Potentially habitable planet discovered outside our solar system

[Publius]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20100929/sc_afp/usastronomyplanet_20100929210707

This is about the coolest astronomy news to happen in my lifetime. I just hope they manage to find out MORE about this place -- or others like it -- during the rest of my lifetime.

[MikePizzoff]

This is beyond incredible, if it's indeed true.

Only 20 light years away? I'm not too good with that sort of stuff... how long would it take to get a satellite out there to orbit the planet and take photos???

[Danny]

are they actually calling the planet goldilocks? That sucks. We have a wealth of good names sci-fi writers have conjured up so why not use them?

[Publius]

This is beyond incredible, if it's indeed true.

Only 20 light years away? I'm not too good with that sort of stuff... how long would it take to get a satellite out there to orbit the planet and take photos???

The fastest spacecraft ever built so far made it to about 150,000 miles per hour, but that was a solar probe that reached its highest speed as it was falling toward the sun. Assuming we could build a probe that could make the same speed on the way out from the sun and still have enough reserve fuel to park in orbit around the planet, it would take 90,000 years to get to Gliese 581. So we could expect the first photos approximately 90,020 years from launch. :P

[blind2d]

Hmm... I'll probably be dead by then... shit.
Oh, and yeah, Goldilocks is a stupid name.

[DjfunkmasterG]

Earth 2 would work. :lol:

[Kaos]

We'll need to send the Nostromo to check it out.

[DubiousComforts]

We'll need to send the Nostromo to check it out.

"the most habitable part of the new planet would be the line between darkness and light, which is known as the "terminator"."

Sounds more like a job for John Connor.

[JDFP]

I vote it should be called Caprica or Kobol.

j.p.

[Danny]

uh, its called the terminator everywhere guy. Its just the equidistant line between dark and light side of the planetoid.

http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y91/khazrak/600px-Nightfall_europe-and-afrika_20050507-184500.jpg

[BillyRay]

Earth 2 would work. :lol:

Only until the Crisis mashes all the assorted Earths together...

[MikePizzoff]

The fastest spacecraft ever built so far made it to about 150,000 miles per hour, but that was a solar probe that reached its highest speed as it was falling toward the sun. Assuming we could build a probe that could make the same speed on the way out from the sun and still have enough reserve fuel to park in orbit around the planet, it would take 90,000 years to get to Gliese 581. So we could expect the first photos approximately 90,020 years from launch. :P

Okay, then, guess it's time to play the waiting game! Can we have bathroom breaks?

[bassman]

So they're letting us know that they think they've found something, we'll never really know for sure, and maybe it's similar. Wow....thanks for the update. I guess...

[MikePizzoff]

Yeah, it's actually just really frustrating now. Way to be a buzzkill, Chris!

[Publius]

Well, when you're interested in space and space travel, you have to learn to manage your expectations. After all, we're way behind schedule for a moon base as predicted by "Space: 1999" back in the '70s, not to mention the fantastic predictions of the great science-fiction writers of the '40s-'60s!

[EvilNed]

The more you believe in space travel, the less you know about science. :p

[Neil]

So we could expect the first photos approximately 90,020 years from launch. :P

Utterly depressing isn't it :(

[Rancid Carcass]

Its just the equidistant line between dark and light side of the planetoid.

Or as the rest of us call it, evening! :D

[Legion2213]

It's 90.000 years or so away now...in 25, 50 or 100 years time, it may be do-able in a human lifespan for a probe of some kind.

Space exploration is about looking to the future and doing the impossible.

[darth los]

When they eventually find life out there I'll love to hear what the religious fundamentelists will have to say about that.

It'll be more awkward than explaining to your wife why there's lipstick on your collar.

:cool:

[Legion2213]

Fundies can twist anything into "it's gods will/plan"

In fact, I am pretty certain that Jesus said something about "my father has many houses" in the context of other worlds.

There is an interestng Arthur C Clarke story about God and Aliens and the Earth...can't remember what it is called though.

[darth los]

Jesus dude that sounds interestig as hell. Definitely something non zombie related I'd read.

I'm off to use the google !!

Here's a link that i found.

http://blogs.suntimes.com/scanners/2008/03/arthur_c_clarke_do_aliens_drea.html



:cool:

[Publius]

It's 90.000 years or so away now...in 25, 50 or 100 years time, it may be do-able in a human lifespan for a probe of some kind.

One can hope! I'm confident that we'd be able to trim that figure by at least a couple orders of magnitude within my lifetime if it were a high enough priority.


