'Super-Earth,' 1 of 50 Newfound Alien Planets, Could Potentially Support Life
by Denise Chow, SPACE.com Staff Writer Date: 12 September 2011 Time: 12:01 PM ET
This artist’s impression shows the alien planet HD 85512b orbiting the Sun-like star HD 85512 in the southern constellation of Vela (The Sail). It orbits a star 35 light-years from Earth and weighs the equivalent of 3.6 Earth masses and may be in the habitable zone. CREDIT: ESO/M. Kornmesser
This story was updated at 12:51 p.m. EDT.
More than 50 new alien planets — including one so-called super-Earth that could potentially support life — have been discovered by an exoplanet-hunting telescope from the European Southern Observatory (ESO).
The newfound haul of alien planets includes 16 super-Earths, which are potentially rocky worlds that are more massive than our planet. One in particular - called HD 85512 b - has captured astronomers' attention because it orbits at the edge of its star's habitable zone, suggesting conditions could be ripe to support life.
The exoplanet findings came from observations from the High Accuracy Radial velocity Planet Searcher instrument, or HARPS. The HARPS spectrograph is part of ESO's 11.8-foot (3.6-meter) telescope at the La Silla Observatory in Chile. [llustration and video of alien planet HD 85512 b]
“The harvest of discoveries from HARPS has exceeded all expectations and includes an exceptionally rich population of super-Earths and Neptune-type planets hosted by stars very similar to our sun," HARPS team leader Michel Mayor of the University of Geneva in Switzerland said in a statement. "And even better — the new results show that the pace of discovery is accelerating."
This artist’s impression shows the planet HD 85512b orbiting the Sun-like star HD 85512 about 35 light-years from Earth. This planet is about 3.6 times as massive as the Earth is at the edge of the habitable zone around the star, where liquid water, and perhaps even life, could potentially exist. CREDIT: ESO/M. Kornmesser
The potentially habitable super-Earth, officially called HD 85512 b, is estimated to be only 3.6 times more massive than Earth, and its parent star is located about 35 light-years away, making it relatively nearby. HD 85512 b was found to orbit at the edge of its star's habitable zone, which is a narrow region in which the distance is just right that liquid water could exist given the right conditions. [Gallery: The Strangest Alien Planets]
"This is the lowest-mass confirmed planet discovered by the radial velocity method that potentially lies in the habitable zone of its star, and the second low-mass planet discovered by HARPS inside the habitable zone,” said exoplanet habitability expert Lisa Kaltenegger, of the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy in Germany and Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Boston.
Further analysis of HD 85512 b and the other newfound exoplanets will be able to determine more about the potential existence of water on the surface.
"I think we're in for an incredibly exciting time," Kaltenegger told reporters in a briefing today (Sept. 12). "We're not just going out there to discover new continents — we're actually going out there to discover brand new worlds." [Infographic: Alien Planet HD 85512 b Holds Possibility of Life]
The HARPS spectrograph is designed to detect tiny radial velocity signals induced by planets as small as Earth if they orbit close to their star.
Astronomers used HARPS to observe 376 sunlike stars. By studying the properties of all the alien planets detected by HARPS so far, researchers found that approximately 40 percent of stars similar to the sun is host to at least one planet that is less massive than the gas giant Saturn.
In other words, approximately 40 percent of sunlike stars have at least one low-mass planet orbiting around it. On the other hand, the majority of alien planets with a mass similar to Neptune appear to be in systems with multiple planets, researchers said.
Astronomers have previously discovered 564 confirmed alien planets, with roughly 1,200 additional candidate worlds under investigation based on data from the Kepler space observatory, according to NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.
You can follow SPACE.com staff writer Denise Chow on Twitter @denisechow. SPACE.com senior writer Clara Moskowitz (@ClaraMoskowitz) contributed to this report. Follow SPACE.com for the latest in space science and exploration news on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.
i always knew there were thousand if not millions of planets like earth out there like over 10 years ago. i thought it was quite close minded for many people to assume earth is exceptionally rare and maybe the only one etc.
I find it all amazing and awesome, the universe and it's size. But discoveries like this are just a matter of time, in my opinion, given the probability. And they don't really mean anything unless we start investing and working on space traveling technologies. 35 light years sounds so little when we compare it to all the several thousand light years distance to other places, but it is actually impossible for us (today) to travel at this speed. And I don't even think we'll have the technology needed to travel to a planet like this before we end up our resources or kill ourselves, unhappily...
My expectations are that we'll be able, at some point, to master some technology (maybe nuclear fusion power?) that can be virtually ilimited, and that it would allow us to travel during many thousand years to finally reach a place like that. Either this or some kind of worm-hole =P
On September 13 2011 05:39 zimz wrote: i always knew there were thousand if not millions of planets like earth out there like over 10 years ago. i thought it was quite close minded for many people to assume earth is exceptionally rare and maybe the only one etc.
On September 13 2011 05:39 zimz wrote: i always knew there were thousand if not millions of planets like earth out there like over 10 years ago. i thought it was quite close minded for many people to assume earth is exceptionally rare and maybe the only one etc.
A lot of people know that, but it's the fact that we actually found it.
On September 13 2011 05:39 zimz wrote: i always knew there were thousand if not millions of planets like earth out there like over 10 years ago. i thought it was quite close minded for many people to assume earth is exceptionally rare and maybe the only one etc.
Definitely agree considering how big the universe appears to be.. even if it's a 1 in a billion shot (and even that is arguable depending on who you ask) I'm sure there are billions and billions of planets so it can't be too rough :D
That's cool and all but we can't even get along on our own damn planet what makes anybody think we'll be able to cooperate, pool our resources, knowledge and discoveries to make it to another planet?
fascinating. interesting to think about what kind of life may already exist on those alien worlds, and whether they are sentient, or intelligent, or even interstellar! if that's the case they are almost certainly aware of us. its interesting to imagine what kind of life a planet with completely different geological and evolutionary history would produce.
On September 13 2011 05:39 zimz wrote: i always knew there were thousand if not millions of planets like earth out there like over 10 years ago. i thought it was quite close minded for many people to assume earth is exceptionally rare and maybe the only one etc.
Yes, of course, but did you know their locations?
of course not. no doubt this proof is amazing.
i never said i knew their locations, nor did i ever say this find wasn't amazing. i still don't understand why there is so many combative and defensive people like you on TL.
On September 13 2011 05:39 zimz wrote: i always knew there were thousand if not millions of planets like earth out there like over 10 years ago. i thought it was quite close minded for many people to assume earth is exceptionally rare and maybe the only one etc.
A lot of people know that, but it's the fact that we actually found it.
this is an amazing find, whats with the attitude? im just saying this is great proof against those extremely close minded individuals.
whats with the many people on TL extremely combative and defensive.
If anyone's wondering why we keep finding planets BIGGER than Earth and not equally sized / smaller ones, its for the simple reason that big things are easier to find than small things. Planets are often detected by their gravitation and mass, and the corresponding effects that they have.
On September 13 2011 05:53 susySquark wrote: If anyone's wondering why we keep finding planets BIGGER than Earth and not equally sized / smaller ones, its for the simple reason that big things are easier to find than small things. Planets are often detected by their gravitation and mass, and the corresponding effects that they have.
Yep, because things like a direct transit across the face of its star in view of us is pretty damn rare.
Works by spacetime manipulation so you're not technically traveling faster than light, so no problems with the known laws of physics. Too bad it takes more energy to start up than you'll ever have....
On September 13 2011 05:39 zimz wrote: i always knew there were thousand if not millions of planets like earth out there like over 10 years ago. i thought it was quite close minded for many people to assume earth is exceptionally rare and maybe the only one etc.
It is equally close minded to assume that there are "thousands if not millions" of planets similar to earth before actually having any real data to prove it.
On September 13 2011 05:39 zimz wrote: i always knew there were thousand if not millions of planets like earth out there like over 10 years ago. i thought it was quite close minded for many people to assume earth is exceptionally rare and maybe the only one etc.
It is equally close minded to assume that there are "thousands if not millions" of planets similar to earth before actually having any real data to prove it.
it was my educated guess, because the size and vastness of the universe. i don't think i was close minded to predict there's a high probability there is many earth like planets. most astronomers and physicist had the same prediction as me at that time. so IT IS open-mindedness. and IT IS closed-mildness to assume we are probably the only one.
On September 13 2011 05:37 nimbus99 wrote: wow... so cool, great post
we are SO SMALL
Its one of those humbling moments when you first truly realize it, isnt it?
Considering the amount of planets and suns in the *known* universe, i dont think it was as much a question if there are more planets like earth, but rather 'will life begin immediately when its possible?'
What you need is super novas to produce iron and other ingredients, then you need proper orbit to sun. Neither of these cases are rare in universe of this age, as is now proven.
I have always been curious as to what would happen to religion if we found intelligent life in the universe. Would the Catholic/Islamic (And whatever others) Church adapt or die?
In regards to the actual topic, this is awesome news, I love hearing about new planets being discovered. It's just a shame we were born too late to explore earth and born too early to explore the galaxy...
On September 13 2011 06:00 WarChimp wrote: I have always been curious as to what would happen to religion if we found intelligent life in the universe. Would the Catholic/Islamic (And whatever others) Church adapt or die?
I believe Stephen Hawking theorized that with how fast and efficiently life began on Earth, it would be silly to assume that there were no other instances like Earth in the universe. I believe that if these planets CAN support life on them that we WILL find life on them. I think this is the next big venture for mankind...I really hope that we are doing everything we can to make reaching other worlds possible.
On September 13 2011 06:00 WarChimp wrote: I have always been curious as to what would happen to religion if we found intelligent life in the universe. Would the Catholic/Islamic (And whatever others) Church adapt or die?
Wow! imagine, theres people on that planet staring back at us through similiar means, and saying "Here on planet HD 85512b, we have found another similar planet to our own, possibly supporting life as our does". Wouldnt that be insane! just a thought!
I've always wondered how come every time they search for planets that can support life, they go by the conditions which support life as we know it? Isn't it possible that aliens could live in conditions that humans couldn't? They always look for water, but what if a certain type of alien species don't drink water to live and drank something toxic to humans to live?
This is so sick, I wonder if there are any planets with such good technology that they can visit earth? Like any "protoss" kind of aliens that are able to travel insane distances from their planet to ours and make contact?
On September 13 2011 06:30 Moda wrote: This is so sick, I wonder if there are any planets with such good technology that they can visit earth? Like any "protoss" kind of aliens that are able to travel insane distances from their planet to ours and make contact?
I don't know if it would be a friendly encounter do you remember "first contact" in SC1?
On September 13 2011 05:49 Looms wrote: Now, all we have to do is find a way to travel 35 light years, or develop a method to actually gather images of these planets, or ....
2 ez
There are other methods of detecting life that don't involve either of these. Spectral analysis, for example.
On September 13 2011 05:45 Mafe wrote: While this is obviously an interesting discovery, I think I've seen news like this easily 5+ times in tv during the last 10 years.
Well humans are to be rulers of His creation - we are looking towards space more and more I guess. Though I highly doubt we have enough technology/funding to start a permanent mars/moon space station and try to grow stuff for substinence. Will be interesting though
On September 13 2011 06:35 DyEnasTy wrote: Wouldnt it be hazardous for humans to live on a planet that has 3.6x earths gravity?
sumo wrestlers and bodybuilders sometimes are 3 times as big as us, and they can live. so we would probably naturally gain alot more muscle like goku.
lol i could always use more muscle. but i dont think someones weight is the same as gravity. I dunno, im not an authority on the subject, just a thought.
241350 km/h fastest manmade object (Helios 2) =67041m / s
299792458 m / s Lightspeed = takes 35 years 299792458 m / s 67041 m / s = 4472 x 35years = 156512 years to reach the planet with known technology
Thank "god"? Mankind act like a virus and unless our infantil behaviour is stopped and we start to create a sustainable Society for the given enviourment I am glad we can't infect other planets yet.
Seems to be Moo2 has to be patched aswell, humans appear to be a low g race : /.
Now we need to get of our ass and start researching and developing spacecraft's/technology that can get us there. Like a space elevator and maybe find a way to bend the laws of physics.
On September 13 2011 06:54 DarkEnergy wrote: Now we need to get of our ass and start researching and developing spacecraft's/technology that can get us there. Like a space elevator and maybe find a way to bend the laws of physics.
Warp drive, shouldn't take more than half a minute with that technology (well I guess you are allowed to dream right? )
On September 13 2011 06:12 Canucklehead wrote: I've always wondered how come every time they search for planets that can support life, they go by the conditions which support life as we know it? Isn't it possible that aliens could live in conditions that humans couldn't? They always look for water, but what if a certain type of alien species don't drink water to live and drank something toxic to humans to live?
It's because carbon is one of the few elements known to naturally produce complex molecules which are required for life and all carbon based life needs water to survive. Silicon is another chemical element that can create molecules large enough to carry biological information, but it doesn't have the ability to form chemical bonds with diverse types of atoms, which permits the chemical versatility necessary for metabolism.
On September 13 2011 06:36 JesusOurSaviour wrote: Well humans are to be rulers of His creation
I sure hope we've grown smart enough to completely discard such silly notions before meeting any intelligent alien races.
God made adam and eve, not adam and steve! Oh, wait, I got my religious hatred mixed up. They need a catchy saying like that for anti-alien rhetoric.
Anyway, it seems very interesting. 35 light years is not truly that far. Say we send a crew to set up a colony. Sure, it would be a big sacrifice for them... but if they are young enough there would be a high survival rate, and a world would develop.
First we need to get that ship built... Let's all work on plans for that
On September 13 2011 05:39 zimz wrote: i always knew there were thousand if not millions of planets like earth out there like over 10 years ago. i thought it was quite close minded for many people to assume earth is exceptionally rare and maybe the only one etc.
A lot of people know that, but it's the fact that we actually found it.
this is an amazing find, whats with the attitude? im just saying this is great proof against those extremely close minded individuals.
whats with the many people on TL extremely combative and defensive.
lol if anything you're the only one being combative and defensive...
Pretty glad that I am living in an age where stuff like this is going on. Can't wait till the day some concrete evidence is actually announced and people and the country get more focused on space like back in the moon race days.
On September 13 2011 05:55 ampson wrote: Now let's get to work on that faster-than light travel? Looks sweet. But why is it called SUPER EARTH?
Because the planet could potentially support life like Earth, but it is 3x larger than us. This is an amazing discovery though, imagine if there is life on the planet, holy shit.
On September 13 2011 07:18 zimz wrote: i think its more likely aliens discover us first then we do them.
I think it is more likely that aliens have discovered us, but just like us they couldn't do anything about it. I expect that there will be an age where we are both aware of each's others existence, but we will never be able to travel to either.
On September 13 2011 06:54 DarkEnergy wrote: Now we need to get of our ass and start researching and developing spacecraft's/technology that can get us there. Like a space elevator and maybe find a way to bend the laws of physics.
Warp drive, shouldn't take more than half a minute with that technology (well I guess you are allowed to dream right? )
Think back to those old Star Trek episodes where they would stand on a planet surface and communicate with the ship using a hand held device. and nano technology , replicators what wonders. But look today we have cellphones its normal. And we created buckyballs rudimentary nanotechnology helping to fight cancer soon. and replicators ? 3d printing technology is developing fast maybe soon if you have a "printer" that can manipulate atoms they could theoretically reformat the atoms into any substance.
On September 13 2011 06:35 DyEnasTy wrote: Wouldnt it be hazardous for humans to live on a planet that has 3.6x earths gravity?
3.6x Earth mass does not mean 3.6x Earth gravity. That'd only be the case if that 3.6x Earth's mass were packed into a sphere the SAME size as Earth. It's likely that this planet is larger in raidus than Earth because of the larger mass, so gravity will be somewhere between 1x and 3.6x, depending on density and composition.
On September 13 2011 06:35 DyEnasTy wrote: Wouldnt it be hazardous for humans to live on a planet that has 3.6x earths gravity?
3.6x Earth mass does not mean 3.6x Earth gravity. That'd only be the case if that 3.6x Earth's mass were packed into a sphere the SAME size as Earth. It's likely that this planet is larger in raidus than Earth because of the larger mass, so gravity will be somewhere between 1x and 3.6x, depending on density and composition.
No, 3.6 Earth masses means 3.6 times Earth's gravity. As long as you are outside of a spherical mass, you can model its gravitational effect on you as if it were a point mass. This is assuming that both bodies are not small in relation to the magnitude of the gravity involved, else tidal forces to come into play.
Edit: And people would probably not be able to deal with 3.6 gravities constantly pulling the blood out of their brains and into their feet. You would have to spend years working up to the ability to withstand that with any kind of consistency, I imagine. Maybe the first colony ship will be one of those that rotates to simulate gravity, and the inhabitants will spend the entire trip gradually dialing up the spin speed over the course of however many hundreds of years it would take to get there. That ought to do the trick.
On September 13 2011 07:38 nemo14 wrote: Edit: And people would probably not be able to deal with 3.6 gravities constantly pulling the blood out of their brains and into their feet. You would have to spend years working up to the ability to withstand that with any kind of consistency, I imagine. Maybe the first colony ship will be one of those that rotates to simulate gravity, and the inhabitants will spend the entire trip gradually dialing up the spin speed over the course of however many hundreds of years it would take to get there. That ought to do the trick.
Goku trained in 100x gravity so it would probably be fine.
On September 13 2011 06:35 DyEnasTy wrote: Wouldnt it be hazardous for humans to live on a planet that has 3.6x earths gravity?
3.6x Earth mass does not mean 3.6x Earth gravity. That'd only be the case if that 3.6x Earth's mass were packed into a sphere the SAME size as Earth. It's likely that this planet is larger in raidus than Earth because of the larger mass, so gravity will be somewhere between 1x and 3.6x, depending on density and composition.
No, 3.6 Earth masses means 3.6 times Earth's gravity. As long as you are outside of a spherical mass, you can model its gravitational effect on you as if it were a point mass. This is assuming that both bodies are not small in relation to the magnitude of the gravity involved, else tidal forces to come into play.
Edit: And people would probably not be able to deal with 3.6 gravities constantly pulling the blood out of their brains and into their feet. You would have to spend years working up to the ability to withstand that with any kind of consistency, I imagine. Maybe the first colony ship will be one of those that rotates to simulate gravity, and the inhabitants will spend the entire trip gradually dialing up the spin speed over the course of however many hundreds of years it would take to get there. That ought to do the trick.
You ... what? GMM/r^2 sir. If R is bigger, the gravity is less. I know what you're saying, but that only holds true if you're at the same radius. And like I said, bigger planet = bigger radius most likely. Perhaps I should've specified SURFACE gravity, but I thought that was implicit.
Don't even worry about tidal effects. This is like 8th grade status gravity we're talking about, not general relativity.
On September 13 2011 06:35 DyEnasTy wrote: Wouldnt it be hazardous for humans to live on a planet that has 3.6x earths gravity?
3.6x Earth mass does not mean 3.6x Earth gravity. That'd only be the case if that 3.6x Earth's mass were packed into a sphere the SAME size as Earth. It's likely that this planet is larger in raidus than Earth because of the larger mass, so gravity will be somewhere between 1x and 3.6x, depending on density and composition.
No, 3.6 Earth masses means 3.6 times Earth's gravity. As long as you are outside of a spherical mass, you can model its gravitational effect on you as if it were a point mass. This is assuming that both bodies are not small in relation to the magnitude of the gravity involved, else tidal forces to come into play.
Edit: And people would probably not be able to deal with 3.6 gravities constantly pulling the blood out of their brains and into their feet. You would have to spend years working up to the ability to withstand that with any kind of consistency, I imagine. Maybe the first colony ship will be one of those that rotates to simulate gravity, and the inhabitants will spend the entire trip gradually dialing up the spin speed over the course of however many hundreds of years it would take to get there. That ought to do the trick.
They've put chicken in an accelerator at 1.5x and 2.0x... they came out stronger in the end... and adjusted to it...
Im impressed by all these discoverys in the unisverse. But im waiting for an actuall photo of the surface/animals w.e. from one of these Super-Earth or how ever these kind of planets are called. That will be stunning and mindblowing..
I like reading things like this, whether they have any relevancy to my future or not. It's one thing to be fairly certain there are habitable planets out there in the universe, but findings like these help us stay optimistic.
with the stuff we are throwing out in the universe i think everyone in a 5 lightyear radius knows about us . (just a guess i am to lazy to calculate that now ^^; )
I guess we will receive signals of others as well before they will be able to travel space
But maybe we are lucky and just some aliens visit us to harvest their farming ground. (yes ufo enemy unknown is a great game) Stealing tech is easier then thinking about it XD.
Luckily our planet gets a F when it comes to colonysation ... no ressources, hostile lifeforms, strong polution and internet trolls !
edit: oh for the gravity discussion. It is most likely to be higher then earth, but not 3,5 times. Since we only know the mass we can't tell for sure. Theoretical the gravity should be arround 1,7 times of the earth, if the planet consists out of the same material as earth that is.
the radius plays a role in gravity measurement. And mass and radius are not proportional in a sphere.
I love hearing about this stuff, but it always invokes the question: so what? how are we going to get there? Our technology needs to improve tremendously to make use of information we gather about planets so far away.
On September 13 2011 08:19 Steel wrote: Nice. Can't wait for humans to discover FTL travel. Hoping its in our lifetime. Too bad the cultures not ready for it though.
Good stuff anyways.
FTL travel should just be a simple matter of violating causality!
On September 13 2011 08:19 Steel wrote: Nice. Can't wait for humans to discover FTL travel. Hoping its in our lifetime. Too bad the cultures not ready for it though.
Good stuff anyways.
How could we discover FTL travel? Evidence points time and time again to the fact that this is impossible.
On September 13 2011 06:35 DyEnasTy wrote: Wouldnt it be hazardous for humans to live on a planet that has 3.6x earths gravity?
3.6x Earth mass does not mean 3.6x Earth gravity. That'd only be the case if that 3.6x Earth's mass were packed into a sphere the SAME size as Earth. It's likely that this planet is larger in raidus than Earth because of the larger mass, so gravity will be somewhere between 1x and 3.6x, depending on density and composition.
No, 3.6 Earth masses means 3.6 times Earth's gravity. As long as you are outside of a spherical mass, you can model its gravitational effect on you as if it were a point mass. This is assuming that both bodies are not small in relation to the magnitude of the gravity involved, else tidal forces to come into play.
Edit: And people would probably not be able to deal with 3.6 gravities constantly pulling the blood out of their brains and into their feet. You would have to spend years working up to the ability to withstand that with any kind of consistency, I imagine. Maybe the first colony ship will be one of those that rotates to simulate gravity, and the inhabitants will spend the entire trip gradually dialing up the spin speed over the course of however many hundreds of years it would take to get there. That ought to do the trick.
You ... what? GMM/r^2 sir. If R is bigger, the gravity is less. I know what you're saying, but that only holds true if you're at the same radius. And like I said, bigger planet = bigger radius most likely. Perhaps I should've specified SURFACE gravity, but I thought that was implicit.
Don't even worry about tidal effects. This is like 8th grade status gravity we're talking about, not general relativity.
On September 13 2011 08:19 Steel wrote: Nice. Can't wait for humans to discover FTL travel. Hoping its in our lifetime. Too bad the cultures not ready for it though.
Good stuff anyways.
How could we discover FTL travel? Evidence points time and time again to the fact that this is impossible.
Somebody enjoys their Star Trek a lot (so do I btw lol)
On September 13 2011 08:19 Steel wrote: Nice. Can't wait for humans to discover FTL travel. Hoping its in our lifetime. Too bad the cultures not ready for it though.
Good stuff anyways.
How could we discover FTL travel? Evidence points time and time again to the fact that this is impossible.
It's quite possible that we simply don't understand it, and that FTL travel is in fact possible.
On September 13 2011 06:00 WarChimp wrote: I have always been curious as to what would happen to religion if we found intelligent life in the universe. Would the Catholic/Islamic (And whatever others) Church adapt or die?
In regards to the actual topic, this is awesome news, I love hearing about new planets being discovered. It's just a shame we were born too late to explore earth and born too early to explore the galaxy...
Quite simply it would result in the complete collapse of modern religions, as they have all spent thousands of years pushing agendas that this knowledge would debunk.
Like many others, I hope discoveries like this push governments to invest heavier into space technologies that could allow us to send something to places like this in a reasonable amount of time.
On September 13 2011 08:37 FeyFey wrote: we just move the whole universe not the ship. That way we don't have to make the ship move faster then the light.
On September 13 2011 05:39 zimz wrote: i always knew there were thousand if not millions of planets like earth out there like over 10 years ago. i thought it was quite close minded for many people to assume earth is exceptionally rare and maybe the only one etc.
Rare, but obviously not the only one. The universe is a big place (herp derp).
On September 13 2011 08:37 FeyFey wrote: we just move the whole universe not the ship. That way we don't have to make the ship move faster then the light.
I like this man's plan.
Thats kinda against the whole concept of relativity.
On September 13 2011 08:37 FeyFey wrote: we just move the whole universe not the ship. That way we don't have to make the ship move faster then the light.
I like this man's plan.
Not a man ;( a girl ! But i stole the idea from the greatest scientist of all time Professor Farnsworth !
On September 13 2011 08:37 FeyFey wrote: we just move the whole universe not the ship. That way we don't have to make the ship move faster then the light.
I like this man's plan.
Not a man ;( a girl ! But i stole the idea from the greatest scientist of all time Professor Farnsworth !
I remember doing a school project on Gliese 581 g when this whole exoplanet thing started. I'm really excited about this and I'm glad they've kept exploring . Now all we need is a way to travel 20 light years in a lifetime .
On September 13 2011 06:35 DyEnasTy wrote: Wouldnt it be hazardous for humans to live on a planet that has 3.6x earths gravity?
3.6x Earth mass does not mean 3.6x Earth gravity. That'd only be the case if that 3.6x Earth's mass were packed into a sphere the SAME size as Earth. It's likely that this planet is larger in raidus than Earth because of the larger mass, so gravity will be somewhere between 1x and 3.6x, depending on density and composition.
No, 3.6 Earth masses means 3.6 times Earth's gravity. As long as you are outside of a spherical mass, you can model its gravitational effect on you as if it were a point mass. This is assuming that both bodies are not small in relation to the magnitude of the gravity involved, else tidal forces to come into play.
Edit: And people would probably not be able to deal with 3.6 gravities constantly pulling the blood out of their brains and into their feet. You would have to spend years working up to the ability to withstand that with any kind of consistency, I imagine. Maybe the first colony ship will be one of those that rotates to simulate gravity, and the inhabitants will spend the entire trip gradually dialing up the spin speed over the course of however many hundreds of years it would take to get there. That ought to do the trick.
And only physically fit people could even set foot on the planet. What about, children, babies, elderly, infirm?
Currently we can see up to 42 billion light years into space. We are an insignificant speck dust on a speck of dust on a speck of dust on a speck of dust on a grain of sand in the Sahara Desert. I think that says just about enough.
On September 13 2011 06:35 DyEnasTy wrote: Wouldnt it be hazardous for humans to live on a planet that has 3.6x earths gravity?
3.6x Earth mass does not mean 3.6x Earth gravity. That'd only be the case if that 3.6x Earth's mass were packed into a sphere the SAME size as Earth. It's likely that this planet is larger in raidus than Earth because of the larger mass, so gravity will be somewhere between 1x and 3.6x, depending on density and composition.
No, 3.6 Earth masses means 3.6 times Earth's gravity. As long as you are outside of a spherical mass, you can model its gravitational effect on you as if it were a point mass. This is assuming that both bodies are not small in relation to the magnitude of the gravity involved, else tidal forces to come into play.
Edit: And people would probably not be able to deal with 3.6 gravities constantly pulling the blood out of their brains and into their feet. You would have to spend years working up to the ability to withstand that with any kind of consistency, I imagine. Maybe the first colony ship will be one of those that rotates to simulate gravity, and the inhabitants will spend the entire trip gradually dialing up the spin speed over the course of however many hundreds of years it would take to get there. That ought to do the trick.
And only physically fit people could even set foot on the planet. What about, children, babies, elderly, infirm?
And that's where adaptation comes in. Plus I don't think anyone is assuming there human's just like us living there. (even if there if life there)Who knows there could be some alien race that can withstand those type of environment's we just don't know.
Edit: Unless someone was talking about from moving from Earth to there....Then yea that would be impossible.
On September 13 2011 06:35 DyEnasTy wrote: Wouldnt it be hazardous for humans to live on a planet that has 3.6x earths gravity?
3.6x Earth mass does not mean 3.6x Earth gravity. That'd only be the case if that 3.6x Earth's mass were packed into a sphere the SAME size as Earth. It's likely that this planet is larger in raidus than Earth because of the larger mass, so gravity will be somewhere between 1x and 3.6x, depending on density and composition.
No, 3.6 Earth masses means 3.6 times Earth's gravity. As long as you are outside of a spherical mass, you can model its gravitational effect on you as if it were a point mass. This is assuming that both bodies are not small in relation to the magnitude of the gravity involved, else tidal forces to come into play.
Edit: And people would probably not be able to deal with 3.6 gravities constantly pulling the blood out of their brains and into their feet. You would have to spend years working up to the ability to withstand that with any kind of consistency, I imagine. Maybe the first colony ship will be one of those that rotates to simulate gravity, and the inhabitants will spend the entire trip gradually dialing up the spin speed over the course of however many hundreds of years it would take to get there. That ought to do the trick.
And only physically fit people could even set foot on the planet. What about, children, babies, elderly, infirm?
brave efforts. they will be remembered for their attempts.
sadly, though exciting, even the most generous estimates (using the Drake equation or similar) don't give hope for two intergalactic civilizations to exist in the a time-period close enough for them to interact.
At our best estimates, life is so extremely rare in the universe, that we will likely never (certainly not our generation but probably not even humans) see another intelligent sophisticated race.
Sci-fi has ruined us! (although secretly I still hope that some sort of physics-bending science will come about that allows FTL travel and exploration! )
"you know all that money that we spend on nuclear weapons and defence each year? trillions of dollars. INSTEAD if we spend that money feeding and clothing the poor of the world, and it would pay for it many times over, we could as ONE race, explore outer space together, in peace, forever"
On September 13 2011 08:37 FeyFey wrote: we just move the whole universe not the ship. That way we don't have to make the ship move faster then the light.
I like this man's plan.
Not a man ;( a girl ! But i stole the idea from the greatest scientist of all time Professor Farnsworth !
Adding to the surface gravity discussion...so scaling radius as well:
You can start with the mass M goes as r^3. So r ~ M ^ (1/3) . Plugging that into F = mg = GMm/r^2. Gives you the surface acceleration as M^(1/3). So for constant densities this the new surface gravitational acceleration is (3.6)^(1/3) = 1.2 g. Not bad at all ^^.
It should be noted that this is not necessarily the whole story. For one thing rocky materials become more compressed with additional pressure. For instance materials of identical composition at the Earth's center are more dense than those at the center of Mars. This would effectively decrease the radius and increase the surface gravity for a given mass.
Alternatively...we do not, in general, know the relative abundance of lighter silicate (think rock) material to the denser metallic iron in any given planet found with this identification technique (note that this is different from the technique used by the KEPLER mission, which yields good predictions of radius and not mass). The Earth, Moon and Mars all have similar ratios of these two materials (which might be expected seeing that they formed from the same disk of material orbiting the sun. Mercury has a greater proportion of the heavier iron, for reasons that are not well understood. We have no reason to necessarily believe this would be a similar ratio in other solar systems, and this unknown could push the surface gravity in either direction.
So I guess what I am saying is big error-bars, but probably not too uncomfurtable as far as super-gravity is concerned ^^.
These are indeed exciting times. I dont hear too much about other missions, but I know the KEPLER mission has 1000s of "planetary candidates", many within in the Earth to super-earth size range.
On September 13 2011 09:19 hotbreakfest wrote: Currently we can see up to 42 billion light years into space. We are an insignificant speck dust on a speck of dust on a speck of dust on a speck of dust on a grain of sand in the Sahara Desert. I think that says just about enough.
to call earth an insignificant speck of dust when you consider what has happened on earth since it was formed compared to other actual insignificant dust planets is highly highly highly ignorant. No matter who said it.
Anyways earth is pretty sweet, we evolved here so its better than that dumb fat poser earth planet
On September 13 2011 09:19 hotbreakfest wrote: Currently we can see up to 42 billion light years into space. We are an insignificant speck dust on a speck of dust on a speck of dust on a speck of dust on a grain of sand in the Sahara Desert. I think that says just about enough.
to call earth an insignificant speck of dust when you consider what has happened on earth since it was formed compared to other actual insignificant dust planets is highly highly highly ignorant. No matter who said it.
Anyways earth is pretty sweet, we evolved here so its better than that dumb fat poser earth planet
On September 13 2011 09:19 hotbreakfest wrote: Currently we can see up to 42 billion light years into space. We are an insignificant speck dust on a speck of dust on a speck of dust on a speck of dust on a grain of sand in the Sahara Desert. I think that says just about enough.
to call earth an insignificant speck of dust when you consider what has happened on earth since it was formed compared to other actual insignificant dust planets is highly highly highly ignorant. No matter who said it.
Anyways earth is pretty sweet, we evolved here so its better than that dumb fat poser earth planet
You're right, Carl Sagan is an ignorant bitch.
When you consider what happen on earth probably also happen on millions of other planet, you're not that ignorant! Sure, we don't know though.
Life is quite a miracle, we must not forget that life, no matter it's abundance, is precious. Yet the universe remains vast and unexplored. We could be an very stupid, inefficient life form compared to others. Who knows?
Cherish what you got and look forward to our amazing future is what I think
On September 13 2011 05:39 zimz wrote: i always knew there were thousand if not millions of planets like earth out there like over 10 years ago. i thought it was quite close minded for many people to assume earth is exceptionally rare and maybe the only one etc.
It is equally close minded to assume that there are "thousands if not millions" of planets similar to earth before actually having any real data to prove it.
it was my educated guess, because the size and vastness of the universe. i don't think i was close minded to predict there's a high probability there is many earth like planets. most astronomers and physicist had the same prediction as me at that time. so IT IS open-mindedness. and IT IS closed-mildness to assume we are probably the only one.
Based on what? You have two unknowns (how hard is it to probabilistically leap from non-life to life in a random environment vs. size of universe that provides the number of trials) and try to characterize one perspective as closed-minded and the other as open-minded?
These planets "possibly" have water. You take that statement and go, 'I knew it! The universe is big, so there must be plenty of Earth-like planets out there, can't believe people would be so close-minded and think Earth is unique!'
You do realize that all these telescopes can do are radiation scans that predict elemental composition, and can't get anywhere close to identifying life? This is not to discredit the efforts of the scientists and the amazing technology, but it is uncalled for to characterize those who think our planet is unique as "closed-minded"
I love how amazing our universe continues to become every day every time I hear news like this it just makes me smile, I'm so glad to be living in a time when we (as a civilization) are discovering so much more about the universe we live in
On September 13 2011 05:44 Tschis wrote: I find it all amazing and awesome, the universe and it's size. But discoveries like this are just a matter of time, in my opinion, given the probability. And they don't really mean anything unless we start investing and working on space traveling technologies. 35 light years sounds so little when we compare it to all the several thousand light years distance to other places, but it is actually impossible for us (today) to travel at this speed. And I don't even think we'll have the technology needed to travel to a planet like this before we end up our resources or kill ourselves, unhappily...
My expectations are that we'll be able, at some point, to master some technology (maybe nuclear fusion power?) that can be virtually ilimited, and that it would allow us to travel during many thousand years to finally reach a place like that. Either this or some kind of worm-hole =P
Fuck generation ships. I want FTL travel and FTL communications. XD
On September 13 2011 06:12 Canucklehead wrote: I've always wondered how come every time they search for planets that can support life, they go by the conditions which support life as we know it? Isn't it possible that aliens could live in conditions that humans couldn't? They always look for water, but what if a certain type of alien species don't drink water to live and drank something toxic to humans to live?
It's because carbon is one of the few elements known to naturally produce complex molecules which are required for life and all carbon based life needs water to survive. Silicon is another chemical element that can create molecules large enough to carry biological information, but it doesn't have the ability to form chemical bonds with diverse types of atoms, which permits the chemical versatility necessary for metabolism.
On September 13 2011 06:36 JesusOurSaviour wrote: Well humans are to be rulers of His creation
I sure hope we've grown smart enough to completely discard such silly notions before meeting any intelligent alien races.
Probability of aliens = probability of anything which you can't prove. Tell me how you can prove existence of aliens without reproducible observations / interactions. You can't. So until the moment we find aliens, they don't exist. Same argument is used against any kind of afterlife - just because you don't know what happens after you die, doesn't mean it doesn't exist. It does and there will be judgement.
On September 13 2011 06:12 Canucklehead wrote: I've always wondered how come every time they search for planets that can support life, they go by the conditions which support life as we know it? Isn't it possible that aliens could live in conditions that humans couldn't? They always look for water, but what if a certain type of alien species don't drink water to live and drank something toxic to humans to live?
It's because carbon is one of the few elements known to naturally produce complex molecules which are required for life and all carbon based life needs water to survive. Silicon is another chemical element that can create molecules large enough to carry biological information, but it doesn't have the ability to form chemical bonds with diverse types of atoms, which permits the chemical versatility necessary for metabolism.
On September 13 2011 06:36 JesusOurSaviour wrote: Well humans are to be rulers of His creation
I sure hope we've grown smart enough to completely discard such silly notions before meeting any intelligent alien races.
Probability of aliens = probability of anything which you can't prove. Tell me how you can prove existence of aliens without reproducible observations / interactions. You can't. So until the moment we find aliens, they don't exist. Same argument is used against any kind of afterlife - just because you don't know what happens after you die, doesn't mean it doesn't exist. It does and there will be judgement.
What? No proof of aliens = aliens don't exist. No proof of afterlife = there is afterlife, and there will be judgment. (?)
Dude, you are contradicting yourself here.
Don't antagonize me yet, I'm DO believe there is a Creator, but why is it so hard to believe that the Creator also created other life forms? It doesn't diminish our status as sentient creatures. HE loves us just the same.
On September 13 2011 06:12 Canucklehead wrote: I've always wondered how come every time they search for planets that can support life, they go by the conditions which support life as we know it? Isn't it possible that aliens could live in conditions that humans couldn't? They always look for water, but what if a certain type of alien species don't drink water to live and drank something toxic to humans to live?
It's because carbon is one of the few elements known to naturally produce complex molecules which are required for life and all carbon based life needs water to survive. Silicon is another chemical element that can create molecules large enough to carry biological information, but it doesn't have the ability to form chemical bonds with diverse types of atoms, which permits the chemical versatility necessary for metabolism.
On September 13 2011 06:36 JesusOurSaviour wrote: Well humans are to be rulers of His creation
I sure hope we've grown smart enough to completely discard such silly notions before meeting any intelligent alien races.
Probability of aliens = probability of anything which you can't prove. Tell me how you can prove existence of aliens without reproducible observations / interactions. You can't. So until the moment we find aliens, they don't exist. Same argument is used against any kind of afterlife - just because you don't know what happens after you die, doesn't mean it doesn't exist. It does and there will be judgement.
What? No proof of aliens = aliens don't exist. No proof of afterlife = there is afterlife, and there will be judgment. (?)
Dude, you are contradicting yourself here.
Don't antagonize me yet, I'm DO believe there is a Creator, but why is it so hard to believe that the Creator also created other life forms? It doesn't diminish our status as sentient creatures. HE loves us just the same.
Interesting that you believe in a creator, rare among Tl-ers. But yea I see my logical fallacy. Apologies it was an outburst at the apparent faith which so many godless people exhibit towards unsubstantiated, unexperienced things.
Btw - can someone explain to me how the big bang works, the probability of it happening and how amino acids became polymers and became cells, which somehow became DNA that is irreducibly complex.
On September 13 2011 06:12 Canucklehead wrote: I've always wondered how come every time they search for planets that can support life, they go by the conditions which support life as we know it? Isn't it possible that aliens could live in conditions that humans couldn't? They always look for water, but what if a certain type of alien species don't drink water to live and drank something toxic to humans to live?
It's because carbon is one of the few elements known to naturally produce complex molecules which are required for life and all carbon based life needs water to survive. Silicon is another chemical element that can create molecules large enough to carry biological information, but it doesn't have the ability to form chemical bonds with diverse types of atoms, which permits the chemical versatility necessary for metabolism.
On September 13 2011 06:36 JesusOurSaviour wrote: Well humans are to be rulers of His creation
I sure hope we've grown smart enough to completely discard such silly notions before meeting any intelligent alien races.
Probability of aliens = probability of anything which you can't prove. Tell me how you can prove existence of aliens without reproducible observations / interactions. You can't. So until the moment we find aliens, they don't exist. Same argument is used against any kind of afterlife - just because you don't know what happens after you die, doesn't mean it doesn't exist. It does and there will be judgement.
What? No proof of aliens = aliens don't exist. No proof of afterlife = there is afterlife, and there will be judgment. (?)
Dude, you are contradicting yourself here.
Don't antagonize me yet, I'm DO believe there is a Creator, but why is it so hard to believe that the Creator also created other life forms? It doesn't diminish our status as sentient creatures. HE loves us just the same.
Interesting that you believe in a creator, rare among Tl-ers. But yea I see my logical fallacy. Apologies it was an outburst at the apparent faith which so many godless people exhibit towards unsubstantiated, unexperienced things.
Btw - can someone explain to me how the big bang works, the probability of it happening and how amino acids became polymers and became cells, which somehow became DNA that is irreducibly complex.
On September 13 2011 06:12 Canucklehead wrote: I've always wondered how come every time they search for planets that can support life, they go by the conditions which support life as we know it? Isn't it possible that aliens could live in conditions that humans couldn't? They always look for water, but what if a certain type of alien species don't drink water to live and drank something toxic to humans to live?
It's because carbon is one of the few elements known to naturally produce complex molecules which are required for life and all carbon based life needs water to survive. Silicon is another chemical element that can create molecules large enough to carry biological information, but it doesn't have the ability to form chemical bonds with diverse types of atoms, which permits the chemical versatility necessary for metabolism.
On September 13 2011 06:36 JesusOurSaviour wrote: Well humans are to be rulers of His creation
I sure hope we've grown smart enough to completely discard such silly notions before meeting any intelligent alien races.
Probability of aliens = probability of anything which you can't prove. Tell me how you can prove existence of aliens without reproducible observations / interactions. You can't. So until the moment we find aliens, they don't exist. Same argument is used against any kind of afterlife - just because you don't know what happens after you die, doesn't mean it doesn't exist. It does and there will be judgement.
What? No proof of aliens = aliens don't exist. No proof of afterlife = there is afterlife, and there will be judgment. (?)
Dude, you are contradicting yourself here.
Don't antagonize me yet, I'm DO believe there is a Creator, but why is it so hard to believe that the Creator also created other life forms? It doesn't diminish our status as sentient creatures. HE loves us just the same.
Interesting that you believe in a creator, rare among Tl-ers. But yea I see my logical fallacy. Apologies it was an outburst at the apparent faith which so many godless people exhibit towards unsubstantiated, unexperienced things.
Btw - can someone explain to me how the big bang works, the probability of it happening and how amino acids became polymers and became cells, which somehow became DNA that is irreducibly complex.
A religious person having problems with people believing in unsubstantiated, unexperienced things? That's rich...
On September 13 2011 16:08 Tippecanoe wrote: With current technology how long would it take to travel 30 light years? 300 ish years?
Anybody know how fast a space shuttle travels?
Nasa shuttle travels almost 17500mph so 1 light year would take about 38263 years, 30 light years ... 1147890 years. So little more than 1 million years. methinks
On September 13 2011 16:08 Tippecanoe wrote: With current technology how long would it take to travel 30 light years? 300 ish years?
Anybody know how fast a space shuttle travels?
Nasa shuttle travels almost 17500mph so 1 light year would take about 38263 years, 30 light years ... 1147890 years. So little more than 1 million years. methinks
On September 13 2011 16:08 Tippecanoe wrote: With current technology how long would it take to travel 30 light years? 300 ish years?
Anybody know how fast a space shuttle travels?
Nasa shuttle travels almost 17500mph so 1 light year would take about 38263 years, 30 light years ... 1147890 years. So little more than 1 million years. methinks
Well shit i was close no?
Any scientists here can theorize a way for us to travel fast enough to where it would be relevant to explore one of these planets.
We all know travelling at the speed of light is impossible.
On September 13 2011 06:12 Canucklehead wrote: I've always wondered how come every time they search for planets that can support life, they go by the conditions which support life as we know it? Isn't it possible that aliens could live in conditions that humans couldn't? They always look for water, but what if a certain type of alien species don't drink water to live and drank something toxic to humans to live?
It's because carbon is one of the few elements known to naturally produce complex molecules which are required for life and all carbon based life needs water to survive. Silicon is another chemical element that can create molecules large enough to carry biological information, but it doesn't have the ability to form chemical bonds with diverse types of atoms, which permits the chemical versatility necessary for metabolism.
On September 13 2011 06:36 JesusOurSaviour wrote: Well humans are to be rulers of His creation
I sure hope we've grown smart enough to completely discard such silly notions before meeting any intelligent alien races.
Probability of aliens = probability of anything which you can't prove. Tell me how you can prove existence of aliens without reproducible observations / interactions. You can't. So until the moment we find aliens, they don't exist. Same argument is used against any kind of afterlife - just because you don't know what happens after you die, doesn't mean it doesn't exist. It does and there will be judgement.
Actually, I find this comparison inaccurate. Probability of "Aliens" is higher even tho we haven't actually found them yet. Why? Because these so-called "Aliens" are just life forms living on a planet, and we have a perfect example of that already; us.
Therefore, "aliens" aren't some randomly made up myths like afterlife. Instead, they are logical and rational deductions based on current facts.
Follow this reasoning:
1) Life exists, earth is a proof : Fact 2) Life can potentially exist on planets with similar environment to earth: Fact 3) There are at least 10 sextillion planets in our universe (that is 100 billion x 100 billion): Fact 4) Even if 1 in a million of those 10 sextillion planets have environment similar to earth's, that is 10 billion planets (a conservative estimate, it is actually way more): Scientific/Statistics estimate 5) Even more of those planets have existed before, and countless new ones will be born in the future: Fact
Now given those odds and the fact that life already happened here, is it wrong to derive at a logical deduction that chances of at least ONE of those planets have, had or will have "aliens"?
And my point is, how can you say this chance is same as chance of "afterlife" which is based on nothing?
And about people saying 28 light years is too far and stuff, you guys forgot the fact that we don't actually have to physically be there. All the Electromagnetic Waves travel at the same speed (Light being one of them), so even if we send messages and get a reply back 60 years later, that will still be the biggest breakthrough of mankind.
On September 13 2011 16:08 Tippecanoe wrote: With current technology how long would it take to travel 30 light years? 300 ish years?
Anybody know how fast a space shuttle travels?
Nasa shuttle travels almost 17500mph so 1 light year would take about 38263 years, 30 light years ... 1147890 years. So little more than 1 million years. methinks
Well shit i was close no?
Any scientists here can theorize a way for us to travel fast enough to where it would be relevant to explore one of these planets.
We all know travelling at the speed of light is impossible.
Well time dilates as you approach the speed of light so to you it won't seem like 35 years.
On September 13 2011 17:04 Fubi wrote: And about people saying 28 light years is too far and stuff, you guys forgot the fact that we don't actually have to physically be there. All the Electromagnetic Waves travel at the same speed (Light being one of them), so even if we send messages and get a reply back 60 years later, that will still be the biggest breakthrough of mankind.
The planet probably doesn't even have water, yet alone intelligent life.
On September 13 2011 17:05 Pandemona wrote: Wow, maybe in my lifetime, we will be able to see another "landing"?
Be super cool if there was/are going to plan missions to these new planets to check them out, would be awesome!
I very much doubt this will happen in your lifetime. Current technology isn't anywhere near advanced enough to make a voyage this big last less than ten thousand years, let alone a few decades. There would have to be political willingness to do so as well ... :/
On September 13 2011 17:04 Fubi wrote: And about people saying 28 light years is too far and stuff, you guys forgot the fact that we don't actually have to physically be there. All the Electromagnetic Waves travel at the same speed (Light being one of them), so even if we send messages and get a reply back 60 years later, that will still be the biggest breakthrough of mankind.
The planet probably doesn't even have water, yet alone intelligent life.
I know, I was just generally speaking for discoveries like these.
I think the human race would really need to invest more into space travelling, cause if we are not able to civilize other planets one day the lifetime of our species is obviously limited and it should be kind of our most basic instinct to secure humanity's existence.
Why the fuck do they tease us with shit like avatar (yayaya its just a movie but that shit is awesome) n then come out and say he theres planets that could potentially support life....
gonna be frozen and woken up when in like 500 years when light speed is actually achievable, but 500 years might be too long considering the resources on earth will be depleted by like 2200 and at the rate the popluation is growing bb earth bb human race bb space travel and bb other planets that can support life.
Im with skew on this one
On September 13 2011 15:22 Skew wrote: I was born too early fuq
On September 13 2011 15:22 Skew wrote: I was born too early fuq
This. Gif space travel now!
Though I am quite pleased to have lived in the 90´s. Best decade of humanity ever!
Agree with Skew. Kinda agree with DaCruise, 90's were awesome but you can't know what 2020, 2030, 2040 etc will be like, so you can't really claim it to be the best one either.
How is it possible that we can see 42 billion lightyears while the universe is only +- 14 billion years old?
Honest question.
EDIT: Nevermind I found the answer, apparently space is created during the time the oldest light travels so that the actual distance that this light travels is actually greater than that. Or something.
On September 13 2011 18:52 Crushinator wrote: How is it possible that we can see 42 billion lightyears while the universe is only +- 14 billion years old?
Honest question.
EDIT: Nevermind I found the answer, apparently space is created during the time the oldest light travels so that the actual distance that this light travels is actually greater than that. Or something.
Wait what? Where or who says we can see 42 billion lightyears away? And your answer to your own question doesn't even make sense lol.
And we can't see farther than the age of the universe, because even the first born light never can only have that much of a light span to travel, so we can't see where there is no light.
On September 13 2011 06:12 Canucklehead wrote: I've always wondered how come every time they search for planets that can support life, they go by the conditions which support life as we know it? Isn't it possible that aliens could live in conditions that humans couldn't? They always look for water, but what if a certain type of alien species don't drink water to live and drank something toxic to humans to live?
It's because carbon is one of the few elements known to naturally produce complex molecules which are required for life and all carbon based life needs water to survive. Silicon is another chemical element that can create molecules large enough to carry biological information, but it doesn't have the ability to form chemical bonds with diverse types of atoms, which permits the chemical versatility necessary for metabolism.
On September 13 2011 06:36 JesusOurSaviour wrote: Well humans are to be rulers of His creation
I sure hope we've grown smart enough to completely discard such silly notions before meeting any intelligent alien races.
Probability of aliens = probability of anything which you can't prove. Tell me how you can prove existence of aliens without reproducible observations / interactions. You can't. So until the moment we find aliens, they don't exist. Same argument is used against any kind of afterlife - just because you don't know what happens after you die, doesn't mean it doesn't exist. It does and there will be judgement.
