New Earth-like planet spotted just 44 light years away

A team of British and German space scientists using ground-based telescopes in Chile have spotted an Earth-like planet revolving around a Sun-type star just about 44 light years away from our solar system. The newly-discovered planet is believed to have atmospheric and other conditions that make it very similar to Earth. Of all the Earth-like planets found to date, it’s the closest to us.

More than 800 planets have been discovered outside the solar system over the past two decades, the majority of them being gas giants like Jupiter or solid planets too close to their stars and therefore too hot to support water.

The new planet is in the so-called “habitable zone”, which means that it may have water in a liquid state, and it also has an axis of rotation. The latter increases chances that it may support Earth-type life, says astrophysicist Sergei Smirnov of Russia’s Pulkovo Observatory.

“It’s important that its rotation should not be synchronous like that of our Moon, which is a reason why only one side of the Moon permanently faces Earth. And also, its revolution period or the length of year should differ from its rotation period or the length of day. This is an additional factor that helps sustain a biosphere. The light-and-shadow cycle and the temperature cycle are also very important. Humans are accustomed to a change of light. We can equally endure full darkness and blistering sun on a sand beach or snowfield. The same is true of cold and heat. Some living organisms can survive in a far wider range of temperatures.”

The new planet is 7 times the size of Earth. Higher gravity, though unlikely to affect the climate, could result in smaller forms of life, says Sergei Smirnov.

“Suppose, advanced forms of life emerge there, like elephants here on Earth. Then, in all probability, they would be smaller and flatter due to higher gravity. There would be no large species.”

Oleg Malkov, a laboratory head at the Russian Institute of Astronomy, believes that the presence of a biosphere does not necessarily require Earth-like conditions.

“There is only one type of life in the Universe that we know of – our own. Therefore, we are looking for planets that resemble Earth in mass, size, distance from the central star and all other parameters. Thus, chances that Earth-type life does exist are increasing. But life may have other forms.”

Sergei Smirnov agrees:

“The “habitability” theories are based on scientific discoveries made in the mid-20th century. Today, we should take a broader look at potential forms of life in various temperature ranges, and in planetary atmospheres, oceans and solid surfaces of various chemical composition. In the solar system, moons of giant planets are likelier to have some forms of life than Mars. For example, Europa the size of our Moon has a thick ice shell that can possibly hold the largest amounts of liquid water in the solar system, where life is possible.”

Theoretically, there may be sulphuric-phosphate and silicon forms of life that do not require an atmosphere with a high concentration of oxygen. Incidentally, spectroscopic studies of exoplanets show that their atmospheres are oxygen-free.

Boris Pavlishev

Milky Way to inevitably merge with Andromeda Nebula – NASA

According to NASA, the merger of two neighbouring Galaxies, namely the Milky Way, of which the Solar System is a part and the Andromeda Nebula, is inevitable, since the Galaxies are approaching each other at some 400,000 kilometres per hour.

But the Earth will not get destroyed, nor will humanity suffer in the process, if humans still inhabit the Earth by then. NASA officials said this during a news conference on Thursday.

The merger will begin in approximately four billion years from now and is due over in six billion years.

The new galaxy that will emerge as a result will have a different, most likely elliptical form, and will be populated by fewer cosmic bodies than today.

Surface of an Alien Planet?

Nope! It’s an Extreme Close up HD image of the human eye!

Everyday we see hundreds of eyes but do not even suspect they have such beautiful structure, like surfaces of unknown planets.

First Earth-size planets found around distant star – in a bizarre solar system

For the first time, NASA’s Kepler spacecraft has found two Earth-size planets outside our solar system – a landmark achievement. But the planets are in a solar system that baffles scientists and could overthrow current models of planet formation.

This illustration shows artist’s renderings of planets Kepler 20e and Kepler 20f compared with Venus and the Earth.

Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics/AP

Scientists have found the first Earth-size planets orbiting a star like the sun, but the pair appear in a solar system so bizarre that it is for now upending current explanations for how solar systems form, the discoverers say.

