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Where Would Earth-Like Planets Find Water?
astroengine writes "The term 'Earth-like worlds' is a vastly overused and hopelessly incorrect term that is popularly bandied about to explain some recent exoplanet discoveries. Although some of the distant small worlds being discovered by the Kepler space telescope may be of Earth-like size, orbiting their sun-like star in Earth-like orbits, calling those worlds 'Earth-like' gives the impression these alien planets are filled with liquid water. It turns out that we have only a vague idea as to where Earth got its water, and it will take a long time until we have any hint of this life-giving resource on worlds orbiting stars thousands of light-years away."
The whole nonsense of even using the term "earth-like" is a joke, born of the press and PR-minded astronomers. Calling a planet "earth-like" implies way more than correlation with earth's size and it's orbit around the sun. There are so many characteristics which may well make the earth a very unique planet. It's not just the presence of water, either--it's also our magnetic field, the presence and effects of our moon, the nature of our core, etc. It could very well be that true earth-like planets are VERY rare in the universe. Though the shear size of the universe suggests it's likely there are other planets out there like ours and other life out there, it's probably a LONG way to our nearest earth-like neighbor--and likely a much longer way than even that to the nearest planet with similar intelligent life living coincidental with us.
Much as I hate to say it, having grown up on space dreams and science fiction, the more I learn about space the more I've become convinced that, for all intents and purposes, we're basically alone on this little blue ball. When I used to dream otherwise, I really had no real appreciation of just how vast and empty space really is, for one thing. I think the popular perception is that the next solar system begins close to the edge of our own (I certainly thought so when I was a kid watching sci-fi movies). In reality, every solar system is a tiny isolated island in a giant lonely ocean. A space probe that takes 9 years to go from earth to Pluto would take over 100,000 years to get to even our closest neighbor, a mere 4.2 light years away. And that's in a universe that's 15 *billion* light years across. It's a big place, with an unimaginable number of other planets. But mostly it's just a giant, empty void.
So there are probably indeed other earth-like planets out there. But barring some incredible technological advances (probably thousands of years worth) and a complete overthrow of Einsteinian physics, no human is ever going to see them or even be able to communicate with them.
This is usually the part where I make a joke, but somehow I just feel lonely and sad now.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
This is usually the part where I make a joke, but somehow I just feel lonely and sad now.
Maybe this will do - one of my old sigs:
"Space - it's really big. I mean, really, really, really big. Better pack a lunch."
It's easier to be a result of the past, but more fun to be a cause of the future! http://www.spacefinancegroup.com/
Not to mention, we don't have thousands of years...
You sir, just made me think about things, and now I am lonely.
That was my response as well. Whereever Oxygen and Hydrogen exist, the problem is NOT creating water. In fact, it's very likely that the largest source of water outside of the Earth in our Solar System is orbiting Saturn.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
And I thought that the stock market this year was depressing enough.
If it's filled with water, then it's definitely not Earthlike, if the OP is going to be a pedantic killjoy, then at least get the facts right.
journalism is intended for easy digestion. criticizing journalism for not getting science accurate is actually a sign you don't understand what the purpose of journalism is
the constant harping on slashdot against journalism for not getting every technical detail accurate and in context is, frankly, stupid. on YOUR part. unless journalism is lying, or saying things completely misleading and way off base, not being entirely accurate is 100% fine. the purpose is COMMUNICATION, not RESEARCH PAPER ACCURACY
look at it this way: how would you describe this issue to a curious seven year old? would the words "earth-like" be acceptable? yes? then this is a completely ridiculous topic, drop it
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
"The term 'Earth-like worlds' is a vastly overused and hopelessly incorrect term"
"Earth-like worlds" is not an incorrect term. Misused perhaps, but not incorrect.
... but somehow I just feel lonely and sad now.
/.
Welcome to
How about a basic classification scheme for planets?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Class_M_planet
Except do it better. World size, composition, orbit, etc.
Then, instead of reporting about another "Earth-like" planet they could report on a class blah-blah-blah-blah planet that MAY be "Earth-like".
Duh....
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
Forgive my ignorance, but why do we always seem to presume alien life has to be hydrocarbon bases like ourselves? Couldn't their metabolism be based on some other chemical process?
Well I don't think it is as much earth is unique, as all planets are unique. Saturn is nothing like mars, which is nothing like neptune. I do also have to point out the quanity of planets we can observe, is pretty darn negligable by comparison to how many we estimate there are. Estimated planets in the milkyway, probably billions, number of galaxies that could also have billions of planets, also billions. Number of planets/dwarf planets close enough that we could possibly land a probe on in our lifetime 9. Number of planets other then earth that we have landed a man on, 0. There could be 50 or less equally common types of planets, of which water holding life supporting are just as common as the other 49 types, and we wouldn't know because we can only really make any significant observations on .00000001% of them.
The whole nonsense of even using the term "earth-like" is a joke, born of the press and PR-minded astronomers. Calling a planet "earth-like" implies way more than correlation with earth's size and it's orbit around the sun. There are so many characteristics which may well make the earth a very unique planet. It's not just the presence of water, either--it's also our magnetic field, the presence and effects of our moon, the nature of our core, etc. It could very well be that true earth-like planets are VERY rare in the universe.
Or it could be that we're _not_ so lucky, that these are fairly common, or turn out to be much less essential than we thought. Since we can't measure those remotely (yet), we have no way to stake a solid claim either way.
So what's wrong with "Earth-like" when referring to planets of which every parameter we _can_ remotely measure at present (thus all the ones we _know_ are scarce) match? Only illiterate fools would choose to infer similarities that we couldn't possibly know from that, and frankly they'll misunderstand no matter what terminology you use.
That was my response as well. Whereever Oxygen and Hydrogen exist, the problem is NOT creating water. In fact, it's very likely that the largest source of water outside of the Earth in our Solar System is orbiting Saturn.
