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mithridates
Joined: 03 Mar 2003
Location: President's office, Korean Space Agency
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 Posted: Wed Dec 27, 2006 8:16 am Post subject: COROT launched |
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COROT has just been launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome. I just watched the pre-launch, launch and am listening to the press conference afterward and am pretty excited. COROT is a mission by France and some other countries, a space telescope that will look at a total of 120,000 (I think) stars over a period of two and a half years to determine if they have planets around them. Observations on Earth don't cut it yet for finding smaller planets; because of the interference from the atmosphere and the fact that observations can't be carried out during the day, it's not possible to look at a section of the sky for all that long, but COROT will be looking at each section for a total of 150 days, which means that if a planet as small as twice the size of the Earth moves in front of its star during that time it'll be seen, and we'll know about it, how big it is, etc.
Over 200 planets up to now have been discovered outside of the Solar System but these have all been gas giants, detected through the gravitational effects they have on their stars, which means you need quite a big planet relative to its star in order to find it. This is the first mission that'll find planets close to the size of Earth, and that's why I'm excited.
Who else is excited? The first science results should start coming in around the end of January.
Waiting...Yeah, separation just worked and it's in it's proper orbit! Oh yeah fuckin' yeah! |
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mithridates
Joined: 03 Mar 2003
Location: President's office, Korean Space Agency
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| Posted: Wed Dec 27, 2006 8:58 am Post subject: |
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Space telescope to seek out Earth-like planets
Updated Wed. Dec. 27 2006 9:48 AM ET
CTV.ca News Staff
A French-led satellite project took off Wednesday on a mission to seek new Earth-like planets outside the solar system.
The multinational mission will also study stars on a quest to uncover more about their interior, the European Space Agency (ESA) announced.
The Corot project sends into orbit a telescope that is able to detect smaller planets than are currently known.
With the spacecraft, astronomers expect they will discover between 10 and 40 rocky objects slightly larger than Earth, as well as tens of new gas giants similar to Jupiter.
Should the mission uncover such planets, they will constitute a new class of planets altogether.
"Corot will be able to find extra-solar planets of all sizes and natures, contrary to what we can do from the ground at the moment," Claude Catala, one of the researchers associated with the project, told France Info radio.
"We expect to obtain a better vision of planet systems beyond the solar system, about the distribution of planet sizes," Catala said.
"And finally, it will allow us to estimate the likelihood of there existing planets resembling the Earth in the neighbourhood of the sun or further away in the galaxy."
The telescope lifted off into a polar orbit from the Baikonur Cosmodrome on Wednesday morning ET.
From its position, Corot will survey star fields for some 2.5 years in an effort to expand the current database of knowledge on ever-smaller planets.
Corot will also monitor the brightness of stars, to spot a dimming of starlight when a planet passes in front of it.
As this is a rare event that depends on the alignment of the star and the planet with Earth, Corot must monitor some 120,000 stars with its 30-centimetre telescope.
Corot is also designed to detect "starquakes" that resonate through a star.
Starquakes are defined by the European Space Agency as acoustic waves generated deep inside a star that send ripples across its surface, affecting its brightness.
The exact nature of these ripples will allow astronomers to calculate the star's precise mass, age, and chemical composition.
Corot will move to a new field every 150 days.
The first field it will study is located toward the centre of the Milky Way.
Its next stop is in the direction of the constellation Orion.
The satellite is the first of several spacecraft that will look for and study distant planets over the next few years.
In 2008, NASA is due to launch the first space telescope that is able to detect Earth-sized planets in orbits similar to ours, ESA said.
The French National Space Studies Centre is working with six partners on Corot, including the European Space Agency, Austria, Spain, Germany, Belgium and Brazil. |
The name of the NASA telescope to be launched is called Kepler by the way, and that mission is even more exciting. |
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igotthisguitar
Joined: 08 Apr 2003
Location: South Korea (Permanent Vacation)
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| Posted: Wed Dec 27, 2006 9:01 am Post subject: |
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Sounds neat.
Mind you, how long until you think we lesser mortals will ever hear what's really been found? |
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cbclark4
Joined: 20 Aug 2006
Location: Masan
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| Posted: Wed Dec 27, 2006 9:14 am Post subject: |
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The Freemasons have already been there.
cbc |
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igotthisguitar
Joined: 08 Apr 2003
Location: South Korea (Permanent Vacation)
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| Posted: Wed Dec 27, 2006 10:07 am Post subject: |
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| cbclark4 wrote: |
| The Freemasons have already been there. |
IF you mean Buzz Aldrin & the little FLAG stunt he performed upon "landing on the moon",
you're definitely onto something  |
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mindmetoo
Joined: 02 Feb 2004
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| Posted: Wed Dec 27, 2006 4:03 pm Post subject: |
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| igotthisguitar wrote: |
Sounds neat.
Mind you, how long until you think we lesser mortals will ever hear what's really been found? |
So if they don't find what you think is up there, then it's a conspiracy of silence? |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Wed Dec 27, 2006 5:14 pm Post subject: |
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| mithridates wrote: |
| Who else is excited? |
It is exciting. I hope we continue looking.
But if we find other life before other life finds us, then what might that mean and what might unfold if and when we develop the science to communicate with or get to them?
What if it goes the other way around?
And what if we look as far as we can see and find nothing else but us? Nothing else whatsoever?
