AdelaideNow… New earth find suggests we are not alone — Does anyone else but me think that we should load up vials of frozen life forms and launch a missile at this planet to inoculate it? Or does anyone think that perhaps there are folks on this planet that did that to us? Or do I join the nutball club for thinking this way?
ASTRONOMERS have found a “new Earth” – the first planet outside our solar system with the potential for life as we know it.
The Earth-like planet is 20.5 light years away, orbiting the “red dwarf” star Gliese 581 in the constellation Libra.It is one of three planets in that solar system, with the Earth-like planet named Gliese 581C.
Commenting on the discovery by a team of European scientists, University of Adelaide Professor Roger Clay said this was the first time a planet with a mass or weight similar to the Earth’s had been found.
Picture link at top of article is messed up. Cannot link directly to images from gutenberg.org
fixed..I hate it when that happens.
Very nice – but is it in the “goldilocks zone”? (aka does it have liquid water & an oxynitrogen atmosphere)… I’d imagine that a red dwarf wouldnt put out that much heat…
I think youve joined the nutball club Dvorak! Life on this Earth is doomed before we have a chance to go anywhere else!! (most likely)
2. “I’d imagine that a red dwarf wouldnt put out that much heat… ”
Yeah, but at least we’d be safe from Kryptonians.
I would be in for sending a probe, definitely, although I imagine it would take at least 100 years to get there. then someone at NASA would have confused the English with the Metric and the damn thing would crash …
I’m game, let’s go…can we leave Ann Coulter behind?
I think the seeding theory for earth’s origins are a possibility. However, I don’t think humans could successfully move to another planet. The planets density, and atmosphere would be so different. We are uniquely adapted to this planets through years of evolution. I also think this is why there are no aliens that have come to earth.
I would be in for sending a probe, definitely, although I imagine it would take at least 100 years to get there
At 20 light years away and our current pitiful propulsion methods, it would take way longer then 100 years to get there.
Don’t be fooled by the puff piece and enthusiasm of the scientists. The only thing known about the planet is that it has an orbit around a star that should might probably give it an earth like temperature and that it most likely should have a mass 5 times that of earth, everything else in the article is pure speculation and BS from the writer. The only thing the scientists can see about this planet is the wobble its gravitational attraction causes on its parent star with that they can speculate its mass and as the planet passes in front of the star they can estimate the size by the dimming of the light output of the said star and that is all . They cant see the planet, they cant see oceans, they cant even tell you its chemical makeup. I think it is real yellow journalism for the original publication(not aimed at this blog) to print misinformation like this and mislead the public into thinking ET or earth 2 has been found.
Yes, it is in the Goldilocks zone – read it today … I’ll be the first person on the generation ship when they launch 🙂
#8. Yes. we would need a propulsion system much more powerful than what we have now. AFAIK, it took one of the Voyagers (?) over 20 years to reach the edge of our own solar system.
It’s bigger. That means more gravity. Atmospheric composition is also an issue. But assuming that’s okay, we’d have to build giant centrifugal spacecraft that gradually increase the gravity level over the course of the trip so we’re adjusted by the time we arrive.
I think posing the question “Or does anyone think that perhaps there are folks on this (did you mean other?) planet that did that to us”? is just an invitation for ridicule, especially on this blog. Take your pick, we crawled out of the sea and eventually evolved from apes. Or the human species was helped to evolve by DNA mixing (possibly with apes) by others? You are talking about Intelligent Design right?
Well, you will never convince this bunch that we arent the most advanced life forms in the universe. And that since WE are incapable of interstellar travel, it just CANNOT happen. I think if it is ever proven (for some no proof will ever suffice) that we arent the only ones here, now, then yes, that would be the most reasonable explanation.
But where do you go from there? And I fully expect the snide remarks, so fire away.
John,
Ha! You always say it is ok to steal other people’s bandwidth by linking to images on other people’s servers. It’s not. You say there are ways people can protect their images. I guess Project Gutenberg found one way.
Will this tiny embarassament stop you from hotlinking in the future? No.
BTW, this post clearly complies with your rules, since I’m commenting on your “choice” of images…..and of course I’m a jerk.
[ed note…there are plenty of way to prevent such linking and theirs is one..I do not employ such tactics and prefer to share bandwidth with people who use our images. I do not see it as a problem. I was under the impression that the Gutenberg folks were trying to open things up not shut things down. Makes no sense to me.]
“Or do I join the nutball club for thinking this way?”
Ahhhh, lemme just put it this way; your membership card is in the mail.
From my extremely bad calculations it would take 4,857,980,405 years of traveling at our current space speed record to get there.