You may be right about the source being other moons. Comets are another potential source, Louis Frank published his theory in The Big Splash, but it never seemed to gain a lot of traction, even though the guys has a lot of credentials. It was generally disregarded, like so many other novel theories.
In the book he postulates that thousands of small fluffy snow-ball comets with no hard central core and which which don't really show up in radar or visually, deposit tons of water on the earth's atmosphere and the moon every year. He even had images in his book about impacts on the moon.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
Probably in the Earth-like planets oceans.
You're right. We should all just give up and kill ourselves now.
Just because some PR guy somewhere used a word in a way that doesn't please you doesn't mean it's all for naught and we should just stop trying.
Kepler is doing great science, extending our knowledge of the universe, and if it's being presented in a way that doesn't please you GO THE FUCK AWAY!
The sad part is that is not a joke. Is a story we think we are into each time we see at the stars: somewhat, something is out there, very interested in us, and if we advance enough, we could be like them and be interested in someone else that should be within our reach, in our time or not very far enough.
The magnitude of distances, time and cost that even thinking in getting near the closest star outside this solar system implies is simply outside our reach, and will be for long time if ever, unless our current understanding on how the universe work is fundamentally wrong and there are somewhat a shortcut we could take in practice.
But that don't means that we should forget space and try to live exclusively here. Space is there, maybe interstellar space won't have enough resources/energy to worth go into it, but the inner solar system, where you have plenty of energy and resources not so far (mainly asteroids, but also moons and planets) could worth exploring, colonization or at least put around a "Kilroy was here". We won't find in the near term anything as good for us as is Earth, but probably will worth the investment.
Finally, some common sense on this. Not only is there the question of water, but also whether a planet has a magnetic field which protects atmospheric loss to it's sun's solar wind. Yes, the term "Earth like" is overused.
Another overused term is "God particle".
Proverbs 21:19
Let me cheer you up with a quote from the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy...
POPULATION OF UNIVERSE : None.
It is known that there are an infinite number of worlds, simply because there is an infinite amount of space for them to be in it. However, not every one of them is inhabited. Therefore, there must be a finite number of inhabited worlds. Any finite number divided by infinity is as near to nothing as makes no odds, so the average population of all the planets in the Universe can be said to be zero. From this it follows that the population of the whole Universe is also zero, and that any people you may meet from time to time are merely the products of a deranged imagination.
Having the math/algorithms to locate planets within a "habitable" zone gives us the ability to locate planets which could support life. Nobody could predict in 1911 the level of technological progress we see today in 2011, so it may be the case that in 2111 we may very well have the technology to embark on a mission to another planet. Thinking more conservatively, the discovery of earth-like planets may encourage policymakers to increase funding in space programs (i.e., NASA and private firms). As we have read before, there can be significant payoffs from this type of investment.
my mom posts on slashdot.
not Earth
It could also be that life, as we know it, is not the only way that life can exist. Maybe the factors we find so key (liquid water, planetary e&m field, etc) are more like the specifics of our own existence than the specifics of all existence.
Yes, "earth-like" is a misnomer and short sighted. But, believing we know the true nature of life across the universe is a whole other category of short sighted.
PS: I don't reply to ACs.
we'll find it by surprise, in some ferrous sulfate or ammonia based medium, or whatever:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypothetical_types_of_biochemistry
in terms of random chance, water is the most accessible medium for complex chemistry, and therefore life to evolve in, by orders of magnitude. however, it's not the only medium that can work, so there's plenty other little nooks and crannies to look into
basically, some chemists and physicists should get together, and say: for pressure X and temperature Y, solvent in which complex chemistry can evolve Z is possible. then look for those places, not just water
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
So there are probably indeed other earth-like planets out there. But barring some incredible technological advances (probably thousands of years worth) and a complete overthrow of Einsteinian physics, no human is ever going to see them or even be able to communicate with them.
This is usually the part where I make a joke, but somehow I just feel lonely and sad now.
I only see 3 problems with space travel to far stars: 1) fuel, since there's no free propulsion, 2) maintenance of the craft for the duration and 3) keeping the animals inside alive.
It's obvious that it's a one way trip as long as FTL isn't feasible, since once you come back, the world will have changed quite a bit. It's a sacrifice as long as there is no proof that there's anything out there ofcourse. We have 3 billion years to the next major astronomic catastrophe, would you like to be around to watch?http://science.slashdot.org/story/11/12/30/1817234/where-would-earth-like-planets-find-water#
One thing that always gets me about these announcements is the intentional hand-wave regarding the ability of life to spring up in environments that are different than ours. We aren't the only game in town, statistically speaking, and "life" is such an amazingly broad term that simple definitions of it include simple self-replicating systems.
Personally, I don't think we're the only life in the Universe. There is such a wide variety of chemicals that have come together in some very interesting ways here on Earth that it stands to reason that it has probably happened elsewhere.
Would we recognize it though? Probably not.
just doesn't sell the papers so well.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
Spreading ourselves around the solar system might be a good idea insofar as it will reduce the probability that we kill ourselves. However, the resources that would be required just to set up a permanent colony on the moon are enormous, and there are a lot of other pressing needs competing for those resources. Frankly, I would not be surprised if the manner in which those resources are obtained triggered the sort of species-destroying war that setting up the colony was meant to mitigate.
For the near future, this planet is it, barring substantial improvements in technology. If we need to choose between a billion dollars spent establishing a colony on a celestial body or spent on developing sustaining methods of producing food in impoverished nations, the production of food must take precedence.
Palm trees and 8
I remember the old joke about aliens visiting earth, only to send a report back to their home planet that said "No intelligent life found here."
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
So, the limiting process would be how much oxygen there is out there, how often it co-exists with hydrogen, and how often there's 'a spark'?
PS: I don't reply to ACs.
Perhaps.
But if you look at a few of our "special" traits, they may not be that special after all.
Our interesting core gives us plate tectonics and a magnetic field. It is made of iron which is likely to be extremely common in most systems for planet building. It's also not the only way of having a tectonically active world, take Io for example. My personal guess is that there may be many different ways of keeping a planets' surface both active and protected. Orbiting around a gas giant being one (absent Jupiters radiation).
