TR: Discovery Of Habitable Earth-Like Planet May 2011

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TR: Discovery Of Habitable Earth-Like Planet May 2011

Post by bystander » Wed Sep 15, 2010 4:27 pm

Discovery Of Habitable Earth-Like Planet 'To Be Announced In May 2011'
Technology Review | the pysics arXiv blog | 15 Sept 2010
The first Earth-like planet orbiting another star will be announced in May next year, if the discovery of extrasolar planets continues at its present rate, say researchers.

The rate of scientific progress is often hard to measure. But in certain circumstances, the data is unambiguous and easy to measure, creating a trend. And when that happens, the futurologists aren't far behind, extrapolating and predicting the way things will be.

The most famous example is Moore's Law, which predicts that the density of transistors on integrated circuits doubles every two years or so. This trend has continued for more 40 years and looks set fair for at least another 10.

Today, we're introduced to another data set that makes possible a bold prediction about the future. Samuel Arbesman from Harvard Medical School in Boston and Gregory Laughlin at the University of California, Santa Cruz, point out that astronomers have been discovering extrasolar planets at an increasing rate since 1995.

The discoveries follow a well understood pattern, the first extrasolar planets being necessarily massive, many times the size of Jupiter, and so easier to spot. As techniques have improved, however, astronomers have found smaller planets, some just a few times more massive than Earth.

There's an additional factor to take into account for a planet to be habitable--the surface temperature which must support liquid water for life as we know it to take hold. And that, of course, depends on the size of the star, the planet's distance from it and the conditions on the surface, such as the amount of greenhouse effect.

Astronomers have found superhot gas giants and snowball-like Neptunes. And here too, the trend is toward the discovery of a planet in the habitable zone. (Some would argue that Gliese 581 d falls into this category although it is not Earth-like in size).

There's no real dispute among astronomers that the discovery of an Earth-like planet is on the cards. The only question is who's going to find it and when.
Scientists Predict Earth-Like Habitable Exoplanet Will Be Found in 2011
Universe Today | Extrasolar Planets | 15 Sept 2010
Two astronomers have written a paper and say that the first Earth-like, habitable exoplanet will be announced in May of 2011. Do they have inside information, a crystal ball, or amazing powers of prediction? No, they base their projection on math and trends from the past 15 years of exoplanet discoveries. And if the discoveries continue at their present rate, the researchers say next year is the year of the long awaited holy grail of finding another Earth-like planet out in the cosmos.

Samuel Arbesman from Harvard Medical School in Boston and Gregory Laughlin at the University of California, Santa Cruz take a scientometric approach to their prediction. Scientometrics is the science of measuring and analyzing science, and is often done using bibliometrics which is a measurement of the impact of scientific publications. Arbesman and Laughlin said this type of work highlights the usefulness of predictive scientometric techniques to understand the pace of scientific discovery in many fields.

They use the properties of previously discovered exoplanets along with external estimates for the discovery of the first potentially habitable extrasolar planet.

In their paper they indicate that since astronomers have been discovering extrasolar planets at an increasing rate since 1995 and the discoveries follow a well understood pattern, it should be easy to predict when planet searchers will hit the jackpot.
A Scientometric Prediction of the Discovery of the First Potentially
Habitable Planet with a Mass Similar to Earth
- S Arbesman, G Laughlin

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