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Astronomers discover 7 Earth-sized planets orbiting nearby star

faithful_servant said:
So we're using resources tnat could be better utilized developing a near Earth protection system, researching cure for a couple hundred diseases, finding ways to make people's lives better instead of just wasting money on pie in the sky crap. Yeah, it's all cool to know that a small star with a bunch of high orbital speed tidally locked planets (think big versions of Mercury) exists, but tell me how that matters to the kid in Somalia who is starving or how much it's going to matter if we come across an asteroid on an impact course with us. It's like sitting around painting a picture while your family farm is being overtaken by weeds.
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Money does not burn up when spent.


Money spent on space is GIVEN IN EXCHANGE to scientists, engineers, technicians, welders, electricians, programmers, and so on and pays the salaries of umpteen-thousand people who work in supporting industries. THOSE people then go out and spend that money on bread, wine, cheese, rent, cars, new TVs, and so forth.


NOT TO MENTION there are almost inexhaustible resources available in the asteroid belt and on various moons and planets in our system, but we have to have a space program to reach them and bring them back.
 
ludin said:
That is my thinking as well. unless they have some really big barriers or something setup none of the would
be close to supporting life.

they just discovered 5 more planets I don't see where this is a big deal.
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Fletch said:
Yeah, it looks like most of them are closer to their sun that Mercury is to ours. Not sure that bodes well for life forms.
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Well article says its an ultra cool dwarf star. I assume they are referring to how much heat tit puts off now how much it resembles th Fonz ;) Still not sure what that means in relation to how close the planets ate.
 
faithful_servant said:
So we're using resources tnat could be better utilized developing a near Earth protection system, researching cure for a couple hundred diseases, finding ways to make people's lives better instead of just wasting money on pie in the sky crap. Yeah, it's all cool to know that a small star with a bunch of high orbital speed tidally locked planets (think big versions of Mercury) exists, but tell me how that matters to the kid in Somalia who is starving or how much it's going to matter if we come across an asteroid on an impact course with us. It's like sitting around painting a picture while your family farm is being overtaken by weeds.
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Psssst; we're looking to a place to send all the vagabonds. :)
 
Goshin said:
Money does not burn up when spent.


Money spent on space is GIVEN IN EXCHANGE to scientists, engineers, technicians, welders, electricians, programmers, and so on and pays the salaries of umpteen-thousand people who work in supporting industries. THOSE people then go out and spend that money on bread, wine, cheese, rent, cars, new TVs, and so forth.


NOT TO MENTION there are almost inexhaustible resources available in the asteroid belt and on various moons and planets in our system, but we have to have a space program to reach them and bring them back.
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"Go boldly where no man has gone before"
 
Quag said:
Well article says its an ultra cool dwarf star. I assume they are referring to how much heat tit puts off now how much it resembles th Fonz ;) Still not sure what that means in relation to how close the planets ate.
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Less heat means the planets have to be much closer to have the same temps as earth. The 1-e planet in particular should have both the same size and temp. But that also depends heavily on its atmosphere (this is why Venus is hell and Mars unbreathable). The concern is that dwarf stars begin with much more energy that may have destroyed the atmospheres long before life could develop. Habitability also depends on a variety of factors like radiation, tidal forces, gravity pressure, seismic activity that i'm not sure any telescope will be able to measure. The atmosphere though, yes probably
 
This dwarf star generates less light than our sun, but these planets receive about the same amount of radiation as Earth due to their close proximity to the dwarf.
 
chromium said:
Less heat means the planets have to be much closer to have the same temps as earth.
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Well I know that but I didn't see anywhere where it said how hot the star actually is
The 1-e planet in particular should have both the same size and temp.
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Didn't see that in the article, but it kept jumping around and restarting the video, first normal sized then tiny in the corner over and over. I gave up after I saw ultra-cool dwarf star
But that also depends heavily on its atmosphere (this is why Venus is hell and Mars unbreathable).
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Yup
The concern is that dwarf stars begin with much more energy that may have destroyed the atmospheres long before life could develop. Habitability also depends on a variety of factors like radiation, tidal forces, gravity pressure, seismic activity that i'm not sure any telescope will be able to measure. The atmosphere though, yes probably
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Well its an exciting start in any case
 
Rogue Valley said:
Astronomers discover 7 Earth-sized planets orbiting nearby star


Fantastic discovery! Scientists will be able to more closely examine the planet atmospheres (and look for life-signatures) sometime within the next five years.
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Interesting. You have to wonder about the tidal effects of having seven planets and a star crammed so close together though.

