Lyra and Cygnus. Sounds like an autoimmune disease and some hick with a stalk of wheat between his teeth.
In actuality, both are Northern Hemisphere constellations. Located in the same general region of the sky — albeit between 1,000 and 3,900 light years away — are some of the most exciting extrasolar planets discovered to date. Exciting, perhaps, if you wear horn-rimmed glasses, polyester pants and white socks with black shoes, but certainly at least hmm-worthy for the rest of us. For the first time, Earth-sized planets have been found outside of our solar system. Four of them.
The Planets
It's not as if any of them are like Pandora, the weird, steamy, jungle world in Avatar with all the bizarre critters and sexy blue chicks with yellow eyes. The surface temperatures of two of them (Kepler 20e and Kepler 20f — nerds just aren't very creative with their planetary nomenclature) are estimated to be between 800 and 1,400 degrees Fahrenheit respectively, hot enough to melt glass. The other two Earth-sized planets discovered are even more inventively named: KOI 55.01 and KOI 55.02 and are even hotter, somewhere between 14,000 and 16,000 degrees Fahrenheit. At those temperatures, depiction of the worlds as "hellish" would be an improvement, as the diamond on your finger would be dripping all over your shoes.
These landmark discoveries represent several astronomical firsts. Not only are they the smallest extrasolar planets ever discovered, but in the case of 55.01 and 55.02, likely survived vaporization when their host star expanded during its red giant phase, in all probability enveloping them for a few million years or more. What remains of each is essentially a scorched, dense, lifeless mass, the celestial equivalent of George Hamilton.
Some Particulars
The four new planets seem random and chaotic, zipping around their respective stars at breakneck speeds. Accordingly, a few random facts for each of them are as follows:
- Kepler-20's "year" is just 6.1 days long
- Kepler-21's "year" is just 19.6 days
- Kepler-20 has a diameter .87 times that of Earth, approximately the size of Venus
- Kepler-21 has a diameter 1.03 times that of Earth
- KOI 55.01 and 02 are considered Chthonian planets, formerly large gas giants whose atmospheres and gaseous exterior layers have been stripped away, leaving small, rocky cores
- Both KOI 55.01 and .02 have diameters slightly smaller than Earth's
- KOI 55.01 and .02 likely formed much further away from their star and migrated inward over millions or billions of years
- Kepler-20 is a system with three other known extrasolar planets
- All five known planets in the Kepler-20 system lie within Mercury's orbital radius around our sun
- One planet in the Kepler-20 system (Kepler 22-b) lies within the habitable zone of its star, with conditions warm enough to support life; however, it is likely a gas giant
- KOI 55.01 and .02's star is nearing the end of its lifespan and is at the stage where our sun is projected to be in about five billion years. Circle your calendars.
The Discoveries
Kepler-20e and 20f were pinpointed by NASA's Kepler Space Observatory, which was launched on the back of a Delta II rocket on March 6, 2009 with a single mission: to study a patch of sky containing about 100,000 sun-like stars, looking for worlds within the habitable zones of these stars. KOI 55.01 and .02 were discovered by Stephane Charpinet and his team at the Institute de Recherche en Astrophysique et Planétologie, Université de Toulouse-CNRS, in France. According to NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, there are 709 known extrasolar planets, with another 2,326 awaiting formal confirmation.
Planet Hunting: the Final Frontier
The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away: it took thousands of years for mankind to discover, yet ultimately reject the formerly ninth planet of our solar system. In just the past 16 years, the number of known planets throughout the entire galaxy has exploded and continues to increase on virtually a daily basis. Given that galaxies can contain hundreds of billions of stars, and current estimates peg the number of galaxies in the universe at upwards of 500 billion, one thing is crystal clear: there probably are about a billion Earths out there. Let's hope the first one we find with intelligent life has smarter McDonald's drive-up cashiers.
Sources:
- Planet Quest (accessed on 12/21/11)
- JPL (accessed on 12/21/11)
- NASA (accessed on 12/21/11)
- Science Daily (accessed on 12/21/11)
- Science Daily (accessed on 12/21/11)
- Universe Today (accessed on 12/21/11)
Walter McLaughlin - I am a 47-year old commercial banker living in the Seattle area. I am an avid sports fan, but also greatly enjoy writing satirical, ...
