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On September 16 2011 12:08 Whitewing wrote:Show nested quote +On September 16 2011 12:03 white_horse wrote:
everything is meaningless until we develop the ability to travel at the speed of light As far we know, it's theoretically impossible to achieve that. What is theoretically possible though is bending space to literally shorten the distance between two points, and thereby travel at a normal speed to the location. It has a similar effect, in that it gets you to where you're going very fast, but FTL travel is theoretically impossible due to actually having mass. There are other ways we might cheat it, quantum entanglement comes to mind. BTW, topics like these are the coolest thing ever. <3 science
Im sure if the great minds here at tl get together on the problem we would solve it in a week.
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Scientists will never be able to make any assumptions about these planets until a probe is making physical touchdown on their surfaces. Past missions within our own solar system can testify to how blind we really are to an alien environment when all we have is observational data from a telescope.
Most of the statements in this article arise from theoretical astronomy that originated from a small scope of scientific fact, such as our own Suns "range of habitable distance". Keep in mind this is a coined terminology just like "string theory" in physics. And even if we were able to prove it was within this crucial distance, boatloads of other factors that can never be determined may still deny the existence of life (or better yet, what we think is considered life). Basic things like terrestrial and atmospheric chemistry on the planet can make life impossible, even with substantial amounts of liquid water present.
I'm not trying to disprove the article. There's just such a lack of actual data on these planets, the only reason it's written is to entertain the idea of extraterrestrial life.
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Now science just gotta hax up some super fast moving vehicles / teleportation devices and we're (possibly / potentially) set :D
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On September 16 2011 11:32 Whitewing wrote:Show nested quote +On September 15 2011 06:30 Thorakh wrote:On September 15 2011 06:20 whitelly wrote:On September 15 2011 06:15 SpiffD wrote:On September 15 2011 06:13 whitelly wrote:The speed at which the universe is expanding is not constant. Rather, everything in the universe is expanding away from each other linearly proportional to the distance between the objects.
The rate at which the universe is expanding is increasing. so..What happen when they reach the speed of light?..i mean after 13 000 000 000 000 years of acceleration,something has to hit 300 000km/s..what now? Actually the expansion of the universe can exceed the speed of light. This doesn't conflict with theory of relativity. EDIT: To clarify; objects can never travel faster than the speed of light. But the expansion of space into "nothing" can happen at a rate faster that that of the speed of light. i allways though "space" is The matter,not something imaginary,like..empty void?isnt empy void the"nothing"? thx Lets just leave it at that astrophysics is complicated ^_^ The math is quite complicated by the actual basic theory isn't that bad, and while explaining WHY it is the case in detail is probably beyond most people who don't have a degree in the subject, you can give a very basic explanation that most people can understand quite well. Space itself refers to the vacuum, the area that is not matter of any sort that surrounds and actually contains all matter. A good example that's easy to picture would be a gelatin dessert with fruit inside of it. The fruit are objects in space like stars and planets for example, and the gelatin is space. Now, what's important to know about the speed of light barrier is that in order for an object with a mass greater than 0 to reach and pass the speed of light, it requires infinite energy. Space itself is not matter, it is in fact an area that lacks matter of any sort, so space does not have a mass. Because it has no mass, it does not have a mass greater than 0, so it can expand faster than light can move. One should note however, that as far as we can tell, it is not moving faster than twice the speed of light (at least not yet). This makes sense if you think about it, because if object A and B in the example I gave above (one light year apart when the ray left point A) are moving away from one another at precisely two times the speed of light, then point B is moving away from the spot where point the ray originated from (no longer point A, point A has left) at the speed of light, so the ray will never reach point B no matter what. Keep in mind that the verb "move" doesn't really apply to space, since space is not an object, although it's difficult to explain properly without attributing to it some traits that it doesn't technically have. Abstract ideas are very difficult to grasp without something real to picture. However, it is interesting to note that the rate at which the universe is expanding is increasing, it's expanding faster and faster. One of the greatest questions of science right now is whether that trend will continue, or whether eventually it will begin to decelerate.
But we're fucked either way though right? Either universe implodes, or everything gets so far apart, it gets just too cold for anything to survive. Ofc a heap of other shit's probably going to happen first anyway, yey!
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wow this is pretty sick. i'm pretty stoked to see what happens in the future.
