Kepler-452b Kepler Announcement 23 July

[SargeRho]

You can detect planets in those situations via doppler shift.

[LordFerret]

...

Arent they just detecting that there are atmospheres, rather than actually seeing what the atmospheres are made of?

Yes, although I thought I'd also read something about a doppler shift in the stars observed spectrum during exoplanet transit which might provide a basis for modeling possible atmospheric compositions. I could very well have misunderstood what I read however. I'll have to see if I can dig up the paper again (if I do, I'll post it).

[peadar1987]

I don't know, I crunched the numbers, and for a planet of 5 earth masses and 1.6 earth radii, a 200km orbit would have a speed of 12.7 km/s. On earth, the corresponding orbit has a speed of 7.6km/s. It would take a very big rocket, but be by no means impossible. New Horizons had a delta-V of 16.5 km/s with its Atlas launch vehicle, and extra thrust to weight ratio is an engineering problem, and not a particularly complex one in the grand scheme of things. Even accounting for extra gravity losses, that should be enough to achieve orbit, and once you're in orbit, you're half way to anywhere

[Motokid600]

Yea I had forgotten to take into account time relatively when I made that post. So to find a civilization through such means would be considered very... Lucky? That the light were receiving from an exoplanet just happens to indicate a civilization in our level of evolution.

What are the odds?

[tater]

Alpha Centauri.

[WinkAllKerb'']

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

note/post it for later @ myself avoid the science labs as much as possible ; ) *shrug* this isn't a reasonable place with reasonable people ; ) *shrug* bis

[Robotengineer]

It's not Earth 2.0. We don't even know for certain whether it is a rocky body. It's also a thousand-some light-years away.

[Findthepin1]

IMO there isn't any use for looking for Earth-like planets more than 50 lightyears away because it would take more than 50 years to send a signal, more than 100 years to send a signal and get a reply, and basically unreachable in a usual career lifetime, even by traveling near the speed of light. If there was a civilization further than 50 lightyears away, all we (and they) could conceivably do is talk, and even that would take a long while.

If, in a theoretical situation, someone on Kepler-452b decided to radio Earth, it would take about 2655 local years (2800 Earth years) for them to get a reply. By the time we receive anything, they might not even exist anymore. We wouldn't know this, so we'd send a reply with nobody to hear it. 1100 Earth years after we would get a message from them, we'd see a planetesimal impact 452b in an explosion reminiscent of the Earth-Theia collision, and realize the planet's destruction had occurred three hundred years before the message arrived here. Although we'd likely have forgotten by then, or kicked the bucket completely.

[Tiberion]

Its also older than Earth, so it can't be 2.0

[peadar1987]

IMO there isn't any use for looking for Earth-like planets more than 50 lightyears away because it would take more than 50 years to send a signal, more than 100 years to send a signal and get a reply, and basically unreachable in a usual career lifetime, even by traveling near the speed of light. If there was a civilization further than 50 lightyears away, all we (and they) could conceivably do is talk, and even that would take a long while.

If, in a theoretical situation, someone on Kepler-452b decided to radio Earth, it would take about 2655 local years (2800 Earth years) for them to get a reply. By the time we receive anything, they might not even exist anymore. We wouldn't know this, so we'd send a reply with nobody to hear it. 1100 Earth years after we would get a message from them, we'd see a planetesimal impact 452b in an explosion reminiscent of the Earth-Theia collision, and realize the planet's destruction had occurred three hundred years before the message arrived here. Although we'd likely have forgotten by then, or kicked the bucket completely.

Finding exoplanets has scientific merit beyond ever actually going there, or sending a message to ET.

[magnemoe]

Finding exoplanets has scientific merit beyond ever actually going there, or sending a message to ET.

This, the purpose of Kepler is to find exoplanets, as the transient method has low chance of finding anything you do giant samples for data.

Just finding the most common planet types and orbits is very useful for understanding how planet systems works.

[magnemoe]

Yea I had forgotten to take into account time relatively when I made that post. So to find a civilization through such means would be considered very... Lucky? That the light were receiving from an exoplanet just happens to indicate a civilization in our level of evolution.

What are the odds?

Our level, as in being well industrialized but having no bases outside of LEO.

Chances are very low, as the time only last 2-500 year.

If we find intelligent aliens they are probably either stone age like my avatar who is trying to eat an rover or they a class 1 and are capable of making starships.

stone age lasted for hundred thousands of years, its no upper limits on the age of an interstellar civilization as they will survive an event who destroy an star system.

next you have the 10.000 year of going from villages to great cities, say 500 years from getting steam engines to being close to an class 1 civilization than we are today.

- - - Updated - - -

Yes, although I thought I'd also read something about a doppler shift in the stars observed spectrum during exoplanet transit which might provide a basis for modeling possible atmospheric compositions. I could very well have misunderstood what I read however. I'll have to see if I can dig up the paper again (if I do, I'll post it).

has been some work around it but I only think it works for hot jupiters.

