Laser Signal from the new Exoplanet

[Hoffmeister]

Has anyone heard any more information on this?
Gliese 581g mystery: Scientist spotted 'mysterious pulse of light' from direction of new'Earth planet last year | Mail Online

 

[stphrz]

An astronomer picked up a mysterious pulse of light coming from the direction of the newly discovered Earth-like planet almost two years ago, it has emerged.

The "direction of?" Not "from?" Big difference.

Dr Ragbir Bhathal, a scientist at the University of Western Sydney, picked up the odd signal in December 2008, long before it was announced that the star Gliese 581 has habitable planets in orbit around it.

Has this "signal" been repeated? If not how can anyone be sure it was a "signal" and that it actually came from the planet? Also, just because a planet is in the goldilocks zone around a star does not automatically mean the planet is habitable. And habitable to what? Earth type life? There is not one shred of evidence this is the case. For all we know it could be an inferno like Venus.

A member of the Australian chapter of SETI, the organisation that looks for communication from distant planets, Dr Bhathal had been sweeping the skies when he discovered a 'suspicious' signal from an area of the galaxy that holds the newly-discovered Gliese 581g.
The remarkable coincidence adds another layer of mystery to the announcement last night that scientists had discovered another planet in the system: Gliese 581g - the most Earth-like planet ever found.
Dr Bhathal's discovery had come just months before astronomers announced that they had found a similar, slightly less habitable planet around the same star 20 light years away. This planet was called Gliese 581e.
When asked about his discovery at the time Dr Bhathal admitted he had been really excited about what he had possibly stumbled across.

As a scientist the good Dr. should also know that great caution and a lot more work needs to be done before getting excited and possibly jumping to unwarranted conclusions.

He said: 'Whenever there’s a clear night, I go up to the observatory and do a run on some of the celestial objects. Looking at one of these objects, we found this signal.
'And you know, I got really excited with it. So next I had to analyse it. We have special software to analyse these signals, because when you look at celestial objects through the equipment we have, you also pick up a lot of noise.'
He went on: 'We found this very sharp signal, sort of a laser lookalike thing which is the sort of thing we’re looking for - a very sharp spike. And that is what we found. So that was the excitement about the whole thing.'
For months after his discovery Dr Bhathal scanned the skies for a second signal to see whether it was just a glitch in his instrumentation but his search came to nothing.
But the discovery of Earth-like planets around Gliese 581 - both 581e and 581d, which was in the habitable zone - has also caught the public imagination.
Documentary-maker RDF and social-networking site Bebo used a radio telescope in Ukraine to send a powerful focused beam of information - 500 messages from the public in the form of radiowaves - to Gliese 581.

If his search came to nothing, then a glitch cannot be ruled out. Also, once again "habitable zone" does not mean inhabited.

And the Australian science minister at the time organised 20,000 users of Twitter to send messages towards the distant solar system in the wake of the discoveries.

Doh! Seriously? Send messages with what? Cell phones? Jesus Christ, this may very well be the stupidest thing I have ever heard. It would take very expensive and special equipment to send a message that would travel 20+ light years and arrive in any coherent form. Australia needs a new science minister.

And Dr Steven Vogt who led the study at the University of California, Santa Cruz, today said that he was '100 per cent sure ' that there was life on the planet.

I take it back. This is the stupidest thing I have ever heard. For a scientist to say he is 100 percent sure of anything with zero actual hard data is well...
I could say a lot of things right now but I won't. I promised Chris that I wouldn't engage in blatant name calling. It's really really hard man...

The planet lies in the star's 'Goldilocks zone' - the region in space where conditions are neither too hot or too cold for liquid water to form oceans, lakes and rivers.
The planet also appears to have an atmosphere, a gravity like our own and could well be capable of life. Researchers say the findings suggest the universe is teeming with world like our own.
'If these are rare, we shouldn't have found one so quickly and so nearby,'

Damnit, once again this kind of statement is the result of scientist saying things they should know better than to say or really horrible reporting. Probably both. Everything and I mean everything about this planet is maybe. Maybe maybe maybe. The surety level is zero. The existence of this planet does not prove the universe is teeming with life. In fact there is no data that proves there is life on this planet at all.

