Alpha Centauri 2

Community => Recreation Commons => Destination: Alpha Centauri => Topic started by: Buster's Uncle on August 10, 2017, 11:23:21 pm

Title: Scientists discover two 'potentially habitable' planets around Tau Ceti
Post by: Buster's Uncle on August 10, 2017, 11:23:21 pm

Tired of Mother Earth? Scientists discover two 'potentially habitable' nearby planets
CNN
Zamira Rahim, Updated 10:02 AM ET, Thu August 10, 2017



 (CNN) — If you're a little bored of life on Earth, have no fear; scientists have discovered two potentially habitable planets orbiting a sun just 12 light-years away.

The team of astronomers which includes researchers from the UK's University of Hertfordshire and the University of California Santa Cruz, revealed that four Earth-size planets in total have been detected orbiting the sun-like star, known as the tau Ceti.

They dubbed two of the four planets "super-Earths," so-called because they have masses of around 1.7 Earth mass, larger than Earth but among the smallest planets ever detected around the nearest sun-like stars.

"[The habitable zone] is the 'Goldilocks' region around a star where the planet is not too hot or too cold and thus is able to sustain liquid water on its surface," Dr Fabo Feng, the study's lead researcher, told CNN.

Feng added that the planets are likely made "made of rocks rather than ice" which would increase the chances of them supporting life.

The researchers detected the planets by monitoring the star for tiny variations in its movement that could have been caused by a planet's gravitational pull.

"We measured the variation of the motions of the star through spectroscopic observations," Feng said.


(http://i2.cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/170810121109-01-super-earth-planets-illustration-exlarge-169.jpg)
Tau Ceti and its planets.


Spectroscopy is a technique that, according to NASA's website "measures light that is emitted, absorbed, or scattered by materials."

The variations caused by a star and those caused by a planet are very similar and the scientists had to develop a sophisticated technique to detect what Feng calls "weak planetary signals."

"Together with colleagues in UK and US," Feng said "I have detected the smallest movement of a star caused by planets."

A study published in 2013, with research by the same team, lay the groundwork for the breakthrough.

"We realized that we could see how the star's activity differed at different wavelengths and used that information to separate this activity from signals of planets," said Dr Mike Tuomi who led the previous study, in a statement.

"We're slowly learning to tell the difference between wobbles caused by planets and those caused by stellar active surface," he said. "This enabled us to verify the existence of the two outer, potentially habitable, planets in the system."

An article on the findings is due to be published in The Astrophysical Journal.

But keen space tourists shouldn't pack their bags just yet. The planets might make less than ideal homes as researches suspect their surfaces might be constantly bombarded by asteroids and comets

Feng is, nevertheless, excited to examine the atmosphere of the planets and to use the new methods developed to find others.


http://www.cnn.com/2017/08/10/world/super-earth-planets-discovered/index.html (http://www.cnn.com/2017/08/10/world/super-earth-planets-discovered/index.html)

Title: Re: Scientists discover two 'potentially habitable' planets around Tau Ceti
Post by: Geo on August 11, 2017, 04:12:26 pm

Well, after almost 5 years there's some more news on this star again. :)

Title: Re: Scientists discover two 'potentially habitable' planets around Tau Ceti
Post by: Buster's Uncle on August 11, 2017, 05:17:29 pm

 :whip:

Title: Re: Scientists discover two 'potentially habitable' planets around Tau Ceti
Post by: Geo on August 11, 2017, 05:26:03 pm

From the 'labeling', the old 3 inner candidate planets are retracted, and 2 new inner candidates proposed.

Title: Re: Scientists discover two 'potentially habitable' planets around Tau Ceti
Post by: Buster's Uncle on August 11, 2017, 05:55:10 pm

I only someone did a way-cool AC mod on it...

Title: Re: Scientists discover two 'potentially habitable' planets around Tau Ceti
Post by: Geo on August 12, 2017, 03:51:18 pm

Quote from: BUncle on August 11, 2017, 05:55:10 pm

I only someone did a way-cool AC mod on it...

I knew you were leading up to that.  ;b;

You go looking at the eclipse, I'll see what I got here on my old hard drive and see if something can be done with it. Deal? :P

Title: Re: Scientists discover two 'potentially habitable' planets around Tau Ceti
Post by: Buster's Uncle on August 12, 2017, 06:19:02 pm

Deal.

Title: Re: Scientists discover two 'potentially habitable' planets around Tau Ceti
Post by: Geo on August 18, 2017, 09:22:05 am

Atm not inclined to look up (if there ever was one) a mod Tau Ceti thread, but...

BUncle, could you please look if you can open the attached file with one of your paint/pic programs? No luck at my end, and it is the only Tau Ceti-related file I could find in my backup drive. The file header is tantalizing...

Next step is to try attach my old comp to the monitor and see if I left a folder there.

Title: Re: Scientists discover two 'potentially habitable' planets around Tau Ceti
Post by: Buster's Uncle on August 18, 2017, 01:29:06 pm

...

Title: Re: Scientists discover two 'potentially habitable' planets around Tau Ceti
Post by: Geo on August 18, 2017, 11:15:14 pm

Thanks. IIRC, Jarlwolf 'greenified' that spore launcher.

Title: Re: Scientists discover two 'potentially habitable' planets around Tau Ceti
Post by: Buster's Uncle on August 18, 2017, 11:33:18 pm

...You'll be wanting greenified landscape textures and such, then...

Title: Re: Scientists discover two 'potentially habitable' planets around Tau Ceti
Post by: Geo on August 18, 2017, 11:38:22 pm

I had replaced the fungus pink with monsoon green back then. But I hadn't come up with a definite replacement for the monsoon landmark. I think I used rivertiles as placement holder for the landmark.
I'll just have to see what my old comp holds.