Earth-like planets are right next door
February 7, 2013
Artist’s conception of a hypothetical habitable planet with two moons orbiting a red dwarf star (credit: David A. Aguilar, CfA)
Six percent of red-dwarf stars have habitable, Earth-sized planets, astronomers at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA) have found.
Red dwarfs are the most common stars in our galaxy; about 75 percent of the closest stars are red dwarfs. The closest Earth-like planet could be just 13 light-years away, Harvard astronomer and lead author Courtney Dressing calculated.
“We thought we would have to search vast distances to find an Earth-like planet. Now we realize another Earth is probably in our own backyard, waiting to be spotted,” said (CfA).
Red dwarf stars are smaller, cooler, and fainter than our Sun. An average red dwarf is only one-third as large and one-thousandth as bright as the Sun.
Dressing culled the Kepler catalog of 158,000 target stars to identify all the red dwarfs. She then reanalyzed those stars to calculate more accurate sizes and temperatures. She found that almost all of those stars were smaller and cooler than previously thought.
A new SETI?
Locating nearby Earth-like worlds may require a dedicated small space telescope, or a large network of ground-based telescopes. Follow-up studies with instruments like the Giant Magellan Telescope and James Webb Space Telescope could tell us whether any warm, transiting planets have an atmosphere and further probe its chemistry.
Since red dwarf stars live much longer than Sun-like stars, this discovery raises the interesting possibility that life on such a planet would be much older and more evolved than life on Earth.
Dressing presented her findings today in a press conference at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Mass.
References:
- Courtney D. Dressing, David Charbonneau, The occurrence rate of small planets around small stars, The Astrophysical Journal, 2013, in press
- Courtney D. Dressing, David Charbonneau, The occurrence rate of small planets around small stars (open access PDF)
Comments (32)
by Scott
PING…
by NakedApe
Let’s face it — we just don’t know. It’s barely been yesterday that we’ve come out of the Dark Ages and much of the world is still stuck there (ie. religious dumbfucks). I will just keep reading and wait to see what happens. Hope I live long enough to find out.
by Howard
I believe that saying “I do not know.” is the beginning of all knowledge even though it has a long history of being branded as the equivalent of being stupid. Always remember that we function on assumptions that are least wrong but Newton’s pretty close Physics got us to the Moon. And, now we have Quantum Physics! Another wonderful world patently awaits our discovery.
by cosmowrench
Amusing vid on the subject.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qikjljlbTQw
by Eldon J. Bloedorn
I’m happy to be a Naturalist and that I see death, at least my death as being final. Death, of course being absence of life, organic life. I wish that I learned death as being final at a much younger age. Why? One can more fully understand the beauty of life, the universe. And also the horribleness that is part of the reality of life. One one hand, i can say as I look at outer space, “what a waste!” On the other hand, it is difficult to say “what a waste” because I’m here and the ” possibile beautiful waste” is “over there” and I’ve not been there.
by JeffKLass
What total nonsense! “Earth-like” to me means mostly water-covered, like ours is. What are the odds that there is another water-covered planet in our galaxy in spite of all the estimated “billions” of rocky planets? Probably very small. We may be the only one, and we may never really know. And we now know that water is required for biological life and evolution. When one considers all of the staggering “accidents” that have resulted in “we the sentient beings” on our probably extremely rare water planet, then it is quite likely that WE ARE THE ONLY sentient beings in our galaxy, maybe even in our local group of galaxies that comprise trillions upon trillions of stars. More than likely, evolution of biological entities in water worlds is a truly universal process powered by DNA-like molecules, BUT getting evolution up to the level of “sentient being” is an astoundingly unlikely occurrence. OK, for the sake of argument let’s be optimistic and say that maybe there are a billion water planets in our galaxy. Then, based on what we know about the difficulty of the startup of life, and then the kicking in of evolutionary processes, what number of those planets would harbor life? Possibly a few. But what number of that few would have life forms that have evolved to the sentient level? I would say ONE! We ARE alone is this galaxy and we will NEVER communicate with any other sentient life forms because there aren’t any. Prove me wrong … you can’t. And further, wouldn’t it be a hoot if we are the only — or maybe the first — sentient life form in the entire universe of billions and billions of galaxies? If so, then knowing our weaknesses I would say that this universe is screwed …
by Robert H. Pike
….and the Earth is flat, and it is round, and we travel west, the first people we meet when we land we’ll call Indians because we must be in India.
Get over it. We’re just not that unique! How can your non-researched based opinion be close to correct? Please, let’s not get religulous? The elements evolved, the universe evolved, life evolved. There’s even more evidence that Mars had life before we did, and DNA evolved there, not here. There’s probably radio signals on the way to us from many “sentient” civilizations…we just haven’t received them yet. Don’t be afraid…we’re not “screwed” (a term for being sexually abused? how scientific of you).
by Nancy
Exactly true. But you left out the reason i know that we are alone.
People (i include leela, kiff, worf, the cast of FarScape, etc. in my definition of “people”) evolve to succeed in their own favorite environment whether it be the swamp, the sea, or savanna. Then the stuff that our friend Ray observed starts to happen.
