[GZG] Real Astroplitics

[quoted original message omitted]

Not to try to speak for Noam, or anyone else, but I'd point out that it's
'habitable' planets sought. The gas giants easily detected wouldn't qualify,
and I thought smaller planets weren't being detected in any numbers yet.

Also, how far out are we detecting planets? I'm not conversant with that kind
of astronomy enough to know.

The_Beast

gzg-l-bounces@lists.csua.berkeley.edu wrote on 05/01/2006 06:10:06 PM:

> -----Original Message-----

> KH.Ranitzsch@t-online.de wrote:

As previously mentioned, almost all of the 188 known extrasolar planets are
superjovan planets that make Jupiter look like the runt of the litter. The few
that are not were found by gravitational lensing, and are thus more than
100,000 light years away.

The stars on the Astropolitical map are the stars within about 50 light years
of the Sun, omitting the spectral class M stars which are unlikely
        to be host to human-habitable planets.

> KH.Ranitzsch@t-online.de wrote:

> -----Original Message-----
I haven't compared the list, although I intend to "some day" when I have

time, before I run a campaign of my own.

The updated list is online here:
http://exoplanet.eu/catalog.php

Take a look. Many of the radial velocity discoveries are in the range of

the campaign map. While the first discoveries were "super-Jupiters"
becasue they are bigger and easier to detect, most now are in the
Saturn-Jupiter range with a few smaller Neptunes.

I tried to locate a few stars. Its not easy - star naming is a mess of
different catalouge systems. If someone wnated to do this, an automated
matching script would be the way to go.

A couple of examples I located:
55 Cancer, or listed on the map as BD+28 1660 is just outside the NSL,
has 4 possible planets ranging from a close-in small body (probably a
gas giant core whose gas has burned away) out to a 4xJupiter mass at 5.2

AU.

Epsilon Eridani, a core world, has a gas giant (.86 Jupiter mass) at 3.3

AU, and an unconfirmed Neptune sized at 40 AU, plus a dust ring.

I tried finding some examples from major powers, but flipping back and forth
between different maps and naming systems was just too much to do manually
this afternoon. If anyone undertakes it I want to see the results.

G'day,

Back in January they announched they'd found a rocky planet 28000 light years
away so they're creeping closer and lower in size of planet. Ok it was around
a red dwarf and so probably wouldn't have been on the astro map anyways, but
still progress is being made;)

As for the closest planet found I think that's the jupiter-size one
around Epsilon Eridani (10.5 or so light years away). So that may be within
Nyrath's domain of control... So to speak;)