The two planets, thought to be rocky, form a kind of cosmic triple-decker sandwich, with each interspersed among three Neptune-scale gas planets. All five are closer to their host star than Mercury is to the sun, meaning they are too hot for life.

But the find is proof that NASA‘s Kepler spacecraft can find Earth-size planets orbiting distant stars. Kepler 20e is slightly smaller than Venus, or about 0.87 times Earth’s size. Kepler 20f is 1.03 times Earth’s size.

Combined with the discovery, announced Dec. 5, of a “super Earth” in another star’s habitable zone, these new planets move the Kepler team closer to its goal: detecting Earth-size planets in their stars’ habitable zones – orbital distances where temperatures on the planet are warm enough to allow water to remain stable on the surface.

The newest discovery is “the most important milestone” for the Kepler team, says Francois Fressin, a researcher at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Mass., and the lead author of the team’s formal report, which is being published by the journal Nature.

Kepler uncovered the two Earth-size planets 1,000 light-years away by tracking the changes the brightness of light coming from their host star, Kepler 20, as the planets pass in front of it. Kepler 20e orbits its sun once every 6.1 days at an average distance of 4.7 million miles. Kepler 20f orbits once in 19.6 days at a distance of 10.3 million miles. 

Earth, by contrast, is 93 million miles from the sun.

The team doesn’t yet have an independent confirmation of the planets’ masses, but given their sizes and orbits, the planets likely are rocky – probably composed of silicates and iron, as is Earth – according to current models of how solar systems form.

Yet the arrangement of the five planets orbiting Kepler 20 is calling those models into question. It could be dubbed the Neptune/Rocky Horror Picture Show.

The configuration of the five planets – Neptune-like planet, followed by small rocky planet, followed by Neptune-like planet, followed by small rocky planet, followed by Neptune-like planet – is decidedly unlike anything yet seen.

“The architecture of that planetary system is crazy,” says David Charbonneau, another researcher from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and a Kepler team member.

From centuries of studying our own solar system, astronomers had pieced together a convincing picture of planet formation. Rocky planets formed close to the sun, where temperatures were too warm to allow gases and ices to accumulate. Meanwhile, gas and ice giants formed beyond the so-called snow line, where temperatures even on the sunward side of objects could not unfreeze water and allowed gases to condense into liquids.

“We thought all solar systems would be like this,” says Linda Elkins-Tanton, who heads the Carnegie Institution for Science’s Department of Terrestrial Magnetism in Washington.

Extrasolar-planet hunters then found so-called hot Jupiters – gas giants with Jupiter‘s mass and more – orbiting close to their parent stars. But that still could be explained: The giants just migrated inward and forced the smaller rocky planets into the star as they came, Dr. Elkins-Tanton suggests.

“Now, with this new Kepler finding, comes a solar system that doesn’t fit any mold we have,” she says. “This system forces us to change out ideas about how planets are formed, and how they reach stable orbits, and where indeed in solar systems there could be Earth-sized rocky planets.”

The Kepler team’s announcement Tuesday coincides with an additional report released the same day by scientist claiming to have found two planets smaller than Earth orbiting a relic of a red-giant star some 4,000 light-years away. Although this second group is not part of the Kepler team, they used Kepler data to make their discovery.

By Pete Spotts

Related articles

• First Earth-size planets discovered beyond our solar system (gizmag.com)
• Kepler finds first earth-size planets beyond our solar system (physorg.com)

Places on Earth Aliens Could Thrive?

Shark Bay, Australia

For about 85 percent of the history of life on Earth, only microbes existed. The only large-scale evidence of their activities is preserved by stromatolites, ancient structural records of life on Earth that hold evidence both of the biology of the microbial mat communities that created them and the nature of the environments in which they grew. They are rocky, dome-shaped structures formed in shallow water through the trapping of sedimentary grains by communities of microorganisms.