I'd guess that - if any of these planets have plate tectonics or active volcanism - the processes would probably be considerably stronger and more active than they are here on Earth.
 
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humbolt said:
Why not? I don't think the truth should upset even the most evangelical elements of Christianity. It might, but it certainly shouldn't. If it does, they might want to revisit their commitment to the truth.
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The more reasonable denominations certainly won't have a problem with it - Catholics, Episcopals, Lutherans, Mormons, etca.

The hard core fundamentalist Baptist types might... But then again, what don't they have a problem with, besides the Bible itself?
 
Hi.


<--- Evangelical Christian who eagerly awaits every new development in the search for extraterrestrial life with an open mind. :)
 
Yarff said:
The more reasonable denominations certainly won't have a problem with it - Catholics, Episcopals, Lutherans, Mormons, etca.

The hard core fundamentalist Baptist types might... But then again, what don't they have a problem with, besides the Bible itself?
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Well, there are those, "If God meant for man to fly, he'd have given us wings..." types. It does no good to mention that if God had meant for us to drive, He'd have given us bodies to survive collisions. If God had meant for us to cure diseases caused by micro-organisms, He'd have given us microscopes for eyes. Of course, if He had, we'd be involved in more collisions, but...
 
Goshin said:
Hi.

<--- Evangelical Christian who eagerly awaits every new development in the search for extraterrestrial life with an open mind. :)
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I used the phrase "Hard core fundamentalist" instead of "evangelical."

That was by design. ;)
 
a777pilot said:
Fabulous! This is a great discovery. Forty light years is a truly great distance, so no exploration for many, many years, if ever.
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It probably won't be in my lifetime, but for kids living now? Anything is possible. It took humankind 200,000 years to evolve to the point of flying in a motorized aircraft in 1903. That plane went 120 feet. But only 44 years later Chuck Yeager flew a plane at mach speed breaking the sound barrier for the first time. And it was only 22 years after that when Neil Armstrong walked on the moon. We now have technology amazingly more advanced that we had at the time of those amazing feats. We have more computer capability with the PC sitting on our desk right now than was available to NASA at that time.

So what will we be able to do in another 20, 50, 100 years? I believe it is inevitable that we will develop some means to travel at warp speed and greater. We are limited only by what we cannot imagine.

I personally hope at least one or two of those planets are comfortably hospitable and inhabitable and are currently uninhabited. If our global population continues to increase at the rate it is presently increasing, some people are going to need to move.
 
Yarff said:
I used the phrase "Hard core fundamentalist" instead of "evangelical."

That was by design. ;)
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Mmyeah. Not quite HCF here. I even dance once in a while. :)
 
AlbqOwl said:
It probably won't be in my lifetime, but for kids living now? Anything is possible. It took humankind 200,000 years to evolve to the point of flying in a motorized aircraft in 1903. That plane went 120 feet. But only 44 years later Chuck Yeager flew a plane at mach speed breaking the sound barrier for the first time. And it was only 22 years after that when Neil Armstrong walked on the moon. We now have technology amazingly more advanced that we had at the time of those amazing feats. We have more computer capability with the PC sitting on our desk right now than was available to NASA at that time.

So what will we be able to do in another 20, 50, 100 years? I believe it is inevitable that we will develop some means to travel at warp speed and greater. We are limited only by what we cannot imagine.

I personally hope at least one or two of those planets are comfortably hospitable and inhabitable and are currently uninhabited. If our global population continues to increase at the rate it is presently increasing, some people are going to need to move.
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Well... I support offworld colonization strongly, but strictly speaking, I don't think exoplanets, or even orbital space habs, will ever be a solution to overpopulation.

