn ways of finding life more easily because of the influence it can have in the atmosphere.

We have enough to study right here - and enough humanitarian acts to do here - without thinking about going out there, which is nearly impossible without a lot more study here.

The sooner we start visiting other planets the better. And colonizing them if possible. The alternative may be taking the same path the dinosaurs did.

Better yet, stop taxing the people who don't agree with you, so it is only YOU who have to pay. If you ever get to some other planet, charge the people who weren't taxed for this, when they want to get in on your operation.

Freedom, not taxation slavery.

[zenitzz]

Well, it´s like 250 Trillion miles away so I´m not sure how important it is. Maybe mildly interesting for about fifteen minutes.

With our current tech, if we left today, it would take 1,078,800 years to travel the distance of 29 light years to this planet

[galdur]

What i take from this story is Waste. WASTE of good money. I sure as hell wouldn´t be blowing money on sunsets on planets hundreds of trillions of miles away if I worked at NASA.

No, I would be busy developing subliminal messaging technology for embedding in TV news, shows, movies, internet, phones, maybe directly into the brains of subjects through wifi. Through the phones into the brain would be best since most people seem to be checking something on those phones every fifteen seconds or so. The messages would be like

obey, obey, obey call your congressmen every hour on the hour and tell them that nasa needs lots of money to find awesome planets and other cool stuff obey, obey, obey also send emails send snailmail obey, obey, obey

[Wizardb.]

I personally believe that NASA is full of shit.
The reason for this is because the moon landings were faked.
If we extend that we can conclude that everything else NASA "accomplished" is faked.
NASA is wasting billions of dollars looking into space and launching telescopes into space for research when in reality we cannot go anywhere in space.
We do not even know if our current understanding of space is correct.
So much of money is wasted on space, we could use that money to fix this world.

[galdur]

They "taped over" the most important footage of the 20th century, right? Or lost it, don´t remember which.

Seems extremely unlikely.

These space adventures are unusual as technological advances are concerned. It´s all about getting better stuff and doing cooler things - always moving forward. But at NASA it´s almost like they went from Dodge Charger and downgraded all the way to a Model T and now they don´t even have a bicycle. Very strange. The moon around 1970, then buzz around the earth in low orbit for a while until the spy satellite market was saturated or someone figured that they couldn´t really be trusted with keeping people safely in low earth orbit. So, reverse technological process. Something weird about that.

[BADecker]

Well, it´s like 250 Trillion miles away so I´m not sure how important it is. Maybe mildly interesting for about fifteen minutes.

With our current tech, if we left today, it would take 1,078,800 years to travel the distance of 29 light years to this planet

Of course, what we see happened many years ago. And by the time the million+ years pass that it would take us to get there, there's no guessing what they would find.

[subSTRATA]

None of this is important, although it might be very exciting to the dreamers.

i can somewhat agree with just this statement, but for entirely different reasons. the fact that a potentially inhabitable planet exists out there is great and all, but it shouldnt be what the space program should be focusing on; we should be focused more on how we might get there in the distant future. sometime in the distant future when interplanetary travel becomes commonplace (maybe even never), we can think about colonizing other planets and exploring different worlds. however, with our current technology, even a 1 way trip to the moon costs a sizable fortune, and relocating ordinary people would require them to undergo training for space travel. bringing luggage / anything along for the ride would cost a ridiculous amount as well. until a solution to all of these problems can be found, we should stick to advancing our current technology instead of dreaming.

[Furio]

None of this is important, although it might be very exciting to the dreamers.

i can somewhat agree with just this statement, but for entirely different reasons. the fact that a potentially inhabitable planet exists out there is great and all, but it shouldnt be what the space program should be focusing on; we should be focused more on how we might get there in the distant future. sometime in the distant future when interplanetary travel becomes commonplace (maybe even never), we can think about colonizing other planets and exploring different worlds. however, with our current technology, even a 1 way trip to the moon costs a sizable fortune, and relocating ordinary people would require them to undergo training for space travel. bringing luggage / anything along for the ride would cost a ridiculous amount as well. until a solution to all of these problems can be found, we should stick to advancing our current technology instead of dreaming.

Space travell is so far in the future, we have the ships, only there is no tech yet against space radiation, every austronaut will have to be extremely lucky not to encounter any of it, with the massive sun in our system, no chance, your brain and cells will be cooked in one burst...

[Pierre 2]

I know this is quite important news but it can't be that important if it is so far away to our reach.
I am more interested about Saturn's satellites. They include ice and even probably water with oxygen (and even big ancient animals-my speculation)

[Lethn]

None of this is important, although it might be very exciting to the dreamers.

Why isn't it important? 'Cause odds are that nobody in the near future will ever go there.

The moon shots back in the '60s were all a lie. We never went to the moon. NASA BSed us and scammed us by faking it all.

Shut down the space program. It's all a lie. If anyone can do it on his own - a private company - let him do it. But stop wasting the taxpayer's money to enrich the fat-cats who have lied to us for decades.

what makes you think it was a lie. and why are you against learning about the universe we live in? science has brought the human race so far and surely in my opinion the money is being well spent.

I'll tell you why, the more we learn about the universe and how it really works the more obselete his religion becomes this is why often have a small swarm of religious posters on these threads trying to claim the scientists are just making this shit up to get funding. By the way as other people have pointed out in the Guardian comments page it isn't Earth like at all and the newspaper is just spreading misinformation about what the scientists have said like they always fucking do.

[Gronthaing]

^ the title is misleading. Leads people immediately think the planet is exactly like earth. And that the idea is we will go there to colonize it like many posts here assume. But the rest looks right. It describes how the planet is different from earth and why it is an important discovery. What we can learn about its atmosphere. And how that can be used in other places. Maybe even to find life in other worlds without needing to go there.

[enhu]

260C isn't a liveable temperature. I don't think there is another earth.
They should instead focus more on improving the planet NOT abandon earth and move to whichever they think is a liveable planet.  Because we'll still exploit that planet in the end and move again to another if there really exist such planet.