

Recently Discovered Habitable World May Not Exist - The_Igor
http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2010/10/recently-discovered-habitable-world.html

======
mcantor
This is basically irrelevant to the linked post, but I have to ask: Was I the
only one who felt crushed, betrayed and crestfallen upon making the terrible
realization that space doesn't actually look like all of the awesome "photos"
floating around? Like the Eagle Nebula's "Pillars of Creation"
(<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eagle_Nebula>). Sure, that's _technically_ what
it "looks like," but the colors are all determined by the artistic license of
whoever processed the X-ray information and composite photographs of light in
the nonvisible spectrum.

Drat. :-(

~~~
gojomo
Just pretend your own eyes were more highly evolved, such that the spectacular
synthetic colors of these photos are just a pale imitation of what your super-
eyes could discern. After all, our eyes' visible range is merely what's proven
useful for our native habitat.

~~~
mcantor
That's a good point. Maybe in another million years or so, my descendants will
be space-faring badasses who have evolved hydrogen-sulphur-oxygen-vision
because you don't want to run into a nascent galaxy while you're making an
interstellar Taco Bell run at faster than the speed of light, and they will
see space the way it looks in the Hubble photos, like God intended.

That makes me feel a little better.

------
rflrob
Well darn. I looked at the data they'd published saying they'd found the
planet, and while it seemed tenuous to me, I should've gone on record
somewhere saying so. On the other hand, I'm not a planetary astronomer, so my
I'm not really qualified to tell what is strong data or not, so I just trusted
the reviewers.

------
robryan
The dangers of coming out with these findings before they have been properly
verified. With the size of the deviations in star velocity they are trying to
detect right on the edge of our current capability.

------
code_duck
Well, that's confusing.

The comments on that site are even more confusing.

------
NHQ
Maybe it shifted behind the star when they looked...?

~~~
danparsonson
Since they're inferring the (non-)existence of the planet by observing the
motion of the star... that wouldn't matter.

------
InclinedPlane
The title is a bit overdramatic given the actual situation.

One team detected has produced evidence of a particular planet, another team
has attempted to corroborate that evidence and could not, though their
instruments are not sensitive enough to _rule out_ said planet. And thus we
await more data.

This is a tempest in a teapot.

------
devmonk
Shhh! Nasa was all excited.

------
Towle_
_© 2010 American Association for the Advancement of Science. All Rights
Reserved._

Quick! Somebody, anybody: who owns the AAAS? Is it the Rockefellers? The
Rothschilds?

They're keeping ALL the habitable planets to themselves, I tell you.

