AP: First detection of extra-solar terrestial sized planet?

Bob is goood....
but I like 'Alan'.

(although I think Homer Simpson has already named a constellation that)

Ok Ok....amm....
How about.,..

'Longulus'

from the Latin dictionary: [rather long, rather far, at a little distance]
As in,

'' Captain! We are recieving a distress call from outpost 581 c on Longulus!
It looks like the IFAS imperium have launched an attack on the Longuloids...
something about....Amateurs..... getting their ....own back?....
The signal is garbled Sir!''

Captain;
''Set course for the Longulus system. Warp factor 9.....ENGAGE!''

I'd call it "Pluto".

Then we can say "Pluto is a planet".

Peter.

So we are all agreed that manned Apollo 10 would have reached that planet in 124,909 years.

Not 5 billion.

Peter.

I'm sure your agreed with yourself Peter. Rather presumptious to add the rest of us into your agreement...

Of course, the 5 billion years comes from The Times [1] - perhaps you could do the maths for us all and put us (and The Times) out of our misery [2]

Then again, perhaps not. Judging by your figures for Voyager reaching Alpha Centauri (4 light years?) in 80,000 years and Apollo doing the same trip in 123,726 years, I'm not sure how you then get Apollo reaching Gliese 581c in 124,909 years (a mere 1183 years to travel an extra 16.5 light years)...

Dave

[1] Quote: "It would take the fastest manned spacecraft, Apollo 10, 4.86 billion years to get there, travelling at 24, 791mph"

[2] By my calculations, its a tad over half a million years. Never trust what you read in the papers.

Its a pity it does not transit the star then we could get some more info. As for a name.... ICUDOUCUS.

A few years ago Leo Enright gave a lecture where he mentioned astronomers had detected a heavily laden sodium atmosphere around an extra-solar planet.

I quipped, "Congratulations! We've just found the most heavily-light polluted planet in the Universe!"

Wouldn't be interesting to get its light into a spectrograph and see what its atmosphere contains. !
Its life Jim, but not as we know it :lol: