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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."
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.
That's like saying "I'm dating this girl who's like Jessica Alba. She's latina, has dark hair, and is only five times Jessica Alba's size! So you see, she is plainly like Jessica Alba!".
But it's still a living, breathing girl. By the same token, other discovered extrasolar planets would like trying to have a meaningful relationship with a bulk freighter.
Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
We don't propose abandoning Earth like a "foreclosed duplex"--and we certainly don't advocate letting things go to hell here while we look for a new place to trash. The idea is survival--colonizing other planets helps ensure survival of the species.
We could go completely green and make Earth a complete paradise--and then some rock could come along and kill all of us.
And, chances are, the knowledge we would gain just from trying to build a "slowboat" colony ship (one that does not travel at an appreciable fraction of c) would be of immense value in helping preserve Earth's environment. Such a ship would be an entire self-contained, self-sufficient ecosystem, having to last hundreds, if not thousands, of years with no resupply and no dependable external power source. Creating such a system would lead to incredibly-efficient systems, and the lessons could be transferred to everyday engineering projects and other systems. Think water reclamation, ultra-efficient farming and food production techniques (solves hunger problems too!), clean, efficient sources of energy...
The meek may inherit the earth, but the strong shall take the stars.
I would be willing to bet that humans could live in 2.5 G. The human body is incredibly resilient, especially when it has grown up in a new environment. There are people living everywhere from sea level to several miles up, and in environments ranging from yearly average temperatures of over 30C to under 0C.
This does raise an interesting point, however. A great deal of money and research time has been spent studying how human and animal physiology react to low- or micro-gravity, but I am not aware of any long-term studies of higher G's, such as raising monkeys in a giant centrifuge or somesuch. Sure, this would take a lot of money, but hopefully less than for sending things to space, and it is vital knowledge for space exploration (long-term acceleration or living on these planets are the two key reasons).
The discovery of this planet provides some hope for those of us who hope the human race will escape Earth before we destroy it, or those who hope for Earth-similar life. And we can only expect the discovery of these planets to accelerate in the future, as out technology makes it easier to find them.
Although the moon is smaller than the earth, it is farther away.
Hardly. Atheism is as much a religion as not collecting stamps is a hobby.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.