Really? This is the first time I'm hearing that. I've seen "planet discovered" a bunch of times, with a crescendo of excitement. I was always disappointed that they were almost exclusively super-giants and the "so what" line always said something like "and if this super-giant has moons, they could be habitable!"
This is the first time I've seen a story about an actual earth-like (with fairly loose parameters) planet that is roughly in the life-zone! Usually headlines that say "earth-like planet discovered!" involve either a frozen rock orbiting way outside of its sun, or a burning pebble right next to it.
However important this particular planet is, I think it's a first as far as fairly plausible life candidates go. Here's to more!
This is the first planet which is firmly in the habitable zone. The last "potentially habitable" planet had a highly eccentric orbit that took it in and out of the habitable zone.
You can expect to hear this story once more: the first time we discover a planet in the habitable zone which isn't probably tidally locked. In another ten years we'll probably know dozens of habitable-zone planets and nobody will care about 'em much.
Still, what are you expecting to happen? With current technology all we can do is sit here and watch the star wobble. We can't get a direct image of the planet, we can't determine its radius, we can't determine its composition, or whether it has an atmosphere, and we certainly can't get there.
Actually the first time a transiting potentially habitable planet (ie one whose orbit takes it across the face of its star as seen from Earth) we will be able to determine its radius and perhaps within our lifetime its atmospheric composition (current instruments are almost but not quite good enough to get a proper absorption spectrum of a transiting exoplanet). So that's something to look forward to.
Most of what happens should be in your mind, your thoughts. This planet should be something you think about. Discoveries like this change our understanding of what our galaxy is like, of the prospects of other life out there, and of who we are here on Earth.
Hundreds of planets like Gliese 581g will probably be found in the next three years. As we slowly build more and bigger telescopes, we'll gain more and more information about them. This is a process that takes decades.
So don't expect "something to happen" tomorrow because of this discovery. Something should happen in your mind immediately, but the real and physical repercussions of this discovery are slow and expensive.
If you want them to speed up, you should lobby your government to increase their funding, or perhaps donate to some of these projects yourself :)
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This might be nth time I am hearing a news "Potentially Habitable Planet Discovered". Nothing happens after that.
Really? This is the first time I'm hearing that. I've seen "planet discovered" a bunch of times, with a crescendo of excitement. I was always disappointed that they were almost exclusively super-giants and the "so what" line always said something like "and if this super-giant has moons, they could be habitable!"
This is the first time I've seen a story about an actual earth-like (with fairly loose parameters) planet that is roughly in the life-zone! Usually headlines that say "earth-like planet discovered!" involve either a frozen rock orbiting way outside of its sun, or a burning pebble right next to it.
However important this particular planet is, I think it's a first as far as fairly plausible life candidates go. Here's to more!
This is the first planet which is firmly in the habitable zone. The last "potentially habitable" planet had a highly eccentric orbit that took it in and out of the habitable zone.
You can expect to hear this story once more: the first time we discover a planet in the habitable zone which isn't probably tidally locked. In another ten years we'll probably know dozens of habitable-zone planets and nobody will care about 'em much.
Still, what are you expecting to happen? With current technology all we can do is sit here and watch the star wobble. We can't get a direct image of the planet, we can't determine its radius, we can't determine its composition, or whether it has an atmosphere, and we certainly can't get there.
Actually the first time a transiting potentially habitable planet (ie one whose orbit takes it across the face of its star as seen from Earth) we will be able to determine its radius and perhaps within our lifetime its atmospheric composition (current instruments are almost but not quite good enough to get a proper absorption spectrum of a transiting exoplanet). So that's something to look forward to.
It's not really actionable information at this point.
Most of what happens should be in your mind, your thoughts. This planet should be something you think about. Discoveries like this change our understanding of what our galaxy is like, of the prospects of other life out there, and of who we are here on Earth.
Hundreds of planets like Gliese 581g will probably be found in the next three years. As we slowly build more and bigger telescopes, we'll gain more and more information about them. This is a process that takes decades.
So don't expect "something to happen" tomorrow because of this discovery. Something should happen in your mind immediately, but the real and physical repercussions of this discovery are slow and expensive.
If you want them to speed up, you should lobby your government to increase their funding, or perhaps donate to some of these projects yourself :)
To be fair, that's not limited to astronomy, or even science - the vast majority of all news stories result in 'nothing happens'.