NASA estimates 1 billion ‘Earths’ in our galaxy alone

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zBrown

Ice climber
Topic Author's Original Post - Jul 24, 2015 - 09:30am PT


http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2015/07/24/nasa-estimates-1-billion-earths-in-our-galaxy-alone/

NOT controversial enough? OK.

Not satisfied with making America a global laughing stock, pacifist-in-chief Barack Crosby Stills & Nash Hussein Obama now seems determined to show the entire universe that we’re a nation of wimps.

What the heck am I talking about? I’ll tell you what I’m talking about. A day has passed since NASA researchers announced the discovery of an Earth-like planet some 1,400 light years away and our president has yet to launch a full-scale invasion.

Obama hasn’t even acknowledged this new foreign menace, which NASA is calling Kepler-452b. I guess he wants to wait around for the Kepler-452bians to show up on our doorstep so he can bow down to them and give them our guns.

If a distant planet orbiting a sun-like star at a distance that may or may not make it amenable to life had been discovered when Ronald Reagan was president, we would’ve already had a fleet of spacecraft on its way to nuke the alien pants off of those 452bian bastards.



http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/huppke/ct-kepler-earth-20150724-story.html
skcreidc

Social climber
SD, CA
Jul 24, 2015 - 09:40am PT
Not satisfied with making America a global laughing stock, pacifist-in-chief Barack Crosby Stills & Nash Hussein Obama now seems determined to show the entire universe that we’re a nation of wimps.

What the heck am I talking about? I’ll tell you what I’m talking about. A day has passed since NASA researchers announced the discovery of an Earth-like planet some 1,400 light years away and our president has yet to launch a full-scale invasion.

Obama hasn’t even acknowledged this new foreign menace, which NASA is calling Kepler-452b. I guess he wants to wait around for the Kepler-452bians to show up on our doorstep so he can bow down to them and give them our guns.

If a distant planet orbiting a sun-like star at a distance that may or may not make it amenable to life had been discovered when Ronald Reagan was president, we would’ve already had a fleet of spacecraft on its way to nuke the alien pants off of those 452bian bastards.

Ahhhhhhhhh, errrrrrrr, hmmmmmmmm. All righty then. Who came up with THAT jem?

[Click to View YouTube Video]
zBrown

Ice climber
Topic Author's Reply - Jul 24, 2015 - 10:18am PT





Who came up with THAT jem?

The guy works for the Chicago Tribune who want $$ to look at it more than once on the link posted above.
skcreidc

Social climber
SD, CA
Jul 24, 2015 - 10:50am PT
Well, I got the Chicago Tribune part from the link. But when I clicked, I got all sorts of pop-ups from the "Trib". So, Zbrown, I bailed. ;) Couldn't really tell if it was tongue in cheek or not.

I am supportive of our exploration in space and will continue to be so in a general sense. I also believe supporting NASA is critical in this. But this estimate is basically a feel good educated guesstimate; Perhaps for press release?
Reilly

Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
Jul 24, 2015 - 10:54am PT
My friends at JPL thank y'all for supporting them in their geek country club for navel gazing.
It's a pity Homeboy Industries can't get some gubmint financial love for meaningful change.
zBrown

Ice climber
Topic Author's Reply - Jul 24, 2015 - 11:30am PT
skcreidc

Pretty sure it was a joke to drag traffic to the Tribune site to try to sell everybody something. I futzed around and I think this is all of the rest of it.



But, no, we’re stuck with Mr. Community Organizer, fresh off denying Americans their god-given right to bomb Iran. He’s all, “Let’s use diplomacy. Maybe we shouldn’t just immediately bomb the crap out of places we don’t fully understand. Maybe there are other factors that need to be considered.”

Blah blah blah. He’s probably going to send Secretary of State John Kerry on a 1,400-light-year space-bike ride and ask him to reach some kind of “deal” with the Kepler-452bians. Like that’s gonna work.



This race of people that may or not exist isn’t going to listen to diplomacy. They’ll only understand one thing – force. American force.

Consider Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, commenting recently on the nuclear deal the U.S. and other world powers reached with Iran, one that sharply limits Iran’s ability to build a nuclear weapon in exchange for the easing of harsh economic sanctions. Walker said he would tear up that deal and have his Reagan action figure pretend to pee on it, all while being ready, if necessary, to take military action against Iran on his first day in office.


Now that’s an American solution to a potential threat. You stomp it, then you stomp it again, then you stomp on the thing you used for stomping just for good measure
Now that’s an American solution to a potential threat. You stomp it, then you stomp it again, then you stomp on the thing you used for stomping just for good measure.

That’s the kind of clear, decisive, poorly thought out, stubborn, irrational and reckless behavior that made this country great.

And that’s the kind of response we need to this new extraterrestrial threat.

