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by Chris Peterson » Mon Dec 12, 2011 9:40 pm
Beyond wrote:With that in mind... Could it be that the photons that we have been seeing the past through, are also carrying 'other' types of information that we haven't reconized yet, that they have picked up along the way??
by Beyond » Mon Dec 12, 2011 9:16 pm
NoelC wrote:I wonder whether intelligent life, if it's possible to evolve for more than a few hundred years after embracing technology, wouldn't be communicating via means other than radio waves. Looked at another way, if our successors are still around in a few thousand years, will they all be communicating via entangled photons, connections via dimensions outside our universe, or something REALLY advanced, even beyond our current imaginations? Now, with that in mind, is it likely we'll hear them on the radio? -Noel
by NoelC » Mon Dec 12, 2011 4:02 pm
by Beyond » Sat Dec 10, 2011 7:09 pm
geckzilla wrote:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunbar's_number or, the humorous and vulgar version: (my favorite) http://www.cracked.com/article_14990_wh ... phere.html
by bactame » Sat Dec 10, 2011 7:22 am
by Flase » Sat Dec 10, 2011 6:53 am
by Chris Peterson » Sat Dec 10, 2011 5:45 am
Ann wrote:In any case, if we bear in mind how many alien solar systems we are likely to find out there, we may be running out of gods, whether male or female, before we are done naming them all.
by Ann » Sat Dec 10, 2011 5:22 am
by geckzilla » Sat Dec 10, 2011 5:14 am
by Beyond » Sat Dec 10, 2011 4:33 am
geckzilla wrote:Any planet not in our solar system is officially outside our celestial monkeysphere and only warrants structured, incremental naming.
by geckzilla » Sat Dec 10, 2011 3:00 am
by Flase » Sat Dec 10, 2011 12:39 am
ruprecht147 wrote:Maybe by then we'll have actual names for planet-hosting stars, so that 55 Cancri A might become, say, Draupadi, and the 5 planets could be named after the mythical Draupadi's 5 sons: Prativindhya, Sutasoma, Srutakirti, Satanika, and Srutasena.
by ruprecht147 » Fri Dec 09, 2011 8:14 pm
Flase wrote:Does anybody know the latest on the hunt for exoplanets in the Alpha Centauri system? What if you find several exoplanets in the same system but you don't find them in the right order . . .
by Flase » Fri Dec 09, 2011 10:34 am
by zloq » Fri Dec 09, 2011 8:12 am
Chris Peterson wrote:zloq wrote:I guess if another paper were comparing planetary systems, it would use Kepler-22 and Kepler-16 to refer to the systems, and then use Kepler-22a and Kepler-16a as the stars in those systems. It would pretty much have to because otherwise the text would be ambiguous or full of unnecessary words like "star" and "system" to keep things clear. I don't see that. In fact, I think most authors would go out of their way to avoid using the "a" suffix, which is confusing and contrary to how stars are typically identified. The proper, cataloged name of the star is Kepler-22, not Kepler-22a. So in that sense - I still think it's unfortunate not to stick to the convention - because it does play a role of clarity in the overall field. I actually think the paper does stick to the convention. This Kepler context is the only one I know of that refers to stars this way (and I don't actually see any references to it, outside the Wikipedia article). Otherwise, the convention is, and always has been, to use the same name for the star and for the system, and not to qualify the star with some letter (except in multiple star systems).
zloq wrote:I guess if another paper were comparing planetary systems, it would use Kepler-22 and Kepler-16 to refer to the systems, and then use Kepler-22a and Kepler-16a as the stars in those systems. It would pretty much have to because otherwise the text would be ambiguous or full of unnecessary words like "star" and "system" to keep things clear.
So in that sense - I still think it's unfortunate not to stick to the convention - because it does play a role of clarity in the overall field.
Naming conventions are not physically important – no one really cares if an object is called Sirius B, CMa Ab, GJ 244 #2, RXF J064508.6-164240, or “Rover”, but names convey both historical and physical information about the object and the naming convention used should at least not confuse. This is particularly true for the benefit of observers, who are definitely interested in knowing which object on the sky is meant by what name. Unlike the multiple star community, which is suffering from over a century of jumbled naming conventions, the exoplanet community is still sufficiently young that it is possible to adopt a uniform nomenclature which maximizes the usefulness of the names and minimizes the amount of confusion while consciously staying as close as possible to the provisional I.A.U. multiple star naming standard.
by Flase » Fri Dec 09, 2011 6:57 am
by Chris Peterson » Thu Dec 08, 2011 11:18 pm
by zloq » Thu Dec 08, 2011 10:30 pm
Chris Peterson wrote: I don't know if the Wikipedia article is correct in stating that Kepler-22 is synonymous with Kepler-22a, but it is clear that in the discovery publication for this system, Kepler-22 is considered the proper designation for the star (and also for the system).
by Chris Peterson » Thu Dec 08, 2011 9:31 pm
ruprecht147 wrote:A preprint of the discovery paper for Kepler-22b, by William J. Borucki and colleagues, is now available at archive.org.
