Kepler-452b Kepler Announcement 23 July

[KerikBalm]

High surface gravity (5x the mass, 2x the surface gravity), volcanism.... I smell a recipe for a runaway greenhouse

[Streetwind]

We already have a thread for this here in the science labs...

[justidutch]

It's only 1,400 light years away - it's like a stroll to the chemist's!

[NovaSilisko]

I'm more a fan of Kepler-438b. It's got a higher ESI, though is probably tidally locked. We've got a bias toward stars like our own star, and are scared of red/orange dwarfs

However, I think life will turn out to be a lot more resilient than people tend to give it credit for. Even if the red dwarf in question is a violent flare star, any life in the oceans would be well-protected.

I want to say earth is on the high end of terrestrial planets. I consider 452 to be closer to a super-venus than super-earth. More gravity at that distance means a massively increased rate of atmosphere accumulation.

Oh, by the way: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KOI-433.02_m

Edited July 23, 2015 by NovaSilisko

[justidutch]

1,400 light years away, it's like a walk to the chemist's

[_Augustus_]

I'm more a fan of Kepler-438b. It's got a higher ESI, though is probably tidally locked. We've got a bias toward stars like our own star, and are scared of red/orange dwarfs

However, I think life will turn out to be a lot more resilient than people tend to give it credit for. Even if the red dwarf in question is a violent flare star, any life in the oceans would be well-protected.

I want to say earth is on the high end of terrestrial planets. I consider 452 to be closer to a super-venus than super-earth. More gravity at that distance means a massively increased rate of atmosphere accumulation.

Oh, by the way: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KOI-433.02_m

It's higher by .02 points. Indeed, 452b is very close to being a Super-Venus, I calculated the ESI of it. I was running SpaceEngine to calculate it and it wasn't until I had proper mass, radius, and age of the star that I had 452b being habitable.

I love orange dwarfs, but I don't think there are many habitable planets orbiting red dwarfs.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KOI-433.02_m <--- That is a false positive/fake. It's due to some stupid astronomers assuming that all big gas giants have Titan or Triton-like moons...

[kiwi1960]

Problem is.... they say it might have water which is necessary for life....

Really?

The way I see it, we need water because it is abundant here on Earth...

If you don't have water... then maybe the life forms don't need it...

Its like this; Had arsenic been here instead of water, then we would have evolved to use that instead of water... life is a funny thing, its exclusive to the planet they originate from... we have water... if you don't... then who knows.... I'm convinced that water isn't "essential" for life on other worlds... although, for us, it is.

[KerikBalm]

No, no life will use aresenic in place of water.

Arsenic is not even close to a solvent, let alone a polar solvant witha high specific heat, wide temperature range at which it is liquid, capable of forming hydrogen bonds, and stable in oxidizing conditions

[Albert VDS]

So according to Kepler-452b's Wikipedia page it's 1.05 AU from it's star.

Would that mean that it has a better HZD rating than Kepler-438b?

[peadar1987]

Is it purple?

[NovaSilisko]

That is a false positive/fake. It's due to some stupid astronomers assuming that all big gas giants have Titan or Triton-like moons...

Why do I even try to make reasonable discussion here when we just immediately turn to insulting those involved...

A more reasonable and reserved response would perhaps have been along the lines of "I don't agree that that's a good candidate, as it's based on the assumption that the gas giant in question has a large moon, which we can't know for certain without far more detailed observations than are currently possible."

Edited July 23, 2015 by NovaSilisko

[Aanker]

Just because it's big doesn't mean it looks like Venus. Venus is smaller than Earth and... Looks like Venus! Venus' atmospheric conditions likely have a lot to do with the lack of proper magnetic shielding and the subsequent loss of lighter elements like hydrogen (and thus by extension, water) to the solar wind.

[Bill Phil]

Just because it's big doesn't mean it looks like Venus. Venus is smaller than Earth and... Looks like Venus! Venus' atmospheric conditions likely have a lot to do with the lack of proper magnetic shielding and the subsequent loss of lighter elements like hydrogen (and thus by extension, water) to the solar wind.

