Scientists discover planet orbiting star

I went to a physics conference in Ohio a couple weeks ago.  At the event's poster session there were two posters on extra solar planets.  One was about detecting discs of gas and rock around stars by examining the spectra of the radiation they emit.  A star with no disc has a very well defined spectrum since they emit black body radiation, that is the radiation emitted by a warm black body, black meaning it absorbs all incoming radiation.  However, if a star has a disc around it, its spectrum will be shifted into the into longer wavelengths since the material that makes up a disc will absorb shorter wavelength radiation and emitt longer wavelength radiation.  The reason this is important is that planets form from these discs.  Also, they can tell if the system has begun forming planets by being able to detect areas in the discs that have been swept out by forming planets.

The other poster was on meassuring the intensity of the light of a star to detect the transit of extra solar planets.  I haven't read the link provided here but that is probably how this new planet was discovered.  A transit is when a planet passes between the earth and a star.  For example, last year mecury transited the sun when it passed directly between the earth and the sun making mecury's silloet visible through a filtered telescope, as you might guess it would be a very very bad idea to look directly into the sun with a powerful telescope unless it is filtered to block out most of the light.  What astronomers will detect when looking for extra solar planets is a periodic decrease in a star's intensity.  This is the result of a Jupiter sized planet passing directly between the Earth and the star.

It is all very interesting stuff.

PS at Z-BosoN what books do you have by Kaku, I have seveal, I'd get them off the shelf right now and list them but its dark in my room and I don't want to turn on the light or make much noise and wake my roommate.

PPS I would have a very difficult time imagining life existing without liquid water. It is such a unique substance with so many properties that can be taken advantage of by life that existing without it may not even be possible. Living without sunlight or oxygen is possible provided that there is some supply of energy. Life requires chemical reactions to exist and many many chemical reactions will not take place without alot of energy.

 

It would take all my sympathy not to slice on through. I'd be on my hands and knees begging for a crack at its corpse once it dies
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@Quanta
Interesting physics, but didn't they mention that the used the Wobble, over a few decades?

"A star with no disc has a very well defined spectrum since they emit black body radiation, that is the radiation emitted by a warm black body"
Doesn't this need to be reworded? (I could be reading wrong) don't stars just emit radiation in general, and non-star bodies emit 'black body radiation'?

 

Oh, I see they looked at the effects the planet's gravity had on the stars.  Like I said, or at least I thought I said, I didn't look at the article.  I just figured that was the most likely method.  Unfortunately both these methods have a distinct flaw, they cannot detect rocky planets since they do not have enough mass to have a noticable effect on a star nor do they have enough volume to block enough light for us to detect a change in intensity.  However, this will likey change as our technology improves and we become able get better and better resolution in our data.

No, stars are black bodies, the term black may be misleading since there is nothing black about a star.  Black merely means that the object absorbs all the incoming radiation and thus all the radiation coming from a black body is emitted by the black body not reflected from another source.  There are very well defined equations to describe black body radiation.  The intensity and spectrum of radiation emitted by a black body depends on its temperature.  Stars are black bodies and they emit black body radiation.  The source of the radiation is the heat generated by the fusion reactions going on inside the stars.

PS, it is only in movies that scientists drool over the chance to disect an allien. I'm sure if we ever found intelligent life we would be a bit more sensitve than that. MRI's would probably suffice; although non intelligent life, which is many many many times more likely to be found will probably be disected or far more likely than that just looked at through a microscope.

