Comments:New planet found in 'Habitable Zone'
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It has been known for just as long that the method of "extrapolating" this new planet,
by using a new algorithm and patched together data, has been contested by other authoritative scientists!
WHY is this missing from the article??
The one sidedness of the article makes it deceptive.
♦ Erroneous data analysis ♦
In December 2010, a methodological error has been revealed in the data analysis that lead to the "discovery" of Gliese 581 f and g.[13] The team around Steven Vogt inferred the number of exoplanets by using a reduced chi-square, although the orbital models are nonlinear in the model parameters. Therefore, reduced chi-square is not a trustworthy diagnostic. In fact, an investigation of the fit residuals showed that the data used by Vogt's team actually prefers a model with four planets, not six, in agreement with the results of Francesco Pepe's team.
[edit] Further analyses of HIRES/HARPS dataAnother re-analysis found no clear evidence for a fifth planetary signal in the combined HIRES/HARPS data set.[14] The claim was made that the HARPS data only provided some evidence for 5 planet signals, while incorporation of both data sets actually degraded the evidence for more than four planets (i.e., none for 581 f or 581 g).
"I have studied [the paper] in detail and do not agree with his conclusions,"[15] Steven Vogt said in reply, concerned that Gregory has considered the HIRES data as more uncertain.[16] The question of Gliese 581g's existence won't be settled definitively until researchers gather more high-precision radial velocity data, Vogt said.
♦(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gliese_581_g#Erroneous_data_analysis )
AFTER ALL THESE YEARS OF WAITING WE MIGHT HAVE FOUND A PLANET THAT MIGHT BE INHABITABLE! YIPPY!
would like to see a close-up artists rendition of planet also. But the orbit picture is good also. Thank you wikipeople.
Scientist's should get on trying to travel to the new discovered "habitable zone" on Gliese 581 g', even if it aint livible for us. there has to be life. It has what our earth has, water, atmosphere, and from the pictures you can see plantation all over it. who cares if it would take them 20 years to travel there. do it, cause it will be worth the travel!
i think if their life on that planet and other life forms we shoud just not go because it diésel not belong to us
if there is life on the planet, it will probably be microbial or lichen...But i agreed with there are societies (NO MATTER HOW "PRIMITIVE"), we should just observe.
I have to agree with 209 here. Just because we think the only life forms are microbes does not mean that the only life forms are microbes. Just because tossing 100 heads in a row is unlikely does not mean that we cannot toss 100 heads in a row. If I were an alien on that planet I'm not sure I want civilisations of equal (or even lower!) intelligence to intervere. Besides, we should stop dreaming about going to another planet because we don't have enough time to do that. We're messing of the Earth so much drastic action must be taken now.
this is just amazing,but why do people always say there can't be any similar life form to ours out there,the universe is far beyond big and complex than we will ever understand,how can we say theres NO ONE out there,in trillions of other places
There was an article in a recent new scientist that said by judging the pace with which these type of discoveries have occurred (ie if you could plot each discovery on a graph of discovery event significance over time and extrapolate) there was a 50% chance that a 'life friendly' planet would be discovered in the next couple of years and 95% over the next 100 years or so. Looks like they were right haha. Although I think that discussions regarding the ethics of interfering with alien cultures (prime directive) is a tad premature haha
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa+_