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Astronomers Detect Four Earth-Sized Planets Orbiting The Nearest Sun-Like Star (ucsc.edu)

Posted by BeauHD on from the hop-skip-and-a-jump-away dept.

Tim Stephens reports via The University of California in Santa Cruz: A new study by an international team of astronomers reveals that four Earth-sized planets orbit the nearest sun-like star, tau Ceti, which is about 12 light years away and visible to the naked eye. These planets have masses as low as 1.7 Earth mass, making them among the smallest planets ever detected around nearby sun-like stars. Two of them are super-Earths located in the habitable zone of the star, meaning they could support liquid surface water. The planets were detected by observing the wobbles in the movement of tau Ceti. This required techniques sensitive enough to detect variations in the movement of the star as small as 30 centimeters per second. The outer two planets around tau Ceti are likely to be candidate habitable worlds, although a massive debris disc around the star probably reduces their habitability due to intensive bombardment by asteroids and comets.

56 of 102 comments (clear)

  1. Re:30 cm/s by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 3, Informative

    Fir those who wonder, 30 cm/s is roughly 10km/h, so about the speed of a jogger.

    You are off by a factor of 10. It is about 1 km/h, so about the speed of a fast tortoise.

     

  2. Re:30 cm/s by egilhh · · Score: 1

    0.3 m/s * 3600 s/h = 1080 m/h, which is roughly 1 km/h...

  3. Re:closer look by EzInKy · · Score: 1

    Probes are just too danged limited. I really doubt that a probe would have figured out that there is profit to be made from a lethal plant such as tobacco. Humans spotted the opportunity immediately.

    --
    Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.
  4. Re:30 cm/s by csmithers · · Score: 1

    Pretty impressive.

  5. Re:closer look by coastwalker · · Score: 1

    It is just about possible that we could send a probe that would take 80 years to get there. And then of course we would have to wait another 11 years for it to send back the photograph. Human AI may get to the stars but we are never going there.

    --
    Facts are history now plebs have politics for religion on social media.
  6. Re:30 cm/s by stealth_finger · · Score: 1

    Fir those who wonder, 30 cm/s is roughly 10km/h, so about the speed of a jogger.

    Yes, but what's that in football fields per centar?

    --
    Wanna buy a shirt?
    https://www.redbubble.com/people/stealthfinger/shop?asc=u
  7. Sun gravitational lens by Katatsumuri · · Score: 5, Informative

    Our best bet to get a closer look any sooner is to use our Sun as a gravitational lens. It is still a challenge, because we would need to put a telescope at the correct side of the Sun at about 550 AU, far beyond the orbit of Pluto, but it is much closer to our technological reach than actual interstellar probes. NASA is thinking about this project: https://www.technologyreview.c...

    1. Re: Sun gravitational lens by nachtelfjeiu · · Score: 1

      Still, sending a probe there now would be awesome imho.

    2. Re:Sun gravitational lens by Paul+Fernhout · · Score: 1

      Wow -- this is an awesome idea (even despite the many practical difficulties)!

      --
      A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
    3. Re: Sun gravitational lens by chihowa · · Score: 1

      He's referring to Voyager 1, which is about 139 AU (0.002 ly) from Earth. The gravitational lens probe would have to go to 550 AU, which is nearly four times farther than Voyager 1 has made it in 40 years.

      It was clear from the first sentence of Katatsumuri's post that the thread had shifted from sending an interstellar probe to sending a local probe, but "local" is still way farther than we've ever managed to send anything (to some extent, because we haven't tried).

      --
      If you want a vision of the future, imagine a youtube comments section scrolling - forever.
    4. Re: Sun gravitational lens by KingBenny · · Score: 1

      only 12 light years so if the probe is bigger than a foton it might take more than a few duracell to get there, im afraid of the position of this solar system has us fucked in biblical proportions, this might as well be hell, making me the fallen angel cast out from the heavens never to return. I bet my coppers on level 1 kardashev, i dont see what else could get any of us out of the hole here. But in Trumpian times it seems unlikely, bosliefje

      --
      Free speech was meant to be free for all... how can anyone grow up in a nanny state ?
    5. Re: Sun gravitational lens by KingBenny · · Score: 1

      nachtelfje lol, sry

      --
      Free speech was meant to be free for all... how can anyone grow up in a nanny state ?
  8. Re:closer look by Rei · · Score: 1

    You'll have to ask Ford; they stopped making them in 1997.

