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Seven Earth-sized Planets Orbit an Alien Star Only 40 Light-years Away

DaveFagan said:
It's my opinion they should concentrate more on Mars. It has water, May have had life in the past. Did it burn up?
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mars is included in "space exploration". :)

I am not suggesting we get to these planets anytime soon, I am suggesting we get our asses to mars and testing habitats and A LOT MORE of the things we need to do RIGHT NOW to work towards mars and everything else. PUT MORE MONEY IN SPACE EXPLORATION.
 
Hypothetical said:
that's true but what i am saying is that we need to start devoting time and energy to space exploration now, to make it our future.
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DaveFagan said:
It's my opinion they should concentrate more on Mars. It has water, May have had life in the past. Did it burn up?
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Hypothetical said:
mars is included in "space exploration". :)

I am not suggesting we get to these planets anytime soon, I am suggesting we get our asses to mars and testing habitats and A LOT MORE of the things we need to do RIGHT NOW to work towards mars and everything else. PUT MORE MONEY IN SPACE EXPLORATION.
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I think going to mars is a very bad idea and do you know why? Because you will contaminate the dust. Those dust storms perform a very important service and you will contaminate it.

Actually the service isn't that important and we could just as well push comets there.

Just something to think about and, you don't want to be beneath those dust storms (underground) creating discord either.

Survival is not so important, we can re-evolve, some other species can step up. All the civilization's accomplishment is stored in the retreats for some insectoidal race to curry over. Evolutions are going on all over.

There are spaceships right now that could take you there.

Adepts can go there.

An adept could move those planets.

You could become adept and...

There might be something growing on the fringes if they're tidally locked.
 
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Cephus said:
They are very, very, very common, probably more common than even we realize. There was a time when it was rare that we could detect them, today, they're a dime a dozen.
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someplace, somewhere given that space is limitless, there is probably some poster on an internet named Turtledude who is writing this same post to another poster named Cephus who has the same avatar
 
TurtleDude said:
someplace, somewhere given that space is limitless, there is probably some poster on an internet named Turtledude who is writing this same post to another poster named Cephus who has the same avatar
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Or there's thousands of you all writing the same thing almost, some of them losing the post and going home.
 
We should really focus on colonizing the moon and Mars by the 2050's and the Jovian moons first, then we can worry about the extrasolar stuff later (hopefully by the early 2100's).
 
Hypothetical said:
cool. we need to get more into space exploration pronto!!
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I'm not sure why. At current technology levels it would take about 300,000 years to make the journey. Better hope they figure out time warps before anybody takes off.
 
fmw said:
I'm not sure why. At current technology levels it would take about 300,000 years to make the journey. Better hope they figure out time warps before anybody takes off.
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because new discoveries , inventions and figuring out are easier to do when you are actively engaging in an approximate activity they are needed for.

planes didn't get invented by someone hoping a bicycle would just sprout wings
 
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Hypothetical said:
because new discoveries , inventions and figuring out are easier to do when you are actively engaging in an approximate activity they are needed for.

planes didn't get invented by someone hoping a bicycle would just sprout wings
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"If I'd asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses"
-- Henry Ford
 
Hypothetical said:
Its the most meaningful thing there is to our species, yet people pay no attention to it at all.

okay so here it is... eventually, if we don't get off of this planet, we are either a) going to use it up/destroy it's capability to sustain life by overpopulation or b) be victim to a cataclysmic event, such as a Extinction level asteroid hitting us. (and those are the BEST case scenarios)

we need to expand to other planets, probably starting with a permanent or semi permanent base on mars , move to the asteroid belt (mainly for mining resources) and work on our technology to see if we can truly become a space faring race...

unless we just want ourselves and everything on the only planet we know that sustains all this wonderful life, to completely die off at some point. I personally don't like that idea... plus all that work in space will help refine our technology to a point that is unimaginable today... and we can continue to grow without a problem.
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If ever that's possible.......who do you think will get off this planet?
 
TurtleDude said:
someplace, somewhere given that space is limitless, there is probably some poster on an internet named Turtledude who is writing this same post to another poster named Cephus who has the same avatar
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that was my first conversation with the person who became my best friend in high school. if the universe is actually infinite, then even if there is a small chance of something happening, it is happening somewhere, along with every other variation. however, i lean more multiverse these days rather than an infinitely large single universe. bubbles in a glass, so to speak.
 
ModerateGOP said:
Send in the Drones. New Horizons is already out there. Let's send it there.
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New Horizons lacks the delta-v for that.

