On January 25 at 16:00 Universal time (08:00 Pacific), the European Space Agency (ESA) will make a major extrasolar planet announcement.
Frustratingly, that is all they are saying ("embargoed" generally means the press get advance notice, but they aren’t allowed to release any information until after the announcement– I have not received any other info, however). We’ve seen many big releases in the past about extarsolar planets, from multiple planets in one system to the lowest mass planet found, about half the mass of Uranus (a planet orbiting the nearby star Gliese 876).
I’ve chatted with astronomer-friends about stuff like this, and most of us agree that the next major announcement would have to be pretty big, but it’s hard to say what it could be. I guess we’ll find out Wednesday morning!
January 24th, 2006 at 4:12 pm
Sounds a bit ‘occult’ to me. Maybe they’ve discovered a planet of the apes.
January 24th, 2006 at 4:24 pm
*grins* I think I know what this is about, based on a conversation yesterday. It is very cool, if it what I think it is (well, they wouldn’t be teasing us if it wasn’t now, would they?!). If you have access to Nature, take a look at the next issue…
January 24th, 2006 at 4:30 pm
I won’t see the next Nature at least until tomorrow afternoon local time (the announcement is set for 8:00 a.m. my time), so I won’t know until everyone else does… unless I get a press release in advance. That happens sometimes; I am on the AAS press list.
January 24th, 2006 at 4:35 pm
Oooo, nice. I like surprises.
January 24th, 2006 at 4:39 pm
I seem to get ESA update emails sent as if i’m a member of the media (though i’m not). I can only hope I get something early oneday
January 24th, 2006 at 4:46 pm
Well, I have a feeling Gliese 876 might not seem so impressive…
January 24th, 2006 at 5:21 pm
Hey, maybe what they found is that Planet X is orbiting Rigel now, so it’s far enough away that the pseudoscientists can stop worrying people about it!
January 24th, 2006 at 5:22 pm
My guess is strange flashing lights on Mars.
Time to check with my insurance agent and see if my house coverage includes giant tripods with heat rays.
January 24th, 2006 at 6:14 pm
Agh! How frustrating! I hate cliffhangers. :O
January 24th, 2006 at 6:31 pm
They found Planet X and they want to sneak it in so the tinfoil hat people have less time to prepare!
January 24th, 2006 at 6:32 pm
Dang, how did I miss Leon beating me to the Planet X thing. I hang my tentacles in shame.
January 24th, 2006 at 6:43 pm
Gliese 876 … could be, ah, um ‘smaller’ maybe?
That ‘would’ be impressive!
January 24th, 2006 at 7:45 pm
What…no-one else has googled this title yet?
A team of planet-hunters will announce their discovery of a new class of planets beyond our solar system at a NASA Science Update at 1 p.m. EDT on Tuesday, August 31. The news conference will be held in the NASA Headquarters auditorium in Washington. The discovery represents a significant and much-anticipated advance in the hunt for extra-solar planets. The news conference will be carried live on NASA Television and online.
January 24th, 2006 at 7:46 pm
Oh, crap.
ignore my ‘old news’ rampblings
January 24th, 2006 at 7:54 pm
It’s gotta be a direct imaging of something extrasolar. Either that or the woo-woos were completely right and we’re into the first hundred pages of Carl Sagan’s “Contact”. LOL. that would be embarassing!
Forget film, Jodie! Bring a sketchbook!!!
January 24th, 2006 at 9:24 pm
I agree with hewhocaves. Possibly a transit that clearly dims a dwarf?
Maybe not. Maybe spectral data indicating an earth-like atmosphere?
Maybe both!
January 24th, 2006 at 9:30 pm
Oh, Megan, you’re such a tease….
January 24th, 2006 at 10:42 pm
Maybe they found another HD 149026b, an extraordinary extra solar planet with a density comparable to all the planets in our solar system combined.
http://seti.sentry.net/archive/public/2006/Jan/0007.html
January 24th, 2006 at 10:53 pm
here the culichi kyuzalt of mexico, that sounds nice, imaging finding nemo but in the space.