 

this is why i think far-advanced life forms wouldn't be very different from us
first, they cant be aqautics, because fire doesnt work underwater and fire is the base of all electricity, and furthermore because of the water you cant use catapults and most devices would work to slow
second, thumbs are one of the best things for operating technology and creating it, so thumbs are a must
third, if the gravity is to high, big creatures wont evolve so there wont be room for big brains
fourth, if the graviry is too low, fire would be far to dangerous
fifth, our body form can do almost everything, so maybe those creatures will have 6 arms, but they will definetly have arms, legs and a head

 

@ijffdrie (these are philosphical questions, not attacks )
That is the type of mentality that derives from the Great Chain of Being, and similar theories from its time.
Many people tend to think that our forms are the only possible forms.
--That means that advanced life, would by default, have to be life that is just like us. If it differs, it is not considered advanced.
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Dolphins are incredibly intelligent, they learn, plan, communicate, and are social. Just like us. They don't "build/ use tools". So, they are not advanced. Yet what building material are near the surface of the water? What would they need to build? (1 example of tool usage, was wrapping sponges around thier beaks, when they sifted through sand and rocks so they don't scratch their skin. There are few opportunities to build)
{your not having thumbs point comes in handy above}

Do they Have to build devices to be advanced? Some creatures build from instinct, using tools from the environment. Are they advanced? They build, but they are not planning.

QUESTION: If a creature is capable of being 'advanced' but is in a place where it cannot demonstrate its capacity, is that creature still advanced?
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Look at the octopus, it doesn't have thumbs, but has incredible dexterity, mostly because of its incredible suckers that line the arms. No thumbs. They are intelligent, they plan, learn, use tools. They aren't social, so there isn't really collaboration. Are they advanced?
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Size of brain, can and cannot correlate directly with intelligence. Small or large animals may be intelligent, they may not be. They are separate traits. Whales, and Parrots "we" consider parrots smarter.

Fire (oxidative combustion which needs, Heat, Oxidation, and 1 more thing forgot lol) is very different from electricity (movement of positive and negative charges). Water absorbs heat, and usually doesn't have enough oxidative material, in Earths case oxygen is common, but other chemicals work too!

 

i was talking about technological advanced, not evolutionary, fire is the most basic thing needed to create energy, you use it to burn coal oil and such

 

Anansi, the points you have mentioned are valid. I must disagree on a couple of things.

Protozoa don't breathe hydrogen, they do not breathe at all for they do not have a respiratory system. They are also not exactly carapaced in the bug-sense I put it in.

Also, think of it evolution-wise. We only know Earth, and we saw that neither Mars nor Venus possessed life, That means that certain conditions have to be met to create even the most insignificant of life sources. These life sources will only be able to evolve into higher beings only if even more specific conditions are met, and so on. We exist because a variety of conditions were met that allowed for us to evolve into what we are.

Suppose we change those conditions, what kinds of life forms can we expect? SInce we have no record of any other life evoltution we can only guess. The conditiions for life are extremely narrow, which is why we haven't found it yet. If the conditions of life are so narrow, that means that they should be similar to ours. I will elaborate more on this with an example of what I mean.

When I say life similar to ours, I don't mean humans, I mean everything including Arthropodes, Plathelmyntes, Cnidaria, and everything else in the animal Kingdom. Plants and other kingdoms can be considered, as well.

Hope that makes sense.

 

mars could have had life there is water on the planet though its frozen, they have found a rock on mars that looks as if it has fossilised bacterial remains within it

 

we found bacteria spores in a meteor from mars


Edited out quotes. Please read the forum rules and refrain from quoting unnecessarily.

 

@ ijffdrie , the fire example doesn't exactly work.

Technically there could be aquatic sentient beings. There are any number of situations which could bring it about. In fact, it would just as likely as a land-bound race.

There are other ways to produce heat than the use of fire. It just happens that fire is the easiest way to do it. But given enough time, even an underwater species could develop means of creating heat by combining the right materials, etc.

Also, the "meteor" from Mars is highly contested. There is no definite proof that it actually came from Mars and/or wasn't contaminated by earth species. It's not definitive proof.

-----

The point of this whole discussion is how to balance what is extremely likely (that there is a planet with similar characteristics to our own that could potentially be habited) with other facts (that it is highly unlikely that a large number of planets have met the exact specifications that would lead to the evolution of a sentient being on another planet).

