Big News! An “Earth like” Exoplanet Is Out There.

Hey! :-D
Earth-Sized Planet Discovered in the Habitable Zone

(Artists impression ALL THESE IMAGES LINKED TO LARGER VERSIONS)

(Sky viewing location. Gliese 581 C orbits around the red dot.)

(As Gliese 581 C’s sky location might be seen from the ISS)

Wikipedia also has some pretty good info on this discovery.

I’m reeling at this BOMBSHELL that has just been dropped !

I think the major, HUGE news worthiness of this item is that it (at least Scientifically) proves that there are “Earth Like” planets out there. To be clear … Planets that you, or I, could walk on without being crushed by huge pressures or sinking to the core!

THIS INFORMATION HAS NEVER BEEN DETECTED BEFORE, EVER in the entire history of Science, and, as far as we know in the entire history of the human race. Period!

(Unless some Ancient civilisation left the Earth before, or made sophisticated astronomical observations that we don’t know about … for example the Dogon… but that’s another story).

I managed to get a few images out of Celestia (above) but was frustrated that I could’nt get more star names showing around Gliese to give it some kind of context. There is a script to enable this, so maybe later.

Celestia can also create videos ! So hopefully I will post one here when I have entered a textured version of Planet “C” into the program that can be travelled to from Earth.

“The Truth IS Out There”.

DJ Barney

Addendum:

Context! Here is a Java, 3D, rotatable map of local stars.

More context. Here is a map of our “local area”, showing gas clouds and stars. Interestingly the circular areas represent areas where previous stars have gone supernova, allowing new stars to develop. I have lost the source of the image, so when I find it I’ll check these details. (Sonne = Sun, Lichtjare = Lightyear, this is a German map!)

(Click for larger).

Here is the Astronomy Picture of The Day image related to this. It shows what seems to be a colour DSS image (the combined channels?) of the star Gliese 581. Of course, you can’t see the planets… but there is the star !

Here’s a small Java animation of the system ( from Sol Station ).

Find your own Planetary Systems ! “What Planet Would You Like To Go To Today!” (LOL!)…

“Systemic … characterizing extrasolar planetary systems.” (A good looking site) Scroll down the page and you’ll find the links to the research database.

A thread on Bad Astronomy / Open Universe forum about this (linked through to a bigger thread).

A list of stars in this constellation.

A simulation of what the atmosphere might look like done by feeding in known values into an atmospheric simulator.