    --
    He's really very... gentle... and fuzzy. We're becoming fast friends.
  9. Getting close to answering a BIG question! by wisebabo · · Score: 2

    Wow, it appears like we are really getting close to being able to answer the question: are we alone in the Universe?

    I'm amazed that they were able to detect the "wobbles" using (relatively) inexpensive ground-based telescopes. Just a little bit of improvement and they'll be able to detect earth sized planets (although maybe 1.7x mass isn't too bad; I think the surface gravity might be just a little higher depending on the density).

    Soon, a space based telescope (the James Web ST?) may, with these super-sensitive instruments, be able to take the next crucial step and determine the composition of their atmospheres. If they detect free oxygen or other products of biological (or even industrial!) by-products, we'll know that there's life elsewhere in the universe! Maybe we'll find out sooner this way than a similar positive result coming from a probe we send to Mars, Europa, Enceladus or Titan.

    Of course, although I'm hoping that we'll see a biological signal, I really really doubt we'll see something that is the product of a technological civilization. Unfortunately, we still don't know the answer to Fermi's paradox. (I really wish the Chinese would take their new giant radio telescope and dedicate it to looking for signals). Until we hear from someone; we'll have to assume that maybe (intelligent) life in the Universe is rare.

    I hope it's not because intelligent life usually kills itself off (like we seem to be doing: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/0...

    Full disclosure: in my partially misspent youth I worked on S.E.T.I. :)

    1. Re:Getting close to answering a BIG question! by necro81 · · Score: 1

      Wow, it appears like we are really getting close to being able to answer the question: are we alone in the Universe?

      All of this exoplanet detection increases the likely value of certain parameters in the Drake equation. And it lowers the uncertainty of those same parameters. This increases the overall odds and confidence that the number of communicative civilizations out there is >= 1, I wouldn't say that it actually brings us that much closer to knowing for sure. A number of the later parameters in the equation - those dealing with the development and survival of intelligent, communicative life - are just as broad and uncertain as ever. So, no, I would not say we are getting close to being able to answer the question, just making more informed guesses.

      Only an unambiguous signal from such a civilization (thanks, SETI!) would make it certain.

    2. Re:Getting close to answering a BIG question! by Baron_Yam · · Score: 4, Interesting

      >we still don't know the answer to Fermi's paradox.

      "Space is big. Really big. You just wonâ(TM)t believe how vastly hugely mindbogglingly big it is. I mean you may think itâ(TM)s a long way down the road to the chemistâ(TM)s, but thatâ(TM)s just peanuts to space." - The Hitchhikerâ(TM)s Guide To The Galaxy

      I know some space enthusiasts talk about even a single civilization sending out a Von Neumann probe resulting in the whole galaxy being blanketed in a few hundred million years... but space is big, hostile, slow to traverse, and resources are really tough to get access to.

      It's very much possible that there's no single answer to the Fermi Paradox, but it's a little bit of all the factors. The base raw materials for life are likely extremely common (similar clouds of gas collapsing into similar systems), but life may be rare and I would expect complex life building technologically advanced space-faring (or even communicating) civilizations to be a fraction of those.

      Combine the likely rarity of intelligent life with the massive distances (involving massive time delays)... and you can get a lot of lonely species all thinking there's nobody else out there simply because they can't communicate with each other in any practical way.

    3. Re:Getting close to answering a BIG question! by peragrin · · Score: 1

      It gets better when you consider 100 ,1000, 10,000 years ago how much we changed. A cell phone would be magic to those just 100 years ago, and amazing tech to those of 75 years ago. You would be burned alive for having one in the 16 and 1700's

      Even sending von nueman probes out in a 500 year search would only get them 50-100 light years away.

      Maybe if we can build a space ship capable of self mining resources to send additional probes and even additional ships could we begin to explore the galaxy.

