Cyber Planets: Building Virtual Worlds to Explore

core plexus writes "Space.com has an interesting article on 'Cyber Planets': NASA plans to create hundreds of 'synthetic planets' that might represent real worlds orbiting faraway stars. Also tells about the Planetary Finder Mission, and an interview with one of the creators. Doesn't describe what software they're using, though."

Comments

Correction...

[core plexus]

...it's the Terrestrial Planet Finder at http://www.space.com/searchforlife/new_approach_02 0510.html

And at home ..

[McCarrum]

Can we use this technology to build virtual environments for Earth? Want to walk on the ocean floor? Want to see the world from the top of Mt. Everest?

Other planets are cool. So is ours.

Re:And at home ..

[teamhasnoi]

I found one too! Here is a 'virtual photo' of Anwar after GW leaves office. Thank goodness for technology, otherwise we would vote him into the presidency. Whew!

Re:And at home ..

[richie2000]

Rekonstruction. Don't just explore the world. Build it.

(This blatant ad has not been paid for, hint, hint, nudge, nudge)

Betcha?

[kizarny]

I've got ten bucks that says the visible light coronograph beats out interferometry. VLC sounds like an advanced version of the pinhole box (http://www.exploratorium.edu/eclipse/how.html) we used to look at the solar eclipse in elementary school and that's so crazy it just might work.

Old project

[exp(pi*sqrt(163))]

But everyone knows they've been running this project since at least 1969 when they produced synthetic views from the surface of the moon...

Yeow

[CheshireCatCO]

The article is actually rather scant on details. But it is my guess that they are NOT going to be generating small-scale detailed models. So no views of planet surfaces. I'm guessing that they're going to use the planetary parameters as inputs and see how different organisms thrive or die off. The alternative is just much too complex and full of unknow parameters.
Which means that this project is inherently very limited in its abilities. They'll have to work on averaged and estimated behaviors for the biota and they can't investigate detailed niches. Most disturbing from a biological perspective is that they are really only investigating "live as we know it", since we have no idea how other life forms might exist. So in a very real sense they aren't really learning a whole lot that is new.

This is just my impression and interpretation, though. If they can do more detailed models, I'd be deeply, deeply impressed.

Re:Yeow

[Drog]

I ran this same story on my site today. More details are offered at the VPL website. They say that their models will be the first to combine the radiative fluxes, climate, chemistry, geology and biology of a terrestrial planet, to generate a wide range of plausible atmospheres for extrasolar planets, and for the atmospheres of early Earth.

Alien planets...

[Spudley]

Doesn't describe what software they're using, though.

It's "Elite II - Frontier". :-)

VPL vs TPF

[astrobabe]

Ahh gee read the article- VPL is for the theory end- it's where scientists can model planet formation for both our solar system and others. Part of the purpose of VPL is to be able to model the formation of our own solar system so we can greater understand other solar systems and solar systems with brown dwarfs. TPF- Terrestrial Planet Finder is the telescope that will come after SIRTF and NGST (now know as the James Webb Space Telescope). Also, Vikki is not the "creator" of anything- she is the Principal Investigator for the NASA Astrobiology Institute and she is also on the Science Working Panel for TPF.

What software?

[falzer]

What software are they using? Why, the newly rereleased Star Control 2, of course.

VPL's home page

[Eminence]

For more data about the whole project go to Virtual Planetary Laboratory Homepage.

Re:The great question

[Klox]

Um, 54?

Re:The great question

[Hektor_Troy]

I seem to remember the phrase "6 times 9" from the scrabble scene in the radio play as well.

It's called Pure Science

[oldstrat]

This page at NASA gives the up side.
I'll put a small quote from it here;
The classical example, often cited, is the discovery of x-rays by Wilhelm Conrad Roentgen in 1895. Within a year of their discovery, x-rays were being put to practical use in medicine, and in time became of enormous value in medicine, industry, and scientific research. Roentgen's discovery resulted from experimenting with electron beams in evacuated tubes. Had he been directly seeking something of value for the medical profession, he would most likely have put away his electron beams and taken up some more "practical" line of investigation, and the discovery of x-rays would have been postponed.

If you demand a guarentee of payoff for scientific investigation, virtually all research would stop. There just isn't anything that's a sure thing.

Planetary modelling just might allow us to have some idea of how fast we are burning this biosphere out, or get a solid handle on weather patterns, floods, and droughts.
Or who knows it might lead to self tieing shoe laces.

Check out his book The Pinball Effect for history on how unrelated inventions created almost everything we associate with modern civilization.