DailyTech - Astronomer Says Galaxy is Full of "Earth-Like" Planets at TED Conference, Later Backpedals

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Science Astronomer Says Galaxy is Full of "Earth-Like" Planets at TED Conference, Later Backpedals
Tracie McDaniel - July 29, 2010 10:07 AM

22 comment(s) - last by Antikapitalist.. on Aug 1 at 7:45 PM

In an apparent leak, Kepler team scientist spills the goods... then backtracks.

So far, NASA is staying mum on the subject, but Harvard professor and astronomer Dimitar Sasselov revealed during a recent TED Talk that he and other Kepler scientists had discovered multiple "Earth-like" planets orbiting the galaxy.

Sasselov made the announcement at a global conference in England and conference organizers posted the video online. Scientists on the Kepler team had planned on keeping the findings under wraps until February, according to Science Mag.

In the video, Sasselov showed a bar graph of planet size. The graph pinpointed about 140 planets that were labeled "like Earth". Sasselov indicated that astronomers will be able to identify at least 60 "Earth-like" planets.

Nature.com indicates that NASA is sitting on the information -- data release notes for the Kepler mission that can be found here and here -- which may back Sasselov's claims.

At the conference, Sasselov did emphasize that these are exoplanets and not confirmed candidates.

And it now appears that since no one at NASA is prepared to verify the claims, Sasselov is backpedaling from his original announcement.

In NASA Blogs, the Kepler co-investigator attempts to to explain statements that he made in the video. Sasselov clarifies his statements by indicating that there is a difference between "Earth-sized" and "Earth-like".

Always on the hunt for earth-like planets, the Kepler telescope beamed its first images back to Earth in 2009. The Kepler mission is to find an Earth-like planet orbiting a sun that is ideal for lakes and oceans.

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Not too clear

By w1z4rd on 7/29/2010 10:22:50 AM , Rating: 2

So it seems he went from earth-like to earth-size exoplanets, according to the link

RE: Not too clear

By mcnabney on 7/29/2010 10:54:37 AM , Rating: 2

I was still under the impression that there haven't been any confirmed rocky planets (lke mercury, venus, earth, and mars). Is NASA really sitting on this and not releasing the information?

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RE: Not too clear

By RW on 7/29/2010 1:58:47 PM , Rating: 3

I don't expect any real information to come from NASA since
NASA = Never A Straight Answer

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RE: Not too clear

By delphinus100 on 7/29/2010 8:08:22 PM , Rating: 2

And that would be concealed, because...?

Or is it more likely that planets in that range of mass are still just too damn hard to detect?

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RE: Not too clear

By Divineburner on 7/29/2010 11:00:00 AM , Rating: 4

http://www.universetoday.com/2010/07/27/did-kepler...

A little more reading, if one wishes.

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RE: Not too clear

By MrTeal on 7/29/2010 11:00:28 AM , Rating: 5

I don't think the Kepler mission has the capability to determine if a planet is earth-like in terms of having water or a similar atmosphere. It can at best detect a planet, its size, and where it is orbiting. If you want to know if there's water vapour or oxygen in the atmosphere you'd have to follow up with other instruments.

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RE: Not too clear

By Thelookingglass on 7/29/2010 11:51:14 AM , Rating: 5

I believe Kepler uses the planetary transit method for detecting these earth like planets. That is, when a planet travels in front the parent star, the star's overall brightness is lowered slightly.

Now, at least some of the light from the star will pass through the atmosphere of the planet. This will slightly change the light emission spectrum for that star. Determining how the spectrum is different between the normal star spectrum and the star spectrum when there is a transit in progress can tell scientists rather accurately what elements and compounds make up the planets atmosphere.

As to why this information is being sat on, its all PR. Science is as close to fact as we can get. It shouldn't be squandered and throttled due to PR, religious, or cultural beliefs.

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RE: Not too clear

By geddarkstorm on 7/29/2010 2:03:32 PM , Rating: 3

NASA would never hold anything back for cultural or religious reasons, quite the contrary :P.

The reason they are sitting on this is because -none of it is confirmed- till other instruments have the chance to check the data. A star can slightly dim for many reasons, other than a planet orbiting, and considering how small Earth sized planets are, it greatly increases the uncertainty. To rise the chance an Earth sized planet did the dimming, one has to see it happen more than once with a set periodicity to tell you it's likely something orbiting around. And now, how long has Kepler been up there?

They are just being good scientists, and verifying data via multiple methods to rule out other possibilities before they make any claims. That's how science should work, though I know sensationalism has overtaken certain other science fields when it comes to making claims to the public.

No need to invoke conspiracy theories, no matter how subtly.

