05-07-2017, 06:04 AM
I read about an update of a discovery made almost 20 years ago at the 15-meter James Clerk Maxwell Telescope at the Mauna Kea Observatory. Excerpt from a report on the original discovery:
"Epsilon Eridani is far more similar to our Sun ... "This star system is a strong candidate for planets, but if there are planets, it's unlikely there could be life yet. When the Earth was this young, it was still being very heavily bombarded by comets and other debris."
"If an astronomer could have seen what our Solar System looked like four billion years ago, it would have been very much as Epsilon Eridani looks today
https://stardust.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news29.html
The latest studies reveal more detail about the planets and asteroid belt orbiting Epsilon Eridani. It appears to be a younger version of our own solar system, possibly showing how our planets may have developed long before life appeared on earth:
These observations further indicate that the Epsilon Eridani system is much like our own, albeit in younger form. In addition to having asteroid belts and a debris disk that is similar to our Main Belt and Kuiper Belt, it appears that it likely has more planets waiting to be found within the spaces between. As such, the study of this system could help astronomers to learn things about the history of our own Solar System.
“This star hosts a planetary system currently undergoing the same cataclysmic processes that happened to the solar system in its youth, at the time in which the moon gained most of its craters, Earth acquired the water in its oceans, and the conditions favorable for life on our planet were set.”
https://www.universetoday.com/135436/10-...ar-system/
All of this was made possible through cooperation between astronomers using different types of telescopes around the world, each capable of distinguishing and revealing distinctive aspects of the Epsilon Eridani system.
This is exciting stuff. With better telescopes planned for the future, bigger telescopes, space based telescopes, and perhaps additional methods of detecting light, temperature, and other measurable wavelengths over vast distances in space, might we discover our own past history in other places around the galaxy?
If I know what I shall find, I do not want to find it. Uncertainty is the salt of life. - biochemist Erwin Chargaff
"Epsilon Eridani is far more similar to our Sun ... "This star system is a strong candidate for planets, but if there are planets, it's unlikely there could be life yet. When the Earth was this young, it was still being very heavily bombarded by comets and other debris."
"If an astronomer could have seen what our Solar System looked like four billion years ago, it would have been very much as Epsilon Eridani looks today
https://stardust.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news29.html
The latest studies reveal more detail about the planets and asteroid belt orbiting Epsilon Eridani. It appears to be a younger version of our own solar system, possibly showing how our planets may have developed long before life appeared on earth:
These observations further indicate that the Epsilon Eridani system is much like our own, albeit in younger form. In addition to having asteroid belts and a debris disk that is similar to our Main Belt and Kuiper Belt, it appears that it likely has more planets waiting to be found within the spaces between. As such, the study of this system could help astronomers to learn things about the history of our own Solar System.
“This star hosts a planetary system currently undergoing the same cataclysmic processes that happened to the solar system in its youth, at the time in which the moon gained most of its craters, Earth acquired the water in its oceans, and the conditions favorable for life on our planet were set.”
https://www.universetoday.com/135436/10-...ar-system/
All of this was made possible through cooperation between astronomers using different types of telescopes around the world, each capable of distinguishing and revealing distinctive aspects of the Epsilon Eridani system.
This is exciting stuff. With better telescopes planned for the future, bigger telescopes, space based telescopes, and perhaps additional methods of detecting light, temperature, and other measurable wavelengths over vast distances in space, might we discover our own past history in other places around the galaxy?
If I know what I shall find, I do not want to find it. Uncertainty is the salt of life. - biochemist Erwin Chargaff
“We do this thing not because it is easy, but because we thought it would be easy.”