Yes, we have no proof of there being aliens so we can't know if there are any or not. Considering the size of the universe though, I would simply guess that it's likely that there is life to be found elsewhere as well. Possibly even intelligent life.
And your logic is twisted. The philosophic burden of proof lies upon the person making claims that can't be verified with observation or other scientific methods, such as the existence of gods or afterlife. It is simply impossible to prove a negative and therefore you can not claim that afterlife exists because I can't prove it doesn't (well... you can but you can't expect anyone with a critical approach to your claim to believe you). With the same logic I could claim that there's a tiny little pink unicorn orbiting around Saturn. You couldn't prove that I'm wrong so therefore the unicorn must be there? You can read more about the argument from wikipedia if you're interested: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell's_teapot
On September 13 2011 18:52 Crushinator wrote: How is it possible that we can see 42 billion lightyears while the universe is only +- 14 billion years old?
Honest question.
EDIT: Nevermind I found the answer, apparently space is created during the time the oldest light travels so that the actual distance that this light travels is actually greater than that. Or something.
Wait what? Where or who says we can see 42 billion lightyears away? And your answer to your own question doesn't even make sense lol.
And we can't see farther than the age of the universe, because even the first born light never can only have that much of a light span to travel, so we can't see where there is no light.
Someone in this thread said this. And yes, yes we can. I'm sure my answer isn't entirely accurate but it is what my tiny brain made of this: http://physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=506987. So yeah, you are pretty wrong sir, enjoy the read.
One day one of these telescopes will zoom into a planet and see things running/flying around. Imagine the shock the ones watching the first images must get haha.
Regarding feasible technology for interstellar travel, there was a cold-war era concept for a nuclear-propelled megaship that would achieve speeds up to (iirc) 0.2c, which would make it possible to reach nearby solar system over the course of 1 or 2 generations.
Nuclear-propelled as in, actual atomic bombs explode and haul the ship's ass forward. There are to this date unsolved technological problems in building such a ship but no theoretical impossibility. However, since it would have to be built in space, we can't even start funding such a project until we have a shipyard out there. Very unlikely we'd see even the beginning of such a project in our lifetimes.
It was called project orion if you want to look it up.
We actually do possess technology that can reach us into speeds that would allow us to travel there in 1 human lifetime. Engineers have plenty of ideas from using solarwinds to highly controlled nuclear explosions( small scale obviously >_> ) to speed spacescraft into massive speeds.
In space, there is mostly nothing that slows you down, so any speed you manage to gather wont end like on earth. High speed is more of an issue of how much time and how much fuel it takes to actually gather such speeds that the travel wouldnt take immense amounts of time. How ever, untill we know how to prolong humans life, nobody of our generations probaply can get to see these planets from surface.
On September 13 2011 19:20 dementrio wrote: Regarding feasible technology for interstellar travel, there was a cold-war era concept for a nuclear-propelled megaship that would achieve speeds up to (iirc) 0.2c, which would make it possible to reach nearby solar system over the course of 1 or 2 generations.
Nuclear-propelled as in, actual atomic bombs explode and haul the ship's ass forward. There are to this date unsolved technological problems in building such a ship but no theoretical impossibility. However, since it would have to be built in space, we can't even start funding such a project until we have a shipyard out there. Very unlikely we'd see even the beginning of such a project in our lifetimes.
It was called project orion if you want to look it up.
Provided you have enough fuel to keep the engine going, you can (in principle) accelerate your ship to speeds arbitrarily close to the speed of light. Since there is no friction force in the vacuum of space, there's nothing to counteract the thrust from the engines.
The principle behind efficient space travel is that you want to shoot stuff out of the rear end of your spacecraft. Conservation of momentum then causes the spacecraft to feel a force pushing it forward. The challenge lies in propelling matter with low mass at high momentum. You want low mass, because for a 35 LY journey, it's a lot of fuel you have to bring. The combination of low mass and high momentum for the propellant means that it has to be accelerated to high energies. (Explosive) combustion is one way of going about this, it's what current spacecraft use. The problem is that you want to focus the propellant to be expelled in a straight line, while blowing stuff up generally has it going in all kinds of directions.
There are some developments in plasma physics that aim at providing a thruster system based on propelling ions at high energies, focussed in a straight beam by electric and magnetic fields. The concept is not new, the "ion thruster" or "ion drive" is a common concept in sci-fi stories, but the technological realization is only now within our grasp.
Regardless, these are all conventional means of propulsion, which means no FTL. Nevertheless, if a journey to another solar system with an earth-like planet took 100 years, then a generation ship with efficient ion-drive propulsion seems like a fantastic endeavour. Unfortunately, I fear that it will require us to actually meet aliens before we can put aside our petty differences and materialistic needs and start focussing on improving ourselves and our understanding of the universe (just like the scenario described in Star Trek, where humanity slowly unites after a bitter third world war after first contact with an alien race).
On September 13 2011 19:26 Hittomogasin wrote: We actually do possess technology that can reach us into speeds that would allow us to travel there in 1 human lifetime. Engineers have plenty of ideas from using solarwinds to highly controlled nuclear explosions( small scale obviously >_> ) to speed spacescraft into massive speeds.
In space, there is mostly nothing that slows you down, so any speed you manage to gather wont end like on earth. High speed is more of an issue of how much time and how much fuel it takes to actually gather such speeds that the travel wouldnt take immense amounts of time. How ever, untill we know how to prolong humans life, nobody of our generations probaply can get to see these planets from surface.
Don't forget that you also have to slow down at the end. I would personally hate to crash into a planet at speeds close to the speed of light.
If we manage to get to high enough speeds, the trip duration won't be a problem for the people inside the spacecraft. Time slows down as you approach the speed of light. Though obviously, your family and everyone you know that you left on Earth will be dead as you reach your destination. Is it worthwhile?
On September 13 2011 06:00 WarChimp wrote: I have always been curious as to what would happen to religion if we found intelligent life in the universe. Would the Catholic/Islamic (And whatever others) Church adapt or die?
We'd be shipping out interstellar missionaries :D
Heh, according to Orson Scott Card we would: A. Blow them up or B. Convert them to Catholicism (or whatever other religion managed to send missionaries there first).
For an interesting novel discussing missions to colonize other planets, read Stephen Baxter's book Ark. It is the sequel to Flood, but if you ignore the back story about why they are fleeing earth it can be read by itself.
RE: people wondering why "super earth", it's because the planet has (substantially) more mass than earth, but still far less than a gas giant. For instance, the first one found was 7.5x the size of earth.
On September 13 2011 16:08 Tippecanoe wrote: With current technology how long would it take to travel 30 light years? 300 ish years?
Anybody know how fast a space shuttle travels?
Nasa shuttle travels almost 17500mph so 1 light year would take about 38263 years, 30 light years ... 1147890 years. So little more than 1 million years. methinks
Well shit i was close no?
Any scientists here can theorize a way for us to travel fast enough to where it would be relevant to explore one of these planets.
We all know travelling at the speed of light is impossible.
Antimatter fueled starships? i dunno..CATTLEBRUISER OPERATIONAL!
Oh god. Please humanity, invent : 1. Self sustaining soldiers 2. Tanks that can go into seige mode, like seige tanks 3. Planes with 2 rotors on each side of it 4. A plane (no matter what shape it is) that can project a drone that automatically intercepts all incoming bullets 5. While you're at it, invent invisibility for the plane 6. Maybe some planes that can heal injured soldiers
Why? You ask. It is so that when the alien comes, we can do the 1-1-1 POOSH and we might be able to defend our planet with ease
One of the interesting results of this study is that at least 40% of star systems contain Neptune sized or smaller planets on <100 day orbits. The real number is probably much higher as they're still missing most Earth sized planets or planets with longer orbital periods.
There are 40 known star systems within 15 light years of the Sun. Chances are at least some of them have "habitable planets". At least in the sense that the temperature and surface gravity is right. They might still have toxic atmospheres.
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.
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)
On September 13 2011 20:16 HaruRH wrote: Oh god. Please humanity, invent : 1. Self sustaining soldiers 2. Tanks that can go into seige mode, like seige tanks 3. Planes with 2 rotors on each side of it 4. A plane (no matter what shape it is) that can project a drone that automatically intercepts all incoming bullets 5. While you're at it, invent invisibility for the plane 6. Maybe some planes that can heal injured soldiers
Why? You ask. It is so that when the alien comes, we can do the 1-1-1 POOSH and we might be able to defend our planet with ease
You're shitting me. By the time they set down the nexus they'd find that we mined out the map a couple hours ago.
Thoses planets are too far and too big. This study is nice but doesn't bring anything new really... More than 200 billions planet in our galaxy, and more than 200 billions galaxy in Observable universe.... The problem doesn't reside in knowing they are there but more on how could we possibly ever get a drone or a human on any of those planets. + As stated before, Super planets have like 4 time earth gravity so it is absolutely useless for us human to colonize such planets. The universe is awesome and I love astronomy but I'm realistic and we can only imagine what's out there until we have the technology for better observation of the planets. Traveling there is not even imaginable with our technology.
On September 14 2011 00:32 Diks wrote: Thoses planets are too far and too big. This study is nice but doesn't bring anything new really... More than 200 billions planet in our galaxy, and more than 200 billions galaxy in Observable universe.... The problem doesn't reside in knowing they are there but more on how could we possibly ever get a drone or a human on any of those planets. + As stated before, Super planets have like 4 time earth gravity so it is absolutely useless for us human to colonize such planets. The universe is awesome and I love astronomy but I'm realistic and we can only imagine what's out there until we have the technology for better observation of the planets. Traveling there is not even imaginable with our technology.
It's a step in the process. The technology itself is quite amazing too: As the planet goes around its orbit it tugs the star back and forth. They can detect changes in the stars speed that's smaller than 1 m/s by looking at slight shifts in frequency of the absorption lines.
That's still an order of magnitude higher than what's needed to detect true Earth analogues (i.e, 1 Earth mass planet around a star similar to the Sun in a one Earth year orbit), but it's several orders of magnitudes better than what they had 10 or 15 years ago.
On September 13 2011 17:59 Boblhead wrote: Why the fuck do they tease us with shit like avatar
Why do "they" tease us? No one is teasing you. Science fiction is meant to be both entertaining and inspiring. All those things that do not yet exist will only come to exist by the hard work of those of our generation that decide to work hard, experiment, and innovate instead of simply wishing and waiting. Geniuses and inventors are not born they are self made with struggle and sacrifice.
On September 13 2011 16:08 Tippecanoe wrote: With current technology how long would it take to travel 30 light years? 300 ish years?
Anybody know how fast a space shuttle travels?
Nasa shuttle travels almost 17500mph so 1 light year would take about 38263 years, 30 light years ... 1147890 years. So little more than 1 million years. methinks
On September 13 2011 23:41 Probe1 wrote: 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.
You can go ~300km/s (187mph) using VASIMR and even faster using other near term (Next 10-30 year) technologies, not to mention pusher plate type fission methods. By your math that would be 249,000*44/187=58589 years. Any trip of this distance would require a generation ship, imagine a big city like ship. That would be just under 600 generations, quite a bit. However everyone needs to realize that humans have only been attempting to think up ways to travel fast in space for the last 50-60 years much less developing and testing actual hardware. There are obviously far better methods we will come up with as a species in the not too far future.
On September 14 2011 03:33 Deadpoetic0077 wrote: Would this planet really be life sustaining? Since its 3. whatever times as big wouldnt we be 3. whatever times as heavy?
Maybe not sustaining to humans. But it could have another alien race in there that's stronger/better adapted ^^
On September 14 2011 03:33 Deadpoetic0077 wrote: Would this planet really be life sustaining? Since its 3. whatever times as big wouldnt we be 3. whatever times as heavy?
Depends on the density of the planet.
F = ma = G * M1 * M2 / r^2 a = G * M1 / r^2 = G * (4/3) * pi * r^3 * density / r^2 = G * (4/3) * pi * density * radius G is on the order of 10^-11, so the gravity felt at the surface increases slowly but linearly as the radius increases for planets of equivalent density.
3 times as big does not mean 3 times the gravitational force unless the mass density of the planets is equal.
On September 14 2011 03:33 Deadpoetic0077 wrote: Would this planet really be life sustaining? Since its 3. whatever times as big wouldnt we be 3. whatever times as heavy?
Depends on the density of the planet.
F = ma = G * M1 * M2 / r^2 a = G * M1 / r^2 = G * (4/3) * pi * r^3 * density / r^2 = G * (4/3) * pi * density * radius G is on the order of 10^-11, so the gravity felt at the surface increases slowly but linearly as the radius increases for planets of equivalent density.
3 times as big does not mean 3 times the gravitational force unless the mass density of the planets is equal.
For constant density surface gravity is proportional to the 3rd root of the mass.
But in reality bigger planets will have higher densities, both because they have higher pressure at the core and because they (probably) tend to have more heavier elements.
You can measure the radius of a planet if you can observe a transit (eclipse) and you can measure its mass by looking at the planet's effect on the movement of the star.
I don't know if any super-Earth's density has been measured accurately, but if it hasn't been done yet it will happen in a few years.
Makes me sad... I am, however, excited at the prospect of humanity one day exploring other galaxies and planets. I just wish I could be there to experience it.
On September 13 2011 19:18 Mithriel wrote: One day one of these telescopes will zoom into a planet and see things running/flying around. Imagine the shock the ones watching the first images must get haha.
Its just a matter of time!
The problem with this though is time. Everything we see in the sky is actually X years old depending on how far away it is. Since it takes light 1 year at 186,282 miles per second to travel 6 trillion miles. It is the maximum speed at which all energy, matter, and information in the universe can travel (as far as what is known and accepted anyways). so a telescope uses light(or radio which is also light) obviously to see things.
So since this super earth is 35 light years away (or about 210 trillion miles) we are actually seeing it as it was 35 years ago. And if other planets were discovered that were even further away you might even see them before or after any civilization occurred and totally miss it (even though right now at this exact moment there may be something going on). It's kind of strange to think about that, but that's to give you a small taste of how fucking huge the universe is.
I've actually always wondered how it would look if an object took off from a far distance and traveled in a straight line to us (or at least a straight looking line from our vantage point on our rotating earth, rotating around our sun, which is rotating around our black hole, which is flying through space lol) if you considered the light year thing.
On September 13 2011 19:20 dementrio wrote: Regarding feasible technology for interstellar travel, there was a cold-war era concept for a nuclear-propelled megaship that would achieve speeds up to (iirc) 0.2c, which would make it possible to reach nearby solar system over the course of 1 or 2 generations.
Nuclear-propelled as in, actual atomic bombs explode and haul the ship's ass forward. There are to this date unsolved technological problems in building such a ship but no theoretical impossibility. However, since it would have to be built in space, we can't even start funding such a project until we have a shipyard out there. Very unlikely we'd see even the beginning of such a project in our lifetimes.
It was called project orion if you want to look it up.
Provided you have enough fuel to keep the engine going, you can (in principle) accelerate your ship to speeds arbitrarily close to the speed of light. Since there is no friction force in the vacuum of space, there's nothing to counteract the thrust from the engines.
The principle behind efficient space travel is that you want to shoot stuff out of the rear end of your spacecraft. Conservation of momentum then causes the spacecraft to feel a force pushing it forward. The challenge lies in propelling matter with low mass at high momentum. You want low mass, because for a 35 LY journey, it's a lot of fuel you have to bring. The combination of low mass and high momentum for the propellant means that it has to be accelerated to high energies. (Explosive) combustion is one way of going about this, it's what current spacecraft use. The problem is that you want to focus the propellant to be expelled in a straight line, while blowing stuff up generally has it going in all kinds of directions.
There are some developments in plasma physics that aim at providing a thruster system based on propelling ions at high energies, focussed in a straight beam by electric and magnetic fields. The concept is not new, the "ion thruster" or "ion drive" is a common concept in sci-fi stories, but the technological realization is only now within our grasp.
Regardless, these are all conventional means of propulsion, which means no FTL. Nevertheless, if a journey to another solar system with an earth-like planet took 100 years, then a generation ship with efficient ion-drive propulsion seems like a fantastic endeavour. Unfortunately, I fear that it will require us to actually meet aliens before we can put aside our petty differences and materialistic needs and start focussing on improving ourselves and our understanding of the universe (just like the scenario described in Star Trek, where humanity slowly unites after a bitter third world war after first contact with an alien race).
Space Kite! Would just be a small robot, but basically you'd use light to push the sails :D Too bad most of the universe is dark
On September 13 2011 16:08 Tippecanoe wrote: With current technology how long would it take to travel 30 light years? 300 ish years?
Anybody know how fast a space shuttle travels?
Nasa shuttle travels almost 17500mph so 1 light year would take about 38263 years, 30 light years ... 1147890 years. So little more than 1 million years. methinks
On September 13 2011 19:18 Mithriel wrote: One day one of these telescopes will zoom into a planet and see things running/flying around. Imagine the shock the ones watching the first images must get haha.
Its just a matter of time!
The problem with this though is time. Everything we see in the sky is actually X years old depending on how far away it is. Since it takes light 1 year at 186,282 miles per second to travel 6 trillion miles. It is the maximum speed at which all energy, matter, and information in the universe can travel (as far as what is known and accepted anyways). so a telescope uses light(or radio which is also light) obviously to see things.
So since this super earth is 35 light years away (or about 210 trillion miles) we are actually seeing it as it was 35 years ago. And if other planets were discovered that were even further away you might even see them before or after any civilization occurred and totally miss it (even though right now at this exact moment there may be something going on). It's kind of strange to think about that, but that's to give you a small taste of how fucking huge the universe is.
I've actually always wondered how it would look if an object took off from a far distance and traveled in a straight line to us (or at least a straight looking line from our vantage point on our rotating earth, rotating around our sun, which is rotating around our black hole, which is flying through space lol) if you considered the light year thing.
Life doesn't evolve just like that so 35 years is nothing.
On September 13 2011 16:08 Tippecanoe wrote: With current technology how long would it take to travel 30 light years? 300 ish years?
Anybody know how fast a space shuttle travels?
Nasa shuttle travels almost 17500mph so 1 light year would take about 38263 years, 30 light years ... 1147890 years. So little more than 1 million years. methinks
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.
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
I doubt that we would even try to send something out that far. Most likely whats going to happen is that eventually we'll have the technology to bend space and get to places extremely fast.
On September 13 2011 19:18 Mithriel wrote: One day one of these telescopes will zoom into a planet and see things running/flying around. Imagine the shock the ones watching the first images must get haha.
Its just a matter of time!
The problem with this though is time. Everything we see in the sky is actually X years old depending on how far away it is. Since it takes light 1 year at 186,282 miles per second to travel 6 trillion miles. It is the maximum speed at which all energy, matter, and information in the universe can travel (as far as what is known and accepted anyways). so a telescope uses light(or radio which is also light) obviously to see things.
So since this super earth is 35 light years away (or about 210 trillion miles) we are actually seeing it as it was 35 years ago. And if other planets were discovered that were even further away you might even see them before or after any civilization occurred and totally miss it (even though right now at this exact moment there may be something going on). It's kind of strange to think about that, but that's to give you a small taste of how fucking huge the universe is.
I've actually always wondered how it would look if an object took off from a far distance and traveled in a straight line to us (or at least a straight looking line from our vantage point on our rotating earth, rotating around our sun, which is rotating around our black hole, which is flying through space lol) if you considered the light year thing.
Life doesn't evolve just like that so 35 years is nothing.
If you didn't realize, he meant that other planets are further away... That could be some million/billion light years
On September 13 2011 05:55 ampson wrote: Now let's get to work on that faster-than light travel? Looks sweet. But why is it called SUPER EARTH?
Cause it's just like Earth.
BUT SUPER
This is what I heard in my head.
The existence of a "super earth" isn't overly surprising, given the vastness of the universe. It's still cool to make progress on finding and learning about them, though. Progress on actually reaching any of them will be a lot slower. Too many humans think on too small of a scale, often centered on themselves. Has a manned spacecraft even gotten out of Earth's gravitational pull? Obviously the moon is within our gravity. I think I heard about some Mars thing, but I think it was just a plan and not something that'd already been sent out.
the name of the planet is HD 85512b, much more creative
To that my brain just goes: "I don't always colonize other planets, but when I do I make sure it's in HD."
On September 13 2011 09:19 hotbreakfest wrote: Currently we can see up to 42 billion light years into space. We are an insignificant speck dust on a speck of dust on a speck of dust on a speck of dust on a grain of sand in the Sahara Desert. I think that says just about enough.
So you explain to me, how a universe that is 13.9 billion years old, can see up to 42 billion light years
it takes light a year to travel a light year(duh) so 42 billion light years it would take 42 billion years.
So if the big bang happened only 13.9 billion years ago, how can we see up to 42 billion light years?
we can't?
I think the last figure was 13.5 billion light years
Imagine how life on another planet 3.6 times as large as earth would look! The muscles on those animals!
On September 13 2011 09:19 hotbreakfest wrote: Currently we can see up to 42 billion light years into space. We are an insignificant speck dust on a speck of dust on a speck of dust on a speck of dust on a grain of sand in the Sahara Desert. I think that says just about enough.
So you explain to me, how a universe that is 13.9 billion years old, can see up to 42 billion light years
it takes light a year to travel a light year(duh) so 42 billion light years it would take 42 billion years.
So if the big bang happened only 13.9 billion years ago, how can we see up to 42 billion light years?
we can't?
I think the last figure was 13.5 billion light years
Imagine how life on another planet 3.6 times as large as earth would look! The muscles on those animals!
Short answer as to why we can see around 47 billion light years away (the furthest image taken so far):
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.
On September 13 2011 09:19 hotbreakfest wrote: Currently we can see up to 42 billion light years into space. We are an insignificant speck dust on a speck of dust on a speck of dust on a speck of dust on a grain of sand in the Sahara Desert. I think that says just about enough.
So you explain to me, how a universe that is 13.9 billion years old, can see up to 42 billion light years
it takes light a year to travel a light year(duh) so 42 billion light years it would take 42 billion years.
So if the big bang happened only 13.9 billion years ago, how can we see up to 42 billion light years?
we can't?
I think the last figure was 13.5 billion light years
Imagine how life on another planet 3.6 times as large as earth would look! The muscles on those animals!
Short answer as to why we can see around 47 billion light years away (the furthest image taken so far):
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.
I can understand the universe itself being 47 billion light years old the problem i'm having is how can we SEE something 47 billion light years away since the light coming from it would have to travel longer than the age of the universe...
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?
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.
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
People look at expansion of the universe in the wrong way. Its not that the edges of the universe are growing out into nothingness, its that space is being added homogeneously between everything.
Basically, space isn't expanding into nothingness - there's nothing beyond space, space is just getting bigger.
I think it's Feynman's example, but imagine the universe is a loaf of bread. Our galaxy and another galaxy are 2 raisins in the bread. As it bakes and rises, they get further apart, not because they're "moving" away from each other - they're both essentially static to their surroundings. But it appears as if they're getting further away.
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 ^_^
On September 13 2011 09:19 hotbreakfest wrote: Currently we can see up to 42 billion light years into space. We are an insignificant speck dust on a speck of dust on a speck of dust on a speck of dust on a grain of sand in the Sahara Desert. I think that says just about enough.
So you explain to me, how a universe that is 13.9 billion years old, can see up to 42 billion light years
it takes light a year to travel a light year(duh) so 42 billion light years it would take 42 billion years.
So if the big bang happened only 13.9 billion years ago, how can we see up to 42 billion light years?
we can't?
I think the last figure was 13.5 billion light years
Imagine how life on another planet 3.6 times as large as earth would look! The muscles on those animals!
Short answer as to why we can see around 47 billion light years away (the furthest image taken so far):
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.
I can understand the universe itself being 47 billion light years old the problem i'm having is how can we SEE something 47 billion light years away since the light coming from it would have to travel longer than the age of the universe...
Relax and read what he posted. The universe does not need to be 47 billion years old for 2 objects to now be located 47 billion light years away. Imagine that you stand 1 foot away from your twin. Now imagine that you both instantaneously are launched in opposite directions at a speed near that of light when observed by a person stationary in the frame of reference that the experiment began in. At the exact time you are launched, your twin begins shining a laser beam in your direction.
In one year, as measured by the original reference frame, you see the laser that your twin shined at you at time 0. However, you are now 2 light-years (minus 1 foot) away from your twin even though the light was shined 1 year ago.
On September 13 2011 09:19 hotbreakfest wrote: Currently we can see up to 42 billion light years into space. We are an insignificant speck dust on a speck of dust on a speck of dust on a speck of dust on a grain of sand in the Sahara Desert. I think that says just about enough.
So you explain to me, how a universe that is 13.9 billion years old, can see up to 42 billion light years
it takes light a year to travel a light year(duh) so 42 billion light years it would take 42 billion years.
So if the big bang happened only 13.9 billion years ago, how can we see up to 42 billion light years?
we can't?
I think the last figure was 13.5 billion light years
Imagine how life on another planet 3.6 times as large as earth would look! The muscles on those animals!
Short answer as to why we can see around 47 billion light years away (the furthest image taken so far):
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.
I can understand the universe itself being 47 billion light years old the problem i'm having is how can we SEE something 47 billion light years away since the light coming from it would have to travel longer than the age of the universe...
Because the distance the light is traveling is also increasing, at an ever increasing rate (second derivative is positive). Let's say a ray of light leaves point A for point B, and point B is exactly one light year away when the ray of light leaves point A. Now, if the distance remains perfectly constant for one year, the light will reach point B after precisely one year. But what if point A and point B are moving away from one another? Then it would take longer than a year for the ray of light to reach point B, this is what is happening in our universe. Because light has a finite speed (it's bloody fast, but it's finite, it doesn't instantly move from one location to another regardless of distance), it is affected by changes in distance just like anything else. We can see this through redshifts.
A planet with two suns may be a familiar sight to fans of the "Star Wars" film series, but not, until now, to scientists. A team of researchers, including Carnegie's Alan Boss, has discovered a planet that orbits around a pair of stars. Their remarkable findings will be published Sept. 16 in Science.
This is the first instance of astronomers finding direct evidence of a so-called circumbinary planet. A few other planets have been suspected of orbiting around both members of a dual-star system, but the transits of the circumbinary planet have never been detected previously.
The team, led by Laurance Doyle of the Carl Sagan Center for the Study of Life in the Universe at the SETI Institute, used photometric data from the NASA Kepler space telescope, which monitors the brightness of 155,000 stars.
They found the binary star system by detecting a system where the stars eclipsed each other from the perspective of the Kepler spacecraft. These stars have two eclipses: A primary eclipse when the larger star is partially blocked by the smaller star and a secondary eclipse where the smaller star is fully blocked by the larger star.
But the researchers also noticed other times when the brightness of the two stars dropped, even when they were not in an eclipse position. This pattern suggested that there was likely a third object involved. The fact that these so-called tertiary and quaternary eclipses recurred after varying intervals of time, and were of different depths, indicated that the stars were in different positions in their orbit at each instance. This result showed that the tertiary and quaternary eclipses were being caused by something circling both stars, and not an object circling one or the other star.
On September 13 2011 09:19 hotbreakfest wrote: Currently we can see up to 42 billion light years into space. We are an insignificant speck dust on a speck of dust on a speck of dust on a speck of dust on a grain of sand in the Sahara Desert. I think that says just about enough.
So you explain to me, how a universe that is 13.9 billion years old, can see up to 42 billion light years
it takes light a year to travel a light year(duh) so 42 billion light years it would take 42 billion years.
So if the big bang happened only 13.9 billion years ago, how can we see up to 42 billion light years?
we can't?
I think the last figure was 13.5 billion light years
Imagine how life on another planet 3.6 times as large as earth would look! The muscles on those animals!
Short answer as to why we can see around 47 billion light years away (the furthest image taken so far):
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.
I can understand the universe itself being 47 billion light years old the problem i'm having is how can we SEE something 47 billion light years away since the light coming from it would have to travel longer than the age of the universe...
Because the distance the light is traveling is also increasing, at an ever increasing rate (second derivative is positive). Let's say a ray of light leaves point A for point B, and point B is exactly one light year away when the ray of light leaves point A. Now, if the distance remains perfectly constant for one year, the light will reach point B after precisely one year. But what if point A and point B are moving away from one another? Then it would take longer than a year for the ray of light to reach point B, this is what is happening in our universe. Because light has a finite speed (it's bloody fast, but it's finite, it doesn't instantly move from one location to another regardless of distance), it is affected by changes in distance just like anything else. We can see this through redshifts.
What are you a professor?
I had this same question in my head for a long time and i thank you for making it so simple to understand. Seems so obvious now.
On September 13 2011 09:19 hotbreakfest wrote: Currently we can see up to 42 billion light years into space. We are an insignificant speck dust on a speck of dust on a speck of dust on a speck of dust on a grain of sand in the Sahara Desert. I think that says just about enough.
So you explain to me, how a universe that is 13.9 billion years old, can see up to 42 billion light years
it takes light a year to travel a light year(duh) so 42 billion light years it would take 42 billion years.
So if the big bang happened only 13.9 billion years ago, how can we see up to 42 billion light years?
we can't?
I think the last figure was 13.5 billion light years
Imagine how life on another planet 3.6 times as large as earth would look! The muscles on those animals!
Short answer as to why we can see around 47 billion light years away (the furthest image taken so far):
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.
I can understand the universe itself being 47 billion light years old the problem i'm having is how can we SEE something 47 billion light years away since the light coming from it would have to travel longer than the age of the universe...
Because the distance the light is traveling is also increasing, at an ever increasing rate (second derivative is positive). Let's say a ray of light leaves point A for point B, and point B is exactly one light year away when the ray of light leaves point A. Now, if the distance remains perfectly constant for one year, the light will reach point B after precisely one year. But what if point A and point B are moving away from one another? Then it would take longer than a year for the ray of light to reach point B, this is what is happening in our universe. Because light has a finite speed (it's bloody fast, but it's finite, it doesn't instantly move from one location to another regardless of distance), it is affected by changes in distance just like anything else. We can see this through redshifts.
What are you a professor?
I had this same question in my head for a long time and i thank you for making it so simple to understand. Seems so obvious now.
On September 13 2011 09:19 hotbreakfest wrote: Currently we can see up to 42 billion light years into space. We are an insignificant speck dust on a speck of dust on a speck of dust on a speck of dust on a grain of sand in the Sahara Desert. I think that says just about enough.
So you explain to me, how a universe that is 13.9 billion years old, can see up to 42 billion light years
it takes light a year to travel a light year(duh) so 42 billion light years it would take 42 billion years.
So if the big bang happened only 13.9 billion years ago, how can we see up to 42 billion light years?
we can't?
I think the last figure was 13.5 billion light years
Imagine how life on another planet 3.6 times as large as earth would look! The muscles on those animals!
Short answer as to why we can see around 47 billion light years away (the furthest image taken so far):
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.
I can understand the universe itself being 47 billion light years old the problem i'm having is how can we SEE something 47 billion light years away since the light coming from it would have to travel longer than the age of the universe...
Because the distance the light is traveling is also increasing, at an ever increasing rate (second derivative is positive). Let's say a ray of light leaves point A for point B, and point B is exactly one light year away when the ray of light leaves point A. Now, if the distance remains perfectly constant for one year, the light will reach point B after precisely one year. But what if point A and point B are moving away from one another? Then it would take longer than a year for the ray of light to reach point B, this is what is happening in our universe. Because light has a finite speed (it's bloody fast, but it's finite, it doesn't instantly move from one location to another regardless of distance), it is affected by changes in distance just like anything else. We can see this through redshifts.
Award for best answer to a science question on TL goes to.... (drumroll) Whitewing!
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.
On September 13 2011 05:55 ampson wrote: Now let's get to work on that faster-than light travel? Looks sweet. But why is it called SUPER EARTH?
agreed, if you calculate the distance from light years, which is 18,000 miles/second. it is still a staggering 19,867,680,000,000 miles away :x
let that scale stuff for everyone, this is possibly the closest star to us that resembles us and its 19 trillion??(i cant remember xD) miles away, ill find this display on how truely big the universe is "estimated" to be and its something like 24,000,000,000x10^6000 light years to get to where the light hasnt reached yet :x(dont take that as literal, i vaguely. remember the numbers)
On September 13 2011 05:55 ampson wrote: Now let's get to work on that faster-than light travel? Looks sweet. But why is it called SUPER EARTH?
agreed, if you calculate the distance from light years, which is 18,000 miles/second. it is still a staggering 19,867,680,000,000 miles away :x
let that scale stuff for everyone, this is possibly the closest star to us that resembles us and its 19 trillion??(i cant remember xD) miles away, ill find this display on how truely big the universe is "estimated" to be and its something like 24,000,000,000x10^6000 light years to get to where the light hasnt reached yet :x(dont take that as literal, i vaguely. remember the numbers)
Yeah, essentially, you either need to be able to teleport to get there, or you need to be able to bend space. In the future, we may be able to enter and travel through wormholes without getting killed, and then possibly even temporarily create our own, which would allow for near instantaneous travel from any point to another.
This is tech that, assuming it's possible, is probably more than a thousand years from being developed.
On September 13 2011 05:55 ampson wrote: Now let's get to work on that faster-than light travel? Looks sweet. But why is it called SUPER EARTH?
agreed, if you calculate the distance from light years, which is 18,000 miles/second. it is still a staggering 19,867,680,000,000 miles away :x
let that scale stuff for everyone, this is possibly the closest star to us that resembles us and its 19 trillion??(i cant remember xD) miles away, ill find this display on how truely big the universe is "estimated" to be and its something like 24,000,000,000x10^6000 light years to get to where the light hasnt reached yet :x(dont take that as literal, i vaguely. remember the numbers)
Yeah, essentially, you either need to be able to teleport to get there, or you need to be able to bend space. In the future, we may be able to enter and travel through wormholes without getting killed, and then possibly even temporarily create our own, which would allow for near instantaneous travel from any point to another.
This is tech that, assuming it's possible, is probably more than a thousand years from being developed.
i agree with this post completely. einstein's theory on space was on the right track about bending space etc etc. but with wormholes, scientists are running frantic because the formulas are failing. it will NOT be in this lifetime(without divine or outside intervention) that we discover the technology or even the beginnings of how to travel and bend space to our will.
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
If there is other intelligent life out there, it's kind of naive to think humans are the most intelligent. I can't help believing that another planet will find us before we find them.
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.
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.
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!
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.
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 +
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.
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.
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.
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 -_-
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Most of these planets are discovered indirectly (by watching the movement of the star, or if astronomers are really lucky, partial eclipses), so it would be near impossible to determine their composition, let alone see their surface.
On September 17 2011 06:12 OscarN wrote: could anyone tell me if they could magnified to see the planets surface?
Won't happen for a very very long time.
But it turns out it's easier to see what sort of elements and molecules there are in the planet's atmosphere than to image the surface. This will almost certainly happen in the next 10-20 years for some Earth-like planets.
On September 17 2011 06:22 simansh wrote: How does something that it so many times as heavy as earth support life? (as we know it) Doesn't the gravity make it impossible?
There's no way to know for sure if it does have life or not but I don't see why gravity would be a big problem.
There's complex life deep in the oceans under 100s of times the atmospheric pressure.
And smaller animals have less problem with gravity because the strength of their support structure increases decreases slower than the their mass.
Finally, the difference in gravity is probably not that big. It's around 1.5 times the Earth's gravity if it has the same composition as Earth (maybe slightly higher).
That is awesome! The thing is - can it support human life? 3.6 times the earth size means 3.6 times the gravity.. wouldn't we have to be like super strong just to stand there? (this isn't dbz) where we all train with super gravity on xD.. I'm curious to know how scientists would go about colonizing a planet that is like earth but with more gravity.
On September 17 2011 07:16 xSeraphiel wrote: That is awesome! The thing is - can it support human life? 3.6 times the earth size means 3.6 times the gravity.. wouldn't we have to be like super strong just to stand there? (this isn't dbz) where we all train with super gravity on xD.. I'm curious to know how scientists would go about colonizing a planet that is like earth but with more gravity.
It would take a long time to get there, what if you slowly turned the gravity up on yourself and could (if you had the ability to travel there I would assume you could). If it took many generations and you had someway to survive that might work. But I'm no scientist.
On September 17 2011 07:16 xSeraphiel wrote: That is awesome! The thing is - can it support human life? 3.6 times the earth size means 3.6 times the gravity.. wouldn't we have to be like super strong just to stand there? (this isn't dbz) where we all train with super gravity on xD.. I'm curious to know how scientists would go about colonizing a planet that is like earth but with more gravity.
So, while gravity does correlate to the size of the planet, it does so at a very small rate. For instance Jupiter is around 1300 times the size of Earth but it's gravitational field is only ~2.5 times stronger than Earth. In effect, yea there will be more gravity there, but not so much that it would feel abnormal too that large of an extent and human bones could easily support the added gravity. However, if it were a super large planet like Jupiter humans could always use some sort of metal support to move around I guess.
On September 13 2011 05:55 ampson wrote: Now let's get to work on that faster-than light travel? Looks sweet. But why is it called SUPER EARTH?
probably cus it's a lot bigger than actual earth?
It's great. now our parasitic race can take other planets and pollute the hell out of them after we overpopulate this one to the point of death =/
what a depressing thought
Well, technically earth isn't overpopulated at all, just very mis-managed. There is more than enough viable land and food for every person alive on the earth, it's just that because of money, it's not available to people who are poor.
That is one of the main reasons that we'll never go to another planet, we can't manage our own well enough to reap it's potential sustainable resources and be able to form a coordinated plan to go somewhere else. It is sad though, I agree.
edit: thought I should source my statement source look at "carrying capacity"
On September 13 2011 09:19 hotbreakfest wrote: Currently we can see up to 42 billion light years into space. We are an insignificant speck dust on a speck of dust on a speck of dust on a speck of dust on a grain of sand in the Sahara Desert. I think that says just about enough.
So you explain to me, how a universe that is 13.9 billion years old, can see up to 42 billion light years
it takes light a year to travel a light year(duh) so 42 billion light years it would take 42 billion years.
So if the big bang happened only 13.9 billion years ago, how can we see up to 42 billion light years?
we can't?
I think the last figure was 13.5 billion light years
Imagine how life on another planet 3.6 times as large as earth would look! The muscles on those animals!
Short answer as to why we can see around 47 billion light years away (the furthest image taken so far):
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.
I can understand the universe itself being 47 billion light years old the problem i'm having is how can we SEE something 47 billion light years away since the light coming from it would have to travel longer than the age of the universe...
Because the distance the light is traveling is also increasing, at an ever increasing rate (second derivative is positive). Let's say a ray of light leaves point A for point B, and point B is exactly one light year away when the ray of light leaves point A. Now, if the distance remains perfectly constant for one year, the light will reach point B after precisely one year. But what if point A and point B are moving away from one another? Then it would take longer than a year for the ray of light to reach point B, this is what is happening in our universe. Because light has a finite speed (it's bloody fast, but it's finite, it doesn't instantly move from one location to another regardless of distance), it is affected by changes in distance just like anything else. We can see this through redshifts.
On September 13 2011 09:19 hotbreakfest wrote: Currently we can see up to 42 billion light years into space. We are an insignificant speck dust on a speck of dust on a speck of dust on a speck of dust on a grain of sand in the Sahara Desert. I think that says just about enough.
So you explain to me, how a universe that is 13.9 billion years old, can see up to 42 billion light years
it takes light a year to travel a light year(duh) so 42 billion light years it would take 42 billion years.
So if the big bang happened only 13.9 billion years ago, how can we see up to 42 billion light years?
we can't?
I think the last figure was 13.5 billion light years
Imagine how life on another planet 3.6 times as large as earth would look! The muscles on those animals!
Short answer as to why we can see around 47 billion light years away (the furthest image taken so far):
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.
I can understand the universe itself being 47 billion light years old the problem i'm having is how can we SEE something 47 billion light years away since the light coming from it would have to travel longer than the age of the universe...
Because the distance the light is traveling is also increasing, at an ever increasing rate (second derivative is positive). Let's say a ray of light leaves point A for point B, and point B is exactly one light year away when the ray of light leaves point A. Now, if the distance remains perfectly constant for one year, the light will reach point B after precisely one year. But what if point A and point B are moving away from one another? Then it would take longer than a year for the ray of light to reach point B, this is what is happening in our universe. Because light has a finite speed (it's bloody fast, but it's finite, it doesn't instantly move from one location to another regardless of distance), it is affected by changes in distance just like anything else. We can see this through redshifts.
For the first time, astronomers have found a planet smack in the middle of the habitable zone of its sunlike star, where temperatures are good for life. “If this planet has a surface, it would have a very nice temperature of some 70° Fahrenheit [21°C],” says William Borucki of NASA’s Ames Research Center here, who is the principal investigator of NASA’s Kepler space telescope. “[It's] another milestone on the journey of discovering Earth’s twin,” adds Ames director Simon “Pete” Worden.
Unfortunately, the true nature of the planet, named Kepler-22b, remains unknown. It is 2.4 times the size of Earth, but its mass, and hence its composition, has not yet been determined. “There’s a good chance it could be rocky,” Borucki says, although he adds that the planet would probably contain huge amounts of compressed ice, too. It might even have a global ocean. “We have no planets like this in our own solar system.”
Kepler-22b is 600 light-years away. Every 290 days, it orbits a star that is just a bit smaller and cooler than our own sun. The Kepler telescope, launched in 2009 to scan the skies for Earth-like worlds, found the planet because it sees the orbit edge on. That means that every 290 days, the world transits the surface of the star, blocking out a minute fraction of its light.
Borucki likes to call the new discovery the Christmas planet. “It’s a great gift,” he said at a press conference here this morning. “We were very fortunate to find it.” The first of the three observed transits occurred only days after Kepler started observing. The third one was seen just before Christmas 2010, shortly before the spacecraft was unable to carry out any observations because of a technical glitch. Says Borucki: “We could’ve easily missed it altogether.”
Wow that's pretty sweet. Since the star is smaller and cooler, that means it may last quite a bit longer than our own. I sure hope they can find its composition, but wouldn't that be pretty hard considering its distance? It would be cooler if we found one closer to Earth though, 600 light years is a long way away.
On September 13 2011 06:37 Enox wrote: this one is pretty old already but it amazes me each time i see it again. seems fitting for this thread
This is amazing, it puts loads of stuff into persective. I love seeing stuff like this.
Cool series of pictures, but the artistic depictions of the large stars are not realistic. No way they have so well defined borders and are almost perfectly spherical, their atmospheres are very thin and their photospheres extended.
off topic: The most realistic first contact scene ever shown in a Hollywood movie!
On September 13 2011 06:37 Enox wrote: this one is pretty old already but it amazes me each time i see it again. seems fitting for this thread
This is amazing, it puts loads of stuff into persective. I love seeing stuff like this.
Cool series of pictures, but the artistic depictions of the large stars are not realistic. No way they have so well defined borders and are almost perfectly spherical, their atmospheres are very thin and their photospheres extended.
On September 13 2011 06:37 Enox wrote: this one is pretty old already but it amazes me each time i see it again. seems fitting for this thread
This is amazing, it puts loads of stuff into persective. I love seeing stuff like this.
Cool series of pictures, but the artistic depictions of the large stars are not realistic. No way they have so well defined borders and are almost perfectly spherical, their atmospheres are very thin and their photospheres extended.
astronomers have found a planet smack in the middle of the habitable zone of its sunlike star, where temperatures are good for life. “If this planet has a surface, it would have a very nice temperature of some 70° Fahrenheit [21°C],” says William Borucki of NASA’s Ames Research Center
Well at least if this planet has a surface and if a lot of other conditions are there, the temperature might be warm enough.
On December 06 2011 08:02 Chocolate wrote: Wow that's pretty sweet. Since the star is smaller and cooler, that means it may last quite a bit longer than our own. I sure hope they can find its composition, but wouldn't that be pretty hard considering its distance? It would be cooler if we found one closer to Earth though, 600 light years is a long way away.
Although it can't technically be proven (yet), we can reasonably assume (within a certain margin of error) what the atmospheric and planetary composition of an exoplanet is. A variety of data has come back suggesting that most stars comparable in size/heat to our own also have a similar planetary system, composed of smaller, inner planets, and a few larger outer ones.
Similarly, in order to maintain certain orbits, planets must be of a certain mass or they wouldn't "fit" into the puzzle of a stellar system without messing up everything else. In order to meet that mass, they need to be of a certain composition. Of course, most of this is purely hypothetical, but it's a good step in the right direction. Until we either develop telescopes that can see that far in vivid detail, or the technology to send probes there, we probably won't know with 100% certainty.
Also, one of the closest "habitable candidates" is Gliese581d, which is ~8x larger than the Earth, surrounding a much smaller star, with a much smaller orbit, but it's right in the middle of Gliese581's "habitable zone". However, the existence of that planet hasn't been "confirmed" in the same way this one has. If I recall correctly, the Gliese system is ~20 light years away, so this would most likely be one of our first focuses in the search for confirmed habitable planets.
On September 13 2011 05:39 zimz wrote: i always knew there were thousand if not millions of planets like earth out there like over 10 years ago. i thought it was quite close minded for many people to assume earth is exceptionally rare and maybe the only one etc.
earth is exceptionally rare....
no respect is given for the planet we evolved on. jokES
On September 13 2011 05:39 zimz wrote: i always knew there were thousand if not millions of planets like earth out there like over 10 years ago. i thought it was quite close minded for many people to assume earth is exceptionally rare and maybe the only one etc.
earth is exceptionally rare....
no respect is given for the planet we evolved on. jokES
While I agree with you that Earth is "exceptionally rare", given the size of the universe and the vast number of planetary systems in our galaxy alone (billions), even exceptional rarity is bound to produce a significant number of habitable planets.
On September 13 2011 05:39 zimz wrote: i always knew there were thousand if not millions of planets like earth out there like over 10 years ago. i thought it was quite close minded for many people to assume earth is exceptionally rare and maybe the only one etc.
earth is exceptionally rare....
no respect is given for the planet we evolved on. jokES
well, realistically, anything that's "exceptionally rare" in a universe of hundreds of billions of galaxies with hundreds of billions of stars in which each star may have its own solar system, even the "exceptionally rare" should be in numbers of millions.
For the first time, astronomers have found a planet smack in the middle of the habitable zone of its sunlike star, where temperatures are good for life. “If this planet has a surface, it would have a very nice temperature of some 70° Fahrenheit [21°C],” says William Borucki of NASA’s Ames Research Center here, who is the principal investigator of NASA’s Kepler space telescope. “[It's] another milestone on the journey of discovering Earth’s twin,” adds Ames director Simon “Pete” Worden.
Unfortunately, the true nature of the planet, named Kepler-22b, remains unknown. It is 2.4 times the size of Earth, but its mass, and hence its composition, has not yet been determined. “There’s a good chance it could be rocky,” Borucki says, although he adds that the planet would probably contain huge amounts of compressed ice, too. It might even have a global ocean. “We have no planets like this in our own solar system.”
Kepler-22b is 600 light-years away. Every 290 days, it orbits a star that is just a bit smaller and cooler than our own sun. The Kepler telescope, launched in 2009 to scan the skies for Earth-like worlds, found the planet because it sees the orbit edge on. That means that every 290 days, the world transits the surface of the star, blocking out a minute fraction of its light.
Borucki likes to call the new discovery the Christmas planet. “It’s a great gift,” he said at a press conference here this morning. “We were very fortunate to find it.” The first of the three observed transits occurred only days after Kepler started observing. The third one was seen just before Christmas 2010, shortly before the spacecraft was unable to carry out any observations because of a technical glitch. Says Borucki: “We could’ve easily missed it altogether.”
At 2.4 times the size of Earth it does seem unlikely that it is a rocky planet similar to Earth. It would be extremely massive otherwise. It should have a lot more light elements than Earth, most likely some weird ice planet or a mini-Neptune.
On December 06 2011 08:02 Chocolate wrote: Wow that's pretty sweet. Since the star is smaller and cooler, that means it may last quite a bit longer than our own. I sure hope they can find its composition, but wouldn't that be pretty hard considering its distance? It would be cooler if we found one closer to Earth though, 600 light years is a long way away.
Although it can't technically be proven (yet), we can reasonably assume (within a certain margin of error) what the atmospheric and planetary composition of an exoplanet is. A variety of data has come back suggesting that most stars comparable in size/heat to our own also have a similar planetary system, composed of smaller, inner planets, and a few larger outer ones.
Similarly, in order to maintain certain orbits, planets must be of a certain mass or they wouldn't "fit" into the puzzle of a stellar system without messing up everything else. In order to meet that mass, they need to be of a certain composition. Of course, most of this is purely hypothetical, but it's a good step in the right direction. Until we either develop telescopes that can see that far in vivid detail, or the technology to send probes there, we probably won't know with 100% certainty.
Also, one of the closest "habitable candidates" is Gliese581d, which is ~8x larger than the Earth, surrounding a much smaller star, with a much smaller orbit, but it's right in the middle of Gliese581's "habitable zone". However, the existence of that planet hasn't been "confirmed" in the same way this one has. If I recall correctly, the Gliese system is ~20 light years away, so this would most likely be one of our first focuses in the search for confirmed habitable planets.
To be honest i doubt the human race would exist at that point. Even if we had the technology, since nothing we know (currently) can travel faster than speed of light it takes 20 light years but could be more like 5000 years depending how quickly the "ship" was going
What i don't understand is what a planet has to have in order for it to be capable of "supporting life." I get the feeling that scientists take abstract ideas from our own planet and apply them to other planets when for all they know beings could exist that function on completely different standards than our own.
On December 06 2011 08:02 Chocolate wrote: Wow that's pretty sweet. Since the star is smaller and cooler, that means it may last quite a bit longer than our own. I sure hope they can find its composition, but wouldn't that be pretty hard considering its distance? It would be cooler if we found one closer to Earth though, 600 light years is a long way away.
Although it can't technically be proven (yet), we can reasonably assume (within a certain margin of error) what the atmospheric and planetary composition of an exoplanet is. A variety of data has come back suggesting that most stars comparable in size/heat to our own also have a similar planetary system, composed of smaller, inner planets, and a few larger outer ones.
Similarly, in order to maintain certain orbits, planets must be of a certain mass or they wouldn't "fit" into the puzzle of a stellar system without messing up everything else. In order to meet that mass, they need to be of a certain composition. Of course, most of this is purely hypothetical, but it's a good step in the right direction. Until we either develop telescopes that can see that far in vivid detail, or the technology to send probes there, we probably won't know with 100% certainty.
Also, one of the closest "habitable candidates" is Gliese581d, which is ~8x larger than the Earth, surrounding a much smaller star, with a much smaller orbit, but it's right in the middle of Gliese581's "habitable zone". However, the existence of that planet hasn't been "confirmed" in the same way this one has. If I recall correctly, the Gliese system is ~20 light years away, so this would most likely be one of our first focuses in the search for confirmed habitable planets.
To be honest i doubt the human race would exist at that point. Even if we had the technology, since nothing we know (currently) can travel faster than speed of light it takes 20 light years but could be more like 5000 years depending how quickly the "ship" was going
This may sound science fiction-y, but colony ships that go faster and faster as time goes by. Where humanity survives by spreading through solar systems rather than say being constantly in communication with each other. Has been brought up several times given that we can't go faster than light and are in no apparent engineering or technological reach of say using wormholes etc.
