back to article Alien planet is just like EARTH - except for ONE tiny detail

Four hundred light-years away in the constellation Cygnus there lies a G-type star very much like our own Sun. Orbiting it is a world scientists believe is very similar to Earth in both size and composition. This faraway planet, discovered by the Kepler space telescope and so dubbed Kepler-78b, is not a potential second home …

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  1. Richard Wharram

    Not much of a future

    Only 3 billion years? Blimey. Poor diddums planet.

    1. Graham Marsden
      Thumb Up

      Re: Not much of a future

      It could have been worse.

      It could have been knocked into a black hole in a game of Intergalactic Bar Billiards...

      ... and only score 10 points.

      1. The Specialist

        Re: Not much of a future

        >It could have been knocked into a black hole in a game of Intergalactic Bar Billiards...

        Neptune Crossing by Jeffrey A. Carver?

        What do I win?

        1. Graham Marsden
          Facepalm

          Re: Not much of a future

          @The Specialist

          "What do I win?"

          A copy of the Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy...!

  2. Tim Brown 1

    There's science and then there's wild guesswork

    I love how these astrophysicists can give us the size, mass, composition and relative position of a very distant object based on a tiny, tiny scrap of electromagnetic data.

    If they are baffled as to how such a planet could be where it is, the obvious answer is that their conclusions about the data are wrong.

    1. This post has been deleted by its author

    2. Pascal Monett Silver badge

      Re: There's science and then there's wild guesswork

      And you're the one doing the wild guesswork.

      You obviously haven't the slightest idea just how precise our instruments are today, nor the theories on which they are based.

      I don't either (not exactly), but I do know that science is way more complicated than I can understand, especially in astrophysics, which is a domain that all of humanity has been studying since the first caveman looked up at the stars.

      These exoplanetary mass studies have been going on for a number of years now, and there are enough intelligent people that have been cross-checking them for me not to have the gall to put the conclusions in doubt.

      But I am aware of my limitations. Some, obviously, are not.

      1. Tim Brown 1

        Re: There's science and then there's wild guesswork

        Actually I do know quite a bit about the subject since it's a related area to my own area of expertise.

        These conclusions (indeed one could argue almost the whole of distant object astronomical science) are based on theories which cannot be proven without spacecraft being able to travel vast distances. Given that the furthest any of our craft have got so far is only just beyond our own solar system (Voyager), one erroneous assumption brings the whole theoretical house-of-cards tumbling down.

        For instance a lot of what is surmised about objects in space is based on the principle of Doppler blueshift where the frequency of observed light changes as a result of the movement of a source toward the observer. We know that this is how light behaves over short distances since we can prove it under laboratory conditions. However how can we be sure that once those distances are scaled up to light-years there isn't some other factor that comes into play? Or other unknown and undetected phenomena out there in space have an effect? There is just no way we can test for it with our current level of technology. And if that theory no longer holds true then much of what is surmised about distant space is wrong. I'm not saying that particular theory is wrong, but that's just one example.

        1. Pascal Monett Silver badge

          Oh I see, it's related to your area of expertise. Well that changes everything then, you're obviously an expert on the subject.

          And yet, the only thing you can mention is some pseudo-theory that light might not behave the same over light-years rather than inches ? And because of that pseudo-theory, if you are right, then everything we know is wrong, even though it clearly flies in the face of what every single astro-physicist worth a damn has been saying for the past 50 years ?

          Brilliant strawman attack, sir. I salute you. Tell me, you wouldn't be one of those who believes our entire Universe is only 6000 years old, would you ? And your "area of expertise" is what exactly ? Studying prisms and their pretty colors ?

          1. blowave

            no one believes the universe is only 6000 years old...Humans have only been around for 6000 years not the universe...dimwit

          2. Uffish

            @: Pascal Monett, Re: Tim Brown 1

            Tim Brown 1 made a perfectly reasonable comment. I imagine that the Harvard-Smithsonian astro boffins considered the same possibility before they published their report. Boffins are constrained to use today's theories unless one of them comes up with a better one - at the very least, someone needs to look at how the exoplanet could get into the orbit they say it is in.