When they eventually find life out there I'll love to hear what the religious fundamentelists will have to say about that.

I don't see why. What would prevent God from creating life on another planet if he created all planets and created life from this one? C. S. Lewis, one of the greatest Christian apologists of modern times, was writing sci-fi novels about life on other planets over 70 years ago.

[Wyldwraith]

Here's the thing,
I'll tell you why the discovery of a Habitable Planet (other than Earth) is important. It gives us a TARGET. Do you think Kennedy could have sold the US gov't on a multi-billion $$ Lunar exploration project if we weren't even sure if the Moon was solid...or even really where we thought it was?

Once the conversation moves from "Are there Earth-like planets out there?" to "We know there are Earth-like planets beyond the boundaries of our Solar System" it becomes a challenge/and or puzzle, because THEN the conversation becomes "Ok, now how the Hell do we get to and exploit this Earth-like planet before some other country does?"

People are only capable of what they believe themselves to be capable of. If 99% of physicists take EvilNed's inside-the-box/nothing-new-under-the-Sun stance, then we're 99% LESS LIKELY to find a means of bridging the admittedly VAST distances between stars. The more talented/educated minds that devote themselves to the problem/challenge, and the more investors that consider giving these talented/educated individuals money to pursue their research, the Much Much MORE LIKELY are we to actually find a way to "cheat" the Light-Barrier.

Again I say, there was a time when "Everyone" thought a) The world was flat, b) The Universe revolved around the Earth, c) There was an instantly lethal radiation belt just outside of our atmosphere that would forever prevent manned spaceflight.

Each and every World-Perception-Changing scientific advance had one thing in common. It proved that "What Everyone Believed" WASN'T true just because 99.9% of people believed it to be so.

Besides, if you want to take a TRULY scientific view of the potential of non-linear/Vast distance-spanning spaceflight, one should at LEAST reserve judgment until we have answers about the particle we've ALREADY FOUND AND BEEN AWARE OF FOR DECADES THAT BREACHES LIGHT-SPEED! Ie: The humble Tachyon.

For all we know, you can wrap regular matter in a uniform field of Tachyons and accelerate it effortlessly to vast multiples of light-speed. That's what scientific inquiry is all about. Removing the "Here Be Dragons" from our maps, and replacing the asinine unsupported beliefs of the Sheep-minded with the corroborated results of experimentation.

I say bravo Astronomers. You've found us a tentative target for our ambitions, and one not that (COMPARATIVELY) far away at that. Keep up the good work, and the rest of you, back to your labs and find us a way to curb-stomp the Universe's annoying predilection of limiting the travel of conventional matter to .9999999999 light-speed.

Edit: Incidentally, I posted about the star system Gleisa-581 months ago in a similar thread. The Exoplanet Survey underway has yielded and will no doubt continue to yield fascinating gems of knowledge such as this.

Now we need a more efficient way to see the comparatively tiny solid-planets from many light-years away.

[Legion2213]

Wyldwraith, top post my man. :thumbsup:

[Danny]

Here's the thing,
I'll tell you why the discovery of a Habitable Planet (other than Earth) is important. It gives us a TARGET. Do you think Kennedy could have sold the US gov't on a multi-billion $$ Lunar exploration project if we weren't even sure if the Moon was solid...or even really where we thought it was?

Once the conversation moves from "Are there Earth-like planets out there?" to "We know there are Earth-like planets beyond the boundaries of our Solar System" it becomes a challenge/and or puzzle, because THEN the conversation becomes "Ok, now how the Hell do we get to and exploit this Earth-like planet before some other country does?"

People are only capable of what they believe themselves to be capable of. If 99% of physicists take EvilNed's inside-the-box/nothing-new-under-the-Sun stance, then we're 99% LESS LIKELY to find a means of bridging the admittedly VAST distances between stars. The more talented/educated minds that devote themselves to the problem/challenge, and the more investors that consider giving these talented/educated individuals money to pursue their research, the Much Much MORE LIKELY are we to actually find a way to "cheat" the Light-Barrier.

Again I say, there was a time when "Everyone" thought a) The world was flat, b) The Universe revolved around the Earth, c) There was an instantly lethal radiation belt just outside of our atmosphere that would forever prevent manned spaceflight.

Each and every World-Perception-Changing scientific advance had one thing in common. It proved that "What Everyone Believed" WASN'T true just because 99.9% of people believed it to be so.