By the time the species get ready to leave their world technologically things start to happen (at an exponentially increasing rate) that they are not evolved to handle. They (just as we) are too stupid to handle the technology and they either blow themselves up, overshoot their ecosystem (like we have), or build the terminator (as we might given time).
So, start with what JeffLass said and then eliminate civilizations that get as far as we have because of peak everything, AGW, etc. and … yup … we’re alone.
by Steve
JeffKLass, whether or not your argument makes sense depends on your assumptions. What you haven’t done is indicate any margins for error on any of your assumptions. Those margins are realistically so large that scientifically minded people wouldn’t be able to exclude your suggestion, but nor would they stick to it as truth. We just don’t know, we need more info to reduce the range of possibilities.
by Eldon J. Bloedorn
There are those who have said and say, “the creator is a mad.” And those who have said “the creator has purpose.” Frankly, I cannot disagree with either statement. George Bernard Shaw, “The longer I’m here, the more I think this planet is used as an asylum for the insane.”
by Mick Allen
I agree with everything you said except the last part. If we are the only sentient life in the universe, then we have a responsability to evolve and to get it right.
by Dr. Richard
just how long does it take them to approve a post??
by Editor
0 to 8 hours
by Bri
My name is Bri and I approve this message.@Dr.Richard after awhile the sting of rejection doesn’t hurt as much. I’m thinking of changing my name to awaiting approval
by Editor
Many are cold, but few are frozen.
by Dr. Richard
Strike, they say, while the Iron is hot.
by Dr. Richard
Bri: Clever idea. Fact is, this is one of my favorite places. I love reading these articles. Once in awhile, someone says something that just HAS to be answered. My undergrad degree is in Physics, but it has been a lifetime since I studied it, so I often miss the mark on some of the good articles. I may change my name to, “this message is approved”
by Dr. Richard
Thanks. :)
by Dr. Richard
I don’t agree that we would have detected any tech from a civilization that close….that is not close. By astronomy’s numbers its close, but what makes you think we would have picked up their tech, 13LY away? We are just now able to communicate across our own world at our will, we are very young technologicaly. They could be sitting right next to us and we would not neccesarily be cognizant of that fact. I believe that Intelligence is a premium in nature so high, that it is constantly be selected for. Our problem is our own arrogance. We are not the smartest kids on the block, and the block is not something we are very knowledable about. We just stepped out of our little house, to take a look down that block. While beings a few klicks down, have been out there playing in the street for a very very long time. In astronomical time, just a short time ago, the planet was cooling off from its coalition from the Sun. In Geological time, just a few seconds ago, we were throwing spears.
by Editor
For the Kepler set of exoplanets, we’ve only listened over a 3 months period to emissions from 86 stars in a miniscule portion of the EM spectrum (1.1 to 1.9 GHz), further restricted to <5 Hz modulation, with a detection probability of being in a radar beam similar to that produced at Arecibo during an observation of just 2 x 10-8, making a large set of (highly unlikely) best-case assumptions (non-isotropic radiation, with >150 seconds dwell time on frequency and direction, no use of UWB or spread-spectrum modulation, etc., ability to extract signals from star background noise, etc.). Clearly, no meaningful conclusions can be drawn from this sparse data set.
(I would appreciate any corrections or critiques to this for an article I may develop.)
Source: Jill Tarter et al., A 1.1 to 1.9 GHz SETI Survey of the Kepler Field: I. A Search for
Narrow-band Emission from Select Targets, arXiv, Feb. 3, 2013, http://arxiv.org/pdf/1302.0845v1.pdf.
by Dr. Richard
To technical for me! I’m not even going to pretend I know what you are talking about. The “select targets” Part seems to be more important than the emission band you are studying, which would be secondary….I think. Im still assuming there are more inert, or non-life bearing planets out there, than those with water, atmosphere and various life promoting cycles. If it were me, I would be looking at the yellow dwarfs first, but then Im not getting paid for that job.
by trl
Why do we assume they would talk to us? Perhaps life and advanced life is so extremely common that the Earth and humans are a mundane encounter not worthy of any extra special attention. I spend a lot of time out at night taking in the sky and over the years I have seen things that prove to me we are not alone. I can conceive of a vast number of reasons why they don’t have a big landing and introduce themselves. In fact it makes more sense to me that they are indifferent to human social and diplomatic needs.
by H.K. Fauskanger
Superman’s native Krypton was orbiting a red sun, right? Behold the profound and subtle insights of comic books!
Seriously, we would already have detected any technologicall civilizations as close as this article suggests. Perhaps life as such is common in the universe, with all sorts of animals living under suns of many hues, but true _intelligence_ could be exceedingly rare. Either that, or technological civilizations somehow disappear rather quickly — by self-destruction or by some kind of “transcendence” we cannot now imagine. Perhaps the grand Kurzweilian scenario of spreading throughout the universe and “waking up” all matter will seem like a puerile idea once superintelliigence is achieved: Superintelligence can think of something far more interesting to do, something that may be completely beyond our current mental horizon.
by Jim Mooney
Why would we have detected a nearby civilization a million years advanced beyond us? Would cavemen have detected radio waves?
by WLGJR
Oh yeah, they could migrate into the “bulk”, that is the “space” outside our space-time brane.