Think about how many star systems are out there. Planets like these... with all the billions of galaxy's...
my guess is that there is a whole shit load of life out there. Whether we ever get contact or not is another thing. But given how resilient life has been on this planet, if I HAD to bet on either "No life out there" vs "a ton of life out there"... I would certainly choose the latter. It is seeming more and more likely.
edit: 50 various typos and misspellings. Holyshit.
On December 06 2011 08:02 Chocolate wrote: Wow that's pretty sweet. Since the star is smaller and cooler, that means it may last quite a bit longer than our own. I sure hope they can find its composition, but wouldn't that be pretty hard considering its distance? It would be cooler if we found one closer to Earth though, 600 light years is a long way away.
Although it can't technically be proven (yet), we can reasonably assume (within a certain margin of error) what the atmospheric and planetary composition of an exoplanet is. A variety of data has come back suggesting that most stars comparable in size/heat to our own also have a similar planetary system, composed of smaller, inner planets, and a few larger outer ones.
Similarly, in order to maintain certain orbits, planets must be of a certain mass or they wouldn't "fit" into the puzzle of a stellar system without messing up everything else. In order to meet that mass, they need to be of a certain composition. Of course, most of this is purely hypothetical, but it's a good step in the right direction. Until we either develop telescopes that can see that far in vivid detail, or the technology to send probes there, we probably won't know with 100% certainty.
Also, one of the closest "habitable candidates" is Gliese581d, which is ~8x larger than the Earth, surrounding a much smaller star, with a much smaller orbit, but it's right in the middle of Gliese581's "habitable zone". However, the existence of that planet hasn't been "confirmed" in the same way this one has. If I recall correctly, the Gliese system is ~20 light years away, so this would most likely be one of our first focuses in the search for confirmed habitable planets.
To be honest i doubt the human race would exist at that point. Even if we had the technology, since nothing we know (currently) can travel faster than speed of light it takes 20 light years but could be more like 5000 years depending how quickly the "ship" was going
This may sound science fiction-y, but colony ships that go faster and faster as time goes by. Where humanity survives by spreading through solar systems rather than say being constantly in communication with each other. Has been brought up several times given that we can't go faster than light and are in no apparent engineering or technological reach of say using wormholes etc.
The most realistic way that we currently know of to travel close to the speed of light would just be constant acceleration. Physically speaking, if we constantly accelerated at a slightly less than exponential rate, our bodies would easily be able to withstand the force, and it could be done completely with the technology that we have currently. The only thing missing would be an "infinite" fuel source, or at least one efficient enough to sustain constant acceleration over long periods of time.
I know it was semi-off topic to your post, but I thought it was slightly related.
On December 06 2011 12:33 FrankWalls wrote: What i don't understand is what a planet has to have in order for it to be capable of "supporting life." I get the feeling that scientists take abstract ideas from our own planet and apply them to other planets when for all they know beings could exist that function on completely different standards than our own.
You are right. An example of this recently was when scientists found bacteria that eat and grow off of arsenic. Before this discovery scientists assumed the 6 essential elements for life (phosphorus, oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, carbon, sulfur) were always needed.
This is the main problem with Deep-space travel and I don't see it discussed enough:
Radiation.
Interplanetary is already prohibitive, Interstellar space is just retarded, who can only guess how hot Intergalactic space is. The further you get out of the solar system it starts to go nuts. There are pulsar and nebula flares with Gamma rays that would travel right through metal and turn you into bacon inside of a second.
I heard that we wouldn't be safe if we traveled in a ball of water or lead that was 50 feet thick. Here are a couple articles on the subject:
On December 06 2011 12:33 FrankWalls wrote: What i don't understand is what a planet has to have in order for it to be capable of "supporting life." I get the feeling that scientists take abstract ideas from our own planet and apply them to other planets when for all they know beings could exist that function on completely different standards than our own.
You are right. An example of this recently was when scientists found bacteria that eat and grow off of arsenic. Before this discovery scientists assumed the 6 essential elements for life (phosphorus, oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, carbon, sulfur) were always needed.
Well to be fair it makes sense to start with what you know. How else are you going to narrow down the possibilities? Given the size of observable space and the potential number of planets that space can include it would be senseless to give every planet an equal probability of life based on the idea that we don't know all forms of life. It may be more accurate but it hardly helps you answer any question. Life could have evloved in a myriad of ways, however so far we only know of one way that it did evolve. Makes sense to use that as a basis of your search.
I'm more curious how long the days and years are, the gravity pull and temperature variations. Very interesting find.
This is the main problem with Deep-space travel and I don't see it discussed enough:
Radiation.
Interplanetary is already prohibitive, Interstellar space is just retarded, who can only guess how hot Intergalactic space is. The further you get out of the solar system it starts to go nuts. There are pulsar and nebula flares with Gamma rays that would travel right through metal and turn you into bacon inside of a second.
I heard that we wouldn't be safe if we traveled in a ball of water or lead that was 50 feet thick. Here are a couple articles on the subject:
On December 06 2011 14:57 DanceSC wrote: I'm more curious how long the days and years are, the gravity pull and temperature variations. Very interesting find.
This is the main problem with Deep-space travel and I don't see it discussed enough:
Radiation.
Interplanetary is already prohibitive, Interstellar space is just retarded, who can only guess how hot Intergalactic space is. The further you get out of the solar system it starts to go nuts. There are pulsar and nebula flares with Gamma rays that would travel right through metal and turn you into bacon inside of a second.
I heard that we wouldn't be safe if we traveled in a ball of water or lead that was 50 feet thick. Here are a couple articles on the subject:
The sad thing is, beyond speculation, we will likely never know in our lifetimes what there is or isn't beyond the Earth.
Cosmic time is so much more vast than 70-80 years that it's hard to think about. Mankind hasn't even existed as long as it would take to get to the nearest suspected habitable planet to us.
Something else to think about (although I'm sure it's been mentioned) we see these stars and the evidence of planets as they were hundreds or thousands of years ago. IF they did have life that was similar to what we recognize as life, it could have come and gone long since.
On December 06 2011 15:37 Carson wrote: The sad thing is, beyond speculation, we will likely never know in our lifetimes what there is or isn't beyond the Earth.
Cosmic time is so much more vast than 70-80 years that it's hard to think about. Mankind hasn't even existed as long as it would take to get to the nearest suspected habitable planet to us.
Something else to think about (although I'm sure it's been mentioned) we see these stars and the evidence of planets as they were hundreds or thousands of years ago. IF they did have life that was similar to what we recognize as life, it could have come and gone long since.
Yeah, it's part of the reason why I think we should focus our resources toward investigating Titan. The surface of Titan is covered in lakes of Methane and Ethane, as well as water ice, so it's the most likely candidate for having life within our own Solar System. Obviously, it wouldn't be habitable for humans, but even the prospect of finding any form of life there should be enough motivation to spend the few billion dollars necessary to investigate further. And all of that is something that could be done in a span of ~10 years or so.
However, I'm inclined to think that sometime during my lifetime we'll have the technology necessary to at least travel a few lightyears in a realistic timeframe. I realize that's hopeful optimism though.
What i don't understand is what a planet has to have in order for it to be capable of "supporting life." I get the feeling that scientists take abstract ideas from our own planet and apply them to other planets when for all they know beings could exist that function on completely different standards than our own.
Liquid water, some "heavy" elements, and some kind of atmostphere so you don't have everything vanish into space.
They are basing it on what we can observe on earth (the living and every chemical reaction we can have.)
Carbon-based form of life (http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/ask_astro/answers/980221b.html) because carbon is abundent compare to other elements and it's esay to creat complexe structure with it.
Liquid water : (can't find a good explanation) but water is amazing as a solvent and allow a lot of reactions which can only helps life to appeare.
Something else to think about (although I'm sure it's been mentioned) we see these stars and the evidence of planets as they were hundreds or thousands of years ago. IF they did have life that was similar to what we recognize as life, it could have come and gone long since.
That not totaly true, most stars we see are indead very far away. But most planets we see (especialy the ones that could have lifeform on them) are kinda "close" to us because small planets are very hard to "see" and the farther they are the harder it gets. From wikipedia : "Most of the discovered extrasolar planets lie within 300 light years of the Solar System." which means light comming from them would take 300years which is very small concerning life.
What i don't understand is what a planet has to have in order for it to be capable of "supporting life." I get the feeling that scientists take abstract ideas from our own planet and apply them to other planets when for all they know beings could exist that function on completely different standards than our own.
Liquid water, some "heavy" elements, and some kind of atmostphere so you don't have everything vanish into space.
They are basing it on what we can observe on earth (the living and every chemical reaction we can have.)
Carbon-based form of life (http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/ask_astro/answers/980221b.html) because carbon is abundent compare to other elements and it's esay to creat complexe structure with it.
Liquid water : (can't find a good explanation) but water is amazing as a solvent and allow a lot of reactions which can only helps life to appeare.
They have revised what they believe is necessary for life to include "liquid anything" pretty much. Basically anything that can be used as a solvent, including (as I stated above) liquid Methane and Ethane.
On December 06 2011 15:37 Carson wrote: The sad thing is, beyond speculation, we will likely never know in our lifetimes what there is or isn't beyond the Earth.
Cosmic time is so much more vast than 70-80 years that it's hard to think about. Mankind hasn't even existed as long as it would take to get to the nearest suspected habitable planet to us.
Something else to think about (although I'm sure it's been mentioned) we see these stars and the evidence of planets as they were hundreds or thousands of years ago. IF they did have life that was similar to what we recognize as life, it could have come and gone long since.
However, I'm inclined to think that sometime during my lifetime we'll have the technology necessary to at least travel a few lightyears in a realistic timeframe. I realize that's hopeful optimism though.
Yeah, the best plan is to just live 100 years. People will figure something out; shit, 100 years ago we were barely even flying around in aircraft. I think we ought to get the situation here on earth figured out first though. After that, space travel should be easy.
Since it takes 7 months for the Space Shuttle to reach a distance to the the sun, lets calculate how fast it travels. Now the distance from earth to the sun is 150,000,000km of travel. Lets approximate the Space Shuttle can therefore travel 250,000,000km in one year. Calculating the speed of light is about 9,460,000,000,000,km/year. It means with our current technology it takes 38,000 years to travel one light year, so this planet that is "only" 35 light years away will take us over one million years to travel to.
I keep wishing that somehow this stuff was possible in our lifetime, but the reality is it wont be ):
On December 06 2011 15:37 Carson wrote: The sad thing is, beyond speculation, we will likely never know in our lifetimes what there is or isn't beyond the Earth.
Cosmic time is so much more vast than 70-80 years that it's hard to think about. Mankind hasn't even existed as long as it would take to get to the nearest suspected habitable planet to us.
Something else to think about (although I'm sure it's been mentioned) we see these stars and the evidence of planets as they were hundreds or thousands of years ago. IF they did have life that was similar to what we recognize as life, it could have come and gone long since.
We could actually build a machine that would get to Gliese 581g in like 100ish years, but this world would never do anything that wasn't for profit. This is why I think I might become an astrophysicist and actually help technology instead of being a greedy bastard like 99% of the population.
On December 06 2011 16:31 FiWiFaKi wrote: Just a perspective for you guys.
Since it takes 7 months for the Space Shuttle to reach a distance to the the sun, lets calculate how fast it travels. Now the distance from earth to the sun is 150,000,000km of travel. Lets approximate the Space Shuttle can therefore travel 250,000,000km in one year. Calculating the speed of light is about 9,460,000,000,000,km/year. It means with our current technology it takes 38,000 years to travel one light year, so this planet that is "only" 35 light years away will take us over one million years to travel to.
I keep wishing that somehow this stuff was possible in our lifetime, but the reality is it wont be ):
No, we actually have the resources and technology to build a hyper fast machine, but realistically it will never be funded. I believe it was that asian physicist who said this, I cannot recall his name, starts with an M.
On December 06 2011 15:37 Carson wrote: The sad thing is, beyond speculation, we will likely never know in our lifetimes what there is or isn't beyond the Earth.
Cosmic time is so much more vast than 70-80 years that it's hard to think about. Mankind hasn't even existed as long as it would take to get to the nearest suspected habitable planet to us.
Something else to think about (although I'm sure it's been mentioned) we see these stars and the evidence of planets as they were hundreds or thousands of years ago. IF they did have life that was similar to what we recognize as life, it could have come and gone long since.
Yeah, it's part of the reason why I think we should focus our resources toward investigating Titan. The surface of Titan is covered in lakes of Methane and Ethane, as well as water ice, so it's the most likely candidate for having life within our own Solar System. Obviously, it wouldn't be habitable for humans, but even the prospect of finding any form of life there should be enough motivation to spend the few billion dollars necessary to investigate further. And all of that is something that could be done in a span of ~10 years or so.
However, I'm inclined to think that sometime during my lifetime we'll have the technology necessary to at least travel a few lightyears in a realistic timeframe. I realize that's hopeful optimism though.
Isn't the nearest star something like 4 light years away?
On December 06 2011 16:39 FrodoAndTheSlobStix wrote: We should send the worst of the worst criminal men and women on long shuttle have them grow food and reproduce and travel for generations.
Why send the worst? I would gladly volunteer to be a mechanic or something on the first voyage. It would be exciting. There is nothing left on Earth to discover anymore.
On December 06 2011 17:09 Psyonic_Reaver wrote: Why send the worst? I would gladly volunteer to be a mechanic or something on the first voyage. It would be exciting. There is nothing left on Earth to discover anymore.
Odds are you're not going to discover anything in that voyage anyways, you'd just be traveling in the void of space for the rest of your life within a limited and constrained space, similar to a prison, except no hope of escape. Generations could pass living like this, being born in, living their whole lives out, and dying in the shuttle.
On December 06 2011 08:02 Chocolate wrote: Wow that's pretty sweet. Since the star is smaller and cooler, that means it may last quite a bit longer than our own. I sure hope they can find its composition, but wouldn't that be pretty hard considering its distance? It would be cooler if we found one closer to Earth though, 600 light years is a long way away.
Although it can't technically be proven (yet), we can reasonably assume (within a certain margin of error) what the atmospheric and planetary composition of an exoplanet is. A variety of data has come back suggesting that most stars comparable in size/heat to our own also have a similar planetary system, composed of smaller, inner planets, and a few larger outer ones.
Similarly, in order to maintain certain orbits, planets must be of a certain mass or they wouldn't "fit" into the puzzle of a stellar system without messing up everything else. In order to meet that mass, they need to be of a certain composition. Of course, most of this is purely hypothetical, but it's a good step in the right direction. Until we either develop telescopes that can see that far in vivid detail, or the technology to send probes there, we probably won't know with 100% certainty.
Also, one of the closest "habitable candidates" is Gliese581d, which is ~8x larger than the Earth, surrounding a much smaller star, with a much smaller orbit, but it's right in the middle of Gliese581's "habitable zone". However, the existence of that planet hasn't been "confirmed" in the same way this one has. If I recall correctly, the Gliese system is ~20 light years away, so this would most likely be one of our first focuses in the search for confirmed habitable planets.
To be honest i doubt the human race would exist at that point. Even if we had the technology, since nothing we know (currently) can travel faster than speed of light it takes 20 light years but could be more like 5000 years depending how quickly the "ship" was going
This may sound science fiction-y, but colony ships that go faster and faster as time goes by. Where humanity survives by spreading through solar systems rather than say being constantly in communication with each other. Has been brought up several times given that we can't go faster than light and are in no apparent engineering or technological reach of say using wormholes etc.
The most realistic way that we currently know of to travel close to the speed of light would just be constant acceleration. Physically speaking, if we constantly accelerated at a slightly less than exponential rate, our bodies would easily be able to withstand the force, and it could be done completely with the technology that we have currently. The only thing missing would be an "infinite" fuel source, or at least one efficient enough to sustain constant acceleration over long periods of time.
I know it was semi-off topic to your post, but I thought it was slightly related.
Then you also have to be able to break, otherwise it would go something like, 'Oh finally we are here!' *splat*
Saying that jokingly I wonder how long it would take to accelerate to near the speed of light while being survivable for humans. It would be quite hard to make pit stops along the way I'd assume if you don't want to waste a lot of time.
The real news is not this specific planet: it's that Earth-like planets aren't extremely rare. The next move should be a systematic program to check all nearby stars for planets and then look at their atmospheres for signs of life.
If we found an Earth-like planet within 10 light-years a long term program to send a robotic mission wouldn't be completely unrealistic, even at our current (or slightly more advanced) technology.
A lot of people here are pretty pessimistic. Try to realize what the world was like over a century ago. Automobiles, flight, communications (internet, television, cellphones), space travel, were all unimaginable dreams just a generation before they happened. I think it is foolish to rule out that mankind could have a major breakthrough in the next half century that will change life as we know it and our role in the universe. Ask your grandparents how many times over their world was revolutionized by technology. I'm not saying it's going to happen, but don't rule it out.
Who knows, maybe 20 years from now someone will discover a propulsion method to get much closer to light speed than we think is possible today. According to the theory of relativity, time slows as you approach light speed. So a trip that is 35 light years would pass as much less time if you were to move fast enough. Although, much more time would pass for us here on earth during the voyage.
I don't know what the future holds, but I like to hope, just maybe, someday in my life, even if I'm 100 years old, that someone will visit another world like earth or at least get a probe there and send back the pictures. Maybe by flying there, maybe mankind will master gravity and be able to bend space, distort time, who knows.....
I doubt that people will be willing to bear the financial burden of the vast resources it would take to get a human to another star system with no idea what is there. But maybe in our lives a probe will reach the nearest star, Look at this there are a lot of stars withing 16 light years. Some just 4 light years away. Is it crazy to think that 10 or 20 years from now that it's possible for anyone to develop a propulsion system that could get there in 50 years? Maybe in our lives we will get to see up close pictures of some of the planets orbiting these stars.
Maybe I'm just a dreamer, but if you went back 100 years and tried to convince anyone that a man would set foot on the moon, you'd be committed to an asylum. Perhaps we are only 1 epiphany away from the impossible becoming possible. A little more optimism please
Saying that jokingly I wonder how long it would take to accelerate to near the speed of light while being survivable for humans. It would be quite hard to make pit stops along the way I'd assume if you don't want to waste a lot of time.
Well, taking a=g and ignoring relativity it would take around 30million seconds or slightly less than one 1 year.
On December 06 2011 17:20 hypercube wrote: The real news is not this specific planet: it's that Earth-like planets aren't extremely rare. The next move should be a systematic program to check all nearby stars for planets and then look at their atmospheres for signs of life.
If we found an Earth-like planet within 10 light-years a long term program to send a robotic mission wouldn't be completely unrealistic, even at our current (or slightly more advanced) technology.
That depends how you define rare =p
Given how much of the cosmos is actually vast empty space, any planet, hell any mass in space is extremely rare if you look at it compared to how much of space is just vacuum. And if anything about our current understanding of the accelerating expansion of the universe is true, then it's just getting rarer and rarer as the universe gets less and less dense.
On December 06 2011 17:20 hypercube wrote: The real news is not this specific planet: it's that Earth-like planets aren't extremely rare. The next move should be a systematic program to check all nearby stars for planets and then look at their atmospheres for signs of life.
If we found an Earth-like planet within 10 light-years a long term program to send a robotic mission wouldn't be completely unrealistic, even at our current (or slightly more advanced) technology.
That depends how you define rare =p
Given how much of the cosmos is actually vast empty space, any planet, hell any mass in space is extremely rare if you look at it compared to how much of space is just vacuum. And if anything about our current understanding of the accelerating expansion of the universe is true, then it's just getting rarer and rarer as the universe gets less and less dense.
I've heard this argument as a caution against taking the Copernican Principle too far. You can't assume that life is "everywhere" when even in the Solar System the vast majority of space is devoid of it.
To clarify, I meant that a decent amount of stars have planets with physical characteristics similar to Earth. I.e rocky composition and surface gravity close to g and temperature that allows liquid water on the surface. I think the current estimate is at least 2% but possibly much higher.
But if someone built a transporter that sent you to a random point within 50 000 light years of the galaxy centre I wouldn't use it
On December 06 2011 17:23 Reborn8u wrote: A lot of people here are pretty pessimistic. Try to realize what the world was like over a century ago. Automobiles, flight, communications (internet, television, cellphones), space travel, were all unimaginable dreams just a generation before they happened. I think it is foolish to rule out that mankind could have a major breakthrough in the next half century that will change life as we know it and our role in the universe. Ask your grandparents how many times over their world was revolutionized by technology. I'm not saying it's going to happen, but don't rule it out.
Who knows, maybe 20 years from now someone will discover a propulsion method to get much closer to light speed than we think is possible today. According to the theory of relativity, time slows as you approach light speed. So a trip that is 35 light years would pass as much less time if you were to move fast enough. Although, much more time would pass for us here on earth during the voyage.
I don't know what the future holds, but I like to hope, just maybe, someday in my life, even if I'm 100 years old, that someone will visit another world like earth or at least get a probe there and send back the pictures. Maybe by flying there, maybe mankind will master gravity and be able to bend space, distort time, who knows.....
I doubt that people will be willing to bear the financial burden of the vast resources it would take to get a human to another star system with no idea what is there. But maybe in our lives a probe will reach the nearest star, Look at this there are a lot of stars withing 16 light years. Some just 4 light years away. Is it crazy to think that 10 or 20 years from now that it's possible for anyone to develop a propulsion system that could get there in 50 years? Maybe in our lives we will get to see up close pictures of some of the planets orbiting these stars.
Maybe I'm just a dreamer, but if you went back 100 years and tried to convince anyone that a man would set foot on the moon, you'd be committed to an asylum. Perhaps we are only 1 epiphany away from the impossible becoming possible. A little more optimism please
I think you confuse realism with pessimism. The fact that nothing can live long enough for just 1 lightyear, (76,526 years) with a NASA spaceshuttle traveling 17,500 miles per hour. One can only hope that it will happen in out lifetime, but thats just lying to yourself. Even with an unmanned spacecraft traveling faster, it will still take thousands of years. Its not pessimism, just being real.
On December 06 2011 17:23 Reborn8u wrote: Maybe I'm just a dreamer, but if you went back 100 years and tried to convince anyone that a man would set foot on the moon, you'd be committed to an asylum.
No, you could even be a successful author more than a 100 years ago: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/From_the_Earth_to_the_Moon Claims of our past backwardness are often exaggerated. Sure there were some dogmatic people, but every age had its freethinkers.
That said, extrapolations in the future are difficult, that is true. But we know a lot more about the universe now than a hundred years ago. Astrophysicists observe phenomena that are at the edge of the observable universe, and the laws of physics as we measure them on Earth seem to permeate everything. It is this knowledge that allows us to put some constraints on the development of future technology, and you can't get rid of these constraints as easily as you can get rid of some dogmatic thoughts.
The fact that nothing can live long enough for just 1 lightyear, (76,526 years) with a NASA spaceshuttle traveling 17,500 miles per hour.
That a bad way of thinking. You have to remember that they have budgets and that this budgets tend to go down rather than up, therefore they need to considere the cost of when building something and if there is no need for him to go faster, and there is obviously none, they won't make it go faster.
If we ever (when?) give a shot to extra-solar travel, we will need something faster, and we have already the technologie to do it, probably wouldn't be fast enough though and there is so many other problems to slove first.
There is a difference between philosophy and science. The scientific method ensures progress. And no, Newton was not wrong, he was almost right.
edit: I'll give you an often cited example of past backwardness and dogma:
The New York Times famously criticized Goddard in an editorial, and ridiculed his idea of a rocket reaching space: "[A]fter the rocket quits our air and really starts on its longer journey it will neither be accelerated nor maintained by the explosion of the charges it then might have left." Which means Goddard wasn't attacked because of current scientific knowledge but because of someone failing to understand basic Newtonian physics.
I think you confuse realism with pessimism. The fact that nothing can live long enough for just 1 lightyear, (76,526 years) with a NASA spaceshuttle traveling 17,500 miles per hour. One can only hope that it will happen in out lifetime, but thats just lying to yourself. Even with an unmanned spacecraft traveling faster, it will still take thousands of years. Its not pessimism, just being real.
Yes, but obviously we wouldn't be sending a space shuttle. We're probably capable of designing unmanned probes that go so fast that it makes a space shuttle look like a snail. The problem, as always, is money.
Well, let's just hope nuclear fusion comes around soon (commercial prototype should be ready in 20 years iirc) so energy is not a factor anymore on Earth.
Then all we need to be able to do is download human minds into computers or maybe a human replicator that can build an exact replica of a human at the space crafts destination.
On September 13 2011 05:39 zimz wrote: i always knew there were thousand if not millions of planets like earth out there like over 10 years ago. i thought it was quite close minded for many people to assume earth is exceptionally rare and maybe the only one etc.
On September 13 2011 05:39 zimz wrote: i always knew there were thousand if not millions of planets like earth out there like over 10 years ago. i thought it was quite close minded for many people to assume earth is exceptionally rare and maybe the only one etc.
Tell me exactly who assumed that?
One could argue that the Bible, and many religions in general, assumes this.
*I'm not making cheap shots on the Bible or any religion at all - just saying.
As for the topic at hand; I would be thrilled beyond explanation if we actually found a planet completely capable of supporting life within almost-reasonable distance. This planet seems promising; we "just" need FTL (read up on CERN - they accelerated neutrinos to faster-than-light velocities a couple of months ago).
Sure this might be cool news and all but all they have determined from the radial imaging thing is that these planets are vicinity of a star so that they could potentially support water... they have not found water let alone determined what the gaseous atmosphere of the planets are. I think the discoverers are being a bit optimistic about this being an incredibly exciting time....
Well I'm glad I saw this thread, it's great to hear this news but it's only confirming what a lot of people believe (including myself). Now to find out more about it! If it can be inhabited I hope we make it there one day, not in my lifetime though I fear.
Unfortunately a manned expedition to a planet 600 light years away is far beyond what we can achieve, and will be for a long time. If we were to explore the Universe it would be with unmanned probes which we do have the technology to accelerate to a small percentage of the speed of light. Also given that the faster it goes, the slower time passes, it would take significantly less than 600 years for humanity to send a probe to Kepler 22-b. Technologically sending a probe out wouldn't be impossible if we really put our minds to it, but it would never get funded.
On December 06 2011 21:11 Zealously wrote: As for the topic at hand; I would be thrilled beyond explanation if we actually found a planet completely capable of supporting life within almost-reasonable distance. This planet seems promising; we "just" need FTL (read up on CERN - they accelerated neutrinos to faster-than-light velocities a couple of months ago).
No, they don't. It was debunked. We can't say that Nothing is faster than light... at least yet.
But, if we could travel to almost the speed of light due to a constant acceleration, any human could travel faaaaaar into the space.
"How far can one travel from the Earth?
Since one might not travel faster than light, one might conclude that a human can never travel further from the earth than 40 light years if the traveler is active between the age of 20 and 60. A traveler would then never be able to reach more than the very few star systems which exist within the limit of 20-40 light years from the Earth. This is a mistaken conclusion; due to time dilation, the traveler can travel thousands of light years during their 40 active years. If the spaceship accelerates at a constant 1G, they will, after 354 days, reach speeds a little under the speed of light, and time dilation will increase their lifespan to thousands of years, seen from the reference system of the Solar System, but the traveler's subjective lifespan will not thereby change. If the traveler returns to the Earth, they will land thousands of years into the future. Their speed will not be seen as higher than the speed of light by observers on Earth, and the traveler will not measure their speed as being higher than the speed of light, but will see a length contraction of the universe in their direction of travel. And as the traveler turns around to return, the Earth will seem to experience much more time than the traveler does. So, although their (ordinary) speed cannot exceed c, the four-velocity (distance as seen by Earth divided by his proper (i.e. subjective) time) can be much greater than c. This is similar to the fact that a muon can travel much further than c times its half-life (at rest), if it is traveling close to c."
(Wikipedia quote)
On December 06 2011 21:54 Bollo wrote: Unfortunately a manned expedition to a planet 600 light years away is far beyond what we can achieve, and will be for a long time. If we were to explore the Universe it would be with unmanned probes which we do have the technology to accelerate to a small percentage of the speed of light. Also given that the faster it goes, the slower time passes, it would take significantly less than 600 years for humanity to send a probe to Kepler 22-b. Technologically sending a probe out wouldn't be impossible if we really put our minds to it, but it would never get funded.
No, you are absolutly wrong. For us, it will take 600 years to send a probe at the speed of light. Time will not go slower for us just because we sended a probe into the space.
On December 06 2011 22:00 nihlon wrote: Eh, the cern experiment hasn't been debunked... They are still trying to figure it out.
That's the point. Those neutrinos "could" possibly be FTL... but their old experiment were debunked. They have to find a new way to calculate it. They are pretty much back to the new theory status, there is absolutly no more proof of this.
I've read that article before, so? It still haven't been debunked. I'm of the opinion they made some mistake myself but it annoys me when people state things that aren't true. I'm not sure what you are trying to prove by linking those articles.
On December 06 2011 22:24 nihlon wrote: I've read that article before, so? It still haven't been debunked. I'm of the opinion they made some mistake myself but it annoys me when people state things that aren't true. I'm not sure what you are trying to prove by linking those articles.
Thank you. I was about to rage at people for not knowing what they are talking about (has happened like ten times in this thread.) The Neutrinos have NOT YET BEEN DEBUNKED. They are in the process of reconducting the experiments using a variety of different calculation methods and instruments, and if they find their results to be consistent, other respected members of the scientific community will try to reproduce the results. We likely wont know for sure whether or not the neutrinos are moving faster than light, but that's how the scientific method works.
On December 06 2011 22:24 nihlon wrote: I've read that article before, so? It still haven't been debunked. I'm of the opinion they made some mistake myself but it annoys me when people state things that aren't true. I'm not sure what you are trying to prove by linking those articles.
Thank you. I was about to rage at people for not knowing what they are talking about (has happened like ten times in this thread.) The Neutrinos have NOT YET BEEN DEBUNKED. They are in the process of reconducting the experiments using a variety of different calculation methods and instruments, and if they find their results to be consistent, other respected members of the scientific community will try to reproduce the results. We likely wont know for sure whether or not the neutrinos are moving faster than light, but that's how the scientific method works.
On December 06 2011 22:24 nihlon wrote: I've read that article before, so? It still haven't been debunked. I'm of the opinion they made some mistake myself but it annoys me when people state things that aren't true. I'm not sure what you are trying to prove by linking those articles.
???
They can't prove yet that those neutrinos are FTL... what in "We can't tell that it goes faster than light...yet" don't you understand? "YET", wich mean, that we can't say that they are right nor that they are wrong. There is basically so many sources of error and other actual proof that those neutrinos are not going FTL, that I don't see it being proven before 10 years, EVEN if it is actually true. Have you see that I was answering someone that was saying that CERN had accelerated neutrinos to faster than light. And that is completly wrong. CERN is not even believing in those result themself, OPERA are those that are working on that, not CERN.
How is that not debunked? IT IS NOT CERN, IT IS NOT YET PROVEN. The exact opposite of what most peoples are saying.
On December 06 2011 23:02 ryanAnger wrote: Your use of the term "debunked" implies that it has been proven false. This is not true. Its neither true or false. Thus, not debunked.
The term "debunked" imply that :
"To expose or ridicule the falseness, sham, or exaggerated claims"
On December 06 2011 17:23 Reborn8u wrote: A lot of people here are pretty pessimistic. Try to realize what the world was like over a century ago. Automobiles, flight, communications (internet, television, cellphones), space travel, were all unimaginable dreams just a generation before they happened. I think it is foolish to rule out that mankind could have a major breakthrough in the next half century that will change life as we know it and our role in the universe. Ask your grandparents how many times over their world was revolutionized by technology. I'm not saying it's going to happen, but don't rule it out.
Who knows, maybe 20 years from now someone will discover a propulsion method to get much closer to light speed than we think is possible today. According to the theory of relativity, time slows as you approach light speed. So a trip that is 35 light years would pass as much less time if you were to move fast enough. Although, much more time would pass for us here on earth during the voyage.
I don't know what the future holds, but I like to hope, just maybe, someday in my life, even if I'm 100 years old, that someone will visit another world like earth or at least get a probe there and send back the pictures. Maybe by flying there, maybe mankind will master gravity and be able to bend space, distort time, who knows.....
I doubt that people will be willing to bear the financial burden of the vast resources it would take to get a human to another star system with no idea what is there. But maybe in our lives a probe will reach the nearest star, Look at this there are a lot of stars withing 16 light years. Some just 4 light years away. Is it crazy to think that 10 or 20 years from now that it's possible for anyone to develop a propulsion system that could get there in 50 years? Maybe in our lives we will get to see up close pictures of some of the planets orbiting these stars.
Maybe I'm just a dreamer, but if you went back 100 years and tried to convince anyone that a man would set foot on the moon, you'd be committed to an asylum. Perhaps we are only 1 epiphany away from the impossible becoming possible. A little more optimism please
I think you confuse realism with pessimism. The fact that nothing can live long enough for just 1 lightyear, (76,526 years) with a NASA spaceshuttle traveling 17,500 miles per hour. One can only hope that it will happen in out lifetime, but thats just lying to yourself. Even with an unmanned spacecraft traveling faster, it will still take thousands of years. Its not pessimism, just being real.
What we can accomplish today is almost irrelevant. His point was simply that all the things we take for granted today seemed just as impossible to ppl 100y ago as FTL is to us. there's a good chance that in the next 200y we'll cruise the solar system like it is our own backyard.
Besides, using a shuttle as reference is lol-worthy, the thing barely has engines. I mean, it's main engines are on separate vehicule and aren't even there by the time it gets to space. Technology to go MUCH faster existed 50y ago (Orion).
On December 06 2011 17:23 Reborn8u wrote: A lot of people here are pretty pessimistic. Try to realize what the world was like over a century ago. Automobiles, flight, communications (internet, television, cellphones), space travel, were all unimaginable dreams just a generation before they happened. I think it is foolish to rule out that mankind could have a major breakthrough in the next half century that will change life as we know it and our role in the universe. Ask your grandparents how many times over their world was revolutionized by technology. I'm not saying it's going to happen, but don't rule it out.
Who knows, maybe 20 years from now someone will discover a propulsion method to get much closer to light speed than we think is possible today. According to the theory of relativity, time slows as you approach light speed. So a trip that is 35 light years would pass as much less time if you were to move fast enough. Although, much more time would pass for us here on earth during the voyage.
I don't know what the future holds, but I like to hope, just maybe, someday in my life, even if I'm 100 years old, that someone will visit another world like earth or at least get a probe there and send back the pictures. Maybe by flying there, maybe mankind will master gravity and be able to bend space, distort time, who knows.....
I doubt that people will be willing to bear the financial burden of the vast resources it would take to get a human to another star system with no idea what is there. But maybe in our lives a probe will reach the nearest star, Look at this there are a lot of stars withing 16 light years. Some just 4 light years away. Is it crazy to think that 10 or 20 years from now that it's possible for anyone to develop a propulsion system that could get there in 50 years? Maybe in our lives we will get to see up close pictures of some of the planets orbiting these stars.
Maybe I'm just a dreamer, but if you went back 100 years and tried to convince anyone that a man would set foot on the moon, you'd be committed to an asylum. Perhaps we are only 1 epiphany away from the impossible becoming possible. A little more optimism please
I think you confuse realism with pessimism. The fact that nothing can live long enough for just 1 lightyear, (76,526 years) with a NASA spaceshuttle traveling 17,500 miles per hour. One can only hope that it will happen in out lifetime, but thats just lying to yourself. Even with an unmanned spacecraft traveling faster, it will still take thousands of years. Its not pessimism, just being real.
What we can accomplish today is almost irrelevant. His point was simply that all the things we take for granted today seemed just as impossible to ppl 100y ago as FTL is to us. there's a good chance that in the next 200y we'll cruise the solar system like it is our own backyard.
Besides, using a shuttle as reference is lol-worthy, the thing barely has engines. I mean, it's main engines are on separate vehicule and aren't even there by the time it gets to space. Technology to go MUCH faster existed 50y ago (Orion).
Yeah, especially considering that the Voyager probes we launched in the 70's are currently leaving our Solar System at speeds of nearly 40,000 mph.
On December 06 2011 23:02 ryanAnger wrote: Your use of the term "debunked" implies that it has been proven false. This is not true. Its neither true or false. Thus, not debunked.
The term "debunked" imply that :
"To expose or ridicule the falseness, sham, or exaggerated claims"
No one exaggerated claims about anything. They merely reported the results of the many tests they did. No one involved in the OPERA findings has come out and said "We have proven neutrinos can move faster than light." They said "According to our results, these particular neutrinos can move faster than light, but the results may be wrong, and we are currently investigating further."
Again, no exaggerated claims, therefore, your use of the word "debunked" is wrong.
On December 06 2011 17:23 Reborn8u wrote: A lot of people here are pretty pessimistic. Try to realize what the world was like over a century ago. Automobiles, flight, communications (internet, television, cellphones), space travel, were all unimaginable dreams just a generation before they happened. I think it is foolish to rule out that mankind could have a major breakthrough in the next half century that will change life as we know it and our role in the universe. Ask your grandparents how many times over their world was revolutionized by technology. I'm not saying it's going to happen, but don't rule it out.
Who knows, maybe 20 years from now someone will discover a propulsion method to get much closer to light speed than we think is possible today. According to the theory of relativity, time slows as you approach light speed. So a trip that is 35 light years would pass as much less time if you were to move fast enough. Although, much more time would pass for us here on earth during the voyage.
I don't know what the future holds, but I like to hope, just maybe, someday in my life, even if I'm 100 years old, that someone will visit another world like earth or at least get a probe there and send back the pictures. Maybe by flying there, maybe mankind will master gravity and be able to bend space, distort time, who knows.....
I doubt that people will be willing to bear the financial burden of the vast resources it would take to get a human to another star system with no idea what is there. But maybe in our lives a probe will reach the nearest star, Look at this there are a lot of stars withing 16 light years. Some just 4 light years away. Is it crazy to think that 10 or 20 years from now that it's possible for anyone to develop a propulsion system that could get there in 50 years? Maybe in our lives we will get to see up close pictures of some of the planets orbiting these stars.
Maybe I'm just a dreamer, but if you went back 100 years and tried to convince anyone that a man would set foot on the moon, you'd be committed to an asylum. Perhaps we are only 1 epiphany away from the impossible becoming possible. A little more optimism please
I think you confuse realism with pessimism. The fact that nothing can live long enough for just 1 lightyear, (76,526 years) with a NASA spaceshuttle traveling 17,500 miles per hour. One can only hope that it will happen in out lifetime, but thats just lying to yourself. Even with an unmanned spacecraft traveling faster, it will still take thousands of years. Its not pessimism, just being real.
What we can accomplish today is almost irrelevant. His point was simply that all the things we take for granted today seemed just as impossible to ppl 100y ago as FTL is to us. there's a good chance that in the next 200y we'll cruise the solar system like it is our own backyard.
Besides, using a shuttle as reference is lol-worthy, the thing barely has engines. I mean, it's main engines are on separate vehicule and aren't even there by the time it gets to space. Technology to go MUCH faster existed 50y ago (Orion).
Sorry for me being a noob here but how is 1 lightyear 76000 years? A lightyear is a measure of distance not time?
On December 06 2011 17:23 Reborn8u wrote: A lot of people here are pretty pessimistic. Try to realize what the world was like over a century ago. Automobiles, flight, communications (internet, television, cellphones), space travel, were all unimaginable dreams just a generation before they happened. I think it is foolish to rule out that mankind could have a major breakthrough in the next half century that will change life as we know it and our role in the universe. Ask your grandparents how many times over their world was revolutionized by technology. I'm not saying it's going to happen, but don't rule it out.
Who knows, maybe 20 years from now someone will discover a propulsion method to get much closer to light speed than we think is possible today. According to the theory of relativity, time slows as you approach light speed. So a trip that is 35 light years would pass as much less time if you were to move fast enough. Although, much more time would pass for us here on earth during the voyage.
I don't know what the future holds, but I like to hope, just maybe, someday in my life, even if I'm 100 years old, that someone will visit another world like earth or at least get a probe there and send back the pictures. Maybe by flying there, maybe mankind will master gravity and be able to bend space, distort time, who knows.....
I doubt that people will be willing to bear the financial burden of the vast resources it would take to get a human to another star system with no idea what is there. But maybe in our lives a probe will reach the nearest star, Look at this there are a lot of stars withing 16 light years. Some just 4 light years away. Is it crazy to think that 10 or 20 years from now that it's possible for anyone to develop a propulsion system that could get there in 50 years? Maybe in our lives we will get to see up close pictures of some of the planets orbiting these stars.
Maybe I'm just a dreamer, but if you went back 100 years and tried to convince anyone that a man would set foot on the moon, you'd be committed to an asylum. Perhaps we are only 1 epiphany away from the impossible becoming possible. A little more optimism please
I think you confuse realism with pessimism. The fact that nothing can live long enough for just 1 lightyear, (76,526 years) with a NASA spaceshuttle traveling 17,500 miles per hour. One can only hope that it will happen in out lifetime, but thats just lying to yourself. Even with an unmanned spacecraft traveling faster, it will still take thousands of years. Its not pessimism, just being real.
What we can accomplish today is almost irrelevant. His point was simply that all the things we take for granted today seemed just as impossible to ppl 100y ago as FTL is to us. there's a good chance that in the next 200y we'll cruise the solar system like it is our own backyard.
Besides, using a shuttle as reference is lol-worthy, the thing barely has engines. I mean, it's main engines are on separate vehicule and aren't even there by the time it gets to space. Technology to go MUCH faster existed 50y ago (Orion).
Sorry for me being a noob here but how is 1 lightyear 76000 years? A lightyear is a measure of distance not time?
its how much distance light travels in a year, which is called c also
he measured that distance, and then calculated how much it would take for nasa's shitty shuttle to do the same voyage
On December 06 2011 17:23 Reborn8u wrote: A lot of people here are pretty pessimistic. Try to realize what the world was like over a century ago. Automobiles, flight, communications (internet, television, cellphones), space travel, were all unimaginable dreams just a generation before they happened. I think it is foolish to rule out that mankind could have a major breakthrough in the next half century that will change life as we know it and our role in the universe. Ask your grandparents how many times over their world was revolutionized by technology. I'm not saying it's going to happen, but don't rule it out.
Who knows, maybe 20 years from now someone will discover a propulsion method to get much closer to light speed than we think is possible today. According to the theory of relativity, time slows as you approach light speed. So a trip that is 35 light years would pass as much less time if you were to move fast enough. Although, much more time would pass for us here on earth during the voyage.
I don't know what the future holds, but I like to hope, just maybe, someday in my life, even if I'm 100 years old, that someone will visit another world like earth or at least get a probe there and send back the pictures. Maybe by flying there, maybe mankind will master gravity and be able to bend space, distort time, who knows.....
I doubt that people will be willing to bear the financial burden of the vast resources it would take to get a human to another star system with no idea what is there. But maybe in our lives a probe will reach the nearest star, Look at this there are a lot of stars withing 16 light years. Some just 4 light years away. Is it crazy to think that 10 or 20 years from now that it's possible for anyone to develop a propulsion system that could get there in 50 years? Maybe in our lives we will get to see up close pictures of some of the planets orbiting these stars.
Maybe I'm just a dreamer, but if you went back 100 years and tried to convince anyone that a man would set foot on the moon, you'd be committed to an asylum. Perhaps we are only 1 epiphany away from the impossible becoming possible. A little more optimism please
I think you confuse realism with pessimism. The fact that nothing can live long enough for just 1 lightyear, (76,526 years) with a NASA spaceshuttle traveling 17,500 miles per hour. One can only hope that it will happen in out lifetime, but thats just lying to yourself. Even with an unmanned spacecraft traveling faster, it will still take thousands of years. Its not pessimism, just being real.
What we can accomplish today is almost irrelevant. His point was simply that all the things we take for granted today seemed just as impossible to ppl 100y ago as FTL is to us. there's a good chance that in the next 200y we'll cruise the solar system like it is our own backyard.
Besides, using a shuttle as reference is lol-worthy, the thing barely has engines. I mean, it's main engines are on separate vehicule and aren't even there by the time it gets to space. Technology to go MUCH faster existed 50y ago (Orion).
Sorry for me being a noob here but how is 1 lightyear 76000 years? A lightyear is a measure of distance not time?
its how much distance light travels in a year, which is called c also
he measured that distance, and then calculated how much it would take for nasa's shitty shuttle to do the same voyage
Well not life sustaining, unless something we don't know, earth size planets have been discovered.
NASA's Kepler mission has discovered the first Earth-size planets orbiting a sun-like star outside our solar system. The planets, called Kepler-20e and Kepler-20f, are too close to their star to be in the so-called habitable zone where liquid water could exist on a planet's surface, but they are the smallest exoplanets ever confirmed around a star like our sun.
The discovery marks the next important milestone in the ultimate search for planets like Earth. The new planets are thought to be rocky. Kepler-20e is slightly smaller than Venus, measuring 0.87 times the radius of Earth. Kepler-20f is a bit larger than Earth, measuring 1.03 times its radius. Both planets reside in a five-planet system called Kepler-20, approximately 1,000 light-years away in the constellation Lyra.
Kepler-20e orbits its parent star every 6.1 days and Kepler-20f every 19.6 days. These short orbital periods mean very hot, inhospitable worlds. Kepler-20f, at 800 degrees Fahrenheit, is similar to an average day on the planet Mercury. The surface temperature of Kepler-20e, at more than 1,400 degrees Fahrenheit, would melt glass.
I think space travel needs to be higher on the list before we worry about destination. Discovering these planets is cool and what-not, but what's the point in looking/discovering if we can't even remotely come close to landing on them?
On December 06 2011 17:23 Reborn8u wrote: A lot of people here are pretty pessimistic. Try to realize what the world was like over a century ago. Automobiles, flight, communications (internet, television, cellphones), space travel, were all unimaginable dreams just a generation before they happened. I think it is foolish to rule out that mankind could have a major breakthrough in the next half century that will change life as we know it and our role in the universe. Ask your grandparents how many times over their world was revolutionized by technology. I'm not saying it's going to happen, but don't rule it out.
Who knows, maybe 20 years from now someone will discover a propulsion method to get much closer to light speed than we think is possible today. According to the theory of relativity, time slows as you approach light speed. So a trip that is 35 light years would pass as much less time if you were to move fast enough. Although, much more time would pass for us here on earth during the voyage.
I don't know what the future holds, but I like to hope, just maybe, someday in my life, even if I'm 100 years old, that someone will visit another world like earth or at least get a probe there and send back the pictures. Maybe by flying there, maybe mankind will master gravity and be able to bend space, distort time, who knows.....
I doubt that people will be willing to bear the financial burden of the vast resources it would take to get a human to another star system with no idea what is there. But maybe in our lives a probe will reach the nearest star, Look at this there are a lot of stars withing 16 light years. Some just 4 light years away. Is it crazy to think that 10 or 20 years from now that it's possible for anyone to develop a propulsion system that could get there in 50 years? Maybe in our lives we will get to see up close pictures of some of the planets orbiting these stars.
Maybe I'm just a dreamer, but if you went back 100 years and tried to convince anyone that a man would set foot on the moon, you'd be committed to an asylum. Perhaps we are only 1 epiphany away from the impossible becoming possible. A little more optimism please
I think you confuse realism with pessimism. The fact that nothing can live long enough for just 1 lightyear, (76,526 years) with a NASA spaceshuttle traveling 17,500 miles per hour. One can only hope that it will happen in out lifetime, but thats just lying to yourself. Even with an unmanned spacecraft traveling faster, it will still take thousands of years. Its not pessimism, just being real.
What we can accomplish today is almost irrelevant. His point was simply that all the things we take for granted today seemed just as impossible to ppl 100y ago as FTL is to us. there's a good chance that in the next 200y we'll cruise the solar system like it is our own backyard.
Besides, using a shuttle as reference is lol-worthy, the thing barely has engines. I mean, it's main engines are on separate vehicule and aren't even there by the time it gets to space. Technology to go MUCH faster existed 50y ago (Orion).
Yeah, especially considering that the Voyager probes we launched in the 70's are currently leaving our Solar System at speeds of nearly 40,000 mph.
On December 06 2011 23:02 ryanAnger wrote: Your use of the term "debunked" implies that it has been proven false. This is not true. Its neither true or false. Thus, not debunked.
The term "debunked" imply that :
"To expose or ridicule the falseness, sham, or exaggerated claims"
They don't actually claim that neutrinos travel faster than light. I don't think you are quite familiar with how scientists actually communicate.
Their claim is that their experimental data implies an inconsistency between behaviour of neutrinos and the expected behaviour of neutrinos according to our current model. The results are more significant than expected errors, and they cannot find any unaccounted for source of error in their experiment to explain this inconsistency.
They then tentatively put foward it may due to flaws in our current model (eg neutrinos might be able to travel faster than light), since lets face it if you are sure it's not experimental error, that is the next most intuitive explanation for the phenomena.
But I stress, even THEY are appropriately sceptical of the results and are running several braces of tests and looking very hard for any unaccounted for error, because thats the morelikely possibility. But in all this they have neither made a false or exaggerated claim, and evidence is inconclusive in either direction, so it is far from 'debunked' since the inconsistency between the data and the model is still unexplained.
Please do not confuse media hype with actual scientific claims, scientists benefit from careful analysis of results and awareness of incomplete/uncertain information, the media benefit from hype and exaggeration.
On December 21 2011 11:57 zachMEISTER wrote: I think space travel needs to be higher on the list before we worry about destination. Discovering these planets is cool and what-not, but what's the point in looking/discovering if we can't even remotely come close to landing on them?
On December 06 2011 17:23 Reborn8u wrote: A lot of people here are pretty pessimistic. Try to realize what the world was like over a century ago. Automobiles, flight, communications (internet, television, cellphones), space travel, were all unimaginable dreams just a generation before they happened. I think it is foolish to rule out that mankind could have a major breakthrough in the next half century that will change life as we know it and our role in the universe. Ask your grandparents how many times over their world was revolutionized by technology. I'm not saying it's going to happen, but don't rule it out.
Who knows, maybe 20 years from now someone will discover a propulsion method to get much closer to light speed than we think is possible today. According to the theory of relativity, time slows as you approach light speed. So a trip that is 35 light years would pass as much less time if you were to move fast enough. Although, much more time would pass for us here on earth during the voyage.
I don't know what the future holds, but I like to hope, just maybe, someday in my life, even if I'm 100 years old, that someone will visit another world like earth or at least get a probe there and send back the pictures. Maybe by flying there, maybe mankind will master gravity and be able to bend space, distort time, who knows.....
I doubt that people will be willing to bear the financial burden of the vast resources it would take to get a human to another star system with no idea what is there. But maybe in our lives a probe will reach the nearest star, Look at this there are a lot of stars withing 16 light years. Some just 4 light years away. Is it crazy to think that 10 or 20 years from now that it's possible for anyone to develop a propulsion system that could get there in 50 years? Maybe in our lives we will get to see up close pictures of some of the planets orbiting these stars.