January 24th, 2006 at 11:23 pm
GABBO, GABBO, GABBO!!!!
January 25th, 2006 at 12:27 am
OK, now that somebody else has brought up Contact, I have to ask… I liked the movie quite a bit, right up until the end, which just sort of ker-flopped. Seems like they should have sent a man after all — they could have just measured his five o’clock shadow!
Maybe the film people intentionally made a weak ending as an homage to the “message in pi” silliness Sagan put at the end of the novel.
Now I wait on tenterhooks for this sooper-sekrit “announcement” !
January 25th, 2006 at 1:18 am
My guess is an Earth sized planet and or one with oxygen
January 25th, 2006 at 1:56 am
Morning? Isn’t 18:00 GMT about 1:00pm EST?
Wait. That would still be morning for the West Coasters. My bad.
January 25th, 2006 at 2:27 am
The 25th of January? Could it in fact be the mysterious Planet of the Haggis?
January 25th, 2006 at 3:09 am
Checked the time for the broadcast at esa:s website. They are broadcasting this at 17 CET until 17:15. My guess: deathstar is approaching and we will all DIE
January 25th, 2006 at 4:18 am
Or perhaps the gravitational slingshot effect is about to catapult the Earth into the middle of next week.
No. That’s just silly.
January 25th, 2006 at 4:28 am
Hello Earthlings !
I am from the planet ZOG
or am I?
find out soon
He HE
SUCKERS
January 25th, 2006 at 4:34 am
They’ve found a large black monolith behind Jupiter?
January 25th, 2006 at 5:09 am
Or a large black spot on Jupiter, composed of black monoliths (each of which has proportions 1 by 4 by 9, perfect to six decimal places)? And that the number of monoliths is doubling once every two minutes? That they’re turning Jovian hydrogen into neutron matter, which drops down to the core, igniting nuclear fusion and — boom! — “ALL THESE WORLDS ARE YOURS, EXCEPT EUROPA. . . .”
Whoops, they said extrasolar planet news, didn’t they?
January 25th, 2006 at 5:39 am
oh, i thought they saud extraterrestial… my bad
January 25th, 2006 at 5:39 am
“All your base are belong to us”
LOL
Seriously, I think that they have either:
1) Found an earth sized planet (approximately),
2) Found A planet with large amounts of oxygen in its atmosphere (although this seems unlikely), or
3) Discovered enough planets inside one of the previously known multi-planet systems to say “It looks like home!”
January 25th, 2006 at 5:41 am
Yes, they have just discovered a new sun in our solar system, making it Extra-solar…
Now actually what has happend is that they’ve spotted giant yellow rectangles floating across the sky, precisely the way bricks don’t… I really ought to get down to the Horse & Groom pub and down about three pints of beer and buy a few packets of peanuts… Where did I put my blasted towel?
Too bad Jimmy Doohan passed away recently… “Scotty! Beam me up!”
January 25th, 2006 at 5:59 am
Come on, gang…Someone discovered the sun really does have a red dwarf companion star named Nemisis and that it has its own planets! Let’s be interesting.
January 25th, 2006 at 6:54 am
Well, we’ve had multiple planets, multiple suns, super-terrestrial, and we’re still a ways off from anything reasonably Earth sized.
I’ll throw my duckets behind a true Jupiter analogue.
January 25th, 2006 at 7:33 am
Planet detected around a black hole? Perhaps around the central Black Hole in the Milky way – maybe they’ve accounted for the gravitat’l interactions among all the orbiting stars, plus the BH and accretion disk itself and there’s a Jove mass missing or transiting it? Or better yet an earth-mass?
Or perhaps around a white dwarf – there was an e-news item about the Spitzer space telescope finding dust believed to be from a comet around white dwarf star G29-38 I read recently. (NASA e-newsltr, 2006, Jan. 11th)
Could it be they’ve taken a closer analysis of that data (or new data following that) and found a planetary core or even a planetary system ..? Perhaps one enough like our own orbit-wise to imply an old solar system analogue now destroyed .. well almost destroyed?
