NASA to Host News Conference on Discovery Beyond Our Solar System

[LukeSkywatcher]

8 minutes ago, Chris Lock said:

I think so, they can detect the 'wobble' of a star by a comparatively small oribiting planet now days  I think all the planets are tidally locked too which shows their interactions are non trivial  

Yep, apparently all 7 are tidally locked. 

[Chris]

53 minutes ago, furrysocks2 said:

I thought that the periodicity of the dips, ie orbital periods, told you distance from the star, but not mass... is it not the irregularities in the precise timings of the orbits that lets you calculate how the planets interact gravitationally, thus mass?

 

39 minutes ago, Chris Lock said:

Yeah sorry, I was just trying skinny things down to get a point across. It's been a long time but think they get the distance from Keplar's third law, and they eihter some how transpose F=Gm1m2/r2 to get m1 or they use combined radial velocity data to help get the mass. 

The point I was trying to make though is that they know what they are doing. Paul bless him seemed to question this.

Ran this by my wife who is cleverer than me, she said they might use the center of mass equation with radial velocity data to get the mass. Orbital resonance must have helped too as you guys say  

[furrysocks2]

11 hours ago, Ags said:

The flares are roughly as strong iirc as the Sun's flares, which means they are much much stronger for these close in planets.

https://academic.oup.com/mnrasl/article-abstract/465/1/L74/2562607/Strong-XUV-irradiation-of-the-Earth-sized

Quote

We find the star is a relatively strong and variable coronal X-ray source with an X-ray luminosity similar to that of the quiet Sun, despite its much lower bolometric luminosity. We find ... irradiation of the planets that is many times stronger than experienced by the present-day Earth. Using a simple energy-limited model, we show that the relatively close-in Earth-sized planets, which span the classical habitable zone of the star, are subjected to sufficient X-ray and EUV irradiation to significantly alter their primary and any secondary atmospheres. Understanding whether this high-energy irradiation makes the planets more or less habitable is a complex question, but our measured fluxes will be an important input to the necessary models of atmospheric evolution.

 

[LukeSkywatcher]

Interesting OR not:

http://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/314119/how-long-would-it-take-using-existing-technology-to-travel-40-light-years

Good thing out Sun will not go SN for about 5 billion yrs more. Maybe by this time, we will have found a way to travel further and find a planet on which Humans can survive (assuming we have not destroyed ourselves by then).

Not that i worry much............i'll be long gone.

A holiday for 2 wks in the Algarve will do me this year.

[Ags]

The sun will never go supernova, it only has about 12% of the mass required for this. It will turn into a red giant similar to Arcturus, then shrivel into a white dwarf.

Regarding travelling 40 light years: NASA have actually tested a faster-than light warp drive design. The results were "inconclusive"  Apparently it is feasible, you just need about 50 kilograms of matter with negative mass.

[Stub Mandrel]

43 minutes ago, Ags said:

The sun will never go supernova, it only has about 12% of the mass required for this. It will turn into a red giant similar to Arcturus, then shrivel into a white dwarf.

Guide to judging the sun's fate by observation

Supernova: Clouds look somewhat whiter than usual.

Red Giant: Clouds turn the colour of John Wayne's flannel underwear.

White Dwarf: Clouds somewhat darker than usual.

Brown Dwarf: Earth cools and all water vapour turns to ice. Thermal shock causes massive fracking effect and release of methane shrouds Earth in cloud after brief spell of great seeing and transparency.

 

[Chris]

14 hours ago, Ags said:

The surface gravity on that star is immense. It's one tenth the sun's mass and one thousandth the volume, so it's a hundred times as dense as the Sun, and I think the surface gravity is ten times higher.

I bet there's a fair amount of tidal friction on these planets if there orbits are in anyway elliptical? I wouldn't be surprised if these planets are relatively warm from that alone!  

[Chris]

12 hours ago, LukeSkywatcher said:

Interesting OR not:

http://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/314119/how-long-would-it-take-using-existing-technology-to-travel-40-light-years

Good thing out Sun will not go SN for about 5 billion yrs more. Maybe by this time, we will have found a way to travel further and find a planet on which Humans can survive (assuming we have not destroyed ourselves by then).

Not that i worry much............i'll be long gone.

A holiday for 2 wks in the Algarve will do me this year.

No SN but the Earth will get nicely roasted or engulfed by the expanding red giant star when our Sun runs out of hydrogen and starts to burn helium.

My gut feeling is that our species will be extinct by then but them humanoid Dolphin people that replace us had better watch out  

[furrysocks2]

Quote

The raw cadence data for the K2 observations of the TRAPPIST-1 system are expected to be made available on Tuesday March 7th at noon US Eastern time.

The calibrated Light Curves and Target Pixel Files should arrive some time in June...

Source: http://archive.stsci.edu/k2/trappist1/

[furrysocks2]

Quote

The raw cadence data for the K2 observations of the TRAPPIST-1 system will be made available on Wednesday March 8th at 9:00 AM US Eastern time.

Will have to wait until tomorrow. I'm hoping to have a play.

[Scott]

On 21/02/2017 at 05:49, nightfisher said:

Maybe the Martian rover as made a decent discovery

That'd be worth reading about. I can't wait for the day that NASA has an exciting bit of news that's so exciting they don't want to set a schedule for when the news will be released. They just release it there and then

 

[Ags]

Fly me to... TRAPPIST-1? I added this little star to my interactive 3D map of near space, so you can see where it is in relation to the Sun:

http://beyondproxima.appspot.com/

You have to click the TRAPPIST-1 link on the left to go there.

[furrysocks2]

Observation of TRAPPIST-1 with Kepler (Dec 2016 - Mar 2017) has led to confirmation of planet h - taking the total number of transits in the data from one to four.

https://arxiv.org/pdf/1703.04166.pdf

[Stub Mandrel]

You would have to do something about surface tension, but then you ought to be able to do something with a suitable laser system.