

Earth-like planet just 12 light-years away - gautamc
http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2012/12/another-earth-just-12-light-year.html

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droithomme
Before reading article: _"Earth-like, eh. This is going to be yet another one
of those link bait articles identifying a gas giant closely orbiting some sun
as being earth-like."_

Article: _"slight changes in Tau Ceti's motion through space suggest that the
star may be responding to gravitational tugs from five planets that are only
about two to seven times as massive as Earth"_

After reading article: _"I was wrong, there wasn't even a confirmed planet
involved."_

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lubos
when you are looking that far away, you can't see any planets. They are not
light source like stars.

The only way to figure out whether star has any planets around is to measure
and interpret periodical gravitational vibrations.

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robbiep
You are of course right about 1 of the 3 methods of finding planets around
distant stars but I feel droithomme was more commenting on the total
disconnect between the post title and the actual discovery which is nothing
like 'earth-like planet discovered around a star 12 light years away'.

Apologies for being a pedant

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droithomme
Thanks, yes that's correct. The key detail from the quote pull was "suggest",
I didn't intend to indicate that this general method is detection is invalid.

The details in the article came down to they were pulling signal out from deep
within noise in a way that other planet finders were skeptical of: "They're
really digging deep into the noise here. The community is going to find it
hard to accept planet discoveries from signals so deeply embedded in noise."

Even the researchers themselves are quoted as saying they don't consider
anything here proven, they are just seeing if anyone else wants to have a go
at finding further confirmation or disproof: "We felt that the best thing to
do was to put the result out there and see if somebody can either
independently confirm it or shoot it down."

The researchers themselves have not made the claim of finding an earth like
planet around Tau Ceti at all. It's not been established or accepted by
experts in the field that there are planets around this sun, what their orbits
are, their composition, or that they are "earth-like" in a way that any non-
specialist reader would interpret "earth-like". Even the authors don't make
those claims. Maybe someday those things will be confirmed or disproved. Today
is not that day.

The journalist is aware of this too. At the end of the article he says "If the
planets exist...", acknowledging it is not established at all, before then
engaging in fanciful speculation that is unlikely to appear in a reputable
science news source with a competent editor: "That may just explain why no one
from Tau Ceti has ever contacted beings as primitive as us."

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younata
title is linkbait-y.

It's saying that there MIGHT be some planets orbiting that star, but there's
so much noise in the data that it's likely just noise and nothing else.

~~~
Cogito
That is not how I read it at all.

The scientists took a lot of measurements over a long period, and carefully
tried to remove as much noise as possible. After this, they think the
remaining perturbation can be explained by a system of smallish planets. One
of those planets looks like it could support life in a similar way to how
Earth supports life.

There is a chance this perturbation is just noise, but the authors obviously
think that the planetary system hypothesis is strong enough to ask the
community for collaborating or contradictory data.

The title could have hedged its bets by adding 'might be' or similar
terminology, but I honestly don't think that adds much to the conversation.

[edit]

I was going to include the famous "title ending in '?'" rule of thumb, but
missed the fact that the actual article and the title here differ. The actual
title is of course "Another Earth Just 12 Light-Years Away?" which makes much
more sense given the content.

The submitted title, I thus agree, is linkbaity.

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ChuckMcM
You see, this is the benefit you get from not having experienced the 70's,
everyone _knows_ that the Grey Aliens come from Tau Ceti. Sheesh.

Fortunately, I think the last bit of annoying 70's alien phenomena will be
past on December 22nd. Then we can all put to rest any question there might
have been that we were visited by ancient astronauts.

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aptwebapps
"Then we can all put to rest any question there might have been that we were
visited by ancient astronauts."

Good luck with that.

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jebblue
If I did my calculations right then at 17,000 mph it would take 474,568.57
years to get there.

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technotony
After a journey that long, it would be a bit of a downer if the planet turned
out to just have been noise!

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ck2
If we can reach 10% of the speed of light in a few hundred years, maybe at
that time we can have one-way missions like the suggested Mars trips now.

Such a trip might require a fusion power source though.

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lostlogin
Wonder what crew size you would need to ensure genetic stability and the
certainty that the crew would hang in there until the destination. It couldn't
be a democratic arrangement onboard for sure.

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zacharycohn
I suspect for long term, generational-distance missions, stasis would be a far
preferred option.

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sage_joch
I wonder if SETI focuses in the direction of Earth-like planets, or if they
just search the entire sky?

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pan69
This should give you an idea:

<http://www.setileague.org/askdr/howmuch.htm>

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jgamman
at my old favorite Amstrad's game title star ;-)