Cephus said:
Well, we're not, and the presence of so many "moons" in the sky would probably have dramatic gravitational effects on the planet, possibly making it unlivable.
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Nope. Gravity changes enough to be severely hazardous on the surface of a planet would have destabilized the orbits. Worst they might see is tides that are much faster/stronger. (but would be just as predictable as ours)

Cephus said:
Thus probably placing them outside of the Goldilocks zone and uninhabitable.
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Nope. Cooler star, goldilocks zone is closer in.

TurtleDude said:
someplace, somewhere given that space is limitless, there is probably some poster on an internet named Turtledude who is writing this same post to another poster named Cephus who has the same avatar
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Puff, puff, pass, turtledude.
 
Hypothetical said:
because new discoveries , inventions and figuring out are easier to do when you are actively engaging in an approximate activity they are needed for.

planes didn't get invented by someone hoping a bicycle would just sprout wings
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No but an airplane doesn't fly in the face of physics as we know it.
 
Cephus said:
Well, we're not, and the presence of so many "moons" in the sky would probably have dramatic gravitational effects on the planet, possibly making it unlivable.
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Or life there would adapt if there if the other requirements are met met like H20, temps, etc.

Case in point: I rear fish for a living as one of my businesses. In my indoor recirculating systems my biofilter consists of plastic media that tumbles at an incredible rate up and down in a 55 gallon drum due to vertical air flow from a membrane diffuser. In one of them I accidentally added snails when bringing in fish fry from one of the outdoor ponds. They are happy and reproducing in inside the plastic media. I would have thought the turbulence was not bearable for them.
 
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Deuce said:
New Horizons lacks the delta-v for that.


Nope. Gravity changes enough to be severely hazardous on the surface of a planet would have destabilized the orbits. Worst they might see is tides that are much faster/stronger. (but would be just as predictable as ours)


Nope. Cooler star, goldilocks zone is closer in.


Puff, puff, pass, turtledude.
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if space is infinite than the combinations in space are infinite and thus the chances of an environment being duplicated is probably infinite
 
Cephus said:
Thus probably placing them outside of the Goldilocks zone and uninhabitable.
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You didn't read the article.


It is a red dwarf star, and three of the planets are in the goldilocks zone, which is one of the things that makes this a very major discovery.


Any or none of the three may be habitable in some sense, but to find THREE earth-size planets in the habitable zone of such a common star-type strongly indicates that hab-zone e-size planets may be very common, which means the odds of habitable worlds and/or life is probably much higher than we previously had evidence for.


Yes, it is big news.
 
Goshin said:
You didn't read the article.


It is a red dwarf star, and three of the planets are in the goldilocks zone, which is one of the things that makes this a very major discovery.


Any or none of the three may be habitable in some sense, but to find THREE earth-size planets in the habitable zone of such a common star-type strongly indicates that hab-zone e-size planets may be very common, which means the odds of habitable worlds and/or life is probably much higher than we previously had evidence for.


Yes, it is big news.
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We've already known that they are common. What I was pointing out is that this specific discovery doesn't mean we're off to colonize these planets, that idea is silly. And three being in the Golidlocks zone means four are not, something else I pointed out. It's news. It isn't magic.
 
Cephus said:
We've already known that they are common. What I was pointing out is that this specific discovery doesn't mean we're off to colonize these planets, that idea is silly. And three being in the Golidlocks zone means four are not, something else I pointed out. It's news. It isn't magic.
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You must not follow exoplanet research very closely.

Up to this point we did not have a lot of real evidence of e-size planets in the hab zone. Due to our detection methods we most commonly found planets 2x e-size and up, and mostly Saturn-plus size, because they're easier to find from such a great distance. We hadn't yet found very many e-size planets and relatively few life candidates compared to larger planets due to the smaller ones being harder to locate.

TMK this is the first time 3 e-size planets have been discovered in the life zone of a single star, and definitely around a common M type star.


It is, in fact, a big discovery. It is evidence that such potentially habitable planets may well be far more common, whereas before we mostly just had educated guesses.
 
Don't know why so many people want to be Buzz Killington.


 
Goshin said:
You must not follow exoplanet research very closely.

Up to this point we did not have a lot of real evidence of e-size planets in the hab zone. Due to our detection methods we most commonly found planets 2x e-size and up, and mostly Saturn-plus size, because they're easier to find from such a great distance. We hadn't yet found very many e-size planets and relatively few life candidates compared to larger planets due to the smaller ones being harder to locate.

TMK this is the first time 3 e-size planets have been discovered in the life zone of a single star, and definitely around a common M type star.


It is, in fact, a big discovery. It is evidence that such potentially habitable planets may well be far more common, whereas before we mostly just had educated guesses.
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We've known they were out there, we just didn't have the technology to detect them. It isn't like we had no clue other earth-class planets were there. We knew that. We're just getting better at finding them. Now we'll find them by the thousands.
 