Our goal is to find the possible sources of life, and to do that we have to narrow the playing field. The best way to narrow the category that we're looking at is to examine planets similar to our own, which includes those with liquid water.

So we search in these "habitable zones" around stars in hopes of finding a planet similar to our own that might support life.

Otherwise we would be searching every planet for life.

So we have basic requirements before we consider a planet having the possibility of life:

1. Liquid Water
2. Balanced weather systems
3. Significant atmospheric conditions
4. Correct combinations of elements

If a planet meets all of these conditions, it is possible that life exists on it and it has the best chance, since we know that these conditions could create life, as it did on our own. It's certainly better than checking the far corners of the Universe and methodically searching every planet.

It's just like a library search. You're only going to check the section that pertains to life.

 

Inception
Organic elements, happen to be the ones we are formed from. They can naturally take the base properties and structures of life... but "life" has criteria. Metabolism(energy consumption), Reproduction, (forgot 3rd...death...matter...something like that...oh well).

{Viruses are debated, since they don't meet them all, even though they replicate with DNA or RNA!}

• 
  Reproduction is the most important criteria.
  
  The Lipid Membrane occurs naturally, the Bilayer Lipid Membrane (life's) forms naturally, and holds together, creating an
  
  inner environment that is separate from the outside world. (thats how detergents get dirt out )
  
  Amino Acids, form naturally (these are the building blocks for proteins, peptides...
  
  Sugar and DNA are more complex structures, but they can form if assembled, yet the probability isn't terribly high.

(here comes some my own devising)
It is possible that life living organisms/structures could have occurred a few times; when and if they died, they ceased to exist, forever (basic single celled organisms). ONLY when any of these structure could replicate could they persist through time. Imagine a sea of different kinds of life (I'm thinking single celled, since mulitcellular ones have such a slim probability), repeated ones could exist, but they arose separately, if destroyed that is the end of it. Say 1 or 5 of these kinds could self replicate, they would continue to do so, increasing in numbers. ANY event could wipe out countless life forms, but only the ones that replicate could rebound.

I think that cellular organism likely occurred, but only the ones that replicated populated the earth. It is a rare event that the elements that could make life would all come together at once, but if those narrow conditions were met, life would form. Replicating/Reproducing is a completely separate characteristic. The features of reproduction are quite specific (as our planet has shown), these specifics can and do occur naturally, but they just as easily, or even more easily could not occur.

What are the odds that the first organisms to form were Also capable of reproducing? It would make sense that several formed, and only the ones that would reproduce could carry on, being that reproduction allows for a realistic probability of existing/surviving to occur.

-----This is in regards to Earth. But I hope you see just how precarious the formation & continuation of life would be. It can happen, it did happen, it could happen again, but any small changes allows for great variability.

I agree that the chances are narrow, and doubly so when you mention all the forms of life on this planet. Who knows what else is possible, it is nearly unfathomable as of now. Lipids Bilayers naturally occur in water, different elements might also be able to do that, but all like (that I know of) makes use of that basic feature. Life is precarious, 2 items I like to example that are Proteins and Sugars; their structures all have an exact mirror image, (like our hands). All life on earth uses D-Sugars(right) and L-Proteins(left). There is no real difference between the 2 pairs, but since our ancerstoral cells used these ones, we cannot use the reverse! (quite a few artificial sweeteners use these, the shape is almost identical so they taste sweet, they just brush over the receptors, but our bodies can't process them because enzymes and such cant get the proper grip.)

Life is very precarious

 

We always have to consider aliens might have an alternate biochemistry. Who knows? Oxygen might be poisonous to them.

 

yeah, a familiar one is Bacteria, The Acne Bacteria actually prefer low levels of oxygen.

Oxygen is deadly to us if the concentration is too high, because it will start sucking the electrons right off our bodies! (Highly Electro Negative)

----I finally feel like my University Classes are paying off!!!!------ I'm not dumb lol