John George Brakatselos 10/19/12
Earth Science Ms.
Davies
Citation: Overbye, Dennis. "New Planet Found in Alpha
Centauri." The New York Times. The New York Times, 17 Oct. 2012.
Web. 17 Oct. 2012. <http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/17/science/space/new-planet-found-in-alpha-centauri.html?ref=science>.
This article
come back to the main topic of discussion going on right now in our solar
system; the possibility of life supporting planets. This has been a huge
debatable topic over the years. This article says that this planet is “about as
close as it will ever get.” This is in response to the search for another
Earth. It was announced on the Wednesday of this week that this new planet was
found in Alpha Centauri. Alpha Centauri is a triple star system that is 4.4
light years away from us. The man responsible for the discovery, Xavier
Dumusque, who is a graduate student at the Geneva Observatory claims that we
will never find anything like it. However this is the downside if the fact that
it is close to its very hot star, Alpha Centauri B, which is only four million
miles away. This is a problem because it is very difficult to support life at a
surface temperature of 1,200 degrees. The good thing we can gain from this is
the fact that if there is this similar planet in the area, then there may be
others. The data shows that the possibility of life in the other system of
Alpha Centauri B is more likely due to its distance of 64 million miles from
its sun. This distance is key because it allows for essential things like water
and survival. Scientists have also begun to use a method of wobbling to find
the location of planets. They can easily track the movement of stars and trace
back to where the gravity from one of the planets could be pulling them. This
is very smart because it may be difficult to find new planets, but there are a
lot of stars to track.
I thought
that this article is important to our society because this question has been
asked for many years. “Is there life on other planets?” These small
breakthroughs could eventually lead to a big discovery of a plant with
intelligent life. If we do find another plant like our own, it could arguably
be the biggest scientific discovery in years. These are the kinds of questions
people devote their whole lives trying to answer. Eventually all this work will
pay off and we will be one step closer to figuring out why we are here, and how
we got here in the first place.
I thought
this was an interesting article. However in my opinion it is just one more
planet to add to the list of planets that turned out to be too hot. I have
noticed this to be a recurring theme in the discovery of planets. Unless there
has been a discovery of something drastically different that it should be
shared, then they should really wait to share these discoveries in the
newspaper. I can understand why they would put this planet in the paper due to
its mass similarity, so it would make sense why they decided to share
information about this specific planet.
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