      2. Marino

        Re: There's science and then there's wild guesswork

        Man's laws apply only to man on man's earth, apply man's laws to the universe and it would not last a nano second.

        When working with computers that have man made algorithms and not universal made algorithms, man can distort the "numbers" to suit man's needs, plus the added fact that.

        The ancient's knew about stars and their cycles without all man's modern technology.

        Physics is based on theories and not actuals, hence the "theory of relativity" and not the "actuals of relativity".

        Anything always looks good on paper as "time" stands still.

        Anyways wouldn't the first logical place to look for another "earth" would be on the opposite spiral tail of our own galaxy?

        But that is just too logical.

        With the combined knowledge of all scientist that would number into the millions of years (older than man is itself), humans still are no further off explaining the origins of man than they did when man first walked the earth.

        Technology has advanced, but man basically has not.

        1. kyndair

          Re: There's science and then there's wild guesswork

          @marino fail, epic fail, monumentality epic fail. please go away and learn what proper scientists mean by the words hypothesis and theory

    3. Loyal Commenter Silver badge
      FAIL

      Re: There's science and then there's wild guesswork

      Put brain in gear before engaging mouth...

      For starters, there is a very clear relationship between orbital period and orbital distance, based upon Newton's universal law of gravitation (although in this case, as with the orbit of Mercury, relativity probably has something to say on the matter as well).

      That you do not recognise this, or appreciate the impact does not, in any way, make a large number of people who are more educated than you wrong. You therefore earn this coveted fail trophy.

      1. modernsavage

        Re: There's science and then there's wild guesswork

        There could be other gravitational forces acting on the planet that we haven't discovered yet. Time may give us a more complete system model on which to better interpret the data.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Headmaster

        Re: There's science and then there's wild guesswork

        Put brain in gear before engaging mouth...

        Or fingers in this case.

        1. Euripides Pants
          Trollface

          Re: There's science and then there's wild guesswork

          "Put brain in gear before engaging mouth...

          Or fingers in this case."

          What? Put fingers in gear? That would hurt.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Coat

            Re: There's science and then there's wild guesswork

            What? Put fingers in gear? That would hurt.

            You can do that if you like… should solve a lot of problems with typing something one might later regret as a result of failing to put one's brain into gear instead — there won't be any fingers to do any damage.

            Although I predict much swearing and cursing as the voice dictation one might be forced to use as a result found to be inaccurate… not to meniton the irritation of typing with ones toes on a fiddly keyboard. A user interface problem that would leave one rather stumped, I should imagine.

    4. Lars Silver badge
      Happy

      Re: There's science and then there's wild guesswork

      I would rather assume our lack of knowledge about how planets form is the obvious answer. As for guesswork, science starts with guesswork, beautifully wild of course. Einstein was exceptionally good at guesswork, most of that is called science to day, How and why he was so good at it is a wild question for more guesswork. There was also this guy with the wild and dangerous guesswork about planets moving around the sun, it took some time to prove.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: There's science and then there's wild guesswork

        I don't think we need to question our understanding of how planets form to answer this; all that's needed is a sequence of interactions with other bodies in the system.

        In fact, the solution is implicit in the question: if the planet formed further out from its star, as we believe it must have, then what caused it to migrate inwards? The only plausible* explanation is that an interaction with another** massive body in the system disrupted the planet from the stable orbit in which it formed and sent it inwards towards its star. Whilst on its way then, it must have interacted with a third body in such a way to have its course changed for a second time, leaving it in its current orbit. Incidentally, due the the equal-and-opposite etc. the second interaction would have also left the third body in a modified orbit, either moving it further out or further in and if inwards, considering the distances, it probably collided with the star.