Consider: current population is a bit over 7 billion, use 7 bil for a working number. Assuming a modest 2% increase per year, that's 140 million people per year in increase.

Imagine trying to move 140 million people per year...

Now granted, about 3 billion people fly commercial airlines each year on about 37 million flights, per data I could find. (I'd bet it is more like a tenth that many flying multiple times but that doesn't really matter), but that's just through the air and often just a few hundred miles... and most are not moving to a new place, and especially not a developing frontier where they'll need a ton of start-up gear to survive.

http://http://newsfeed.time.com/2013/02/28/2012-was-the-safest-year-ever-to-travel-by-plane/

To use an exoplanet as a population growth solution we'd have to be at the point where traveling from Earth to another star system was nearly as easy and quick as flying from New York to Paris.

Current theories on the Alcubierre warp drive (if it is something that can actually be done, or if something do-able can be developed from the idea) are highly unsure what the "warp speed" or pseudovelocity of such a craft might be, but estimates I've came across range from 10c to 40c if it can ever be made to work.

That would be about 1 to 4 years for a journey to Trappist-1. 39 days to 5 months just to Alpha Centauri, if a habitable exoplanet is found there.

This is all very hypothetical of course.


To use interstellar colonization as a population growth fix, we'd just about need interstellar instant-teleportation gates as in Heinlein's Tunnel In The Sky... as he quips in that book, "You could march people through a Gate four abreast all year and still never run out of people."


But I wouldn't worry too much... population growth is declining and slowing overall, and apparently the more prosperous a society is the less its people feel the need to procreate. Europe's native populations are actually in decline for the most part.
 
Quag said:
Please tell me that you dance better than Elaine
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Nah, it's pretty much the Goofy White Boy Dance to be honest... :D
 
Goshin said:
Well... I support offworld colonization strongly, but strictly speaking, I don't think exoplanets, or even orbital space habs, will ever be a solution to overpopulation.

Consider: current population is a bit over 7 billion, use 7 bil for a working number. Assuming a modest 2% increase per year, that's 140 million people per year in increase.

Imagine trying to move 140 million people per year...

Now granted, about 3 billion people fly commercial airlines each year on about 37 million flights, per data I could find. (I'd bet it is more like a tenth that many flying multiple times but that doesn't really matter), but that's just through the air and often just a few hundred miles... and most are not moving to a new place, and especially not a developing frontier where they'll need a ton of start-up gear to survive.

http://http://newsfeed.time.com/2013/02/28/2012-was-the-safest-year-ever-to-travel-by-plane/

To use an exoplanet as a population growth solution we'd have to be at the point where traveling from Earth to another star system was nearly as easy and quick as flying from New York to Paris.

Current theories on the Alcubierre warp drive (if it is something that can actually be done, or if something do-able can be developed from the idea) are highly unsure what the "warp speed" or pseudovelocity of such a craft might be, but estimates I've came across range from 10c to 40c if it can ever be made to work.

That would be about 1 to 4 years for a journey to Trappist-1. 39 days to 5 months just to Alpha Centauri, if a habitable exoplanet is found there.

This is all very hypothetical of course.


To use interstellar colonization as a population growth fix, we'd just about need interstellar instant-teleportation gates as in Heinlein's Tunnel In The Sky... as he quips in that book, "You could march people through a Gate four abreast all year and still never run out of people."


But I wouldn't worry too much... population growth is declining and slowing overall, and apparently the more prosperous a society is the less its people feel the need to procreate. Europe's native populations are actually in decline for the most part.
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I can't argue with anything you've said, but I think it plausible that in another 100 or 200 years it very well be possible to travel anywhere we want to go with 40 light years being no more barrier than travel from Spain to America was in Columbus' day. Again we are limited only by what we can imagine.
 
humbolt said:
I did that too, back when I had no fear of societal retribution.
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Oh, dude... today I was waiting in line at the Dollar General checkout... and I may have mentioned feeling 'bouncy' from excitement over this discovery... and then a badass song came on the store sound system.