He told Discovery News: 'Personally, given the ubiquity and propensity of life to flourish wherever it can, I would say that the chances for life on this planet are 100 percent. I have almost no doubt about it'.

Aw man you say 100 percent then you say "almost no doubt" which means you have at least a small amount of doubt. This is not 100 percent surety. Again I hope this and the other quotes were actually misquotes from an overzealous journalist.

This article is terrible.

 

[Hoffmeister]

Wall of text

Thanks for that. The reason I was asking if anyone had seen any articles on this was because this article is clearly full of potential holes, and the daily mail isn't exactly the most renowned science publication. So if anyone has seen anything about this on some other websites, i'd be interested

 

[NTS]

From Sky and Telescope magazine:

"In 2000 an Australian optical SETI project named Oz OSETI was set up by Ragbir Bhathal of the University of Western Sydney, using two telescopes (0.4 and 0.3 meters aperture), each with two photometers, in separate domes about 20 meters apart to eliminate false hits from simultaneous noise events. In its first year the project looked at 100 Sunlike stars and 15 globular star clusters. The project was continuing as of 2010. (In May 2009 a probable false alarm in Bhathal's data was overhyped by the Australian press)."

http://www.skyandtelescope.com/resources/seti/3304561.html?page=1&c=y

Based on what I've read there are some number of false alarms that can be expected in searches like this. Various methods (multiple detectors, separate observatories) are used to reduce the number but the only sure way is repeated observations of a signal by different observatories using a variety of detectors. So far this hasn't happened -- no repeat signals have been seen. Unfortunately it's possible that a genuine signal that doesn't repeat could be dismissed as a false alarm, but without the repitition there's no way to confirm anything.

 

[CapnG]

Sigh... isn't the discovery of the planet important enough? Do we have to be going to the fringe reports right out of the gate? How about we gather some data first? Chemistry, astronomy, you know... SCIENCE.

 

[stphrz]

Sigh... isn't the discovery of the planet important enough? Do we have to be going to the fringe reports right out of the gate? How about we gather some data first? Chemistry, astronomy, you know... SCIENCE.

Despite my ripping on the article, the discovery of this planet is a wonderful thing. Because of this discovery, I envision there will be advances in telescope technology so we can actually look at this planet and others like it. There will be advances and refinements in other detecting technologies as well. This will be very expensive. With the kinds of possibilities opened up by this one little planet, obtaining the funding for these projects will be easier. Maybe this will get more people interested in science. Progress just got major boost.

 

[CapnG]

Progress just got major boost.

It's awesome, isn't it? We finally have a decent target to aim at instead of the dozens of sorta-Jupiters we've discovered so far.

 

[Ron Collins]

It's awesome, isn't it? We finally have a decent target to aim at instead of the dozens of sorta-Jupiters we've discovered so far.

Hopefully they learned a bit more about how to detect the rocky planets and can apply that technique as they move forward. Is this from the terrestrial planet finder satellite? Although I think there is less than .0000009% chance of picking up any signal from any planet I have often wondered what that kind of significance it would have. Would it become the number one biggest contested item in scientific history or would rapid scientific acceptance help shape a global shift in perception. I dunno, but it is fun to think about in the shower.

 

[CapnG]

I'm not fully up to speed on this just yet but from what I understand previous surveys have been based around the idea that an earth-like planet would be orbiting a sol-like star, whereas this planet is orbiting a red dwarf (and is presumably populated by a senile computer, a felisapien, a hologram and a slob). If nothing else it illustrates that we really have no clue what to look for out there.

 

[TClaeys]

. Is this from the terrestrial planet finder satellite?

This data is from 11 years of observations from an observatory in Hawaii. Guess it beat Kepler to the punch as far as finding the first Goldilocks planet.

http://www.staradvertiser.com/news/hawaiinews/20101001_Keck_scope_finds_Earth-like_planet.html

 

[Gareth]

@stphrz

Surely the fact that "habitable zone does not mean inhabited" does not to be pointed out on this forum. (among other things).