I wouldn't say it's due to the lack of a strong magnetic field alone, it's probably caused by many things.

However, if the planet is large it's more likely to have a bigger atmosphere due to its size and mass. Barring other causes.

[AngelLestat]

Something that is not mention in any new planet discovery, is how hard is to find small planets at a moderate distance from their star.

This is due the mechanism of these methods.

First the most common and successful method "transit", it depend mostly in inclination (perfectly aligned orbits with our point of view), how close their are (time between transits) and how big is the planet (light blocked).

"For a planet orbiting a Sun-sized star at 1 AU, the probability of a random alignment producing a transit is 0.47%. Therefore the method cannot guarantee that any particular star is not a host to planets."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methods_of_detecting_exoplanets.

When we use the Radial velocity method, is really hard to detect small planets far from their star, or multiple planets on the same star (something that must be the most common due what we know on planet formation)

Due this, the Alpha centaury system may have 15 planets in each othe their 3 stars, and we might not know nothing about it.

That is why almost all planets discovered are gas giant very close to their star (easy by transit method 10% chance and by radial velocity)

About how similar to earth might be, I found the Earth Similarity Index (ESI scale) kinda pointless.

Because we dont know nothing about these planets atmospheres.

An earth like planet at jupiter distance may have the perfect human temperature in its surface if the atmosphere is 10 bars, or similar depending its greenhouse componds.

We should focus in this parameters when we look for planets with habitable zone:

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/108772-Living-at-other-worlds-A-paradigm-shift

Also, we should find a way to search planets in our closest stars, where with future technology might be at our reach.

[Motokid600]

The Orion nebulae at 1,343ly is closer to us then this planet. Wow.

I'm confident we'll get a picture of one of these planets in my lifetime. But what I'm more excited for is spectral analysis of the atmospheres.

Would it be too much to say that if there was a civilization equivalent to ours on an exoplanet couldn't we tell right away? The footprint a society such as ours leaves is easily traceable via spectroscopy, no?

[Mitchz95]

I assume we'll be able to perform more detailed searches of nearby stars once we get bigger and better telescopes into orbit. And better methods of blocking out the star's light.

[magnemoe]

Something that is not mention in any new planet discovery, is how hard is to find small planets at a moderate distance from their star.

This is due the mechanism of these methods.

First the most common and successful method "transit", it depend mostly in inclination (perfectly aligned orbits with our point of view), how close their are (time between transits) and how big is the planet (light blocked).

"For a planet orbiting a Sun-sized star at 1 AU, the probability of a random alignment producing a transit is 0.47%. Therefore the method cannot guarantee that any particular star is not a host to planets."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methods_of_detecting_exoplanets.

When we use the Radial velocity method, is really hard to detect small planets far from their star, or multiple planets on the same star (something that must be the most common due what we know on planet formation)

Due this, the Alpha centaury system may have 15 planets in each othe their 3 stars, and we might not know nothing about it.

That is why almost all planets discovered are gas giant very close to their star (easy by transit method 10% chance and by radial velocity)

About how similar to earth might be, I found the Earth Similarity Index (ESI scale) kinda pointless.

Because we dont know nothing about these planets atmospheres.

An earth like planet at jupiter distance may have the perfect human temperature in its surface if the atmosphere is 10 bars, or similar depending its greenhouse componds.

We should focus in this parameters when we look for planets with habitable zone:

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/108772-Living-at-other-worlds-A-paradigm-shift

Also, we should find a way to search planets in our closest stars, where with future technology might be at our reach.

This, note that we know Alpha centaury is very unlikely to have an Jupiter sized planet, in the habitable zone this should be detected by radial velocity.

So no Pandora

Agree that an planet with an pretty dense atmosphere would be able to have life outside the normal habitable zone.

An bonus would be that an dense atmosphere would make flight of large creatures easy, birds are smart, how smart would something like an dragon be.

Dense atmosphere would also be very nice if tidal locked, so would plenty of water as both help even out temperatures.