Yellowstone National Park

What is causing the beautiful colors in this hot spring in Yellowstone National Park? Life, that’s what! Many microorganisms live in the pools there, and because the temperatures of the springs are so hot (most are well over 100 degrees F, or 37.7 degrees C), they are called extremophiles (extreme-loving). They contain molecules that absorb the damaging rays of the sun, protecting their DNA. Those same molecules are also pigments that cause the different colors we see. Different extremophiles thrive in different temperatures, so the color of a particular area is determined by which organisms are living in it. A veritable rainbow appears as the water temperature decreases as it flows further and further away from its superheated source.

Mono Lake, California

Calcium carbonate formations called tufa give California’s Mono Lake an otherworldly feel. Mountains surround the lake, forming a closed hydrological basin—water flows in, but it doesn’t flow out. Because the only way for water to leave Mono Lake is through evaporation, it is naturally hypersaline—roughly two to three times saltier than the ocean. Freshwater streams and underwater springs have brought trace amounts of minerals into the lake over the eons, including arsenic. Recently, bacteria which appear to incorporate arsenic rather than phosphorus into their basic biological molecules were found living in Mono Lake

High Lakes, South America

The highest volcanic lakes in the world are located in the Andes Mountains of South America. Their elevation and isolation make them some of the least understood lakes on Earth and excellent analogs for lakes that existed on Mars 3.5 billion years ago. Simba Lake, at an elevation of 19,265 feet (5,872 meters) in the Chilean Andes, is red because of algae that developed pigments to protect themselves against high UV radiation. They float in the water near the surface, not deep enough to use the water column as a natural protection.

Pilbara, Western Australia

Created in a shallow pool on early Earth more than three billion years ago, these stromatolites represent a record of the most ancient life on Earth. They formed because colonies of microbes, as they grew, incorporated sediments from the water to create rocky structures. Found in Western Australia, the stromatolites take several different forms, including the slightly cone-shaped ones seen here resembling an egg carton. The structures shown in this picture are each about half an inch (1.2 centimeters) high.

Rio Tinto, Spain

Cloudy with particulates and flowing along terraces made of iron oxides, the Rio Tinto in southwestern Spain stretches for more than 62 miles (100 kilometers) before reaching the Atlantic. Despite its acidic waters and high concentrations of iron and other heavy metals, the river supports an incredible diversity of extremophile microorganisms, including algae and fungi. Microbial biofilms colonize the riverbed and are covered with yellow iron oxide precipitates, seen here. Because of geological similarities with Mars, the Mars Astrobiology Research and Technology Experiment (MARTE) team tested equipment at Rio Tinto in 2005 for drilling on Mars in search of subsurface life.Svalbard, Norway

Svalbard is a remote archipelago in northern Norway, deep within the Arctic Circle. Scientists with the Arctic Mars Analog Svalbard Expedition (AMASE) traveled there to test the protocols, procedures, and equipment needed to detect traces of organic chemistry and perhaps life on Mars. Instruments that will fly onboard NASA’s Mars Science Laboratory and ESA’s ExoMars missions were tested in Svalbard by the AMASE team. With a unique combination of volcanoes, hot springs, and permafrost, the Bockfjord Volcanic Complex on Svalbard is the only place on Earth with carbonate deposits identical to those found in the famous Martian meteorite ALH84001 (aka Allan Hills).

Flinders Range, South Australia

Piece of upturned sandstone in the Flinders Range of South Australia shows ripple marks of an ancient sea bed. This area of Australia hosts fossils of the first complex, multicellular organisms, which began to emerge on Earth about 600 million years ago. The study of these early fossils, known as the Ediacaran Fauna.

Ellesmere Island, Canada

Borup Fiord Pass Glacier on Ellesmere Island in Nunavut is a site in the Canadian High Arctic where astrobiologists study the potential for life on Jupiter‘s moon Europa. Water rich in sulfur-containing compounds flows from the top of this 656-foot-thick (200-meter-thick) glacier, a chemical mix that is capable of supporting microbial life. Europa’s icy surface is similarly stained with sulfate salts.