First Earthlike Exoplanet Found

[Pannonian]

We can do better that that; we can find out. Unleash our horde of robot drones!

Are these the robotic lemurs you had stashed away, along with Kommodus' nano-bots?

[Moros]

Are these the robotic lemurs you had stashed away, along with Kommodus' nano-bots?

ooh ooh, give them robots some ancient weapons too!

[Moros]

Well The theory of blackholes supports that light has mass, be it a very small one. Also the way we calculate the masses of galaxies is, if I'm not mistaken, also based on the fact that photons have a mass.

However like The Mark said, he is a physisist (or however you write it) I believe, making an object move to a speed approximate to the speed of light is practically almost impossible. The mass it'll get will be enormous, the energy required too. Not only is it hard to get it so fast, controlling it (deccelerating, it's gravity,...) must be even harder.

Also if someone would want to reach the planet it would take quite a while. It can't take much more than 20 years for the person if he'd want to get back to earth afterwards.
So how what average speed will his craft then need to get there in 20 years?
20years=(c*20.5years)/v
<=> 20years*v=(c*20.5years)
<=>v=c*20.5years/20
<=>v=1.025*c
=> v>c!!

SO that seems rather impossible now if the objective would be to get a person over there (without the person having to come back) let's say we have a max of 40 years.
=>v=20.5/40*c
=>v=0.512*c=153 493 738 m / s
this seems theoretically possible but how much energy would that need?
E=0.5*m*v&#178;
That would be: 76746869 times the mass of the object. let's have a round number, what about 500kg?
then 76746869*500kg=38 373 434 500 J
Now is this much or not?
Well let's see:
How much E does it cost to take a car to 120km/h?
well lets see how much does a car weigh? I've taken the mass of an empty Ford Fusion 1.4 TDCi Fusion+
Well that would take this much energy:
1102 kg*120&#178;km&#178;/h&#178;*0.5=7 934 400 J


38 373 434 500J/7 934 400J=4 836.33728

That would mean we'd need the E of 4 836.33728 Empty Ford Fusions accellerating from 0 to 120km/h (without friction that is. But the craft wouldn't have friction either it being in space.)

So Daily we have millions and millions of cars doing this, mulitiple times a day so this seems possible. E might not be the biggest problem in this case. However this of course overly simplified and stuff so it probably is far from correct however it might give us an idea of the actual numbers. And it seems to me that E isn't the biggest problem if we want to send someone to there without him or her having to come back.

[Zaknafien]

Well can't ion drives reach something like 'near' the speed of light if given enough time to accelerate? My understanding was that something with ion drive, like the one tested on some probe a year or two ago, will continuously accelerate until it reaches 99.9% of the speed of light but it would take many years to get going that fast..

[JR-]

Well can't ion drives reach something like 'near' the speed of light if given enough time to accelerate? My understanding was that something with ion drive, like the one tested on some probe a year or two ago, will continuously accelerate until it reaches 99.9% of the speed of light but it would take many years to get going that fast..

an ion-drive, as we currently understand them, is capable of a maximum of ~100,000 MPH, roughly four times faster than the limit of chemical combustion, i.e. rockets.

they are a bit lacking in thrust however.

[ShadeHonestus]

I'll bet somebody $20 dollars that human beings will cease to exist prior to our capacity for interstellar travel (in my view impossible for an individual) or the end of earth with its consumption by our sun which should take place in about 4 billion years as the sun's size increases near its death.

I'll even give 1,000,000,000,000:1 odds.

[Rameusb5]

Well The theory of blackholes supports that light has mass, be it a very small one. Also the way we calculate the masses of galaxies is, if I'm not mistaken, also based on the fact that photons have a mass.

However like The Mark said, he is a physisist (or however you write it) I believe, making an object move to a speed approximate to the speed of light is practically almost impossible. The mass it'll get will be enormous, the energy required too. Not only is it hard to get it so fast, controlling it (deccelerating, it's gravity,...) must be even harder.

Also if someone would want to reach the planet it would take quite a while. It can't take much more than 20 years for the person if he'd want to get back to earth afterwards.
So how what average speed will his craft then need to get there in 20 years?
20years=(c*20.5years)/v
<=> 20years*v=(c*20.5years)
<=>v=c*20.5years/20
<=>v=1.025*c
=> v>c!!

SO that seems rather impossible now if the objective would be to get a person over there (without the person having to come back) let's say we have a max of 40 years.
=>v=20.5/40*c
=>v=0.512*c=153 493 738 m / s
this seems theoretically possible but how much energy would that need?
E=0.5*m*v²
That would be: 76746869 times the mass of the object. let's have a round number, what about 500kg?
then 76746869*500kg=38 373 434 500 J
Now is this much or not?
Well let's see:
How much E does it cost to take a car to 120km/h?
well lets see how much does a car weigh? I've taken the mass of an empty Ford Fusion 1.4 TDCi Fusion+
Well that would take this much energy:
1102 kg*120²km²/h²*0.5=7 934 400 J


38 373 434 500J/7 934 400J=4 836.33728

That would mean we'd need the E of 4 836.33728 Empty Ford Fusions accellerating from 0 to 120km/h (without friction that is. But the craft wouldn't have friction either it being in space.)

So Daily we have millions and millions of cars doing this, mulitiple times a day so this seems possible. E might not be the biggest problem in this case. However this of course overly simplified and stuff so it probably is far from correct however it might give us an idea of the actual numbers. And it seems to me that E isn't the biggest problem if we want to send someone to there without him or her having to come back.