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RE: Not too clear

By theapparition on 7/29/2010 2:29:46 PM , Rating: 4

quote:
Science is as close to fact as we can get. It shouldn't be squandered and throttled due to PR, religious, or cultural beliefs.

Tell that to AGW proponents.

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RE: Not too clear

By sviola on 7/29/2010 11:56:03 AM , Rating: 2

quote:
I don't think the Kepler mission has the capability to determine if a planet is earth-like

Well, it depends on what is the definition of earth like. Maybe how they define it, it is possible...

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RE: Not too clear

By sviola on 7/29/2010 11:57:49 AM , Rating: 2

Complementing, this is their definition of earth-like:

quote:
n Earth-sized planet orbiting in the habitable zone of a parent star

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RE: Not too clear

By drycrust3 on 7/29/2010 12:22:33 PM , Rating: 3

quote:
earth-like

Really this comes down to what does that term mean. As you suggest, the way the term is being used suggests it is just based upon size, but to the lay person the term invokes ideas of oceans and blue skies and land and mountains and lakes and possibly even life forms, with the size being less relevant.
As we know from our own solar cycle, the sun is absolutely essential to life existing on this planet, so just because there may well be earth sized objects floating through space with the correct Nitrogen / Oxygen ration, H20, etc, doesn't mean it actually has the potential for life (well, at least as we know it).
I think a much better term would have been "earth size", but of course, that wouldn't get media attention, which is pretty much essential to funding.

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RE: Not too clear

By Reclaimer77 on 7/29/2010 4:41:50 PM , Rating: 3

Yeah it's pretty confusing. They should adopt the Star Trek vernacular "Class-M Planet", when describing a planet capable of supporting life from Earth. Simple and to the point.

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RE: Not too clear

By delphinus100 on 7/29/2010 8:15:56 PM , Rating: 2

But did they ever give an exact definition of 'Class-M' (except for the revelation in ST: Enterprise, that 'M' was not part of a single-character symbiology as with stars, but was short for 'Minchara'), or was it just a plot device to mean a planet with ample life as we know it, and move on...?

If you can't specify what 'Class-M' means, it's no better than 'Earth-like.'

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RE: Not too clear

By Josett on 7/29/2010 11:11:00 PM , Rating: 2

Not clear indeed.

It's quoted in the article that,

quote:
(...) had discovered multiple "Earth-like" planets orbiting the galaxy.

Obviously not "orbiting the galaxy". It's a big detail...

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Meh

By KIAman on 7/29/2010 2:30:32 PM , Rating: 2

Who freaken cares about Earth sized planets? I'll take a wild guess that there are about... hmm... 2 million Earth sized planets in our galaxy, alone.

Now show me lots of Earth sized, Earth massed, Earth composition, and Earth temperature - like planets and that will be newsworthy.

RE: Meh

By delphinus100 on 7/29/2010 8:21:09 PM , Rating: 1

We care, because if you can't at least establish Earth-size/mass, the rest doesn't matter...

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RE: Meh

By SandmanWN on 7/30/2010 10:03:38 AM , Rating: 3

Earth size and mass has little bearing on finding life. The primary indicator is distance from the sun. After that, a strong enough magnetic field to resist solar radiation and water to support life are far more critical indicators than size/mass.

Earth/Mars share similar size/mass, are within the habitable region on the sun, and both contain water. The key difference being Mars has a weak magnetic field that cannot resist solar wind blowing its atmosphere off the planet.

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RE: Meh

By Antikapitalista on 8/1/2010 7:45:48 PM , Rating: 2

Uh, actually, it is a little more complicated, but you do have a point.
Earth, Venus, and Mars are all terrestrial planets. In fact, the Earth is pretty rare for a terrestrial planet, given its large size.

The athmosphere is more a function of the gravity of the planet, rather than its magnetic field. Note that Venus and Mars have a very weak intrinsic magnetic field, yet the atmospheric pressure on Venus is about 90 times higher than on Earth.
The magnetic field is more important in shielding a planet's surface from the stellar (solar) wind, which could sterilize the planet...

Obviously, those 2 things are intertwined: without an intrinsic magnetic field, the atmosphere of a planet, which also provides some shielding against "harmful" radiation (cosmic rays, high-energy stellar (solar) radiation...), may be more easily eroded and blown away by the stellar (solar) wind.

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Sitting on it

By DrApop on 7/29/2010 2:03:36 PM , Rating: 2

As a scientist myself I understand what NASA means by "sitting on the data".

They are not trying to conceal anything. Likely, duel method verification is need or wanted. They did also indicate that the information is to be published next spring. Journals always request that one does not go around parading all the data prior to publication - although snippets (abstracts/posters/presentations) of portions of the data usually occurs as the publication date nears.

Personally, I find this really exciting. Rocky planets can support life if they are orbiting in the appropriate zone around their sun.