Our moon. Maybe instead of having one large moon, its more common to have several smaller moons which provide a more varied and smaller effect but serve the purpose of creating changeable conditions of a daily or weekly basis. There is nothing written that life must have one big moon in order to reach our stage of evolution.
An analogy I imagine when thinking about how lucky or normal earth may be is that of millionaires. For arguments sake we take that having great wealth is a sign of success that few achieve and we see the earth as a millionaire. If you and asked a million millionaires how they came by their riches you would likely get a million different stories. There would be some common themes like inheritance or lottery winnings but you would have many varied stories also, and not one of them would be a consistent method of how make a million bucks. I think that is what we will find, for every life abundant world out there, there will be a different set of events and circumstances that create it. No doubt liquid water will be common, as will changeable but calm conditions, but to think that the circumstances that created our globe must be exactly repeated to have another life ball is myopic.
So cheer up! We don't know enough and finding out is going to be exciting!
I think the trouble with finding truly alien life wouldn't just be the distances involved, communication, etc. I think it might prove difficult for two radically different alien lifeforms to even PERCEIVE one another. Sort of a "Sir, it turns out that those things we thought were rocks were actually intelligent lifeforms that just move REALLY slow" kind of thing.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Planets get thirsty?
Water is 'out there'....a lot of it. It may not be concentrated where we would like to see it, but it's out there.
Down With Slashdot BETA!!! I've been around the corner and seen the oliphant; you can only abuse me from your perspecti
They found life, just not the kind they were expecting.... http://www.terrybisson.com/page6/page6.html
-
If we need to choose between a billion dollars spent establishing a colony on a celestial body or spent on developing sustaining methods of producing food in impoverished nations, the production of food must take precedence.
I fail to see why the food needs of impoverished nations is more significant an issue for wealthy nations than the establishment of a permanent colony on another celestial body. The long-term viability of our species is far better served by expanding than trying to feed every child in the Sudan.
There is such a term like Earth analog which is the synonym for Earth-like planet (I found it in Wikipedia and the first poster should try using it), there are no good specifications inside that specific article, although the round talk under "Attributes and Criteria" is quite similar to the above posters.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth_analog#Surface-water_and_hydrological_cycle
How about somebody define it then?
There is something a little bit more specific in:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth_Similarity_Index
- At least you can say for sure that KOI 736.01 has Earth Similarity Index (ESI) of 0.98 and Standard Primary Habitability (SPH) of 0.63.
All I would like to say is that while we do not know if these world have water looking at our own solar system there is probably a good chance these world at least had water on their surface at on point in time. We know from erosion patterns that Mars had water on its surface because there are erosion patterns of rivers and lakes/seas on the surface. We also have evidence that Venus in the past had liquid water on its surface before it became a blistering inferno. This is three planets in our own solar system that used to have water on there surface (with Earth and occasionally Mars) having liquid water on their surface. In addition, we rarely hear about the fact that each of these worlds (including Venus) have liquid water under the surface in the soil and rock. A majority of Earths bio-mass is actually contained in the soil and rock as bacteria, insects, roots, etc. We also have a number of moons in our solar system that we know contain liquid water under their icy exterior, we don't know how deep this liquid water is but we have a good idea that it is pretty much an ocean. We also have a moon in our solar system which has ice mountains that allow rivers and lakes of liquid methan. Who knows this world might allow for lifeforms that use liquid methan instead of water. In fact, because it has an icy exterior it may as well have an interior water ocean that allows for life like on planet earth. We have an abundance of water in our solar system liquid and ice, while we do not know how it got on the surface of Earth or other planets it did. And since it has happened multiple times in our own solar system wouldn't it be a safe bet that it probably happened elsewhere in the galaxy. Yes these planets in question may not have liquid water oceans and rivers like Earth does but it is a pretty safe bet that there is or has been liquid water on the surface of these planets.
Christmas and contemplating the scale of the universe always gets me down.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
[quote]And that's in a universe that's 15 *billion* light years across. It's a big place, with an unimaginable number of other planets. But mostly it's just a giant, empty void.[/quote]
Yakko: Everybody lives on a street in a city
Or a village or a town for what it's worth.
And they're all inside a country which is part of a continent
That sits upon a planet known as Earth.
And the Earth is a ball full of oceans and some mountains
Which is out there spinning silently in space.
And living on that Earth are the plants and the animals
And also the entire human race.
It's a great big universe
And we're all really puny
We're just tiny little specks
About the size of Mickey Rooney.
It's big and black and inky
And we are small and dinky
It's a big universe and we're not.
And we're part of a vast interplanetary system
Stretching seven hundred billion miles long.
With nine planets and a sun; we think the Earth's the only one
That has life on it, although we could be wrong.
Across the interstellar voids are a billion asteroids
Including meteors and Halley's Comet too.
And there's over fifty moons floating out there like balloons
In a panoramic trillion-mile view.
And still it's all a speck amid a hundred billion stars
In a galaxy we call the Milky Way.
It's sixty thousand trillion miles from one end to the other
And still that's just a fraction of the way.
'Cause there's a hundred billion galaxies that stretch across the sky
Filled with constellations, planets, moons and stars.
And still the universe extends to a place that never ends
Which is maybe just inside a little jar!
YW+D : It's a great big universe
And we're all really puny
We're just tiny little specks
About the size of Mickey Rooney.
You might think that you're essential
Try inconsequential
It's a small world after all!
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
It is known that there are an infinite number of integers, simply because there is no maximum integer. However, not every one if them is even. Therefore, there must be a finite number of even integers.
We hit a major flaw with the logic on the very first inference. Of course comic science fiction isn't supposed to be a math textbook.
Don't let anyone tell you otherwise.
You'd need to pack a fully self sustainable colony. Lunch would barely get you to orbit.
