Gliese 581 system. Another Earth?

"An Earth-size planet has been spotted orbiting a nearby star at a distance that would makes it not too hot and not too cold — comfortable enough for life to exist, researchers announced today (Sept. 29).

If confirmed, the exoplanet, named Gliese 581g, would be the first Earth-like world found residing in a star's habitable zone — a region where a planet's temperature could sustain liquid water on its surface."

SPACE.com -- Odds of Life on Newfound Earth-Size Planet '100 Percent,' Astronomer Says

SPACE.com -- Alien World Tour: The Exoplanets Around Star Gliese 581

Being the amateur astronomer that I am, I find myself grinning from ear to ear, while nothing is definite, this is the best discovery for a neighboring life bearing planet that we have found. I have been monitoring the Gliese 581 system for years and I always had a sense that something like this would pop up.

 

I heard about this on a morning show today. That's really awesome!

They said it was billions of miles away. Can you see it if you have a good enough telescope and know where to look?

 

Interesting news! and Darren I think not unfortunately;

Gliese 581 g - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

even the best telescopes can't 'see' it.

 

True. I wonder if there's a projection of telescope capability increases over time that might give an idea when - I had a quick look but couldn't find anything obvious?

 

I have sadly forgotten most of my Astronomy 101, so please don't laugh at my question too much .

Has the light from this planet actually reached earth yet? Or is there is too much interference from other sources (light, debris and such )to see it?

 

The light in question would be mostly near infra red, and thus not truly 'seeable', but it should be arriving here all the time - it is in or near Libra, and we can see several stars in that vicinity, it is only about 20 light years away. For the new planet though, and even it's sun, the light would be in quantities so minute that we have no equipment able yet to measure it.

There are of course plenty of 'artists impressions' of what it looks like!

 

The space telescopes that view exo-planets almost always never actually spot the planet, they use a two different methods. One is watching the star for a period of time and looking for a shift or "wobble" by the possible planet(s) orbiting it. The size of the wobble and size of the star are taken into account and then it is all complex math to figure out the size and mass of the planet.
The other method is watching for the planet to orbit in front of it's star, and then check for how much of the suns light is diminished, and again it is more math equations and you have the same result as method one.

We have been able to see what composes an Exo-Planets athmosphere, but only so far sparsely. I think it will be some years yet before we can check out 20 light years, but that day will come and the question will be answered.

 

OK Lets send some of the nice Bankmanagers and politicians to this planet to check out the circumstances. No losses for mankind if they getting lost! Yes this was nasty, i know:-(

 

I'd say put a few lawyers in the bunch too, but it's a bad idea! Do we really want to screw up another planet with those guys?

 

Haha You´re right, can get in deep trouble with something like the Geneva Conventions for that!

 

Aye, it's exciting news indeed.

 

So long as there's more than one workable planet, why not (and why only some of the bank managers and politicians and only a few lawyers)!

P.S. don't forget the tabloid journalists and telemarketers

 

this truly is exciting news.

 

How could scientists find life on an alien planet? - Technology & science - Space - Space.com - msnbc.com

Gliese 581g isn't far from Earth in the great scheme of things — only 20.5 light-years or so. But that translates to about 120 trillion miles (194 trillion kilometers) — 500 million times farther away from us than the moon. [ Tour the six Gliese 581 planets]