Maybe I'm just a dreamer, but if you went back 100 years and tried to convince anyone that a man would set foot on the moon, you'd be committed to an asylum. Perhaps we are only 1 epiphany away from the impossible becoming possible. A little more optimism please
I think you confuse realism with pessimism. The fact that nothing can live long enough for just 1 lightyear, (76,526 years) with a NASA spaceshuttle traveling 17,500 miles per hour. One can only hope that it will happen in out lifetime, but thats just lying to yourself. Even with an unmanned spacecraft traveling faster, it will still take thousands of years. Its not pessimism, just being real.
What we can accomplish today is almost irrelevant. His point was simply that all the things we take for granted today seemed just as impossible to ppl 100y ago as FTL is to us. there's a good chance that in the next 200y we'll cruise the solar system like it is our own backyard.
Besides, using a shuttle as reference is lol-worthy, the thing barely has engines. I mean, it's main engines are on separate vehicule and aren't even there by the time it gets to space. Technology to go MUCH faster existed 50y ago (Orion).
Yeah, especially considering that the Voyager probes we launched in the 70's are currently leaving our Solar System at speeds of nearly 40,000 mph.
Voyager 1 is escaping the solar system at a speed of about 3.6 AU per year, 35 degrees out of the ecliptic plane to the north, in the general direction of the Solar Apex (the direction of the Sun's motion relative to nearby stars). Voyager 2 is also escaping the solar system at a speed of about 3.3 AU per year, 48 degrees out of the ecliptic plane to the south.
1 AU is 149,598,000 km.
3.6 AU is 538,552,800 km.
Per year, so 538,552,800 km / 365.25 (days) / 24 (hours) = ~61,000 km/h
1 km = ~0.62 mi
61,000 * 0.62 = 37,820 mph
It used to say directly on the website that I linked how fast they were going in MPH but I couldn't seem to find it, so I apologize for the math lesson if you didn't need help, I just wanted to be clear about how I got those numbers.
Something to keep in mind about this speed is that due to the virtual lack of friction in space, the probes will maintain these speeds forever, unless something interferes with them. One of the best possible methods of future space travel would be utilizing this lack of friction, and accelerating continuously at 1G until reaching the half-way point of the destination, and then decelerating the rest of the flight. Theoretically, the human body would feel little different during this acceleration than it does accelerating at normal speeds on Earth.
On December 21 2011 11:57 zachMEISTER wrote: I think space travel needs to be higher on the list before we worry about destination. Discovering these planets is cool and what-not, but what's the point in looking/discovering if we can't even remotely come close to landing on them?
On December 06 2011 17:23 Reborn8u wrote: A lot of people here are pretty pessimistic. Try to realize what the world was like over a century ago. Automobiles, flight, communications (internet, television, cellphones), space travel, were all unimaginable dreams just a generation before they happened. I think it is foolish to rule out that mankind could have a major breakthrough in the next half century that will change life as we know it and our role in the universe. Ask your grandparents how many times over their world was revolutionized by technology. I'm not saying it's going to happen, but don't rule it out.
Who knows, maybe 20 years from now someone will discover a propulsion method to get much closer to light speed than we think is possible today. According to the theory of relativity, time slows as you approach light speed. So a trip that is 35 light years would pass as much less time if you were to move fast enough. Although, much more time would pass for us here on earth during the voyage.
I don't know what the future holds, but I like to hope, just maybe, someday in my life, even if I'm 100 years old, that someone will visit another world like earth or at least get a probe there and send back the pictures. Maybe by flying there, maybe mankind will master gravity and be able to bend space, distort time, who knows.....
I doubt that people will be willing to bear the financial burden of the vast resources it would take to get a human to another star system with no idea what is there. But maybe in our lives a probe will reach the nearest star, Look at this there are a lot of stars withing 16 light years. Some just 4 light years away. Is it crazy to think that 10 or 20 years from now that it's possible for anyone to develop a propulsion system that could get there in 50 years? Maybe in our lives we will get to see up close pictures of some of the planets orbiting these stars.
Maybe I'm just a dreamer, but if you went back 100 years and tried to convince anyone that a man would set foot on the moon, you'd be committed to an asylum. Perhaps we are only 1 epiphany away from the impossible becoming possible. A little more optimism please
I think you confuse realism with pessimism. The fact that nothing can live long enough for just 1 lightyear, (76,526 years) with a NASA spaceshuttle traveling 17,500 miles per hour. One can only hope that it will happen in out lifetime, but thats just lying to yourself. Even with an unmanned spacecraft traveling faster, it will still take thousands of years. Its not pessimism, just being real.
What we can accomplish today is almost irrelevant. His point was simply that all the things we take for granted today seemed just as impossible to ppl 100y ago as FTL is to us. there's a good chance that in the next 200y we'll cruise the solar system like it is our own backyard.
Besides, using a shuttle as reference is lol-worthy, the thing barely has engines. I mean, it's main engines are on separate vehicule and aren't even there by the time it gets to space. Technology to go MUCH faster existed 50y ago (Orion).
Yeah, especially considering that the Voyager probes we launched in the 70's are currently leaving our Solar System at speeds of nearly 40,000 mph.
Source?
"Voyager 1's current relative velocity to the sun is 17,060 m/s (61,400 km/h; 38,200 mph)."
Still fantastic speeds IMO, most people don't believe these probes travel so quickly.
On December 21 2011 11:57 zachMEISTER wrote: I think space travel needs to be higher on the list before we worry about destination. Discovering these planets is cool and what-not, but what's the point in looking/discovering if we can't even remotely come close to landing on them?
On December 06 2011 23:11 ryanAnger wrote:
On December 06 2011 23:05 Nizaris wrote:
On December 06 2011 19:27 TheRealArtemis wrote:
On December 06 2011 17:23 Reborn8u wrote: A lot of people here are pretty pessimistic. Try to realize what the world was like over a century ago. Automobiles, flight, communications (internet, television, cellphones), space travel, were all unimaginable dreams just a generation before they happened. I think it is foolish to rule out that mankind could have a major breakthrough in the next half century that will change life as we know it and our role in the universe. Ask your grandparents how many times over their world was revolutionized by technology. I'm not saying it's going to happen, but don't rule it out.
Who knows, maybe 20 years from now someone will discover a propulsion method to get much closer to light speed than we think is possible today. According to the theory of relativity, time slows as you approach light speed. So a trip that is 35 light years would pass as much less time if you were to move fast enough. Although, much more time would pass for us here on earth during the voyage.
I don't know what the future holds, but I like to hope, just maybe, someday in my life, even if I'm 100 years old, that someone will visit another world like earth or at least get a probe there and send back the pictures. Maybe by flying there, maybe mankind will master gravity and be able to bend space, distort time, who knows.....
I doubt that people will be willing to bear the financial burden of the vast resources it would take to get a human to another star system with no idea what is there. But maybe in our lives a probe will reach the nearest star, Look at this there are a lot of stars withing 16 light years. Some just 4 light years away. Is it crazy to think that 10 or 20 years from now that it's possible for anyone to develop a propulsion system that could get there in 50 years? Maybe in our lives we will get to see up close pictures of some of the planets orbiting these stars.
Maybe I'm just a dreamer, but if you went back 100 years and tried to convince anyone that a man would set foot on the moon, you'd be committed to an asylum. Perhaps we are only 1 epiphany away from the impossible becoming possible. A little more optimism please
I think you confuse realism with pessimism. The fact that nothing can live long enough for just 1 lightyear, (76,526 years) with a NASA spaceshuttle traveling 17,500 miles per hour. One can only hope that it will happen in out lifetime, but thats just lying to yourself. Even with an unmanned spacecraft traveling faster, it will still take thousands of years. Its not pessimism, just being real.
What we can accomplish today is almost irrelevant. His point was simply that all the things we take for granted today seemed just as impossible to ppl 100y ago as FTL is to us. there's a good chance that in the next 200y we'll cruise the solar system like it is our own backyard.
Besides, using a shuttle as reference is lol-worthy, the thing barely has engines. I mean, it's main engines are on separate vehicule and aren't even there by the time it gets to space. Technology to go MUCH faster existed 50y ago (Orion).
Yeah, especially considering that the Voyager probes we launched in the 70's are currently leaving our Solar System at speeds of nearly 40,000 mph.
Source?
"Voyager 1's current relative velocity to the sun is 17,060 m/s (61,400 km/h; 38,200 mph)."
Still fantastic speeds IMO, most people don't believe these probes travel so quickly.
On December 21 2011 11:57 zachMEISTER wrote: I think space travel needs to be higher on the list before we worry about destination. Discovering these planets is cool and what-not, but what's the point in looking/discovering if we can't even remotely come close to landing on them?
On December 06 2011 23:11 ryanAnger wrote:
On December 06 2011 23:05 Nizaris wrote:
On December 06 2011 19:27 TheRealArtemis wrote:
On December 06 2011 17:23 Reborn8u wrote: A lot of people here are pretty pessimistic. Try to realize what the world was like over a century ago. Automobiles, flight, communications (internet, television, cellphones), space travel, were all unimaginable dreams just a generation before they happened. I think it is foolish to rule out that mankind could have a major breakthrough in the next half century that will change life as we know it and our role in the universe. Ask your grandparents how many times over their world was revolutionized by technology. I'm not saying it's going to happen, but don't rule it out.
Who knows, maybe 20 years from now someone will discover a propulsion method to get much closer to light speed than we think is possible today. According to the theory of relativity, time slows as you approach light speed. So a trip that is 35 light years would pass as much less time if you were to move fast enough. Although, much more time would pass for us here on earth during the voyage.
I don't know what the future holds, but I like to hope, just maybe, someday in my life, even if I'm 100 years old, that someone will visit another world like earth or at least get a probe there and send back the pictures. Maybe by flying there, maybe mankind will master gravity and be able to bend space, distort time, who knows.....
I doubt that people will be willing to bear the financial burden of the vast resources it would take to get a human to another star system with no idea what is there. But maybe in our lives a probe will reach the nearest star, Look at this there are a lot of stars withing 16 light years. Some just 4 light years away. Is it crazy to think that 10 or 20 years from now that it's possible for anyone to develop a propulsion system that could get there in 50 years? Maybe in our lives we will get to see up close pictures of some of the planets orbiting these stars.
Maybe I'm just a dreamer, but if you went back 100 years and tried to convince anyone that a man would set foot on the moon, you'd be committed to an asylum. Perhaps we are only 1 epiphany away from the impossible becoming possible. A little more optimism please
I think you confuse realism with pessimism. The fact that nothing can live long enough for just 1 lightyear, (76,526 years) with a NASA spaceshuttle traveling 17,500 miles per hour. One can only hope that it will happen in out lifetime, but thats just lying to yourself. Even with an unmanned spacecraft traveling faster, it will still take thousands of years. Its not pessimism, just being real.
What we can accomplish today is almost irrelevant. His point was simply that all the things we take for granted today seemed just as impossible to ppl 100y ago as FTL is to us. there's a good chance that in the next 200y we'll cruise the solar system like it is our own backyard.
Besides, using a shuttle as reference is lol-worthy, the thing barely has engines. I mean, it's main engines are on separate vehicule and aren't even there by the time it gets to space. Technology to go MUCH faster existed 50y ago (Orion).
Yeah, especially considering that the Voyager probes we launched in the 70's are currently leaving our Solar System at speeds of nearly 40,000 mph.
Source?
"Voyager 1's current relative velocity to the sun is 17,060 m/s (61,400 km/h; 38,200 mph)."
Still fantastic speeds IMO, most people don't believe these probes travel so quickly.
Edit: Whoops, responded at the same time as someone else.
Haha, I was just going to link the Wiki article, but some people don't trust Wikipedia.
True, I though that too and was going to link directly to NASA's website but I'm lazy. I think people forget they can go to Wikipedia even if they don't "trust" it, and then just backtrack to the sources they use to see if their trustworthy.
God this is just so cool. I never cease to be amazed by the sheer vastness of the universe. This kind of thing is simultaneously exciting and depressing because I doubt that we will ever be able to overcome our petty squables. I hope that we just once find proof of life elsewhere in the universe before we nuke ourselves to oblivion and/or destroy the atmosphere and fry ourselves to death through global warming.
This kind of thing begs the question: What the hell is all of this that we call the universe, how did it come to be, and where is it going?
NASA's Kepler mission has discovered the first Earth-size planets orbiting a sun-like star outside our solar system. The planets, called Kepler-20e and Kepler-20f, are too close to their star to be in the so-called habitable zone where liquid water could exist on a planet's surface, but they are the smallest exoplanets ever confirmed around a star like our sun.
The discovery marks the next important milestone in the ultimate search for planets like Earth. The new planets are thought to be rocky. Kepler-20e is slightly smaller than Venus, measuring 0.87 times the radius of Earth. Kepler-20f is a bit larger than Earth, measuring 1.03 times its radius. Both planets reside in a five-planet system called Kepler-20, approximately 1,000 light-years away in the constellation Lyra.
Kepler-20e orbits its parent star every 6.1 days and Kepler-20f every 19.6 days. These short orbital periods mean very hot, inhospitable worlds. Kepler-20f, at 800 degrees Fahrenheit, is similar to an average day on the planet Mercury. The surface temperature of Kepler-20e, at more than 1,400 degrees Fahrenheit, would melt glass.
Even if this isn't a possible life sustaining planet, with every discovery there is an increase in probability that one exists. It's to the point now where we can guess pretty well that our solar system isn't "unique" in that it has the architecture to promote life on at least one large body. I have very few doubts whether life exists outside our planet now. It's just a matter of finding it.
Reading such articles always gives me a strange feeling of ... I don't know.
Its hard to get a grasp on the thoughts that it creates in my head but its a sense of ... non-significance. Whenever I read something like this I question the sense of life as the only viable option seems to be to life his own life to the fullest as there are no huge accomplishments that can be made compared to the greatness of the universe.
And it also reminds me that the life that we are all living is man-made, the rules that we follow, the way we live and so on and so forth - I wonder how society works on other planets.
On December 21 2011 18:34 Felo wrote: Reading such articles always gives me a strange feeling of ... I don't know.
Its hard to get a grasp on the thoughts that it creates in my head but its a sense of ... non-significance. Whenever I read something like this I question the sense of life as the only viable option seems to be to life his own life to the fullest as there are no huge accomplishments that can be made compared to the greatness of the universe.
And it also reminds me that the life that we are all living is man-made, the rules that we follow, the way we live and so on and so forth - I wonder how society works on other planets.
We are so insignificant on the grand scale of the universe, yet simultaneously extraordinarily rare and special. Even if millions of planets in our galaxy had life, that would only be 0.0000001% of them. Its hard to conceptualize because so many people don't understand the true scope of the Universe compared to life on Earth.
The Milky Way is home to far more planets than previously thought, boosting the odds that life could exist on at least one of them, according to a newly released study.
Until recently, astronomers counted the number of "exoplanets" outside our own solar system in the hundreds.
But the new study, published on Wednesday, provides evidence that there are more planets than stars in our own stellar neighbourhood.
"We used to think that Earth might be unique in our galaxy," said Daniel Kubas, a professor at the Institute of Astrophysics in Paris, and a co-leader of the study.
"Now it seems that there are literally billions of planets with masses similar to Earth orbiting stars in the Milky Way."
Two methods have dominated the hunt over the past two decades for exoplanets too distant and feint to perceive directly.
One measures the effect of a planet's gravitational pull on its host star, while the other detects a slight dimming of the star as the orbiting planet passes in front of it.
Both of these techniques are better at finding planets that are massive in size, close to their stars, or both, leaving large "blind spots".
It would be cool to build a self supplying independent spaceship, and set course for an exoplanet. When the ship had flown 50.000 years making it halfway to their destination, humans back on earth had developed technology far superior to the first spaceship, and set out on the same mission once more. When the second spaceship had traveled 25.000 years they caught up with the first spaceship, giving them the opportunity to laugh at the "stone-age" vessel. This process repeated itself whit the second spaceship aswell, and the third...and fourth..
On January 12 2012 19:41 DenSkumle wrote: It would be cool to build a self supplying independent spaceship, and set course for an exoplanet. When the ship had flown 50.000 years making it halfway to their destination, humans back on earth had developed technology far superior to the first spaceship, and set out on the same mission once more. When the second spaceship had traveled 25.000 years they caught up with the first spaceship, giving them the opportunity to laugh at the "stone-age" vessel. This process repeated itself whit the second spaceship aswell, and the third...and fourth..
There are over 100 of these 'super' earths infact, most of which are unreachable in the near future. FYI a light year is how far light travels in a year, whcihc is around 10 trilion km. Unless we develop tech to go faster than light, we'll all be very old by the time we arrive at one of these super earths
On January 12 2012 19:41 DenSkumle wrote: It would be cool to build a self supplying independent spaceship, and set course for an exoplanet. When the ship had flown 50.000 years making it halfway to their destination, humans back on earth had developed technology far superior to the first spaceship, and set out on the same mission once more. When the second spaceship had traveled 25.000 years they caught up with the first spaceship, giving them the opportunity to laugh at the "stone-age" vessel. This process repeated itself whit the second spaceship aswell, and the third...and fourth..
Sounds like a nice idea for a movie script !
There was an interesting sci-fi short story.... humans in a generation ship come up to their destination world and find out that it is already populated with humans who passed by them. The travellers then get one of the more advanced (0.99.. light speed) ships and set out for the nearest galaxy (so they will probably be surpassed again...but if not)
Given that our only experiences with life are those from Earth, I personally think there's types of life in the universe that are so radically different that we can't even fathom how it functions, and as such, would be potentially found in places that we know "Earth life" couldn't exist. So there's the potential for life in closer parts of the galaxy/universe...
With the data determining planets around most star systems. There could theoretically be trillions of planets in our Galaxy alone.
There are 200-400 billion Stars after all and it is also believed that there is as many planets orbiting stars as there are rogue planets not orbiting stars.
Planets of all sizes could theoretically be roaming free without a star.
They do not have enough Data yet to determine the average amount of planets per star. So the estimate of 1.6 planets per star is just a conservative estimate.
The actual number could be more closer to 10 planets per star system like ours. (Not counting Dwarf Planets)
On January 12 2012 19:41 DenSkumle wrote: It would be cool to build a self supplying independent spaceship, and set course for an exoplanet. When the ship had flown 50.000 years making it halfway to their destination, humans back on earth had developed technology far superior to the first spaceship, and set out on the same mission once more. When the second spaceship had traveled 25.000 years they caught up with the first spaceship, giving them the opportunity to laugh at the "stone-age" vessel. This process repeated itself whit the second spaceship aswell, and the third...and fourth..
Sounds like a nice idea for a movie script !
There was an interesting sci-fi short story.... humans in a generation ship come up to their destination world and find out that it is already populated with humans who passed by them. The travellers then get one of the more advanced (0.99.. light speed) ships and set out for the nearest galaxy (so they will probably be surpassed again...but if not)
I'm actually really interested in this short story. What is it called? And I can't wait till the day we can finally call a different planet home.
A potentially habitable alien planet — one that scientists say is the best candidate yet to harbor water, and possibly even life, on its surface — has been found around a nearby star.
The planet is located in the habitable zone of its host star, which is a narrow circumstellar region where temperatures are neither too hot nor too cold for liquid water to exist on the planet's surface.
The researchers estimate that the planet, called GJ 667Cc, is at least 4.5 times as massive as Earth, which makes it a so-called super-Earth. It takes roughly 28 days to make one orbital lap around its parent star, which is located a mere 22 light-years away from Earth, in the constellation Scorpius (the Scorpion). What's so super about super-Earths?
"This is basically our next-door neighbor," Vogt said. "It's very nearby. There are only about 100 stars closer to us than this one."
While I do think discovering planets due to gravitational effects and light dimming is a really great idea, as an engineer I find it almost an exercise in futility. At most, we can find 'hot Jupiters' and super-fast rotating planets, and they have to pass between us and their sun for the Kepler telescope to even detect them.
You can argue, so we develop a model for what proportion of planets we find, and adjust the model according to the limited data we receive. What's the problem with that?
Well, originally when we first developed sophisticated light telescopes, we seriously thought we were the center of the universe. Truth be told we just couldn't see very far in any direction because light eventually gets absorbed by rarefied hydrogen.
Later we had all kinds of wild hypothesis about 'rare earth' and 'common earth' that seriously... it was ridiculous.
What I'm trying to say is the data we obtain now is very 'interesting' because it proves we knew shit all about planets 10 years ago, but this data isn't worth much because there are so many possible astral bodies that are impossible to detect with Kepler and similar technologies.
From what I've seen, we would need an array about three orders of magnitude more accurate to even begin to form stellar formation models with this data. But this is my opinion as a grounded-in-fact mechanical eng. Maybe some astrophysicists around here would care to comment?
The planet lies in what they describe as a 'habitable zone', neither too near its sun to dry out or too far away which freezes it.
And the discovery could help answer the question of whether we are alone in the universe, which has been plagued astronomers and alien fanatics for years.
Scientists found the planet, Gliese 667Cc, orbiting around a red dwarf star, 22 light years away from the earth.
Red dwarf stars are the most common stars in the neighbourhood of the sun, usually hosting planets called gas giants, which are not composed of rock matter.
Re-analysing data from the European Southern Observatory, the astronomers found Gliese 667Cc is a solid planet with roughly four and a half times the mass of Earth.
The University Göttingen and University of California scientists have calculated the planet recieves ten per cent less light from its red dwarf star than the Earth gets from the Sun.
As the light is in the infrared area, the planet still receives nearly the same amount of energy as the Earth, meaning water could be liquid and surface temperatures could be similar to ours.
On April 28 2012 05:27 MrHoon wrote: oh i love space updates :D It makes me sad I was born in a lifetime where space expedition won't be possible for another hundred years or so
Oh well can't wait for the pluto photos atleast
Don't be pessimistic bro, don't forget humans went to space from only more than 50 years. Just imagin what we will be able to do in the next 50 years (except if you are 50y/o or more)
A new estimate of the number of habitable planets orbiting the most common type of stars in our galaxy could have huge consequences for the search for life.
According to a recent study, tens of billions of planets around red dwarfs are likely capable of containing liquid water, dramatically increasing the potential to find signs of life somewhere other than Earth.
Red dwarfs are stars that are fainter, cooler and less massive than the sun. These stars, which typically also live longer than Class G stars like the sun, are thought to make up about 80 percent of the stars in the Milky Way, astronomers have said.
One of the largest concerns about planets circling red dwarfs is radiation. A red dwarf's habitable zone is generally closer to it than Mercury is to our sun, so a planet there would receive a strong shock of particles when storms erupted on the red dwarf.
"They could essentially give everything on the surface that's exposed to the sky ... a heavy dose of radiation," Shostak said. "It could be fatal."
However, if the alien planet had a magnetic field, this could provide some protection. So, too, could an ocean of water. Life that evolved beneath an ocean might be shielded from the brunt of the radiation.
(That's not necessarily good news for SETI, which searches for signals from extraterrestrial life. "We're not sure intelligent life, if under water, will be building radio transmitters and we're going to hear from them," Shostak said. "But it's possible.")
Another problem with planets tightly bound to their host star is a phenomenon known as tidal locking, in which one side of the world is perpetually turned toward the sun and receiving almost all of the heat.
But this isn't considered as big of a problem now as it had been.
For one thing, research over the past few years has indicated that the presence of other planets can ease the grip of the parent star, keeping a planet from being perfectly stagnant.
Furthermore, if the planet has an atmosphere, it might also boast wind, which could move the hot atmosphere to the dark side and the cool atmosphere to the sunlit side.
It's funny how most of the latest "can support life" planets are from Gliese systems. I've never seen any other planet discovered as close habitable as them. Let's hope something is going on there.
i can't wait for the next generation of telescopes.. supposedly they could even detect atmospheres by looking at the refraction of the light from their host sun going through the atmosphere (iirc) Cant recall the source, was some science magazine i read about a year ago.
Next we're going to perfect cyro-freezing techniques to freeze ourselves in the same exact state we are now and send humans to inhibit the planet and establish a new world!
On April 29 2012 15:34 MooMooMugi wrote: Next we're going to perfect cyro-freezing techniques to freeze ourselves in the same exact state we are now and send humans to inhibit the planet and establish a new world!
22 light years seems close in my eyes...
SO I"M DOWN!
( i say close, cuz whenever i watch the discovery channel they always talk millions or even billions of LIGHT years away)
On April 29 2012 15:34 MooMooMugi wrote: Next we're going to perfect cyro-freezing techniques to freeze ourselves in the same exact state we are now and send humans to inhibit the planet and establish a new world!
22 light years seems close in my eyes...
SO I"M DOWN!
( i say close, cuz whenever i watch the discovery channel they always talk millions or even billions of LIGHT years away)
22 light years is still like.. idk something ridiculous like 30,000 years or more for human spaceflight atm lol.
actually it would take somewhere around 474,870 years (gotta love being able to google anything) to travel 22 light years atm.
I hate to be the one to say it but this is terribly sensationalist.
We've known for quite a while it resides in the habitable zone, but we don't know the atmospheric composition for one thing. It's far too early to get optimistic. It raises the chances but people are acting like we discovered life elsewhere or something.
On April 29 2012 15:39 mastergriggy wrote: I don't like words like potentially...2000 years from now any planet could probably potentially support life. But let the cryo freezing begin!
That's not the least bit true in any way. If a planet is too far from a sunlike star it will be too cold to support life, and likewise anything too close to a sunlike star will be too hot to support life. If you think about the conditions on Earth that support life, the concept isn't that difficult to understand.
Now, the real question is will we be responsible for an alien invasion should we make contact with the inhabitants of said planet?
i already knew aliens exist cause I live next to a blizzard rep and he revealed to me that we're actually commanding real Alien troops when we play Starcraft. Only if you're in master league though, they don't want noobs controlling their armies..
On April 29 2012 15:39 mastergriggy wrote: I don't like words like potentially...2000 years from now any planet could probably potentially support life. But let the cryo freezing begin!
That's not the least bit true in any way. If a planet is too far from a sunlike star it will be too cold to support life as we know it, and likewise anything too close to a sunlike star will be too hot to support life as we know it. If you think about the conditions on Earth that support life, the concept isn't that difficult to understand.
Now, the real question is will we be responsible for an alien invasion should we make contact with the inhabitants of said planet?
On April 28 2012 05:27 MrHoon wrote: oh i love space updates :D It makes me sad I was born in a lifetime where space expedition won't be possible for another hundred years or so
Oh well can't wait for the pluto photos atleast
Don't be pessimistic bro, don't forget humans went to space from only more than 50 years. Just imagin what we will be able to do in the next 50 years (except if you are 50y/o or more)
This is very true. The first flight to landing on the moon was a considerably short amount of time, compared to how our lifetimes are at the moment.
On April 28 2012 05:27 MrHoon wrote: oh i love space updates :D It makes me sad I was born in a lifetime where space expedition won't be possible for another hundred years or so
Oh well can't wait for the pluto photos atleast
Don't be pessimistic bro, don't forget humans went to space from only more than 50 years. Just imagin what we will be able to do in the next 50 years (except if you are 50y/o or more)
This is very true. The first flight to landing on the moon was a considerably short amount of time, compared to how our lifetimes are at the moment.
Yeah, spacetravel can easily be more technologically doable The key problem will be energy supply, as spacetravel just takes up an insane amount of energy, and we're already quickly bottoming out on natural resources. So if we manage to fix that with some smart physics solution, then perhaps..
On a side note, lifetimes haven't really increased all that much, this is a misunderstanding. Less people die young, so the average life expectancy increased over the past few centuries, but old people got to be about 70 a millenium or so ago, at best we've 'prolonged' that age by something like 10 years?
Anyway, that minor lifetime increase is irrelevant compared to the technological advances that we are making
On April 29 2012 15:58 Shrewmy wrote: I hate to be the one to say it but this is terribly sensationalist.
We've known for quite a while it resides in the habitable zone, but we don't know the atmospheric composition for one thing. It's far too early to get optimistic. It raises the chances but people are acting like we discovered life elsewhere or something.
completely agreed. all this sensationalistic NEW EARTH FOUND OMG lately is getting on my nerves. finding planets within habitable zones is completely expected and nothing to freak out over, especially since these discoveries have basically zero relevance concerning the possibility of life on other planets as long as we have no valid theory of how life evolved on earth and how high the chance for life to evolve somewhere else is, even given the abundance of elements that are thought of being necessary for it (carbon, liquid water, amino acids, etc...)
i still tend to believe it was a one-time event. one shouldnt assume earth to be less significant just because the cosmos is so big. a very interesting argument for the cosmos actually not being big at all but just big enough for us to exist was given by tipler in the anthropic cosmological principle: assuming what we know about the physical laws of the universe is correct, the universe has to be the size it is since its size is linked to its age due to the process of expansion. and it has to be as old as it is since it has to have enough time for a couple of generations of suns to die in supernovaes to spread enough heaver elements into the cosmos to enable a mineral-rich planet like earth to exist anywhere in the universe
thereis really no philosophical or scientific reason not to be a little anthropocentric until we actually find life somewhere else...
we might be the first... we may be the only ones... who knows?
On April 30 2012 01:56 bblack wrote:
Yeah, spacetravel can easily be more technologically doable The key problem will be energy supply, as spacetravel just takes up an insane amount of energy, and we're already quickly bottoming out on natural resources. So if we manage to fix that with some smart physics solution, then perhaps..
On a side note, lifetimes haven't really increased all that much, this is a misunderstanding. Less people die young, so the average life expectancy increased over the past few centuries, but old people got to be about 70 a millenium or so ago, at best we've 'prolonged' that age by something like 10 years?
Anyway, that minor lifetime increase is irrelevant compared to the technological advances that we are making
you couldnt be more wrong really. energy supply isnt the issue, space travel doesnt take a lot of energy since you just keep going after you accelerated and can use gravity around planets or stars to accelerate more. the real issue is the human body and psyche, neither are built for the stress of long-term space travel, even spending half a year on the ISS wrecks your body.
so the real issue is to find something to preserve humans like cryogenic freezing, or abandon manned spaceflight altogether and focus on robots (the more likely option imho)
realistically, manned interstellar travel might as well be impossible for us to ever achieve, but of course thats very hard to predict...
this made me thing that we humans are like bacteria , evolving and evolving then searching for other planets (organisms) to spread to. and I'm not implying that we're parasites, bacteria can be good too!
On April 30 2012 13:27 songohan wrote: this made me thing that we humans are like bacteria , evolving and evolving then searching for other planets (organisms) to spread to. and I'm not implying that we're parasites, bacteria can be good too!
and what exactly makes a bacterium 'good' or 'bad' in your opinion?
i still tend to believe it was a one-time event. one shouldnt assume earth to be less significant just because the cosmos is so big. a very interesting argument for the cosmos actually not being big at all but just big enough for us to exist was given by wheeler in the anthropic cosmological principle: assuming what we know about the physical laws of the universe is correct, the universe has to be the size it is since its size is linked to its age due to the process of expansion. and it has to be as old as it is since it has to have enough time for a couple of generations of suns to die in supernovaes to spread enough heaver elements into the cosmos to enable a mineral-rich planet like earth to exist anywhere in the universe
Your logic is backwards: The universe is not designed for us, we simply came about because of how it is.
i still tend to believe it was a one-time event. one shouldnt assume earth to be less significant just because the cosmos is so big. a very interesting argument for the cosmos actually not being big at all but just big enough for us to exist was given by wheeler in the anthropic cosmological principle: assuming what we know about the physical laws of the universe is correct, the universe has to be the size it is since its size is linked to its age due to the process of expansion. and it has to be as old as it is since it has to have enough time for a couple of generations of suns to die in supernovaes to spread enough heaver elements into the cosmos to enable a mineral-rich planet like earth to exist anywhere in the universe
Your logic is backwards: The universe is not designed for us, we simply came about because of how it is.
i didnt claim the universe was designed for us (although i personally believe so), the statement i made is basically the weak anthropic principle: the conditions that are observed must allow an observer to exist. you probably know about all the fine-tuning argument like any of the elemental constants being slightly different wouldnt allow life to exist. we obviously have a set of physical laws and elemental constants that do allow life to exist, however in order for life to exist the universe must first reach a certain age/size given our laws and constants.
its not a design argument really. look at it just as another factor of our universe that, if it was any different, wouldnt allow observers to exist. thus the universe has to be big.
also, if you do believe in a creator, then maybe the easiest way to create a universe that can harbor life on a single planet is to make the universe massive. so basically either way the vastness of space is not a valid argument to use against anthropocentrism imho, and its an even worse argument to use for the existance of extraterrestial life since it is only one of the factors (most of them basically unknown) in the famous drake equation
The universe was designed for us? That's one of the most random statements I ever hear, lol. How do you even come up with something like that? I mean, there's no evidence for it, but how do you get to such a line of throught? The universe is a big big place and nothing in nature is 'designed' and humans are just nothing in the size of all stuff.
i still tend to believe it was a one-time event. one shouldnt assume earth to be less significant just because the cosmos is so big. a very interesting argument for the cosmos actually not being big at all but just big enough for us to exist was given by wheeler in the anthropic cosmological principle: assuming what we know about the physical laws of the universe is correct, the universe has to be the size it is since its size is linked to its age due to the process of expansion. and it has to be as old as it is since it has to have enough time for a couple of generations of suns to die in supernovaes to spread enough heaver elements into the cosmos to enable a mineral-rich planet like earth to exist anywhere in the universe
Your logic is backwards: The universe is not designed for us, we simply came about because of how it is.
i didnt claim the universe was designed for us (although i personally believe so), the statement i made is basically the weak anthropic principle: the conditions that are observed must allow an observer to exist. you probably know about all the fine-tuning argument like any of the elemental constants being slightly different wouldnt allow life to exist. we obviously have a set of physical laws and elemental constants that do allow life to exist, however in order for life to exist the universe must first reach a certain age/size given our laws and constants.
its not a design argument really. look at it just as another factor of our universe that, if it was any different, wouldnt allow observers to exist. thus the universe has to be big.
also, if you do believe in a creator, then maybe the easiest way to create a universe that can harbor life on a single planet is to make the universe massive. so basically either way the vastness of space is not a valid argument to use against anthropocentrism imho, and its an even worse argument to use for the existance of extraterrestial life since it is only one of the factors (most of them basically unknown) in the famous drake equation
I still can't get your mindset though. If 1 / [All the life supporting planets out there] is the chance of us being evolved as what we are, 2 / [All the life supporting planets out there] is the possibility of somewhere another species exists or existed. What you're saying doesn't change anything at all, it is what it is.
On April 30 2012 18:44 Miyoshino wrote: The universe was designed for us? That's one of the most random statements I ever hear, lol. How do you even come up with something like that? I mean, there's no evidence for it, but how do you get to such a line of throught? The universe is a big big place and nothing in nature is 'designed' and humans are just nothing in the size of all stuff.
The universe being designed for us is a very widely accepted theory (not saying it's the only one, just one of many). You must still be in your early years of education if you do not know this.
On April 30 2012 18:44 Miyoshino wrote: The universe was designed for us? That's one of the most random statements I ever hear, lol. How do you even come up with something like that? I mean, there's no evidence for it, but how do you get to such a line of throught? The universe is a big big place and nothing in nature is 'designed' and humans are just nothing in the size of all stuff.
The universe being designed for us is a very widely accepted theory (not saying it's the only one, just one of many). You must still be in your early years of education if you do not know this.
It's not a scientific theory. It's just a religious idea. Nothing found in science points out to a universe designed for us yet. We're just in a tiny part of universe that is in order for a tiny bit of a timeline. This part will find it's chaos when the time comes too. The universe is what it is, nothing less nothing more.
Althought i agree with you that it's odd he hasn't heard of this "idea" yet.
On April 30 2012 18:44 Miyoshino wrote: The universe was designed for us? That's one of the most random statements I ever hear, lol. How do you even come up with something like that? I mean, there's no evidence for it, but how do you get to such a line of throught? The universe is a big big place and nothing in nature is 'designed' and humans are just nothing in the size of all stuff.
The universe being designed for us is a very widely accepted theory (not saying it's the only one, just one of many). You must still be in your early years of education if you do not know this.
No, it is not a "very widely accepted" theory. Intelligent Design is laughed at by the scientific community. Absolutely nothing in the known universe suggests design of any sort, other than what the laws of physics are able to produce of their own volition.
As the above poster noted, ID is NOT a scientific theory.
On April 30 2012 18:44 Miyoshino wrote: The universe was designed for us? That's one of the most random statements I ever hear, lol. How do you even come up with something like that? I mean, there's no evidence for it, but how do you get to such a line of throught? The universe is a big big place and nothing in nature is 'designed' and humans are just nothing in the size of all stuff.
The universe being designed for us is a very widely accepted theory (not saying it's the only one, just one of many). You must still be in your early years of education if you do not know this.
It's not a scientific theory. It's just a religious idea. Nothing found in science points out to a universe designed for us yet. We're just in a tiny part of universe that is in order for a tiny bit of a timeline. This part will find it's chaos when the time comes too. The universe is what it is, nothing less nothing more.
Althought i agree with you that it's odd he hasn't heard of this "idea" yet.
Never will, science rules out such a statement. (not saying it to be false)
I must say that most of the planets found that 'may support life', we know almost nothing about. These planets have some favorable factors, but there are a lot of unknown parameters still undiscovered. This will change rapidly because of new technologies, but to make statement on how many life-supporting planets there are or other general issues like that, is quite premature.
Currently, the kepler mission helps a lot in the sense that these are the most accurate measurments up to date. In my bachelor thesis, we are currently creating a new method of finding exoplanets. we can find effects of the order of magnitude 10 ppm with a singal to noise of 7 or 8. first indications are that there might be (we don't discover planets, further measurements are necessary, before we can be certain) a lot more heavy planets in close orbit than we expect. This (along with literature research) says to me that we actually do not really have a lot of a clue. We are only at the beginning of exploring planets and the behaviour of solar systems.
On April 30 2012 18:44 Miyoshino wrote: The universe was designed for us? That's one of the most random statements I ever hear, lol. How do you even come up with something like that? I mean, there's no evidence for it, but how do you get to such a line of throught? The universe is a big big place and nothing in nature is 'designed' and humans are just nothing in the size of all stuff.
The universe being designed for us is a very widely accepted theory (not saying it's the only one, just one of many). You must still be in your early years of education if you do not know this.
I would like to see the time if it'll ever be possible for humans to change the planets' atmosphere, ground temperature and that kind of stuff to make it possible for living like they did in the tv show called "Firefly" Being able to do that kind of stuff would be amazing. Should require intense technology though.
On April 30 2012 18:44 Miyoshino wrote: The universe was designed for us? That's one of the most random statements I ever hear, lol. How do you even come up with something like that? I mean, there's no evidence for it, but how do you get to such a line of throught? The universe is a big big place and nothing in nature is 'designed' and humans are just nothing in the size of all stuff.
The universe being designed for us is a very widely accepted theory (not saying it's the only one, just one of many). You must still be in your early years of education if you do not know this.
It's not a scientific theory. It's just a religious idea. Nothing found in science points out to a universe designed for us yet. We're just in a tiny part of universe that is in order for a tiny bit of a timeline. This part will find it's chaos when the time comes too. The universe is what it is, nothing less nothing more.
Althought i agree with you that it's odd he hasn't heard of this "idea" yet.
Well it just comes down to a persons bias on how you view what your observe. For example, a scientist that believes the evolutionary theory will see something and say "this developed into being like this because it is the best way to be", whereas a scientist who believes the creation theory will see that same thing and say "it was designed like this because this is what is required" and really they're both just as unprovable as each other.
On April 30 2012 18:44 Miyoshino wrote: The universe was designed for us? That's one of the most random statements I ever hear, lol. How do you even come up with something like that? I mean, there's no evidence for it, but how do you get to such a line of throught? The universe is a big big place and nothing in nature is 'designed' and humans are just nothing in the size of all stuff.
The universe being designed for us is a very widely accepted theory (not saying it's the only one, just one of many). You must still be in your early years of education if you do not know this.
The Earth is designed for us. The universe is NOT!
If it was then why is it so insanely difficult to launch anything, especially people, into space?
If Earth wasnt such a fantastic planet to live on it would be our prison, perhaps for eternity.
On April 30 2012 18:44 Miyoshino wrote: The universe was designed for us? That's one of the most random statements I ever hear, lol. How do you even come up with something like that? I mean, there's no evidence for it, but how do you get to such a line of throught? The universe is a big big place and nothing in nature is 'designed' and humans are just nothing in the size of all stuff.
The universe being designed for us is a very widely accepted theory (not saying it's the only one, just one of many). You must still be in your early years of education if you do not know this.
It's not a scientific theory. It's just a religious idea. Nothing found in science points out to a universe designed for us yet. We're just in a tiny part of universe that is in order for a tiny bit of a timeline. This part will find it's chaos when the time comes too. The universe is what it is, nothing less nothing more.
Althought i agree with you that it's odd he hasn't heard of this "idea" yet.
Well it just comes down to a persons bias on how you view what your observe. For example, a scientist that believes the evolutionary theory will see something and say "this developed into being like this because it is the best way to be", whereas a scientist who believes the creation theory will see that same thing and say "it was designed like this because this is what is required" and really they're both just as unprovable as each other.
You are terribly misinformed. Creatures doesn't evolve because "it's the best way to be". They mutate randomly, the new adaptations helps the creature with it's enviroment stays active geneticely, others get disabled. Those disabled genes may pass to the children too, they just stay disabled or re-evolve to be more effective.
No serious scientists has the guts to claim evolution is not a fact anymore. Even Michael Behe accepted it. They figure things out, some of them just don't admit it.
And yes, The universe being designed really isn't a scientific theory. Never could be.
On April 30 2012 18:44 Miyoshino wrote: The universe was designed for us? That's one of the most random statements I ever hear, lol. How do you even come up with something like that? I mean, there's no evidence for it, but how do you get to such a line of throught? The universe is a big big place and nothing in nature is 'designed' and humans are just nothing in the size of all stuff.
The universe being designed for us is a very widely accepted theory (not saying it's the only one, just one of many). You must still be in your early years of education if you do not know this.
The Earth is designed for us. The universe is NOT!
If it was then why is it so insanely difficult to launch anything, especially people, into space?
If Earth wasnt such a fantastic planet to live on it would be our prison, perhaps for eternity.
Sigh. Earth is not designed for us. We fit in to the earth. If Earth would be designed for us humans would exist as soon as the world exists. Well, it didn't happen that way. Earth seems to be 4,5 billion years old and our evolution took millions of years, billions if we count all the ancestors. We found our way into the earth by adapting to the enviroment arround us and it took time and the process is still going on.
We will adapt to the space with our technology, we are not evolved for space because we never had to survive in that enviroment. Macro evolution takes thousands, millions of years so we can't wait to adapt via biology but our technology and scientific improvements are incredibly fast so we will find our way into space too.
Nothing evolves randomly. Mutations are random. There will always be individuals with certain mutations. They will reproduce and pass on certain traits. Or their line dies out and their traits with them.
Certain enviromental conditions favour certain traits. This is very specific and never random. The enviroment needs to enforce a certain trend for a long enough period of time and then it will have an effect. This can be referred to as 'survival of the fittest'. The enviroment will chizzle away at the genetic diversity in the gene pool. Certain traits will become more dominant. Others will be filtered out. The gene pool of a certain population is thus always in flux. And if the enviroment favours certain conditions for a long enough period, they will become sufficently expressed.
Because of this certain species may become highly specialized, which is actually very bad once their niche starts to disappear. It's all about niches. You evolve to fit a certain niche. Then there's also sexual selection which is quite conter intuitive and tricky to understand.
Of course the theory of evolution as a whole is not disputed. What is debated about is certain mechanisms and interpretation. Does it happen in quick fast bursts or is it gradual and slow? How does the evolutionary tree of a certain species look like and why did it evolve the way it did?
The earth is not designed for us, lol. We evolved to fit out niche on earth, which is still basically the African savanne. It's a backwards argument. The earth was here first. Then we evolved to survive on it. Dump us on some other planet where life can evolve and we die.
Say evolution is convergent enough so on other plantets they also have trees with fruits. We can't eat those fruits. Not because that planet wasn't designed for us and earth was but because we evolved on earth.
Our lungs evolved to breathe oxygen because that's what we need. But give us 70% ogygen atmosphere and we die. Why? Our lungs are finetunes to absorb oxygen at a certain rate determined by the percentage of oxygen in the air. Make the air have less oxygen and we have problems too. But in fact people that live in extreme high mountains like Tibet and areas in the Andes and those peole don't get altitude sickness. They have genes that give them lungs more adapted to lower oxygen percentages. If the oxygen percentage on our planet was way higher, we wouldn;t need such big lungs which is a bonus. Well ignore the problem of oxygen reacting with a lot of stuff, lol.
If I designed a planet to have intelligent beings because I am a god in a boring universe and I am all powerful so why not I would do things way different. I wouldn't design my creatures to have to rot and decay away other organisms inside their bodies to get energy. That's cruel and nasty and not needed. I make them autotrophic. I also would do away with sexes. No need for that. A form of reproduction is needed. Look at how much problems our evolved cruel genes cause. Sexual reproduction causes competition. All our negative emotions can be traces back to sexual reproduction.
Also, I would not put them on a sphere. I would put them inside a sphere. At the center I would place a source of daylight. No need for day and night or seasons. No need for stars or galaxies either. Just the inside surface of a sphere with a source of energy, like how the ancients understood the sun, in the middle.
I would also hardcode a language into them. This way they all speak the same language and they can never not have learned it. This solves the problem which the mythology like the tower of Babel had to solve.
If you think about it, the way the world is is the last way you would make it if you had the option to design it. I don't believe in a trickster god. And if you believe in a god that created everything, but you don't know how she did it, then the best account of how and why she created what he did is to look at life itself. Not at some book written by a desert people of a backward civilization, with morals worse than todays Taliban.
On April 30 2012 15:17 summerloud wrote: also, if you do believe in a creator, then maybe the easiest way to create a universe that can harbor life on a single planet is to make the universe massive. so basically either way the vastness of space is not a valid argument to use against anthropocentrism imho
This would be a rather absurd statement for anyone who believes in an all-powerful god to use, though. What does "easier" even mean if you can do anything with no effort?
On April 30 2012 18:44 Miyoshino wrote: The universe was designed for us? That's one of the most random statements I ever hear, lol. How do you even come up with something like that? I mean, there's no evidence for it, but how do you get to such a line of throught? The universe is a big big place and nothing in nature is 'designed' and humans are just nothing in the size of all stuff.
The universe being designed for us is a very widely accepted theory (not saying it's the only one, just one of many). You must still be in your early years of education if you do not know this.
The Earth is designed for us. The universe is NOT!
If it was then why is it so insanely difficult to launch anything, especially people, into space?
If Earth wasnt such a fantastic planet to live on it would be our prison, perhaps for eternity.
Sigh. Earth is not designed for us. We fit in to the earth. If Earth would be designed for us humans would exist as soon as the world exists. Well, it didn't happen that way. Earth seems to be 4,5 billion years old and our evolution took millions of years, billions if we count all the ancestors. We found our way into the earth by adapting to the enviroment arround us and it took time and the process is still going on.
We will adapt to the space with our technology, we are not evolved for space because we never had to survive in that enviroment. Macro evolution takes thousands, millions of years so we can't wait to adapt via biology but our technology and scientific improvements are incredibly fast so we will find our way into space too.
Correct me if I'm wrong but, isn't the whole theory of evolution based on adapting to your surroundings?
On April 30 2012 15:39 DyEnasTy wrote: Only 3.6 times earths gravity? Massive geological/volcanic movement? Super rocky surface? Oh man.....I just cant wait to NOT move there!
If you look at other planets, this one is like heaven. Specially the volcanic movement is very important.
On April 30 2012 21:49 ArchAngelSC wrote: Correct me if I'm wrong but, isn't the whole theory of evolution based on adapting to your surroundings?
Life can't evolve in space period. The laws of nature were presicely fine tuned so that in 99.999999999% of the universe it is physically impossible for life to survive there. Almost all of space is a near vacuum that is near absolute zero. Then most stuff besides that are burning hot fusion engines that throw massive amounts of radiation into their surroundings. Then there are planets but most are either frozen or cooking.
Liquid water is the medium for life. If you designed the universe for life the universe would be one huge blob of liquid water. It's not so it wasn't designed for life. Until you can prove to me the universe is indeed a huge blob of liquid water, I won't believe you when you tell me it was designed for life.
On April 30 2012 18:44 Miyoshino wrote: The universe was designed for us? That's one of the most random statements I ever hear, lol. How do you even come up with something like that? I mean, there's no evidence for it, but how do you get to such a line of throught? The universe is a big big place and nothing in nature is 'designed' and humans are just nothing in the size of all stuff.
The universe being designed for us is a very widely accepted theory (not saying it's the only one, just one of many). You must still be in your early years of education if you do not know this.
The Earth is designed for us. The universe is NOT!
If it was then why is it so insanely difficult to launch anything, especially people, into space?
If Earth wasnt such a fantastic planet to live on it would be our prison, perhaps for eternity.
Sigh. Earth is not designed for us. We fit in to the earth. If Earth would be designed for us humans would exist as soon as the world exists. Well, it didn't happen that way. Earth seems to be 4,5 billion years old and our evolution took millions of years, billions if we count all the ancestors. We found our way into the earth by adapting to the enviroment arround us and it took time and the process is still going on.
We will adapt to the space with our technology, we are not evolved for space because we never had to survive in that enviroment. Macro evolution takes thousands, millions of years so we can't wait to adapt via biology but our technology and scientific improvements are incredibly fast so we will find our way into space too.
Correct me if I'm wrong but, isn't the whole theory of evolution based on adapting to your surroundings?
Yes. But what i mean is not that we could start "existing" in space. We come to evolve this far, from there we can use our technology to help us. What i mean is if we spend enough time in space maybe we will slowly adapt to non-gravity situations. It doesn't look so possible because i remember reading you can't breed in space because gravity is needed for zygote to be fetus. But maybe we invent something like artificial gravity.
On April 30 2012 21:49 ArchAngelSC wrote: Correct me if I'm wrong but, isn't the whole theory of evolution based on adapting to your surroundings?
Life can't evolve in space period. The laws of nature were presicely fine tuned so that in 99.999999999% of the universe it is physically impossible for life to survive there. Almost all of space is a near vacuum that is near absolute zero. Then most stuff besides that are burning hot fusion engines that throw massive amounts of radiation into their surroundings. Then there are planets but most are either frozen or cooking.
Liquid water is the medium for life. If you designed the universe for life the universe would be one huge blob of liquid water. It's not so it wasn't designed for life. Until you can prove to me the universe is indeed a huge blob of liquid water, I won't believe you when you tell me it was designed for life.
Okay fair enough.
Also I misspoke earlier. When I said "designed for us" I didn't necessarily mean designed for LIFE. Probably should have made that clearer
On April 30 2012 21:49 ArchAngelSC wrote: Correct me if I'm wrong but, isn't the whole theory of evolution based on adapting to your surroundings?
Life can't evolve in space period. The laws of nature were presicely fine tuned so that in 99.999999999% of the universe it is physically impossible for life to survive there. Almost all of space is a near vacuum that is near absolute zero. Then most stuff besides that are burning hot fusion engines that throw massive amounts of radiation into their surroundings. Then there are planets but most are either frozen or cooking.