I could not resist. I had to move it. :)


Holy cow that line cleared out mighty quick. :D



 
AlbqOwl said:
I can't argue with anything you've said, but I think it plausible that in another 100 or 200 years it very well be possible to travel anywhere we want to go with 40 light years being no more barrier than travel from Spain to America was in Columbus' day. Again we are limited only by what we can imagine.
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There are massive barriers involved with being able to go faster than light. You would have to rewrite everything we know about physics to do it.

While its great news to know that here may be habitable planets out there, the distances involved pretty much means you will need some sort of magic to get over there. Sad but true.
 
AlbqOwl said:
It probably won't be in my lifetime, but for kids living now? Anything is possible. It took humankind 200,000 years to evolve to the point of flying in a motorized aircraft in 1903. That plane went 120 feet.
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I agree that almost anything is possible, however the first flight was by Gustave Whitehead, 14 AUG 1901 that went 1/2 mile.
 
PoS said:
There are massive barriers involved with being able to go faster than light. You would have to rewrite everything we know about physics to do it.

While its great news to know that here may be habitable planets out there, the distances involved pretty much means you will need some sort of magic to get over there. Sad but true.
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But wouldn't people of Columbus day think television was some sort of magic? Or transmitting video from the surface of the moon into everybody's living rooms? Who would have ever thought it possible before somebody envisioned it and then did it? Likewise scientists theorized for some time that mach speed would not be survivable until somebody accomplished it, and the rest of that story is now distant history. Who would have imagined when the first computers were developed that people would carry computers in small portable phones or even in their wrist watches that had more capability than the NASA computer on Apollo 11 or at Mission Control?

While in no way pretending to fully understand quantum physics, Einstein's theory of relativity, and all that is encompassed in that, I have the gist of it sufficiently to know that he believed time travel possible and in theory proved it. So just because something seems impossible here and now, I am not willing to say that it will seem to impossible with what we will learn and how much we will advance in the next 100 years.

I know I won't live long enough to see it all happen. I just hope I get to watch. :)
 
AlbqOwl said:
But wouldn't people of Columbus day think television was some sort of magic? Or transmitting video from the surface of the moon into everybody's living rooms? Who would have ever thought it possible before somebody envisioned it and then did it? Likewise scientists theorized for some time that mach speed would not be survivable until somebody accomplished it, and the rest of that story is now distant history. Who would have imagined when the first computers were developed that people would carry computers in small portable phones or even in their wrist watches that had more capability than the NASA computer on Apollo 11?

While in no way pretending to fully understand quantum physics, Einstein's theory of relativity, and all that is encompassed in that, I have the gist of it sufficiently to know that he believed time travel possible and in theory proved it. So just because something seems impossible here and now, I am not willing to say that it will seem to impossible with what we will learn and how much we will advance in the next 100 years.

I know I won't live long enough to see it all happen. I just hope I get to watch. :)
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As long as we don't give up, I think a way can be found, eventually, to make interstellar travel possible... maybe not fast or convenient but possible.


Most of my life there was no theory on going "FTL", it was pure fantasy. Now there is a hypothesis with actual math, and a revised version that puts the energy levels required at less-fantastic level. It may or may not pan out, but it is progress... and we will never know for sure unless we keep trying.


I hope we never give up trying for the impossible dream. :)
 
Goshin said:
As long as we don't give up, I think a way can be found, eventually, to make interstellar travel possible... maybe not fast or convenient but possible.


Most of my life there was no theory on going "FTL", it was pure fantasy. Now there is a hypothesis with actual math, and a revised version that puts the energy levels required at less-fantastic level. It may or may not pan out, but it is progress... and we will never know for sure unless we keep trying.


I hope we never give up trying for the impossible dream. :)
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It takes the energy of a hypernova to propel matter to close to the speed of light. Even if that sort of propulsion is someday possible a human being would never survive the g-force. Our future will be one of slow moving generational ships.
 
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