.. If so could such world(s) be those carbon planets (with underlying diamond over tarry-crust) discussed in Astronomy magazine, Nov. 2005 (P.42-45, ‘The Search for Diamond worlds’ by Ray Villard.)
If it is a carbon planet could that mean an earth-sized diamond orbiting a supernova remnant -perhaps even in another Glaxy – say the LMC, LMC, Andromeda or the Saggitatarius dwarf?
Or signs of a Dyson-sphere tyope construction ie. a planet that seems not dense enough to be anything but artificial for its size ..?
Signs of something like ‘Ringworld’ .. ?
Nearby star with planets eg. Alpha Centuari or Barnard’s Star .. or Sirius?
(BTW. What happened to the planet supposed found around 4th closest star Lalande 21185 – seen the Epsilon Eridani planets described as the closest but Ll21185-b was discovered earlier and is much closer .. was it refuted?)
Or a free-floating planet ejected from its parent star- perhaps even on a collision course with our system .. (Just kidding! Shades of Mondas anyone?
..)
Whatever it is I’m looking forward to hearing the details – wonder what time Australian? It’s after midnight Thursday already here in Adelaide. (Latitude 35 degrees Sth, daylight saving time, Central Standard Time.)
Thanks for the tantalising news, just wonder if I’ll get any sleep now – love the exoplanet stuff!
January 25th, 2006 at 7:38 am
Must be too tired! Transiting a Black Hole would hardly work I realised a second too late! Transiting its accretion disk perhaps? Would it be bright enough and constant enough to show any transits?
Could they detect a transiting planet orbiting a variable star?
January 25th, 2006 at 7:38 am
I HATE Surprises!
They shouldn’t be allowed to do this. Science should be open and free, that is the only way that new ideas can be brought into the light. DOing this only pisses off Space-News-Junkies like myself.
January 25th, 2006 at 7:47 am
Mungascr, I think you left out Discworld.
January 25th, 2006 at 7:49 am
I suspect this may be the 7.5 Earth mass planet that was supposed to be announced at the AAS conference earlier in the month. I sat in on the extrasolar planet session and it was supposed to be one of the papers presented that day but at the last minute, Nature made the authors yank it, at least that’s what I heard. I guess the editors of Nature wanted to make their own media splash over the announcement.
January 25th, 2006 at 8:38 am
It’ll be great to find out whatever they’ve found…unless it’s Planet X, of course!
Nothing at all on the ESA webpage; no teaser, no hint of big things to come, nothing at all.
January 25th, 2006 at 8:48 am
If it was something silly like planet X, they wouldn’t say Extrasolar now, isn’t it
Too bad, some weirdos out there are probably hoping.
January 25th, 2006 at 9:04 am
A film crew came to interview one of the scientists involved earlier, not long now. It is really exciting…
RobW: they are dying to tell everyone, the trouble is that Nature put these embargos on big stories that they will be publishing. It’s not the fault of the scientists, they can get frustrated about it too. Once it is published then it is open, there isn’t a lot of point in doing science unless you tell people about it!
January 25th, 2006 at 9:09 am
UNICRON!!!
January 25th, 2006 at 9:18 am
Just watched the webcast (missed the first couple of miuutes) – not very informative really (in three languages though, so not sure what the Germans and French were saying).
But basically they’ve discovered a planet 5-times the mass of Earth (that’s small) orbiting at 3AU from a star 25,000 light years away. That’s about all they said in English in the broadcast.
Oh, and from the graphics it looks as though it was found though observing the planet eclipsing the star.
January 25th, 2006 at 9:20 am
details
http://www.theadvertiser.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5936,17938927%255E912,00.html
January 25th, 2006 at 9:20 am
I don’t understand how can Nature put an embargo on a scientific discovery. And why do the scientists allow such a practice? What’s to prevent the discoverers from shouting their discovery to the world?
Grr this waiting is frustrating!
January 25th, 2006 at 9:21 am
(Tapping foot impatiently) Well, they’re certainly taking their time!
And suuuuurrre, it’s extra-solar *now*, Michelle, but it’s headed this way for sure!