Liquid water is the medium for life. If you designed the universe for life the universe would be one huge blob of liquid water. It's not so it wasn't designed for life. Until you can prove to me the universe is indeed a huge blob of liquid water, I won't believe you when you tell me it was designed for life.
Okay fair enough.
Also I misspoke earlier. When I said "designed for us" I didn't necessarily mean designed for LIFE. Probably should have made that clearer
I'm not going to claim to be an expert at this subject, but isn't it strange that people assume planets that support life must have certain environmental qualities, like water, oxygen, or non-fatal elements (predominantly to humans) in the atmosphere? Why must a planet mimic the qualities of Earth for it to have life? So far we only about our world, is it not possible that life exists on a planet that would, say, incinerate Earth-born creatures if they try to breath? I find it strange that people (or at least the general consensus I know of) have this assumption that any species not from our planet, regardless of its sentience, must be similar to what we simply believe them to be.
On April 30 2012 21:49 ArchAngelSC wrote: Correct me if I'm wrong but, isn't the whole theory of evolution based on adapting to your surroundings?
Life can't evolve in space period. The laws of nature were presicely fine tuned so that in 99.999999999% of the universe it is physically impossible for life to survive there. Almost all of space is a near vacuum that is near absolute zero. Then most stuff besides that are burning hot fusion engines that throw massive amounts of radiation into their surroundings. Then there are planets but most are either frozen or cooking.
Liquid water is the medium for life. If you designed the universe for life the universe would be one huge blob of liquid water. It's not so it wasn't designed for life. Until you can prove to me the universe is indeed a huge blob of liquid water, I won't believe you when you tell me it was designed for life.
Again, I'm not an expert at the subject, but how are we so sure that absolutely no life can exist in space? Most likely based off of what humans know? Like, if stuff like waterbears (iirc) can be exposed the vacuum of space and come back to Earth and live, isn't there a shot?
On April 30 2012 18:44 Miyoshino wrote: The universe was designed for us? That's one of the most random statements I ever hear, lol. How do you even come up with something like that? I mean, there's no evidence for it, but how do you get to such a line of throught? The universe is a big big place and nothing in nature is 'designed' and humans are just nothing in the size of all stuff.
The universe being designed for us is a very widely accepted theory (not saying it's the only one, just one of many). You must still be in your early years of education if you do not know this.
It's not a scientific theory. It's just a religious idea. Nothing found in science points out to a universe designed for us yet. We're just in a tiny part of universe that is in order for a tiny bit of a timeline. This part will find it's chaos when the time comes too. The universe is what it is, nothing less nothing more.
Althought i agree with you that it's odd he hasn't heard of this "idea" yet.
Well it just comes down to a persons bias on how you view what your observe. For example, a scientist that believes the evolutionary theory will see something and say "this developed into being like this because it is the best way to be", whereas a scientist who believes the creation theory will see that same thing and say "it was designed like this because this is what is required" and really they're both just as unprovable as each other.
Except that evolution has already been reproduced in a lab, thus proof.
If something can survive without liquid water we wouldn't be calling it 'life' but something else.
Just like stuff can survive some conditions into space doesn't mean it can evolve and reproduce there. These extremophiles can't live in space just because they survive exposure to space.
Liquid water is needed for any form of cell metabolism. If it freezes, the crystals will damage cell membranes and organelles. Waterbears go into cryptobiosis. They are basically 'dead' when in that stage. They have no metabolism. They just can come back from that.
This means life can survive on a planet where everything freezes solid for like 10 months and then melts for their 2 months of summer, whatever length their month is. They still need liquid water to do their life things. Something that's in cryptobiosis permanently is just dead and not coming back.
Now maybe something that is self-organizing can survive without liquid water. There's alternative chemestry where you have silicon and methane or something like that. But I would limit the term 'life' to only organic chemestry based self-organising stuff. We know our organic chemistry. It is hard to see how something based silicon could do just as well as our carbon stuff. We need liquid water for organic chemistry. That's what we call life. Even if something based on something else is possible, that's still a way way long shot away from silicon-based multicellular life. It's already a big enough of a challenge to find organic life. So let's find that stuff first. When we do we can speculate about the much rarer occuring alternatives.
It's not just that we 'favour' organic chemistry because that's what we are made of. It is in the nature of organic chemistry itself. We know what complex molecules can occur and how likely they are to arise. We can even observe what is out there in space up to a limited amount. The odds are not good for non-carbon based complex self-reproducing structures. Also, carbon is much more common in the universe than silicon is anyway.
On April 30 2012 18:44 Miyoshino wrote: The universe was designed for us? That's one of the most random statements I ever hear, lol. How do you even come up with something like that? I mean, there's no evidence for it, but how do you get to such a line of throught? The universe is a big big place and nothing in nature is 'designed' and humans are just nothing in the size of all stuff.
The universe being designed for us is a very widely accepted theory (not saying it's the only one, just one of many). You must still be in your early years of education if you do not know this.
It's not a scientific theory. It's just a religious idea. Nothing found in science points out to a universe designed for us yet. We're just in a tiny part of universe that is in order for a tiny bit of a timeline. This part will find it's chaos when the time comes too. The universe is what it is, nothing less nothing more.
Althought i agree with you that it's odd he hasn't heard of this "idea" yet.
Well it just comes down to a persons bias on how you view what your observe. For example, a scientist that believes the evolutionary theory will see something and say "this developed into being like this because it is the best way to be", whereas a scientist who believes the creation theory will see that same thing and say "it was designed like this because this is what is required" and really they're both just as unprovable as each other.
Except that evolution has already been reproduced in a lab, thus proof.
And the very fact that he's equivocating between scientists "believing the evolutionary theory " and scientists who believe "the creation theory" means he doesn't quite understand that it's already been universally accepted by the experts that evolution is a fact (due to countless observable facts), and that scientific theory is not the same as colloquial theory.
On April 30 2012 18:44 Miyoshino wrote: The universe was designed for us? That's one of the most random statements I ever hear, lol. How do you even come up with something like that? I mean, there's no evidence for it, but how do you get to such a line of throught? The universe is a big big place and nothing in nature is 'designed' and humans are just nothing in the size of all stuff.
The universe being designed for us is a very widely accepted theory (not saying it's the only one, just one of many). You must still be in your early years of education if you do not know this.
On April 30 2012 18:44 Miyoshino wrote: The universe was designed for us? That's one of the most random statements I ever hear, lol. How do you even come up with something like that? I mean, there's no evidence for it, but how do you get to such a line of throught? The universe is a big big place and nothing in nature is 'designed' and humans are just nothing in the size of all stuff.
The universe being designed for us is a very widely accepted theory (not saying it's the only one, just one of many). You must still be in your early years of education if you do not know this.
It's not a scientific theory. It's just a religious idea. Nothing found in science points out to a universe designed for us yet. We're just in a tiny part of universe that is in order for a tiny bit of a timeline. This part will find it's chaos when the time comes too. The universe is what it is, nothing less nothing more.
Althought i agree with you that it's odd he hasn't heard of this "idea" yet.
Well it just comes down to a persons bias on how you view what your observe. For example, a scientist that believes the evolutionary theory will see something and say "this developed into being like this because it is the best way to be", whereas a scientist who believes the creation theory will see that same thing and say "it was designed like this because this is what is required" and really they're both just as unprovable as each other.
Except that evolution has already been reproduced in a lab, thus proof.
I'd love to read up on that if you could provide a link
On April 30 2012 22:17 Xpace wrote: I'm not going to claim to be an expert at this subject, but isn't it strange that people assume planets that support life must have certain environmental qualities, like water, oxygen, or non-fatal elements (predominantly to humans) in the atmosphere? Why must a planet mimic the qualities of Earth for it to have life? So far we only about our world, is it not possible that life exists on a planet that would, say, incinerate Earth-born creatures if they try to breath? I find it strange that people (or at least the general consensus I know of) have this assumption that any species not from our planet, regardless of its sentience, must be similar to what we simply believe them to be.
On April 30 2012 21:49 ArchAngelSC wrote: Correct me if I'm wrong but, isn't the whole theory of evolution based on adapting to your surroundings?
Life can't evolve in space period. The laws of nature were presicely fine tuned so that in 99.999999999% of the universe it is physically impossible for life to survive there. Almost all of space is a near vacuum that is near absolute zero. Then most stuff besides that are burning hot fusion engines that throw massive amounts of radiation into their surroundings. Then there are planets but most are either frozen or cooking.
Liquid water is the medium for life. If you designed the universe for life the universe would be one huge blob of liquid water. It's not so it wasn't designed for life. Until you can prove to me the universe is indeed a huge blob of liquid water, I won't believe you when you tell me it was designed for life.
Again, I'm not an expert at the subject, but how are we so sure that absolutely no life can exist in space? Most likely based off of what humans know? Like, if stuff like waterbears (iirc) can be exposed the vacuum of space and come back to Earth and live, isn't there a shot?
That's an incredibly complex question, and although I used to think the same thing, as I've studied biochemistry at the university level (my major), I've learned that the answer to "Could life evolve in space?" is "Almost definitely not." Now that's not to say "absolutely not" because science has a way of surprising us, but the idea that life as complex as animal life could evolve in space is basically impossible. Maybe through genetic engineering life could be able to exist in space, but naturally, certainly not.
Life (in the scientific sense) is basically a series of complex chemical reactions that have increased in complexity via the mechanism we call evolution over billions of years to the point where we are now. In order for there to be a series of chemical reactions like those that life evolved from there needs to be certain conditions. If you study chemistry, you'll learn that water has some very unique properties that arise from its chemical structure- properties such as high amounts of hydrogen bonding which lead to things like high surface tension, a specific crystalline structure that results in solid ice being less dense than liquid ice, etc. which our form of life needs to exist. The specific phase (liquid) of water, the presence of certain biological precursors ("organic" compounds or their precursors), and the correct temperature were all necessary for there to be the complex reactions that life arose from, and on Earth, it just so happened that all the right conditions were present at the same time for life to arise.
In vacuum, water is either frozen or gaseous- because pressure is so low, there is no liquid state. Chemical reactions cannot occur if particles do not come into contact (which is rare in a vacuum). Chemical reactions cannot occur if the specific reactants don't come into contact. Chemical reactions cannot occur quick enough (if even at all) if temperatures are too low, and if temperatures are high (such as near a star) the resulting organic products would literally burn up.
I could go on for a long time, but it's really difficult to explain it all in a short amount of time, especially to someone who doesn't have a decent biology/chemistry/biochemistry background. Suffice it to say that given what we know about life today, it could not evolve in space, and actually requires very specific conditions (such as those on Earth for complex life or possibly Mars for less complex life) to arise. Anything else is conjecture at this point.
On April 30 2012 18:44 Miyoshino wrote: The universe was designed for us? That's one of the most random statements I ever hear, lol. How do you even come up with something like that? I mean, there's no evidence for it, but how do you get to such a line of throught? The universe is a big big place and nothing in nature is 'designed' and humans are just nothing in the size of all stuff.
The universe being designed for us is a very widely accepted theory (not saying it's the only one, just one of many). You must still be in your early years of education if you do not know this.
you verbally attack him to validate your statement.
On April 30 2012 18:44 Miyoshino wrote: The universe was designed for us? That's one of the most random statements I ever hear, lol. How do you even come up with something like that? I mean, there's no evidence for it, but how do you get to such a line of throught? The universe is a big big place and nothing in nature is 'designed' and humans are just nothing in the size of all stuff.
The universe being designed for us is a very widely accepted theory (not saying it's the only one, just one of many). You must still be in your early years of education if you do not know this.
you verbally attack him to validate your statement.
It was not intended as a verbal attack, nor is a verbal attack going to make the statement any more or less true. So I'm not sure why you'd say that lol.
It was just simply that if he doesn't know that it's a very common theory then he can't have had much education yet as anyone who is well educated should know about it.
On April 30 2012 22:17 Xpace wrote: I'm not going to claim to be an expert at this subject, but isn't it strange that people assume planets that support life must have certain environmental qualities, like water, oxygen, or non-fatal elements (predominantly to humans) in the atmosphere? Why must a planet mimic the qualities of Earth for it to have life? So far we only about our world, is it not possible that life exists on a planet that would, say, incinerate Earth-born creatures if they try to breath? I find it strange that people (or at least the general consensus I know of) have this assumption that any species not from our planet, regardless of its sentience, must be similar to what we simply believe them to be.
I'll refer to this topic:
On April 30 2012 21:58 Miyoshino wrote:
On April 30 2012 21:49 ArchAngelSC wrote: Correct me if I'm wrong but, isn't the whole theory of evolution based on adapting to your surroundings?
Life can't evolve in space period. The laws of nature were presicely fine tuned so that in 99.999999999% of the universe it is physically impossible for life to survive there. Almost all of space is a near vacuum that is near absolute zero. Then most stuff besides that are burning hot fusion engines that throw massive amounts of radiation into their surroundings. Then there are planets but most are either frozen or cooking.
Liquid water is the medium for life. If you designed the universe for life the universe would be one huge blob of liquid water. It's not so it wasn't designed for life. Until you can prove to me the universe is indeed a huge blob of liquid water, I won't believe you when you tell me it was designed for life.
Again, I'm not an expert at the subject, but how are we so sure that absolutely no life can exist in space? Most likely based off of what humans know? Like, if stuff like waterbears (iirc) can be exposed the vacuum of space and come back to Earth and live, isn't there a shot?
That's an incredibly complex question, and although I used to think the same thing, as I've studied biochemistry at the university level (my major), I've learned that the answer to "Could life evolve in space?" is "Almost definitely not." Now that's not to say "absolutely not" because science has a way of surprising us, but the idea that life as complex as animal life could evolve in space is basically impossible. Maybe through genetic engineering life could be able to exist in space, but naturally, certainly not.
Life (in the scientific sense) is basically a series of complex chemical reactions that have increased in complexity via the mechanism we call evolution over billions of years to the point where we are now. In order for there to be a series of chemical reactions like those that life evolved from there needs to be certain conditions. If you study chemistry, you'll learn that water has some very unique properties that arise from its chemical structure- properties such as high amounts of hydrogen bonding which lead to things like high surface tension, a specific crystalline structure that results in solid ice being less dense than liquid ice, etc. which our form of life needs to exist. The specific phase (liquid) of water, the presence of certain biological precursors ("organic" compounds or their precursors), and the correct temperature were all necessary for there to be the complex reactions that life arose from, and on Earth, it just so happened that all the right conditions were present at the same time for life to arise.
In vacuum, water is either frozen or gaseous- because pressure is so low, there is no liquid state. Chemical reactions cannot occur if particles do not come into contact (which is rare in a vacuum). Chemical reactions cannot occur if the specific reactants don't come into contact. Chemical reactions cannot occur quick enough (if even at all) if temperatures are too low, and if temperatures are high (such as near a star) the resulting organic products would literally burn up.
I could go on for a long time, but it's really difficult to explain it all in a short amount of time, especially to someone who doesn't have a decent biology/chemistry/biochemistry background. Suffice it to say that given what we know about life today, it could not evolve in space, and actually requires very specific conditions (such as those on Earth for complex life or possibly Mars for less complex life) to arise. Anything else is conjecture at this point.
I know that we are getting out of thread's context here but what do you think about abiogenesis?
On April 30 2012 22:17 Xpace wrote: I'm not going to claim to be an expert at this subject, but isn't it strange that people assume planets that support life must have certain environmental qualities, like water, oxygen, or non-fatal elements (predominantly to humans) in the atmosphere? Why must a planet mimic the qualities of Earth for it to have life? So far we only about our world, is it not possible that life exists on a planet that would, say, incinerate Earth-born creatures if they try to breath? I find it strange that people (or at least the general consensus I know of) have this assumption that any species not from our planet, regardless of its sentience, must be similar to what we simply believe them to be.
I'll refer to this topic:
On April 30 2012 21:58 Miyoshino wrote:
On April 30 2012 21:49 ArchAngelSC wrote: Correct me if I'm wrong but, isn't the whole theory of evolution based on adapting to your surroundings?
Life can't evolve in space period. The laws of nature were presicely fine tuned so that in 99.999999999% of the universe it is physically impossible for life to survive there. Almost all of space is a near vacuum that is near absolute zero. Then most stuff besides that are burning hot fusion engines that throw massive amounts of radiation into their surroundings. Then there are planets but most are either frozen or cooking.
Liquid water is the medium for life. If you designed the universe for life the universe would be one huge blob of liquid water. It's not so it wasn't designed for life. Until you can prove to me the universe is indeed a huge blob of liquid water, I won't believe you when you tell me it was designed for life.
Again, I'm not an expert at the subject, but how are we so sure that absolutely no life can exist in space? Most likely based off of what humans know? Like, if stuff like waterbears (iirc) can be exposed the vacuum of space and come back to Earth and live, isn't there a shot?
That's an incredibly complex question, and although I used to think the same thing, as I've studied biochemistry at the university level (my major), I've learned that the answer to "Could life evolve in space?" is "Almost definitely not." Now that's not to say "absolutely not" because science has a way of surprising us, but the idea that life as complex as animal life could evolve in space is basically impossible. Maybe through genetic engineering life could be able to exist in space, but naturally, certainly not.
Life (in the scientific sense) is basically a series of complex chemical reactions that have increased in complexity via the mechanism we call evolution over billions of years to the point where we are now. In order for there to be a series of chemical reactions like those that life evolved from there needs to be certain conditions. If you study chemistry, you'll learn that water has some very unique properties that arise from its chemical structure- properties such as high amounts of hydrogen bonding which lead to things like high surface tension, a specific crystalline structure that results in solid ice being less dense than liquid ice, etc. which our form of life needs to exist. The specific phase (liquid) of water, the presence of certain biological precursors ("organic" compounds or their precursors), and the correct temperature were all necessary for there to be the complex reactions that life arose from, and on Earth, it just so happened that all the right conditions were present at the same time for life to arise.
In vacuum, water is either frozen or gaseous- because pressure is so low, there is no liquid state. Chemical reactions cannot occur if particles do not come into contact (which is rare in a vacuum). Chemical reactions cannot occur if the specific reactants don't come into contact. Chemical reactions cannot occur quick enough (if even at all) if temperatures are too low, and if temperatures are high (such as near a star) the resulting organic products would literally burn up.
I could go on for a long time, but it's really difficult to explain it all in a short amount of time, especially to someone who doesn't have a decent biology/chemistry/biochemistry background. Suffice it to say that given what we know about life today, it could not evolve in space, and actually requires very specific conditions (such as those on Earth for complex life or possibly Mars for less complex life) to arise. Anything else is conjecture at this point.
I know that we are getting out of thread's context here but what do you think about abiogenesis?
AFAIK it's the most sound explanation for the beginning of life. The propagation of efficiently reproducing processes is a universal constant.
Also, ArchAngelSC, I'm not sure you have any idea what you're talking about. That's not supposed to be an insult, just an observation. The environment came first, life evolved out of it because it was the right environment for life to arise. Life wouldn't have arisen on Earth if the Earth was like Pluto- we know this because there is no life on Pluto.
On April 30 2012 22:36 Miyoshino wrote: If something can survive without liquid water we wouldn't be calling it 'life' but something else.
Just like stuff can survive some conditions into space doesn't mean it can evolve and reproduce there. These extremophiles can't live in space just because they survive exposure to space.
Liquid water is needed for any form of cell metabolism. If it freezes, the crystals will damage cell membranes and organelles. Waterbears go into cryptobiosis. They are basically 'dead' when in that stage. They have no metabolism. They just can come back from that.
This means life can survive on a planet where everything freezes solid for like 10 months and then melts for their 2 months of summer, whatever length their month is. They still need liquid water to do their life things. Something that's in cryptobiosis permanently is just dead and not coming back.
Now maybe something that is self-organizing can survive without liquid water. There's alternative chemestry where you have silicon and methane or something like that. But I would limit the term 'life' to only organic chemestry based self-organising stuff. We know our organic chemistry. It is hard to see how something based silicon could do just as well as our carbon stuff. We need liquid water for organic chemistry. That's what we call life. Even if something based on something else is possible, that's still a way way long shot away from silicon-based multicellular life. It's already a big enough of a challenge to find organic life. So let's find that stuff first. When we do we can speculate about the much rarer occuring alternatives.
It's not just that we 'favour' organic chemistry because that's what we are made of. It is in the nature of organic chemistry itself. We know what complex molecules can occur and how likely they are to arise. We can even observe what is out there in space up to a limited amount. The odds are not good for non-carbon based complex self-reproducing structures. Also, carbon is much more common in the universe than silicon is anyway.
In something as vast as space, why be concerned with 'bad odds'? Even at 0.01%, it will still exist thousands of times over.
On April 30 2012 22:17 Xpace wrote: I'm not going to claim to be an expert at this subject, but isn't it strange that people assume planets that support life must have certain environmental qualities, like water, oxygen, or non-fatal elements (predominantly to humans) in the atmosphere? Why must a planet mimic the qualities of Earth for it to have life? So far we only about our world, is it not possible that life exists on a planet that would, say, incinerate Earth-born creatures if they try to breath? I find it strange that people (or at least the general consensus I know of) have this assumption that any species not from our planet, regardless of its sentience, must be similar to what we simply believe them to be.
I'll refer to this topic:
On April 30 2012 21:58 Miyoshino wrote:
On April 30 2012 21:49 ArchAngelSC wrote: Correct me if I'm wrong but, isn't the whole theory of evolution based on adapting to your surroundings?
Life can't evolve in space period. The laws of nature were presicely fine tuned so that in 99.999999999% of the universe it is physically impossible for life to survive there. Almost all of space is a near vacuum that is near absolute zero. Then most stuff besides that are burning hot fusion engines that throw massive amounts of radiation into their surroundings. Then there are planets but most are either frozen or cooking.
Liquid water is the medium for life. If you designed the universe for life the universe would be one huge blob of liquid water. It's not so it wasn't designed for life. Until you can prove to me the universe is indeed a huge blob of liquid water, I won't believe you when you tell me it was designed for life.
Again, I'm not an expert at the subject, but how are we so sure that absolutely no life can exist in space? Most likely based off of what humans know? Like, if stuff like waterbears (iirc) can be exposed the vacuum of space and come back to Earth and live, isn't there a shot?
That's an incredibly complex question, and although I used to think the same thing, as I've studied biochemistry at the university level (my major), I've learned that the answer to "Could life evolve in space?" is "Almost definitely not." Now that's not to say "absolutely not" because science has a way of surprising us, but the idea that life as complex as animal life could evolve in space is basically impossible. Maybe through genetic engineering life could be able to exist in space, but naturally, certainly not.
Life (in the scientific sense) is basically a series of complex chemical reactions that have increased in complexity via the mechanism we call evolution over billions of years to the point where we are now. In order for there to be a series of chemical reactions like those that life evolved from there needs to be certain conditions. If you study chemistry, you'll learn that water has some very unique properties that arise from its chemical structure- properties such as high amounts of hydrogen bonding which lead to things like high surface tension, a specific crystalline structure that results in solid ice being less dense than liquid ice, etc. which our form of life needs to exist. The specific phase (liquid) of water, the presence of certain biological precursors ("organic" compounds or their precursors), and the correct temperature were all necessary for there to be the complex reactions that life arose from, and on Earth, it just so happened that all the right conditions were present at the same time for life to arise.
In vacuum, water is either frozen or gaseous- because pressure is so low, there is no liquid state. Chemical reactions cannot occur if particles do not come into contact (which is rare in a vacuum). Chemical reactions cannot occur if the specific reactants don't come into contact. Chemical reactions cannot occur quick enough (if even at all) if temperatures are too low, and if temperatures are high (such as near a star) the resulting organic products would literally burn up.
I could go on for a long time, but it's really difficult to explain it all in a short amount of time, especially to someone who doesn't have a decent biology/chemistry/biochemistry background. Suffice it to say that given what we know about life today, it could not evolve in space, and actually requires very specific conditions (such as those on Earth for complex life or possibly Mars for less complex life) to arise. Anything else is conjecture at this point.
The thing is, the whole idea of life supported by water is based on the fact that all life on Earth revolves around water. Currently, scientists search for potential signs of life by looking mainly for water and environmental that supports liquid water. Why not other solvents? That is what I never understood. Does life always have to revolve around water?
A solvent that could possibly support life (the way that we think of it) is ammonia. I've read some arguments about this some time ago, but they've seem to have died out. A person with too much free time could probably speculate how life would be supported by ammonia. However, this remains pure theorycraft until proven otherwise.
On April 30 2012 22:17 Xpace wrote: I'm not going to claim to be an expert at this subject, but isn't it strange that people assume planets that support life must have certain environmental qualities, like water, oxygen, or non-fatal elements (predominantly to humans) in the atmosphere? Why must a planet mimic the qualities of Earth for it to have life? So far we only about our world, is it not possible that life exists on a planet that would, say, incinerate Earth-born creatures if they try to breath? I find it strange that people (or at least the general consensus I know of) have this assumption that any species not from our planet, regardless of its sentience, must be similar to what we simply believe them to be.
I'll refer to this topic:
On April 30 2012 21:58 Miyoshino wrote:
On April 30 2012 21:49 ArchAngelSC wrote: Correct me if I'm wrong but, isn't the whole theory of evolution based on adapting to your surroundings?
Life can't evolve in space period. The laws of nature were presicely fine tuned so that in 99.999999999% of the universe it is physically impossible for life to survive there. Almost all of space is a near vacuum that is near absolute zero. Then most stuff besides that are burning hot fusion engines that throw massive amounts of radiation into their surroundings. Then there are planets but most are either frozen or cooking.
Liquid water is the medium for life. If you designed the universe for life the universe would be one huge blob of liquid water. It's not so it wasn't designed for life. Until you can prove to me the universe is indeed a huge blob of liquid water, I won't believe you when you tell me it was designed for life.
Again, I'm not an expert at the subject, but how are we so sure that absolutely no life can exist in space? Most likely based off of what humans know? Like, if stuff like waterbears (iirc) can be exposed the vacuum of space and come back to Earth and live, isn't there a shot?
That's an incredibly complex question, and although I used to think the same thing, as I've studied biochemistry at the university level (my major), I've learned that the answer to "Could life evolve in space?" is "Almost definitely not." Now that's not to say "absolutely not" because science has a way of surprising us, but the idea that life as complex as animal life could evolve in space is basically impossible. Maybe through genetic engineering life could be able to exist in space, but naturally, certainly not.
Life (in the scientific sense) is basically a series of complex chemical reactions that have increased in complexity via the mechanism we call evolution over billions of years to the point where we are now. In order for there to be a series of chemical reactions like those that life evolved from there needs to be certain conditions. If you study chemistry, you'll learn that water has some very unique properties that arise from its chemical structure- properties such as high amounts of hydrogen bonding which lead to things like high surface tension, a specific crystalline structure that results in solid ice being less dense than liquid ice, etc. which our form of life needs to exist. The specific phase (liquid) of water, the presence of certain biological precursors ("organic" compounds or their precursors), and the correct temperature were all necessary for there to be the complex reactions that life arose from, and on Earth, it just so happened that all the right conditions were present at the same time for life to arise.
In vacuum, water is either frozen or gaseous- because pressure is so low, there is no liquid state. Chemical reactions cannot occur if particles do not come into contact (which is rare in a vacuum). Chemical reactions cannot occur if the specific reactants don't come into contact. Chemical reactions cannot occur quick enough (if even at all) if temperatures are too low, and if temperatures are high (such as near a star) the resulting organic products would literally burn up.
I could go on for a long time, but it's really difficult to explain it all in a short amount of time, especially to someone who doesn't have a decent biology/chemistry/biochemistry background. Suffice it to say that given what we know about life today, it could not evolve in space, and actually requires very specific conditions (such as those on Earth for complex life or possibly Mars for less complex life) to arise. Anything else is conjecture at this point.
I know that we are getting out of thread's context here but what do you think about abiogenesis?
AFAIK it's the most sound explanation for the beginning of life. The propagation of efficiently reproducing processes is a universal constant.
Also, ArchAngelSC, I'm not sure you have any idea what you're talking about. That's not supposed to be an insult, just an observation. The environment came first, life evolved out of it because it was the right environment for life to arise. Life wouldn't have arisen on Earth if the Earth was like Pluto- we know this because there is no life on Pluto.
No offence taken, don't worry But I'm not sure what you're talking about. Where did I say life came before the environment?
I knew my post would bring out some bio majors -.- but I'm glad the responses so far have been "it's not impossible, but as far as we (humans) know, it's highly improbable, and we probably wouldn't calling a species that can exist in space as a 'life'."
As far as i understand from your posts is some kind of "liquid" form of stuff is necessary. Water would be good but it might not be water too. Am i right ?
i wish people without knowledge of the subject would stop:
- comparing anthropic principle to intelligent design the first one says that the universe is obviously designed for life, if any of the physical laws or constant were different life wouldnt be possible, matter wouldnt even be possible. since in such universes there would be no one to observe their life-lessness, thus we cannot be sure if there is a huge succession of universed until
saying the universe is fine-tuned to support life has nothing to do with intelligent design theory!
- always bringing up that life might not need liquid water / carbon if you dont have a clue about chemistry please dont argue about that. both carbon and water are suited in so many unique ways specifically to support chemistry complicated enough to allow life that their peculiar features are even used for design arguments. all the science-fiction stuff about creatures made of gas or conscious interstellar clouds or stuff like that brought on by the likes of arthur c clarke or fred hoyle is just that. science fiction coupled with wishful thinking about a universe teeming with life.
i also dont like this typical american thing of trying to put someone you disagree with in the religious corner, but i guess thats what you get on internet forums... happens in a lot of scientific debates as well unfortunately, for example with every critic of mainstream evolutionary theory being put into the intelligent design corner. there is more than two sides to complicated issues....
the idea of life based on silicium instead of carbon is pretty old (i remember a ridiculous old original star trek episode with silicon-based thingies that could travel through stone... was hilarious like usual...), but unfortunately science seems to agree that life as we know it might be the only possible (or probable?) form of life
if we do find life it's extremely unlikely that it's a similar lifeform to the life on earth. it took billions of years to develop into humans and the fact that life excists out of water... not even gonna get started on that
On May 01 2012 01:20 horsebanger wrote: truthbombs:
we won't ever (ever) reach the other planets.
if we do find life it's extremely unlikely that it's a similar lifeform to the life on earth. it took billions of years to develop into humans and the fact that life excists out of water... not even gonna get started on that
Here comes another one claiming we already invented or discovered everything we can about the universe.
On April 30 2012 13:27 songohan wrote: this made me thing that we humans are like bacteria , evolving and evolving then searching for other planets (organisms) to spread to. and I'm not implying that we're parasites, bacteria can be good too!
and what exactly makes a bacterium 'good' or 'bad' in your opinion?
you know there bacteria acting like parasites and others that are beneficial to the organism they inhabit. it's not my opinion, it's a fact. If humans maintain a lifestyle that doesn't upset, but rather helps towards the natural balance of the planet, then they can be considered as beneficial towards that planet. Of course, to be considered an organism, a planet needs to have an already established simple life like the Earth (ie: water cycle, algae, grass, clouds). So yeah let me know if you still don't understand my analogy.
On May 01 2012 01:20 horsebanger wrote: truthbombs:
we won't ever (ever) reach the other planets.
if we do find life it's extremely unlikely that it's a similar lifeform to the life on earth. it took billions of years to develop into humans and the fact that life excists out of water... not even gonna get started on that
Thats a whole lot of truth you just dropped on us. Good thing you've elaborated and explained your claims with thorough and indepth facts to back your claims up and prove your so called "truthbombs".
Explain why we wont ever (ever) reach the other planets. In our life time, probably not. In our childrens, probably not. But consider how far weve come in the past 200 years compaired to the entirety of our existence. It wasn't so long ago that the Earth was flat, and now we can fly around it for low cost in under a day, when 500 years ago it was called "exploring". Cell phones, which we now take for granted, would have been the size of a room a few decades ago.
We now find new planets many light years away, and the best you have to say is "Meh, we wont get there anyways, and even if we do, we wont find anything," atleast back it up with some claim.
I find the whole thing amazing, its fun to discuss, especially a lot of the chemistry people explaining why carbon and water based life forms are for all intents and purposes the only practical way life can be supported. I for one have always been in the camp of "Why do we need water?", but the explainations made a lot of sense.
On May 01 2012 01:17 summerloud wrote: i wish people without knowledge of the subject would stop:
...
- always bringing up that life might not need liquid water / carbon if you dont have a clue about chemistry please dont argue about that. both carbon and water are suited in so many unique ways specifically to support chemistry complicated enough to allow life that their peculiar features are even used for design arguments. all the science-fiction stuff about creatures made of gas or conscious interstellar clouds or stuff like that brought on by the likes of arthur c clarke or fred hoyle is just that. science fiction coupled with wishful thinking about a universe teeming with life.
This is basically how I feel about this whole debate. Yeah it's maybe possible that life could arise based on ammonia or methane, but the way water and carbon react is both so unique and so essential to life as we know it, that it's highly unlikely. And no, not just "any liquid" will work as the correct solvent. Ammonia and methane don't hydrogen bond with themselves like water does, and water's unique properties come from this ability, which comes from its structure.
I don't mean to sound elitist, but if you haven't at least taken organic chemistry you probably won't be able to understand why.
On May 01 2012 01:17 summerloud wrote: i wish people without knowledge of the subject would stop:
...
- always bringing up that life might not need liquid water / carbon if you dont have a clue about chemistry please dont argue about that. both carbon and water are suited in so many unique ways specifically to support chemistry complicated enough to allow life that their peculiar features are even used for design arguments. all the science-fiction stuff about creatures made of gas or conscious interstellar clouds or stuff like that brought on by the likes of arthur c clarke or fred hoyle is just that. science fiction coupled with wishful thinking about a universe teeming with life.
This is basically how I feel about this whole debate. Yeah it's maybe possible that life could arise based on ammonia or methane, but the way water and carbon react is both so unique and so essential to life as we know it, that it's highly unlikely. And no, not just "any liquid" will work as the correct solvent. Ammonia and methane don't hydrogen bond with themselves like water does, and water's unique properties come from this ability, which comes from its structure.
I don't mean to sound elitist, but if you haven't at least taken organic chemistry you probably won't be able to understand why.
I've taken organic chemistry in high school. Dunno other countries but in my country they teach that in last year high school. I don't remember all of it though because it's been many years and my field is far away from chemistry.
On April 30 2012 13:27 songohan wrote: this made me thing that we humans are like bacteria , evolving and evolving then searching for other planets (organisms) to spread to. and I'm not implying that we're parasites, bacteria can be good too!
and what exactly makes a bacterium 'good' or 'bad' in your opinion?
you know there bacteria acting like parasites and others that are beneficial to the organism they inhabit. it's not my opinion, it's a fact. If humans maintain a lifestyle that doesn't upset, but rather helps towards the natural balance of the planet, then they can be considered as beneficial towards that planet. Of course, to be considered an organism, a planet needs to have an already established simple life like the Earth (ie: water cycle, algae, grass, clouds). So yeah let me know if you still don't understand my analogy.
Beneficial/malignant to what? It's all relative terms.
For example, it's widely believed that the first mass extinction was of anaerobic bacteria, the first successful form of bacteria, who were poisoned by the introduction of molecular oxygen into the world (the oxygen we now breathe and require for life). Where did all this molecular oxygen come from? None other than the first aerobic bacteria, who had evolved efficient metabolic processes that had oxygen as a waste product. Were they good or bad? They evolved this ability naturally, and yet they changed all life on the planet- today, all living things either require or produce oxygen, the only exceptions being certain bacteria living in hot springs and deep-sea vents.
Nature never was, is not, and never will be some static thing. It's constantly changing every day, and the only reason we have such illusions that it doesn't change is because we are so short-lived.
Now does that mean I don't believe in conservation efforts? No, of course not. I'd rather my planet was like Aiur than Char or Tarsonis.
On April 30 2012 13:27 songohan wrote: this made me thing that we humans are like bacteria , evolving and evolving then searching for other planets (organisms) to spread to. and I'm not implying that we're parasites, bacteria can be good too!
and what exactly makes a bacterium 'good' or 'bad' in your opinion?
you know there bacteria acting like parasites and others that are beneficial to the organism they inhabit. it's not my opinion, it's a fact. If humans maintain a lifestyle that doesn't upset, but rather helps towards the natural balance of the planet, then they can be considered as beneficial towards that planet. Of course, to be considered an organism, a planet needs to have an already established simple life like the Earth (ie: water cycle, algae, grass, clouds). So yeah let me know if you still don't understand my analogy.
sorry to sound harsh but thats a load of new age pseudo-blabla that makes zero sense. what is the natural balance of the planet? would you say the algae that started releasing toxic oxygene into the atmosphere 2 billion years ago and led to the mass extinction of most life on the surface but later to the emergence of aerobic life are good because they helped the 'natural balance' or bad because they made so many other things die out?
if you try to apply morals to nature and see humans not as part as the whole system you mostly end up making no sense, sorry. also even your original analogy made no sense. all life tries to expand to all possible habitats, thats a general feature of life and not constricted to bacteria
im sorry if im being a dick i realize what you are trying to say im just pointing out it doesnt make any sense
On May 01 2012 01:20 horsebanger wrote: truthbombs:
we won't ever (ever) reach the other planets.
if we do find life it's extremely unlikely that it's a similar lifeform to the life on earth. it took billions of years to develop into humans and the fact that life excists out of water... not even gonna get started on that
agreed in general, but you cannot say it took billions of years to evolve humans. as far as we know we only had multcellular life for around 600 million years, why we had single celled life for almost 4 billion years before that... no one really knows
thats the next step after the inital creation of life thats still a mystery... and there is simply no scientific way to argue that life will always evolve like that since we can only observer it here on earth (and we can only observe it because we did indeed evolve thus)
that was actually one point made by rare earth theories, even if life might start on other worlds, most likely it will always stay at the bacterial level.
and even if you evolve multicellular life - there is no way to tell if it automaticall will result in life as intelligent as humans. without an asteroid offing all the dinos we might have never had humans on earth either. look at all the lifeforms on earth, there seems to be only a very small branch of life (ie primates) tending towards higher intelligence. if you took all primates off the earth, would some other animal arise to build civilizations and dominate the planet? and if, which one?
thats actually a kindof funny question so i decided to make a poll:
Poll: if primates were removed, what other lifeform would develop civilizati
state-building insects (5)
50%
bears or some other land-mammal (2)
20%
octopus or some other invertebrate (1)
10%
something entirely new (1)
10%
dolphins or some other water-mammal (1)
10%
birds (0)
0%
funghi (0)
0%
bacteria (0)
0%
fish (0)
0%
plants (0)
0%
10 total votes
Your vote: if primates were removed, what other lifeform would develop civilizati
(Vote): state-building insects (Vote): octopus or some other invertebrate (Vote): bears or some other land-mammal (Vote): birds (Vote): something entirely new (Vote): funghi (Vote): bacteria (Vote): dolphins or some other water-mammal (Vote): fish (Vote): plants
On May 01 2012 01:20 horsebanger wrote: truthbombs:
we won't ever (ever) reach the other planets.
if we do find life it's extremely unlikely that it's a similar lifeform to the life on earth. it took billions of years to develop into humans and the fact that life excists out of water... not even gonna get started on that
You know people used to say that we could never go faster than the speed of sound. Billions of years is a short time when compared to the age of the universe. Water creatures crawling out of the ocean was inevitable.
I'm a big believer that we are going to find lots and lots of life out there. We have found life in some of the most inhospitable regions of earth without a clue to how it got there. Intelligent life may me another matter though - most animals we know of don't actually need to evolve a big brain to survive.
Anyway, I'd also say that we have probably been visited by Aliens, but also that we are too insignificant for them to even stop and examine. To an intergalactic alien race, we would just be another bunch of mammals. Also, if we do find life, it won't be like in Star Trek, probably it will be more like Ender's Game.
On May 01 2012 01:17 summerloud wrote: i wish people without knowledge of the subject would stop:
...
- always bringing up that life might not need liquid water / carbon if you dont have a clue about chemistry please dont argue about that. both carbon and water are suited in so many unique ways specifically to support chemistry complicated enough to allow life that their peculiar features are even used for design arguments. all the science-fiction stuff about creatures made of gas or conscious interstellar clouds or stuff like that brought on by the likes of arthur c clarke or fred hoyle is just that. science fiction coupled with wishful thinking about a universe teeming with life.
This is basically how I feel about this whole debate. Yeah it's maybe possible that life could arise based on ammonia or methane, but the way water and carbon react is both so unique and so essential to life as we know it, that it's highly unlikely. And no, not just "any liquid" will work as the correct solvent. Ammonia and methane don't hydrogen bond with themselves like water does, and water's unique properties come from this ability, which comes from its structure.
I don't mean to sound elitist, but if you haven't at least taken organic chemistry you probably won't be able to understand why.
Wrong. The ability to form two hydrogen bonds per molecule in water (compared to one in ammonia) mainly affects boiling point. At Earth's temperature, water is a liquid while ammonia is a gas. In another planet with lower temperatures, the reverse occurs. Ammonia and water have a similar ability to dissolve polar substances, which is the main purpose of having water. While extremely unlikely, it is not impossible that life in another planet is based on ammonia. Is there a specific property of water that no other compound is able to possess a similar function?
Edit:
On May 01 2012 01:54 summerloud wrote: and even if you evolve multicellular life - there is no way to tell if it automaticall will result in life as intelligent as humans. without an asteroid offing all the dinos we might have never had humans on earth either. look at all the lifeforms on earth, there seems to be only a very small branch of life (ie primates) tending towards higher intelligence. if you took all primates off the earth, would some other animal arise to build civilizations and dominate the planet? and if, which one?
The evolution from a unicellular organism to a multicellular organism is a huge leap. However, once that leap does indeed occur, evolution can occur rapidly. The evolution of primates occurred over a relatively short period of time. Human civilization as we know it, evolved over thousands of years. And it's not even unique to us. Other lifeforms on Earth greatly modify the planet too: ants and termites make complex nests, beavers build dams, and the list goes on. Everything is subjective. All these points that you've been mentioning are based on casual observance, they've not been rigorously tested. Indeed, we don't have the ability to test out a ton of hypotheses.
I'm a big believer that we are going to find lots and lots of life out there. We have found life in some of the most inhospitable regions of earth without a clue to how it got there. Intelligent life may me another matter though - most animals we know of don't actually need to evolve a big brain to survive.
the thing most people dont realize is: life evolving to be able to survive in extreme habitats does not equal life being able to form in these conditions. its really a moot point in a way because, like i said before, there is just no good theory of how life ever came into existence in the first place, but it might require a very very specific set of environment and/or a fucking miracle
i have to say the more i studied biology and found out how extremely complicated the most primitive living cell is the more i began to believe in purpose/teleology/a creator
right now it seems fashionable in biology to have the model that self-catalysing proteins where the first stage of life, followed by rna-based life, followed by dna-based life. how evolution is supposed to be able to change the very thing it needs to work (the genetic code), nobody has been able to explain to me. to me it seems impossible for life to switch from rna to dna without admitting that there is a purpose driving the whole of evolution. blind watch maker my ass... (i despise dawkins btw)
i could rave on and on about this topic for pages i guess, but im not sure if this is the right thread for it... ill wait for the next evolution vs intelligent design thread to pop up i guess
We understand our realm on earth very well i.e chemistry,biology, and physics. But again all of these things pertain to us and what we have experienced/perceive. For us to to say that only life can be created by water and carbon is ignorant. The periodic table is not finished and I am sure there are way more elements to be discovered not only on Earth but also out there somewhere. We haven't experienced/learned about everything that is possible out "there."
Even if we assume that life revolves around the carbon and that "water is the universal solvent" there are so many systems out there now AND being created that statistics itself shows it would be foolish to assume no life is out there.
On May 01 2012 01:20 horsebanger wrote: truthbombs:
we won't ever (ever) reach the other planets.
if we do find life it's extremely unlikely that it's a similar lifeform to the life on earth. it took billions of years to develop into humans and the fact that life excists out of water... not even gonna get started on that
You know people used to say that we could never go faster than the speed of sound. Billions of years is a short time when compared to the age of the universe. Water creatures crawling out of the ocean was inevitable.
I'm a big believer that we are going to find lots and lots of life out there. We have found life in some of the most inhospitable regions of earth without a clue to how it got there. Intelligent life may me another matter though - most animals we know of don't actually need to evolve a big brain to survive.
Anyway, I'd also say that we have probably been visited by Aliens, but also that we are too insignificant for them to even stop and examine. To an intergalactic alien race, we would just be another bunch of mammals. Also, if we do find life, it won't be like in Star Trek, probably it will be more like Ender's Game.
^^This. Earth itself is relatively young. The formation of life on Earth is not considered to be that old in comparison to other planets
I'm a big believer that we are going to find lots and lots of life out there. We have found life in some of the most inhospitable regions of earth without a clue to how it got there. Intelligent life may me another matter though - most animals we know of don't actually need to evolve a big brain to survive.
the thing most people dont realize is: life evolving to be able to survive in extreme habitats does not equal life being able to form in these conditions. its really a moot point in a way because, like i said before, there is just no good theory of how life ever came into existence in the first place, but it might require a very very specific set of environment and/or a fucking miracle
i have to say the more i studied biology and found out how extremely complicated the most primitive living cell is the more i began to believe in purpose/teleology/a creator
right now it seems fashionable in biology to have the model that self-catalysing proteins where the first stage of life, followed by rna-based life, followed by dna-based life. how evolution is supposed to be able to change the very thing it needs to work (the genetic code), nobody has been able to explain to me. to me it seems impossible for life to switch from rna to dna without admitting that there is a purpose driving the whole of evolution. blind watch maker my ass... (i despise dawkins btw)
i could rave on and on about this topic for pages i guess, but im not sure if this is the right thread for it... ill wait for the next evolution vs intelligent design thread to pop up i guess
There's been a lot of theory on how life evolved. People made primordial soup experiments and showed that RNA precursors can be generated by pure physical processes. Other groups have even shown how an RNA molecule can act as an evolving, self-catalyzing molecule. Please read up on scientific literature before spreading myths.
RNA is believed to be the very first self-replicating molecule. Ever heard of ribozymes? The RNA world is only feasible in a reducing environment free of molecular oxygen. Proteins came later in the equation. If you put proteins first, you've got yourself a chicken and egg scenario.
RNA has advantages over DNA: higher rates of mutation. The higher rate of mutation is good during the early stages of RNA evolution. However, once RNA molecules predominated, it was an evolutionary advantage to preserve a "good" sequence, which allowed the switch from RNA to DNA. However, RNA is not completely eliminated as DNA isn't flexible enough to perform certain functions of RNA.
On May 01 2012 00:44 ChosenSC2 wrote: It doesn't matter cuz we'll never be able to get there? Especially in any sort of mass travel form ^^
You can get there. Relativity doesn't actually prevent you from travelling anywhere in a reasonable amount of time, because as you speed up the universe appears to shrink. At 1/sqrt(2) * c m/s you're effectively travelling at the speed of light, if you measure time in the traveller's reference frame and distance in the rest frame of your departure point. You could travel to Alpha Centauri and only age a few years, but people back on Earth would've aged millions of years.
Doesn't matter will take us 10000000000000000 years to get there because no one can figure out how to travel faster, in such high speed that it takes a couple of hours.
On May 01 2012 02:54 SevenOfNine wrote: Doesn't matter will take us 10000000000000000 years to get there because no one can figure out how to travel faster, in such high speed that it takes a couple of hours.
People said that we would never fly, go to space or the moon, travel faster than sound, have world population increasing, find alternative energy source.
But here we are always changing and surprising people. We have nice stuff now because of people putting faith. Not just discarding the idea based on a grain of doubt.
On May 01 2012 02:54 SevenOfNine wrote: Doesn't matter will take us 10000000000000000 years to get there because no one can figure out how to travel faster, in such high speed that it takes a couple of hours.
Well read my post above yours You can get there because time slows down / the universe shrinks when you accelerate.
The real problem is having enough energy to accelerate a ship to the needed speeds. Also the fact that humans can't accelerate very fast without becoming pancakes.
There's been a lot of theory on how life evolved. People made primordial soup experiments and showed that RNA precursors can be generated by pure physical processes. Other groups have even shown how an RNA molecule can act as an evolving, self-catalyzing molecule. Please read up on scientific literature before spreading myths.
RNA is believed to be the very first self-replicating molecule. Ever heard of ribozymes? The RNA world is only feasible in a reducing environment free of molecular oxygen. Proteins came later in the equation. If you put proteins first, you've got yourself a chicken and egg scenario.
RNA has advantages over DNA: higher rates of mutation. The higher rate of mutation is good during the early stages of RNA evolution. However, once RNA molecules predominated, it was an evolutionary advantage to preserve a "good" sequence, which allowed the switch from RNA to DNA. However, RNA is not completely eliminated as DNA isn't flexible enough to perform certain functions of RNA.
oh wow, rna precursors can be generated by physical processes! that certainly explains everything about how the first fully functioning cell magically appeared. people tend to give too much importance to these experiments a lá urey-miller, just because you have all the parts you need doesnt explain how they assembled. thats not theory how life evolved, thats theory about how organic parts that could form life later on got created in the first place. dont mix these up please, since one is rather easy and the other one seems impossible still
and if you put rna first you dont have a chicken and egg scenario? im aware of the advantages of dna over rna but that doesnt explain how the switch could be ever accomplished. thats a chicken-egg scenario for you right there
also you manage not only to make your whole post in a unnecessarily arrogant tone but also seem to try to show off with information that is irrelevant. the exact conditions at the point where life first came into being are unknown, so it doesnt matter weather rna world scenarios only work in reducing atmospheres, what a weird thing to bring up
you cant even be sure it was earth where life as we know it now started. life might as well have first evolved on mars (which had good conditions before earth did) and got transplanted to earth by a meteroite. that obviously answers no questions and doesnt affect the question of extraterrestrial life much since the spread of life from other planets (panspermia) might be easy within the solar system but is pretty far fetched interstellar
i am aware of the advantages of dna over rna but that doesnt explain how its supposed to be possible to replace the very mechanism you need for reproduction by means of natural selection. if you know about biochemistry and you are certainly at least trying to come across as knowledgeable then you know how many enzymes are involved just in the reproduction of dna. its the typical problem of unguided evolution: you have a mechanism with a lot of complicated parts, and evolving one single part gives you no advantage, so how is it supposed to happen? all at once? thats another miracle right there...
i think i have to stop now otherwise i ll start rambling about evolution too much which isnt really on topic i guess...
On May 01 2012 02:45 heroyi wrote: We understand our realm on earth very well i.e chemistry,biology, and physics. But again all of these things pertain to us and what we have experienced/perceive. For us to to say that only life can be created by water and carbon is ignorant. The periodic table is not finished and I am sure there are way more elements to be discovered not only on Earth but also out there somewhere. We haven't experienced/learned about everything that is possible out "there."
no no no no no no no no... to 'be sure' of something you should first have at least a BASIC understanding of that topic... if you had any clue about physics at all you would be rather sure of the opposite you said... its too bad that the certainty of peoples beliefs always seems to be inverserly proportional to how much people know about a given topic
please try not to be sure of anything, okay? we wont discover any more elements outside of high-energy physics laboratories, this i am ALMOST sure of, since it would violate pretty much everything we know about physics. and even if we did heavier elements wouldnt matter in any way for organic chemistry...
