Earth like planet found. Your reactions?

[Jimmybobjr]

Doubt... GREAAAAAAT doubt.

If this planet DOES exist, and its not some stupid screw up at NASA, what are we going to do about it?

Okay, so it turns out that 1) it has an atmosphere that ISNT full of Toxic Gas 2) There isnt some deadly life form on the planet and 3) we actiualy manage to colonise the damned thing, what do we do next?

Now we have TWO planets to sit on and do nothing... whats the real point?

 

[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...

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.

You can't. It's simply acceleration. Think about riding in a car. You've stopped at a red light, but floor it when it turns green. You never go faster than whatever the speed limit happens to be, but your acceleration may exceed 90mph^2 (hypothetically speaking). It's basically this: if you have a constant velocity, you have no acceleration. If you have constant acceleration, you have a variable velocity (either increasing or decreasing), and if you have a change in acceleration, you have a second order change in velocity. You can have a huge acceleration but only end up with a speed of 2mph; basically, v=integral(a(t)dt,t1,t2).

 

[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.

You can't. It's simply acceleration. Think about riding in a car. You've stopped at a red light, but floor it when it turns green. You never go faster than whatever the speed limit happens to be, but your acceleration may exceed 90mph^2 (hypothetically speaking). It's basically this: if you have a constant velocity, you have no acceleration. If you have constant acceleration, you have a variable velocity (either increasing or decreasing), and if you have a change in acceleration, you have a second order change in velocity. You can have a huge acceleration but only end up with a speed of 2mph; basically, v=integral(a(t)dt,t1,t2).

Ahh. I misread your earlier post. I thought you were saying that you could attain a velocity faster than the speed of light without accelerating. While I know that in the vacuum of space, there is no force acting on an object and therefore any object that obtains a certain velocity will always travel at that velocity unless acted upon by another force, I could think of no way an object could attain that speed WITHOUT accelerating at some point. Thought you knew something I didn?t. Lol

Interesting idea. I want a roller coaster that attains an acceleration that is greater than the speed of light. It'd be fun. While I lived.

Thanks for clarifying.

 

[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...

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.

You can't. It's simply acceleration. Think about riding in a car. You've stopped at a red light, but floor it when it turns green. You never go faster than whatever the speed limit happens to be, but your acceleration may exceed 90mph^2 (hypothetically speaking). It's basically this: if you have a constant velocity, you have no acceleration. If you have constant acceleration, you have a variable velocity (either increasing or decreasing), and if you have a change in acceleration, you have a second order change in velocity. You can have a huge acceleration but only end up with a speed of 2mph; basically, v=integral(a(t)dt,t1,t2).

Ahh. I misread your earlier post. I thought you were saying that you could attain a velocity faster than the speed of light without accelerating. While I know that in the vacuum of space, there is no force acting on an object and therefore any object that obtains a certain velocity will always travel at that velocity unless acted upon by another force, I could think of no way an object could attain that speed WITHOUT accelerating at some point. Thought you knew something I didn?t. Lol

Interesting idea. I want a roller coaster that attains an acceleration that is greater than the speed of light. It'd be fun. While I lived.

Thanks for clarifying.

Happy to make use of the results of 3-ish years spent studying science
As for the roller coaster...you would need one BIG ASS railgun. And even then it would just blow you up. Sad really, 'cuz I kinda want one as well

 

[SixWingedAsura]

I claim-a this-a land for Spain!

 

[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.

You can't. It's simply acceleration. Think about riding in a car. You've stopped at a red light, but floor it when it turns green. You never go faster than whatever the speed limit happens to be, but your acceleration may exceed 90mph^2 (hypothetically speaking). It's basically this: if you have a constant velocity, you have no acceleration. If you have constant acceleration, you have a variable velocity (either increasing or decreasing), and if you have a change in acceleration, you have a second order change in velocity. You can have a huge acceleration but only end up with a speed of 2mph; basically, v=integral(a(t)dt,t1,t2).

Ahh. I misread your earlier post. I thought you were saying that you could attain a velocity faster than the speed of light without accelerating. While I know that in the vacuum of space, there is no force acting on an object and therefore any object that obtains a certain velocity will always travel at that velocity unless acted upon by another force, I could think of no way an object could attain that speed WITHOUT accelerating at some point. Thought you knew something I didn?t. Lol

Interesting idea. I want a roller coaster that attains an acceleration that is greater than the speed of light. It'd be fun. While I lived.