      --
      i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
    4. Re:Getting close to answering a BIG question! by Baron_Yam · · Score: 1

      >It gets better when you consider 100 ,1000, 10,000 years ago how much we changed. A cell phone would be magic to those just 100 years ago, and amazing tech to those of 75 years ago. You would be burned alive for having one in the 16 and 1700's

      Technological improvements can't overcome the energy required to move a given mass a given distance within a given time. The scale of space is such that sending anything physical that could be expected to survive the journey might not be practical.

      We're a bit better off in terms of photon - we can certainly glean some interesting information by just looking up at the sky... but while we may one day get a detailed spectroscopic analysis of an Earth-like world with every sign that it hosts life... we won't KNOW, unless that life is communicating with us. And, again given the distances involved, a laser beam powerful enough to overcome background noise at the destination is probably still not worth it. After all, you don't share a language, and you don't even know if they have the appropriate equipment to receive your signal, if they're looking for it or if 'they' even exist. And even if all that works out, you're going to wait a LONG time for a response.

      I just don't see us spending a significant portion of global productivity on flashing a dim light at a far away world in the hopes there might be someone there able to see it and willing to go to a similar effort to send a signal back that would probably arrive long after everyone involved in the original project had died of old age.

    5. Re:Getting close to answering a BIG question! by mark-t · · Score: 1

      Actually, if you are willing to some mathematical speculation, it gets even more depressing.

      If the rarity of intelligent life is rare enough, we might actually be entirely alone. Take the busy beaver function for example... it is known that the busy beaver function rises so much faster than any computable function such that one need go no further than BB(25) to get to a number larger than Grahams Number, and given that there could be as many as 26 dimensions, even Grahams number may be vastly smaller than the number of distinct types of states that the universe could represent. So if the chance of life forming was something like 1/BB(26), it may be just a sheer fluke out of absolutely astronomically odds that we are even here at all.

      Of course, the chance of life forming may be much larger than this... we just don't know, and as you suggest, we may never know... But really, it's not entirely unthinkable that we are alone in the universe as well.

      --
      File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
    6. Re:Getting close to answering a BIG question! by Kjella · · Score: 1

      I know some space enthusiasts talk about even a single civilization sending out a Von Neumann probe resulting in the whole galaxy being blanketed in a few hundred million years... but space is big, hostile, slow to traverse, and resources are really tough to get access to.

      On the other hand we are really impatient because of our human life span. A hundred thousand years travelling and a million years per planet to build up the resources to shoot off another probe is not a blocker if we can only make self-maintaining/repairing technology to last that long. We have attention span of maybe ~100 years, if your grandkids won't see any benefit it's too far out. Then again, given the technological progress we've made in the last 100 years it's probably for the best that we don't focus on projects of that magnitude.

      For example, I expect that within the next thousand years we can create life entirely from scratch. As in from a computer model and base elements bio-print a cell with DNA, put it in an artificial womb and grow in vitro humans. Forget generation ships, forget even sending frozen eggs and sperm that'll probably decay underway. We'll send data - with integrity checks - and build people on site, the first generation raised by robots, most likely humanoid androids. That all seems more likely than rewriting the laws of physics.

      And longevity experiments, like can we create RTGs and processors that can last hundreds of years here on earth. More bad-ass telescopes too. And Mars is a good test bed for starting off on a rocky world with nothing. The finish line is so far out of reach you can't see it. But I mean before 1992 extra-solar planets was a theory. We haven't exactly done bad for the last 25 years despite not returning to the moon, we've just focused on other areas because the next rock has seemed pretty far out of reach. Even with Mars, some will certainly whine about when we'll go to the stars. Not any time soon...

      --
      Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
    7. Re:Getting close to answering a BIG question! by Xyrus · · Score: 2

      We're far more likely to be able to detect signs of biological/technological processes in another planet's atmosphere long before we actually hear any radio signals from them. To detect a radio signal things need to happen in just the right way for us to hear it. For atmospheric detection all we need is a spectral analysis. You find CFCs in their atmosphere and it's pretty certain that something a little more advanced than bacteria are on that planet.

      --
      ~X~
    8. Re:Getting close to answering a BIG question! by Gavagai80 · · Score: 1

      The fact that life formed so early in Earth's history -- pretty much as soon as it wasn't molten -- is suggestive of it not being that hard to form. And enough different types of species have evolved intelligence on Earth to suggest that intelligence is a common result of evolution of multi-cellular organisms. The tricky party really is getting multi-cellular organisms, since that seems to have taken billions of years.