        Its currently considered highly possible that the bodies in our system didn't originally form in their current orbits: the gas giants in particular are now thought to have been formed much closer to Sol and have subsequently migrated outwards to their current orbits.

        * plausible = non-artificial

        ** There's a small chance it could have been a 'run-away' extra-system body just passin' through.

      2. Bod

        Re: There's science and then there's wild guesswork

        The issue I have with exoplanets is the conclusions made are based on our only knowledge of planetary bodies we actually can observe, i.e. those within our own system. It's perfectly fine science to conclude because of X and Y observed and what we know about similar planets with properties X and Y therefore it must be the same, but could easily all be blown out of the water by a new discovery. After all, we don't even know what 'dark matter' is and yet it comprises a large chunk of the universe.

        The other issue I have is it's all rather pointless as not one will we ever see or visit. The likelyhood is the human race will be extinct long before the time it would take to visit such places and they won't be there any more anyway.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: There's science and then there's wild guesswork

          They have to come out with these so called discoveries regularly or else how else do they justify the grants they get....its a gravy train with no proof required....i want some of that action

    5. Brandon 2

      Re: There's science and then there's wild guesswork

      "We have this data, but don't really know what it means," is not really a very good story. And boring stores don't get you research grants. Truth be told, the margin of error for distance, mass, brightness and other measures is massive, in comparison to terrestrial measurements. This research is an amalgam of theoretical physics and bit of statistical "looking the other way" on the part of scientists. Don't take my word for it. Just do a bit of research on how we calculate the distance to relatively close stars, betelgeuse, for example, paying close attention to the margin of error. Then apply that same procedure to a galaxy or star cluster that is 100 million times farther away. The statistical error grows massively. But, that's a bit boring.

  3. Maharg
    Alien

    So....without reading to much into this...

    What you’re saying is the folks that built the pyramids, Stonehenge etc were in fact aliens from a planet that was destroyed by the our Sun leaving no trace, and their descendants have infiltrated our race and disguised their lizard features and have controlled the world via the illuminati and the Feemasons , causing the French and Russian Revolutions, the English Civil War, as well as the American war of Independence, and have installed themselves as the British Royal Family and every US president to control us as slaves!!!!!!1!

    1. Tommy Gilchrist

      Re: So....without reading to much into this...

      Seems about right

    2. Alien8n
      Alien

      Re: So....without reading to much into this...

      Why enslave the human race? You do such a good job of it yourselves :)

      1. Mpeler
        Alien

        Re: So....without reading to much into this...

        Goodness....where's AManFromMars when we need him (it, whatever)???

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: So....without reading to much into this...

          AManFromMars has discovered/invented new smart technology (invisibility) and is still flying over Earth in a UFO. That's why no more such sightings recently.

  4. Vladimir Plouzhnikov

    How do you

    Throw a feast for an entire solar system? You BBQ a whole planet, that's how.

  5. Nanners

    sounds familiar

    isn't our own world supposed to be destroyed by our own sun in around 3 billion?

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    weighs almost twice as much?

    masses almost twice as much, Shirley?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: weighs almost twice as much?

      You haven't seen the size of the scales they're using. Astrophysicists really kick ass when it comes to instruments.

  7. Tim Parker

    "Perhaps more intriguingly, they say that if there had ever been a Kepler-78b in our solar system - and apparently this is quite possible - such a second Earth would have vanished long ago, leaving no trace for us to find today."

    Not saying our understanding of the creation of solar systems and their dynamics over billions of years is lacking, obviously, but were it the case that those models and assumptions are a bit off then, conceivably, such a thing might not have vanished completely yet but be, oooooh I don't know... currently about a million miles out from the star. Just a thought... That would mean, however, that we really don't quite have the hang of this system evolution malarky (understandable) - I mean, when was the last time you heard an astrophysicist say "That's odd - didn't expect to see one of those there" eh ?

    Ah.. hang on...

