
A New Exoplanet and a Martian Helicopter - uncertainquark
https://www.planetary.org/the-downlink/new-exoplanet-martian-helicopter.html
======
dang
This is a list of articles—probably a good one, but HN is itself a list of
articles. A pointer to a pointer to a pointer is too much indirection.

Submissions that are lists usually give rise to threads that are about the
lowest common denominator of the list elements [1]. Generic discussion isn't
as interesting as specific discussion [2]. It's better to pick the most
interesting item from the list and submit that.

Since the helicopter is getting the most discussion, I was going to change the
URL to the helicopter story, but it turns out to already have had a thread:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22843691](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22843691).

[1]
[https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...](https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20denominator%20list&sort=byDate&type=comment)

[2]
[https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...](https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20generic%20discussion&sort=byDate&type=comment)

------
ape4
About the new planet: I read on another site that "Astronomers had written
software — called Robovetter — that could go through that data and identify
potential planets. However, there was always the possibility the algorithm
could miss the data, so a team of roughly a dozen astronomers are going
manually through rejected data. And that's how they found Kepler-1649c."
[https://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/earth-sized-exoplanet-
hab...](https://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/earth-sized-exoplanet-habitable-
zone-1.5536651)

------
peter_d_sherman
Excerpt:

"Scientists have discovered a new Earth-sized planet in a star’s habitable
zone—the region where liquid water could exist on its surface. The discovery
was made using data from the now-retired Kepler Space Telescope. Out of all
the exoplanets found by Kepler,

 _this new world—located 300 light-years from Earth—is most similar to Earth
in size and estimated temperature_."

------
NegativeLatency
Video from JPL of a test of the helicopter:
[https://vimeo.com/326662931](https://vimeo.com/326662931)

------
cjg
A helicopter on Mars is a challenge due to the low air density:
[https://youtu.be/GhsZUZmJvaM](https://youtu.be/GhsZUZmJvaM)

~~~
duxup
I've seen some proposals for little drones on landings on other planets /
moons and I always wonder about the air density + potential for it often being
too windy to fly.

Of course I say this coming from my perspective of flying a cheap $100 drone
here on earth.