From wikipedia… our current speed record in space “The Apollo 10 crew; Thomas Stafford, John W. Young and Gene Cernan achieved the highest speed relative to earth ever attained by humans; 39,896 km/h (11.1 km/s, 24,790 mph).”
And the speed of light is 670,616,629.384 mph
Is my brain working poperly tonight?
actually one of the pioneer space probes has achieved approx 10% the speed of light but it would stil be a really long long time
What makes you all think we evolved on this planet?
How about somewhere else? It would explain the sudden leap to homo’s We might be living on Earth II or III…. I’d start looking to Earth IV or V. We may need it soon… So if we really are the only ‘inteligent’ life in the universe… it’s all ours for the taking… If not we better have something they want real bad. how about a case of Guinness?
17, Pmitchell,
Pioneer 10’s current speed relative to the Sun is 27,380 mph.
Source:
http://www.spacetoday.org/SolSys/ThePioneers.html
Speed of light — c — in a vacuum is about 670 e+6 mph, or 186,282 miles per second.
Pioneer 10’s speed (27,380 mph) is only a tiny fraction (4.08 e-5) of c. At this speed, it would take 24,493 years to reach Gliese 581. Stasis, anyone?
Just my 2 cents (2 new gold dollars) worth.
And it will only take your Prius two trillion gallons of gasoline to get there!
[off topic — deleted]
Faster than light travel isn’t available…
Yet….
But as for any of our lifetimes or the lifetimes of the next several generations, it might as well be science fiction. But when it comes to this possible vs. impossible stuff, I always bet on possible in the long run.
[off topic — deleted]
Are we there yet?
Are we there yet?
Are we there yet?
Are we there yet?
Are we there yet?
Are we there yet?
Are we there yet?
Are we there yet?
Are we there yet?
Are we there yet?
Are we there yet?
Are we there yet?
Are we there yet?
If you read the scientists paper, in the original article, they have ways of making estimates about atmosphere and possibility of water etc..
Also, I heard today it would take 148 years?……if we traveled at the speed of light, to get there. The funny part was it would take like 100 billion years or something at the speed of a 747.
#25 – joshua
“Also, I heard today it would take 148 years?……if we traveled at the speed of light, to get there.”
The distance light travels in one year is one light-year. It’s 20.8 light-years away, therefore that’s how many years it would take at lightspeed – 20.8
26, Lauren, you are correct. almost 21 years at speed c. About a week at warp 9 More power, Scotty !!
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap070426.html
http://home.att.net/~srschmitt/script_warpcalc.html
Can one of you really clever people work this out for me please?
(I am not clever enough…or I’d have a go)
How long would it take to get there if you left earth accelerating at a constant 1G until you got half way there and the decelerated at 1G?
This would remove the necessity of anykind of artificial gravity set-up or inertial dampening system
Thanks
# 28, easy one:
Days
Seconds
g
Speed
c
1
86.400
9,81
847.584
299.792.458
10
864.000
9,81
8.475.840
299.792.458
20
1.728.000
9,81
16.951.680
299.792.458
30
2.592.000
9,81
25.427.520
299.792.458
40
3.456.000
9,81
33.903.360
299.792.458
50
4.320.000
9,81
42.379.200
299.792.458
60
5.184.000
9,81
50.855.040
299.792.458
70
6.048.000
9,81
59.330.880
299.792.458
80
6.912.000
9,81
67.806.720
299.792.458
90
7.776.000
9,81
76.282.560
299.792.458
100
8.640.000
9,81
84.758.400
299.792.458
200
17.280.000
9,81
169.516.800
299.792.458
300
25.920.000
9,81
254.275.200
299.792.458
354
30.559.884
9,81
299.792.458
299.792.458
So in ~354 days you have reached the speed of light. So you still need artificial gravity to keep your soup from floating into your face for the next 18.8 years (as it will take another 354 days to decelarate)
HTH,
Fabrizio
Joghn,
Would be nice to have a preview..
Again in ASCII instead of HTML to #28:
Days Seconds g Speed c
1 86.400 9,81 847.584 299.792.458
10 864.000 9,81 8.475.840 299.792.458
20 1.728.000 9,81 16.951.680 299.792.458
30 2.592.000 9,81 25.427.520 299.792.458
40 3.456.000 9,81 33.903.360 299.792.458
50 4.320.000 9,81 42.379.200 299.792.458
60 5.184.000 9,81 50.855.040 299.792.458
70 6.048.000 9,81 59.330.880 299.792.458
80 6.912.000 9,81 67.806.720 299.792.458
90 7.776.000 9,81 76.282.560 299.792.458
100 8.640.000 9,81 84.758.400 299.792.458
200 17.280.000 9,81 169.516.800 299.792.458
300 25.920.000 9,81 254.275.200 299.792.458
354 30.559.884 9,81 299.792.458 299.792.458