    1. Gordon 10

      Im surprised

      That after only observing it for an eyeblink in solar timescales they feel confident enough to make the statements they have. Surely its entirely possible that its on the track to fit the models but that they just dont have enough of a interval of watching it to establish the start and end points accurately.

      1. Tim Parker

        Re: Im surprised

        Indeed - the sample size is still rather small at the moment. That'll improve in time, but currently it's leading to a lot of "how peculiar" comments from the astronomical community... which is one of the reasons why science can be such fun !

      2. JohnGabriel66

        Re: Im surprised

        Theoretical physicists are idiots.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Im surprised - "Theoretical physicists are idiots"

          And what do you say about people who post non sequiturs?

          1. Stevie

            Re:And what do you say about people who post non sequiturs?

            "That is caused by all the fish in the atmosphere".

          2. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Im surprised - "Theoretical physicists are idiots"

            "And what do you say about people who post non sequiturs?"

            I don't care if it's not air conditioned as long as it has wood floors.

          3. This post has been deleted by its author

  8. This post has been deleted by its author

  9. The last doughnut

    That's not the only thing that doesn't make any sense

    Like for example, if the solar system is supposed to have coalesced from a cloud of gas and dust, why are the supposed left-overs actually coming in the form of large rocky chunks?

    1. stucs201

      Re: That's not the only thing that doesn't make any sense

      One of my astrophysics lecturers at university was know to describe planets as 'just big dust'.

    2. Tom_

      Re: That's not the only thing that doesn't make any sense

      Is it because when you get that much dust and put it really close together it's combined mass exerts a large enough gravitational force to melt it into a big lump?

      1. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge

        Re: That's not the only thing that doesn't make any sense

        I'm not saying it was Aliens ... but those chunks came from Aliens.

        1. The last doughnut

          Re: That's not the only thing that doesn't make any sense

          @DaM

          Thanks for all the downvotes and your own invaluable contribution.

  10. Alien8n

    "It couldn't have formed in place because you can't form a planet inside a star. It couldn't have formed further out and migrated inward, because it would have migrated all the way into the star. This planet is an enigma," splutters Latham's colleague Dimitar Sasselov.

    A slight lack of foresight there. Yes it could very well have formed further out and migrated. They just happened to look at it prior to falling into its sun. It's a big universe, look for long enough and you'll see lots of weird stuff, from black holes being formed, stars exploding, stars being born, it's all out there.

  11. Don Jefe
    Happy

    Discovery

    The planet was discovered with the Kepler telescope, not by the Kepler. It's a minor thing, but fairly important, because if it was discovered by the Kepler there have been significant advancements in AI technology that I was not kept apprised of and the person I pay to do that is going to be fired.

  12. big_D Silver badge

    The puppetiers

    lost control of one of their farming planets? Or it was their first experiment in moving a planet?

    1. Loyal Commenter Silver badge

      Re: The puppetiers

      Maybe we misjudged the orbital distance because we assumed it was one planet transiting the star, not five identical ones one after the other?

      1. big_D Silver badge
        Headmaster

        Re: The puppetiers

        Not one after another, they are in a Klemperer Rosette. ;-)

        1. Loyal Commenter Silver badge

          Re: The puppetiers

          In this case, Niven called it a Kemplerer rosette, if we're being pedantic...

          1. big_D Silver badge

            Re: The puppetiers

            Yeah, I thought it was Kemplerer, but I only heard it on an audio book, so I double checked the spelling before posting... Which is why I ended up with the "proper" spelling as opposed to Niven's misspelling.

            1. stucs201

              NOT puppetiers

              I don't think five worlds is enough to explain this one, we'd need more than that. So more likely the Kint not the Puppeteers.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: The puppetiers

        Or it's a ringworld, but the ring is broken into segments with gaps in between, so that a disease can't spread all the way round the ring.

  13. Justin Clements

    RIddick

    I've seen this film, the planet is called Crematoria and there's a penal system on it.

    1. vonRat

      Re: RIddick

      I thought there was just a bloke called Toombs there now, wishing he'd taken the money.