Doesn't matter. By the time we reach any planets in other solar systems we won't need water to survive. We'll have transferred our brains to computers and will use whatever android bodies are suitable for the terrain.
I know, sounds fanciful, but it's more realistic than to think that we'll be sending human beings to other solar systems. The amount of oxygen, water, food, and other resources required - even if we invent some kind of suspended animation - makes it laughably unlikely.
Where Would Earth-Like Planets Find Water?
Uh, how about in the ocean..?? Or in the creeks, streams and rivers?
Or maybe they could just-- you know-- turn on the tap and out it comes.
You did specify "Earth-like"....
I pretty much have the same story as you. Early believer, but then I came to realize the the dimensions of space and how slow our spacecrafts are. On top of that, it seems unlikely that, due to time dilation, any travel by current and near future physics will be moot. I am saying even if you can travel at 10% light speed or a hundred thousand times that, when you come back, everyone you knew will be dead and your research could be completely worthless. Sad but true.
Can I light a sig ?
Being anonymous will do that also...
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
And a Merry Christmas to you, Mr. Scrooge!
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Get Space Engine.
Not only will make you feel the vast emptiness and desolation. It will show it to you, in all its 3D glory. I've talked to other people who also find it "scary".
It's as close to the Infinite Perspective Vortex as we're gonna get.
I was thinking more about the rings. More surface area than any moon, even if they are just centimeters thick.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
Wouldn't even need much of a spark. Water WANTS to be water.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
If the planet is earth-like at all, it has, or at least had at one point, some amount of wate on it, by any remotely sane definition of "earth like".
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
"It turns out that we have only a vague idea as to where Earth got its water, and it will take a long time until we have any hint of this life-giving resource on worlds orbiting stars thousands of light-years away."
I have no idea of water specifically but I thought all/most mater after hydrogen and helium was made by stars.
But regardless of where it comes from it is a very common material in space so there is little reason not to assume that a planet that has the right conditions for liquid water would not have it.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
Ha Ha Ha.
Thanks, I'll be here all week.
Try the Veal, it's great.
Huh?
Papers like to make us dream about these "earth-like" planet - very distant from us.
Honestly, considering the distance, time to travel, time to communicate and get feedback... Wouldn't it be faster/more feasible/realistic to make our Moon an habitable moon?
I mean, without waiting for 10^x generations of us...
Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
Christmas and contemplating the scale of the universe always gets me down.
Didn't get that scale model of the Enterprise again?
Maybe next year.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
I agree, the term is too vague. I prefer the more clearly-defined "class M planet."
you can turn up the stereo without repercussion.
bjd
The OP mentions only a vague idea of where we got water. This is incorrect and miscomprehends the linked article. The article is ridiculous with how it tries to make controversy where there should be none. Earth-like is a reasonable term. It only speaks to the parameters that we can observe. The offense of artistic depictions is an act by the very publication complaining of it.
The source of water is not vague. There are many specific candidates for water sources and it is likely there was more than one source. There is water lurking in many parts of our solar system. This doesn't make water on other systems a rash assumption. It makes water on other systems plausible.
. . . caused by global warming . . .
. . . just like where our water comes from . . .
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
true, we've already found large amounts of exo-solar system water in nebula, dust around young stars, spectra of cool stars. not a rare compound at all in this universe.
Actually, no, that's about it. The problem is people are screwing that up.
Yeah, wrong. And communication is trivial for anything close enough for imaging.
The word "Like" is relative. Relative to the past frame of reference. The second time you see a gorilla, you think it looks like the first gorilla. I suspect I would be hard-pressed to tell a male gorilla from a female on casual observation. Jane Goodall, however, probably sees as much visual distinction between individual gorillas as you see between humans.
Same with exoplanets. The first ones we detected were supergiants in close orbits around relatively small stars. Compared to those, Mars is Earth-like. Now we've found enough that "Earth-like" is evolving to mean something more specific. Vague terms in novel and rapidly advancing fields have evolving meanings. That is the nature of language.
As others have said, exoplanet taxonomy is a fine new field to plumb, but that doesn't mean Earth-like is bad -- it's just vague and unscientific. A rough measure that only has meaning in context. Conversational shorthand, useful in casual discourse.
A quick look around finds that there are people working on formal taxonomy.
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
Don't feel bad. It just means we're responsible for becoming the extraterrestrials. We need to seed the universe with humanity (and as many other intelligent species as we can can help get liberated from this little mud ball.) There are countless fascinating environments in this solar system alone. Wealth and resources to beggar the imagination. With a commitment to space faring, we could have sustainable habitats all over the solar system in this century.
With the building materials available in the Asteroid Belt, Kuiper Belt and Oort Cloud, we could scatter sentience across the stars. We might master faster than light travel. We might not. We would certainly be able to ensure that whatever cataclysms that befell earth in the near or distant future, sentient life would continue to exist, and the earth's greatest gift to the universe would persist.
Maybe, one day, millions of years from now, when we fill the Orion arm of the Milky Way galaxy, and have found ways to utilize any kind of matter we come across to sustain ourselves, we will bump into another sentient life form. However, there will be no time when we are alone, because we will have each other.
No, the laws of physics and chemistry should be the same all across the universe. If they aren't, what are we observing? So assuming that this is correct, life is probably everywhere, subject to the same limitiations we have. We can't get there, and they can't get here.
"The whole nonsense of even using the term "earth-like" is a joke, born of the press and PR-minded astronomers"
Drastic over-simplification and glossing over very complex subjects is the central tenet of Space Nuttery.
"When I used to dream otherwise, I really had no real appreciation of just how vast and empty space really is,"
Congratulations, you grew up. Not many Space Nutters do.
"This is usually the part where I make a joke, but somehow I just feel lonely and sad now."
There are 7 billion people here with you. The fact that you think you are lonely just shows that most Space Nutters are either seriously mentally ill, autistic, or both. You won't even live long enough to meet all the people on Earth. How can you be lonely?
Only a vague idea of where Earth got its water? We got it from comets. Water's a fairly common molecule throughout the universe.
