

NASA to announce 'intriguing planetary system' discovery on Thursday - anigbrowl
http://www.nasa.gov/centers/ames/news/releases/2010/10-72AR.html

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myth_drannon
I'm quoting a person who works on that project: "They discovered a huge number
of Earth-like planets. The new count is vastly outnumbers previous estimations
even over the gas giants due to imperfect technology." The remaining
conclusions are up to you, even if they are not going to be voiced at the
conference....

~~~
anigbrowl
The reason I found it interesting was that the news about 'hundreds' of Earth-
like planets (using a very ballpark description of 'Earth-like,' of course)
filtered out back in June in the usual fairly low-key fashion.

This announcement refers to a 'new discovery about an intriguing planetary
system' - in other ones, just one solar system out of the hundreds of possible
candidates. Maybe it's nothing more than extreme cleverness being used to
confirm one of them has 3 or more planets (which would be significant in
itself), but I sense a mystery - either something we'd never seriously
considered before (like planets with overlapping orbits?) or else something
that looks unexpectedly familiar.

Most exciting of all would be confirmation by some other observation platform
of something interesting at a particular location - the plan is to work with
other observatories to take a more detailed look at interesting candidates
(see
[http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/kepler/news/keplerm-201005...](http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/kepler/news/keplerm-20100503.html)).
Small hope of that right now, though.

If you want to study the date yourself, it's available via
<http://archive.stsci.edu/> and <http://nsted.ipac.caltech.edu/>;
[http://nexsci.caltech.edu/workshop/2010/speaker_talks/Plavch...](http://nexsci.caltech.edu/workshop/2010/speaker_talks/PlavchanGettingData.pdf)
gives a quick rundown on what you need to know in order to work with it.

~~~
nopassrecover
Overlapping orbits would be interesting. They would have to be equal size
planets and directly opposite (my mind isnt alert enough to consider 3D right
now) the star so as not to collide nor alter the other planet's orbit right?

~~~
anigbrowl
I have no idea if/how that would work - it was just the first wacky thing that
came to mind _blush_

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po
Please keep in mind that NASA's idea of an 'intriguing planetary system' is
probably very different than the general public's.

~~~
TGJ
It does make me wonder to consider what NASA finds intriguing. Exciting would
be a green planet of the right size orbiting the right distance from it's sun.
What could fall into intriguing but not exciting to people that for most
intents and purposes have seen it all?

~~~
carbocation
I would be excited by a blue planet; a green planet (assuming that's shorthand
for large masses of chlorophyll == extraterrestrial life) would probably be
the most important announcement ever made.

~~~
ars
From what I understand of the technology it isn't possible for us to detect
this right now.

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anigbrowl
For any HN readers who are suitably qualified and looking for a new career
challenge...

 _Kepler is NASA's Discovery mission to find the first Earth-sized, habitable
exoplanets. The SETI Institute is seeking an astronomer/scientist to archive
Kepler data and results. The successful candidate will be a member of the
Kepler Science Office, located at the NASA-Ames Research Center, and will be
an integral part of the Kepler Team that shares proprietary ownership of the
data and its scientific exploitation. This Support Scientist will assist in
the verifying, validating, managing, coordinating, and archiving of the data
produced by the Kepler photometer and ground-based follow-up observations. The
production of the mission-critical Kepler Results Catalog will be their
primary goal.

The successful candidate should have experience managing large volumes of
data. Familiarity with optical CCD pixel-level data, high-precision photometry
and time-series analysis, light curve modeling and stellar astrophysics are
highly desirable. An appreciation for the importance of interface control
documents, configuration management, and system engineering is critical.
[....more at link...]_

<http://www.seti.org/jobs/kepler-archive>

~~~
guelo
I have a feeling the "succeful candidate" already knows and works with many of
the interested people.

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ANH
Here's a recent Planetary Society podcast interview with the Kepler principal
investigator, Bill Borucki: <http://planetary.org/radio/show/00000400/>

He talks about the discovery of those hundreds of candidate planets.

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leot
Perhaps it will be related to this?

[http://www.nature.com/nmeth/journal/v6/n7/full/nmeth0709-487...](http://www.nature.com/nmeth/journal/v6/n7/full/nmeth0709-487.html)

EDIT: original PNAS article <http://www.pnas.org/content/106/19/7816>

~~~
anigbrowl
I'd be surprised, but happily we have options for making such tests via Hubble
and others, so if not now, then maybe later.

BTW if you haven't seen it, you'll probably enjoy this (small pdf):
[http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.43....](http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.43.1070&rep=rep1&type=pdf)

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aplusbi
Maybe they discovered a planet that orbits a binary star but whose orbit
doesn't match what physics would predict for planets in a binary system.
Almost as if the planet itself were adjusting and compensating...

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markkat
The suspense is going to kill me. I'm thinking it has to be either a sister-
like system, or have a green/blue planet. My money is on the former.

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demallien
A very big occluded:not-occluded ratio, on the order of 1:10 - welcome to
Ringworld!

Well, we can always dream, but it _would_ be intriguing.

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jff
A Klemperer rosette of planets, each with its own small artificial sun?

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DanielBMarkham
In related news, some types of bacteria proven to survive in space for more
than a year. <http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-11039206>

I don't think we're anywhere near an "ET" moment, but I'm excited that we're
getting some hard numbers on the types of planetary distributions there are.
These numbers can feed models that can be extrapolated. If we end up with a
billion earth-mass planets in the galaxy? Well you don't have to be a rocket
scientist to see the writing on the wall.

If they'd announce the general news that would be one thing. But if it's going
to trickle out system-by-system, that is going to be a huge pain in the ass.
Isn't it possible for them just to let their hair down a bit, go out and have
a beer, and tell us what it currently _looks_ like? Sure beats having to wait!

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borisk
Planet X on collision course with Earth? :D

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RobIsIT
I've been trying to introduce an intriguing planetary system to my wife for
years now.