Webb might be able to do so but not sure if configured or if it might need an star shield

[AngelLestat]

You can detect planets in those situations via doppler shift.

I really doubt it, maybe for big planets close to the star, but not sure if is possible to measure the change of color of the star due the change of speed done it by at jupiter size planet at jupiter distance.

The acceleration on the star would be: 0.000002 m/s2

Also, I dont find many cases of planets discovered with that technique.

I don't know, I crunched the numbers, and for a planet of 5 earth masses and 1.6 earth radii, a 200km orbit would have a speed of 12.7 km/s. On earth, the corresponding orbit has a speed of 7.6km/s. It would take a very big rocket, but be by no means impossible. New Horizons had a delta-V of 16.5 km/s with its Atlas launch vehicle, and extra thrust to weight ratio is an engineering problem, and not a particularly complex one in the grand scheme of things. Even accounting for extra gravity losses, that should be enough to achieve orbit, and once you're in orbit, you're half way to anywhere

Ok you are right, is possible. I found in internet, that for 1.5 G, with a saturn V, it will be possible to rise 11 tons to Low orbit.

But well, we can admit that even at 1.2g, it will be enoght to discourage any space program.

This, the purpose of Kepler is to find exoplanets, as the transient method has low chance of finding anything you do giant samples for data.

Just finding the most common planet types and orbits is very useful for understanding how planet systems works.

Yeah of course is usefull, but we should start to think in a way to detect planets in our closest stars (15 light years radius)

It change everything if you find a promising planet for humans, only at 5 light years.. All the people will start to imagine ways to reach it, at least with a probe..

You give humanity something to dream about..

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.

Yeah not sure if is possible to block the star light. but with a really big telescope, it might be..

Edited July 24, 2015 by AngelLestat

[Lohan2008]

Don't point out how ignorant the media are.

[PakledHostage]

My opinion about this announcement: YAWN.

Utterly boring.

Are you my Balkan twin, Lajos? I fully agree with you that this announcement is over hyped. Sure it is great that Kepler is continuing to make these sorts of discoveries, but I wish they wouldn't oversell the "habitability" of these worlds before we can get a look at the atmospheres with bigger and more capable space telescopes.

[Vanamonde]

Merged into the existing thread for this subject.

[Godot]

For human astronauts it would surely be a rather uncomfortable world, due to its high gravity

[magnemoe]

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:

http://s20.postimg.org/c684bz33x/centauri_hard_planet_detection.jpg

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.

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

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

Think you could see the wobble on the sides not forward and back.

And the Jupiter around Alpha centaury was just something I read about that if Pandora in avatar was plausible.

Wikipedia also says a bit that large planets would have been detected.

[PB666]

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2015-239&rn=news.xml&rst=4660#.Va5Eb-1Ep3A.twitter

Hmm... so what is so exciting about this one that they've called in a press conference? Speculations? Hypetrain?

(No pix no clix?)

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/images/kepler/20141218/pia18904-16.jpg

Aliens are coming in 1200 years.....or more.....maybe never......too far for us to even dream of traveling.......placeholder earth until we can get Keplar 2.0, 3.0 and 4.0 to look for stuff that is alot closer.

I am a big fan of what NASA is doing, but they claim they have difficulty finding red dwarf stars at a much lower distance. How accurate could their estimate of this planets likeness to Earth can it actually be.......I'm skeptical, needless to say 1200 light years? It might as well be a planet in Andromeda. I wouldn't call this Hypetrain, but geeze could we get some of this stuff vetted by peer-review in the scientific literature (and not an op-ed or quasi-refereed piece in Science or Nature).

BTW, I am a big big fan of Keplar, I think we need dozens of these up there sniffing away, also wish we had much much more powerful space telescopes.

[_Augustus_]

Well, it's official:

Kepler-452b has an ESI of 0.892! That's the highest ever!

[Frida Space]

For human astronauts it would surely be a rather uncomfortable world, due to its high gravity

On its surface you would weight 1.96 times as much as on Earth, if I did my calculations correctly. A lot, but not unbearable.

[LordFerret]

Good incentive to go on that diet.

- - - Updated - - -

...

has been some work around it but I only think it works for hot jupiters.

Webb might be able to do so but not sure if configured or if it might need an star shield

Yes, that was it, that is what it dealt with. Thanks.

[Glaran K'erman]

Congrats to the Kepler team, this is what this mission was made for! Maybe in my lifetime we will finally answer the life question after all.

[Frida Space]

...third thread...

[Robotengineer]

Well, it's official:

Kepler-452b has an ESI of 0.892! That's the highest ever!

Citation Needed.

- - - Updated - - -

Its also older than Earth, so it can't be 2.0

Maybe it's the alpha version?