Or they could become super-miniaturized, like in Prof de Garis’ theory of “Infra-Particle Intelligence”: whole civilizations (quoting him) living inside elementary particles.
Could our transcendence in mid this century (as Kurzweil predicted) be some event akin to either of the 2 above scenarios? Time will tell.
I also anticipate that we will join some kind of cosmic federation (of other civilizations in this universe) once we transcend.
by Editor
What if cosmic microwave background patterns are code templates for ET signals? It would be more bandwidth-time-space-efficient to send signals encoded in such patterns.
by Bri
Check out the NASA space video of UFO’s. One of my favorites is of how they like thunderstorms. There are several video’s showing large( one mile or more) objects zooming in at many thousands of miles an hour( one was estimated to be traveling over 100 thousand miles an hour) and then slowing down and parking above the storms. They often come in clusters. One video shows twenty-one UFO’s coming in to a storm. The camera is often steered to watch the phenomenon but NASA officially calls them ice crystals. If you take the premise that they are here, then where are there transmissions? One of the most famous UFO inference happened at a top NATO base in England. It happened over several days and the UFOs were seen by two base commanders. They recently asked the government to open the files that they sent to their commanders. They say that the UFO’s shut down the nuclear weapons on the base. There are several incidents of UFO’s shutting down nuclear weapons as reported by top military officers. One astronaut says that when he was in the military they actually filmed a UFO landing at a military base. He says the film was taken away and he wants to know what happened to it. Hey I don’t mind being called a UFO nut. These guys are professionals with a lot of credibility to risk by coming forward and demanding that the government comes clean. I don’t think we will be able to listen in to alien communications with our tech. It’s like a tribe in Africa listening for drums and upon not hearing any, then declaring that there is no other tribes living on the planet. At the same time we are watching them ” in the wild” with remote cameras and sending the information live to a reality TV show. Too many high level credible people have come forward and said that they are real. Anyone who discredits there testimony is more interested in promoting their denial of UFO’s than honestly examining the facts. It’s a highly charged emotional issue. I take the point of view that there is too many credible reports to just desmiss it as fantasy. Something is going on.
by thomas
I have been a USAF aviator for over 24 years. During that time I have flown with and met individuals who were routinely on alert ready to jump into the F-101 Voodoo supersonic jet fighter(top speed 1.7mach) or the F-4 Phantom and be airborne within 5 minutes. Two friends of mine were scrambled to intercept an unknown airborne target(we didn’t call them UFO’s). This was back in the 70′s. Upon being intercepted, the oval, white object gave off a heat signature which was photographed and returned for analysis. After toying with the aircrew for about 5 minutes object suddenly accelerated and made a right angle turn straight up and disappeared. Upon landing, the crew reported what they saw and brought back the heat signature proof. That same day, the USAF investigators got wind of the story and whisked both aircrew members away to an unknown location to debrief them for 1week. When they returned to the squadron they were ridiculed and jeered at by the high level commanders. A concerted attempt was made to secure their resignation. They both refused to change their story. Finally under protest, the Weapon System Officer quit and left the area. The Pilot was demoted from flying fighters to flying a support aircraft- the C131. He refused to resign and accepted his demotion. To this day neither one of them changed their story. I knew both of these guys personally and they were solid citizens. Mentally and emotionally they were as reliable as a John Deere tractor.
After that incident I made up my mind that if I ever did see anything like a UFO I would refuse to talk about it. You bet your wings in this country.
I am positive the vast majority of military aviators and airline pilots in the U.S. will avoid talking about unusual sightings they might have had while in the performance of their duties.
by L2K4FC
I wouldn’t assume that we are alone just because we have not had contact.
If I were an advanced [compared to us] life form and had the ability to get here at will, I might opt to avoid this area altogether or just be here in stealth as needed considering our state of affairs: war, greed, disease, fearmongering etc.
by DeBee Corley
Billions of “earth-like” planets. Red Dwarfs much longer lived than earth.
My feeble conclusion: We are alone.
by Mitchell Bjerke
If our own Saturn was once a brown dwarf star that wandered into this solar system with our own Earth in tow, as the Natural Historians studying past Earth catastrophes have reported is the consensus of all ancient art, symbols, and mythologies of the same events taking place in our skies less than ten thousand years ago; then humans are embryod and nurtured beneath a cooler sun than our present one. See The Saturn Theory and also website: thunderbolts.info
by erichlof
I’m with Ray on this; if we had highly advanced alien civilizations operating in our stellar “backyard”, I think that we would have seen or heard some activity, especially since communications would only take 13-20 years to reach each other. Likewise, they would have intercepted our broadcasts from the early 20th century and made contact. Maybe they are on their way now! :) (not being able to travel as fast as light might slow their journey down)
Of course there is the possibility that they operate on a different form of energy that we cannot detect. In that case, we’re back where we started anyway.