A Land Far Away

http://www.eso.org/outreach/press-rel/p ... 22-07.html

Until further observations are done we don't know if there's any liquid water on the planet--but it is squarely in the habitable zone for its star, and while the gravity is stronger than Earth (2.2 g), that's not too bad. The average temperature range allows for all three states of water, just like Earth.

If we detect organic molecules in the atmosphere...

Just detecting a planet this tiny is pretty cool too. It tugs its star around just a few meters per second, but that was enough of a wobble to be detected.

I hope we can have a war with those fuckers. That'd be sweet.

mxlm wrote:I hope we can have a war with those fuckers.

That's not a moon...

It will make a fine debtor's colony now that Australia and Georgia are full up.

Wow, it would be awesome if we somehow had the technology to travel at the speed of light. Hell, even half the speed of light. Considering the system is only 20.5 light years away, a 41 years voyage to colonize a habitable planet is completely feasible. Just reading that article makes me want to know what it's like.

Its year is only 13 days! What's more, there's a larger planet with a shorter orbit, which means that there quite possibly could be points in its orbit where it's eclipsed. Along with that, it's insanely close to its sun by our standards, but the sun's a red dwarf so the temp is still habitable.

Just thinking about it is blowing my mind. I'm gonna go lie down.

How close it is is also pretty awesome. The fact that we've found one already, and so near suggests that planets in the habitable zones of their stars may not be too uncommon. We've only been able to find two or three terrestrial planets so far, so when the more sensitive planet-hunting satellites go up I suspect we'll have an explosion of these.

And of course, habitable zone means habitable for us. Considering the crazyass hostile environments life thrives in even on Earth, who knows what alien life could handle.

Grand Fromage wrote:How close it is is also pretty awesome. The fact that we've found one already, and so near suggests that planets in the habitable zones of their stars may not be too uncommon. We've only been able to find two or three terrestrial planets so far, so when the more sensitive planet-hunting satellites go up I suspect we'll have an explosion of these.

And of course, habitable zone means habitable for us.

Damn straight. Joke's on you, Earth - screw us over with global warming, we're gonna get another planet instead.

Interesting thing about global warming, in developing the technology to absorb atmospheric CO2 (we are of course looking for a technological solution rather than just live better) we could potentially be able to terraform Venus. It's global warming run amok there. Reduce the CO2, and Venus would have the same climate as Earth.

Mulu wrote:Interesting thing about global warming, in developing the technology to absorb atmospheric CO2 (we are of course looking for a technological solution rather than just live better) we could potentially be able to terraform Venus. It's global warming run amok there. Reduce the CO2, and Venus would have the same climate as Earth.

No it wouldn't. Venus lacks a strong magnetic field, solar winds would strip all the work we commit to such a planet leaving it barren. Seeing how close it is to the sun wouldn't make it a prime target either, if you take the time to consider radiation. So, yes, there is global warming there.

GF, all of that is speculation by scientists. The gravity, water, etc. While I'm sure speculation is accurate, the facts it could make those speculations completely wrong but we wont find out until we uh, cross that bridge.

However, if it is a earth-like planet that is sustainable for living, i.e. not mars-like enviroment. Then I hope it's a ocean world!! How friggin cool would that be? Intelligent marine life like that movie abyss or some such. Awesomes-sauce. One thing is for certain this discovery will drive human imagination even further.

I've already thought of a machine(need to do the physics tests in 3DS Max) that will operate in zero-g, have no exghaust, and powered by a reactor will approach and surpass the speed of light, no bullshit. Now there's the question of running into floating detritus in space and getting swiss-cheesed. The front-shielding would need to be very very dense, and yet again. Think of a cone/pyrimid attached to a cylindar or sphere or cube that pushes itself forward.

The bigger, the faster it could go... maybe. I don't know about the engine being able to overcome 100tons of static friction. Still, no tests yet, it's just a theory of mass manipulation I came up with while in the garden.

If It works, and I can get a patent, I'll be a very wealthy man... maybe. Not easy to get someone to invest in a triage if colony ships, and the testing involved to get the technology up and running.

-Charlie

RangerDeWood wrote:Wow, it would be awesome if we somehow had the technology to travel at the speed of light. Hell, even half the speed of light. Considering the system is only 20.5 light years away, a 41 years voyage to colonize a habitable planet is completely feasible. Just reading that article makes me want to know what it's like.