On May 01 2012 02:45 heroyi wrote: We understand our realm on earth very well i.e chemistry,biology, and physics. But again all of these things pertain to us and what we have experienced/perceive. For us to to say that only life can be created by water and carbon is ignorant. The periodic table is not finished and I am sure there are way more elements to be discovered not only on Earth but also out there somewhere. We haven't experienced/learned about everything that is possible out "there."
no no no no no no no no... to 'be sure' of something you should first have at least a BASIC understanding of that topic... if you had any clue about physics at all you would be rather sure of the opposite you said... its too bad that the certainty of peoples beliefs always seems to be inverserly proportional to how much people know about a given topic
please try not to be sure of anything, okay? we wont discover any more elements outside of high-energy physics laboratories, this i am ALMOST sure of, since it would violate pretty much everything we know about physics. and even if we did heavier elements wouldnt matter in any way for organic chemistry...
No... it would not violate physics. Physics and chemistry say they should be more elements that we know of. With the conditions from star collapses and supernovae we should find traces of these higher elements. For someone that's complaining about everyone not having a basic understanding of the topic you must've not gotten a C yourself... read up, lots of active research is in this field. Here's a starter:
On May 01 2012 00:44 ChosenSC2 wrote: It doesn't matter cuz we'll never be able to get there? Especially in any sort of mass travel form ^^
You can get there. Relativity doesn't actually prevent you from travelling anywhere in a reasonable amount of time, because as you speed up the universe appears to shrink. At 1/sqrt(2) * c m/s you're effectively travelling at the speed of light, if you measure time in the traveller's reference frame and distance in the rest frame of your departure point. You could travel to Alpha Centauri and only age a few years, but people back on Earth would've aged millions of years.
There's been a lot of theory on how life evolved. People made primordial soup experiments and showed that RNA precursors can be generated by pure physical processes. Other groups have even shown how an RNA molecule can act as an evolving, self-catalyzing molecule. Please read up on scientific literature before spreading myths.
RNA is believed to be the very first self-replicating molecule. Ever heard of ribozymes? The RNA world is only feasible in a reducing environment free of molecular oxygen. Proteins came later in the equation. If you put proteins first, you've got yourself a chicken and egg scenario.
RNA has advantages over DNA: higher rates of mutation. The higher rate of mutation is good during the early stages of RNA evolution. However, once RNA molecules predominated, it was an evolutionary advantage to preserve a "good" sequence, which allowed the switch from RNA to DNA. However, RNA is not completely eliminated as DNA isn't flexible enough to perform certain functions of RNA.
oh wow, rna precursors can be generated by physical processes! that certainly explains everything about how the first fully functioning cell magically appeared. people tend to give too much importance to these experiments a lá urey-miller, just because you have all the parts you need doesnt explain how they assembled. thats not theory how life evolved, thats theory about how organic parts that could form life later on got created in the first place. dont mix these up please, since one is rather easy and the other one seems impossible still
and if you put rna first you dont have a chicken and egg scenario? im aware of the advantages of dna over rna but that doesnt explain how the switch could be ever accomplished. thats a chicken-egg scenario for you right there
also you manage not only to make your whole post in a unnecessarily arrogant tone but also seem to try to show off with information that is irrelevant. the exact conditions at the point where life first came into being are unknown, so it doesnt matter weather rna world scenarios only work in reducing atmospheres, what a weird thing to bring up
you cant even be sure it was earth where life as we know it now started. life might as well have first evolved on mars (which had good conditions before earth did) and got transplanted to earth by a meteroite. that obviously answers no questions and doesnt affect the question of extraterrestrial life much since the spread of life from other planets (panspermia) might be easy within the solar system but is pretty far fetched interstellar
i am aware of the advantages of dna over rna but that doesnt explain how its supposed to be possible to replace the very mechanism you need for reproduction by means of natural selection. if you know about biochemistry and you are certainly at least trying to come across as knowledgeable then you know how many enzymes are involved just in the reproduction of dna. its the typical problem of unguided evolution: you have a mechanism with a lot of complicated parts, and evolving one single part gives you no advantage, so how is it supposed to happen? all at once? thats another miracle right there...
i think i have to stop now otherwise i ll start rambling about evolution too much which isnt really on topic i guess...
I mentioned all these for a reason. That the precursors to life as we know it CAN be generated by physical processes, which enables a platform for evolution to act upon. Once we have proven that nucleotides can form in a reducing environment (because that's what the world was like before aerobic organisms dominated, I mentioned it for a reason), we have also proven that nucleotides can self-assemble into oligonucleotides and disassemble without any catalysis involved. Now, is it too far fetched to say that some of these oligos are able to undergo template-based replication? No, because we have ligase ribozymes. How did cells form? When you have a ribozyme, there is a evolutionary advantage to limiting its function of self-RNA molecules and not other random RNA molecules? How do you do this? You envelop the ribozyme and all necessary precursors in a lipid bilayer. Voila! You have a primitive cell (actually a liposome).
RNA and DNA nucleotides are structurally similar; they only differ at two areas. This structural similarity is key. An RNA-dependent RNA polymerase can undergo mutations at the catalytic site to allow DNA nucleotides into the active site, catalyzing new copies of DNA. This DNA now codes for a polymerase; now you have made the transition from RNA to DNA. Does this sound like a load of bullshit to you?
The whole part about Mars is just going off-topic.
I come across as arrogant, because I hate it when people take scientific facts and distort it in order to say something entirely different. That's what I feel you're doing. This is the internet, so there will be people dumb enough to accept everything at face value and then propagate the myth. An example is my friend on Facebook posting about the "alkaline diet", which is just a bunch of bullshit pseudoscience.
On May 01 2012 02:45 heroyi wrote: We understand our realm on earth very well i.e chemistry,biology, and physics. But again all of these things pertain to us and what we have experienced/perceive. For us to to say that only life can be created by water and carbon is ignorant. The periodic table is not finished and I am sure there are way more elements to be discovered not only on Earth but also out there somewhere. We haven't experienced/learned about everything that is possible out "there."
no no no no no no no no... to 'be sure' of something you should first have at least a BASIC understanding of that topic... if you had any clue about physics at all you would be rather sure of the opposite you said... its too bad that the certainty of peoples beliefs always seems to be inverserly proportional to how much people know about a given topic
please try not to be sure of anything, okay? we wont discover any more elements outside of high-energy physics laboratories, this i am ALMOST sure of, since it would violate pretty much everything we know about physics. and even if we did heavier elements wouldnt matter in any way for organic chemistry...
Key word... It is widely accepted and understood that we have much to learn in our physic. There is a lot of fields that have yet to be really explored which would help unlock many questions once understood.
We are always updating the chart (slowly). And besides if heavier elements were to be discovered how do you know that they wouldn't affect life in some way in other distance planets considering we know nothing about the element and the planets affected.
So no no no no and shame on you sir. Please refrain from insulting people. It makes you look weaker when your statement is already weak as it is.
On May 01 2012 01:20 horsebanger wrote: truthbombs:
we won't ever (ever) reach the other planets.
if we do find life it's extremely unlikely that it's a similar lifeform to the life on earth. it took billions of years to develop into humans and the fact that life excists out of water... not even gonna get started on that
Thats a whole lot of truth you just dropped on us. Good thing you've elaborated and explained your claims with thorough and indepth facts to back your claims up and prove your so called "truthbombs".
Explain why we wont ever (ever) reach the other planets. In our life time, probably not. In our childrens, probably not. But consider how far weve come in the past 200 years compaired to the entirety of our existence. It wasn't so long ago that the Earth was flat, and now we can fly around it for low cost in under a day, when 500 years ago it was called "exploring". Cell phones, which we now take for granted, would have been the size of a room a few decades ago.
We now find new planets many light years away, and the best you have to say is "Meh, we wont get there anyways, and even if we do, we wont find anything," atleast back it up with some claim.
I find the whole thing amazing, its fun to discuss, especially a lot of the chemistry people explaining why carbon and water based life forms are for all intents and purposes the only practical way life can be supported. I for one have always been in the camp of "Why do we need water?", but the explainations made a lot of sense.
1. google "lightyear" 2. google "closest exoplanet" 3. see how many lightyears away it is
On May 01 2012 00:44 ChosenSC2 wrote: It doesn't matter cuz we'll never be able to get there? Especially in any sort of mass travel form ^^
You can get there. Relativity doesn't actually prevent you from travelling anywhere in a reasonable amount of time, because as you speed up the universe appears to shrink. At 1/sqrt(2) * c m/s you're effectively travelling at the speed of light, if you measure time in the traveller's reference frame and distance in the rest frame of your departure point. You could travel to Alpha Centauri and only age a few years, but people back on Earth would've aged millions of years.
Here's a graph I made to depict what you're talking about. While going faster does get you there sooner, and that has a bound limit of the time it takes light to get to the same location to the viewer, the traveler can actually spend even less time traveling. After you go about 0.707 times the speed of light, you can get to a destination and age less than the time it takes light to go the same distance. If you were to go the speed of light, the trip would be instantaneous to you, while observers from home would see X years go by.
Anyone read up on the recent theory by some Cornell people that smaller suns (than ours) have a wider range where planets could exist that can support life. This plus the fact that most of the suns in our galaxy are much smaller leads to the thought that maybe advanced lifeforms are all over the galaxy but just never bothered to check our solar system, given how unlikely it is for our sun to support life. Interesting thought .
We could reach Alpha Centauri in what 45 years if we have a hugh Solar Sail being power by lasers(?)... Of course we would need huge leaps in Engineering, Medicine, etc. But they could be used here locally, I belioeve there is one orbiting the Earth right now.
On May 01 2012 01:20 horsebanger wrote: truthbombs:
we won't ever (ever) reach the other planets.
if we do find life it's extremely unlikely that it's a similar lifeform to the life on earth. it took billions of years to develop into humans and the fact that life excists out of water... not even gonna get started on that
Thats a whole lot of truth you just dropped on us. Good thing you've elaborated and explained your claims with thorough and indepth facts to back your claims up and prove your so called "truthbombs".
Explain why we wont ever (ever) reach the other planets. In our life time, probably not. In our childrens, probably not. But consider how far weve come in the past 200 years compaired to the entirety of our existence. It wasn't so long ago that the Earth was flat, and now we can fly around it for low cost in under a day, when 500 years ago it was called "exploring". Cell phones, which we now take for granted, would have been the size of a room a few decades ago.
We now find new planets many light years away, and the best you have to say is "Meh, we wont get there anyways, and even if we do, we wont find anything," atleast back it up with some claim.
I find the whole thing amazing, its fun to discuss, especially a lot of the chemistry people explaining why carbon and water based life forms are for all intents and purposes the only practical way life can be supported. I for one have always been in the camp of "Why do we need water?", but the explainations made a lot of sense.
1. google "lightyear" 2. google "closest exoplanet" 3. see how many lightyears away it is
enough said
That is like the worst counter argument I've ever read. What is this, 4th grade debate?
so if traveling in the speed of light makes the trip seem instant, how the heck is it possible 2 know when 2 stop? ^^ "oh shitz, i just traveld 50 million lightyears and just pressed luanchbutton".
The problem isn't the speed of light. The problems are twofold. The exponential nature of the rocket formula and the limits of human physiology.
Every time you want to go faster you need exponentially more fuel and all that fuel is only spend to accelerate the fuel you need later. Now this applies to chemical rockets very much. But even if you have a fusion engine, it still holds but is much much much less of a problem for practical purposes. Don't forget you also need fuel to slow down. It's just as much of an issue as speeding up.
Once you have an anti matter engine and fuel to fuel fuel becomes less of a problem. Then it's the problem of acceleration and g forces. Ideal would be to accelerate with 1 g. But if you do you will be accelerating for a long long time before you get anywhere close to light speed. It would take a year. So you can have a nice graph with the time in years it takes to cover 5 ly and it will go to almost zero very near 1 c, it ignores accelerating. And then again you need to slow down. So when you finally get to a nice fraction of light speed, you need to slow down again.
An average human male may weight 70 kg. That's 50 kg of water and 20 kg of dry weight. Now cryogenic sleep is nice and all, but it would be nicer if we can get rid of all that useless water as well. All the DNA in a human body should weight near about 1/100th of a gram. But that's millions of cells. You only need one copy of DNA to build a human. So when you use nanobots with DNA, you don't need to send people and you don't have any problems with mass or with g forces. The weight of the nanobots used to build the installation that can create a human out of the water and carbon locally available don't need to have much mass. In theory 1 nanobot could do it.
On May 01 2012 05:41 V6 wrote: so if traveling in the speed of light makes the trip seem instant, how the heck is it possible 2 know when 2 stop? ^^ "oh shitz, i just traveld 50 million lightyears and just pressed luanchbutton".
Univers map needed ^^
You can't reach the speed of light. If you do you are frozen in time and you won't ever get to 'press the button'. If you are very near, being just a few nanoseconds off means you miss your target by a large margin. The closer to the speed of light, the bigger the distance and the higher the precision needed. As you approach the speed of light, you approach overshooting your destination by an infinite distance and you need infinite accuracy to stop exactly at the right moment. But this is all theoy since you have to accelerate.
On May 01 2012 05:43 Miyoshino wrote: The problem isn't the speed of light. The problems are twofold. The exponential nature of the rocket formula and the limits of human physiology.
Every time you want to go faster you need exponentially more fuel and all that fuel is only spend to accelerate the fuel you need later. Now this applies to chemical rockets very much. But even if you have a fusion engine, it still holds but is much much much less of a problem for practical purposes. Don't forget you also need fuel to slow down. It's just as much of an issue as speeding up.
Once you have an anti matter engine and fuel to fuel fuel becomes less of a problem. Then it's the problem of acceleration and g forces. Ideal would be to accelerate with 1 g. But if you do you will be accelerating for a long long time before you get anywhere close to light speed. It would take a year. So you can have a nice graph with the time in years it takes to cover 5 ly and it will go to almost zero very near 1 c, it ignores accelerating. And then again you need to slow down. So when you finally get to a nice fraction of light speed, you need to slow down again.
An average human male may weight 70 kg. That's 50 kg of water and 20 kg of dry weight. Now cryogenic sleep is nice and all, but it would be nicer if we can get rid of all that useless water as well. All the DNA in a human body should weight near about 1/100th of a gram. But that's millions of cells. You only need one copy of DNA to build a human. So when you use nanobots with DNA, you don't need to send people and you don't have any problems with mass or with g forces. The weight of the nanobots used to build the installation that can create a human out of the water and carbon locally available don't need to have much mass. In theory 1 nanobot could do it.
On May 01 2012 05:41 V6 wrote: so if traveling in the speed of light makes the trip seem instant, how the heck is it possible 2 know when 2 stop? ^^ "oh shitz, i just traveld 50 million lightyears and just pressed luanchbutton".
Univers map needed ^^
You can't reach the speed of light. If you do you are frozen in time and you won't ever get to 'press the button'. If you are very near, being just a few nanoseconds off means you miss your target by a large margin. The closer to the speed of light, the bigger the distance and the higher the precision needed. As you approach the speed of light, you approach overshooting your destination by an infinite distance and you need infinite accuracy to stop exactly at the right moment. But this is all theoy since you have to accelerate.
The argument was good until you started talking about breaking down a human. There's more to a human than just DNA. If you exclude random mutations (that occur ~3 times per cell division), then there's no way that these so-called nanobots can distinguish between a 2 year old child and an 80 year old man. Then there's environmental factors, memory (no one really knows how the brain works), and a host of other factors. You're stuck with trying to transport the whole human. The best thing you can do is to make the person go on a diet =D
Life could never ever have been there since the begining of earth formation. Dusts and space debris gathering around the core during millions of years could not have permitted life, But the multitude of meteorites impacts on our earth could have permitted some organism trapped into ice to smash the earth and somehow managed to survive (unicellular organisms are extremely robust life forms). Exactly like how pollen works on earth. If you see a flower in a field, it's hard to imagine that there is no other nearby.
On May 01 2012 05:58 Heh_ wrote: The argument was good until you started talking about breaking down a human. There's more to a human than just DNA. If you exclude random mutations (that occur ~3 times per cell division), then there's no way that these so-called nanobots can distinguish between a 2 year old child and an 80 year old man. Then there's environmental factors, memory (no one really knows how the brain works), and a host of other factors. You're stuck with trying to transport the whole human. The best thing you can do is to make the person go on a diet =D
Then the acceleration turns said human into pulp.
Edit: typo
lol, you don't reconstruct existing people using DNA. You grow new ones. Some people want humans to be a two planet species at the minimum so we don't go extinct. I myself think it's fine for humans to go extinct? Why not? No one was worried about us not being there before we evolved. I think it is also kind of cruel to force some people to grow up as the first generation on some planet far far away from earth. They didn't have the choice in the matter at all. But anyway, some people are going to want to do this anyway and this will be the way it will be done if it ever happens.
The humans you grow from the DNA after it arrives do need some education of course otherwise they will be mentally impaired. So you need to supply that as well. But information is either near weightless (internet is guessed to be 50 grammes) or you can just send it with the speed of light if you have a receiver.
So no, no interstellar space tourism ever. Unless we discover crazy technology that can break all the laws and basically teleport us by turning off our mass or act like a warp drive or worm hole.
On May 01 2012 05:58 Heh_ wrote: The argument was good until you started talking about breaking down a human. There's more to a human than just DNA. If you exclude random mutations (that occur ~3 times per cell division), then there's no way that these so-called nanobots can distinguish between a 2 year old child and an 80 year old man. Then there's environmental factors, memory (no one really knows how the brain works), and a host of other factors. You're stuck with trying to transport the whole human. The best thing you can do is to make the person go on a diet =D
Then the acceleration turns said human into pulp.
Edit: typo
lol, you don't reconstruct existing people using DNA. You grow new ones. Some people want humans to be a two planet species at the minimum so we don't go extinct. I myself think it's fine for humans to go extinct? Why not? No one was worried about us not being there before we evolved. I think it is also kind of cruel to force some people to grow up as the first generation on some planet far far away from earth. They didn't have the choice in the matter at all. But anyway, some people are going to want to do this anyway and this will be the way it will be done if it ever happens.
The humans you grow from the DNA after it arrives do need some education of course otherwise they will be mentally impaired. So you need to supply that as well. But information is either near weightless (internet is guessed to be 50 grammes) or you can just send it with the speed of light if you have a receiver.
So no, no interstellar space tourism ever. Unless we discover crazy technology that can break all the laws and basically teleport us by turning off our mass or act like a warp drive or worm hole.
I lost you in the first paragraph. So you're suggesting cloning humans (slightly different from the normal idea) to colonize new plats? If you can get something there in the first place, why don't send people there..
Anyway I thought the discussion was about life on other planets, not moving to other planets?
Just say there was another earth exact same as ours with the equivalent of us humans on it. I wonder how different they would have evolved to us. Like how much different they would look, talk and behave. kinda interesting.
Life could never ever have been there since the begining of earth formation. Dusts and space debris gathering around the core during millions of years could not have permitted life, But the multitude of meteorites impacts on our earth could have permitted some organism trapped into ice to smash the earth and somehow managed to survive (unicellular organisms are extremely robust life forms). Exactly like how pollen works on earth. If you see a flower in a field, it's hard to imagine that there is no other nearby.
and why would it be more possible for life to have been developt anywhere els in the univers? I mean, it all comes down to the same principle?
On May 01 2012 00:44 ChosenSC2 wrote: It doesn't matter cuz we'll never be able to get there? Especially in any sort of mass travel form ^^
You can get there. Relativity doesn't actually prevent you from travelling anywhere in a reasonable amount of time, because as you speed up the universe appears to shrink. At 1/sqrt(2) * c m/s you're effectively travelling at the speed of light, if you measure time in the traveller's reference frame and distance in the rest frame of your departure point. You could travel to Alpha Centauri and only age a few years, but people back on Earth would've aged millions of years.
Here's a graph I made to depict what you're talking about.
and anyway, lets say that we must escape from earth, the sun is soon dead and a superearth is in our reach, but the superearth is like 3 times bigger and therefore got maybe 3 times the gravety then earth? so we all would be 3 times more heavier? sux Oo
Fuck... if those things where to attack earth they would be super strong ^^ jumping high as fuck and shit.
On May 01 2012 05:58 Heh_ wrote: The argument was good until you started talking about breaking down a human. There's more to a human than just DNA. If you exclude random mutations (that occur ~3 times per cell division), then there's no way that these so-called nanobots can distinguish between a 2 year old child and an 80 year old man. Then there's environmental factors, memory (no one really knows how the brain works), and a host of other factors. You're stuck with trying to transport the whole human. The best thing you can do is to make the person go on a diet =D
Then the acceleration turns said human into pulp.
Edit: typo
lol, you don't reconstruct existing people using DNA. You grow new ones. Some people want humans to be a two planet species at the minimum so we don't go extinct. I myself think it's fine for humans to go extinct? Why not? No one was worried about us not being there before we evolved. I think it is also kind of cruel to force some people to grow up as the first generation on some planet far far away from earth. They didn't have the choice in the matter at all. But anyway, some people are going to want to do this anyway and this will be the way it will be done if it ever happens.
The humans you grow from the DNA after it arrives do need some education of course otherwise they will be mentally impaired. So you need to supply that as well. But information is either near weightless (internet is guessed to be 50 grammes) or you can just send it with the speed of light if you have a receiver.
So no, no interstellar space tourism ever. Unless we discover crazy technology that can break all the laws and basically teleport us by turning off our mass or act like a warp drive or worm hole.
Sounds like some sort of horrifying sci fi invader story. Aliens shoot DNA onto the planet, they grow in number and multiply, eventually they destroy the planet and shoot DNA onto a new planet.
I never figured us to be the monsters. So many new movie ideas!
On May 01 2012 07:19 Heh_ wrote: I lost you in the first paragraph. So you're suggesting cloning humans (slightly different from the normal idea) to colonize new plats? If you can get something there in the first place, why don't send people there..
Anyway I thought the discussion was about life on other planets, not moving to other planets?
Did you do the math?
Do the math with fusion fuel for a 10 gram payload and a 1,000,000 ton payload and see how big the difference is.
On May 01 2012 07:19 Heh_ wrote: I lost you in the first paragraph. So you're suggesting cloning humans (slightly different from the normal idea) to colonize new plats? If you can get something there in the first place, why don't send people there..
Anyway I thought the discussion was about life on other planets, not moving to other planets?
Did you do the math?
Do the math with fusion fuel for a 10 gram payload and a 1,000,000 ton payload and see how big the difference is.
On May 01 2012 07:19 Heh_ wrote: I lost you in the first paragraph. So you're suggesting cloning humans (slightly different from the normal idea) to colonize new plats? If you can get something there in the first place, why don't send people there..
Anyway I thought the discussion was about life on other planets, not moving to other planets?
Did you do the math?
Do the math with fusion fuel for a 10 gram payload and a 1,000,000 ton payload and see how big the difference is.
Duh. I don't dispute your physics. I'm disputing your understanding of biology. To put it simply, life ain't that simple. You can't create an exact replica of a person, and transfer the memories, knowledge etc to the clone. That clone WILL be a different person. A real world example is this: identical twins don't share the same consciousness and memories; they are separate individuals despite being genetically identical. If you want to "transport" humans to the new planet while maximizing payload, you might as well transport a bunch of zygotes to save on mass. Then again, you need tons (literally) of support equipment in order to raise and sustain them.
And if you want to talk about fuel, you might as use matter-antimatter reactions. 100% energy yield, fyi.
Been hearing a lot of news like this lately. Wonder if humans will ever transfer over to another planet one day or if all of the information and discoveries that have been made are meaningless.
On May 01 2012 02:45 heroyi wrote: We understand our realm on earth very well i.e chemistry,biology, and physics. But again all of these things pertain to us and what we have experienced/perceive. For us to to say that only life can be created by water and carbon is ignorant. The periodic table is not finished and I am sure there are way more elements to be discovered not only on Earth but also out there somewhere. We haven't experienced/learned about everything that is possible out "there."
no no no no no no no no... to 'be sure' of something you should first have at least a BASIC understanding of that topic... if you had any clue about physics at all you would be rather sure of the opposite you said... its too bad that the certainty of peoples beliefs always seems to be inverserly proportional to how much people know about a given topic
please try not to be sure of anything, okay? we wont discover any more elements outside of high-energy physics laboratories, this i am ALMOST sure of, since it would violate pretty much everything we know about physics. and even if we did heavier elements wouldnt matter in any way for organic chemistry...
No... it would not violate physics. Physics and chemistry say they should be more elements that we know of. With the conditions from star collapses and supernovae we should find traces of these higher elements. For someone that's complaining about everyone not having a basic understanding of the topic you must've not gotten a C yourself... read up, lots of active research is in this field. Here's a starter:
argh! islands of stability have ABSOLUTELY NO CHANCE to have anything to do with organic chemistry. sorry dude, your just arguing from a standpoint of complete ignorance. and like i said, if these elements ever exist, it will be in high-energy laboratories. you wont find new elements in space period...
On May 01 2012 09:48 SeungHwan wrote: Been hearing a lot of news like this lately. Wonder if humans will ever transfer over to another planet one day or if all of the information and discoveries that have been made are meaningless.
why would that render everything meaningless? with current theories about the universe life will not be able to exist forever anyways, so even if we spread we will eventually die out, thus only delaying the inevitable. how exactly does delaying our extinction give our existence more meaning? if you want meaning at all, you have to turn away from science towards religion...
also it depends on your view on time and the universe. if you subscribe to a kind of 'block universe' view where four dimensional space time exists timelessly then in a way all events that ever happened or will happen have the same value no matter wether or not they seem to be in the past or future from your point of view...
Most of you talk about going to those places only when the sun gets close to dying. You realise those stars will get old too right? Sun is a red dwarf and it has arround 5 billion years to go, it doesn't seem possible but lets say if we wait that long to go Gliese 581d or Gliese 667Cc in 5 billion years their stars will be very close to dying or already dead too.
On May 01 2012 09:35 Heh_ wrote: Duh. I don't dispute your physics. I'm disputing your understanding of biology. To put it simply, life ain't that simple. You can't create an exact replica of a person, and transfer the memories, knowledge etc to the clone. That clone WILL be a different person. A real world example is this: identical twins don't share the same consciousness and memories; they are separate individuals despite being genetically identical. If you want to "transport" humans to the new planet while maximizing payload, you might as well transport a bunch of zygotes to save on mass. Then again, you need tons (literally) of support equipment in order to raise and sustain them.
And if you want to talk about fuel, you might as use matter-antimatter reactions. 100% energy yield, fyi.
People are grown from DNA everyday. Is there another way to get a person? As a biologist I have never heard of another way.
You don't need to send tons of equipment. Copper, silicon, whatever element you need, it can all be found on the destination planet. So why bother transporting what is already on the destination planet if transporting mass is so so expensive?
On May 01 2012 09:35 Heh_ wrote: Duh. I don't dispute your physics. I'm disputing your understanding of biology. To put it simply, life ain't that simple. You can't create an exact replica of a person, and transfer the memories, knowledge etc to the clone. That clone WILL be a different person. A real world example is this: identical twins don't share the same consciousness and memories; they are separate individuals despite being genetically identical. If you want to "transport" humans to the new planet while maximizing payload, you might as well transport a bunch of zygotes to save on mass. Then again, you need tons (literally) of support equipment in order to raise and sustain them.
And if you want to talk about fuel, you might as use matter-antimatter reactions. 100% energy yield, fyi.
People are grown from DNA everyday. Is there another way to get a person? As a biologist I have never heard of another way.
You don't need to send tons of equipment. Copper, silicon, whatever element you need, it can all be found on the destination planet. So why bother transporting what is already on the destination planet if transporting mass is so so expensive?
and who will raise your humans? and all the equipment you need will just auto-assemble itself from what you have on the destination planet? your not making much sense tbh
Its not an insult. He doesn't know what nanobots are. He doesn't know what evolution is. He believes the universe is designed, etc etc. Also if this is an insult, he insulted me first and second and my comment came third.
On May 01 2012 18:45 Miyoshino wrote: Its not an insult. He doesn't know what nanobots are. He doesn't know what evolution is. He believes the universe is designed, etc etc. Also if this is an insult, he insulted me first and second and my comment came third.
sigh. if self-reproducing nanobots ie von-neumann machines are your solution to everything then maybe you should at least mention them? i guess your solution to raising humans would be equally esoteric science-fiction? maybe you would at least try to enlighten us about your concepts instead of throwing random insults and calling people stupid? i dont know where i insulted you but please try to argue like an adult mkay? if my views on evolution and a fine-tuned universe insult you per se then i guess thereis not much i can do about that...
edit: i just saw you mentioned nanobots further up, i didnt read that part of the thread before. so basically you want to send out self-assembling probes that carry the information of how to build a human from organic material and assemble all the infrastructure needed to raise and support a human population
i think if that level of technology is ever reached mankind will be very different from now, maybe obsolete... or killed off by the von-neumann machines (grey goo scenario)
On May 01 2012 19:10 Miyoshino wrote: Read my post before you insult me. I did a lot of explaining. Then someone who doesn't accept mainsteam science somes and just says something blunt.
because as we all know mainstream science as known today is 100% accurate and everyone who is outside of the mainstream in any view should be burned at the stake for being a heretic... as someone who sees self-assembling nanobots as a solution to all problems you should maybe try to be a little bit more open minded. im very close to scientific mainstream in most of my views anyways. you just seem to be one of the people that pick one theory and accuse everyone not following this line of thought of stupid.
you should always remember that no matter what side you take in an argument there will always be a lot of people way more knowledgeable on the subject that disagree with you. all im asking for is a little humility really. neither of us is coming up with any world-shattering research obviously. you are just repeating thoughts that other people thought first, and you shouldnt try to be so convinced of a single line of thought
Others have thought of it too because it is logical. But I naturally came up with it myself. And you should do too. If you want to seed other planets with human life, you do it that way. No reason to transport fragile bags of water.
Von Neumann probes are something different. They are, probes.
Don't know why you are so aggressive over such a non-issue. Why you want to pick a fight? Just because I couldn't understand why you said you believe the universe is designed? If you make such a strange statement in a post without even explaining or arguing for it, people are going to express their surprise. Don't be so butthurt over it you embarrass yourself later.
I can tell you are scientifically illiterate or lying.
On May 01 2012 19:21 Miyoshino wrote: Others have thought of it too because it is logical. But I naturally came up with it myself. And you should do too. If you want to seed other planets with human life, you do it that way. No reason to transport fragile bags of water.
Von Neumann probes are something different. They are, probes.
Don't know why you are so aggressive over such a non-issue. Why you want to pick a fight? Just because I couldn't understand why you said you believe the universe is designed? If you make such a strange statement in a post without even explaining or arguing for it, people are going to express their surprise. Don't be so butthurt over it you embarrass yourself later.
I can tell you are scientifically illiterate or lying.
self-replicating machines are called von-neumann machines. please at least read the wikipedia article i just posted before making wrong statements
Von Neumann probes are indeed self-replicating. But their use is to act as a probe and lie dormant and observe on several planets or moons in each solar system, waiting for intelligent life to evolve there. The idea was that one could have arrived in our solar system millions of years ago.
Von Neumann never called all self replicating nanobots 'Von Neumann machines'.
The universe isn't fine tuned. You can change the parameters and it will be dfferent but similar. It is also not tuned for life because life can't live in most of the universe that is the result of this 'deliberate' tuning. If it is indeed tuned it is tuned for a lot of vacuum, a lot of dark matter and dark energy and some speckling with groups of stars.
On May 01 2012 01:20 horsebanger wrote: truthbombs:
we won't ever (ever) reach the other planets.
if we do find life it's extremely unlikely that it's a similar lifeform to the life on earth. it took billions of years to develop into humans and the fact that life excists out of water... not even gonna get started on that
Thats a whole lot of truth you just dropped on us. Good thing you've elaborated and explained your claims with thorough and indepth facts to back your claims up and prove your so called "truthbombs".
Explain why we wont ever (ever) reach the other planets. In our life time, probably not. In our childrens, probably not. But consider how far weve come in the past 200 years compaired to the entirety of our existence. It wasn't so long ago that the Earth was flat, and now we can fly around it for low cost in under a day, when 500 years ago it was called "exploring". Cell phones, which we now take for granted, would have been the size of a room a few decades ago.
We now find new planets many light years away, and the best you have to say is "Meh, we wont get there anyways, and even if we do, we wont find anything," atleast back it up with some claim.
I find the whole thing amazing, its fun to discuss, especially a lot of the chemistry people explaining why carbon and water based life forms are for all intents and purposes the only practical way life can be supported. I for one have always been in the camp of "Why do we need water?", but the explainations made a lot of sense.
1. google "lightyear" 2. google "closest exoplanet" 3. see how many lightyears away it is
enough said
That is like the worst counter argument I've ever read. What is this, 4th grade debate?
Why is that "like the worst counter argument" you've ever read? The only flaw in that argument would be my assumption that you were (ever so slightly) informed about the topic.
A lightyear is the distance that light can travel in one year. Light travels at a speed of 299 792 458 m/s (approximately 300 000 000 m/s) in vacuum. Now, imagine that we could reach the incredible velocity of 300 000 00 m/s (a tenth of the speed of light) in the future. It would take us over 200 years to reach Gliese 581 c, an exoplanet which is located 20.4 lightyears away from Earth and is very reminecent to Earth.
Based on your first reply I take it you're not the sharpest tool in the shed, but I think even you can put the pieces together now.
On May 01 2012 09:35 Heh_ wrote: Duh. I don't dispute your physics. I'm disputing your understanding of biology. To put it simply, life ain't that simple. You can't create an exact replica of a person, and transfer the memories, knowledge etc to the clone. That clone WILL be a different person. A real world example is this: identical twins don't share the same consciousness and memories; they are separate individuals despite being genetically identical. If you want to "transport" humans to the new planet while maximizing payload, you might as well transport a bunch of zygotes to save on mass. Then again, you need tons (literally) of support equipment in order to raise and sustain them.
And if you want to talk about fuel, you might as use matter-antimatter reactions. 100% energy yield, fyi.
People are grown from DNA everyday. Is there another way to get a person? As a biologist I have never heard of another way.
You don't need to send tons of equipment. Copper, silicon, whatever element you need, it can all be found on the destination planet. So why bother transporting what is already on the destination planet if transporting mass is so so expensive?
Care to share a source? I've never heard of someone grown from DNA. You're thinking about human cloning, which has never been conducted.
Poll: will interstellar colonization ever be possible for us?
no, because we will all kill each other or be wiped out by some cataclysm before we could (5)
23%
no, because it is not technologically possible (5)
23%
yes, we will be able to actually transport people with cryogenic freezing (5)
23%
yes, and by the time it happens the border between man and machine will have become blurry anyways (3)
14%
no, because technologically superior aliens will keep us from spreading (2)
9%
yes, but only using machines (1)
5%
yes, we will build new humans at the destination using a genetic template (1)
5%
22 total votes
Your vote: will interstellar colonization ever be possible for us?
(Vote): no, because we will all kill each other or be wiped out by some cataclysm before we could (Vote): no, because it is not technologically possible (Vote): yes, but only using machines (Vote): yes, we will be able to actually transport people with cryogenic freezing (Vote): yes, we will build new humans at the destination using a genetic template (Vote): yes, and by the time it happens the border between man and machine will have become blurry anyways (Vote): no, because technologically superior aliens will keep us from spreading
Poll: will interstellar colonization ever be possible for us?
no, because we will all kill each other or be wiped out by some cataclysm before we could (5)
23%
no, because it is not technologically possible (5)
23%
yes, we will be able to actually transport people with cryogenic freezing (5)
23%
yes, and by the time it happens the border between man and machine will have become blurry anyways (3)
14%
no, because technologically superior aliens will keep us from spreading (2)
9%
yes, but only using machines (1)
5%
yes, we will build new humans at the destination using a genetic template (1)
5%
22 total votes
Your vote: will interstellar colonization ever be possible for us?
(Vote): no, because we will all kill each other or be wiped out by some cataclysm before we could (Vote): no, because it is not technologically possible (Vote): yes, but only using machines (Vote): yes, we will be able to actually transport people with cryogenic freezing (Vote): yes, we will build new humans at the destination using a genetic template (Vote): yes, and by the time it happens the border between man and machine will have become blurry anyways (Vote): no, because technologically superior aliens will keep us from spreading
Why do you insist on ruining discussions with your polls?
You are 'grown from DNA'. The arugments he made should hold vs any person created using DNA. He didn't seem to understand what was said so he made a strange statement.
i like polls. why do they bother you so much? if anything is ruining this thread then its close-mindedness people throwing unnecessary insults at each other... make a poll asking people if they like my poll
On May 01 2012 19:51 Miyoshino wrote: You are 'grown from DNA'. The arugments he made should hold vs any person created using DNA. He didn't seem to understand what was said so he made a strange statement.
You're taking synthetic biology to a whole new level. I don't understand what you're saying either. If you think you can "make" a cell from scratch, think again. When you finally "make" a cell (hint: eukaryotic, not prokaryotic), think about how you can make a multicellular organism. Please explain how "you are grown from DNA". If you're talking about "growing from cells", then please read the last 2-3 pages of the thread before you make misinformed, ignorant posts.
You can speculate on certain methods on how to travel interstellar. If you do the physics it is clear that superlow mass is the way to go.
Also, if life can do something, technology can as well. It is already proven to be possble. FTL travel or warp gates or bending space-time, reducing mass is not proven.
Why are you not discussing the planets at hand? Maybe speculate on whether they have moons what kind of planetary characteristics, like gravity and axis, they might have and how that might might influence the tree of life. I would fancy a civilization that might have sprung up in a high (relative to earth) gravity setting.
On May 01 2012 07:30 Littlemuff wrote: Just say there was another earth exact same as ours with the equivalent of us humans on it. I wonder how different they would have evolved to us. Like how much different they would look, talk and behave. kinda interesting.
I love thinking about this question. I don't think they would be too terribly different. They would need eyes, which have to be close to the brain, thus they would have a head. They would also need limbs with fingers so they could make and handle tools. I have learned that biologist are being to find that evolution isn't strictly random, but finds particular and convenient solutions to problems. The evidence they see is that certain types of eyes like our refractive corona eyes and also compound eyes have independently evolved several times. This implies that life seems to prefer those arrangements, whether that is because they are easier to produce or because the necessary materials are abundant I am not sure.
Here is a nice documentary on the subject What We Still Don't Know. The relevant episode will be the first one, but it is defiantly worth while to watch them all.
On May 01 2012 23:00 Miyoshino wrote: Ok this is just pure stubborn stupidity.
You can speculate on certain methods on how to travel interstellar. If you do the physics it is clear that superlow mass is the way to go.
Also, if life can do something, technology can as well. It is already proven to be possble. FTL travel or warp gates or bending space-time, reducing mass is not proven.
What? Who are you talking to? Who's speculating what? Some concrete examples instead of general statements please. You've done nothing to prove your point (if you have one).
On May 01 2012 07:30 Littlemuff wrote: Just say there was another earth exact same as ours with the equivalent of us humans on it. I wonder how different they would have evolved to us. Like how much different they would look, talk and behave. kinda interesting.
I love thinking about this question. I don't think they would be too terribly different. They would need eyes, which have to be close to the brain, thus they would have a head. They would also need limbs with fingers so they could make and handle tools. I have learned that biologist are being to find that evolution isn't strictly random, but finds particular and convenient solutions to problems. The evidence they see is that certain types of eyes like our refractive corona eyes and also compound eyes have independently evolved several times. This implies that life seems to prefer those arrangements, whether that is because they are easier to produce or because the necessary materials are abundant I am not sure.
Here is a nice documentary on the subject What We Still Don't Know. The relevant episode will be the first one, but it is defiantly worth while to watch them all.
I would say that lifeforms with comparable intelligence/ability to humans might be pretty difficult. Evolution doesn't guide you to be the "best" at everything, it just favors traits which are better than the ancestor. A good example would be the human eye. The light-sensitive cells are behind a bunch of stuff, in contrast to cephalopods (squids) which have a more intelligently designed eye. Wikipedia source. What happens is that evolution tunes the phenotype of an organism to a local maxima, and once this occurs, it's stuck there. It may not be the best, but it's better than all the other similar phenotypes. Therefore, the appearance of the lifeform might be vastly different (eg multiple tentacles instead of fingers to provide the same flexibility), but the overall functions are similar.
On May 01 2012 23:00 Miyoshino wrote: Ok this is just pure stubborn stupidity.
You can speculate on certain methods on how to travel interstellar. If you do the physics it is clear that superlow mass is the way to go.
Also, if life can do something, technology can as well. It is already proven to be possble. FTL travel or warp gates or bending space-time, reducing mass is not proven.
What? Who are you talking to? Who's speculating what? Some concrete examples instead of general statements please. You've done nothing to prove your point (if you have one).
On May 01 2012 07:30 Littlemuff wrote: Just say there was another earth exact same as ours with the equivalent of us humans on it. I wonder how different they would have evolved to us. Like how much different they would look, talk and behave. kinda interesting.
I love thinking about this question. I don't think they would be too terribly different. They would need eyes, which have to be close to the brain, thus they would have a head. They would also need limbs with fingers so they could make and handle tools. I have learned that biologist are being to find that evolution isn't strictly random, but finds particular and convenient solutions to problems. The evidence they see is that certain types of eyes like our refractive corona eyes and also compound eyes have independently evolved several times. This implies that life seems to prefer those arrangements, whether that is because they are easier to produce or because the necessary materials are abundant I am not sure.
Here is a nice documentary on the subject What We Still Don't Know. The relevant episode will be the first one, but it is defiantly worth while to watch them all.
I would say that lifeforms with comparable intelligence/ability to humans might be pretty difficult. Evolution doesn't guide you to be the "best" at everything, it just favors traits which are better than the ancestor. A good example would be the human eye. The light-sensitive cells are behind a bunch of stuff, in contrast to cephalopods (squids) which have a more intelligently designed eye. Wikipedia source. What happens is that evolution tunes the phenotype of an organism to a local maxima, and once this occurs, it's stuck there. It may not be the best, but it's better than all the other similar phenotypes. Therefore, the appearance of the lifeform might be vastly different (eg multiple tentacles instead of fingers to provide the same flexibility), but the overall functions are similar.
I never said anything about anything being "better" than anything else. What I said was a particular or convenient solution to a problem. What is your angle on this and on the fact that compound and refractive eyes are quite common and have independently evolved several times?
This is cool and all, but does anyone really believe that intelligent life like us exists? I'm still skeptical. I'm sure life exists on another planets like these, but it's probably just bacteria and such. I'll have to see evidence before I believe there is a life form even close to our intelligence somewhere in the universe.
On May 01 2012 23:00 Miyoshino wrote: Ok this is just pure stubborn stupidity.
You can speculate on certain methods on how to travel interstellar. If you do the physics it is clear that superlow mass is the way to go.
Also, if life can do something, technology can as well. It is already proven to be possble. FTL travel or warp gates or bending space-time, reducing mass is not proven.
What? Who are you talking to? Who's speculating what? Some concrete examples instead of general statements please. You've done nothing to prove your point (if you have one).
On May 01 2012 07:30 Littlemuff wrote: Just say there was another earth exact same as ours with the equivalent of us humans on it. I wonder how different they would have evolved to us. Like how much different they would look, talk and behave. kinda interesting.
I love thinking about this question. I don't think they would be too terribly different. They would need eyes, which have to be close to the brain, thus they would have a head. They would also need limbs with fingers so they could make and handle tools. I have learned that biologist are being to find that evolution isn't strictly random, but finds particular and convenient solutions to problems. The evidence they see is that certain types of eyes like our refractive corona eyes and also compound eyes have independently evolved several times. This implies that life seems to prefer those arrangements, whether that is because they are easier to produce or because the necessary materials are abundant I am not sure.
Here is a nice documentary on the subject What We Still Don't Know. The relevant episode will be the first one, but it is defiantly worth while to watch them all.
I would say that lifeforms with comparable intelligence/ability to humans might be pretty difficult. Evolution doesn't guide you to be the "best" at everything, it just favors traits which are better than the ancestor. A good example would be the human eye. The light-sensitive cells are behind a bunch of stuff, in contrast to cephalopods (squids) which have a more intelligently designed eye. Wikipedia source. What happens is that evolution tunes the phenotype of an organism to a local maxima, and once this occurs, it's stuck there. It may not be the best, but it's better than all the other similar phenotypes. Therefore, the appearance of the lifeform might be vastly different (eg multiple tentacles instead of fingers to provide the same flexibility), but the overall functions are similar.
I never said anything about anything being "better" than anything else. What I said was a particular or convenient solution to a problem. What is your angle on this and on the fact that compound and refractive eyes are quite common and have independently evolved several times?
Well, what I meant was that there are multiple solutions to a single problem. My example about tentacles is pretty ridiculous, so let's take another example: cellulose digestion. Cellulose is difficult to digest and animals that feed on cellulose require special adaptations. Cows have four stomachs while rabbits have only one. To compensate for this, rabbits have two types of shit: hard and soft. Rabbits re-ingest the soft shit in order to extract the maximal amount of nutrients from it. Therefore, as long as function is preserved, there are multiple solutions to a single problem. Therefore, the lifeform might look really different. They do not necessarily need to have a humanoid shape.
I agree that there are certain things that are particularly advantageous to have. For motile organisms, vision is particularly important. That's why sight and particularly, eyes, independently evolved so many times because it confers a strong evolutionary advantage over others without vision. That is to say, this lifeform would probably have an organ with a similar function to eyes, but it's structure, anatomical location, quantity and other factors might differ, making this lifeform look pretty different from humans.
On May 02 2012 01:52 Chytilova wrote: This is cool and all, but does anyone really believe that intelligent life like us exists? I'm still skeptical. I'm sure life exists on another planets like these, but it's probably just bacteria and such. I'll have to see evidence before I believe there is a life form even close to our intelligence somewhere in the universe.
I like to think about it like this, the universe is big enough that rare things happen all the time. There are an estimated 10^24 stars in the visable universe, that is a 1 with 24 zeros behind it. Even if intelligence arises around .00000001% of these stars your looking at 10^14 intelligent civilizations spread out across the stars and galaxies that we can see, but of course they will most likely not be anywhere near us.
On May 01 2012 23:00 Miyoshino wrote: Ok this is just pure stubborn stupidity.
You can speculate on certain methods on how to travel interstellar. If you do the physics it is clear that superlow mass is the way to go.
Also, if life can do something, technology can as well. It is already proven to be possble. FTL travel or warp gates or bending space-time, reducing mass is not proven.
What? Who are you talking to? Who's speculating what? Some concrete examples instead of general statements please. You've done nothing to prove your point (if you have one).
On May 01 2012 07:30 Littlemuff wrote: Just say there was another earth exact same as ours with the equivalent of us humans on it. I wonder how different they would have evolved to us. Like how much different they would look, talk and behave. kinda interesting.
I love thinking about this question. I don't think they would be too terribly different. They would need eyes, which have to be close to the brain, thus they would have a head. They would also need limbs with fingers so they could make and handle tools. I have learned that biologist are being to find that evolution isn't strictly random, but finds particular and convenient solutions to problems. The evidence they see is that certain types of eyes like our refractive corona eyes and also compound eyes have independently evolved several times. This implies that life seems to prefer those arrangements, whether that is because they are easier to produce or because the necessary materials are abundant I am not sure.
Here is a nice documentary on the subject What We Still Don't Know. The relevant episode will be the first one, but it is defiantly worth while to watch them all.
I would say that lifeforms with comparable intelligence/ability to humans might be pretty difficult. Evolution doesn't guide you to be the "best" at everything, it just favors traits which are better than the ancestor. A good example would be the human eye. The light-sensitive cells are behind a bunch of stuff, in contrast to cephalopods (squids) which have a more intelligently designed eye. Wikipedia source. What happens is that evolution tunes the phenotype of an organism to a local maxima, and once this occurs, it's stuck there. It may not be the best, but it's better than all the other similar phenotypes. Therefore, the appearance of the lifeform might be vastly different (eg multiple tentacles instead of fingers to provide the same flexibility), but the overall functions are similar.
I never said anything about anything being "better" than anything else. What I said was a particular or convenient solution to a problem. What is your angle on this and on the fact that compound and refractive eyes are quite common and have independently evolved several times?
Well, what I meant was that there are multiple solutions to a single problem. My example about tentacles is pretty ridiculous, so let's take another example: cellulose digestion. Cellulose is difficult to digest and animals that feed on cellulose require special adaptations. Cows have four stomachs while rabbits have only one. To compensate for this, rabbits have two types of shit: hard and soft. Rabbits re-ingest the soft shit in order to extract the maximal amount of nutrients from it. Therefore, as long as function is preserved, there are multiple solutions to a single problem. Therefore, the lifeform might look really different. They do not necessarily need to have a humanoid shape.
I agree that there are certain things that are particularly advantageous to have. For motile organisms, vision is particularly important. That's why sight and particularly, eyes, independently evolved so many times because it confers a strong evolutionary advantage over others without vision. That is to say, this lifeform would probably have an organ with a similar function to eyes, but it's structure, anatomical location, quantity and other factors might differ, making this lifeform look pretty different from humans.
Yes, of course there is more than one way to skin a cat. This is not what I am getting at. I am just stating that there is evidence that evolution might not be a random process of mutations but that there is an underlying order to the mutations that follow certain parameters and possibly show patterns, all outside of the context of ancestry.
This whole post came out like a speculative rant, but I'm interested if anyone has suggested a plan like this:
Multi-generational ships and cryo-freezing are way out of our technical reach right now, but robotics and 'ex-utero' birth both look like they will be sufficiently advanced before the end of the century. This definitely sounds science-fictiony, but the general plan would be to: 1. load up a compact ship with robots, building materials, and cloning facilities, 2. send the ship on a centuries-long flight to a system thought to have an Earth-like planet, 3. upon arriving, begin constructing basic life-support systems, gathering resources, and building a settlement, and 4. clone human beings using materials carried on the ship, which are then raised and educated by 'caretaker' robots in the new settlements (this would be the hardest part, I think). After that, transition into fairly 'normal' human colonization.
Some of the technology seems way too advanced right now, but this is what I believe to be the nearest option (technologically and time-wise) if we really want to get humans out of the solar system. Are there any glaring flaws that anyone sees?
On May 02 2012 02:04 NadaSound wrote: Yes, of course there is more than one way to skin a cat. This is not what I am getting at. I am just stating that there is evidence that evolution might not be a random process of mutations but that there is an underlying order to the mutations that follow certain parameters and possibly show patterns, all outside of the context of ancestry.
Please give me a link to the evidence. The only case of "directed mutation" is when interactions between two proteins are destroyed by a point mutation, and this is reverted by a corresponding mutation on the interacting partner. I can think of no other example of an "external guiding hand" directing evolution.
If you're talking about macroevolution, evolution is guided by relative fitness. If you're talking about molecular evolution, mutations are NOT guided at all. Only cytidine deaminases and transposons are capable of deliberately modifying DNA sequences. Evolution is based on having a pool of individuals bearing different mutations that are already present.
I think you're getting confused between homology and analogy.