When I said "see them" I didn't mean through a telescope, I meant "see them in person" as in "go there." Also, if you believe Einstein, and you realize that the nearest planets with coincidental intelligent life using radio waves could be hundreds of thousands of light years away (if not millions), how exactly do you propose communication? About the only message you could send would be "By the time you get this message, our species will probably be long gone."
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
For the near future, this planet is it, barring substantial improvements in technology. If we need to choose between a billion dollars spent establishing a colony on a celestial body or spent on developing sustaining methods of producing food in impoverished nations, the production of food must take precedence.
The thing is, we don't get to choose between a billion dollars spent here and a billion there. IMHO before we can even argue about where money gets spent, we, as a country (I'm referring to the US, you said dollars :P), need to get our priorities straight. As a country we have access to an absolutely HUGE amount of money; we just need to take it. With the proper government in place, we could advance our quality of life AND our [space] technology without even having to choose one over the other. It would, unfortunately, require a massive cultural change to a more scientific and activism oriented society.
And of course, this is obligatory: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_budget_of_the_United_States
But seriously, when are we going to do something about it?
It is known that there are an infinite number of worlds, simply because there is an infinite amount of space for them to be in it.
Is there an infinite amount of space in our spacetime?
Hey... Bomb...?
I am saying even if you can travel at 10% light speed or a hundred thousand times that,
A hunrded thousand times 10% is 10,000. If we could travel 10,000 times the speed of light, we could cross about 4-5% of the galaxy in one year.
It's a simple molecule combining the universe's most abundant element (H) with the universe's 3rd most abundant element (O). Given that the 2nd most abundant (He) doesn't form molecules, you would expect water to be the most abundant molecule in the universe after hydrogen (H2)! The stuff should be all over the place.
Unfortunately the cultural change will probably never come baring some large society changing event like war, and I don't mean "Wars" like we have now I mean total balls out World War II war probably where we get invaded. Or a Hollywood style large scale natural disaster would do, basically we need enough turmoil to uproot the status quo because the majority of Americans live relatively comfortable lives and only really get upset when that is threatened. Given that I propose that the only way to get the US government to spend the money necessary for large scale space colonization would be for some other country to try and push for the militarization of space again (I'm looking at you China) so we use our over sized defense budget for it just like during the Apollo days.
My theory, based on no actual empirical evidence, is that whatever object struck Earth to make the moon was a large comet. While I'm not sure how this could be proven, it would explain the arrival of the oceans after Earth was formed and after the moon came along. It also explains the subsurface water being found on the moon. It would also mean that "Earth-like" planets take a somewhat rarer series of events to happen.
Wrong on both accounts.
There are actually twice as many even numbers than odd ones.
Proof:
Assume any even number "n", so
n * n = [even]
n * (n-1) = [even]
n * (n-2) = [even]
Now take any odd number "m":
m * m = [odd]
m * (m-1) = [even]
m * (m-2) = [odd]
So out of any two odd/even numbers you can generate twice as many even numbers compared to odd numbers.
q.e.d.
(and yes, for the non-maths out there, it is a joke)
There are fewer illiterates than people who can't read.
Hydrogen makes up roughly 75% of the Milky Way, by mass, apparently. Oxygen is a little rarer, about 1% of the Milky Way, but it's the third-most common element. When you put the two of them together, they form water pretty readily.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
That assumes the priority of the wealthy nations is the long-term viability of our species. Considering the number of policies implemented that jeopardize the long term sustainability for the short term profit, I doubt that is the case.
I predict we will continue to waste that money in stupid bullshit instead of doing either.
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Please don't anthropomorphize water; it hates when you do that.
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We already know it jets out of the star which is being born from the interstellar dust disk. Question answered. Next one, please.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
Moreover, the likeliness of us ever transmitting a signal long and strong enough to have a nonzero chance to be heard is quite small.
a 1GW 1GHz signal will transmit sth like 10^-4 Photons per second and m^2 in a radius of 100ly
Its not as bad as you suggest. Although our human bodies cannot travel the speed of light, once we have a robot probe on a distant planet, it can download all the latest technology via lightspeed communication and then proceed to build human bodies from scratch on the planet where it arrives. From that point forward it gets a steady stream of new technology via interstellar communication with other probes that we sent out throughout the universe. Then, we have biological brothers on a distant planet and nobody had to travel through space.
In the end, we will use the same senses, so I'm not that worried about that particular problem. If it is advanced enough, it will have radio, lasers etc. Why wouldn't it? Because their "eyes" are on a different wavelength? I cannot receive radio either, not without my cell phone anyway.
Christmas and contemplating the scale of the universe always gets me down.
You might think it's a long way down the spiral arm to the Lesser Magellenic Cloud, but that's just peanuts to Christmas.
You are not a brain: http://books.google.com/books?id=2oV61CeDx-YC
I fail to see why the food needs of impoverished nations is more significant an issue for wealthy nations than the establishment of a permanent colony on another celestial body. The long-term viability of our species is far better served by expanding than trying to feed every child in the Sudan.
But what if one of those Sudanese kids is the one who will crack the equations for hyperspatial wave motion wormjump planoforming, huh? Huh? And you let her starve in order to build Trans-Plutonian Probe 534 and now you'll never get off this rock.
This delicious, watery, breathable, edible, sun-drenched rock full of biodiversity. Mmmm, rock.
You are not a brain: http://books.google.com/books?id=2oV61CeDx-YC
The problem isn't finding water... it's plentiful. The problem is more likely (if it has water) finding a planet with so little water as earth.
That said, the term being used in the media so much lately, 'earth like', is a pretty big stretch. It would be kind of like calling me 'Michael Jordan-like', as I'm male and taller than some. No doubt we'll eventually find (as challenging as it might seem) another planet about Earth's size, orbiting a sun similar to our own, about about the right distance. Then we'll have to start looking for the hundreds of other criteria necessary to start considering if life might be there, let alone advanced life.