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On September 13 2011 23:41 Probe1 wrote:Aw man I thought this was going to be new instead of a rehash from last month. At 0.27 AU I still think the radiation from Gliese 370 would be too intense for life to exist outside of the (potential) oceans. Show nested quote +On September 13 2011 17:21 HaXXspetten wrote:Cool  Now how do we get over there :/ also... why "Super Earth"? lol A non gaseous planet that is anywhere from 1.9 to 10fold the mass of Earth 1 M⊕ = 5.9722 × 1024 kg. so anywhere between 1.9 M⊕ and 10 M⊕ Anything larger is referred to as a giant planet. Most giant planets will be primarily gaseous (Jupiter). Though media does use the term Super Earth liberally for flair without adhering to scientific conventions so if it's on CNN it could mean anything. Anyway, Gliese 370 is 2.11625993 × 1014 miles (36 ly) away. Don't get your hopes up for an exploration trip. Let's say we have a breakthrough in the next ten years (magic) and we can send manned ships at the same speed as probes. So that's 44 miles per second. To get to this planet it would take 249,000 years.(estimate) Sorry to be a buzz kill. 1 M⊕ equals the mass of Earth
lets create a colony ship and ship a billion people. constantly make babies for 250k years. gogo
+ Show Spoiler +
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United States7483 Posts
On September 16 2011 13:44 Eishi_Ki wrote:Show nested quote +On September 16 2011 11:32 Whitewing wrote:On September 15 2011 06:30 Thorakh wrote:On September 15 2011 06:20 whitelly wrote:On September 15 2011 06:15 SpiffD wrote:On September 15 2011 06:13 whitelly wrote:The speed at which the universe is expanding is not constant. Rather, everything in the universe is expanding away from each other linearly proportional to the distance between the objects.
The rate at which the universe is expanding is increasing. so..What happen when they reach the speed of light?..i mean after 13 000 000 000 000 years of acceleration,something has to hit 300 000km/s..what now? Actually the expansion of the universe can exceed the speed of light. This doesn't conflict with theory of relativity. EDIT: To clarify; objects can never travel faster than the speed of light. But the expansion of space into "nothing" can happen at a rate faster that that of the speed of light. i allways though "space" is The matter,not something imaginary,like..empty void?isnt empy void the"nothing"? thx Lets just leave it at that astrophysics is complicated ^_^ The math is quite complicated by the actual basic theory isn't that bad, and while explaining WHY it is the case in detail is probably beyond most people who don't have a degree in the subject, you can give a very basic explanation that most people can understand quite well. Space itself refers to the vacuum, the area that is not matter of any sort that surrounds and actually contains all matter. A good example that's easy to picture would be a gelatin dessert with fruit inside of it. The fruit are objects in space like stars and planets for example, and the gelatin is space. Now, what's important to know about the speed of light barrier is that in order for an object with a mass greater than 0 to reach and pass the speed of light, it requires infinite energy. Space itself is not matter, it is in fact an area that lacks matter of any sort, so space does not have a mass. Because it has no mass, it does not have a mass greater than 0, so it can expand faster than light can move. One should note however, that as far as we can tell, it is not moving faster than twice the speed of light (at least not yet). This makes sense if you think about it, because if object A and B in the example I gave above (one light year apart when the ray left point A) are moving away from one another at precisely two times the speed of light, then point B is moving away from the spot where point the ray originated from (no longer point A, point A has left) at the speed of light, so the ray will never reach point B no matter what. Keep in mind that the verb "move" doesn't really apply to space, since space is not an object, although it's difficult to explain properly without attributing to it some traits that it doesn't technically have. Abstract ideas are very difficult to grasp without something real to picture. However, it is interesting to note that the rate at which the universe is expanding is increasing, it's expanding faster and faster. One of the greatest questions of science right now is whether that trend will continue, or whether eventually it will begin to decelerate. But we're fucked either way though right? Either universe implodes, or everything gets so far apart, it gets just too cold for anything to survive. Ofc a heap of other shit's probably going to happen first anyway, yey!
In the extremely long run, it is likely that you are correct, although it's also unlikely that anything that evolves from what Mankind is now would exist that far into the future any longer. Eventually, as far as we can tell, the universe will expand, and all of the stars will die and there will not be enough heat to support any life. Either that, or eventually the expansion will slow and revert and then eventually return to a state similar to the universe before the big bang. Still, it is possible that it might reach an equilibrium eventually where gravity and dark matter balance each other, or that we prove the existence of alternate parallel universes (which are actually legitimately theorized, and supported by string theory for example) and might even develop the tech to travel between them, in which case life could theoretically never end.
Isn't this topic so freaking cool though? :D
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I wish we could actually get there
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To the people saying that massless particles can travel at a speed greater than the speed of light, this is simply not true. A massless particle travels at the speed of light, no more, no less. When you start looking at other things than matter or energy, things start to get a little hairy.
The key thing with the expansion of the universe is the travel of information. Since light coming from the other "side" (yeah, I know it's more complicated than that, but let's roll by analogy) of the universe wouldn't reach us anyway, there's no information about it reaching us; therefore it's certainly possible for the universe to expand at a speed greater than the speed of light.
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Being an astronomer in part of a planet research group at a University, I feel I ought to point out a few prudent points:
1) Super-earth - due to it's mass being only a few times that of the Earth, it is likened to it as it is much similar in mass than to either something like Neptune, or Jupiter.
2) "Habitable Zone" is a very very loose term which is simply taken as the annulus that a planet could orbit within and have a surface temperature able to have liquid water on it. It in now way points to the existence of such water, nor therefore the existence of any life using this water to exist, let alone intelligent life...So, while it is another small step in the right direction, don't expect little green visitors any time soon.