Edit:
On May 02 2012 02:59 dpurple wrote: I dont believe there is life on other planets. Give me proof first.
We don't know. We haven't proven that life on other planets exists, or that life on other planets are impossible. I thought this thread was discussing whether that's possible, but keeps getting derailed.
On May 02 2012 02:04 NadaSound wrote: Yes, of course there is more than one way to skin a cat. This is not what I am getting at. I am just stating that there is evidence that evolution might not be a random process of mutations but that there is an underlying order to the mutations that follow certain parameters and possibly show patterns, all outside of the context of ancestry.
Please give me a link to the evidence. The only case of "directed mutation" is when interactions between two proteins are destroyed by a point mutation, and this is reverted by a corresponding mutation on the interacting partner. I can think of no other example of an "external guiding hand" directing evolution.
If you're talking about macroevolution, evolution is guided by relative fitness. If you're talking about molecular evolution, mutations are NOT guided at all. Only cytidine deaminases and transposons are capable of deliberately modifying DNA sequences. Evolution is based on having a pool of individuals bearing different mutations that are already present.
I think you're getting confused between homology and analogy.
The information you are looking for is in the videos that I linked to. Watch them they are quite fascinating. Sorry but it has been a couple of months so I can not remember if they touch on this subject in the first or third episode. If you do take the time to watch them I would love to hear your take on it as I am not as well versed in the subject of biology and evolution as you are. I'm an astrophysics guy.
Also, I would say it might have more to do with the behavior of convergent evolution.
On May 02 2012 02:04 NadaSound wrote: Yes, of course there is more than one way to skin a cat. This is not what I am getting at. I am just stating that there is evidence that evolution might not be a random process of mutations but that there is an underlying order to the mutations that follow certain parameters and possibly show patterns, all outside of the context of ancestry.
Please give me a link to the evidence. The only case of "directed mutation" is when interactions between two proteins are destroyed by a point mutation, and this is reverted by a corresponding mutation on the interacting partner. I can think of no other example of an "external guiding hand" directing evolution.
If you're talking about macroevolution, evolution is guided by relative fitness. If you're talking about molecular evolution, mutations are NOT guided at all. Only cytidine deaminases and transposons are capable of deliberately modifying DNA sequences. Evolution is based on having a pool of individuals bearing different mutations that are already present.
I think you're getting confused between homology and analogy.
The information you are looking for is in the videos that I linked to. Watch them they are quite fascinating. Sorry but it has been a couple of months so I can not remember if they touch on this subject in the first or third episode. If you do take the time to watch them I would love to hear your take on it as I am not as well versed in the subject of biology and evolution as you are. I'm an astrophysics guy.
I scanned through the two episodes you've mentioned and I don't see anything that suggests that evolution is directed by a "guiding hand". There's a part about the board game where certain patterns keep appearing, which hint that evolution has several overarching principles. This can be summarized as "relative fitness". Read the wikipedia link I posted previously. That's the closest you get to "directing evolution". The mutations that are present occur entirely at random, and some of them "happen" to enable the individual to be able to survive and reproduce better than others. We cannot even predict what is the "best solution" to a given evolutionary problem; the same answer can be obtained from multiple ways (see rabbit and cow example) and are both sufficient for the organism to survive and reproduce.
I hate it when people without any knowledge about a subject come in and make broad statements that are simply wrong. As I've mentioned before, this is the internet and people are stupid enough to believe everything that is said. So please don't make such statements without good knowledge about the subject. It opens up a can of worms.
On May 02 2012 02:04 NadaSound wrote: Yes, of course there is more than one way to skin a cat. This is not what I am getting at. I am just stating that there is evidence that evolution might not be a random process of mutations but that there is an underlying order to the mutations that follow certain parameters and possibly show patterns, all outside of the context of ancestry.
Please give me a link to the evidence. The only case of "directed mutation" is when interactions between two proteins are destroyed by a point mutation, and this is reverted by a corresponding mutation on the interacting partner. I can think of no other example of an "external guiding hand" directing evolution.
If you're talking about macroevolution, evolution is guided by relative fitness. If you're talking about molecular evolution, mutations are NOT guided at all. Only cytidine deaminases and transposons are capable of deliberately modifying DNA sequences. Evolution is based on having a pool of individuals bearing different mutations that are already present.
I think you're getting confused between homology and analogy.
The information you are looking for is in the videos that I linked to. Watch them they are quite fascinating. Sorry but it has been a couple of months so I can not remember if they touch on this subject in the first or third episode. If you do take the time to watch them I would love to hear your take on it as I am not as well versed in the subject of biology and evolution as you are. I'm an astrophysics guy.
I scanned through the two episodes you've mentioned and I don't see anything that suggests that evolution is directed by a "guiding hand". There's a part about the board game where certain patterns keep appearing, which hint that evolution has several overarching principles. This can be summarized as "relative fitness". Read the wikipedia link I posted previously. That's the closest you get to "directing evolution". The mutations that are present occur entirely at random, and some of them "happen" to enable the individual to be able to survive and reproduce better than others. We cannot even predict what is the "best solution" to a given evolutionary problem; the same answer can be obtained from multiple ways (see rabbit and cow example) and are both sufficient for the organism to survive and reproduce.
I hate it when people without any knowledge about a subject come in and make broad statements that are simply wrong. As I've mentioned before, this is the internet and people are stupid enough to believe everything that is said. So please don't make such statements without good knowledge about the subject. It opens up a can of worms.
Im sorry you feel that way! I'm sorry I chose to major in astrophysics and not biology! I'm sorry for thinking about something fascinating and trying to discuss my interpretation of it. Please fogive me, Kind Sir!
Why do you have to turn a good discusion into a flamming wall of hate? Get off your high horse, please. If I am wrong about something lets dissucuss it. I'm open to learning and communicating. I just don't understand why you have to resort to talking shit.
On May 02 2012 02:04 NadaSound wrote: Yes, of course there is more than one way to skin a cat. This is not what I am getting at. I am just stating that there is evidence that evolution might not be a random process of mutations but that there is an underlying order to the mutations that follow certain parameters and possibly show patterns, all outside of the context of ancestry.
Please give me a link to the evidence. The only case of "directed mutation" is when interactions between two proteins are destroyed by a point mutation, and this is reverted by a corresponding mutation on the interacting partner. I can think of no other example of an "external guiding hand" directing evolution.
If you're talking about macroevolution, evolution is guided by relative fitness. If you're talking about molecular evolution, mutations are NOT guided at all. Only cytidine deaminases and transposons are capable of deliberately modifying DNA sequences. Evolution is based on having a pool of individuals bearing different mutations that are already present.
I think you're getting confused between homology and analogy.
The information you are looking for is in the videos that I linked to. Watch them they are quite fascinating. Sorry but it has been a couple of months so I can not remember if they touch on this subject in the first or third episode. If you do take the time to watch them I would love to hear your take on it as I am not as well versed in the subject of biology and evolution as you are. I'm an astrophysics guy.
I scanned through the two episodes you've mentioned and I don't see anything that suggests that evolution is directed by a "guiding hand". There's a part about the board game where certain patterns keep appearing, which hint that evolution has several overarching principles. This can be summarized as "relative fitness". Read the wikipedia link I posted previously. That's the closest you get to "directing evolution". The mutations that are present occur entirely at random, and some of them "happen" to enable the individual to be able to survive and reproduce better than others. We cannot even predict what is the "best solution" to a given evolutionary problem; the same answer can be obtained from multiple ways (see rabbit and cow example) and are both sufficient for the organism to survive and reproduce.
I hate it when people without any knowledge about a subject come in and make broad statements that are simply wrong. As I've mentioned before, this is the internet and people are stupid enough to believe everything that is said. So please don't make such statements without good knowledge about the subject. It opens up a can of worms.
Im sorry you feel that way! I'm sorry I chose to major in astrophysics and not biology! I'm sorry for thinking about something fascinating and trying to discussion my interpretation of it. Please fogive me, Kind Sir!
Why do you have to turn a good discusion into a flamming wall of hate? Get off your high horse, please. If I am wrong about something lets dissucuss it. I'm open to learning and communicating. I just don't understand why you have to resort to talking shit.
Good Day!!!
Okay, sorry if I'm being too harsh. What I would like to say is, if a person is not particularly knowledgeable about a subject, certain points may be erroneous. Some people coming along to read this thread might interpret this as truth, and in turn may spread (and exaggerate) these inaccurate statements. I'm a scientist (or trying to become one), and seeing these stuff propagate all over the internet hurts me, especially when my friends are the one communicating these false ideas. For example, one of my friends recently posted a link on Facebook about the alkaline diet. Omg.
If you've read my previous posts, I've been relatively civil about them, until people start refuting my arguments with theories that have no scientific grounding or proof. My previous posts have been illustrated with examples to prove my point; I'm trying to promote discussion and more importantly, the passage of correct facts. I didn't intend for that last paragraph to be hostile. I guess I phrased it pretty badly. Sorry about that. Wasn't meant to be a personal attack.
On May 02 2012 02:04 NadaSound wrote: Yes, of course there is more than one way to skin a cat. This is not what I am getting at. I am just stating that there is evidence that evolution might not be a random process of mutations but that there is an underlying order to the mutations that follow certain parameters and possibly show patterns, all outside of the context of ancestry.
Please give me a link to the evidence. The only case of "directed mutation" is when interactions between two proteins are destroyed by a point mutation, and this is reverted by a corresponding mutation on the interacting partner. I can think of no other example of an "external guiding hand" directing evolution.
If you're talking about macroevolution, evolution is guided by relative fitness. If you're talking about molecular evolution, mutations are NOT guided at all. Only cytidine deaminases and transposons are capable of deliberately modifying DNA sequences. Evolution is based on having a pool of individuals bearing different mutations that are already present.
I think you're getting confused between homology and analogy.
The information you are looking for is in the videos that I linked to. Watch them they are quite fascinating. Sorry but it has been a couple of months so I can not remember if they touch on this subject in the first or third episode. If you do take the time to watch them I would love to hear your take on it as I am not as well versed in the subject of biology and evolution as you are. I'm an astrophysics guy.
I scanned through the two episodes you've mentioned and I don't see anything that suggests that evolution is directed by a "guiding hand". There's a part about the board game where certain patterns keep appearing, which hint that evolution has several overarching principles. This can be summarized as "relative fitness". Read the wikipedia link I posted previously. That's the closest you get to "directing evolution". The mutations that are present occur entirely at random, and some of them "happen" to enable the individual to be able to survive and reproduce better than others. We cannot even predict what is the "best solution" to a given evolutionary problem; the same answer can be obtained from multiple ways (see rabbit and cow example) and are both sufficient for the organism to survive and reproduce.
I hate it when people without any knowledge about a subject come in and make broad statements that are simply wrong. As I've mentioned before, this is the internet and people are stupid enough to believe everything that is said. So please don't make such statements without good knowledge about the subject. It opens up a can of worms.
Im sorry you feel that way! I'm sorry I chose to major in astrophysics and not biology! I'm sorry for thinking about something fascinating and trying to discussion my interpretation of it. Please fogive me, Kind Sir!
Why do you have to turn a good discusion into a flamming wall of hate? Get off your high horse, please. If I am wrong about something lets dissucuss it. I'm open to learning and communicating. I just don't understand why you have to resort to talking shit.
Good Day!!!
Okay, sorry if I'm being too harsh. What I would like to say is, if a person is not particularly knowledgeable about a subject, certain points may be erroneous. Some people coming along to read this thread might interpret this as truth, and in turn may spread (and exaggerate) these inaccurate statements. I'm a scientist (or trying to become one), and seeing these stuff propagate all over the internet hurts me, especially when my friends are the one communicating these false ideas. For example, one of my friends recently posted a link on Facebook about the alkaline diet. Omg.
If you've read my previous posts, I've been relatively civil about them, until people start refuting my arguments with theories that have no scientific grounding or proof. My previous posts have been illustrated with examples to prove my point; I'm trying to promote discussion and more importantly, the passage of correct facts. I didn't intend for that last paragraph to be hostile. I guess I phrased it pretty badly. Sorry about that. Wasn't meant to be a personal attack.
Its cool, I forgive you. I am also an aspiring scientist and I too have a strong appreciation for truth and accuracy. But, as scientist we must never forget the true nature of the universe and the vast uncertainties with in it. For everything we know and learn the unknown will remain large and daunting. So please don't be too quick to judgment. Don't dismiss ideas, absorb them, let your doubt grow. I do not direct this solely towards you, but also to myself and any other inquisitive person who may read this post. For I feel that in order to be a good scientist we must respect the mystery of the universe and be left in awe and wonder of the great unknown.
I must say that you did lead me to the concept of convergent evolution which is pretty much what I was trying to describe. So I thank for that.
Now for Something Completely Different
Here is a wonderful little series featuring some words spoken by Carl Sagan. These videos always gives me chills. I don't know what else to say but enjoy.
If you did enjoy that there is a similar series that features Richard Feynman as well.
On May 02 2012 02:59 dpurple wrote: I dont believe there is life on other planets. Give me proof first.
I'm going to be parroting smart people here, who have made these points before and with much greater eloquence.
The more I've looked into this topic, the more likely it seems to me that life is probably flourishing in the universe. For starters, life on earth is made out of the most common elements found in the universe - hydrogen, oxygen, carbon, nitrogen. The top four elements in our bodies, in order from most common to fourth most common, exactly mirrors the universe. As much as we envision ourselves to be unique, we aren't - not chemically.
Second, consider extremophiles. These are organisms that survive and thrive in environments we used to consider lethal for life. There are animals that can literally survive in space. We've found them; they're real. From this we can infer that we probably don't even need a celestial body located within what we call the habitable zone for life to exist. Heck, we could very possibly find life right here in our own solar system -- on the moon of Europa, which gets its heat from Jupiter.
Intelligent life requires something more to work with, certainly, which is where you can start arguing for rarity. Intelligent, tool using species need to form in environments where being able to make these things has an evolutionary benefit. That's where you start needing the perfect conditions of a planet with water right in the middle of the habitable zone.
Third, to demand proof this early in our endeavors is completely unreasonable. It's like taking a glass of water from the ocean and concluding from its contents that there are no fish in those oceans. You need a slightly bigger sample.
On May 02 2012 02:59 dpurple wrote: I dont believe there is life on other planets. Give me proof first.
I'm going to be parroting smart people here, who have made these points before and with much greater eloquence.
The more I've looked into this topic, the more likely it seems to me that life is probably flourishing in the universe. For starters, life on earth is made out of the most common elements found in the universe - hydrogen, oxygen, carbon, nitrogen. The top four elements in our bodies, in order from most common to fourth most common, exactly mirrors the universe. As much as we envision ourselves to be unique, we aren't - not chemically.
Second, consider extremophiles. These are organisms that survive and thrive in environments we used to consider lethal for life. There are animals that can literally survive in space. We've found them; they're real. From this we can infer that we probably don't even need a celestial body located within what we call the habitable zone for life to exist. Heck, we could very possibly find life right here in our own solar system -- on the moon of Europa, which gets its heat from Jupiter.
Intelligent life requires something more to work with, certainly, which is where you can start arguing for rarity. Intelligent, tool using species need to form in environments where being able to make these things has an evolutionary benefit. That's where you start needing the perfect conditions of a planet with water right in the middle of the habitable zone.
Third, to demand proof this early in our endeavors is completely unreasonable. It's like taking a glass of water from the ocean and concluding from its contents that there are no fish in those oceans. You need a slightly bigger sample.
We have no proof. But we've barely looked.
What ever dude, that was pretty concise and elegant if you ask me. I just want to expand on the first point.
I believe that some people just don't think about themselves as being apart of the universe, but rather as being just in the universe, separate from it. It was in the cores of ancient, long-dead, stars that the atoms of our Earth and your bodies were forged. Where theses ancient stars formed out of the left over debris of creation.
I need to go on a walk now and ponder the implications of this.
On May 02 2012 02:59 dpurple wrote: I dont believe there is life on other planets. Give me proof first.
...
Second, consider extremophiles. These are organisms that survive and thrive in environments we used to consider lethal for life. There are animals that can literally survive in space. We've found them; they're real. From this we can infer that we probably don't even need a celestial body located within what we call the habitable zone for life to exist. Heck, we could very possibly find life right here in our own solar system -- on the moon of Europa, which gets its heat from Jupiter.
... We have no proof. But we've barely looked.
A somewhat relevant tale:
NASA sent astronauts on the moon and brought a camera with them. They took a couple of pictures and did a couple of missions and whatnot. Afterwards when they returned to earth the scientists examined the inventory. They noticed that on the camera, which is quite expensive and was new, had a small scratch on the lens. Obviously this isn't right so when the scientists examined it they found bacteria on the lens. Everyone panicked and essentially shut the whole facility down quarantining everything. Later they examined it and found it to be earth-born. This is when they realized how some microbes could survive in space.
European astronomers have discovered a planet with about the mass of the Earth orbiting a star in the Alpha Centauri system -- the nearest to Earth. It is also the lightest exoplanet ever discovered around a star like the Sun. The planet was detected using the HARPS instrument on the 3.6-meter telescope at ESO's La Silla Observatory in Chile. The results will appear online in the journal Nature on 17 October 2012.
Alpha Centauri is one of the brightest stars in the southern skies and is the nearest stellar system to our solar system -- only 4.3 light-years away. It is actually a triple star -- a system consisting of two stars similar to the Sun orbiting close to each other, designated Alpha Centauri A and B, and a more distant and faint red component known as Proxima Centauri [1]. Since the nineteenth century astronomers have speculated about planets orbiting these bodies, the closest possible abodes for life beyond the solar system, but searches of increasing precision had revealed nothing. Until now.
"Our observations extended over more than four years using the HARPS instrument and have revealed a tiny, but real, signal from a planet orbiting Alpha Centauri B every 3.2 days," says Xavier Dumusque (Geneva Observatory, Switzerland, and Centro de Astrofisica da Universidade do Porto, Portugal), lead author of the paper. "It's an extraordinary discovery and it has pushed our technique to the limit!"
On May 02 2012 02:59 dpurple wrote: I dont believe there is life on other planets. Give me proof first.
There are roughly 80 billion estimated galaxies in the universe, possibly more. It seems...statistically improbable doesn't quite cut it, but it will have to do, statistically improbable that there is no life outside of terra.
I mean, we found evidence of water on Mars, our cosmic nextdoor neighbor. We have existed for a cosmic blink of an eye, barely, and have seen and explored nothing that is even measurable against the scale of the known universe. Saying that you don't think there is life elsewhere in the universe because we haven't found any is akin to saying you don't believe that cats exist because you didn't find any in your fridge.
So they just found a planet that is like earth in its mass and star?
But there is zero chance it could ever support life?
"This is the first planet with a mass similar to Earth ever found around a star like the Sun. Its orbit is very close to its star and it must be much too hot for life as we know it,"
"This is the first planet with a mass similar to Earth ever found around a star like the Sun. Its orbit is very close to its star and it must be much too hot for life as we know it,"
I fail to see the importance of this discovery..?
It's also interesting because it is in the nearest system to ours, and because the presence of one planet means there could be more, including some that may not be as hot.
On May 02 2012 02:49 sevia wrote: This whole post came out like a speculative rant, but I'm interested if anyone has suggested a plan like this:
Multi-generational ships and cryo-freezing are way out of our technical reach right now, but robotics and 'ex-utero' birth both look like they will be sufficiently advanced before the end of the century. This definitely sounds science-fictiony, but the general plan would be to: 1. load up a compact ship with robots, building materials, and cloning facilities, 2. send the ship on a centuries-long flight to a system thought to have an Earth-like planet, 3. upon arriving, begin constructing basic life-support systems, gathering resources, and building a settlement, and 4. clone human beings using materials carried on the ship, which are then raised and educated by 'caretaker' robots in the new settlements (this would be the hardest part, I think). After that, transition into fairly 'normal' human colonization.
Some of the technology seems way too advanced right now, but this is what I believe to be the nearest option (technologically and time-wise) if we really want to get humans out of the solar system. Are there any glaring flaws that anyone sees?
How about the purpose for doing so?
What incentive is there for the current generation to invest in a colony separated by a distance of centuries?
What if 300 years into the 900 year journey to the planet, earth develops a technology that can get there in 100 years instead of 900 and at half the cost?
European astronomers have discovered a planet with about the mass of the Earth orbiting a star in the Alpha Centauri system -- the nearest to Earth. It is also the lightest exoplanet ever discovered around a star like the Sun. The planet was detected using the HARPS instrument on the 3.6-meter telescope at ESO's La Silla Observatory in Chile. The results will appear online in the journal Nature on 17 October 2012.
Alpha Centauri is one of the brightest stars in the southern skies and is the nearest stellar system to our solar system -- only 4.3 light-years away. It is actually a triple star -- a system consisting of two stars similar to the Sun orbiting close to each other, designated Alpha Centauri A and B, and a more distant and faint red component known as Proxima Centauri [1]. Since the nineteenth century astronomers have speculated about planets orbiting these bodies, the closest possible abodes for life beyond the solar system, but searches of increasing precision had revealed nothing. Until now.
"Our observations extended over more than four years using the HARPS instrument and have revealed a tiny, but real, signal from a planet orbiting Alpha Centauri B every 3.2 days," says Xavier Dumusque (Geneva Observatory, Switzerland, and Centro de Astrofisica da Universidade do Porto, Portugal), lead author of the paper. "It's an extraordinary discovery and it has pushed our technique to the limit!"
"The European team detected the planet by picking up the tiny wobbles in the motion of the star Alpha Centauri B created by the gravitational pull of the orbiting planet [2]. The effect is minute -- it causes the star to move back and forth by no more than 51 centimeters per second (1.8 km/hour), about the speed of a baby crawling. This is the highest precision ever achieved using this method."
That's ridiculous the way they measured it. Their precision of 51 cm/sec and the insanely little movement of the star that they were somehow able to measure is hard to believe. I don't know how their HARPS system works in measuring this kind of stuff, but it just seems to unrealistic to make a measurement so precise from that far away. I just don't think we have the technology to detect such little changes to star movement like they did here.
"This is the first planet with a mass similar to Earth ever found around a star like the Sun. Its orbit is very close to its star and it must be much too hot for life as we know it,"
On May 02 2012 02:49 sevia wrote: This whole post came out like a speculative rant, but I'm interested if anyone has suggested a plan like this:
Multi-generational ships and cryo-freezing are way out of our technical reach right now, but robotics and 'ex-utero' birth both look like they will be sufficiently advanced before the end of the century. This definitely sounds science-fictiony, but the general plan would be to: 1. load up a compact ship with robots, building materials, and cloning facilities, 2. send the ship on a centuries-long flight to a system thought to have an Earth-like planet, 3. upon arriving, begin constructing basic life-support systems, gathering resources, and building a settlement, and 4. clone human beings using materials carried on the ship, which are then raised and educated by 'caretaker' robots in the new settlements (this would be the hardest part, I think). After that, transition into fairly 'normal' human colonization.
Some of the technology seems way too advanced right now, but this is what I believe to be the nearest option (technologically and time-wise) if we really want to get humans out of the solar system. Are there any glaring flaws that anyone sees?
How about the purpose for doing so?
What incentive is there for the current generation to invest in a colony separated by a distance of centuries?
What if 300 years into the 900 year journey to the planet, earth develops a technology that can get there in 100 years instead of 900 and at half the cost?
Just for the swag of it all?
What is the purpose of having children and raising them, what is the purpose of building schools and educating our young, If people never thought about future generations the species would have never made it to the point we are at today, the purpose of what he suggested, not that i think its a good plan, would be to ensure that humanity lives on and that future generations would have a place to live that isn't horrible overpopulated. Sure its easy to say well if it happens 300 years from now ill be long dead so who cares, but its that type of thinking that will lead to the eventual extinction of the species, if we want our people to continue to exist for another couple of millennium then we need to think ahead and plan for future generations. That being said I don't think sending a ship full of robot nannys is the way to go but it's an idea.
European astronomers have discovered a planet with about the mass of the Earth orbiting a star in the Alpha Centauri system -- the nearest to Earth. It is also the lightest exoplanet ever discovered around a star like the Sun. The planet was detected using the HARPS instrument on the 3.6-meter telescope at ESO's La Silla Observatory in Chile. The results will appear online in the journal Nature on 17 October 2012.
Alpha Centauri is one of the brightest stars in the southern skies and is the nearest stellar system to our solar system -- only 4.3 light-years away. It is actually a triple star -- a system consisting of two stars similar to the Sun orbiting close to each other, designated Alpha Centauri A and B, and a more distant and faint red component known as Proxima Centauri [1]. Since the nineteenth century astronomers have speculated about planets orbiting these bodies, the closest possible abodes for life beyond the solar system, but searches of increasing precision had revealed nothing. Until now.
"Our observations extended over more than four years using the HARPS instrument and have revealed a tiny, but real, signal from a planet orbiting Alpha Centauri B every 3.2 days," says Xavier Dumusque (Geneva Observatory, Switzerland, and Centro de Astrofisica da Universidade do Porto, Portugal), lead author of the paper. "It's an extraordinary discovery and it has pushed our technique to the limit!"
"The European team detected the planet by picking up the tiny wobbles in the motion of the star Alpha Centauri B created by the gravitational pull of the orbiting planet [2]. The effect is minute -- it causes the star to move back and forth by no more than 51 centimeters per second (1.8 km/hour), about the speed of a baby crawling. This is the highest precision ever achieved using this method."
That's ridiculous the way they measured it. Their precision of 51 cm/sec and the insanely little movement of the star that they were somehow able to measure is hard to believe. I don't know how their HARPS system works in measuring this kind of stuff, but it just seems to unrealistic to make a measurement so precise from that far away. I just don't think we have the technology to detect such little changes to star movement like they did here.
They make the measurement by analyzing small changes in the spectrum ( "rainbow") of the light of the star. As the star moves towards us its light becomes slightly bluer and as the star moves away from us its light becomes reder. All we have to do is make instruments sensitive enough to detect the slight changes in energy of the photons that we receive from the star. This is because E=hc/(lambda) where E=energy of a photon, h= Planck's constant, c=speed of light, lambda= wavelength of a photon. A spectrum is a distribution of the wavelengths (colors) that compose the light from a source. It is a totally reasonable measurement to make and its precision is only limited by current technology. Also, probably by current techniques as well.
It's too bad the HARPS and kepler telescope, and every other accurate measurement sensor we have, won't be able to detect a planet like earth at ~1au worth of relative distance.
It's just a matter of time. In 100 years we may know that every system has 8 planets, not just ours (don't you think it's funny most of the exoplanets we find are hot jupiters? shouldn't there be more systems like ours? with almost 3 planets in the goldilocks?)
But to get there, forget it. We will send probes that can get close to .1c and wait the 100 years it takes for the round trip! (if it can laserline, maybe just 55 years for data)
I'm kind of sad about the space discovery stuff ... I mean they went to the moon like 43 years ago. We had totally shitty technology back then, terrible computers, terrible everything. Still we somehow, with all that crap technology made it to the moon, right?
However, afterwards especially america just stopped caring about occupying space it seems, no one seems to care about manned flights anymore either... If we had been putting most of our resources into this(Which in my opinion is definitely the most important thing that we could do with our humanity, the entire space is the biggest mystery in the universe). I don't understand how people can be so concerned with things like fuel or money or whatever causes for war there are, they are so insignificant in the grand scheme of things ... This sort of a thing should also tighten the bonds between different types of people(Although I don't think that there will be real peace until an alien invasion and even in that case it's likely that people will be idiotic and will try to backstab other humans and such in order to gain an advantage even if the race was facing extinction).
That's kind of a ramble I guess, but yeah, I really think that discovering space much more than we currently are should definitely be the main focus of humanity, as well as developing devices to make it possible to occupy planets that aren't readily habitable..
The star HD 40307 was known to host three planets, all of them too near to support liquid water.
But research to appear in Astronomy and Astrophysics has found three more - among them a "super-Earth" seven times our planet's mass, in the habitable zone where liquid water can exist.
Many more observations will be needed to confirm any other similarities.
But the find joins an ever-larger catalogue of more than 800 known exoplanets, and it seems only a matter of time before astronomers spot an "Earth 2.0" - a rocky planet with an atmosphere circling a Sun-like star in the habitable zone.
HD 40307, which lies 42 light-years away, is not particularly Sun-like - it is a smaller, cooler version of our star emitting orange light.
But it is subtle variations in this light that permitted researchers working with the Rocky Planets Around Cool Stars (Ropacs) network to find three more planets around it.
Basically every new technique astronomers develop to watch the stars results in a complete change in our knowledge of system composition. I have no doubt it will take at least 30 years before we develop a good unified technique to locate and measure planets properly.
Francois Fressin, of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA), presented the analysis today in a press conference at a meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Long Beach, Calif. A paper detailing the research has been accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal.
Kepler detects planetary candidates using the transit method, watching for a planet to cross its star and create a mini-eclipse that dims the star slightly. The first 16 months of the survey identified about 2,400 candidates. Astronomers then asked, how many of those signals are real, and how many planets did Kepler miss?
By simulating the Kepler survey, Fressin and his colleagues were able to correct both the impurity and the incompleteness of this list of candidates to recover the true occurrence of planets orbiting other stars, down to the size of Earth.
"There is a list of astrophysical configurations that can mimic planet signals, but altogether, they can only account for one-tenth of the huge number of Kepler candidates. All the other signals are bona-fide planets," says Fressin.
Altogether, the researchers found that 50 percent of stars have a planet of Earth-size or larger in a close orbit. By adding larger planets, which have been detected in wider orbits up to the orbital distance of the Earth, this number reaches 70 percent.
Volunteers from the Planethunters.org website, part of the Oxford University-led Zooniverse project, have discovered 15 new planet candidates orbiting in the habitable zones of other stars.
Added to the 19 similar planets already discovered in habitable zones, where the temperature is neither too hot nor too cold for liquid water, the new finds suggest that there may be a "traffic jam" of all kinds of strange worlds in regions that could potentially support life.
Rather than being seen directly, the new planet candidates were found by Planethunters.org volunteers looking for a telltale dip in the brightness as planets pass in front of their parent stars. One of the 15, a Jupiter-sized planet orbiting a Sun-like star, has been officially confirmed as a planet (with 99.9% certainty) after follow-up work with the Keck telescope in Hawai"i and has been named "PH2 b". It is the second confirmed planet to be found by Planethunters.org.
A report of the research has been submitted to the Astrophysical Journal and is released via arxiv.org on Monday 7 January 2013. "There's an obsession with finding Earth-like planets but what we are discovering, with planets such as PH2 b, is far stranger," said Zooniverse lead Dr Chris Lintott of Oxford University. "Jupiter has several large water-rich moons - imagine dragging that system into the comfortably warm region where the Earth is. If such a planet had Earth size moons, we"d see not Europa and Callisto but worlds with rivers, lakes and all sorts of habitats - a surprising scenario that might just be common."
Planethunters lead scientist Professor Debra Fisher of Yale University said: "We are seeing the emergence of a new era in the Planet Hunters project where our volunteers seem to be at least as efficient as the computer algorithms at finding planets orbiting at habitable zone distances from the host stars. Now, the hunt is not just targeting any old exoplanet - volunteers are homing in on habitable worlds."
I used to be excited about all these new planets and stuff, but frankly it isn't exciting at all. Just tell me when we find a planet with an advanced civilization on it please.
I never quite understood why a planet NEEDS to be in the habitable zone to support life. I mean, just look at life on Earth. It's incredibly varied and can survive in all kinds of climates. Why are we assuming that aliens are going to be like us in that they have to live in a very specific climate due to a certain chemical that might not actually be necessary to support an alien life form?
Well, unless, of course, I'm misinterpreting the phrase and what it actually means is "capable of supporting life from Earth". But if that's the case, I don't see why that's interesting. We aren't even close to getting to the further planets in our solar system, much less the nearest solar system. Anything beyond that point is too far to even be considered to be visited considering our current level of technology.
On January 08 2013 11:54 Tenshix wrote: I used to be excited about all these new planets and stuff, but frankly it isn't exciting at all. Just tell me when we find a planet with an advanced civilization on it please.
We wont be able to likely tell something like that especially if they were smart enough to go underground.
On January 08 2013 11:54 Tenshix wrote: I used to be excited about all these new planets and stuff, but frankly it isn't exciting at all. Just tell me when we find a planet with an advanced civilization on it please.
We wont be able to likely tell something like that especially if they were smart enough to go underground.
That is a likely factor, and there are probably more advanced ways of hiding themselves like cloaking their entire planet and making it nearly impossible for other advanced civilizations to find them. However, I believe that there are other civilizations out there who are on the same level we're at or near it. If that is the case, we could probably find them because they wouldn't be hiding anywhere.
On May 02 2012 02:59 dpurple wrote: I dont believe there is life on other planets. Give me proof first.
...
Second, consider extremophiles. These are organisms that survive and thrive in environments we used to consider lethal for life. There are animals that can literally survive in space. We've found them; they're real. From this we can infer that we probably don't even need a celestial body located within what we call the habitable zone for life to exist. Heck, we could very possibly find life right here in our own solar system -- on the moon of Europa, which gets its heat from Jupiter.
... We have no proof. But we've barely looked.
A somewhat relevant tale:
NASA sent astronauts on the moon and brought a camera with them. They took a couple of pictures and did a couple of missions and whatnot. Afterwards when they returned to earth the scientists examined the inventory. They noticed that on the camera, which is quite expensive and was new, had a small scratch on the lens. Obviously this isn't right so when the scientists examined it they found bacteria on the lens. Everyone panicked and essentially shut the whole facility down quarantining everything. Later they examined it and found it to be earth-born. This is when they realized how some microbes could survive in space.
Cool story.
Or just even more proof that we have never been to the moon
But on topic lol I do believe life on other planets exist. It will probably just take us forever to finally develop the technology.
But if we exist then why is it so hard to believe there aren't other things out there
On January 08 2013 11:54 Tenshix wrote: I used to be excited about all these new planets and stuff, but frankly it isn't exciting at all. Just tell me when we find a planet with an advanced civilization on it please.
We wont be able to likely tell something like that especially if they were smart enough to go underground.
That is a likely factor, and there are probably more advanced ways of hiding themselves like cloaking their entire planet and making it nearly impossible for other advanced civilizations to find them. However, I believe that there are other civilizations out there who are on the same level we're at or near it. If that is the case, we could probably find them because they wouldn't be hiding anywhere.
In my mind it's not a question of if they're out there, just if they're close enough for us to ever know.
On January 08 2013 11:54 Tenshix wrote: I used to be excited about all these new planets and stuff, but frankly it isn't exciting at all. Just tell me when we find a planet with an advanced civilization on it please.
We wont be able to likely tell something like that especially if they were smart enough to go underground.
That is a likely factor, and there are probably more advanced ways of hiding themselves like cloaking their entire planet and making it nearly impossible for other advanced civilizations to find them. However, I believe that there are other civilizations out there who are on the same level we're at or near it. If that is the case, we could probably find them because they wouldn't be hiding anywhere.
In my mind it's not a question of if they're out there, just if they're close enough for us to ever know.
I guess that is true, and since we've only discovered so many exoplanets (~700 out of an estimated 100 billion in the Milky Way alone?) it's hard to say how close an alien civilization might be. Perhaps when the time comes when our technology advances will we learn more about these exoplanets and how close a civilization might be.
On January 08 2013 11:54 Tenshix wrote: I used to be excited about all these new planets and stuff, but frankly it isn't exciting at all. Just tell me when we find a planet with an advanced civilization on it please.
We wont be able to likely tell something like that especially if they were smart enough to go underground.
That is a likely factor, and there are probably more advanced ways of hiding themselves like cloaking their entire planet and making it nearly impossible for other advanced civilizations to find them. However, I believe that there are other civilizations out there who are on the same level we're at or near it. If that is the case, we could probably find them because they wouldn't be hiding anywhere.
In my mind it's not a question of if they're out there, just if they're close enough for us to ever know.
I guess that is true, and since we've only discovered so many exoplanets (~700 out of an estimated 100 billion in the Milky Way alone?) it's hard to say how close an alien civilization might be. Perhaps when the time comes when our technology advances will we learn more about these exoplanets and how close a civilization might be.
You would imagine, however, that we would receive the electromagnetic radiation produced by the civilization hundreds of years before meeting it (such as radio, TV, nuclear tests).
Not that I can imagine this happening very soon but NASA is working on the first warp drive finally:
Looks like visiting an earth like planet may happen within our life time. We should all probably start considering our retirement plan and maybe consider living off world where it'll be tax free
On January 08 2013 11:59 AnachronisticAnarchy wrote: I never quite understood why a planet NEEDS to be in the habitable zone to support life. I mean, just look at life on Earth. It's incredibly varied and can survive in all kinds of climates. Why are we assuming that aliens are going to be like us in that they have to live in a very specific climate due to a certain chemical that might not actually be necessary to support an alien life form?
Well, unless, of course, I'm misinterpreting the phrase and what it actually means is "capable of supporting life from Earth". But if that's the case, I don't see why that's interesting. We aren't even close to getting to the further planets in our solar system, much less the nearest solar system. Anything beyond that point is too far to even be considered to be visited considering our current level of technology.
Basically, we assume that life needs liquid water to exist. Thus, the "habitable zone" is defined as the area where a planet can theoretically have liquid water on its surface.
As far as i know, the assumption that life needs liquid water is pretty reasonable, but of course something weird noone can imagine at this point is still possible. It should be possible to have liquid water under the surface of planets outside of the habitable zone due to higher pressure leading to changed boiling/freezing points, but that is much more unlikely to happen.
European astronomers have discovered a planet with about the mass of the Earth orbiting a star in the Alpha Centauri system -- the nearest to Earth. It is also the lightest exoplanet ever discovered around a star like the Sun. The planet was detected using the HARPS instrument on the 3.6-meter telescope at ESO's La Silla Observatory in Chile. The results will appear online in the journal Nature on 17 October 2012.
Alpha Centauri is one of the brightest stars in the southern skies and is the nearest stellar system to our solar system -- only 4.3 light-years away. It is actually a triple star -- a system consisting of two stars similar to the Sun orbiting close to each other, designated Alpha Centauri A and B, and a more distant and faint red component known as Proxima Centauri [1]. Since the nineteenth century astronomers have speculated about planets orbiting these bodies, the closest possible abodes for life beyond the solar system, but searches of increasing precision had revealed nothing. Until now.
"Our observations extended over more than four years using the HARPS instrument and have revealed a tiny, but real, signal from a planet orbiting Alpha Centauri B every 3.2 days," says Xavier Dumusque (Geneva Observatory, Switzerland, and Centro de Astrofisica da Universidade do Porto, Portugal), lead author of the paper. "It's an extraordinary discovery and it has pushed our technique to the limit!"
"The European team detected the planet by picking up the tiny wobbles in the motion of the star Alpha Centauri B created by the gravitational pull of the orbiting planet [2]. The effect is minute -- it causes the star to move back and forth by no more than 51 centimeters per second (1.8 km/hour), about the speed of a baby crawling. This is the highest precision ever achieved using this method."
That's ridiculous the way they measured it. Their precision of 51 cm/sec and the insanely little movement of the star that they were somehow able to measure is hard to believe. I don't know how their HARPS system works in measuring this kind of stuff, but it just seems to unrealistic to make a measurement so precise from that far away. I just don't think we have the technology to detect such little changes to star movement like they did here.
Where do you get off making a post like this? If you're going to cast doubt on something, you should probably back up your statement with info. You may even know what you're talking about, but your reply doesn't really suggest that. All it does suggest is that you like to be an ass.
European astronomers have discovered a planet with about the mass of the Earth orbiting a star in the Alpha Centauri system -- the nearest to Earth. It is also the lightest exoplanet ever discovered around a star like the Sun. The planet was detected using the HARPS instrument on the 3.6-meter telescope at ESO's La Silla Observatory in Chile. The results will appear online in the journal Nature on 17 October 2012.
Alpha Centauri is one of the brightest stars in the southern skies and is the nearest stellar system to our solar system -- only 4.3 light-years away. It is actually a triple star -- a system consisting of two stars similar to the Sun orbiting close to each other, designated Alpha Centauri A and B, and a more distant and faint red component known as Proxima Centauri [1]. Since the nineteenth century astronomers have speculated about planets orbiting these bodies, the closest possible abodes for life beyond the solar system, but searches of increasing precision had revealed nothing. Until now.
"Our observations extended over more than four years using the HARPS instrument and have revealed a tiny, but real, signal from a planet orbiting Alpha Centauri B every 3.2 days," says Xavier Dumusque (Geneva Observatory, Switzerland, and Centro de Astrofisica da Universidade do Porto, Portugal), lead author of the paper. "It's an extraordinary discovery and it has pushed our technique to the limit!"
"The European team detected the planet by picking up the tiny wobbles in the motion of the star Alpha Centauri B created by the gravitational pull of the orbiting planet [2]. The effect is minute -- it causes the star to move back and forth by no more than 51 centimeters per second (1.8 km/hour), about the speed of a baby crawling. This is the highest precision ever achieved using this method."
That's ridiculous the way they measured it. Their precision of 51 cm/sec and the insanely little movement of the star that they were somehow able to measure is hard to believe. I don't know how their HARPS system works in measuring this kind of stuff, but it just seems to unrealistic to make a measurement so precise from that far away. I just don't think we have the technology to detect such little changes to star movement like they did here.
Where do you get off making a post like this? If you're going to cast doubt on something, you should probably back up your statement with info. You may even know what you're talking about, but your reply doesn't really suggest that. All it does suggest is that you like to be an ass.
Every 'discovery' will be accurate to a certain level. I'm certain this was a 6-sigma accuracy reading, which is only really possible if the wobble happens many many times. But there are many sources of error in the luminosity and redshifting values, we accept with reasonable certainty that the results produced in a laboratory corresponds to the results obtained from reading stars.
The OP in this quote wants to know how it's possible the be that accurate. When you're dealing with reading redshifts of a star, a repeated, detectable change of the order of micro/nanovolts happening with a fixed frequency is quite doable.
European astronomers have discovered a planet with about the mass of the Earth orbiting a star in the Alpha Centauri system -- the nearest to Earth. It is also the lightest exoplanet ever discovered around a star like the Sun. The planet was detected using the HARPS instrument on the 3.6-meter telescope at ESO's La Silla Observatory in Chile. The results will appear online in the journal Nature on 17 October 2012.
Alpha Centauri is one of the brightest stars in the southern skies and is the nearest stellar system to our solar system -- only 4.3 light-years away. It is actually a triple star -- a system consisting of two stars similar to the Sun orbiting close to each other, designated Alpha Centauri A and B, and a more distant and faint red component known as Proxima Centauri [1]. Since the nineteenth century astronomers have speculated about planets orbiting these bodies, the closest possible abodes for life beyond the solar system, but searches of increasing precision had revealed nothing. Until now.
"Our observations extended over more than four years using the HARPS instrument and have revealed a tiny, but real, signal from a planet orbiting Alpha Centauri B every 3.2 days," says Xavier Dumusque (Geneva Observatory, Switzerland, and Centro de Astrofisica da Universidade do Porto, Portugal), lead author of the paper. "It's an extraordinary discovery and it has pushed our technique to the limit!"
"The European team detected the planet by picking up the tiny wobbles in the motion of the star Alpha Centauri B created by the gravitational pull of the orbiting planet [2]. The effect is minute -- it causes the star to move back and forth by no more than 51 centimeters per second (1.8 km/hour), about the speed of a baby crawling. This is the highest precision ever achieved using this method."
That's ridiculous the way they measured it. Their precision of 51 cm/sec and the insanely little movement of the star that they were somehow able to measure is hard to believe. I don't know how their HARPS system works in measuring this kind of stuff, but it just seems to unrealistic to make a measurement so precise from that far away. I just don't think we have the technology to detect such little changes to star movement like they did here.
Where do you get off making a post like this? If you're going to cast doubt on something, you should probably back up your statement with info. You may even know what you're talking about, but your reply doesn't really suggest that. All it does suggest is that you like to be an ass.
How is what you posted any different?
TL is a forum where people post all the time with little to no knowledge of what they speak. It's called the internet. Little to no accountability often leads to large to astronomical (see what i did there?) exaggerations and claims.
I suspect he's using general knowledge he knows about just how big the universe is, just how small the earth is, and just how unlikely it is they could measure "51 centimeters" in relation to it all. That's just me guessing. I do not speak for him. Btw, with no information backing it up, I find it just as absurd, although I leave room to be corrected, and count it a bonus if I am. I like being corrected; I learn every time I am.
LOS ANGELES — While Mars was likely a more hospitable place in its wetter, warmer past, the Red Planet may still be capable of supporting microbial life today, some scientists say.
Ongoing research in Mars-like places such as Antarctica and Chile's Atacama Desert shows that microbes can eke out a living in extremely cold and dry environments, several researchers stressed at "The Present-Day Habitability of Mars" conference held here at the University of California Los Angeles this month.
And not all parts of the Red Planet's surface may be arid currently — at least not all the time. Evidence is building that liquid water might flow seasonally at some Martian sites, potentially providing a haven for life as we know it.
McEwen discussed some intriguing observations by HiRise, which suggest that briny water may flow down steep Martian slopes during the local spring and summer.
Sixteen such sites have been identified to date, mostly on the slopes of the huge Valles Marineris canyon complex, McEwen said. The tracks seem to repeat seasonally as the syrupy fluids descend along weather-worn pathways.
While the brines may originate underground, Caltech's Edwin Kite noted, there is an increasing suspicion that a process known as deliquescence — in which moisture present in the atmosphere is gathered by compounds on the ground, allowing it to become a liquid — may be responsible.
Astrobiologists are keen to learn more about these brines, for not much is known about them at the moment.
"Briny water on Mars may or may not be habitable to microbes, either from Earth or from Mars," McEwen said.
On September 13 2011 05:37 nimbus99 wrote: wow... so cool, great post
we are SO SMALL
are we? As far as we know we're the most intelligent beings in hte universe I haven't met any species more intelligent an d powerful than the human race-- have you? So it seems to me that we're number one. ANd maybe the aliens don't cme here because they're simply too cowardly to face our primate ingenuity. Maybe peering through the depths of formless space and time they see how deftly we can handle screwdrivers and those toilet brushes with our super advanced opposable thumbs-- AND THEY WANT NO PART OF IT,. Indeed Earth is the crown jewel of God's creation, and humans are superior to the angels
-- the Koran, and Bible, and other holy texts (the only holy texts in the universe that we know of)
On September 13 2011 05:37 nimbus99 wrote: wow... so cool, great post
we are SO SMALL
are we? As far as we know we're the most intelligent beings in hte universe I haven't met any species more intelligent an d powerful than the human race-- have you? So it seems to me that we're number one. ANd maybe the aliens don't cme here because they're simply too cowardly to face our primate ingenuity. Maybe peering through the depths of formless space and time they see how deftly we can handle screwdrivers and those toilet brushes with our super advanced opposable thumbs-- AND THEY WANT NO PART OF IT,. Indeed Earth is the crown jewel of God's creation, and humans are superior to the angels
-- the Koran, and Bible, and other holy texts (the only holy texts in the universe that we know of)
Pointless religion-bashing has nothing to do with habitable planets.
There are many hypothetical solutions to the paradox, but it seems there must be much more to the universe than we realize, or else the predictions should be visible.
(I just read through the article and it's missing the chariot of the gods hypothesis!)
I hate to be the "conspiracy theorist" but let's analyze the situation:
All of us here ( or most of us at least ) BELIEVE that it's impossible for humans to be the only "intelligent" life forms in the universe.
If we take this into consideration, and the possibility of numerous alien species living "somewhere" in the universe, there is also the possibility that some of these alien races are more advanced than we are ( the main argument here would be that they are much older than we are, because humans have existed for a very short time according to the popular belief ).
Now if these races are far more advanced than we are, chances are they have developed faster-than-light travel and even more crazy stuff than we could ever dare to believe existed.
It might just happen that their "technology" or whatever they posses, being the ancient civilization they are, also allows them to map out the ENTIRE GALAXY ( can u believe that shit, pure sci-fi I tell ya ).
Oh and look, they find a planet orbiting a certain yellow star, in it's "habitable zone", has liquid water on it's surface, can you believe that?
Now there can be a lot of theories regarding this, but I think in the end it's safe assume that they PROBABLY know of our existence (assuming ofc we all agree that it's impossible for us to be alone in the universe). I am also relatively certain that they can avoid detection by us if the wish to do so.
If anyone here watched Star Trek, you know that the Vulcans are the first race who contacted humans, and it just so happened that they decided to wait until we developed warp drive.
Now, we didn't develop warp drive as far as I know, but we did WENT INTO SPACE. I think that's a pretty big deal for a budding race like us. Now, I'm no ET, but I'm assuming that a space-traveling race would qualify for further study, hm?
On February 27 2013 01:43 marconi wrote: I hate to be the "conspiracy theorist" but let's analyze the situation:
All of us here ( or most of us at least ) BELIEVE that it's impossible for humans to be the only "intelligent" life forms in the universe.
If we take this into consideration, and the possibility of numerous alien species living "somewhere" in the universe, there is also the possibility that some of these alien races are more advanced than we are ( the main argument here would be that they are much older than we are, because humans have existed for a very short time according to the popular belief ).
Now if these races are far more advanced than we are, chances are they have developed faster-than-light travel and even more crazy stuff than we could ever dare to believe existed.
It might just happen that their "technology" or whatever they posses, being the ancient civilization they are, also allows them to map out the ENTIRE GALAXY ( can u believe that shit, pure sci-fi I tell ya ).
Oh and look, they find a planet orbiting a certain yellow star, in it's "habitable zone", has liquid water on it's surface, can you believe that?
Now there can be a lot of theories regarding this, but I think in the end it's safe assume that they PROBABLY know of our existence (assuming ofc we all agree that it's impossible for us to be alone in the universe). I am also relatively certain that they can avoid detection by us if the wish to do so.
If anyone here watched Star Trek, you know that the Vulcans are the first race who contacted humans, and it just so happened that they decided to wait until we developed warp drive.
Now, we didn't develop warp drive as far as I know, but we did WENT INTO SPACE. I think that's a pretty big deal for a budding race like us. Now, I'm no ET, but I'm assuming that a space-traveling race would qualify for further study, hm?
But then again, maybe I'm crazy.
For all we know a civilization that reaches the capability of making Virtual Reality will stop any scientific and/or explorative endeavors. There's simply too many theories that can explain the paradox.
On February 27 2013 01:43 marconi wrote: I hate to be the "conspiracy theorist" but let's analyze the situation:
All of us here ( or most of us at least ) BELIEVE that it's impossible for humans to be the only "intelligent" life forms in the universe.
If we take this into consideration, and the possibility of numerous alien species living "somewhere" in the universe, there is also the possibility that some of these alien races are more advanced than we are ( the main argument here would be that they are much older than we are, because humans have existed for a very short time according to the popular belief ).
Now if these races are far more advanced than we are, chances are they have developed faster-than-light travel and even more crazy stuff than we could ever dare to believe existed.
It might just happen that their "technology" or whatever they posses, being the ancient civilization they are, also allows them to map out the ENTIRE GALAXY ( can u believe that shit, pure sci-fi I tell ya ).