    2. Scorchio!!

      Re: RIddick

      Ah, planet Scorchio, home to the Scorchio family until it plunges into the face of its sun.

  14. Moffy

    Could it be..

    "This planet is a complete mystery," says David Latham, a top brainbox at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. "We don't know how it formed or how it got to where it is today."

    1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

    Genesis Chapter 1. HTH, David ;-)

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Could it be..

      Bereshit ba'ra Elohim et hashamayim ve'et ha'aretz: In the beginning the gods created the heavens and the Earth.

      Cue arguments and downvotes; the point is that Elohim has the form of a Hebrew plural (as does hashamayim). Was the original in fact plural and then, when monotheism came along, the unimportant verb was adjusted to be singular, but the important word Elohim wasn't? Biblical translation is worse than a minefield, it's like Vi versus Emacs, or even Apple versus Android. The one thing that almost all the people with an interest agree on is that anything (like the pesky first six chapters of the Bible) that suggests that the ancient Hebrews were ever polytheistic has to be kept away from the general public.

      So: not only do we not know how this planet formed or how it got there, but reading extremely old textbooks isn't going to give us an answer.

      1. PhilBuk
        Happy

        Re: Could it be..

        @ribosome

        Oh, that's where Tolkein got the name of his elder gods from. You learn something every day.

        Phil.

        1. Don Jefe
          Happy

          Re: Could it be..

          Tolkien was a very religious man and absolutely hated his stories had been "absconded with" by the hippies and druggies.

          Later in his life he attempted to expound on the religious foundations and undertones embedded in his writings but nobody wanted to hear him. The "druggies and hippies" thought he was being forced to say 'derogatory' things about his books by The Church and the publishers wanted him to shut up because the druggies and hippies loved buying his books.

          It's sad/funny that some of the people bent out of shape over books and movies from CS Lewis and Phillip Pullman were lined up for The Lord of the Rings movies.

  15. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    What's another name for a theoretical physicist today? Astromythologist.

    Theoretical physicists are truly duller than dishwater. And every time I see an article like this, I wonder what the difference is between a theoretical physicist and an astrologer? After all, both rely on ancient light sources.

    Theoretical physics is a very lucrative occupation. Hawking was given $3 million US as a gift for all the garbage he writes about black holes and the like.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      What's another name for a theoretical physicist today? Astromythologist.

      I have Richard Feynman and Robert Oppenheimer, and you have?

  16. Ellz

    put your finger in your ear and move it around whilst reading this...

    Sounds to me like a galactic game of Pac-Man

  17. Paul Hovnanian Silver badge

    "It couldn't have formed in place because you can't form a planet inside a star. It couldn't have formed further out and migrated inward, because it would have migrated all the way into the star. This planet is an enigma,"

    It could be a case of orbital resonance. This orbit is stable due to the influences of the other planets.

    Or it could be in the process of spiraling into its sun. We can't really be certain of how old that system is or how stable its orbits are from this distance.

  18. Anonymous Coward
    Alien

    Maybe it was a stray planet that got captured?

    That could explain how it got where it was relative to it's star.

    1. Pascal Monett Silver badge

      I like that idea too, but there are a number of things that go against it, unfortunately. I don't know the specifics, but it seems to me that the conditions under which a stray planet can be captured by a star are subject to a lot of elements :

      1) orbital speed of the star around the center of the galaxy

      2) mass of star - conditioning its attraction

      3) speed of planet and its angle of approach to star

      That last point will be conditioned by whatever it was that threw the planet from its previous solar system (which, given stellar distances, would mean that the planet is billions of years older than Earth even before it got to the solar system in question). Chances are, it will be travelling way faster than the paltry 30 km/s that we are doing now. If so, it will be already moving quite fast when it gets to the attraction zone of the star, which will, in turn accelerate it further.

