. Space Industry and Business News .




.
EXO WORLDS
Earth-like planets feature in new survey
by Staff Writers
Washington (AFP) Dec 5, 2011


Tired of life on Earth? There may be other options, according to a catalog released on Monday of planets and moons that could have the right conditions to support life, planetary scientists said.

A total of 47 exoplanets and exomoons are potential habitable candidates, according to the online ranking of bodies outside our solar system by the Planetary Habitability Laboratory (PHL) of the University of Puerto Rico at Arecibo.

Two of the exoplanets are confirmed to have the right distance from their star to support water, plus a suitable temperature and atmosphere to support life.

But be warned, it would take Earthlings quite a long trip to get there.

One of the "marginally Earth-like" planets, Gliese 581d, is 20 light years from Earth, and the other, HD 85512b, is 36 light years away.

They are among the 700 exoplanets that have been detected and confirmed by missions such as NASA Kepler space telescope.

The Habitable Exoplanets Catalog (HEC), available online at http://phl.upr.edu, is the first to classify exoplanets and exomoons them according to their habitability in a somewhat user-friendly format.

The rankings give scientists "the ability to compare exoplanets from best to worst candidates for life," said says Abel Mendez, director of the PHL and principal investigator of the project.

Proposed future missions, such as the NASA Terrestrial Planet Finder (TPF), would be needed to confirm the suitability for life of the other 45 candidates identified in the catalog.

"I hope this database will help increase interest in building a big space-based telescope to observe exoplanets directly and look for possible signatures of life," said Jim Kasting, an expert on planetary habitability science from Penn State.

Kepler is NASA's first mission in search of Earth-like planets orbiting suns similar to ours.

It launched in 2009, equipped with the largest camera ever sent into space -- a 95-megapixel array of charge-coupled devices -- and is expected to continue sending information back to Earth until at least November 2012.

The space telescope is searching for planets as small as Earth, including those orbiting stars in a warm, habitable zone where liquid water could exist on the surface of the planet.

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




.
.
Get Our Free Newsletters Via Email
...
Buy Advertising Editorial Enquiries






.

. 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
Habitable Does not Mean 'Earth-Like'
Seattle WA (SPX) Nov 24, 2011
Within the next few years, the number of planets discovered in orbits around distant stars will likely reach several thousand or more. But even as our list of these newly discovered "exoplanets" grows ever-longer, the search for life beyond our solar system will likely focus much more narrowly on the relatively few of these new worlds which exhibit the most Earth-like of conditions. For mu ... read more


EXO WORLDS
Leicester set to fly high in India's first-ever national astronomy mission

Gaia sunshield deployment test

Radiation Belt Storm Probes Ready for Space Environment Tests

Japan baby formula shows radiation contamination

EXO WORLDS
Astrium achieves Initial System Acceptance on Yahsat programme

Northrop Grumman Awarded Microscale Power Conversion Contract

Raytheon First to Successfully Test With On-Orbit AEHF Satellite

Lockheed Martin AMF JTRS Team Demonstrates Communications and Tactical Data Sharing At Army Exercise

EXO WORLDS
Astrium takes a major step forward in the development of Ariane 5 ME

Fregat upper stage and Pleiades 1 ready for next Soyuz Kourou launch

Europe's third ATV is loaded with cargo for its 2012 launch by Arianespace

Assembly milestone reached with Ariane 5 to launch next ATV

EXO WORLDS
China launches 10th satellite for independent navigation system

Authorities Gauge Impact of Europe's Galileo Navigation Satellite System

Russia's Glonass-M satellite put into orbit

ITT Exelis and Chronos develop offerings for the Interference, Detection and Mitigation market

EXO WORLDS
Hundreds of flights cancelled due to Beijing smog

Air France suspends maintenance in China

US 'concerned' about EU airline carbon rules

German airline seeks Chinese, Gulf investors: report

EXO WORLDS
Samsung to build flash memory chip line in China

Swiss scientists prove durability of quantum network

New '3-D' transistors promising future chips, lighter laptops

Pitt Researchers Invent a Switch That Could Improve Electronics

EXO WORLDS
NASA Satellite Confirms Sharp Decline in Pollution from US Coal Power Plants

China launches remote-sensing satellite Yaogan XIII

Texas Drought Visible in New National Groundwater Maps

APL Proposes First Global Orbital Observation Program

EXO WORLDS
Chinese go online to vent anger over pollution

Smog sparks debate over Beijing air standards

No breath of relief for kids in dirty Czech steel hub

UI engineers conduct residential soils study


.

The content herein, unless otherwise known to be public domain, are Copyright 1995-2012 - Space Media Network. AFP and UPI Wire Stories are copyright Agence France-Presse and United Press International. 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