Its year is only 13 days! What's more, there's a larger planet with a shorter orbit, which means that there quite possibly could be points in its orbit where it's eclipsed. Along with that, it's insanely close to its sun by our standards, but the sun's a red dwarf so the temp is still habitable.

Just thinking about it is blowing my mind. I'm gonna go lie down.

Helios wrote:No it wouldn't. Venus lacks a strong magnetic field, solar winds would strip all the work we commit to such a planet leaving it barren. Seeing how close it is to the sun wouldn't make it a prime target either, if you take the time to consider radiation. So, yes, there is global warming there.

Well, the global warming is due to excessive CO2, just as it is here, though there it is really excessive CO2, about 90 atmospheres worth.

"Bombardment of Venus with hydrogen, possibly from some outer solar system source and reacting with carbon dioxide could produce elemental carbon (graphite) and water by the Bosch reaction. It would take about 4×10(19th) kg of hydrogen to convert the whole Venusian atmosphere, and the resulting water would cover about 80% of the surface compared to 70% for Earth."

You'd also need a solar shade or solar reflective components in the atmosphere of some sort to keep the planet from returning to it's natural global warming state. Still, the result is a second Earth in our own solar system.

Charlie wrote:I've already thought of a machine(need to do the physics tests in 3DS Max) that will operate in zero-g, have no exghaust, and powered by a reactor will approach and surpass the speed of light, no bullshit.

Feel free to correct my relatively simple college physics and general science knowledge here, but isn't that technically impossible? I mean, unless your intention is to disprove or work around Einstein's Theory of Relativity (E=mc^2)? As you approach the speed of light, mass increases; as mass increases, the Force required to continue accelerating towards the speed of light must increases (Fnet=ma), which would eventually become impossible to continue, as you would run out of energy to provide the ever-increasing Force to move the ever-increasing mass.

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EDIT:

Stanford wrote:From (II) it follows that no bounded amount of energy is sufficient to accelerate a body to the speed of light. This is because as the speed of a body approaches the speed of light its relativistic mass increases without bound. But this means that the body's resistance to acceleration, as measured in the inertial frame relative to which it is moving, also increases without bound. In practice, this means that it takes more and more energy to achieve proportionally smaller increases in the speed of a body.

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/equivME/

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Also, no exhaust? How would the ship propel itself? Conventionally speaking, the means I'm aware of include propulsion engines & electromagnetically driven engines, both of which use exhaust as a means to create thrust to propel the ship or satellite in question; solar sails and magnetic sails are both still, for the most part, in developmental stages, and certainly not ready for massive space flights.

NESchampion wrote:

Charlie wrote:I've already thought of a machine(need to do the physics tests in 3DS Max) that will operate in zero-g, have no exghaust, and powered by a reactor will approach and surpass the speed of light, no bullshit.

Feel free to correct my relatively simple college physics and general science knowledge here, but isn't that technically impossible? I mean, unless your intention is to disprove or work around Einstein's Theory of Relativity (E=mc^2)? As you approach the speed of light, mass increases; as mass increases, the Force required to continue accelerating towards the speed of light must increases (Fnet=ma), which would eventually become impossible to continue, as you would run out of energy to provide the ever-increasing Force to move the ever-increasing mass.

Yes, unless there's a serious and very well hidden flaw in relativity, you cannot go faster than light. There are two potential loopholes:
A) Wormholes. You can connect together two points in space by a very short tunnel and go through that. The loophole this uses is that you never actually travel faster than light, but you cover a massive distance much faster than you ever could otherwise.
B) Bending space. This is the Alcubierre drive, essentially you stretch out space behind you and compress it in front, making a bubble around you that travels faster than light. The loophole here is that you're not actually moving, and objects in space are prevented from moving faster than light--however, this does not apply to space itself. The bubble of space you're in travels well beyond c.

A benefit to both of these is you wouldn't experience any time dilation like you would traveling at relativistic velocities for real. There's also the old hyperspace/subspace/the Warp/whatever device, but there's zero evidence of anything like that existing.

And other than warping space, no, you cannot travel without exhaust. Exhaust is what provides thrust. The solar sail is technically an exception, but there the star is providing the "exhaust".

Inhabitable planets can only lead to trouble!

And the acceleration from a solar sail would be painfully slow....