In a statement from NASA, Jon Jenkins, who led the team that discovered Kepler-452b, said: “We can think of Kepler-452b as an older, bigger cousin to Earth, providing an opportunity to understand and reflect upon Earth’s evolving environment. It’s awe-inspiring to consider that this planet has spent 6 billion years in the habitable zone of its star; longer than Earth. That’s substantial opportunity for life to arise, should all the necessary ingredients and conditions for life exist on this planet.”

Any logical person would read Jenkins’ comments and conclude that America is facing an existential threat from an untrustworthy foreign entity that does not share our values or respect our way of life and must be destroyed at all costs. It’s clear as day.

I’m hopeful the Republican presidential candidates will call out Obama for projecting weakness to distant planets that may or may not contain life forms that could quite possibly but by no means definitely want to enslave and/or kill us.

We need a leader who recognizes there’s no “victory” in “diplomacy,” a leader unafraid to launch an invasion, regardless of facts.

Without one, there’s a good chance that 1,400 light years from now we’ll all be speaking Kepler-452ese.

Bleep blorp.

cComments
Hopefully this planet got rid of all the mental illness called "liberalism". This is a planet where everyone pulls their own weight. Everyone contributes. Slackers and the lazy are made aware of their failings and taught to get in line. Those with legitimate illness are taken care of....
GORDY CLOWNBOTTOM
AT 1:10 PM JULY 24, 2015
ADD A COMMENTSEE ALL COMMENTS
5

rhuppke@tribpub.com

skcreidc

Social climber
SD, CA
Jul 24, 2015 - 11:40am PT
Hahaha, oh jeeze. Thanks for posting the whole thing. I should just tatoo "sucker" across my forehead so I can remind myself every time I look into the mirror.
gt rider

Trad climber
moscow, idaho
Jul 24, 2015 - 01:25pm PT
Awesome political satire! loved it!
Ed Hartouni

Trad climber
Livermore, CA
Jul 24, 2015 - 01:38pm PT
PNAS 110 19273–19278 (2015), doi: 10.1073/pnas.1319909110

http://www.pnas.org/content/110/48/19273.full

Prevalence of Earth-size planets orbiting Sun-like stars

Erik A. Petiguraa, Andrew W. Howard, and Geoffrey W. Marcy

Abstract:
Determining whether Earth-like planets are common or rare looms as a touchstone in the question of life in the universe. We searched for Earth-size planets that cross in front of their host stars by examining the brightness measurements of 42,000 stars from National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s Kepler mission. We found 603 planets, including 10 that are Earth size (1-2R⊕) and receive comparable levels of stellar energy to that of Earth (0.25-4F⊕). We account for Kepler’s imperfect detectability of such planets by injecting synthetic planet–caused dimmings into the Kepler brightness measurements and recording the fraction detected. We find that 11 ± 4% of Sun-like stars harbor an Earth-size planet receiving between one and four times the stellar intensity as Earth. We also find that the occurrence of Earth-size planets is constant with increasing orbital period (P), within equal intervals of logP up to ∼200 d. Extrapolating, one finds 5.7 (+2.7, -2.2)% of Sun-like stars harbor an Earth-size planet with orbital periods of 200–400 d.

SteveW

Trad climber
The state of confusion
Jul 24, 2015 - 01:47pm PT

That's almost as many people we have on our earth!
zBrown

Ice climber
Topic Author's Reply - Jul 24, 2015 - 02:33pm PT
There seems to be a bit of a discrepancy between Natalie Batalha's calculations and the those of Petiguraa et al.
Ed Hartouni

Trad climber
Livermore, CA
Jul 24, 2015 - 03:26pm PT
http://arxiv.org/abs/1506.04175

Terrestrial Planet Occurrence Rates for the Kepler GK Dwarf Sample


Christopher J. Burke, Jessie L. Christiansen, F. Mullally, Shawn Seader, Daniel Huber, Jason F. Rowe, Jeffrey L. Coughlin, Susan E. Thompson, Joseph Catanzarite, Bruce D. Clarke, Timothy D. Morton, Douglas A. Caldwell, Stephen T. Bryson, Michael R. Haas, Natalie M. Batalha, Jon M. Jenkins, Peter Tenenbaum, Joseph D. Twicken, Jie Li, Elisa Quintana, Thomas Barclay, Christopher E. Henze, William J. Borucki, Steve B. Howell, Martin Still

