Astronomers See Second Earth in the Making
 

Astronomers See Second Earth in the Making

Ker Than
Staff Writer
SPACE.com Wed Oct 3, 10:00 AM ET

Astronomers have spotted evidence of a second Earth being built around a distant star 424 light-years away.

Using NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope, astronomers have spotted a huge belt of warm dust swirling around a young star called HD 113766 that is just slightly larger than our sun. The dust belt, which scientists suspect is clumping together to form planets, is located in the middle of the star system's terrestrial habitable zone where temperatures are moderate enough to sustain liquid water. Scientists estimate there is enough material in the belt to form a Mars-sized world or larger.

At approximately 10 million years old, the star is just the right age for forming rocky planets, the researchers say. Their finding will be detailed in an upcoming issue of Astrophysical Journal.

"The timing for this system to be building an Earth is very good," said study team member Carey Lisse, of the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Baltimore, Md.

If the star system were too young, the planet-forming disk would be full of gas, and it would be making gas-giant planets like Jupiter instead. If it was too old, Spitzer would have spotted rocky planets that had long ago formed.

The star system also has the right mix of dusty materials in its disk to form an Earth-like planet, Lisse said.

Using Spitzer's infrared spectrometer instrument, the team determined that the material around HD 113766 is more processed than the snowball-like stuff that makes up infant solar systems and comets, which are considered cosmic "refrigerators" because they contain pristine ingredients from the solar system's formative period. But it is also not as processed as the stuff found in mature planets and asteroids.

"The material mix in this belt is most reminiscent of the stuff found in lava flows on Earth," Lisse said. "I thought of Mauna Kea [in Hawaii] material when I first saw the dust composition in this system – it contains raw rock and it's abundant in iron sulfides, which are similar to fool's gold."

Earlier this year, scientists announced they had discovered one, and possibly two, already formed Earth-like planets around Gliese 581, a dim red star located only 20.5 light-years away. The planets, called Gliese 581c and Gliese 581d, are located at about the right distance from their star to support liquid water and life as we know it, but many more observations are needed to confirm this.

To date, planet hunters have discovered more than 250 extrasolar planets, or "exoplanets." Most of the distant worlds, however, are giant gas planets several times the size of Jupiter.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/space/200710...rthinthemaking

Now we only need to wait a few hundred million years to see how it turns out. ;)

I love how we're starting to discover possible habitable worlds, it's pretty exciting!

This shit is so interesting. Amazing

Not bad, good find KJ

Interesting read more-of-so through that link, good website.

Damn, that's pretty cool. I wonder if we'll see people traveling to other planets in our lifetime..

The closest star to us would take at least 4 years to get to traveling at the speed of light. On top of that, it would take another 4 years for the radio signals to reach back to the earth to report what they found there. (assuming you were talking about planets outside of our solar system)

I bet after 100 million years and our Earth has exploded and died then there will be life on that planet, and the people would think they're the only ones and look for other life and they die and other life forms, etc.

I'm pretty confident we'll see a manned Mars landing in our lifetime, travelling beyond the Solar System in our lifetime will not become a possibility without some kind of breakthrough that essentially tells us everything we've learned about Time and Space are either woefully underdeveloped or flat-out wrong.

LOL?


I don't get it :( .

Read the book and I'm sure you would. It has to do with space travel, which pertains to this thread.

I haven't seen that book, if that's a counterpoint to my statement, mind giving me a brief rundown of the relevant part? I'd love to hear about it. :)

Quantum mechanics says that, theoretically, anything is possible. You know how we can't simultaneously measure the position and momentum of an electron? Well, that leaves open a lot of room for anything to happen. Theoretically. The statistics are such that quantum fluctuations only occur on the tiniest of scales. But aside from that, quantum theory is still a developing field, and there are some interesting developments, such as the quantum computer they just built (instead of 0s and 1s it uses bytes that are simultaneously 0 and 1). The funny thing is, due to the nature of quantum theory this computer can actually solve problems without ever being turned on -- the hypothetical idea that it could solve a problem is enough to extract the solution.

This is all rudimentary and maybe a little bit inaccurate?.. I kind of have no idea what's going on in my quantum mechanics chemistry class.

Hmm.. what major in college would you take to be an astronaut? I don't think it would be Astronomy.. though i'm sure it would be a required minor or atleast a pre-req.

Now that's some interesting shit.

Very!

It's a popular belief that there are infinite universes.