by ruprecht147 » Thu Dec 08, 2011 9:12 pm
by orin stepanek » Thu Dec 08, 2011 5:18 pm
Chris Peterson wrote:orin stepanek wrote:From the amount of replies this thread is getting; I'd say a lot of people are interested in the possibility of habitable planets out there. Habitable raises the possibility of inhabited. How can anybody not be fascinated by that?
orin stepanek wrote:From the amount of replies this thread is getting; I'd say a lot of people are interested in the possibility of habitable planets out there.
by Chris Peterson » Thu Dec 08, 2011 4:22 pm
orin stepanek wrote:From the amount of replies this thread is getting; I'd say a lot of people are interested in the possibility of habitable planets out there. 8-) :D
by orin stepanek » Thu Dec 08, 2011 3:55 pm
by neufer » Thu Dec 08, 2011 1:24 pm
neufer wrote: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kepler-22b wrote: <<At 2.4 times the size of the Earth, Kepler 22b is substantially larger than Earth and may therefore have a different composition. For example, the newly discovered planet may not be Earth-like, but rather more like Neptune, which is mostly ocean with a small rocky core. Nonetheless, Natalie Batalha, one of the scientists on the project, speculated "it's not beyond the realm of possibility that life could exist in such an ocean.">>
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kepler-22b wrote: <<At 2.4 times the size of the Earth, Kepler 22b is substantially larger than Earth and may therefore have a different composition. For example, the newly discovered planet may not be Earth-like, but rather more like Neptune, which is mostly ocean with a small rocky core. Nonetheless, Natalie Batalha, one of the scientists on the project, speculated "it's not beyond the realm of possibility that life could exist in such an ocean.">>
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45587188/ns/technology_and_science-science/#.TuCznHLpfko wrote: Scary ancient sea predator sported big, dangling eyes With large claws and toothlike serrations in its mouth, it was already menacing enough By Jennifer Welsh: MSNBC 12/7/2011 [b][color=#0000FF]A face only a mother could love: The 3-foot-long super-predator Anomalocaris. Credit: Katrina Kenny and University of Adelaide[/color][/b] [b][color=#0000FF]One of the stalked eyes of Anomalocaris from South Australia with arrows pointing to the boundary between the stalk & visual surface, plus the intricate lenses preserved (inset). Credit: John Paterson[/color][/b] <<The biggest, scariest predator of the ancient Cambrian oceans just got a lot more menacing: Researchers have found a pair of fossilized eyes that show the beast had excellent vision. "The animal itself has been known for quite some time, but we've never known the detail of the eyes," study researcher John Paterson, of the University of New England in Australia, told LiveScience. "It can tell us a great deal about how it saw its world and it also supports that it's one of the key predators during the Cambrian period." The group of predators in question, which belong to the genus Anomalocaris, could reach more than 3 feet (1 meter) long and lived in shallow oceans more than 500 million years ago. The researchers call it the "world's first apex predator," because it had highly acute vision and was much larger than other animals in the ocean at that time. It also had large claws and toothlike serrations in its mouth to tear apart trilobites. "When you look at the animal it has these really gnarly looking grasping claws at the top of its head, for grasping onto its prey," Paterson said. "It used these grasping claws at the front to shove its prey into its circular mouth, which is also fairly fearsome looking." Previous fossils had preserved only the outlines of these creatures' eyes. Researchers knew the eyes were situated on stalks that protruded from its face, and they had thought the dangling eyes might be compound eyes, but weren't sure and couldn't tell how many lenses they might have had, or how sharp their vision might have been. The eyes were discovered in a fossil from a 515-million-year-old deposit on Kangaroo Island, in South Australia. Other fossils discovered in this deposit show ancient eyes that aren't nearly as well developed, but still quite sharp compared with other animals of the day. The fossils were pried from shale rock samples: "You split them along the really fine layers in the shale with hammer and chisel, like opening the pages of the book, and hopefully something will be looking back at you for the first time in 500 million years," Paterson told LiveScience. "I was actually the one that found the pair of eyes. That was a spine-tingling moment." Compound eyes, the type of eyes seen in dragonflies and mosquitoes, are made up of multiple individual lenses. Dragonflies, one of the few living arthropods with similarly acute eyesight, have up to 28,000 lenses per eye, while a housefly may have 3,000. These 500 million-year-old creatures had around 16,000. Like pixels in a digital image, for compound eyes, more lenses mean a clearer picture. Based on the structure, this animal might have had an exceptionally clear, almost 360-degree view of the world around it, the researchers said. Such precise vision would have given these predators an advantage over their prey, which would need to evolve their own visual capabilities to avoid being eaten. "It would have been very aware of its environment. It would have been a very capable predator, especially when you compare it to other animals in the same fossil sites that wouldn't have had as good of eyesight or could have even been blind," Paterson said. "Anomalocaris would have had a distinct advantage, I think." The study will be published in Thursday's issue of the journal Nature.>>
by zloq » Thu Dec 08, 2011 12:25 pm
EdwinsMyHero wrote: Let's suppose that, 600 years ago, Keppler 22b was at exactly the same stage in technology that we are today. Is our SETI ability good enough to pick up their RF?
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