If we need to choose between a billion dollars spent establishing a colony on a celestial body or spent on developing sustaining methods of producing food in impoverished nations, the production of food must take precedence.
There is no reason to assume those two goals are separate. Food production will be an issue everywhere humans go, and there is a lot of potential for multi-use of any technology developed.
Besides: All of the money will be spend here on earth. There are no plans to launch ships full of dollar bills or euro notes to be used as compost on the moon. The engineers developing moon base technology, spend their earnings buying goods and services from others, and so on down the line. No matter how much you rail against it, trickle down does work precisely because it is not government directed.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
Where does this idea that water might be rare and special come from? Our own solar system is teeming with the stuff. It's on several planets, several moons, many comets, and there's probably a bunch of it locked up in asteroids as well. It's a simple compound of the most abundant element in the universe plus an element that is certainly not rare.
The default position should be to assume that our solar system is NOT unique. Other solar systems stars like our own will contain elements and compounds in similar proportions to our own, because they will have been formed from a similar quantity of a similar mixture of gasses and interstellar junk.
We've discovered many many planets orbiting nearby stars already, enough so that we can safely assume that planets are normal. It makes sense that water should also be pretty abundant as well.
Fun with Anagarams! LADS HOST, SHALT DOS. HAS DOLTS. AD SLOTHS, HATS SOLD. ASS HO, LTD.
It is known that there are an infinite number of integers, simply because there is no maximum integer. However, not every one if them is even. Therefore, there must be a finite number of even integers.
We hit a major flaw with the logic on the very first inference. Of course comic science fiction isn't supposed to be a math textbook.
Things approach infinity at different rates. As you limit x infinity in y=x^2, y also approaches infinity. If you do the same with y=e^x, y also approaches infinity. The difference is though, that e^x approaches infinity considerably faster than x^2.
Infinity == Infinity
infinity !=infinity
infinity > infinity
infinity -100000000 > infinity.
infinity infinity
"To prevent this day from getting any worse, I'll just read ERROR as GOOD THING" 1GJU8xLuDKDxEs4KLf8fAGyptoDsqvEsBT
"It turns out that we have only a vague idea as to where Earth got its water"
Read your bible! It's God's piss.
Luckily it looks as though the overturning of Einsteinian physics bit may be on the way. Maybe it'll only be tens, not thousands of years? I bet after the Singularity it'll all get figured out pretty fast ;-)
Perhaps:
“Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space.”
--- Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
. . .contemplating the scale of the universe always gets me down.
It's interesting that people feel that way. Personally I find it comforting to realize that the universe is so much larger than I am that I couldn't possibly be an important part of it. A study of the cosmos actually helps me focus on life in the here-and-now, to respect and enjoy the progress made by those who came before me, and to value the company of the humans around me, on the grounds that these things are all I'll ever get to experience.
IMO, astronomy and cosmology are worthwhile pursuits, not because of what they tell us about the stars, but because of what they tell us about ourselves. Through these sciences we've come to understand that the Universe sees us the way we see atoms in the antennae of ants, if the Universe contemplates us at all.
It seems important for humans to get past the idea that we serve a mystical universal entity with specific plans for us as individuals. Put simply, in the post-nuclear age, humility is a survival tool. Letting go of one's sense of cosmic self-importance should be a liberating sensation, not a depressing one.
Would it not be more feasible to genetically engineer ourselves and other organisms to other planets' environments than to go traipsing around the universe with the faint hope that we find one that is just like ours?
How about what has already been found out there:
Most Distant Water in the Universe Found
and
Evidence of Water in Atmospheres of Planets Orbiting Distant Stars
And I hear we've only been doing this planet finding stuff successfully for a little while.
I think we are on two different pages here.
I presumed a 'generic-mass public' POV type question that I replied to in that same context...think PR, or KISS for the layman.
*hint::*
"Forgive my ignorance,..."
I feel you have done me a disservice by not not reading my reply in the context of the discussion.
'In general', or 'Generally' ignores the outliers while being 'good enough' for the laymen that are curious, but don't want to jump into astrophysics, and other studies. That was the spirit of my reply.
You should not have wasted mod points, and instead, brushed up on reading comprehension and context of statements.
BTW, I am well aware of current research, discoveries, and effort in this field...I started a long time ago at NASA in 1976.
You make valid, informative points...but they are unnecessary/inapplicable in the context of this discussion.
Down With Slashdot BETA!!! I've been around the corner and seen the oliphant; you can only abuse me from your perspecti
"earth-like" != twin earth. Some of the planets we've discovered are definitively more earth-like than Jupiter-like. Besides, we have very limited knowledge on what's essential to life. No magnetic field fine, could it be that life here on Earth hasn't bothered with developing radiation resistance because there's practically no radiation? If you drop a lion in the Arctic it's going to die, why hasn't it evolved cold resistance? Because it didn't need to, but a polar bear did. Maybe you can compensate for having a solar wind blowing away the atmosphere with a higher gravity, denser gases, whatever. We don't know, but since we only know about ourselves we're looking for planets as close to our own as possible.
Sure journalists exhaust it, but if you have 2 white people and 20 black people you might say those white people look "like" each other no matter how unlike they are. Then as you find more people to compare to you start looking at height, weight, face, hair, eyecolor and find people more and more alike. Sure, the ideal thing would be finding a drop-in replacement, where we could say this would be exactly like living in [Sahara - Siberia] and we're far from that. But we are closing in, even if journalists shout earth-like at every occasion to generate page hits this year's "like" is closer than last year's "like".
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
A space probe that takes 9 years to go from earth to Pluto would take over 100,000 years to get to even our closest neighbor, a mere 4.2 light years away.
Well, I see that as a relief. It means that we're safe for at least another 4.2 years from crashing into any other solar system.
If Pandora's box is destined to be opened, *I* want to be the one to open it.
You'd need to pack a fully self sustainable colony. Lunch would barely get you to orbit.
Considering the size of the only self sustainable colony we know launch would barely get you out of orbit.