The problem with your reasoning is that you have a constant velocity. You can't subject the Human body to very high G's for long periods of time. It'll take you a while just to accellerate to 1/2 the speed of light (to use your analogy). Ideally, you'd use around 1 G of accelleration to simulate gravity on your ship. The speed of light = 299,792,458 m/s. So to reach .5 lightspeed at 1 G would take 11.65 years! You'd need exactly the same amount of time to slow down as well.

Let's face it, extra-solar space travel using conventional physics just isn't practical.

Hence my concern about the sun burning out some 2-5 billion years from now. Will we be advanced enough to escape by then?

[Moros]

The problem with your reasoning is that you have a constant velocity. You can't subject the Human body to very high G's for long periods of time. It'll take you a while just to accellerate to 1/2 the speed of light (to use your analogy). Ideally, you'd use around 1 G of accelleration to simulate gravity on your ship. The speed of light = 299,792,458 m/s. So to reach .5 lightspeed at 1 G would take 11.65 years! You'd need exactly the same amount of time to slow down as well.

Let's face it, extra-solar space travel using conventional physics just isn't practical.

Hence my concern about the sun burning out some 2-5 billion years from now. Will we be advanced enough to escape by then?

I know it was a very simplification, noting that E wouldn't be that much the problem, rather the speed itself.

[Divinus Arma]

Do the inhabitants of Gliese 581 C need to have their souls saved? We better hurry up and get some missionaries over there to preach the good news!!!!


Seriously, what would be the theological implications of intelligent extraterrestrial life? Not as in an argument for or against the existence of God, but rather the implications for the earth-based interpretations of God's will: Muhammed as the prophet (does this apply to the universe?), and Jesus as saviour (same question.).

All the myth and legend, the puff and stuff, of earthly religion kinda goes out the window, wouldn't ya say?

[Lemur]

The theological implications of intelligent life outside our solar system would be profound. Let's make this easier and consider which religions would not freak out. I think Jews would be okay; aliens don't change their status as God's Chosen. Buddhists would fare well. Scientologists already believe in an intergalactic empire, so their worldview would not shatter. Not sure about Mormons -- they believe in other planets, and they already have Jesus making a trip to the native Americans, so I guess it wouldn't be a stretch to say that Jesus might have stopped off at other civilizations along the way.

Can't think of many more. Fundamentalists of the Big Two would have serious issues.

Assuming whatever intelligence we eventually contact is mortal (and no some self-dividing amoeba thingy that never really dies), it's safe to expect that it will have its own religion already. I can't imagine a self-aware, mortal species not developing a what-happens-when-we-die scenario with all of the attendant theology.

[doc_bean]

Seriously, what would be the theological implications of intelligent extraterrestrial life?

We shall argue whether the war against these abominations should be termed acrusade or a jihad.


Seriously, religions have endurance, while the implications would be profound, I can't see this as being the end of religion or something like that.

I think the Catholic church would start by caling together a bunch of theologians and letting them think about the implications for 20years or so, after that time, the Church would have a good idea of how society thinks about these aliens and will formulate a point accordingly. They might call for missionary missions if they are plausible.

The various protestant cults (heh, no offence people) will react differently, like they always do, a few of them will probably split up (again) over this. Creationists will claim the aliens are a test of our fate, probably.

The Jews won't care, most Muslims won't either I think, they are , after all, also a sort of 'chosen people'.

[Ironside]

Hence my concern about the sun burning out some 2-5 billion years from now. Will we be advanced enough to escape by then?

First, we can "easily" do a generation ship today if we wanted to, second, if we have decandants at that point, it would still be very hard to claim them as humans... How was life a billion year back in time?

[The_Mark]

Well The theory of blackholes supports that light has mass, be it a very small one.

Light doesn't have mass, only momentum derived from its energy*. The thing with gravity and light is that even though light travels straight, uninfluenced by the gravity, the space itself in which light travels is curved by the gravity. So the photons think they're going in a straight line, and they're right, but everybody else thinks they go in a curve. And they're right as well. Simple, yes?

Yeah, I don't get it either.

However like The Mark said, he is a physisist (or however you write it) I believe,

I'm not a physicist, yet. In fact, I sent my application to University of Helsinki today, to the department of physics.

First, we can "easily" do a generation ship today if we wanted to, second, if we have decandants at that point, it would still be very hard to claim them as humans... How was life a billion year back in time?

And they will probably be greeted by a thriving human colony established by the first human visitors of Gliese, who left 200 years after the generation ship, using some snappy anti-matter propulsion.


*)
Photon's energy E = hf = hc/λ
photon's momentum p = E/c

Never heard of Parseval.

[Ironside]

And they will probably be greeted by a thriving human colony established by the first human visitors of Gliese, who left 200 years after the generation ship, using some snappy anti-matter propulsion.

This "paradox" gets even funnier if they're traveling near the speed of light, then you can have the same persons that borded the ship to be 200 years late. Poor buggers
Point was, that we can evacuate "humanity" within a few years if things go badly. That I wouldn't recommend it unless you're very, very desperate (and the sun turning too hot or into a red giant would be such a thing) is another matter.

[Andres]

Who needs all those equations and difficult formulas when the only thing you need to get there is some LSD...

[Moros]

Who needs all those equations and difficult formulas when the only thing you need to get there is some LSD...

2 words: Hawaïaanse paddo's.

[Moros]

Light doesn't have mass, only momentum derived from its energy*. The thing with gravity and light is that even though light travels straight, uninfluenced by the gravity, the space itself in which light travels is curved by the gravity. So the photons think they're going in a straight line, and they're right, but everybody else thinks they go in a curve. And they're right as well. Simple, yes?

special relativity combined with general relativity that is? Hmmm...

Oh well it's not my job to figure out a way to get there. I'm not a superhuman, like them Japanese.