First Earthlike Exoplanet Found

[rory_20_uk]

Woo hoo. A planet that is 20 light years away. We can't reach it, nor is that likely to change in the future.

The joy is that there is likely to be water on the surface.

Apart from helping Sci-Fi authors, what is the big deal about? Surely that China is polluting the Earth (you know - where we are) more than the USA is greater news.

Since this breakthrough, I suggest all funding for renewable fuels is scrapped, and we spend it all on shuttle launches and telescopes to see if there are any other watery rocks out there we can't reach.

[Gregoshi]

Geez rory, your post is such a downer. I hope you're not suggesting that we stop all research on everything because we already know all there is to know. If anything, finding a planet like Gliese 581c sets another goal for us much like the new world did, or the ocean's depths or the sky or disease or war or any other challenge faced by mankind. Even if we can't go there physically (yet! ), the better we can observe worlds similar to our own, the better we may be able to understand our own planet. Cheer up mate, it ain't all that bad!

[naut]

Teleportation.

Teleportation?

[Vladimir]

Rory I really want you as my doctor. You'd be cheaper than Kavorkian.

[Lemur]

Since this breakthrough, I suggest all funding for renewable fuels is scrapped, and we spend it all on shuttle launches and telescopes to see if there are any other watery rocks out there we can't reach.

Very strange reaction. Space exploration usually helps us to refine/discover renewable energy and closed systems (i.e. "recycling"). Where do you think solar panels would be today if we hadn't needed them for satellites?

Also, most of the great liberalizations of civilizations have been made during periods of expansion and exploration. Societies that don't explore are more likely to become closed, calcified and xenophobic.

So I really don't understand why some environmentalists and anti-poverty activists get so dismissive about space exploration. Exploration and conservation are not enemies; they are symbionts.

And for those who say that we should end poverty, war, and All Bad Things before we spend a dime on checking out the Universe, may I point out that in the 6,000 years of our civilization nobody has been able to end All Bad Things, and yet we've achieved greatness anyway.

If you're worried about earth, mankind and suffering, just remember that the way out is forward, not sitting down and navel-gazing.

[drone]

Found a planet several light years away, getting pounded with radiation, with unknown resources and hazards? Why is the answer always "send the drones, send the drones, they'll scope it out for us"? So predictable. It's not like we wear red shirts.

[Zaknafien]

William Hill said it had shortened the odds on proving the existence of extraterrestrial intelligence from 1,000-1 to 100-1.

Wow, that's pretty damn good. SETI better get those radio-telescopes pointed the right way! they also mentioned by 2020 an orbital telescope could reach the planet.

[Gregoshi]

It's not like we wear red shirts.

<Gregoshi changes shirt>

Excellent post Lemur.

[Rodion Romanovich]

Damn, now they know where I came from

[Fragony]

Damn, now they know where I came from

Don't worry, you have grown to big to put you back.

[Mikeus Caesar]

I read in the paper that the fastest ship we've ever launched went at about 24,000mph. At that speed, you'd arrive at Gliese in approximately 4.6 billion years time.

Somehow i don't think a generation ship will do.

[KukriKhan]

That is really neat, but being 13 times closer to it's radiatant star is bound to make for some radioactive environments. Not to mention, if there is sentient life there, evolving under 2g means they could kick our ass!

There's a thought. After taking 4 generations to get there (and just imagine the nature of the politics on-board that ship, across 100+ years), our traveling descendants find it hard to even move around on Nova Terra's gravity.

Then, turning the ship around to travel back to Sena Terra with our new-found friends, 200 years have passed, and out of that ship emerges Superman, able to leap tall buildings in a single bound...

The mind boggles.

[Samurai Waki]

If the Gravity is higher, wouldn't that just mean the likelihood of evolution would mean all the creatures would be pretty squatty and rotund compared to Earth Creatures?

[Agent Miles]

Actually, the “Goldilock’s Zone” is a rather outdated idea. If the Earth orbited in the giant star Betelgeuse’s GZ, then our seasons would be 60 years long. Venus and Mars were originally in the Sun’s GZ. Also, since we started looking for life out there, we’ve found organisms down here near undersea geysers that would melt lead and below the Antarctic snows, even in the radioactive furnaces of nuclear power plants. Life may be all over the universe. Life is necessary for intelligence to arise, however, intelligence is not necessary for life. There have been perhaps a trillion species on Earth. Only a handful could make a campfire.
As for going there, it’s actually quite practical. An orbital laser, powered by the sun, can propel a “light sail” spaceship with the pressure of light rays. Accelerating gradually for about a year, the ship would reach 10% of the speed of light (c). Thus in two centuries, we could travel to this new world.

If we slowly colonized even just one other star every thousand years, and these colonies did as well, then we could populate the entire galaxy in a few thousand centuries. There are no uninhabitable regions. People in Dyson rings could live anywhere there is light from a star and space rubble to build with.

Similarly, since no one else has colonized our star system, this means that there is no intelligent life in the galaxy that is at least a half a million years ahead of us (or they would be here). There are also no lesser civilizations in our immediate region either, for the same reason.

[Rameusb5]

My greatest regret has been being born in a time where we are aware of the scope of the universe, but unable to explore it.

Heck, we haven't even made a manned expedition to the nearest planets yet!


BTW, space exploration should be mankind's primary endeavor. We already know the sun is going to burn out and when it does, Earth will become uninhabitable. Why wait till the last minute to find somewhere else to go?

We've only got a few billion years left!

