All..

press conference Tuesday, 11/06/07 at 1:00pm EST

"Astronomers will announce new findings about a planetary system similar to our own"

http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.html?pid=23921

Participants:

Debra Fischer - astronomer, San Francisco State University
Geoff Marcy - astronomer, University of California, Berkeley
Jonathan Lunine - planetary scientist, University of Arizona, Tucson
Zlatan Tsvetanov - program scientist, NASA Headquarters, Washington

Dr. Fischer and Dr. Marcy are prime RV planet hunters.....

Should be good...

Craig

Oh, sounds exciting. Guess it's about a Jupiter-mass planet in an orbit similar to our Jupiter.

Adam....

that was my thought as well.

We have hot Jupiters, and hot neptunes, and even some super terrestrial candidates around M dwarf stars. Planets with extreme eccentricities. All wonderful to be sure.

But, just how common is our solar system architecture, with terrestrials close in , and gas giants/ice giants far out? All in fairly stable, circular orbits.

The next few decades of planet hunting is gonna knock our socks off.....

Craig

If they are going to continue to call these objects "planets" mustn't they first determine if these bodies have "cleared their neighborhoods"? And what about hydrostatic equilibrium? Has that been established? We can't just throw the term "planet" around so quickly any more. If we are going to live by the IAU's arbitrary new rules, I expect EVERYONE to follow them.

Full inline quote removed. - Doug


I am not even touching this!!!!!!

Seriously, I don't care if Pluto-Charon, or Ceres, or the whatzitz ploughing the orbital spaces of other Suns, are called planets or "seriously interesting massive objects".

To me they are all WORLDS... and well worth exploration.

Craig

I'm with ya, Craig! I figure that Jupiter + sized objects are planets, just because there are few others big enough to lookk them in the eye & say that they ain't... (Introducing here the "Bully" theory of planetary classification, copyright pending...)

Well, they can't be because they don't orbit our sun.

Briefing was held at 18:00 UT; graphics now posted.

I made a recording for those that missed it: Briefing Audio (MP3, 6.8 MB)
(right-click on the link and select "Save Target As..." to download)

45 Earth masses, orbit in the Goldilocks Zone...

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2007-128

Thanks Del Palmer...

I was working and unable to listen to this live.

Fifth planet for 55Cancri ..... another "solar system". And a credit to 18 years of RV observations.


http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/release...06_Cancri.shtml

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2007-128

http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn...F&from=news

http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/0711...ve-planets.html

Paper...
http://exoplanet.eu/papers/debra.pdf

Pretty cool.

Until a dozen years ago, for me, the stars were just loney bright suns in the heavens. Now I can look up at certain ones and know that there really are planets attending them. That is such a numinous feeling. Wish I was a poet for I cannot really express this...... elation.

And the best is yet to come... true terrestrial type planets in habitable zones..... came close with Gl581c and d.
http://fr.arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/0710/0710.5294v2.pdf

Craig

I can't imagine how extraordinary things will be within...let's say...20 years?...
What will we have discovered by then?

Ok... my attempt at prose..... my writing was better 7 years ago.... this is the sky I encounter.... where my feelings roam free..... now among NEW planets that adorn our skies.... invisible to our eyes but there all the same.

Nov, 2000 ....
". stars are bright and hard as darts and if you look long enough their colors start to show.... reds and blues and hard white.... eclipsing variables, red giants, giant blue O stars that live a mere million years before blowing up, mild F and G stars, like our own Sun, mellow yellow givers of life to water worlds like Earth, cool K dwarfs and M dimmers, washing their orange-red glows on worlds with ammonia seas..... and invisible to the eye, but there all the same, neutron stars pulsing bursts of radio like lighthouses for starships... white dwarfs, cold embers from the old hearts of G stars, harbingers of our Sun's fate... and black against black, the vast lanes of stardust, birth places for new suns, new life, new fates..... and out there, trillions of little comet worlds, seeding the Galaxy with the nutrients for life.... and white crescent Moon, sunlight bounced off to light the night, the first other world graced with the footprint of man, lovely spotlight for lovers and friends.....Glorious...."

In 20 years...... what will we know. indeed.

Craig

Good stuff, B, keep it up!

Thanks Nprev

Funny, but the night sky just feels like a freindlier place to me, now that we KNOW exoplanets really are there.... and their weak photons grace us, waiting to be caught ...............

What a time to be alive..... I was born in an age not knowing what Venus and Mars were really like, and
now, can point to other solar systems, and soon, maybe, know what other Earths are like!

Fantastic!!!!!!

Craig

And the award for "Science reporting of the year goes to..."

(pauses to open gold envelope...)

The Sun, for its coverage of the '55 Cancri' story...