I am pretty sure the real report was edited down to "Mostly harmless".
The Grey Goo disaster happened 3 billion years ago. This rock is covered in self replicating machines!
You forgot Uranus.
The Grey Goo disaster happened 3 billion years ago. This rock is covered in self replicating machines!
And the total transmitting capacity of the planet is how many thousands or millions of times that?
I tend to think of the vastness of the universe more toward what the potential of humanity could be rather than how insignificant I am at the moment. I hear comments from others about how there are too many people, that the natural resources are running out, that somehow there is a finite universe confined to the little planet that we live upon, and then realize just how mind boggling vast this universe really is to put things into perspective. We have the potential to at least partially fill this universe with life, and to know that the greatest pieces of music, the greatest architectural achievements, the most amazing scientific accomplishments, are still in the future.
We as a species are just emerging out of our infancy and beginning to see the wonders of what may be, with unfortunately some people who like looking at what we have with the telescope pointing in the wrong direction and those same folks trying to use a telescope as a microscope instead thinking that is all there ever can be.
I do agree that humility is another aspect of this, as I need to be reminded that my little role in what is happening in the grand scheme of things is not really all that important.... other than perhaps I may get an occasional opportunity to influence the lives of others in hopefully a positive way that will inspire them to stretch their potential a little bit more and become something more tomorrow than they are today.
Pretty obvious. Our water came from rain and glacier ice melt.
It depends on what you call a planet, as I would call the Earth's Moon to be more accurately described as a dwarf planet than a "moonlet" or something like Phobos or Mimas that clearly don't fit the description of a dwarf planet under any possible definition of the term. As such, if you could call the Moon as a dwarf planet, we have been able to send a crewed expedition in spacecraft to another planet. The technical capability of sending people to other planets in the Solar System (most notably Mars and Venus) really only need somebody to come up with the money or to find a cheaper way to get the task accomplished. The raw engineering needed to accomplish that task is minimal. What has kept NASA from going to Mars and establishing a permanent research base like the Amundsen-Scott base on the South Pole has mainly been the sticker shock of such an operation by the U.S. Congress, on what could arguably be said is the most expensive way to get there.
Every major planet in the Solar system has received a visit by a unmanned probe (most of them by several) and soon every dwarf planet can be added to that profile except for the newly discovered planets in the Kuiper belt along with several comets and asteroids that have have close encounters with man-made artifacts. If you want to focus on Mars, every potential opportunity to use a to get to Mars has been used for some kind of spacecraft over the past decade, and I personally think that will be a permanent condition for as long as humanity exists at this point. It may not be an American spacecraft, but somebody is going to be en route to Mars at every possible opportunity in the future.
Still, I agree with your basic premise. The universe is a vast thing and the distance to other stars is so huge compared to the scale of moving around the solar system that it seems unlikely within this century much less any near term scale that can be measured in historical terms. Perhaps within 10,000 years we might have the technology to actually send somebody to another star and the planets around it, but I wouldn't hold my breath that it would happen either. The solar system around our star will be flooded with people and civilizations before the first real attempts to travel to another star are even attempted.
The resources to set up a permanent colony on the Moon will by necessity have to be found on the Moon, or at least from places that have a much shallower gravity well (like an asteroid). To presume that much in the way of materials are going to be coming from the Earth to set up such a colony is utterly absurd.
There will never be something like the Amundsen-Scott Research base set up on the Moon made up of supplies shipped in from a distant source. Oddly enough, even the South Pole base has a greenhouse for growing vegetables and they harvest water from the surrounding environment to take care of daily needs. It could be made more self-sufficient, but for what they do it seems to be enough given what they are trying to accomplish, not to mention the desire to be minimally impacting the environment in Antarctica.
The Moon doesn't have an environment to worry about (not withstanding several environmentalists who have spoken up about potential pollution issues on the Moon from industrial activity there). Many of the raw resources we need can be found on the Moon in abundance, including water, oxygen (in much greater supply), metals of almost every kind you can image, glass, and other resources that are very useful to an advanced industrial society capable of getting to the Moon in the first place. About the only element missing in substantial amounts is Nitrogen, and that can be condensed and shipped with relative ease from the Earth or found elsewhere in the Solar System as well. It is also something that is easily recycled so it doesn't have to be a major issue in terms of setting up that colony.
BTW, I think that the money being spent on underarm deodorant is worth being spent on an ongoing basis as an insurance policy of sorts to expand the reach of humanity. That money is going to be spent on spaceflight efforts anyway, so the issue isn't if it will be spent on some cause that you think is more worthy, but rather if it will be spent making some corporate executives in Chicago or Washington DC fat and happy or if there is going to be some good being done with that kind of money instead. By shooting down a Moon base, you are simply making sure that it just gets swallowed up by government graft and corruption instead of at least some good happening.
I also don't think this is a zero-sum game either. Indeed I think efforts to set up a closed ecology on another planet (using the term very loosely suggesting that the Moon could at least be considered a dwarf planet) would go a long way to understanding what is absolutely essential for biological systems. The research from that effort alone is as likely to help "develop sustaining methods of producing food for impoverished nations" as almost anything else done on the Earth, and I would dare say would be even more productive at achieving that goal than most other efforts in that line of thought. Having to rethink what tools are needed to make tools to make tools that can reproduce themselves is also going to help out in offering those same "self-reproducing tools" for developing countries to build their own infrastructure rather than relying upon the largess of older industrial economies. If anything, I think the money spent on spaceflight (if spent wisely) could be beneficial to even the poorest of people on this planet.
The problem with the Galilean moons is that they are quite close to the host planet, thus inside what could be the equivalent of the Van Allen belts of Jupiter. That is where the deadly radiation comes from, not so much from the planet itself.
