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“Amazing” discovery of a new planet
Published: 19 December, 2009, 01:20
Edited: 17 February, 2010, 04:30
As a group of astronomers has reported about the discovery of a new planet – possibly inhabitable – close to the solar system, space entrepreneur Jeff Manber has told RT why he thinks the discovery is so exciting.
“The planet is close – it’s 40 light years away. It’s not that hot – 400 degrees – and it has water, it seems to have an atmosphere,” Manber said.
Moreover, he added, “this is a low-budget-project, it’s called MEarth. It’s not something being done by NASA, it’s not a multi-billion dollar project. In just a short period of time, using small telescopes, they discovered a planet that looks like it could support some forms of life.”
18.12.2009, 15:15
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jean-claude. The importance of this discovery is not that we can pop over any time we like and visit another Earth. The importance is that without spending billions of dollars with uber telescopes an Earthlike planet has been found in our vicinity. The more we find the more common we can assume earthlike planets are the more likely there will be life in our region of the galaxy. To put it in perspective the alternative is searching and only finding Jupiter or larger sized planets with very little hope of finding life. That is what makes the water so important. There is life thousands of metres below the sea surface near volcanic vents where the water temperature is 400 degrees where life thrives on Earth. The requirements for life on Earth seems to be liquid water even at trace levels.
it is absolutely so fantastically amazing so interesting I CANT WAIT TO HEAR MORE!!!!!!!!!!! i bet the water would be some sort of extreme sauna, heck with water that hot they might even make a national contest, i wonder if one day so many newly made planets in our solar system would form that would be so close to us, each country would have its own plant, or it could end up like that one pixar movie Walle; we would probably end up just shipping ourselves off into space or like the movie the fifth element, just build some sort of floating air crafts & homes where we just could stay constantly up in the air. but im just wowed to the point of a cardiac arrest about all these new exciting discoveries and new inventions, like i heard they have invented a flying car and shoes that grow on your feet shheeessshh in about a couple some odd years i can throw out the dinosaurs on my feet and get me some growables.
Here's a thought... how about we continue to do whats best for out world. Instead, we choose to rape its resources and the when it all blows up we can just go to our 'back-up planet'