Go to the mobile version of this Web site.

Login | Contact Us | Site Map | Paid archives | Electronic edition | Subscription Questions | Extras

Gliese 581c: It isn't home, but it's getting close

Published April 26, 2007 at midnight

Text size  

More Editorials

More stories »

For millennia, it was assumed that the planets orbiting the Sun were unique in the universe, and then in the 1990s astronomers began to detect positive evidence of other planets.

Now there have been so many extra-solar planets discovered that astronomy Web sites are getting careless about keeping track of them. One authoritative site says 229; NASA says 211.

Until now, most of them were gas giants, a scientific curiosity but from the standpoint of the layman, with dreams of exploration, useless. But that searching has paid off with the discovery by European astronomers of a potentially habitable planet.

"Habitable" here is a term of art, meaning that it probably is made up of rock and water; that it has surface water and, thus, conceivably some kind of life; and a survivable temperature range. Mind you, nobody's really seen it; this is all inferred, as is the existence of life.

The planet is Gliese 581c in the constellation Libra and it orbits every 13 days around the red dwarf sun Gliese. 581c is larger than Earth and we would weigh 1.6 times our body weight there. Moreover, the parent is one of the 100 closest stars to Earth and it is "only" 20.5 light years away. Said one optimistic astronomer, "We can go there." And, indeed, 581c flies to the top of the list of candidates as the most likely target of a space probe one day.

One planet at a time, we are coming closer to the discovery of something akin to a second Earth.

Comments

  • January 23, 2009

    5:42 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    billgrisham writes:

    +A proper probability equation contains both a numerator and a denominator. So when considering the probability of a planet's usefulness for supporting life, a proper scientific approach should consider not only the number of possible planets, but also the number of necessary criterion upon which to base the requirements for life. This will result in quite a different set of planets which are suitable for further exploration. I suspect that the generic answer will be something close to infinity over infinity, which is an indeterminate in Math. If it is as I suspect, then this whole issue is a doubtful exercise in the first place. (Read Francis Collin's "The Language of God" to get an idea on the scope of these other scientific issues). And that being the case, let's spend more time and money on improving life here on earth, and that applies to funding for NASA, which should be redirected toward high tech answers of value in solving our problems with energy, and the environment, consistent with improving our quality of life and practical economics. A good example of this is the SIM project developed by NASA/JPL vs. the MIRIAH project developed by ROSAE, Inc. (see http://www.billgrisham.us/ ). SIM is a brilliant technical answer clothed in a foolish arcchitecture, while MIRIAH is a brilliant architecture which has not been funded since NASA is so enamored with extraterrestrial life. We need change (says President Obama).