A rocky alien planet called Gliese 581d may be the first known world beyond Earth capable of supporting life as we know it, a new study suggests.

Astronomers performing a new atmospheric-modeling study have found that the planet likely lies in the "habitable zone" of its host star — that just-right range of distances that allow liquid water to exist. The alien world could be Earth-like in key ways, harboring oceans, clouds and rainfall, according to the research.This conclusion is consistent with several other recent modeling studies. But it does not definitively establish that life-sustaining water flows across the planet's surface.

The new study assumes that Gliese 581d, which is about seven times as massive as Earth, has a thick, carbon-dioxide-based atmosphere. That's very possible on a planet so large, researchers said, but it's not a given. [Video: Life-Sustaining "Super Earth" Gliese 581d]

The Gliese 581 system: Worlds of possibilities

Gliese 581d's parent star, known as Gliese 581, is a red dwarf located 20 light-years from Earth, just a stone's throw in the cosmic scheme of things. So far, astronomers have detected six planets orbiting the star, and Gliese 581d is not the only one intriguing to scientists thinking about the possibility of life beyond Earth.

Another planet in the system, called Gliese 581g, is about three times as massive as Earth, and it's also most likely a rocky world. This planet received a lot of attention when its discovery was announced in September 2010, because it's located right in the middle of the habitable zone. That makes 581g a prime candidate for liquid water and life as we know it — if the planet exists.

Some researchers question the analysis used to discover the planet, and say they cannot confirm 581g in follow-up studies. The planet's discoverers, however, are standing by their find. [The Strangest Alien Planets]

Gliese 581d orbits outside of 581g, far enough away from its star that researchers first thought it too cold for life when it was originally discovered in 2007. But a strong greenhouse effect may warm 581d up substantially, perhaps enough to support liquid water.

That's the tentative conclusion of the new study, as well as several other recent studies by different research teams that also modeled Gliese 581d's possible atmosphere.

Modeling an alien atmosphere

The planet Gliese 581d receives less than a third of the solar energy that Earth does from our sun, and it may be tidally locked (a situation in which one side of the world always faces its sun — a permanent day — and the other faces away, producing eternal night).

After Gliese 581d's discovery, it was generally believed that any atmosphere thick enough to keep the planet warm would become cold enough on the night side to freeze out entirely, ruining any prospects for a habitable climate, researchers said.

The research team tested that possibility in the new study, developing a new kind of computer model that simulates alien planets' atmospheres and surfaces in three dimensions. The model is similar to those used to study climate change on Earth.

When the team ran the model, they found that Gliese 581d probably can indeed host liquid water if it has a dense carbon dioxide atmosphere. Even though the planet is relatively far away from its dim red dwarf parent star, it could be warmed by a greenhouse effect, with daytime heat circulated around the planet by the atmosphere.

The team, led by scientists from the Laboratoire de Métrologie Dynamique (CNRS/UPMC/ENS/Ecole Polytechnique) at the Institut Pierre Simon Laplace in Paris, France, published their results in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.

The work remains speculative.

To determine conclusively if Gliese 581d is truly habitable, future work will probably have to detect and characterize its atmosphere directly. And that is likely years off, since it requires the development of new and advanced telescopes. Human-made probes won't be getting to the planet anytime soon; with current technology, it would take spacecraft hundreds of thousands of years to make the 20-light-year trek.
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Ben Popper, NY Observer / Betabeat writer

Betabeat is back with another edition of modern justice.

Back in March we brought you the story of Mark Bao, the serial entrepreneur who tracked his laptop thief and released humiliating videos of the culprit doing the rubber band dance on Youtube.

Last night a live drama played out on Twitter, as Sean Power, a tech author and consultant, used the free software program, Prey, to track his stolen laptop, which had disappeared, along with a birth certificate, health card, cell phone and cash, from a New York City bar while he was in town on business (consulting for startups Etsy and Hunch.)

Watch the drama unfold in real time on Observer.com >

Despite checking every bar he'd been at, he couldn't find the laptop bag. They all insisted nobody had seen it, he says.

From back home in Canada, Power remembered he had the software, and two days later says he watched remotely as the "thief" took a photo and uploaded it to Flickr.

That helped Power figure out his name and location: Oficina Latina, on Prince St., in Nolita. It was one of the bars he'd visited.

