Earth like planet found. Your reactions?

[CrazyMedic]

My first reaction.

20 LIGHT YEARS @#$@#$%#@$%@#$#@%@#$%#@$^#$%^%^&%$!

LETS GO THERE RIGHT FUCKING NOW.

you think light years means it would take 20 light years to get there

I am getting fucking sick of this

light years means how long it takes light to travel in year we are no where close to being able to move the speed of light in fact if einstine is right (he could be wrong) it is impossible to travel the speed of light so in order to get there we would have to create a generational ship but that logistics of that are probably out of reach when we are focused on building bigger bombs to blow up brown and yellow people.

Hahahaha. "I am getting fucking sick of this". How much more condescending can you be? Why don't you try assuming i'm not scientifically illiterate and actually read what i wrote. I'll say it again with more words to help you out.

"20 LIGHT YEARS @#$@#$%#@$%@#$#@%@#$%#@$^#$%^%^&%$!"

There are only a couple dozen star systems closer, making Gilese in our cosmic back yard.

"LETS GO THERE RIGHT FUCKING NOW!"

Because it would be totally feasible to send a probe there decked out with mass spectrometers, atmospheric penetrating radar systems, landing probes, and a high powered radio antennae.

With sufficient fuel on board, a probe with ion drive engines could get to Gilese in 3-4 centuries. With those kinds of time restraints, which we will conceivably always have, why not send one now?

We certainly wouldn't get any data back from hit, but a few centuries from now, human civilization would certainly enjoy the information.

So, no, you're not the only person on the escapist with a modicum of scientific literacy.

ah I understand it was just getting annoying I mentioned this to at least like 7 people each of which responded to the 20 light years away thing "wow it will only take us 20 years to get there" and I was just a bit touchy and I know there are people on the escapist who know more about science then me as I am sure there are people with less, but as far as I know ion drives are still a ways off(at least to the point where we could put them into probes) so I figure it will be at least 100 years until we get ion drives so unless I am wrong we can't go there right fucking now.

 

[grimsprice]

ah I understand it was just getting annoying I mentioned this to at least like 7 people each of which responded to the 20 light years away thing "wow it will only take us 20 years to get there" and I was just a bit touchy and I know there are people on the escapist who know more about science then me as I am sure there are people with less, but as far as I know ion drives are still a ways off(at least to the point where we could put them into probes) so I figure it will be at least 100 years until we get ion drives so unless I am wrong we can't go there right fucking now.

Yeah, ion drives right now are limited by the size of the drive that can be built, the fuel that can be carried, and the power source.

However, we do have everything we need to get a pretty large drive into space with a several decade long nuclear generator, and enough krypton to get it there in a few centuries.

Mostly i'm interested in getting more scientific information on it. Turning some powerful space based spectrometers on it to see what the atmosphere is made of is clearly the next step, and i'm waiting giddily.

 

[runnerbelow]

How do we know if there is oxygen there?

Pretty cool that there is a planet similar to Earth out there, but we probably wont live to see it up close .

 

[vanthebaron]

Another planet for us to destroy, oh joy -_-

 

[skywalkerlion]

It doesn't really excite me, if you doubted there were planets other then earth that could sustain life I dunno what you were smoking.

 

[Gray Monk]

The planet circles a star called Gliese 581. It's about 120 trillion miles away, so it would take several generations for a spaceship to get there. It may seem like a long distance, but in the scheme of the vast universe, this planet is "like right in our face, right next door to us," Vogt said in an interview.

120 trillion miles away you say?
Eaaasy!

 

[GunboatDiplomat]

We should give the people of this planet the opportunity to open their society to our cultural concepts (such as christianity) and their markets to our products (assuming same are superior to theirs).

Should they fail to do this and thus prove they "hate freedom" (why do they hate freedom?) we will have no choice but to exterminate their population.

In self defence of course.

On the other hand if their technology and society is clearly superior to ours on a military level we should of course demand the rights for our societies and cultures to be respected in the name of cultural relativism.

 

[CarpathianMuffin]

I'm definitely interested by it, but I doubt it'll really turn up anything.

 

[Amethyst Wind]

We need to establish physical contact before long-range communications, I don't want the first thing that any life on that planet will receive from us to be a bunch of 4chan anonymous dicks spamming 'first post'.

If at all possible we should leave the trolls here if we head over there.

 

[Sarah Kerrigan]

DON'T IT'S PROBABLY PROTOSS OR ZERG OR-

Sorry lost myself there....

 

[Saltyk]

Great this will be one of the first planets to checkout when I discover FTL travel, but I think I've heard of this gliese before so I guess this information isn't really new.

The sad part is that it is impossible to accelerate faster than the speed of light. From my understanding, it would require more energy than there exists in the universe to attain that speed. And twice as much to slow down.

No, we need to find a way to create wormholes or use whatever they did in Outlaw Star to travel through the vacuum of space.

Still, this is cool news, but completely expected. Eventually anyway.

