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Multiple Asteroid Belts Found Orbiting Nearby Star
Kligat writes "Scientists have found two asteroid belts around the star Epsilon Eridani, the ninth closest star to our solar system. Epsilon Eridani also possesses an icy outer ring similar in composition to our Kuiper Belt, but with 100 times more material, and a Jovian mass planet near the edge of the innermost belt. Researchers believe that two other planets must orbit the 850 million year old star near the other two belts. Terrestrial planets are possible, but not yet indicated."
epsilon eridani only 850 million years old? there is no way a race as ancient and wise as the vulcan could have come from such a young star system
look, i am an avid supporter of scientific progress as much as the next slashdotter, but when these so-called astronomers report something that contradicts well-established star trek canon, i have to put my foot down and wonder at the agenda of these propagandizers
yours,
star trek fundamentalist
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
For those of you who dont want to RTFA but want some reference on why this is important, let me put a quote for you:
"Studying Epsilon Eridani is like having a time machine to look at our solar system when it was young,"
Poor Zathras. Never any rest for Zathras.
How can I believe you when you tell me what I don't want to hear?
This one actually gives some information on how they detected the belts (short version: it's based on infrared emissions that could only come from rocky debris).
And here is the actual paper on arXiv, if you want the full technical details of their methods.
From TFA:
Two rings of rocks, and one of ice.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
I bet they can't even accurately predict what the odds are of successfully navigating through this asteroid belt.
Easy. Just stay out of plane.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
While talking about Sci-Fi, it might be worth noting that this system is the home of Babylon 5. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epsilon_III
Huh?
In a hundred or so years when we have the technology to get there. Might even be the ideal place for a colony someday.
Look, I agree that it's a nice place to go visit, but if you looked into things, you would find that it is 10.5 Light Years Away from earth it would take close to an eternity to get there with current rocket technology and certainly what is being developed. And not to rain on the parade again, but before anyone goes touting ION ENGINES will get us there, no, they really won't. You see Ion Engines need large amounts of power to run. Really large amounts that are generally limited to the amount of juice that can be generated by huge solar panels. Short of putting a nuclear reactor on this ship to get us there, we simply won't have enough sunlight to make the engine run once is starts to fade away from the centerish part of our solar system.
In short, I would love to agree, but I really think that you would need to change the "hundred or so" part of your post to be "many hundreds or so".
That's assuming we can deal with the massive solar winds that are 30 times as powerful as the ones in our system. Did I forget that part?
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