3) The figure quoted of 40% of Sun-like stars having at least one super earth orbiting them is still very much up for debate within exoplanetary science. Other research groups (as opposed ot the HARPS team) will quote a figure more like 20%.
This post has however intrigued me to hunt down the discovery paper, which I shall link in as an edit to this post for the over-keen enthusiasts among you.
Have a nice day 
Edit: The closest paper I could find with a 3 second search is this: http://cn.arxiv.org/abs/1108.3447
Also, due to the high profile nature of the claim, this paper was actually discussed at our group's weekly meeting about 3 weeks ago. Amusingly enough, every single target of this particular HARPS program is also one for our group, and being such lovely people, they completely neglected citing us -_-
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United States7483 Posts
On September 16 2011 23:37 scFoX wrote:
To the people saying that massless particles can travel at a speed greater than the speed of light, this is simply not true. A massless particle travels at the speed of light, no more, no less. When you start looking at other things than matter or energy, things start to get a little hairy.
The key thing with the expansion of the universe is the travel of information. Since light coming from the other "side" (yeah, I know it's more complicated than that, but let's roll by analogy) of the universe wouldn't reach us anyway, there's no information about it reaching us; therefore it's certainly possible for the universe to expand at a speed greater than the speed of light.
Right, I was trying to explain it simply without confusing people more, and probably failed.
Matter can never go FTL regardless of mass, but space isn't matter, therefore it can. The actual word we are looking for is signal, no signal can break light speed.
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It's amazing the amount of people that visit this posts solely to drop a "This is awesome" comment. Hey, team X signed Y player - > "This is awesome"! Hey, a new SC2 tournament with a big sponsor -> "This is awesome"! Hey, I just saw a guy peeing on the river -> "This is awesome"! Just another reason why post counts should be removed or at least hidden.
Back on the subject at hand, this is a huge piece of knowledge. This actually raises the chances there is some sort of life form out there, although it's still very unlikely.
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On September 16 2011 23:51 kiy0 wrote:
It's amazing the amount of people that visit this posts solely to drop a "This is awesome" comment. Hey, team X signed Y player - > "This is awesome"! Hey, a new SC2 tournament with a big sponsor -> "This is awesome"! Hey, I just saw a guy peeing on the river -> "This is awesome"! Just another reason why post counts should be removed or at least hidden.
Back on the subject at hand, this is a huge piece of knowledge. This actually raises the chances there is some sort of life form out there, although it's still very unlikely.
Yeah, we're probably going to have to petition the admins to add a "like" button to TL threads. 
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On September 16 2011 23:43 Whitewing wrote:Show nested quote +On September 16 2011 23:37 scFoX wrote:
To the people saying that massless particles can travel at a speed greater than the speed of light, this is simply not true. A massless particle travels at the speed of light, no more, no less. When you start looking at other things than matter or energy, things start to get a little hairy.
The key thing with the expansion of the universe is the travel of information. Since light coming from the other "side" (yeah, I know it's more complicated than that, but let's roll by analogy) of the universe wouldn't reach us anyway, there's no information about it reaching us; therefore it's certainly possible for the universe to expand at a speed greater than the speed of light. Right, I was trying to explain it simply without confusing people more, and probably failed. Matter can never go FTL regardless of mass, but space isn't matter, therefore it can. The actual word we are looking for is signal, no signal can break light speed.
I have always liked the way of thinking about it as follows, namely that you cannot exceed the speed of light while traveling through space, which basically includes everything in the Universe. However, the expansion of the Universe is not expanding through space, or into it, or anything. It is just expanding in the sense that everything is moving away from everything else. This means that you can measure the speed of things moving away from us (recession 'velocity') and can indeed find some things to have a recession velocity greater than the speed of light. But they are not moving through space at that speed, expansion is just causing them to receed from us at that apparent velocity.
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Amazing news, truly an exciting time to be alive. With news like this it still blows my mind that people question the value of investment into programs such as NASA.
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GJ to the guys that discover this super earth.
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Maybe we will discover a zerg race and a protoss race on one of these planets ^_^ .....
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Shame not one of our race will ever travel to said planets...
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i forgot to add a little tidbit to my earlier posts on page 12 so sorry if this is out of order now :X but even if we were theoretically able to "travel" at the speed of light, itd still take 35 years just to reach that planet doing it. meaning we'd have to take lightspeed travel to the next level, better stated, to the next power to exponentionally shorten the length of time it would take to reach the planet. :x a feat that is unachieveable alongside lightspeed with a human. although i am all for the wormhole idea, and i see that one as a very plausible technique in the future of space travel/exploration.
P.S. TATOOINE! :L
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Really interesting, it makes you think that what would happen if they found life out there? Would religion be proved wrong? Or maybe new forms of religion?
In a huge universe, it was only a matter of time before more planets were found that could support life. Why would Earth be the only planet to sustain life?
I am a nerd when it comes to space so this just makes me think a lot and imgaine the potential in anything and everything. Good read and a very good find indeed.
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EPT