Besides, if you want to take a TRULY scientific view of the potential of non-linear/Vast distance-spanning spaceflight, one should at LEAST reserve judgment until we have answers about the particle we've ALREADY FOUND AND BEEN AWARE OF FOR DECADES THAT BREACHES LIGHT-SPEED! Ie: The humble Tachyon.

For all we know, you can wrap regular matter in a uniform field of Tachyons and accelerate it effortlessly to vast multiples of light-speed. That's what scientific inquiry is all about. Removing the "Here Be Dragons" from our maps, and replacing the asinine unsupported beliefs of the Sheep-minded with the corroborated results of experimentation.

I say bravo Astronomers. You've found us a tentative target for our ambitions, and one not that (COMPARATIVELY) far away at that. Keep up the good work, and the rest of you, back to your labs and find us a way to curb-stomp the Universe's annoying predilection of limiting the travel of conventional matter to .9999999999 light-speed.

Edit: Incidentally, I posted about the star system Gleisa-581 months ago in a similar thread. The Exoplanet Survey underway has yielded and will no doubt continue to yield fascinating gems of knowledge such as this.

Now we need a more efficient way to see the comparatively tiny solid-planets from many light-years away.


its a shame i lost the arcticle, i think it was on i09, but i read about word form scientists that theres a type of fission based propulsion, not faster than light, just really fucking fast, that could get you from earth to this planet which i think is actually called zamirani or something like that in just about 6 years thats incomplete, but way more likely to be made possible than ftl power and is being worked on as the next step in space flight propulsion. wish i could remember the name.
Still its encouraging, and it is indeed a target. and 6 years is still a bit too long for me to stay in anyone place let alone a vehicle no matter the level of swankitutde contained therein but for some 6 years to travel to a new planet and colonize this ring around its permanent terminator is a dream for many folks.

[Danny]

When they eventually find life out there I'll love to hear what the religious fundamentelists will have to say about that.


I dunno if its gonna be tough at all, form a logical atheist humanist point of view i can easily see definitions being tweaked at the most like "but only WE were made in his image" or "whos to say garden of eden didnt mean the universe, whats a garden to god?" or just "yeah, its life, god made it, duh".

Honestly i can't see why a christian would be negatively effected by life on other planets in any way. Most christians i know who are hardcore say roughly the same "the bible is a book of morals passed down by god, but do i think a bunch of blokes from a few thousand years ago could understand god completely? of course not, he could have been talking about genetic engineering at an impossibly advanced level to make us what we are and the best they could put to paper was 'he took a rib and used magic' or soemthing" :lol:

[Publius]

its a shame i lost the arcticle, i think it was on i09, but i read about word form scientists that theres a type of fission based propulsion, not faster than light, just really fucking fast, that could get you from earth to this planet which i think is actually called zamirani or something like that in just about 6 years thats incomplete, but way more likely to be made possible than ftl power and is being worked on as the next step in space flight propulsion. wish i could remember the name.

Alpha Centauri? Barnard's Star? Those are the only star systems within 6 light years.

[Publius]

Honestly i can't see why a christian would be negatively effected by life on other planets in any way. Most christians i know who are hardcore say roughly the same "the bible is a book of morals passed down by god, but do i think a bunch of blokes from a few thousand years ago could understand god completely? of course not, he could have been talking about genetic engineering at an impossibly advanced level to make us what we are and the best they could put to paper was 'he took a rib and used magic' or soemthing" :lol:

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." -- Arthur C. Clarke

:-)

[Danny]

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." -- Arthur C. Clarke

:-)

pretty much, i would honestly imagine if anything took a hand in the course of our development it would be some alien scientists instead of a deity, they try to make approaches to explain themselves, we dont understand and call it magic and them sky gods or something.

Theres an interesting sci-fi idea: earths got so many varied species because its used as an isolated reserve to bring back extinct species, and the ufo sightings are taking thinks like the platypus back to another planet were they have gone extinct. -then one day poachers show up. :lol:

[The Great Gazoo]

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." -- Arthur C. Clarke

:-)

We've seen that play out on our own planet. How many natives "ooohed and aahhhed" over simple things they couldn't understand like lighters, flashlights, and cameras.

[Legion2213]

We've seen that play out on our own planet. How many natives "ooohed and aahhhed" over simple things they couldn't understand like lighters, flashlights, and cameras.

Yep, now imagine hovering over a few folks from circa 10.000BC in a helicopter, doing a flyby in a few jets, or showing them a tablet/laptop. :cool:

Not trying to make any kind of point there BTW, I just think it would be fun to scare the shit out of a bunch of cave-groks. :D