Cephus said:
We've known they were out there, we just didn't have the technology to detect them. It isn't like we had no clue other earth-class planets were there. We knew that. We're just getting better at finding them. Now we'll find them by the thousands.
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You don't seem to be getting the difference between "we reasonably believed x but had very limited evidence" and "we now have far more conclusive evidence of x, and perhaps far more x than we ever dreamed of having".


This is at least as big as detecting Higg's Boson.
 
Goshin said:
You didn't read the article.


It is a red dwarf star, and three of the planets are in the goldilocks zone, which is one of the things that makes this a very major discovery.


Any or none of the three may be habitable in some sense, but to find THREE earth-size planets in the habitable zone of such a common star-type strongly indicates that hab-zone e-size planets may be very common, which means the odds of habitable worlds and/or life is probably much higher than we previously had evidence for.


Yes, it is big news.
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Semi-yawn.

We have heard the 'life on other planets' stuff for decades..it's well past it's expiry date.

Yeah, yeah...this one is 'different'. These are three planets...blah blah blah. I DO NOT MUCH CARE...and I am a huge sci-fi lover.

When they prove there is life on them, then I will care more (which I highly doubt - though it would be incredible if they did). But there is no way I want to fork over one thin dime for NASA to spend billions to go and look at these new pets of theirs (which I guarantee you, NASA will desperately want to do).

Now if the private sector wants to take a crack at it - I might fork over a dime or two.

But NASA? That semi-useless bunch of money wasting scientists/bureaucrats? Break it up and leave their work to the private sector.

I guarantee you the private sector could do FAR more than NASA could do, FAR cheaper and not cost taxpayers one thin dime - including exploring these rocks er planets.
 
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DA60 said:
Semi-yawn.

We have heard the 'life on other planets' stuff for decades..it's well past it's expiry date.

Yeah, yeah...this one is 'different'. These are three planets...blah blah blah. I DO NOT MUCH CARE...and I am a huge sci-fi lover.

When they prove there is life on them, then I will care more (which I highly doubt - though it would be incredible if they did). But there is no way I want to fork over one thin dime for NASA to spend billions to go and look at these new pets of theirs (which I guarantee you, NASA will desperately want to do).

Now if the private sector wants to take a crack at it - I might fork over a dime or two.

But NASA? That semi-useless bunch of money wasting scientists/bureaucrats? Break it up and leave their work to the private sector.

I guarantee you the private sector could do FAR more than NASA could do, FAR cheaper and not cost taxpayers one thin dime - including exploring these rocks er planets.
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There's some pretty incredible narrow mindedness in this thread.


Hey... private industry doesn't do a lot of pure science research. Not without a profit somewhere on the horizon.




But one thing about pure science research... from time to time there are unexpected benefits to be reaped here on Earth from it. Knowledge is power.
 
DA60 said:
Semi-yawn.

We have heard the 'life on other planets' stuff for decades..it's well past it's expiry date.

Yeah, yeah...this one is 'different'. These are three planets...blah blah blah. I DO NOT MUCH CARE...and I am a huge sci-fi lover.

When they prove there is life on them, then I will care more (which I highly doubt - though it would be incredible if they did). But there is no way I want to fork over one thin dime for NASA to spend billions to go and look at these new pets of theirs (which I guarantee you, NASA will desperately want to do).

Now if the private sector wants to take a crack at it - I might fork over a dime or two.

But NASA? That semi-useless bunch of money wasting scientists/bureaucrats? Break it up and leave their work to the private sector.

I guarantee you the private sector could do FAR more than NASA could do, FAR cheaper and not cost taxpayers one thin dime - including exploring these rocks er planets.
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And yet, for some reason they didn't discover these planets first on their own.

NASA is not in any danger of asking for money to go to these planets. The technology to do so doesn't exist right now.
 
Goshin said:
You must not follow exoplanet research very closely.

Up to this point we did not have a lot of real evidence of e-size planets in the hab zone. Due to our detection methods we most commonly found planets 2x e-size and up, and mostly Saturn-plus size, because they're easier to find from such a great distance. We hadn't yet found very many e-size planets and relatively few life candidates compared to larger planets due to the smaller ones being harder to locate.

TMK this is the first time 3 e-size planets have been discovered in the life zone of a single star, and definitely around a common M type star.


It is, in fact, a big discovery. It is evidence that such potentially habitable planets may well be far more common, whereas before we mostly just had educated guesses.
Click to expand...

I can remember years ago when the general consensus among scientists was the odds of there even being another planet extremely remote. We've come a long ways.
 
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