      --
      This space intentionally left blank
    9. Re:Getting close to answering a BIG question! by mark-t · · Score: 1

      No, it only suggests that the conditions were sufficient to have some non-zero probability for life.... it does not imply that it was *EVER* particularly likely, and even that says nothing about the likelihood of complex intelligent life other than as a precondition for the latter.

      A person can win a lottery the very first time that they ever play... that does not mean that the odds of him winning were ever very high. Similarly, the fact that we exist does not imply any kind of certainty or likelihood to our existence before it occurred, only a non-zero probability... and a sufficient small probability multiplied even by the number of even remotely possible occurrences in all of space and time may still evaluate to a very tiny number that might suggest our existence is nothing more than a blind (and very fortuitous) fluke.

      I am not necessarily suggesting that the chance that complex life exists elsewhere is necessarily that small... but I am suggesting that it is not that inconceivable that we *are* alone.

      --
      File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
    10. Re: Getting close to answering a BIG question! by Crosshair84 · · Score: 1

      We have a pretty good idea how life forms.

      You need an energy gradient, a solvent, and the right mix of chemicals. Life is the arrangement of chemicals that uses the energy gradient to perform the work necessary for self replication.

      This statement would have held water in the year 1910. In the year 2017, no.

      Life is a HELL of a lot more than "The arrangement of chemicals" Life involves the reading, processing, and self replication of INFORMATION. A self-replicating software program encoded in DNA in every living cell.

      The first replicator forms by chance then makes more of itself. Over time imperfections in the copying process lead to diversity among the replicators and scarcity of resources leads to competition which imposes selective pressure favoring more optimal adaptations to the enviroment and eventualy an ecosystem.

      This is an unproven article of faith on your part. There is not even a theoretical model of how you go from simple self-replicating chemical reactions to a self contained cell controlled by DNA programming.

      What we haven't managed is artificial abiogenesis (ie, manufacturing life in a lab), but that is likely a matter of scale. No one actually wants to set up a multi cubic kilometer proto-life vat and let it run for a million years to see what happens (let alone several). And we have every reason to believe that it took considerably more time and space than that when it happened on Earth.

      The math on this has been done many times and the conclusion is the same: There is not enough time or matter in the ENTIRE UNIVERSE to get, by chance, the information required to run even the simplest single celled organism. The Infinite monkey theorem is dead as an explanation in this subject.

      The chemistry of several intermediate steps has been replicated in a lab. It's just the whole "pile o' non living chemicals in, unambiguously alive thing out" process that hasn't been done or even attempted at anything approaching a nontrivial scale.

      No it has not. The Miller-Urrey Experiment is dead as far as being useful to origin of life studies. It was groundbreaking for its time, but the science has passed it by. Getting amino acids gets you as close to life as smelting pig iron gets you to the empire state building. Less so, in fact.

      There are no other "intermediate steps" that I am aware of done in the lab that would be relevant, aside from attempts at self-replicating RNA strands that have yet to be fully replicating.

      Science need evidence, not Just-So children's stories. Continuing to believe in fairy tails on this subject does nothing but hold us back.

  10. Re:30 cm/s by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Is speed of the wobble what was meant? I thought it must be 30cm/second of rotational arc, which translates to a 200km peak variation as the planet orbits from one side 180 deg around to the other.

  11. Re:closer look by Warma · · Score: 1

    I'm interested how you are proposing to reach an average travel speed of c/7. Isn't that absurdly high?

  12. Re:closer look by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I think we're still at the phase of our development where there is no point sending out interstellar probes. By the time they get there, either there is no human race left to monitor the info they send back, or we already sent out faster and better equipped probes that overtook them along the way. There is far more within our solar system that we have to study, perfecting the propulsion techniques with gradually increasing distances first.

  13. Re: 30 cm/s by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    It is the radial speed of the star b ing measured via doppler shift. It is the speed that the star is moving toward and away from Earth as a result of the orbiting planets' gravitational tug on the star.

  14. Nice by nospam007 · · Score: 1

    "probably reduces their habitability due to intensive bombardment by asteroids and comets. "

    So lots of more water and minerals raining down from the sky.
    Good business in the future.