January 25th, 2006 at 9:23 am
Oh, ok, so it was gravitational microlensing, that makes sense at that distance.
January 25th, 2006 at 9:28 am
Another article:
http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,3551543a10,00.html
January 25th, 2006 at 9:34 am
Another interesting snippet of information was that a 1 metre telescope (UTas at Mt Canopus Observatory) was able to confirm the microlensing event. That’s quite small and holds the promise that more discoveries will be possible using this class of scope.
January 25th, 2006 at 9:39 am
Hmm… micro-lensing, how does that work? It seems quite (too?) extraordinary that we can determine that there is a rocky planet five times the size of Earth at a distance of 25 000 light years.
January 25th, 2006 at 9:41 am
But does not microlensing require very special condition of alignment, meaning not many candidates for investigation exist?
Of course if a significant proportion show such evidence, that pretty much means it is common in all non aligned stars also.
January 25th, 2006 at 9:51 am
What an object passes in front of a star at just the right distance, the object (a planet in this case) acts as a gravitational lens and light from the star (as observed by us) is amplified so it appears to get a little brighter for a short time. The beauty of the technique is that these lensing events are detectable from so far away.
Not sure how they know that it’s rocky except they have figured out the mass of the lens as 5x that of Earth’s and perhaps that is too small to be a gas giant.
January 25th, 2006 at 9:59 am
Thanks, Mike.
January 25th, 2006 at 10:12 am
The embargo is actually a good idea. Other scientists need to be able to read the paper to judge it before a media blitz opens up. For instance, the initial cold-fusion announcement of Pons and Fleischman was made before their paper was published and spread like wildfire. Giving others the chance to read the paper might have ameliorated some of the wilder speculation.
January 25th, 2006 at 10:27 am
Oh, heck! I need to leave and now I’ll not find out whatevertheheckitis until I get back. Grrrrrrrrrr…….
January 25th, 2006 at 10:38 am
I hadn’t realized it was the planet causing the lensing. I thought it was another star. Silly me.
That means we don’t know how common it will be, because we can’t judge how common that alignment is, right?
January 25th, 2006 at 10:40 am
Erik: this is why the surveys look towards the centre of the Galaxy, there are huge numbers of stars there so the probability of the conditions for a lensing event arising are higher than anywhere else in the sky.
January 25th, 2006 at 10:54 am
Megan: That makes sense, but then is the lensing caused by another star or the planet at Mike said?
January 25th, 2006 at 11:12 am
The lensing is actually caused by both the star and it’s planet, see this explanation by the MOA collaboration.
January 25th, 2006 at 11:46 am
aiabx said:
“My guess is strange flashing lights on Mars.
Time to check with my insurance agent and see if my house coverage includes giant tripods with heat rays”
Oh, come off it! The chances of anything coming from Mars are a million to one …
January 25th, 2006 at 1:10 pm
Megan: Thanks for the link. Now I see. Sort of. What it doesn’t describe however are what are the constrataints on that configuration. Lots of questions pop up.
Any info on min/max distances (does the target have to be a minimum distance away), alignment accuracy, plane of planetary alignment, etc? Do they know anything about the source star, or does one just look for a “halo” first, and if there is one then start looking for planets?
January 25th, 2006 at 1:14 pm
The two official press releases are http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=105759 and http://www.eso.org/outreach/press-rel/pr-2006/pr-03-06.html
January 26th, 2006 at 5:51 am
Nigel Depledge Says:
January 25th, 2006 at 11:46 am
Oh, come off it! The chances of anything coming from Mars are a million to one …
————–
Yeah, next you’ll be trying to sell me a handful of “real” comet dust, straight from the comet!
January 26th, 2006 at 11:13 am
But still they come.
February 5th, 2006 at 3:01 am
[...] Phil Plait has posted on the Bad Astronomy Blog that tomorrow we’ll see a big announcement from ESA regarding the discovery of a new extrasolar planet. [...]
May 18th, 2006 at 10:53 am
phentermine…
trickier bounteous adding corresponding?methodically victims coins.phentermine http://phenterminehclhere.blogspot.com/ …