[Vladimir]

As for going there, it’s actually quite practical. An orbital laser, powered by the sun, can propel a “light sail” spaceship with the pressure of light rays. Accelerating gradually for about a year, the ship would reach 10% of the speed of light (c). Thus in two centuries, we could travel to this new world.

With the growth of technology I can just imagine those poor saps on a sail ship getting passed up by the next big advancement in propulsion. After 100 years drifting in space all they could do is press their noses against the window and think: “WTF!”

Found a planet several light years away, getting pounded with radiation, with unknown resources and hazards? Why is the answer always "send the drones, send the drones, they'll scope it out for us"? So predictable. It's not like we wear red shirts.

Just worry about keeping the Queen happy. I hear ya'll are a dying breed.

[King Henry V]

Good news, though it will probably not amount to much in our lifetimes, or even in our children's lifetimes. However, it is nice to think that for once we don't have to be the poor losers who get crushed by the highly developed aliens, something which I have believed all along (I mean, someone has to be first).

[Rameusb5]

LOL... my thoughts exactly. Early space travel will surly be frustrating as hell.

I'm not sure of the practicality of it, but there was a type of spacecraft proposed called a "Ramjet" that collected fuel (hydrogen) from space as it travelled. Thus, it had infinite fuel and therefor could constantly accelerate.

So, if one set the accelleration rate (thrust) at 9.8 meters per second squared (1 G), you would have "simulated" gravity on your ship, with "up" being the direction of travel. You would proceed in this manner until you reached the halfway point, at which time you'd turn the ship around and start DECELERATING at 1G until you arrived at your destination.

You could actually go pretty fast doing that. If my calculations are correct (and I'm guessing they aren't), you could get halfway there (10 lightyears) in 105 years. So it would take about 2 centuries at 1G.

If you up it to 1.5 G, it would only take a total of about 170 years.

2G's... 150 years.

I doubt you could go beyond 2 G's without REALLY screwing up people's physiology...

Edit - On the halfway point of your journet (fastest V), you'd be travelling 1352106000 meters per second! That's 4,867,581,600 km/hr! (That's 4.8 trillion kph!)

[Ironside]

That is really neat, but being 13 times closer to it's radiatant star is bound to make for some radioactive environments. Not to mention, if there is sentient life there, evolving under 2g means they could kick our ass!

It also emitts way lower levels of UV-radiation so I'm not sure exactly what kind of radiation they're talking about.
To put it differently, even without an ozone layer, it would be very hard to get sun-tan on Gliese 581 c.

[Don Corleone]

I understand it's got a lot lower levels of upper band electromagnetic radiation. But my point is that the intensity of energy experienced by a target receiving waves of said EMR decays with the square of the distance between them. So, if it's 13 times closer, it receives 169 times the energy, assuming a similar source. Your point is that UV and other upper band EMR will be lower intensity at the source is valid, but is it enough to counteract that scaling factor? There's going to be some gamma emission from Gilese 581. Would you want to be 6.2 million miles away from it when you could be 93 million miles away?

[Ironside]

I understand it's got a lot lower levels of upper band electromagnetic radiation. But my point is that the intensity of energy experienced by a target receiving waves of said EMR decays with the square of the distance between them. So, if it's 13 times closer, it receives 169 times the energy, assuming a similar source. Your point is that UV and other upper band EMR will be lower intensity at the source is valid, but is it enough to counteract that scaling factor? There's going to be some gamma emission from Gilese 581. Would you want to be 6.2 million miles away from it when you could be 93 million miles away?

The scaling factor = 169, the reduction of 100nm UV-radiation is = 473 million (I checked more than once to make sure the formula was correct, that felt like alot), unless I misunderstood Planks radiation law somehow.
Sun was 5800K, while the red star was 3300K.
So unless there's some gamma radiation thing happening in the sun that isn't black-body emittance there isn't any radiation to talk about.

The place will be very dark though, the middle of the day will be like twillight here on earth.

Edit: Hmm just remebered something. The strongest radiation should come from the center of the star, so I would need to have temperatures on the center to get a basis for value of the gamma radiation, who in turn should get partially absorbed by going through the star. Complications, complications...

[ZombieFriedNuts]

13 day solar orbit thats one fast planet

[Samurai Waki]

Well You also have to take into account that the Gilese Sun isn't very big. Which means its probably ridiculously dense at the core, meaning higher gravitational pull, and a small likelihood that Gamma Radiation could easily escape and bombard the planet. Plus, if it even has a viable atmosphere, then Gamma Radiation shouldn't be a problem anyways.

[Martok]

Sweet! At first I thought the article was a prank, but I'm very pleased that it's not. I don't care that I'll be long dead by the time we're able to trave outside of our own solar system -- I'm still excited anyway.

[Mooks]

I volunteer to be the first one to mate with our new alien buddies.

[Tuuvi]

But what if they reproduce through budding?

[Yun Dog]

So we can all relax then, its ok weve found another world, which a few select individuals cans colonize after weve finished turning this one into a radioactive ball of dust


Id suggest we send celebritys and make a game show out of it

Celebrity colonization of the stars

[doc_bean]

I do hope we start some serious space expoloration and exploitation soon, remember :

"United we stand, divided we welcome our alien overlords !"

[HoreTore]

I find it funny how people believe that the life we have here is the only way to make life. The fact is, however, that we do not know of any other ways for life to exist than here. That doesn't mean that life cannot form other places at 500 degrees with acid rain and no oxygen... It's just as likely for life to form at such a place as here, IMO.

[TevashSzat]

Horetore is quite right and some have theorized that life forms on another planet could be based off of silicone instead of carbon creating some very wierd looking creatures