I've wondered as a "what if" some large "Earth-sized" body orbiting a gas giant might be like. There have been several gas giants found orbiting stars in their "habitable zones", so the question is no longer merely theoretical in terms of the potential to find such objects. I think you may have something there, where it may even be that such "moons" orbiting gas giants might be more common as "habitable planets" than even solitary planets orbiting a star like the Earth is. If anything, it might even be a fun SF story to speculate how the Earth keeps getting skipped over in galactic surveys because all of the gas giants in our solar system are found to be outside of the habitable zone, thus not really considered a likely candidate for a habitable planet.
Yeah, it will be exciting to see what is currently the great age of planetary discovery. More has been learned about planets over the past 50 years than the whole of history prior to that. I would dare even say that includes the Earth itself, in spite of geological studies done previously. When you have a data set of one it makes comparisons hard to make, but we now have hundreds of planets for comparison... which allows real science to be done when trying to come up with theories on how it all works.
In fact, it is probably the 2nd most common chemical compound in the universe.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
The problem isn't the existence of water before the formation of the Sun, it's why it's still here. First, the young Sun would clean the space around itself from excess material with an intense solar wind. The Giant Impact to form the moon would convert the Earth into a magma ocean, again not much helping with water retention. Over time, the solar wind and ultraviolet radiation destroyed the water in all other planets close to the Sun. In the inner solar system, all unprotected water will eventually evaporate, dissociate into hydrogen, and the hydrogen will be blown out from the solar system by solar wind. We know that Earth's magnetic field protects from solar wind, but the problem is still where did the original water come from - was it already here, or was it imported from the outer solar system? It's like we're in the middle of a desert, but we still find water where we are.
"A space probe that takes 9 years to go from earth to Pluto would take over 100,000 years to get to even our closest neighbor, a mere 4.2 light years away."
Your major point that stars are really really far away is an important one. Stross or Scalzi blogged about that a while back.
However, I'm going to nitpick your sentence quoted above,and suggest that your conclusion may be wrong as well.
Talking about a space probe that takes 9 years to go to pluto is like talking about how long a snail would take to go to hawaii. In snail terms, it's too far. But I've been to hawaii and back. Also, I think you used a linear projection. But spacecraft don't usually travel linearly. Assuming some sort of fuel or propulsive mechanism, (a problematic assumption, i know) they keep accelerating to turn-around point. Speed of spacecraft increases by exponential factors, sort of a moore's law of spaceships. Within 100 years, some kind of fusion drive or other advanced technology should be doable. Make yourself into a software simulation, on a piece of hardware that can withstand 20 g's and weighs a gram, and has a fusion drive first stage to get it started,and you shave a lot of time off the trip. How to slow down at the other end I don't have a solution for yet.
not a problem - I've got one on a planet near here somewhere. Now where'd I put it ... ah, got it ... blow the dust off. Oh dear. It's looking a bit tarnished and is starting to run hot. I hope it's not broken.
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
As to classifications, someone else pointed out that Titan is large enough to be a planet, but as it orbits a planet, it's a satellite. Planets orbit stars, moons orbit planets. I wonder if there's a planet out there somewhere with a satellite that has its own satellite? Seems improbable but I still wonder.
The moon is getting farther and farther from the earth, when the orbit's center is outside the earth itself, the Earth and Moon will be considered a double planet, both orbiting a spot between the two.
Free Martian Whores!
"We still haven't found extraforgostnic life".
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The problem with a satellite having a satellite is rather complicated. It turns out that the Moon has only a very limited number of stable orbits... a fact not discovered until after the Apollo Missions. It turns out that by sheer coincidence one of the "sub-satellites" (a small satellite carried in the Apollo service module for a few of the later flights) just happened to hit one of the ideal orbital inclinations, but there were a couple that didn't and only lasted in orbit around the Moon for just a couple of weeks. The one that was in a pretty stable orbit still only lasted a couple of years before it crashed... although it did reveal some excellent science. The reason for this is "mascons" or mass-concentrations on the surface of the Moon where the actual gravity varies, pushing and pulling the object in orbit. Apparently such features are quite common for smaller bodies, but not so common for larger planets like Mars, the Earth, or Venus.
The other problem is that the gravitational interaction between the various objects. The concept of a Hill Sphere is especially important to consider that the gravitational gradient when close to a large body pushes other things away, or yanks it down into that object. Essentially, if there was another object orbiting one of the moons of other planets in the solar system, it would have been yanked off a long time ago by either another moon, the planet it is orbiting, or other planets as they got close. See also the Three-body problem for additional details.
Interestingly enough for the Moon (aka the "Earth's Moon"), if you view its orbit from a heliocentric POV rather than considering its interaction directly with the Earth, it has its own orbit around the Sun and indeed that orbital path is completely concave in nature... the only "satellite" of any planet in the Solar System to do such a thing. Essentially the Earth and the Moon are just two objects that gravitationally interact with each other as they orbit the Sun together, and from this perspective treating both bodies as a double planet is much more logical. In other words, there are other strong reasons to treat the Moon as a planet.
My largest problem with all of the definitions, however, is that it is a very myopic definition as it only considers planets that orbit the Sun (aka only in this Solar System) to be legitimate planets. I think a more realistic definition of a planet should ignore whatever it happens to be orbiting or even if it is orbiting anything at all (such as drifting through intergalactic space). Physical characteristics of the planet, such as stratification of the planetary core (such happens with Mercury, Mars, Venus, Earth, and even Titan) as a result of residual heat over a prolonged period of time since planetary formation, an atmosphere (Mercury might have an atmosphere if it was further from the Sun.... perhaps... and it does have a residual atmosphere of sorts), and other significant factors would play into the definition. BTW, such a definition still would likely exclude Pluto, but that one is debatable. I'm fine with the concept of a minor planet, especially if you don't mind lumping in Io, Triton, Callisto, Europa, Ganymede, and the Moon into the definition with the Kuiper Belt planets, Pluto, Vesta, and Ceres. All of those are significant bodies in their own right, and likely will be important in some fashion for future human civilizations, so there is a point to such a classification beyond mere ontological discussions. Phobos is clearly not a minor planet, as it is far too small... to give a counter example.
Thank you for the links, especially the first one.
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