Friday, May 04, 2007

 
Scientists Found What They are Calling Super Earth!

Gliese 581, a planet 20 light years away seems to have all the right components to have water and possibley a life sustaining atmosphere. Dimitar Sasselov of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, who studies the structure and formation of planets, said he suspected that this planet could be even more congenial for life than Earth. We're thinking the people who live there are twice as big and healthy?

The planet was discovered by the European Southern Observatory’s telescope in La Silla, Chile, which has a special instrument that splits light to find wobbles in different wave lengths. Those wobbles reveal the existence of other worlds.

Until now, all 220 planets astronomers have found outside our solar system have had the “Goldilocks problem.” They’ve been too hot, too cold or just plain too big and gaseous, like uninhabitable Jupiter.

The planet is 14 times closer to the star it orbits. Dr. Udry (the lead author of a paper describing the discovery that has been submitted to the Journal of Astrophysics & Astronomy) figures the red dwarf star would hang in the sky at a size 20 times larger than our moon. NICE! And it’s likely, but still not known, that the planet doesn’t rotate, so one side would always be sunlit and the other dark ("night people" can live on one side and morning people on the other). Anyone sitting on the planet would get heavier quickly, and birthdays would add up fast since it orbits its star every 13 days. Gravity is 1.6 times as strong as Earth’s so a 150-pound person would feel like 240 pounds. That would be a problem, but if we wore giant balloon shoes it might make up for the extra gravity.

Comments:
I'm so glad that wobbles reveal the existence of other worlds. And personally, I already feel like I'm living the 1.6 times stronger gravity on Gliese.
 
ps- I like this sci-fi post very much. Esp. w/ the preddy laday pitcher.
 
On Gliese 581, tree trunk does mating dance with Danskin® dress sleeves, I think we'll like it there.
 
corny, i read about this too! i wish we could take some of the iraq war money and move it over to space exploration. Let's go to Gliese 581!!
 
hey my friend, this isn't sci-fi. This is straight out of the paper of record. Welcome to tomorrow.

PS. I know what you mean about the whole gravity thing, it's such a downer.
 
Oh man Fb , I KNOW ! I think as the planet becomes one giant tropical flood zone we'll shift some more money to space exploration.
Space rulz
 
There was a story in the science times about how all the tropical plants are starting to move north.

we'll all be covered by Kudzu with a few pineapple trees poping thru
 
Again with the Kudzu! I was buried under kudzu sometime in the night. I chewed my way out. It took 3 hours.
Corns, I did a little lucid dreaming last night. I guess purely on your mention of it. I suddenly became aware that the phone was ringing in my dream and asked myself if it was happening for real, or in the dream. It was just my dream. But then it happened later and I asked the same question, but it turned out to be a real call. I need the dreams to be a little more interesting.
 
This is all very validating to me since I was once abducted and raped by the Coors Lite twins from Gliese 19, and at the time nobody believed me.
 
PD, this is a MAJOR happening! Toningt when the phone rings in your dream make sure theres someone interesting on the other line.
I think ringing a bell is actually a thing they do in the lucid dreaming workshop in Hawaii to act as a reminder or a signal that you are in a dream.
I've been having these awsome flying dreams of late but am interested in making the dreams more productive, like visiting my own studio to see what I'd make.

Capt'n those twins are trouble. I'm sorry to hear about the rape, I wish it could of been me.
 
Corns! Can I just say my shack-time this weekend has been enriched by the Tyson/Baj winning combo.
So I used to dream about flying and it was so fucking incredible and real that I really thought I could do it. But them one night I had a dream that people were asking me to "take them up" with me. I did, but each time I did it, I lost more and more of my power and sank lower and lower, til I was just a person walking on my two legs. I don't think I had a flying dream after that. Jeez.
 
Time to kick those free loaders to the curb and get airborn.

Those shows blew me away.
 
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