  15. Re:closer look by Sique · · Score: 2, Insightful
    Going back to Paracelsus and his doctrine ("All substances are poisons; there is none which is not a poison. The right dose differentiates a poison and a remedy."), we find out, that "lethal plant" is not a good qualifier. To the contrary: Anything that's not lethal to us in a certain dose does not have any effect on us. Otherwise we could increase the effect by increasing the dose until it is lethal.

    Thus we can conclude: Anything that (in a certain dose) has a lethal effect on us, might have another, maybe beneficial effect on us if dosed right. So all we need is the proof that a plant has an effect on us. And how will you do that without having a human (or a model organism like bacteria or guinea pigs instead of a human) nearby to test for the effect?

    --
    .sig: Sique *sigh*
  16. Re: closer look by HumanWiki · · Score: 1

    Replicant Bob is already there with his auto factories looking out for Medeiros and the Others.

  17. Re:30 cm/s by Ol+Olsoc · · Score: 1

    Fir those who wonder, 30 cm/s is roughly 10km/h, so about the speed of a jogger.

    Yes, but what's that in football fields per centar?

    I'd prefer it be expressed in cubic cantaloupes.

    --
    The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
  18. Re:super earths by Baron_Yam · · Score: 2

    When the term Earth-like is used, it usually means 'rocky planet of approximately the same mass'.

    Whether it's the right temperature, has an atmosphere, is in a 'safe' orbit with theoretically tolerable levels of radiation and reasonable temperature variation, tidally locked, etc... all more or less up for grabs depending on who offered the quote and who is reporting it.

    I expect the term will end up being more specific as we learn of more exoplanets and improve our ability to determine their characteristics.

  19. Re:closer look by Sique · · Score: 1

    I think we already send out interstellar probes. Voyager 1 is in interstellar space since August 2012. You are five years late to warn, that we were still not in that phase. Apparently, we ignored your warnings 40 years ago.

    --
    .sig: Sique *sigh*
  20. Re:30 cm/s by ElRabbit · · Score: 1

    This means we could detect fast tortoise at 12 light-years distance provided they have very powerful headlight ?

  21. Re:30 cm/s by avgjoe62 · · Score: 1

    ...U.S. or Canadian football field?

    I don't kno..ARRRRRRGGGGGGHHHHHH!!!!!!

    --

    How come Slashdot never gets Slashdotted?

  22. This means we can keep on polluting unabated! by newdsfornerds · · Score: 1

    Yay! We have somewhere to go when Earth is totally trashed!

    --
    Damping absorbs vibrations. Dampening is caused by moisture.
    1. Re:This means we can keep on polluting unabated! by ZNetracer · · Score: 1

      If Earth humans had the kind've technologies required to travel to another star system, I would hope that we would,ve also started to use those technologies to clean up and repair damage done to our existing planet. Also, we can barely put people into orbit. Going to Mars is viewed as a tremendous technological challenge, one not likely to be conquered, possibly, before we're a third into this century. I think we're more likely to go extinct due to causes of our own making, way before we make it to another star system and muck up other planets. So, no worries then!

    2. Re:This means we can keep on polluting unabated! by Baron_Yam · · Score: 1

      >If Earth humans had the kind've technologies required to travel to another star system, I would hope that we would,ve also started to use those technologies to clean up and repair damage done to our existing planet.

      If humans had the kind of technologies required to travel to another star system, we'd never need to set foot on another planet ever again.

      We'd have the ability to build habitable ships that last centuries without resupply or refits. When you can do that... you might want to 'raid' an Oort cloud for raw material once in a while, but you'd probably avoid going deep into a stellar gravity well unless you wanted to run off solar power for a while instead of fission or fusion. Or maybe visit a rocky world inside the frost line just for fun, I suppose.

    3. Re:This means we can keep on polluting unabated! by newdsfornerds · · Score: 1

      I was joking of course. I'm guessing it will be perhaps another 200 years before we're colonizing other planets. By then how much of the Earth will still be dry land?

      --
      Damping absorbs vibrations. Dampening is caused by moisture.
  23. TAU CETI!!!!!?????? by sycodon · · Score: 1

    KAAAAAAHN!......KAAAAAAHN!

    --
    When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
  24. Re:closer look by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 1

    Well, I once read a concept paper about it.
    But I din't find it anymore. My google fu is leaving me.

