Subscribe free to our newsletters via your
. 24/7 Space News .




EXO WORLDS
Within 'Habitable Zone,' More Planets than We Knew
by Staff Writers
New Haven, CT (SPX) Jan 09, 2013


illustration only

The number of known places in our galaxy theoretically hospitable to life may be significantly greater than previously thought, according to new research. Researchers with Planet Hunters are reporting the discovery of a Jupiter-sized planet in the so-called "habitable zone" of a star similar to Earth's sun, as well as the identification of 15 new candidate planets also orbiting within their star's habitable zone.

Within the zone, atmospheric temperatures range from -126 to +86 degrees Fahrenheit. The scientists say a rocky planet there with a greenhouse atmosphere could have pools of liquid water, and thus the possibility of life. The discovery of the new candidate planets nearly doubles the number of gas giant planet candidates known to be orbiting within the habitable zones of solar stars.

"This is just a first step toward finding a habitable world elsewhere," said Ji Wang, a postdoctoral researcher at Yale and lead author of a paper about the new discoveries.

"Any moon around this newly discovered, Jupiter-sized planet might behabitable. It's very similar to what was depicted in the movie 'Avatar' - the habitable moon Pandora around a giant planet, Polyphemus."

The paper is available on the Planet Hunters website and has been submitted to The Astrophysical Journal. Researchers are scheduled to present the results at the 221st meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Long Beach, Calif., Jan. 6-10.

Conditionson the new planet, gas giant PH2 b, and the 15 candidate planets probably could not support life, given their largely gaseous state, the astronomers said. But they could have rocky satellites that would.

Planet Hunters is a joint project of Yale University and several other institutions. It enlists volunteers to help professional astronomers detect planets outside Earth's solar system by sifting massive amounts of data gathered by NASA's Kepler spacecraft.

Professional scientists review the most promising findings. Worldwide, more than 200,000 volunteers have participated since 2010.

The latest findings also establish that Planet Hunters' volunteers are effective detectors of long-period planet candidates, or those residing in or near a habitable zone, the paper's authors said.

"We are seeing the emergence of a new era in the Planet Hunters project where our volunteers seem to be at least as efficient as the computer algorithms at finding planets orbiting at habitable-zone distances from the host stars," said Debra Fischer, a Yale astronomy professor and co-founder of Planet Hunters.

In all, the new paper reports the discovery of one confirmed planet, PH2 b, and 42 candidate planets. Of these, at least 15 appear to be orbiting in their star's habitable zone, researchers said.

Astronomers on the Planet Hunters team declared PH2 b to be a bona fide planet with a confidence level of 99.92%.

Since its establishment, Planet Hunters has reported finding a total of 48 previously unknown candidate planets. PH2 b is its second confirmed planet. The first, PH1, was reported in October.

Planet Hunters volunteers typically find candidate planets by identifying faint dips in light caused by planets as they pass in front of their host stars. In this case, professional scientists also used high-resolution spectrograph and adaptive optics to rule out false positive detections and to calculate confidence levels for their findings.

Kian Jek of San Francisco, a lead volunteer on the project, described himself as "someone who grew up with the Apollo moon landings, whose childhood imagination was fired by Kubrick's '2001' and the original 'Star Trek.'"

"I never had any doubt that planets around other stars existed and that one day we would discover them," he continued.

"But I never dreamed that we would find them in my lifetime, let alone that I would be involved in their discovery. Planet Hunters is an exciting project that allows citizens and scientists to participate in pushing 'the final frontier' ever slightly further."

Abstract

.


Related Links
Yale
Lands Beyond Beyond - extra solar planets - news and science
Life Beyond Earth






Comment on this article via your Facebook, Yahoo, AOL, Hotmail login.

Share this article via these popular social media networks
del.icio.usdel.icio.us DiggDigg RedditReddit GoogleGoogle








EXO WORLDS
Kepler Gets a Little Help From Its Friends
Pasadena CA (JPL) Jan 09, 2013
More than 2,300 exoplanet candidate discoveries have made it the most prolific planet hunter in history. But even NASA's Kepler mission needs a little help from its friends. Enter the Kepler follow-up observation program, a consortium of astronomers dedicated to getting in-depth with the mission's findings and verifying them to an extremely high degree of confidence. A single Kepler observ ... read more


EXO WORLDS
Mission would drag asteroid to the moon

Russia designs manned lunar spacecraft

GRAIL Lunar Impact Site Named for Astronaut Sally Ride

NASA probes crash into the moon

EXO WORLDS
Lockheed Martin Delivered Core Structure For First GOES-R Satellite

Opportunity Scores Another Dust Cleaning Event At Vermillion

Curiosity Rover Explores Yellowknife Bay

'Black Beauty' could yield Martian secrets

EXO WORLDS
2012 in Polish space activities

Captain's log: real space chat for Star Trek crew

Congress Approves Bill Supporting Human Space Exploration

China's Chengdu aiming to be world's next Silicon Valley

EXO WORLDS
Mr Xi in Space

China plans manned space launch in 2013: state media

China to launch manned spacecraft

Tiangong 1 Parked And Waiting As Shenzhou 10 Mission Prep Continues

EXO WORLDS
Crew Wraps Up Robonaut Testing

Station Crew Ringing in New Year

Expedition 34 Ready to Ring in New Year

New ISS crew docked at Space Station

EXO WORLDS
Arianespace to launch VNREDSat-1A built by Astrium for Vietnam

Arianespace says 2012 sales leapt by 30%

CSF Applauds Passage Of Risk-Sharing Regime Extension For Launch Industry

Rokot Launch Set for January 15

EXO WORLDS
15 New Planets Hint At "Traffic Jam" Of Moons In Habitable Zone

Within 'Habitable Zone,' More Planets than We Knew

At Least One in Six Stars Has an Earth-sized Planet

Exocomets may be as common as exoplanets

EXO WORLDS
Cloud computing expands in Latin America

LEON: the space chip that Europe built

That's not what I meant: A new phase in reading photons

Space Trash May Make Radiation Shields




The content herein, unless otherwise known to be public domain, are Copyright 1995-2014 - Space Media Network. AFP, UPI and IANS news wire stories are copyright Agence France-Presse, United Press International and Indo-Asia News Service. ESA Portal Reports are copyright European Space Agency. All NASA sourced material is public domain. Additional copyrights may apply in whole or part to other bona fide parties. Advertising does not imply endorsement,agreement or approval of any opinions, statements or information provided by Space Media Network on any Web page published or hosted by Space Media Network. Privacy Statement