We measure planet occurrence rates using the planet candidates discovered by the Q1-Q16 Kepler pipeline search. This study examines planet occurrence rates for the Kepler GK dwarf target sample for planet radii, 0.75< Rp< 2.5 Rearth, and orbital periods, 50<Porb< 300 days, with an emphasis on a thorough exploration and identification of the most important sources of systematic uncertainties. Integrating over this parameter space, we measure an occurrence rate of F=0.77 planets per star, with an allowed range of 0.3< F< 1.9. The allowed range takes into account both statistical and systematic uncertainties, and values of F beyond the allowed range are significantly in disagreement with our analysis. We generally find higher planet occurrence rates and a steeper increase in planet occurrence rates towards small planets than previous studies of the Kepler GK dwarf sample. Through extrapolation, we find that the one year orbital period terrestrial planet occurrence rate, zeta_1=0.1, with an allowed range of 0.01< zeta_1< 2, where zeta_1 is defined as the number of planets per star within 20% of the Rp and Porb of Earth. For G dwarf hosts, the zeta_1 parameter space is a subset of the larger eta_earth parameter space, thus zeta_1 places a lower limit on eta_earth for G dwarf hosts. From our analysis, we identify the leading sources of systematics impacting Kepler occurrence rate determinations as: reliability of the planet candidate sample, planet radii, pipeline completeness, and stellar parameters.
Ed Hartouni

Trad climber
Livermore, CA
Jul 24, 2015 - 03:33pm PT
http://arxiv.org/abs/1507.05097

Measuring Transit Signal Recovery in the Kepler Pipeline II: Detection Efficiency as Calculated in One Year of Data


Jessie L. Christiansen, Bruce D. Clarke, Christopher J. Burke, Shawn Seader, Jon M. Jenkins, Joseph D. Twicken, Jeffrey C. Smith, Natalie M. Batalha, Michael R. Haas, Susan E. Thompson, Jennifer R. Campbell, Anima Sabale, Akm Kamal Uddin

The Kepler planet sample can only be used to reconstruct the underlying planet occurrence rate if the detection efficiency of the Kepler pipeline is known, here we present the results of a second experiment aimed at characterising this detection efficiency. We inject simulated transiting planet signals into the pixel data of ~10,000 targets, spanning one year of observations, and process the pixels as normal. We compare the set of detections made by the pipeline with the expectation from the set of simulated planets, and construct a sensitivity curve of signal recovery as a function of the signal-to-noise of the simulated transit signal train. The sensitivity curve does not meet the hypothetical maximum detection efficiency, however it is not as pessimistic as some of the published estimates of the detection efficiency. For the FGK stars in our sample, the sensitivity curve is well fit by a gamma function with the coefficients a = 4.35 and b = 1.05. We also find that the pipeline algorithms recover the depths and periods of the injected signals with very high fidelity, especially for periods longer than 10 days. We perform a simplified occurrence rate calculation using the measured detection efficiency compared to previous assumptions of the detection efficiency found in the literature to demonstrate the systematic error introduced into the resulting occurrence rates. The discrepancies in the calculated occurrence rates may go some way towards reconciling some of the inconsistencies found in the literature.
cleo

Social climber
wherever you go, there you are
Jul 24, 2015 - 03:39pm PT
If you really want your mind blown, spend some time thinking about the Fermi Paradox. Based on the 1 billion earths and assuming that 1% have life and 1% have intelligent life -> 100,000 civilizations in our galaxy (most of which are older than us!)

The Fermi Paradox is otherwise known as... Where Is Everybody?

And there are some interesting and wacky hypotheses!

http://waitbutwhy.com/2014/05/fermi-paradox.html
k-man

Gym climber
SCruz
Jul 24, 2015 - 04:10pm PT
Manned suicide mission to Mars? NO!


But Dingus, what about this:

"We are entering an increasingly dangerous period of our history," said Stephen Hawking.

Discussing the Earth's most troubling concerns in an email interview with The Canadian Press, Hawking described space exploration as humankind's most urgent mission. Predicting a planet soon made uninhabitable, he says that our only chance of long-term survival as a species is to “spread out into space.”

"Our population and our use of the finite resources of planet Earth are growing exponentially, along with our technical ability to change the environment for good or ill. But our genetic code still carries the selfish and aggressive instincts that were of survival advantage in the past. It will be difficult enough to avoid disaster in the next hundred years, let alone the next thousand or million,” he wrote.

He also thinks that space exploration should involve people, rather than just robots.
climbski2

Mountain climber
Anchorage AK, Reno NV
Jul 24, 2015 - 05:04pm PT
Well Dingus.. evidence currently suggests a 100% rate of intelligent life on planets like earth.

Depending how you define intelligent life anyway..hehe
WBraun

climber
Jul 24, 2015 - 05:07pm PT
NASA makes wild guesses and doesn't know sh!t but everyone believes everything they say even when they make up bullsh!t like this .....
zBrown

Ice climber
Topic Author's Reply - Jul 24, 2015 - 07:04pm PT
Doc Hartouni's posts would tend to confirm what hB (Herr Braun) was saying above. However, I have only read the abstracts, so I may have to, as they say walk this one back, or walk a (billion) miles in his shoes.

Norton

Social climber
Jul 24, 2015 - 07:15pm PT
yeah!

NASA doesn't know sh!t

they lied about the moon landing

stoopid gross materialists

someone has been sucking on their tailpipe too long
SteveW

Trad climber
The state of confusion
Jul 24, 2015 - 07:24pm PT

I guess I can't be included in the 'intelligent life' category. . .
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