Twitter followers watching Powers tweet about the drama soon figured out the culprit was actually a part-owner in the establishment.

Power says he tried to sic the NYPD on the owner, who identified himself to the press as Paolo Voltano, but he says they refused to respond without his filing an official report — which he couldn't do from Ontario. Several online watchers offered to help, but Power begged them not to.

"Please please please don't get directly involved. I don't want any of you to get hurt for a stupid laptop."

Read his full Twitter account here >

Reached for comment, Voltano insists the misplacement was a communication error among the bar staff. "When he called we didn't know the bag had a laptop in it," he said. "It wasn't a laptop bag, it was a big bag, like one you have a lot of stuff inside."

"It was a mis-communication. We didn't know we had it, and until someone comes to claim it, we don't know."

He began using the computer for personal purposes, he said, only after the bag had been there "a week and nobody claimed it. I thought it was karma," he said, mentioning his own computer and cell phone had been stolen three weeks before at the restaurant.

In the meantime, a Twitter follower was staking out the bar, and the story had broken on several blogs, although Voltano was still blissfully unaware.

Power continued to share photos of Voltano that he was taking with the laptop camera and posting on the website Imgur.

In an ironic role reversal, Power was able to watch as Voltano as he logged into his Chase bank account on the computer.

By this point the dramatic narrative had jumped the shark for some followers, who began to tweet that Powers was probably part of viral stunt to promote the Prey anti-theft software.

"I write about analytics, I don't shill for product," said Power in an interview with Betabeat.

While friends jumped in to defend his honor, a Twitter user named Nick Reese and a mysterious hero known only as "the girl in the purple sarong" confronted the villian, who gave the laptop up without a fight.

"I hate that it happened there [at Oficina Latina], because it is one of my favorite bars," said Power.

Voltano said he returned everything in the bag to Power as soon as he was confronted, including a large sum of cash that was in the bag.

A freelance writer named Brandon Ballanger captured the entire real time drama through a very creative use of the Storify platform, a tool for quickly creating journalism based on social media streams.

Powers was so happy to have his property back he actually reached out to the various journalistic outlets that covered the episode and asked them to remove any identifying information.

"Paolo freely gave it up. I'm not about to accuse anyone of anything. I'd rather forget that that place exists and just move on."
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Watch THOR Free Streaming on the internethttp://moviedatacenter.blogspot.com/
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The Pacquiao-Mosley final press conference was crowded by so many media/press around the world on Wednesday. It was a total different final presser as both fighters were calm and respectful with their words. Thus, trash talking has gone a little bit in Pacquiao vs Mosley May 7 boxing match!Showtime and CBS sports host James Brown served as the maestro of the jam-packed event. Other personalities that spoke on the conference were Hall of Fame promoter, Bob Arum of Top Rank, Ken Hershman, Executive Vice President and General Manager SHOWTIME Sports, President Sports and Entertainment MGM Resorts International, Richard Sturm, Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman and the boxers’ trainers and managers.
Exclusive Pacquiao vs Mosley Final Press Conference video by Fightfan.com
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WASHINGTON – Osama bin Laden, the mastermind behind the Sept. 11 attacks against the United States, is dead, and the U.S. is in possession of his body, a person familiar with the situation said late Sunday.President Barack Obama was expected to address the nation on the developments Sunday night.


Two senior counterterrorism officials confirmed that bin Laden was killed in Pakistan last week. One said bin Laden was killed in a ground operation, not by a Predator drone. Both said the operation was based on U.S. intelligence, and both said the U.S. is in possession of bin Laden's body.

Officials long believed bin Laden, the most wanted man in the world, was hiding a mountainous region along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border.

The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity in order to speak ahead of the president.

The development comes just months before the tenth anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Centers and Pentagon, orchestrated by bin Laden's al-Qaida organization, that killed more than 3,000 people.

The attacks set off a chain of events that led the United States into wars in Afghanistan, and then Iraq, and America's entire intelligence apparatus was overhauled to counter the threat of more terror attacks at home.

Al-Qaida organization was also blamed for the 1998 bombings of two U.S. embassies in Africa that killed 231 people and the 2000 attack on the USS Cole that killed 17 American sailors in Yemen, as well as countless other plots, some successful and some foiled.

-Yahoo News
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