Else an moon to an gas giant should work even around an dwarf star, as it would be tidal locked to the giant not the star.

And have fun having an space program with 1.5 gravity, think the only known tech who could reach orbit would be stuff like orion nuclear pulse engine

[klesh]

Whats an ESI?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth_Similarity_Index

Edited July 23, 2015 by klesh

[magnemoe]

The Orion nebulae at 1,343ly is closer to us then this planet. Wow.

I'm confident we'll get a picture of one of these planets in my lifetime. But what I'm more excited for is spectral analysis of the atmospheres.

Would it be too much to say that if there was a civilization equivalent to ours on an exoplanet couldn't we tell right away? The footprint a society such as ours leaves is easily traceable via spectroscopy, no?

Don't think so, hard to separate pollution from result from volcanoes. it might be some very low concentration chemicals who prove civilization.

However the timeline also point against this, an alien is either stone age or have an asteroid civilization or live in matrix like VR have luck getting them in the time between.

Pollution levels in the west is going down it was much worse 40 years ago, China is following up here partially hidden by rapid growth.

Last most animals has an much better smell sense than us, likely that an random alien does too and never get so much pollution as us.

[Albert VDS]

The footprint a society such as ours leaves is easily traceable via spectroscopy, no?

If there's oxygen, ozone, methane in the atmosphere than that's a pretty good indication that it's harboring life.

And chlorofluorocarbons or hydrocarbon then that's pretty good indication of a civilization on that planet.

[Drunken Hobo]

Is there any particular reason that nearly all extrasolar terrestrial planets are considerably larger than Earth? If this thing is five times the mass of Earth, then that's likely greater than the total mass of rocky bodies in the entire solar system.

Is it just the case that we can only find the big ones at the moment, or is our Solar System an anomaly in having 4 relatively small terrestrial planets?

[Mitchz95]

Is it just the case that we can only find the big ones at the moment, or is our Solar System an anomaly in having 4 relatively small terrestrial planets?

The former, I believe.

[LordFerret]

Someone at NASA needs to walk down the hall, open that closet and kick that web server in the rack ... one of the slowest loading sites I've been too since dial-up and AOL.

[lajoswinkler]

Is there any particular reason that nearly all extrasolar terrestrial planets are considerably larger than Earth? If this thing is five times the mass of Earth, then that's likely greater than the total mass of rocky bodies in the entire solar system.

Is it just the case that we can only find the big ones at the moment, or is our Solar System an anomaly in having 4 relatively small terrestrial planets?

We have no means of detecting little ones and there isn't a reason to believe they are a rare occurence.

My opinion about this announcement: YAWN.

Utterly boring. I've seen this kind of news like ten times or more. Nothing special. Obviously one departments needs more monies so they're doing some spin.

[AngelLestat]

This, note that we know Alpha centaury is very unlikely to have an Jupiter sized planet, in the habitable zone this should be detected by radial velocity.

So no Pandora

Not be so sure..

I dont know nothing about what is possible and what is not with the "wobble" method.

But my intuition tells me that this case would be very hard to detect:

First due inclination, is not possible to detect planets by transit (even if in the graphic scale looks like it will, stars and planets looks very small with real distances)

The radial velocity would be hard to detect with this inclination, because is not normal to us. Also a jupiter size planet at mars distance would have less or equal gravity pull than mercury to its star. (math from my mind, not sure)

Also multiple planets each of one making contrary pulls at different moments will be a nightmare for the scientist math.

And more far is a planet (as jupiter) you need to look that star a lot more time before find a pattern.

Dense atmosphere would also be very nice if tidal locked, so would plenty of water as both help even out temperatures.

Else an moon to an gas giant should work even around an dwarf star, as it would be tidal locked to the giant not the star.

Yeah it will help a lot, but something that might help more is oceans on tidal locked planets..

And have fun having an space program with 1.5 gravity, think the only known tech who could reach orbit would be stuff like orion nuclear pulse engine

Yeah, I guess that even 1.2g would be a gravity impossible to deal with chemical propulsion.

Edited July 23, 2015 by AngelLestat