 

[Walter Bosley]

I thought they reported it was 'not too hot and not too cold' (thus Goldilocks, as we all know), therefore wouldn't 'not too hot' imply that it's certainly not like Venus??

 

[CapnG]

I thought they reported it was 'not too hot and not too cold' (thus Goldilocks, as we all know), therefore wouldn't 'not too hot' imply that it's certainly not like Venus??

That's not really enough though. The esitmate I saw was that this planet is 3.5x the size (or perhaps it was mass) of the earth. No matter how you slice it, even if it's class M that's still not really "earth like".

 

[Walter Bosley]

Ah... understood.

 

[stphrz]

I thought they reported it was 'not too hot and not too cold' (thus Goldilocks, as we all know), therefore wouldn't 'not too hot' imply that it's certainly not like Venus??

Both Venus and Mars are in the habitable or "goldilocks" zone. Mars is too cold because it is unable to hold a substantial atmosphere. Venus is too hot because its atmosphere is way too dense and is experiencing extreme global warming. Distance from the sun is only one factor determining how hot a planet is.

Edit: Linky

http://factoidz.com/goldilocks-and-...liese-581g-and-what-is-meant-by-habitability/

 

[Skymon876]

581g

http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/10/11/scientist-claims-strange-signal-comes-alien-planet/

The recent discovery of Gliese 581g, an alien planet in the habitable zone of another star, has been an exciting development for scientists probing the galaxy for signs of At least one claim of a possible signal from the planet has already surfaced – and been met with harsh skepticism among the science community.
Following the Sept. 29 announcement of the discovery of Gliese 581g, astronomer Ragbir Bhathal, a scientist at the University of Western Sydney, claimed to have detected a suspicious pulse of light nearly two years ago, that came from the same area of the galaxy as the location of Gliese 581g, according to the U.K.'s Daily Mail

 

[ALPHA ROMEO UNIFORM]

581g

http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/10/11/scientist-claims-strange-signal-comes-alien-planet/

The recent discovery of Gliese 581g, an alien planet in the habitable zone of another star, has been an exciting development for scientists probing the galaxy for signs of [COLOR=blue !important][COLOR=blue !important]extraterrestrial [COLOR=blue !important]life[/COLOR][/COLOR][/COLOR]. At least one claim of a possible signal from the planet has already surfaced – and been met with harsh skepticism among the science community.
Following the Sept. 29 announcement of the discovery of Gliese 581g, astronomer Ragbir Bhathal, a scientist at the University of Western Sydney, claimed to have detected a suspicious pulse of light nearly two years ago, that came from the same area of the galaxy as the location of Gliese 581g, according to the U.K.'s Daily Mail [COLOR=blue !important][COLOR=blue !important]online[/COLOR][/COLOR]. [Alien Planet Gliese581g: FAQ]

Maybe someone left their mobile phone on

 

[TClaeys]

581g

Sometimes the forum gets several threads going on the same exact topic. Here's the last thread about this signal.

https://www.theparacast.com/forum/t...al-from-the-new-Exoplanet?highlight=scientist

BTW, I'm seeing a lot of tags and brackets and so forth on the original post. Don't know why. Just FYI.

 

[Ron Collins]

581g

Sometimes the forum gets several threads going on the same exact topic. Here's the last thread about this signal.

https://www.theparacast.com/forum/t...al-from-the-new-Exoplanet?highlight=scientist

BTW, I'm seeing a lot of tags and brackets and so forth on the original post. Don't know why. Just FYI.

Missed that. Threads are now merged.

 

[NTS]

581g

Doubts raised about existence of Gliese 581g:

Buzz About Gliese 581g: Doubts of Its Existence; Aliens Signals Detected | Universe Today

Claim of signal detection called suspicious:

SPACE.com -- Claim of Alien Signal from Planet Gliese 581g Called 'Very Suspicious'

I thought the signal thing had been over-hyped by the press, but that may have started with the scientist.

edit: Hope I picked the right thread!