    The idea was to have a cone like chunk of hard coal, with the probe in its tip.
    You drop that with its backend towards our sun. The coal will evaporate and accelerate the probe to roughly 0.2c.

    Not sure about the shape, a kind of disk like shape ist likely more suited, as the sun is pretty big that close and you don't want it shine on the probe.

    --
    Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
  25. Other Near Future means of Imaging worlds by Yergle143 · · Score: 1

    This one for example.
    Starshade

  26. Or. . . . we dis-assemble the Solar System. . . by Salgak1 · · Score: 1

    . . . and re-use the mass to create something akin to an Dyson Sphere. I'd suggest a Ringworld, but the mechanical properties of Niven's "scrith" simply aren't possible, at least with any level of material science we currently have or are likely to have. . .

  27. It's Aliens! by Arzaboa · · Score: 1

    Just gotta be. Too soon?

  28. Interplanetary Coconuts by Arzaboa · · Score: 1

    I would like to see a project to begin firing off "seed bags" to every planet we can point a barrel at. Sure, most won't survive but it very well may be one way we can tell what is out there way down the road.

    Suppose we found say, these 4 rocky planets, but life hadn't been kickstarted. It seems like it would be our duty to help them thrive. Within 100 years of crash down, we could theoretically see the possible beginning of a planet that could host life like ours.

    By searching the cosmos, over the thousands of planets we "seeded", we then could narrow down our search for "habitable" planets by simply looking at the atmosphere, vs. trying to get a close up picture of alien ants. This would certainly shorten the time to search for a planet to use as a base for further exploration.

    If life is so different, there may not be any collateral damage to another planet. All of the other planets do not need to be "spared" human involvement. Save a few for the scientists and lets begin colonization on the microbial level.

    --
    To Infinity and Beyond! - B.L.

  29. Re:innaccuracy? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    I wonder about the definition of "sun-like star". Alpha Centauri is much closer than Tau Ceti, and it is almost a twin of the Sun. On the other hand, Alpha Centauri is part of a triple-star system, and Tau Ceti is a lone star, like the Sun. Take your pick!

  30. Re:30 cm/s by penandpaper · · Score: 1

    the speed of a fast tortoise.

    Great, now I want to watch Tortoise races... I only watch for the crashes.

  31. Re:closer look by djinn6 · · Score: 1

    Nuclear pulse propulsion had this covered since the 1960's. Even if it only goes at 5% the speed of light, you're able to send 800,000 tons up in one giant ship, enough to support a long-lasting space habitat. Too bad the use of nuclear explosives have been banned, even for productive uses of which there are no known substitutes.

  32. Re:30 cm/s by HiThere · · Score: 1

    What's a centar?
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... doesn't seem to make sense in context.

    --

    I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
  33. Re:30 cm/s by WormholeFiend · · Score: 1

    so about the speed of a fast tortoise.

    It also depends on the type of dog it is.

  34. Re:closer look by Sique · · Score: 1

    If the goal is go get to the interstellar space, we are there already. If the goal is to get to the ocean, you are there, if you can dip your foot into the ocean water.

    --
    .sig: Sique *sigh*
  35. Re:Getting close-- Warning built in assumption by fish_in_the_c · · Score: 1

    We are only getting close if we aren't alone in the universe AND if life isn't rare.
    It is pretty hard to prove we 'are alone', so believing we are not is more an act of faith then anything else, until there is evidence. Of which we only have suggestive not positive evidence.

    --
    âoeTolerance applies only to persons, but never to truth. Intolerance applies only to truth, but never to persons.
  36. Re:closer look by Gavagai80 · · Score: 1

    Voyager 1 is no longer a probe in a few more years, though (tens of thousands of years before it gets to another solar system). When power runs out, it's an interstellar brick.

    --
    This space intentionally left blank
  37. Re:30 cm/s by GNious · · Score: 1

    Or did you mean U.S. or Canadian football field?

    Fairly sure FIFA's regulations for the size of a football field is same no matter what country: 100-110m by 64–73 m

  38. Re:30 cm/s by stealth_finger · · Score: 1

    It's battlestar galactica for an hour

    http://www.kobol.com/archives/...

    --
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