Nope, you can accelerate something to several trillion times the speed of light, if you are the really boring sort of scientist who can work meticulously. Now actually reaching the speed of light...hm, that would break the universe (literally). Anyway, acceleration=!velocity
But hey, there's always time dilation to help in our exploratory endeavors. Say you manage to build a spaceship that can travel at 75% the speed of light (makes the math easy), then it would take ~25 years to get there. However, only ~16.5 years would pass onboard, thanks to special relativity. This effect increases the faster you go, so it is theoretically possible to make the entire journey in a day, while only a bit more than 20 years pass on earth. So yeah, space exploration isn't impossible, despite what old and useless tossers like Steven Weinberg say.

I'm going to start by quoting someone else.

well what happens when you get to the speed of light is it takes more and more energy as an object grows in mass at high speeds. This effectivly means that it would take an infinite amount of energy to move a single atom to light speed. It is one of the only impossible things.

Thanks again for that post!

In other words, the faster something travels, the more energy you need to accelerate it. To even get a single particle of mass to accelerate to the speed of light would require INFINITE energy. Basically, you need God or Goku to help out with this. And don't forget that, in the vacuum of space, it would require twice as much energy to slow it back to a stop.

You do have a good point about traveling slower, but close to the speed of light, but it would still require a ton of energy. Don't forget living space, food, water, waste management, supplies, spare parts, tools... You get the point. A ship that could contain all that would be huge. Seriously huge. No one nation could build it. For all intents and purposes, it's impossible to build. And it would be decades before anyone on Earth hears back from this expedition. And that assumes they survive the terrible "environment" of space. Radiation, comets, meteors, black holes, hostile aliens seeking a new planet to pillage (according to Stephen Hawking).

Trust me when I say that it's a huge bummer for me to say this (I would love to travel through space like they do in Star Trek or Star Wars), but at the very minimum, it will be decades, but more likely centuries, before we had the technology, knowledge, and capability to attempt reaching this planet.

And that's not counting the dangers we could face ON the planet. Actually read about it in the news today. It's much close to its star than Earth. Orbits it in 37 days, but rotates slowly. Temperatures probably reach 168 degrees Fahrenheit and as low as 25...
Yeah, the list goes on.

 

[TheYellowCellPhone]

"Meh" is mine. If we really needed it, we wouldn't have time, resources, or manpower to colonize it in 500 years, let alone in my lifetime.

 

[thethingthatlurks]

SNIP

Something I really have to point out here: acceleration is not the same as final velocity. No law of nature prohibits a particle from attaining acceleration well beyond the magnitude of the speed of light, and nor is there a huge energy cost. Think of it this way: velocity is distance/time. Acceleration is velocity/time, or distance/time^2. In other words, the value of the acceleration could be near infinite, provided you have a fairly sizable timespan over which this occurs. And particles having acceleration that exceed 3X10^8 m/s^2 isn't all that rare when dealing with small things.
That being said, this is only a game of semantics for me. You are absolutely right that no particle (with non-zero, non-imaginary) mass can reach or exceed the speed of light. Or rather there isn't enough energy in the universe to get it to that speed, and it would attain infinite mass upon reaching it, hence causing all sorts of funny things. Well, physics can be fun sometimes...

 

[skitzo van]

160 at hottest? Two days ago it was 115 and I couldn't think straight. I'm picky about my planets, I'll wait for another.

 

[McNinja]

The religious implications are going to be fun to watch. Lets see what the Vatican does here.

Hopefully nothing, although they are ones to overreact (see "Galileo") when it comes to things like this.

Seriously though the bible doesn't say that God didn't make aliens, so... why wouldn't he?

 

[Dango]

So, there could be aliens maybe? Catgirl aliens maybe!?

 

[Saltyk]

SNIP

Something I really have to point out here: acceleration is not the same as final velocity. No law of nature prohibits a particle from attaining acceleration well beyond the magnitude of the speed of light, and nor is there a huge energy cost. Think of it this way: velocity is distance/time. Acceleration is velocity/time, or distance/time^2. In other words, the value of the acceleration could be near infinite, provided you have a fairly sizable timespan over which this occurs. And particles having acceleration that exceed 3X10^8 m/s^2 isn't all that rare when dealing with small things.
That being said, this is only a game of semantics for me. You are absolutely right that no particle (with non-zero, non-imaginary) mass can reach or exceed the speed of light. Or rather there isn't enough energy in the universe to get it to that speed, and it would attain infinite mass upon reaching it, hence causing all sorts of funny things. Well, physics can be fun sometimes...

How could you obtain a velocity faster than the speed of light without acceleration? Isn't that one of the fundamental laws of motion (equal and opposite actions)?

But the other question is deceleration. And either way, with anything in our current technological scope, you would spend years doing both.

True, the infinite mass concept is kind of funny. I was aware of that part, but didn't think it was as relevant at the time. And, you're right. This is all theory and the point is moot. We won't be sending manned craft anywhere near that planet. I doubt we'll even send robots there.

 

[Plurralbles]

How long did it take light to travel from it to here? Is it still livable in the state it will be in when we get to it.

 

[Soushi]

*crosses finger* Pandora, Pandora, Pandora, Pandora, Pandora, Pandora!! Yes i am obsessed.

 

[cheese_wizington]

Well that's badass, maybe if we blow ourselves up they'll see the light in 20 years.