      That, logically, will make it even more difficult for the star to keep a hold on it after the planet passed the star - which means that if it was indeed a captured planet, it should logically have a much more elliptic orbit than it does. Either that, or it should be way farther from the star than it is.

      But I'm just an armchair astrophysicist. I'd very much like to see any proper calculations on this subject.

  19. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Maybe..

    It's not a planet at all. It could be a deathstar and theyre just not telling us the truth..

  20. jlb

    Respect for highly intelligent people.\

    Brainbox? There you go again.

  21. Stevie

    Bah!

    The reason is easy enough to figure out: The Affordable Health Care Act. The Republican party warns of this sort of thing every three and a half minutes, but no-one listens. Will nobody think of the children?

  22. kwg06516
    Mushroom

    Hey, Doolittle, I've got one!

    An unstable planet. 85% probability of an unstable planet that'll probably go off its orbit and hit a star. Wanna go blow it up?

  23. magindville

    If I lived on this planet, I'd be concerned when we ran into the sun. Until then, I'll just do drugs and play music.

  24. Dilburtus

    Hello...? This planet was constructed by the good folk on Magrathea. ;)

  25. Eleveneleven1111

    Love this article. Science is completely important to understanding how things are made and trying to determine our origins in a scientific manner, but the fact that this planet's existence baffles our scientists now just continues to prove that we can't claim we know the source of our existence in a scientific way since we clearly don't even understand the boundaries of what can be accomplished in the universe.

    1. Don Jefe

      Science can only deal with what can be both observed and measured. If it doesn't meet those criteria then it can't be studied in a useful, quantifiable, scientific way. That's how science works, it's cool.

      That being said, because something can't be studied scientifically, that doesn't make it 'wrong' or less valuable, it just makes it not science. All study of the natural universe/world used to fall under philosophy (the P in PhD) with empirical studies falling into their own categories. Even scientists know that not everything can be quantified, and those things are important and deserving of serious thought, but it can't be called science.

      Only the most narrow minded (bad) scientists demand scientific evidence of something to prove its existence. If they did that they couldn't justify the Human condition. They demand scientific evidence to call something science, sure, but the higher up the science food chain you go, the more those people's thoughts on things go back to basic questions all Humans have and they get pretty far out with them, just like other people. Good scientists just have a better ability to discriminate between scientific vs non-scientific. It's the poor to fair scientist that says he has proof that something is one way and only one way, that's not how the universe, or science, works.

  26. Euripides Pants
    Coat

    So that's where they go

    This is the previous planet Earth from the last time the Mayan calendar ended....

  27. Notso

    The obvious answer is: Purple because aliens don't wear hats!

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Trollface

      And how do you know? Sure, they're not depicted in science fiction wearing hats, but that does not mean they don't.

  28. Nym

    Um

    We do have an asteroid belt. There is some evidence that's a former planet (in the minds of our never-wrong scientists).

  29. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I feel a disturbance in "The Force"

    Its as if millions of super intelligent silicon based lifeforms suddenly screamed in terror and were silenced.

    On the flip side, if we ever do get a signal from there it will likely be "Heeellllppp Uuuuusss" (hissss).. <No Carrier> :-)

  30. Bunbury

    Don't know how it got to where it is today?

    Surely the answer is in the quotation? " It couldn't have formed further out and migrated inward, because it would have migrated all the way into the star"

    Feel free to shoot me down in flames here, boffo, but my layman brain is jsut forming a wacky hypothesis....

    Could it be that it is in the process of migrating into the star? Or did you expect everything in the universe to be in some form of steady state?

    I believe the Nice Model re our solar system is that a lot of planetary movement was kicked off once Jupiter and Saturn came into orbital resonance (i.e. frequently they were in alignment and so pulled the other planets about. Perhaps it has happened in this case too?

  31. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Re. Don't know how it got to where it is today?

    Sounds plausible.

    Its also possible that this star has "eaten" all the other planets in this system and this is just a trans-Neptunian object.

    You could tell by measuring the metallicity of the star and comparing it with baselines.

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