I would like such questions carefully considered and thoughtfully addressed before we simply start trotting off into space, like, say, some twenty-first- or twenty-second-century Christopher Columbus... |
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cbclark4
Joined: 20 Aug 2006
Location: Masan
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Wed Dec 27, 2006 6:09 pm Post subject: |
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Not at all. One of the many issues that concern me is the so-called Columbian Exchange...
| Wikipedia wrote: |
| The Columbian Exchange (also sometimes known as The Grand Exchange) has been one of the significant events in the history of world ecology, agriculture, and culture. The term is used to describe the enormous widespread exchange of plants, animals, foods, human populations (including slaves), communicable diseases, and ideas between the Eastern and Western hemispheres that occurred after 1492. Many new and different goods were exchanged between the two hemispheres of the Earth, and it began a new revolution in the Americas and in Europe. In 1492, Christopher Columbus' first voyage launched an era of large-scale contact between the Old and the New World that resulted in this ecological revolution: hence the name "Columbian" Exchange... |
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbian_Exchange
Before the Columbian Exchange, we also saw sudden, large-scale mammalian extinctions in the Americas -- coincident with Homo sapiens's arrival there. "Discovery" and "contact," then, have almost always preceded extreme violence in our experience -- unconscious or not.
In a science-fiction context, think of a much slower and naturally-occurring "Project Genesis..."
Why should we not discuss and plan how we might avoid these mistakes were we to discover and contact new life elsewhere? And how might we protect ourselves from new life that might discover and contact us, for that matter? |
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mithridates
Joined: 03 Mar 2003
Location: President's office, Korean Space Agency
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| Posted: Wed Dec 27, 2006 6:39 pm Post subject: |
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| Gopher wrote: |
| mithridates wrote: |
| Who else is excited? |
It is exciting. I hope we continue looking.
But if we find other life before other life finds us, then what might that mean and what might unfold if and when we develop the science to communicate with or get to them?
What if it goes the other way around?
And what if we look as far as we can see and find nothing else but us? Nothing else whatsoever?
I would like such questions carefully considered and thoughtfully addressed before we simply start trotting off into space, like, say, some twenty-first- or twenty-second-century Christopher Columbus... |
Not to worry. We'll probably have found a few million extrasolar planets before we can even consider getting close to any of them so we'll probably have a pretty good idea by then. I'm fully in favour of spending most of the money we have on observations instead of manned space programs, because once we find another planet in another system that closely resembles Earth the hype will take care of everything. In the meantime, the inner solar system is a lot of fun too.
This place looks great (due to be explored in about seven years):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1_Ceres |
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mindmetoo
Joined: 02 Feb 2004
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| Posted: Wed Dec 27, 2006 8:57 pm Post subject: |
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| Gopher wrote: |
Not at all. One of the many issues that concern me is the so-called Columbian Exchange...
Why should we not discuss and plan how we might avoid these mistakes were we to discover and contact new life elsewhere? And how might we protect ourselves from new life that might discover and contact us, for that matter? |
Your very existence and the pleasures you currently enjoy are a result. You would prefer a different present with you written out of it? Seems to me everything worked to your favor. |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Wed Dec 27, 2006 9:17 pm Post subject: |
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| mindmetoo wrote: |
| Your very existence and the pleasures you currently enjoy are a result. You would prefer a different present with you written out of it? Seems to me everything worked to your favor. |
This personalizes something I do not believe should be personalized.
Should civilizations try not to harm or destroy other civilizations once they become conscious that contact with new worlds brings this about?
I do not believe that I, as an individual whose anscestors happened, by chance, to benefit from one such destructive process ("the Columbian Exchange"), have anything at all to do with such philosophical issues.
And, yes, I would alter that history and accept the consequences if it meant the Incas, the Maya, even the Aztecs, and others like those in the Mississippi Valley and the Pacific Northwest might have continued along their own historical pathways.
Who knows? I am of British descent, ultimately. I might have been born anyway. In any case, I do not really hold any illusions that my existence and pleasures count for all that much in the big picture, Mindmetoo.
Last edited by Gopher on Thu Dec 28, 2006 1:45 am; edited 1 time in total |
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EFLtrainer
Joined: 04 May 2005
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| Posted: Wed Dec 27, 2006 11:50 pm Post subject: Re: COROT launched |
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| mithridates wrote: |
| COROT has just been launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome. I just watched the pre-launch, launch and am listening to the press conference afterward and am pretty excited. |
Watched it on...? |
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mithridates
Joined: 03 Mar 2003
Location: President's office, Korean Space Agency
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| Posted: Thu Dec 28, 2006 1:39 am Post subject: Re: COROT launched |
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| EFLtrainer wrote: |
| mithridates wrote: |
| COROT has just been launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome. I just watched the pre-launch, launch and am listening to the press conference afterward and am pretty excited. |
Watched it on...? |
Right here:
http://www.videocorner.tv/starsem/popup.html
I was considering posting the link here an hour before it went up but I was nervous just in case there was an error and didn't want to get excited and tell everybody until it was in orbit and separated from the rocket. Here's the board you want to keep an eye on if you're interested in that sort of thing:
http://uplink.space.com
I'm the same mith over there too. |
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mindmetoo
Joined: 02 Feb 2004
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| Posted: Thu Dec 28, 2006 4:56 am Post subject: |
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| Gopher wrote: |
Who knows? I am of British descent, ultimately. I might have been born anyway. In any case, I do not really hold any illusions that my existence and pleasures count for all that much in the big picture, Mindmetoo. |
In that light, what sacrifices are you making to rectify the situation? |
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