Astronomers Find Batch of "Super-Earths"

[liveweatherman]

SUPER TRIO: This artist's conception depicts three super-Earths, or planets a few times Earth's mass, discovered orbiting the star HD 40307 in our galaxy.
ESA

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - European researchers said on Monday they discovered a batch of three "super-Earths" orbiting a nearby star, and two other solar systems with small planets as well.

They said their findings, presented at a conference in France, suggest that Earth-like planets may be very common.

"Does every single star harbor planets and, if yes, how many?" asked Michel Mayor of Switzerland's Geneva Observatory. "We may not yet know the answer but we are making huge progress towards it," Mayor said in a statement.

The trio of planets orbit a star slightly less massive than our Sun, 42 light-years away towards the southern Doradus and Pictor constellations. A light-year is the distance light can travel in one year at a speed of 186,000 miles a second, or about 6 trillion miles.

The planets are bigger than Earth -- one is 4.2 times the mass, one is 6.7 times and the third is 9.4 times.

They orbit their star at extremely rapid speeds -- one whizzing around in just four days, compared with Earth's 365 days, one taking 10 days and the slowest taking 20 days. read article

source: yahoo news

Here's another Article:http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=many-stars-may-have-super-earths

Wow..if only this so called super earth's might be possible to live on..that will be great..a bigger and better place for us...

[KWT]

Assuming of course there is not already something living on that planet!

[liveweatherman]

Assuming of course there is not already something living on that planet!

jeezee we cannot survive there if it's orbiting there star at a very dazzling extreme speed...dizzy..dizzzy...lol

[HURAKAN]

What is important is to determine the hospitable zone of this star and if any of these planets are inside it. If so, then liquid water is possible.

[KWT]

Yep thats the key Hurakan. Yeah it'd be strange liveweatherman, summer one week then straight over to winter the next, in fact there probably isn't much in the way of seasonal temperature change I guess.

[wbug1]

Article says the planets are too hot. If there's no water or the land can't grow plants, then nobody can live there except in an artificial construction. Unless we reduce our CO2 emissions we not get there for a long time, if ever.

[Matt-hurricanewatcher]

Article says the planets are too hot. If there's no water or the land can't grow plants, then nobody can live there except in an artificial construction. Unless we reduce our CO2 emissions we not get there for a long time, if ever.

Who's to say that there is not liveable planets out there? I mean we have only started to look for them and have been finding them like crazy over the short time frame we have been looking. But anyways' it all comes down to WILL and do we want to go look and explore for them.

Anyways, I don't believe as you believe at all. In fact it comes down more to do with 'WILL', and how long freedom lasts on earth if and when we will make it to one of these planets. That is saying is if we waste time fighting something that is not real we won't have the freedom to do anything besides die; like the way it used to be.

[wbug1]

Oh, I'm not saying there isn't a livable planet out there. Even Mars is livable. I agree about the will part.

[Squarethecircle]

Interestingly enough, because of relativistic "time changes" (best phrase for it I can think of right now), it would take less than a year from our perspective to travel to these planets. The problem is, if we don't ferry everyone in one go, whatever disaster that would befall our planet in however many years would most likely have happened (if we travel at half the speed of light, then it takes about a hundred years to get back). It would be within the ability of a human being to survive a trip to the Andromeda Galaxy at such speeds.

Note that it's not quite as simple as I might make it out to be.

[wbug1]

I was reading that there was a substitution error in Einstein's special relativity, but I am not really able to handle that level of thinking right now, but looking at the equations there seems to be some problem there.

I've been reading a lot about physics, there is a lot we still don't know. Even lightning isn't well explained, and NASA reported that some storms emit gamma rays. Wow.