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Earthlike Planet Orbiting Nearby Star
The Bad Astronomer writes "Astronomers in Europe have announced the discovery of a planet with only 5 times the Earth's mass, orbiting a red dwarf star 20 light years away. It orbits the star so closely that it only takes 13 days to go around... but the star is so cool that the temperature of the planet is between 0 and 40 Celsius. At this temperature there could be liquid water. Models indicate the planet is either rocky like the Earth or covered in an ocean. While it's not known if there actually is liquid water on the planet, this is a really big discovery, and indicates that we are getting ever closer to finding another Earth orbiting an alien star."
This is a really big discovery...
And that, my friends, is the understatement of the millennium.
But then our probe's signal transmitter would also be 20 light years away =(
Demented But Determined.
1)It has 2.25G's,
2)It's probably tidal-locked which means quakes so living underground is not easy
3)The surface is probably soaked with radiation where it faces the sun and cold where it does not.
4)If there is any atmosphere it is probably turbulent due to hot and cold sides.
Even if I could travel a light-year a minute for a buck, I'd never consider trying to live there. Next?
instantaneously by the perspective of the traveller
Unfortunately the traveller would not percieve the passage of time any more, having been transformed into raspberry jam by the accelleration forces.
Toronto-area transit rider? Rate your ride.
Indeed quite unlike our windless, quake-free, constant-temperature planet.
Models indicate the planet is either rocky like the Earth or covered in an ocean.
Last time I checked, the Earth's surface is 75% covered by water.
I, for one, am beginning to sense the need for a revolt against the "grass is greener" bandwagon seeking to promote colonization of another planet in lieu of taking proper care of the planet that has always been here for us, Earth. Join me in this revolt by tagging stories inciting the thought of fleeing Earth like some kind of foreclosed duplex -- trashed and slashed -- for the chance at taking over a pristine ecosystem with the tag "theresnoplacelikehome".
Thank you for your support.
-- @rjamestaylor on Ello
Why? What does proof of alien life accomplish?
I think a true atheist wouldn't capitalize "Atheist." Makes it seem like a religion by a different name.
Comment of the year
It may not make sense, but if you can travel at light speed (and survive it), or close enough to it, then "instantaneous" travel from your own perspective is close enough to being true. The guy running the blog at the following link worked out that, at constant-g acceleration, you can get there in 3.65 years your time. Of course, you're going basically the speed of light, so you'll miss it if you blink. Plugging in half the distance into his formula and multiplying the result by 2 gives you the ship-time it takes if you accelerated there for half the journey and the decelerated for the other half. Comes out to 6.04 years. Give or take a bit (we were really only given one significant digit -- 20 light years away). Okay, now use his equation with a = c. You'll come out with...a very small number. http://www.sunclipse.org/?p=54
"allow a maximum speed of 0.6 X the speed of light"
... something tells me you're not really a fan of the theory of relativity are you?
and I use a french press, what's your point?
(mine tastes better than yours too)
whois gawk date unzip strip find touch finger mount join nice man top fsck grep eject more yes exit umount sleep dump
As much as I love the idea, sorry to poop the party but we're forgetting the white elephant in the room: 3D interstellar billiards.
Course correction on the way will be next to impossible, so we'd have to know the exact position of the planet, to the second, of the probe's arrival to the gravitational influence of the planet. Here we are, messing up martian probes with six months' travel time because of measurement glitches, and now this? We'll have to wait much longer for a manned mission.
Lil' Thindime, lilting a lacrimose lament, krashes the kwaint konfines of Kokonino Kounty
Errrr, we have liquid water on earth at this temperature. More importantly, what is the air (if any) pressure. That will affect whether you have liquid water at 40C or not.
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
Hardly. Atheism is as much a religion as not collecting stamps is a hobby.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
You'll get better coffee, and they won't try to give you the vocabulary of a corporate whore.
Would it be worth pointing a radio telescope at this thing?
Bollocks. There are plenty of people (most of them Americans) who are 100% overweight, yet they manage to stumble about quite effectively. 2.25G is in NO WAY a showstopper for human exploration. 20 lightyears is a much tougher challenge.
Atheism is certainly not a religion, but I think that's just because it's not organised - it *is* a spiritual conviction (and I'm saying that as an atheist). A conviction based on considerations of plausibility, Occam's razor and so on, of course; a conviction that makes sense and doesn't just assert the existence of big bogeymen in the sky, flying spaghetti monsters and invisible pink unicorns secretly controlling the world; and a conviction that (some? many? most?) people would probably be willing to abandon if presented with strong actual evidence[1] that it is not, indeed correct, but a spiritual conviction nonetheless.
;)
1. Given the claims typically made by religion, such evidence would have to be VERY strong indeed, and withstand a whole lot of attempts to deconstruct it over a very long period of time, but I think most atheists base their conviction on reason rather than irrational beliefs (like most "religious" people seem to do), and therefore, I think that most atheists would be able to willing to reconsider their conviction if provided with compelling, strong, well-tested evidence. But on the other hand, since I *am* an atheist, I think that all this is just a theoretical question, anyway.
butter the donkey
"they will probably live a lot shorter."
And not as old, either!
Yes! I agree wholeheartedly. I have been arguing this for years now, we should have had thousands of one-way manned probes launched by now, the data coming in would be amazing. The problem with our space programs is that the cost is prohibitive because people expect to return. We number in the billions, the sacrifice of a few thousand for space exploration is a pittance, the returns would be immense. We probably lose more people to car accidents every year than we'd ever consume in a one-way space program. However the value placed on the individual in western society is paramount, and has been crippling the progress of humanity for quite some time now. I would volunteer in a flash, I can't imagine a greater contribution to humanity, even if all I found at my destination was a cold lifeless rock.