Thanks for clarifying.

Happy to make use of the results of 3-ish years spent studying science
As for the roller coaster...you would need one BIG ASS railgun. And even then it would just blow you up. Sad really, 'cuz I kinda want one as well

I think you're missing the point. Sure, you'd be dead. But you'd be killed by a "BIG ASS railgun". And that would be awesome!

*In Heaven*
"So how'd you die?"
"I was killed by a big ass railgun"
"Hell Yeah!"

 

[Baron Von Evil Satan]

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.

you are welcome once again. one thing I dissagree with though, the space ship you talk about is impossible to lift for the amount of energy to get the shuttle off is enourmous. even then it would take at least a mellenia to go there and get back.

 

[laststandman]

I hope there are not intelligent life forms on it. If there are, we might not be able to make Earth 2: This Time it's Personal because some smart alien will be messing with us. If they are essentially simple creatures, we could probably start a new Earth.

 

[Baron Von Evil Satan]

My response is more to the title: "dibs"

Everybody knows the international 'Dibs' protocol.

It's okay officer, I have a flag.

I do believe this flag is three centimetres to long. new zealand however has the right size. we win.

 

[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.

you are welcome once again. one thing I dissagree with though, the space ship you talk about is impossible to lift for the amount of energy to get the shuttle off is enourmous. even then it would take at least a mellenia to go there and get back.

Oh, you are right about that. The point I was trying to make in describing the ship was that we would need a ridicoulous amount of materials to make any part of it feasible. We're probably talking about a ship the size of a small country, to be honest.

We could build it in space (that's actually an idea that many scientists flout as a possible way to build future ships), but that still has huge problems to overcome.

Honestly, we could spend all day talking about the various problems in attempting space travel with our current level of technology.

 

[Russian_Assassin]

Eden Prime? No, this one's too close. I hope we find a mass relay. Or a Reaper

 

[PrimoThePro]

I'm not surprised even a little bit.

 

[darkfire613]

My reaction: "Holy crap! It's Reach!" followed by "Where can I sign up to be a colonist?"

 

[goldenheart323]

How long until my own America makes it "Their" property?

Oh, come on! We haven't even claimed the moon, & we were there 1st.

What do you think the flag is there for?

A giant "fuck you" to the rest of the world?

How about symbolism & pride? If no one can say "look what we accomplished" without you reading it as "fuck you," I'd say you have issues.
...snip...

It was just a joke...

Good to know. I didn't get that vibe at all though.

 

[Legendairy314]

I'm happy because eventually we need somewhere else to go. Either it's a space station or a new planet (or both). Either way the human race can't survive on Earth forever.

 

[Blind Sight]

Oh God I hope it's not Pandora...(the Avatar one, not the Borderlands one, the Borderlands one would be awesome).

I say we nuke it from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.

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?

The whole 'God created man in his image' thing could lead some religious folk to act a bit superior to other sentient beings, methinks.

 

[Max_imus]

Just one thing: don't send the Robinsons.

 

[Rabid Toilet]

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

We can only hope...

 

[wulfy42]

It's possible to attain speeds faster then light relative to another object but thats really besides the point. We are so far away from even colonizing Mars that this discovery isn't going to matter much for awhile.

To travel 20 light years without some new form of technology we don't currently have a basis for (other then our imagination) you would need a huge ship as mentioned above. The stages to build that ship would involve having a large space station in orbit around our planet first, creating a moon base and mining operations on the moon and quite possibly doing the same on mars (because if I remember right the moon does not have alot of metals for us to mine, water to use for fuel etc).

Once we could build a large self sustaining ship we could attempt to travel the 20 light years but honestly travel outside of our solar system is not nearly as simple as we make it sound in movies. We can project the path of planets in our solar system and calculate the trajectory needed to send a ship (or satilite so far) to that plant but doing so for an object outside of our solar system would be far harder and more dangerous even if we did have a ship that could make it.

To be totally honest some of the moons around planets in our solar system would be easier to teraform (heck even probably mars would be) then reaching this planet. I don't think we'll even have a manned moon base in my lifetime (or probably the next century for that matter) let alone be able to travel outside of our solar system.

Then again 100 years ago who the heck would have imagined the internet, cell phones or DVRs.

 

[Withall]

If we can get there: set off now. We -need- more planet to colonize if we keep reproduction rates as they are now (2:1 births/deaths), and with out current number on top of that... *cough*.
Please, Mr. NASA. Take us there?