Oh and look, they find a planet orbiting a certain yellow star, in it's "habitable zone", has liquid water on it's surface, can you believe that?
Now there can be a lot of theories regarding this, but I think in the end it's safe assume that they PROBABLY know of our existence (assuming ofc we all agree that it's impossible for us to be alone in the universe). I am also relatively certain that they can avoid detection by us if the wish to do so.
If anyone here watched Star Trek, you know that the Vulcans are the first race who contacted humans, and it just so happened that they decided to wait until we developed warp drive.
Now, we didn't develop warp drive as far as I know, but we did WENT INTO SPACE. I think that's a pretty big deal for a budding race like us. Now, I'm no ET, but I'm assuming that a space-traveling race would qualify for further study, hm?
But then again, maybe I'm crazy.
Have you seen the movie the right stuff? Going into space isn't much more than sending up a rocket with a person instead of a warhead. Even getting to the moon was basically playing billiards in space. If I were a member of a species capable of interstellar travel, I'd wait until either humanity managed to make global peace, or one civilization managed to colonize a planet outside of it's system.
On January 08 2013 11:59 AnachronisticAnarchy wrote: I never quite understood why a planet NEEDS to be in the habitable zone to support life. I mean, just look at life on Earth. It's incredibly varied and can survive in all kinds of climates. Why are we assuming that aliens are going to be like us in that they have to live in a very specific climate due to a certain chemical that might not actually be necessary to support an alien life form?
Well, unless, of course, I'm misinterpreting the phrase and what it actually means is "capable of supporting life from Earth". But if that's the case, I don't see why that's interesting. We aren't even close to getting to the further planets in our solar system, much less the nearest solar system. Anything beyond that point is too far to even be considered to be visited considering our current level of technology.
Basically, we assume that life needs liquid water to exist. Thus, the "habitable zone" is defined as the area where a planet can theoretically have liquid water on its surface.
As far as i know, the assumption that life needs liquid water is pretty reasonable, but of course something weird noone can imagine at this point is still possible. It should be possible to have liquid water under the surface of planets outside of the habitable zone due to higher pressure leading to changed boiling/freezing points, but that is much more unlikely to happen.
Another argument is that we don't know how life would exist without water, since we never saw life without water, ever. There is no bacteria that is to be considered "alive" (what ever "alive" is) without water in this planet, no matter how tough the surroundings. If we are to find life in other planets we have to look for signs of life that we know of, like an atmosphere rich in gas Oxygen or another reducer agent. And we can't just machine gun with all the data, otherwise some of it might be compromised by our measurement devices.
On February 27 2013 01:43 marconi wrote: I hate to be the "conspiracy theorist" but let's analyze the situation:
All of us here ( or most of us at least ) BELIEVE that it's impossible for humans to be the only "intelligent" life forms in the universe.
If we take this into consideration, and the possibility of numerous alien species living "somewhere" in the universe, there is also the possibility that some of these alien races are more advanced than we are ( the main argument here would be that they are much older than we are, because humans have existed for a very short time according to the popular belief ).
Now if these races are far more advanced than we are, chances are they have developed faster-than-light travel and even more crazy stuff than we could ever dare to believe existed.
It might just happen that their "technology" or whatever they posses, being the ancient civilization they are, also allows them to map out the ENTIRE GALAXY ( can u believe that shit, pure sci-fi I tell ya ).
Oh and look, they find a planet orbiting a certain yellow star, in it's "habitable zone", has liquid water on it's surface, can you believe that?
Now there can be a lot of theories regarding this, but I think in the end it's safe assume that they PROBABLY know of our existence (assuming ofc we all agree that it's impossible for us to be alone in the universe). I am also relatively certain that they can avoid detection by us if the wish to do so.
If anyone here watched Star Trek, you know that the Vulcans are the first race who contacted humans, and it just so happened that they decided to wait until we developed warp drive.
Now, we didn't develop warp drive as far as I know, but we did WENT INTO SPACE. I think that's a pretty big deal for a budding race like us. Now, I'm no ET, but I'm assuming that a space-traveling race would qualify for further study, hm?
But then again, maybe I'm crazy.
Earth is 4.5 Billion years old, and life began to form around 3.5. Billion years ago - it varies with the source, so I'll take the most conservative of the scientific sources (note that I said scientific, because some religious sources will say it is actually 6000 years, but follow me) - wich means, inteligent life took 3.5 Billion years to form on Earth, which many believe is practically a haven in the Universe, with Jupiter protecting us with its huge mass from most of the asteroids in our system, and by being in a relatively peaceful corners of our galaxy, with hardly ever any kind of cosmic event. If there is life out there, and not that it should matter, but this is the internet, I believe there is, it is probably developing still, and not a super-mega-ultra-advanced civilization, lurking in the shadows of our solar-sytem until we are able to solve our problems.
On January 08 2013 11:59 AnachronisticAnarchy wrote: I never quite understood why a planet NEEDS to be in the habitable zone to support life. I mean, just look at life on Earth. It's incredibly varied and can survive in all kinds of climates. Why are we assuming that aliens are going to be like us in that they have to live in a very specific climate due to a certain chemical that might not actually be necessary to support an alien life form?
Well, unless, of course, I'm misinterpreting the phrase and what it actually means is "capable of supporting life from Earth". But if that's the case, I don't see why that's interesting. We aren't even close to getting to the further planets in our solar system, much less the nearest solar system. Anything beyond that point is too far to even be considered to be visited considering our current level of technology.
Basically, we assume that life needs liquid water to exist. Thus, the "habitable zone" is defined as the area where a planet can theoretically have liquid water on its surface.
As far as i know, the assumption that life needs liquid water is pretty reasonable, but of course something weird noone can imagine at this point is still possible. It should be possible to have liquid water under the surface of planets outside of the habitable zone due to higher pressure leading to changed boiling/freezing points, but that is much more unlikely to happen.
Another argument is that we don't know how life would exist without water, since we never saw life without water, ever. There is no bacteria that is to be considered "alive" (what ever "alive" is) without water in this planet, no matter how tough the surroundings. If we are to find life in other planets we have to look for signs of life that we know of, like an atmosphere rich in gas Oxygen or another reducer agent. And we can't just machine gun with all the data, otherwise some of it might be compromised by our measurement devices.
On February 27 2013 01:43 marconi wrote: I hate to be the "conspiracy theorist" but let's analyze the situation:
All of us here ( or most of us at least ) BELIEVE that it's impossible for humans to be the only "intelligent" life forms in the universe.
If we take this into consideration, and the possibility of numerous alien species living "somewhere" in the universe, there is also the possibility that some of these alien races are more advanced than we are ( the main argument here would be that they are much older than we are, because humans have existed for a very short time according to the popular belief ).
Now if these races are far more advanced than we are, chances are they have developed faster-than-light travel and even more crazy stuff than we could ever dare to believe existed.
It might just happen that their "technology" or whatever they posses, being the ancient civilization they are, also allows them to map out the ENTIRE GALAXY ( can u believe that shit, pure sci-fi I tell ya ).
Oh and look, they find a planet orbiting a certain yellow star, in it's "habitable zone", has liquid water on it's surface, can you believe that?
Now there can be a lot of theories regarding this, but I think in the end it's safe assume that they PROBABLY know of our existence (assuming ofc we all agree that it's impossible for us to be alone in the universe). I am also relatively certain that they can avoid detection by us if the wish to do so.
If anyone here watched Star Trek, you know that the Vulcans are the first race who contacted humans, and it just so happened that they decided to wait until we developed warp drive.
Now, we didn't develop warp drive as far as I know, but we did WENT INTO SPACE. I think that's a pretty big deal for a budding race like us. Now, I'm no ET, but I'm assuming that a space-traveling race would qualify for further study, hm?
But then again, maybe I'm crazy.
Earth is 4.5 Billion years old, and life began to form around 3.5. Billion years ago - it varies with the source, so I'll take the most conservative of the scientific sources (note that I said scientific, because some religious sources will say it is actually 6000 years, but follow me) - wich means, inteligent life took 3.5 Billion years to form on Earth, which many believe is practically a haven in the Universe, with Jupiter protecting us with its huge mass from most of the asteroids in our system, and by being in a relatively peaceful corners of our galaxy, with hardly ever any kind of cosmic event. If there is life out there, and not that it should matter, but this is the internet, I believe there is, it is probably developing still, and not a super-mega-ultra-advanced civilization, lurking in the shadows of our solar-sytem until we are able to solve our problems.
This is a very strange conclusion. If you believe that life is out there, which, on the basis of probabilities, is practically certain, then you should realise that it implies that the universe is teeming with life. Either the earth is truly unique and life happened due to a unique (divine usually) process or it's not in which case life would be all over the place and of varying levels of development.
On February 27 2013 01:43 marconi wrote: I hate to be the "conspiracy theorist" but let's analyze the situation:
All of us here ( or most of us at least ) BELIEVE that it's impossible for humans to be the only "intelligent" life forms in the universe.
If we take this into consideration, and the possibility of numerous alien species living "somewhere" in the universe, there is also the possibility that some of these alien races are more advanced than we are ( the main argument here would be that they are much older than we are, because humans have existed for a very short time according to the popular belief ).
Now if these races are far more advanced than we are, chances are they have developed faster-than-light travel and even more crazy stuff than we could ever dare to believe existed.
It might just happen that their "technology" or whatever they posses, being the ancient civilization they are, also allows them to map out the ENTIRE GALAXY ( can u believe that shit, pure sci-fi I tell ya ).
Oh and look, they find a planet orbiting a certain yellow star, in it's "habitable zone", has liquid water on it's surface, can you believe that?
Now there can be a lot of theories regarding this, but I think in the end it's safe assume that they PROBABLY know of our existence (assuming ofc we all agree that it's impossible for us to be alone in the universe). I am also relatively certain that they can avoid detection by us if the wish to do so.
If anyone here watched Star Trek, you know that the Vulcans are the first race who contacted humans, and it just so happened that they decided to wait until we developed warp drive.
Now, we didn't develop warp drive as far as I know, but we did WENT INTO SPACE. I think that's a pretty big deal for a budding race like us. Now, I'm no ET, but I'm assuming that a space-traveling race would qualify for further study, hm?
But then again, maybe I'm crazy.
They can study us all they want, but I can't think of any reason why a highly advanced civilization would want to communicate with a bunch of apes that has trouble coexisting with eachother, much less another species. We have no value to provide anyone. As much as I like Startrek, I fail to appreciate what the "human" factor bring to a civilization already capable of advanced technology and peaceful society.
Humans are the only species that developed, eh, human-like intelligence. I sometimes wonder if humans didn't exist if in another several million years we would see intelligent bears or cats instead. ^^
Anyways, it might simply be that faster-than-light travel is not feasible, that there are other limits to travel, that nearby stars don't have life. If the universe has a lot of different stars, maybe some have life, but what does it matter if they are ten billion light years away? How are you to communicate with them? (try playing Starcraft 2 with that latency :p )
35 light years away is still feasible, if such a planet had intelligent life roughly at our stage of development we could simply keep sending them certain language codes or whatever and then several cycles of 35 years later we might know each other's language and from that point on it's only a question of constantly broadcasting interesting info to each other. Would be cool, but it's not probable to happen.
On February 27 2013 03:26 Grumbels wrote: Humans are the only species that developed, eh, human-like intelligence. I sometimes wonder if humans didn't exist if in another several million years we would see intelligent bears or cats instead. ^^
Anyways, it might simply be that faster-than-light travel is not feasible, that there are other limits to travel, that nearby stars don't have life. If the universe has a lot of different stars, maybe some have life, but what does it matter if they are ten billion light years away? How are you to communicate with them? (try playing Starcraft 2 with that latency :p )
35 light years away is still feasible, if such a planet had intelligent life roughly at our stage of development we could simply keep sending them certain language codes or whatever and then several cycles of 35 years later we might know each other's language and from that point on it's only a question of constantly broadcasting interesting info to each other. Would be cool, but it's not probable to happen.
I think this would be more interesting from a colonization perspective. Who knows what kind of speed(in space) we can get up to in a few thousands, coupled with any advances in life longevity/cyrogenic sleep, we could potential have humans there in < 3000 years.
On February 27 2013 01:43 marconi wrote: I hate to be the "conspiracy theorist" but let's analyze the situation:
All of us here ( or most of us at least ) BELIEVE that it's impossible for humans to be the only "intelligent" life forms in the universe.
If we take this into consideration, and the possibility of numerous alien species living "somewhere" in the universe, there is also the possibility that some of these alien races are more advanced than we are ( the main argument here would be that they are much older than we are, because humans have existed for a very short time according to the popular belief ).
Now if these races are far more advanced than we are, chances are they have developed faster-than-light travel and even more crazy stuff than we could ever dare to believe existed.
It might just happen that their "technology" or whatever they posses, being the ancient civilization they are, also allows them to map out the ENTIRE GALAXY ( can u believe that shit, pure sci-fi I tell ya ).
Oh and look, they find a planet orbiting a certain yellow star, in it's "habitable zone", has liquid water on it's surface, can you believe that?
Now there can be a lot of theories regarding this, but I think in the end it's safe assume that they PROBABLY know of our existence (assuming ofc we all agree that it's impossible for us to be alone in the universe). I am also relatively certain that they can avoid detection by us if the wish to do so.
If anyone here watched Star Trek, you know that the Vulcans are the first race who contacted humans, and it just so happened that they decided to wait until we developed warp drive.
Now, we didn't develop warp drive as far as I know, but we did WENT INTO SPACE. I think that's a pretty big deal for a budding race like us. Now, I'm no ET, but I'm assuming that a space-traveling race would qualify for further study, hm?
But then again, maybe I'm crazy.
Speak for yourself. Intelligence is random. There is just as much chance of life being unintelligent as there is to being intelligent. For eons this earth was occupied by unintelligent life. To be certain of anything involving intelligent life on other planets is asinine. I appreciate theories and good discussion but come on ... You act divine.
There are many hypothetical solutions to the paradox, but it seems there must be much more to the universe than we realize, or else the predictions should be visible.
(I just read through the article and it's missing the chariot of the gods hypothesis!)
That sounds to me like Commander Shephard was right. They are coming. Thanks about the link never read about it, quite interesting :d
On February 27 2013 01:43 marconi wrote: I hate to be the "conspiracy theorist" but let's analyze the situation:
All of us here ( or most of us at least ) BELIEVE that it's impossible for humans to be the only "intelligent" life forms in the universe.
If we take this into consideration, and the possibility of numerous alien species living "somewhere" in the universe, there is also the possibility that some of these alien races are more advanced than we are ( the main argument here would be that they are much older than we are, because humans have existed for a very short time according to the popular belief ).
Now if these races are far more advanced than we are, chances are they have developed faster-than-light travel and even more crazy stuff than we could ever dare to believe existed.
It might just happen that their "technology" or whatever they posses, being the ancient civilization they are, also allows them to map out the ENTIRE GALAXY ( can u believe that shit, pure sci-fi I tell ya ).
Oh and look, they find a planet orbiting a certain yellow star, in it's "habitable zone", has liquid water on it's surface, can you believe that?
Now there can be a lot of theories regarding this, but I think in the end it's safe assume that they PROBABLY know of our existence (assuming ofc we all agree that it's impossible for us to be alone in the universe). I am also relatively certain that they can avoid detection by us if the wish to do so.
If anyone here watched Star Trek, you know that the Vulcans are the first race who contacted humans, and it just so happened that they decided to wait until we developed warp drive.
Now, we didn't develop warp drive as far as I know, but we did WENT INTO SPACE. I think that's a pretty big deal for a budding race like us. Now, I'm no ET, but I'm assuming that a space-traveling race would qualify for further study, hm?
But then again, maybe I'm crazy.
humans have existed for a very short time according to the popular belief
It is not 'belief' it is science... Science isn't a belief in something, it's not faith, it is evidence and fact.
also allows them to map out the ENTIRE GALAXY
We... Happen to map our galaxy quite well, this isn't that crazy of a stretch of your imagination (somehow you seem to think it was). Obviously we could do it better but a much bolder thing would be to say they have death stars and star destroyers (#starwarswhaaaat?)
maybe I'm crazy
Just maybe
On February 27 2013 06:49 MrRicewife wrote: Speak for yourself. Intelligence is random. There is just as much chance of life being unintelligent as there is to being intelligent. For eons this earth was occupied by unintelligent life. To be certain of anything involving intelligent life on other planets is asinine. I appreciate theories and good discussion but come on ... You act divine.
Or you successfully just trolled me.
You don't really understand how randomness works, it's as much about probability as it is 'random' occurring events. With that in mind. It would be an astronomically small chance, you'd have a better chance winning the lottery every day of the week for the next 10 years then the universe not having anymore intelligent life... There are an estimated 10 trillion planets just in our galaxy alone... It's estimated there are 200 billion galaxies (probably more)... It is estimates at 10^24 planets in the universe (rough obviously). It's no longer about 'random', it's simply statistics, it's what we call a negligible probability to think this very very unimportant planet (with respect to others of similar note) is the only planet that 'lucked' out.
You also have to take into account that when we look into space, thousands of light years literally means thousands of years in the past, so any planet that is similar to ours would be living in Roman times (if they grew similar to us) and our telescopes would have no ability to detect life, nor would it have the ability to see if that civilization is a prospering giant traveling through space (similar to them looking at us). This is all assertion, it could be the case that that planet had not evolved as quickly due to other occurences (sun size, orbit etc) but the fact remains, it's a much bolder and improbable statement to think 'maybe intelligent life is so random it only happened once' then to assume it is very VERY common.
On February 27 2013 07:23 Tanukki wrote: So what would the gravity be like on a planet 3* the mass of earth? I'd imagine a bit rough? People living there must be dwarves :D
Depends on the density, but if we assume it has an earth-like density, tripling the mass would mean that it also has a cubic root(3) larger radius. As the gravitational force on one body is proportional to m/r², the gravitational pull would increase by 3/3^(2/3), or 3^1/3. This is about 1.44.
On February 27 2013 07:23 Tanukki wrote: So what would the gravity be like on a planet 3* the mass of earth? I'd imagine a bit rough? People living there must be dwarves :D
Depends on the density, but if we assume it has an earth-like density, tripling the mass would mean that it also has a cubic root(3) larger radius. As the gravitational force on one body is proportional to m/r², the gravitational pull would increase by 3/3^(2/3), or 3^1/3. This is about 1.44.
The assumption is unfounded on what would live there simply because they wouldn't be human (or earthborn) such that they could be EXACTLY the same as us with just simply less or more dense body masses (stronger bones or weaker depending).
Neil Degrasse Tyson has a nice rant on how he hates 'alien' movies because they make them all look like humans when they could look like anything, have imagination. Richard Dawkin's replied, however in rebuke, that it could be the case that aliens become similar to humans through the same evolutionary process, bigger brains, opposable thumbs etc are very strong evolutionary tendencies for earths enviornment and a similar one would bare the same fruit most likely followings Darwinian Theory, the strong survive while the weak die etc etc.
On February 27 2013 06:49 MrRicewife wrote: Speak for yourself. Intelligence is random. There is just as much chance of life being unintelligent as there is to being intelligent. For eons this earth was occupied by unintelligent life. To be certain of anything involving intelligent life on other planets is asinine. I appreciate theories and good discussion but come on ... You act divine.
Or you successfully just trolled me.
For like 2.8 billion years we had only the most simple lifeforms(compared to what we have now). Only after 2.8 million years there was enough of time for a 'dice roll' to generate multicellular life. Now that's a whole long time. For about 1/3rd of the earth's history single celled life was the only solution needed to survival.
Then something strange happened an a plethora of complex life did evolve. Now only a small bit of biomass of this complex life actually has a brain. Most of these brains are quite simple compared to us and we are not impressed with their cognitive abilities. On the other hand, compared to our counters they are pretty smart, especially in their own way.
But we can say that only humans can be considered intelligent. Life on earth is like 4599 years without any intelligence. And then 1 million years with 1 species that has intelligence.
So I would not call it out to be 50/50 when even on earth, which might be an extremely exceptional case, intelligence is so exceedingly rare.
Maybe there is an almost endless number of extremely rare traits that can evolve. And on earth there was life long enough for one of those exceedingly rare traits to evolve. And that ended up to be what we now call 'intelligence'. Maybe on all these other planets something entirely different rare trait evolves.
Intelligence seems to be a very odd survival strategy. We still cannot explain properly why we have the ability to do develop math for quantum mechanics and general relativity. Surely we didn't use that until about 100 years ago. Yet there was some evolutionary pressure selecting these genes about 1 million years ago. All those humans who were not smart enough somehow died out. Why? It is very strange. Our brains use a lot and a lot of energy. They have a huge huge overhead.
Intelligence, as humans have it, seems to be a fluke. It seems to generally be a very bad survival strategy that somehow was a good one under odd unexplained conditions, hence it evolved the way it did.
You can argue that certain traits will be convergent. The eye is a good example. It evolved several different times. If there is life on other planets they will likely evolve eyes once life also makes the jump to complex lifeforms(and remember that was an odd thing to happen and it took a lot of time for the odds or conditions to be right)
But intelligence? For all we know it is going to be unique to humans only. No good reasons for intelligence to evolve. And remember that while we have 6 billion people right now, so we can say we are successful and indeed this has to do with our intelligence, the number of humans around the time we evolved intelligence was quite low. It took a long time for our intelligence to come up with civilization before our numbers started to boom exponentially. With all our intelligence, humans almost went extinct about a million of years ago. And when disaster hits earth, since our body weight is too big, we will die out together with all the other larger animals. Intelligence won't have any effect.
On February 27 2013 07:23 Tanukki wrote: So what would the gravity be like on a planet 3* the mass of earth? I'd imagine a bit rough? People living there must be dwarves :D
Depends on the density, but if we assume it has an earth-like density, tripling the mass would mean that it also has a cubic root(3) larger radius. As the gravitational force on one body is proportional to m/r², the gravitational pull would increase by 3/3^(2/3), or 3^1/3. This is about 1.44.
The assumption is unfounded on what would live there simply because they wouldn't be human (or earthborn) such that they could be EXACTLY the same as us with just simply less or more dense body masses (stronger bones or weaker depending).
Neil Degrasse Tyson has a nice rant on how he hates 'alien' movies because they make them all look like humans when they could look like anything, have imagination. Richard Dawkin's replied, however in rebuke, that it could be the case that aliens become similar to humans through the same evolutionary process, bigger brains, opposable thumbs etc are very strong evolutionary tendencies for earths enviornment and a similar one would bare the same fruit most likely followings Darwinian Theory, the strong survive while the weak die etc etc.
I think he was just saying that the gravity on this particular planet wouldn't be that much stronger than earth's gravity (again, assuming it has a similar density).
As to what kinds of life forms that would produce is anyone's guess. I don't see any reason to assume it would create "stumpier" versions of earth life forms.
On February 27 2013 06:49 MrRicewife wrote: Speak for yourself. Intelligence is random. There is just as much chance of life being unintelligent as there is to being intelligent. For eons this earth was occupied by unintelligent life. To be certain of anything involving intelligent life on other planets is asinine. I appreciate theories and good discussion but come on ... You act divine.
Or you successfully just trolled me.
For like 2.8 billion years we had only the most simple lifeforms(compared to what we have now). Only after 2.8 million years there was enough of time for a 'dice roll' to generate multicellular life. Now that's a whole long time. For about 1/3rd of the earth's history single celled life was the only solution needed to survival.
Then something strange happened an a plethora of complex life did evolve. Now only a small bit of biomass of this complex life actually has a brain. Most of these brains are quite simple compared to us and we are not impressed with their cognitive abilities. On the other hand, compared to our counters they are pretty smart, especially in their own way.
But we can say that only humans can be considered intelligent. Life on earth is like 4599 years without any intelligence. And then 1 million years with 1 species that has intelligence.
So I would not call it out to be 50/50 when even on earth, which might be an extremely exceptional case, intelligence is so exceedingly rare.
Maybe there is an almost endless number of extremely rare traits that can evolve. And on earth there was life long enough for one of those exceedingly rare traits to evolve. And that ended up to be what we now call 'intelligence'. Maybe on all these other planets something entirely different rare trait evolves.
Intelligence seems to be a very odd survival strategy. We still cannot explain properly why we have the ability to do develop math for quantum mechanics and general relativity. Surely we didn't use that until about 100 years ago. Yet there was some evolutionary pressure selecting these genes about 1 million years ago. All those humans who were not smart enough somehow died out. Why? It is very strange. Our brains use a lot and a lot of energy. They have a huge huge overhead.
Intelligence, as humans have it, seems to be a fluke. It seems to generally be a very bad survival strategy that somehow was a good one under odd unexplained conditions, hence it evolved the way it did.
You can argue that certain traits will be convergent. The eye is a good example. It evolved several different times. If there is life on other planets they will likely evolve eyes once life also makes the jump to complex lifeforms(and remember that was an odd thing to happen and it took a lot of time for the odds or conditions to be right)
But intelligence? For all we know it is going to be unique to humans only. No good reasons for intelligence to evolve. And remember that while we have 6 billion people right now, so we can say we are successful and indeed this has to do with our intelligence, the number of humans around the time we evolved intelligence was quite low. It took a long time for our intelligence to come up with civilization before our numbers started to boom exponentially. With all our intelligence, humans almost went extinct about a million of years ago. And when disaster hits earth, since our body weight is too big, we will die out together with all the other larger animals. Intelligence won't have any effect.
I was going to reply to everything you said but you made so many assertions and claimed as if they were known fact I just got tired and started bolding the most ridiculous parts. The worst by far was 'humans almost went extinct about a million years ago'...
Please, before you start randomly posting like you have any idea what you're talking about, try to at least get the time frame humans existed together.
Actually EDIT: Other primates have VERY similar tendencies to us and can be looked at as intelligent lifeforms, they feel compassion, form tribes, can speak through signs... You conclusion already falls apart, the issue is that they are missing certain parts of the brain that we have grown...
In fact nothing you said had any consluive backing as to why the 10^24 other planets probably wouldn't have intelligent life, especially since you started speaking so conclusively that it's unlikely and that humans are the ... only intelligent animals on earth? And maybe the universe? I don't see how these even begin to correlate even if you're using the fallacy correlation implies causation.
I think the problem with all this hope for intelligent life is ruling out the time-factor. If aliens visited the Earth only a million years prior, a very short time in our existence, they wouldn't find anything interesting. There would be life, but it would not be very interesting to interact with.
Similarly I think finding aliens will take a very long time (being able to discover thousands of suitable worlds at once) because aligning time is the hardest part.
Humans are already in the process of mapping the Galaxy, but that is beside the point as anyone can say about the existence of extraterrestrial life due to nobody saying "that's impossible".
On February 27 2013 07:23 Tanukki wrote: So what would the gravity be like on a planet 3* the mass of earth? I'd imagine a bit rough? People living there must be dwarves :D
Depends on the density, but if we assume it has an earth-like density, tripling the mass would mean that it also has a cubic root(3) larger radius. As the gravitational force on one body is proportional to m/r², the gravitational pull would increase by 3/3^(2/3), or 3^1/3. This is about 1.44.
The assumption is unfounded on what would live there simply because they wouldn't be human (or earthborn) such that they could be EXACTLY the same as us with just simply less or more dense body masses (stronger bones or weaker depending).
Neil Degrasse Tyson has a nice rant on how he hates 'alien' movies because they make them all look like humans when they could look like anything, have imagination. Richard Dawkin's replied, however in rebuke, that it could be the case that aliens become similar to humans through the same evolutionary process, bigger brains, opposable thumbs etc are very strong evolutionary tendencies for earths enviornment and a similar one would bare the same fruit most likely followings Darwinian Theory, the strong survive while the weak die etc etc.
I think he was just saying that the gravity on this particular planet wouldn't be that much stronger than earth's gravity (again, assuming it has a similar density).
As to what kinds of life forms that would produce is anyone's guess. I don't see any reason to assume it would create "stumpier" versions of earth life forms.
Sorry I was actually meaning to quote the person he quoted, I can see if there is confusion, this is my mistake.
On February 27 2013 01:43 marconi wrote: I hate to be the "conspiracy theorist" but let's analyze the situation:
All of us here ( or most of us at least ) BELIEVE that it's impossible for humans to be the only "intelligent" life forms in the universe.
If we take this into consideration, and the possibility of numerous alien species living "somewhere" in the universe, there is also the possibility that some of these alien races are more advanced than we are ( the main argument here would be that they are much older than we are, because humans have existed for a very short time according to the popular belief ).
Now if these races are far more advanced than we are, chances are they have developed faster-than-light travel and even more crazy stuff than we could ever dare to believe existed.
It might just happen that their "technology" or whatever they posses, being the ancient civilization they are, also allows them to map out the ENTIRE GALAXY ( can u believe that shit, pure sci-fi I tell ya ).
Oh and look, they find a planet orbiting a certain yellow star, in it's "habitable zone", has liquid water on it's surface, can you believe that?
Now there can be a lot of theories regarding this, but I think in the end it's safe assume that they PROBABLY know of our existence (assuming ofc we all agree that it's impossible for us to be alone in the universe). I am also relatively certain that they can avoid detection by us if the wish to do so.
If anyone here watched Star Trek, you know that the Vulcans are the first race who contacted humans, and it just so happened that they decided to wait until we developed warp drive.
Now, we didn't develop warp drive as far as I know, but we did WENT INTO SPACE. I think that's a pretty big deal for a budding race like us. Now, I'm no ET, but I'm assuming that a space-traveling race would qualify for further study, hm?
But then again, maybe I'm crazy.
Speak for yourself. Intelligence is random. There is just as much chance of life being unintelligent as there is to being intelligent. For eons this earth was occupied by unintelligent life. To be certain of anything involving intelligent life on other planets is asinine. I appreciate theories and good discussion but come on ... You act divine.
Or you successfully just trolled me.
There's no certainty but it seems at least plausible that intelligent life develops in a significant minority of Earth-like planets.
There are many animals that show signs of intelligence (elephants, dolphins, possibly even some birds). This suggests either that the prerequisites of intelligence may have evolved fairly early in the history of complex life or that intelligence may have evolved multiple times here on Earth.
Even dying stars could host planets with life -- and if such life exists, we might be able to detect it within the next decade. This encouraging result comes from a new theoretical study of Earth-like planets orbiting white dwarf stars. Researchers found that we could detect oxygen in the atmosphere of a white dwarf's planet much more easily than for an Earth-like planet orbiting a Sun-like star.
"In the quest for extraterrestrial biological signatures, the first stars we study should be white dwarfs," said Avi Loeb, theorist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA) and director of the Institute for Theory and Computation.
When a star like the Sun dies, it puffs off its outer layers, leaving behind a hot core called a white dwarf. A typical white dwarf is about the size of Earth. It slowly cools and fades over time, but it can retain heat long enough to warm a nearby world for billions of years.
Since a white dwarf is much smaller and fainter than the Sun, a planet would have to be much closer in to be habitable with liquid water on its surface. A habitable planet would circle the white dwarf once every 10 hours at a distance of about a million miles.
Before a star becomes a white dwarf it swells into a red giant, engulfing and destroying any nearby planets. Therefore, a planet would have to arrive in the habitable zone after the star evolved into a white dwarf. A planet could form from leftover dust and gas (making it a second-generation world), or migrate inward from a larger distance.
If planets exist in the habitable zones of white dwarfs, we would need to find them before we could study them. The abundance of heavy elements on the surface of white dwarfs suggests that a significant fraction of them have rocky planets. Loeb and his colleague Dan Maoz (Tel Aviv University) estimate that a survey of the 500 closest white dwarfs could spot one or more habitable Earths.
The best method for finding such planets is a transit search -- looking for a star that dims as an orbiting planet crosses in front of it. Since a white dwarf is about the same size as Earth, an Earth-sized planet would block a large fraction of its light and create an obvious signal.
More importantly, we can only study the atmospheres of transiting planets. When the white dwarf's light shines through the ring of air that surrounds the planet's silhouetted disk, the atmosphere absorbs some starlight. This leaves chemical fingerprints showing whether that air contains water vapor, or even signatures of life, such as oxygen.
Ya its a verry good question "if there are thousends of alien civilisations then why have we not heard from them?"
Dont know the answer to this, i seen a calculation once where it was asumed that civilisations have a limited lifetime, in other words they would be (self) destructed eventually. Since the universe is so old, this could mean that there have been manny civilisations but the window in wich they lived was to short or to far in the past to ever reach us. I can not recall though where i saw this calculation so i can not back this up.
Explanation that we are not worthy and developped enough (not reached warp speed lol) looks reasonable also and my own explanation is quiet similar to that. My possible explanation would be that it is absolutely useless to try communicate with other civilisations as long as we are limited to lightspeed with our communications. We dont need to reach warp speed, but we do need a faster then light way of transferring information. There are some situations in physics in wich information apears to be travelling faster then light, and personally i am convinced that it is possible to somehow use this to to make a communication system based on the waves travelling faster then light,( these are not electromagnetic waves but a different types of waves of wich i wont go into detail unless people specifically ask in pm) Somehow i like to think that we just need to build this "radio" to be able to tune in and receive the signals of thousends of civilisations communicating with eachter. This is all highly speculative and for all i know we might be alone in the universe,but its still nice to dream now and then.
On September 13 2011 05:39 zimz wrote: i always knew there were thousand if not millions of planets like earth out there like over 10 years ago. i thought it was quite close minded for many people to assume earth is exceptionally rare and maybe the only one etc.
An earth-like planet is not exceptionally rare, but it's far from common. And (iirc) we don't know of any planet that is exactly like ours.
I think the following solution to the Fermi paradox is quite clever: all sufficiently advanced civilizations are intelligent enough to not advertise their existence to the rest of the universe out of a healthy sense of paranoia.
It's a good thing probably that the world has protocols for this and doesn't allow amateurs with a fascination for space to basically create a giant homing beacon for a possibly predatory race of star travelers.
On September 13 2011 05:39 zimz wrote: i always knew there were thousand if not millions of planets like earth out there like over 10 years ago. i thought it was quite close minded for many people to assume earth is exceptionally rare and maybe the only one etc.
An earth-like planet is not exceptionally rare, but it's far from common. And (iirc) we don't know of any planet that is exactly like ours.
It depends on the definition of "Earth-like". If you just look at physical characteristics, like mass, radius and the amount of starlight the planet surface recieves, then these planets are very common. Current best estimates are somewhere around 10% of stars hosting Earth-like planets, which would mean about 20 billion such planets for our galaxy alone.
These aren't just wild guesses, these estimates are based on the number of planet candidates Kepler found and adjusted for the expected detection rate, expected number of false detections etc. There's a fair amount of uncertainty but the question is whether we'll end up with 1 billion or 500 billion such planets and moons in our galaxy. Anything less than that is basically incompatible with the data.
Of course just because a planet has similar temperature and surface gravity as Earth doesn't mean it would look similar. E.g if it had no life it would certainly have a different atmosphere. It may have much more vulcanic activity or none at all. It might get more frequent and devastating solar flares, etc. But as far as the stuff that can be observed goes Earth isn't unique or very uncommon at all.
On February 27 2013 18:57 Grumbels wrote: I think the following solution to the Fermi paradox is quite clever: all sufficiently advanced civilizations are intelligent enough to not advertise their existence to the rest of the universe out of a healthy sense of paranoia.
It's a good thing probably that the world has protocols for this and doesn't allow amateurs with a fascination for space to basically create a giant homing beacon for a possibly predatory race of star travelers.
I find it more plausible the one speaking about how intelligent life tends to self destruction instead before space colonization is possible.
On February 27 2013 18:57 Grumbels wrote: I think the following solution to the Fermi paradox is quite clever: all sufficiently advanced civilizations are intelligent enough to not advertise their existence to the rest of the universe out of a healthy sense of paranoia.
It's a good thing probably that the world has protocols for this and doesn't allow amateurs with a fascination for space to basically create a giant homing beacon for a possibly predatory race of star travelers.
I don't want to scare you but if a civilization is capable of crossing interstellar distances it almost certainly knows about us already (or will when the information reaches them).
They could pick up the change in CO2 levels in the atmosphere using spectorscopy. Even before that the atmospheric composition gave away the fact that we have complex life, putting Earth on a watch-list for any curious or agressive civilization.
Even if they couldn't pick up individual radio signals they would notice that the energy output in the radio spectrum has the same period the planet's rotational period. It has been suggested that this method could be used to detect artifical radio sources out to 1000 light years with next generation radio interferometers.
There's a lot of stuff going on Earth that can be detected with sufficiently advanced technology. If a civilization is monitoring the galaxy with techonogy that's about 50-100 years more advanced than ours they WILL pick up most other civilizations. It's hard to hide all the signs, and even if you do you'll have a few hundred light-year wide shell of information where your civilization was already advanced enough to give off detectable signs and didn't yet had the technology to hide them.
On February 27 2013 18:57 Grumbels wrote: I think the following solution to the Fermi paradox is quite clever: all sufficiently advanced civilizations are intelligent enough to not advertise their existence to the rest of the universe out of a healthy sense of paranoia.
It's a good thing probably that the world has protocols for this and doesn't allow amateurs with a fascination for space to basically create a giant homing beacon for a possibly predatory race of star travelers.
I don't want to scare you but if a civilization is capable of crossing interstellar distances it almost certainly knows about us already (or will when the information reaches them).
They could pick up the change in CO2 levels in the atmosphere using spectorscopy. Even before that the atmospheric composition gave away the fact that we have complex life, putting Earth on a watch-list for any curious or agressive civilization.
Even if they couldn't pick up individual radio signals they would notice that the energy output in the radio spectrum has the same period the planet's rotational period. It has been suggested that this method could be used to detect artifical radio sources out to 1000 light years with next generation radio interferometers.
There's a lot of stuff going on Earth that can be detected with sufficiently advanced technology. If a civilization is monitoring the galaxy with techonogy that's about 50-100 years more advanced than ours they WILL pick up most other civilizations. It's hard to hide all the signs, and even if you do you'll have a few hundred light-year wide shell of information where your civilization was already advanced enough to give off detectable signs and didn't yet had the technology to hide them.
They wouldn't be looking for CO2 in our atmosphere man, they would be looking for O2 which is a sign of photosynthesis, and then searching for electromagnetic radiation for signs of intelligence.
On February 27 2013 18:57 Grumbels wrote: I think the following solution to the Fermi paradox is quite clever: all sufficiently advanced civilizations are intelligent enough to not advertise their existence to the rest of the universe out of a healthy sense of paranoia.
It's a good thing probably that the world has protocols for this and doesn't allow amateurs with a fascination for space to basically create a giant homing beacon for a possibly predatory race of star travelers.
I don't want to scare you but if a civilization is capable of crossing interstellar distances it almost certainly knows about us already (or will when the information reaches them).
They could pick up the change in CO2 levels in the atmosphere using spectorscopy. Even before that the atmospheric composition gave away the fact that we have complex life, putting Earth on a watch-list for any curious or agressive civilization.
Even if they couldn't pick up individual radio signals they would notice that the energy output in the radio spectrum has the same period the planet's rotational period. It has been suggested that this method could be used to detect artifical radio sources out to 1000 light years with next generation radio interferometers.
There's a lot of stuff going on Earth that can be detected with sufficiently advanced technology. If a civilization is monitoring the galaxy with techonogy that's about 50-100 years more advanced than ours they WILL pick up most other civilizations. It's hard to hide all the signs, and even if you do you'll have a few hundred light-year wide shell of information where your civilization was already advanced enough to give off detectable signs and didn't yet had the technology to hide them.
They wouldn't be looking for CO2 in our atmosphere man, they would be looking for O2 which is a sign of photosynthesis, and then searching for electromagnetic radiation for signs of intelligence.
I meant that they would see that CO2 concentration in the atmosphere was rising rapidly. This seems slightly easier to detect than radio signals (not 100% sure though).
Plus the rise in CO2 levels started in the early 19th century, so that gives our hypothetical predators an extra 100 years to prepare
I think the important issue here is how are we going to survive without becoming extinct. Personally as an young engineer, todays technology feels very basic in terms of getting technology to transition and migrate to other planets.
So much war, hatred, killing in this world today that I really can't think that humans are able to survive not even after 500 years from now. We need a ton more time to develop technology such as surviving insane accelerations and manipulating the laws of physics.
Sorrys boys and girlst, but unless we are able to eradicate war and violence forever.. We should never even consider life on other planets. I mean common we just need a couple million of years to survive on earth and in that time we just don't need a world war 3 or perhaps a world war 4.
On February 27 2013 07:52 Hitch-22 wrote: I was going to reply to everything you said but you made so many assertions and claimed as if they were known fact I just got tired and started bolding the most ridiculous parts. The worst by far was 'humans almost went extinct about a million years ago'...
Please, before you start randomly posting like you have any idea what you're talking about, try to at least get the time frame humans existed together.
Actually EDIT: Other primates have VERY similar tendencies to us and can be looked at as intelligent lifeforms, they feel compassion, form tribes, can speak through signs... You conclusion already falls apart, the issue is that they are missing certain parts of the brain that we have grown...
In fact nothing you said had any consluive backing as to why the 10^24 other planets probably wouldn't have intelligent life, especially since you started speaking so conclusively that it's unlikely and that humans are the ... only intelligent animals on earth? And maybe the universe? I don't see how these even begin to correlate even if you're using the fallacy correlation implies causation.
Thanks for the insult. I have a degree in biology. You must have absolutely no idea. Are you a creationist?
Not gonna respond to those few sparse things that could actually be responded to. Seems utterly hopeless. You were given a chance to educate yourself and you failed.
On February 27 2013 07:52 Hitch-22 wrote: I was going to reply to everything you said but you made so many assertions and claimed as if they were known fact I just got tired and started bolding the most ridiculous parts. The worst by far was 'humans almost went extinct about a million years ago'...
Please, before you start randomly posting like you have any idea what you're talking about, try to at least get the time frame humans existed together.
Actually EDIT: Other primates have VERY similar tendencies to us and can be looked at as intelligent lifeforms, they feel compassion, form tribes, can speak through signs... You conclusion already falls apart, the issue is that they are missing certain parts of the brain that we have grown...
In fact nothing you said had any consluive backing as to why the 10^24 other planets probably wouldn't have intelligent life, especially since you started speaking so conclusively that it's unlikely and that humans are the ... only intelligent animals on earth? And maybe the universe? I don't see how these even begin to correlate even if you're using the fallacy correlation implies causation.
Thanks for the insult. I have a degree in biology. You must have absolutely no idea. Are you a creationist?
Not gonna respond to those few sparse things that could actually be responded to. Seems utterly hopeless. You were given a chance to educate yourself and you failed.
What do you mean am I a creationist... Richard Dawkins estimates it (probably the farthest estimate with evidence) at 250,000 years and Francis Collins (genome project) estimates it at minimum 100,000 years. I fail to see your "millions" of years. I fail to see how anyone, especially someone taking a degree in biology, could mix up that horrendously.
Do go on and explain how my claims that life (with or without intelligence) is a immensely large probability are wrong or my estimations are incorrect.
It's an easy scape goat to go "look, you're wrong and I have this degree" when no one knows anything about you or if you even graduated high school (which seemingly is unlikely) so either "educate" me or back out of the conversation because right now you've made, as I said, claims about humans being around for millions of years... Something my 10 year old sister has seemingly more knowledge in Mr. Bio Degree.
On February 27 2013 07:52 Hitch-22 wrote: I was going to reply to everything you said but you made so many assertions and claimed as if they were known fact I just got tired and started bolding the most ridiculous parts. The worst by far was 'humans almost went extinct about a million years ago'...
Please, before you start randomly posting like you have any idea what you're talking about, try to at least get the time frame humans existed together.
Actually EDIT: Other primates have VERY similar tendencies to us and can be looked at as intelligent lifeforms, they feel compassion, form tribes, can speak through signs... You conclusion already falls apart, the issue is that they are missing certain parts of the brain that we have grown...
In fact nothing you said had any consluive backing as to why the 10^24 other planets probably wouldn't have intelligent life, especially since you started speaking so conclusively that it's unlikely and that humans are the ... only intelligent animals on earth? And maybe the universe? I don't see how these even begin to correlate even if you're using the fallacy correlation implies causation.
Thanks for the insult. I have a degree in biology. You must have absolutely no idea. Are you a creationist?
Not gonna respond to those few sparse things that could actually be responded to. Seems utterly hopeless. You were given a chance to educate yourself and you failed.
What do you mean am I a creationist... Richard Dawkins estimates it (probably the farthest estimate with evidence) at 250,000 years and Francis Collins (genome project) estimates it at minimum 100,000 years. I fail to see your "millions" of years. I fail to see how anyone, especially someone taking a degree in biology, could mix up that horrendously.
Do go on and explain how my claims that life (with or without intelligence) is a immensely large probability are wrong or my estimations are incorrect.
It's an easy scape goat to go "look, you're wrong and I have this degree" when no one knows anything about you or if you even graduated high school (which seemingly is unlikely) so either "educate" me or back out of the conversation because right now you've made, as I said, claims about humans being around for millions of years... Something my 10 year old sister has seemingly more knowledge in Mr. Bio Degree.
Yes, humans refers to all in the homo genus. The most recent bottleneck is estimated at 70,000 years. That means that humans were around for a long time, were intelligent for a long time, but they didn't 'succeed' in the way we understand human success today (dominating every tiny spot of planet earth with out 7 billion). In fact they almost died out with only 2000 individuals remaining, if the theory is actually correct.
We don't know how probable or improbable life is. We have only 1 sample. All we know that on earth once it was possible life emerged rather quick. But we also know that it only happened once. New lines of life don't continually emerge out of inorganic chemicals or even organic chemicals constantly. After life came into existence it stagnated for a really long time. It was basically just green/red/brown goo. Then complex life evolved, slowly going up all the way to dinosaur. You have a certain type of intelligence there. But it is reasonable to assume that if no disaster happened to make them go extinct, human intelligence would never have evolved, ever. No matter how long it takes.
The only things that evolve are good solutions to the question of how life can survive. Intelligence seems to be a possible solution it was only 'selected' for in 1 case out of say 10 million of species.
Your post only shows I was justified. If you think your 10 year old sister, I hope it's a sister because you have one and not because you think woman are inferior, understands these concepts well shows you miss completely the nuance embedded in everything I say.
Also, if you have a 10 year old sister you are either a child yourself or your parents somehow missed the invention of anti conception. So when you run into an adult on the internet, please have some manners.
Also, you made no arguments. So why should I make one? You just attempted to ridicule what I said, without understanding anything about it. What kind of response do you expect?
On March 04 2013 07:15 Tadatomo wrote: Yes, humans refers to all in the homo genus. The most recent bottleneck is estimated at 70,000 years. That means that humans were around for a long time, were intelligent for a long time, but they didn't 'succeed' in the way we understand human success today (dominating every tiny spot of planet earth with out 7 billion). In fact they almost died out with only 2000 individuals remaining, if the theory is actually correct.
We don't know how probable or improbable life is. We have only 1 sample. All we know that on earth once it was possible life emerged rather quick. But we also know that it only happened once. New lines of life don't continually emerge out of inorganic chemicals or even organic chemicals constantly. After life came into existence it stagnated for a really long time. It was basically just green/red/brown goo. Then complex life evolved, slowly going up all the way to dinosaur. You have a certain type of intelligence there. But it is reasonable to assume that if no disaster happened to make them go extinct, human intelligence would never have evolved, ever. No matter how long it takes.
The only things that evolve are good solutions to the question of how life can survive. Intelligence seems to be a possible solution it was only 'selected' for in 1 case out of say 10 million of species.
Your post only shows I was justified. If you think your 10 year old sister, I hope it's a sister because you have one and not because you think woman are inferior, understands these concepts well shows you miss completely the nuance embedded in everything I say.
Also, if you have a 10 year old sister you are either a child yourself or your parents somehow missed the invention of anti conception. So when you run into an adult on the internet, please have some manners.
Also, you made no arguments. So why should I make one? You just attempted to ridicule what I said, without understanding anything about it. What kind of response do you expect?
You made claims that intelligence evolved for 'no good reason', humans are the only 'intelligent species' and you made claims that it could possibly be unlikely without anything to back said claims, maybe start there?
Also I retract my million year statement, I made the assumption (unfounded it would seem) that you implied homo-sapiens at that length.
On March 04 2013 07:15 Tadatomo wrote: Yes, humans refers to all in the homo genus. The most recent bottleneck is estimated at 70,000 years. That means that humans were around for a long time, were intelligent for a long time, but they didn't 'succeed' in the way we understand human success today (dominating every tiny spot of planet earth with out 7 billion). In fact they almost died out with only 2000 individuals remaining, if the theory is actually correct.
We don't know how probable or improbable life is. We have only 1 sample. All we know that on earth once it was possible life emerged rather quick. But we also know that it only happened once. New lines of life don't continually emerge out of inorganic chemicals or even organic chemicals constantly. After life came into existence it stagnated for a really long time. It was basically just green/red/brown goo. Then complex life evolved, slowly going up all the way to dinosaur. You have a certain type of intelligence there. But it is reasonable to assume that if no disaster happened to make them go extinct, human intelligence would never have evolved, ever. No matter how long it takes.
The only things that evolve are good solutions to the question of how life can survive. Intelligence seems to be a possible solution it was only 'selected' for in 1 case out of say 10 million of species.
Your post only shows I was justified. If you think your 10 year old sister, I hope it's a sister because you have one and not because you think woman are inferior, understands these concepts well shows you miss completely the nuance embedded in everything I say.
Also, if you have a 10 year old sister you are either a child yourself or your parents somehow missed the invention of anti conception. So when you run into an adult on the internet, please have some manners.
Also, you made no arguments. So why should I make one? You just attempted to ridicule what I said, without understanding anything about it. What kind of response do you expect?
You made claims that intelligence evolved for 'no good reason', humans are the only 'intelligent species' and you made claims that it could possibly be unlikely without anything to back said claims, maybe start there?
Also I retract my million year statement, I made the assumption (unfounded it would seem) that you implied homo-sapiens at that length.
What good does intelligence gives you when you are running in the wild against thousands of different species trying to kill you. Humans were lucky to have emerged in a place with little amounts of predators. Were they to emerge in America at that time, they would die to Sabre tooth giant flightless birds and others. Reason wouldn't help you then and you wouldn't be able to begin to think about makin tools.
On March 04 2013 07:15 Tadatomo wrote: Yes, humans refers to all in the homo genus. The most recent bottleneck is estimated at 70,000 years. That means that humans were around for a long time, were intelligent for a long time, but they didn't 'succeed' in the way we understand human success today (dominating every tiny spot of planet earth with out 7 billion). In fact they almost died out with only 2000 individuals remaining, if the theory is actually correct.
We don't know how probable or improbable life is. We have only 1 sample. All we know that on earth once it was possible life emerged rather quick. But we also know that it only happened once. New lines of life don't continually emerge out of inorganic chemicals or even organic chemicals constantly. After life came into existence it stagnated for a really long time. It was basically just green/red/brown goo. Then complex life evolved, slowly going up all the way to dinosaur. You have a certain type of intelligence there. But it is reasonable to assume that if no disaster happened to make them go extinct, human intelligence would never have evolved, ever. No matter how long it takes.
The only things that evolve are good solutions to the question of how life can survive. Intelligence seems to be a possible solution it was only 'selected' for in 1 case out of say 10 million of species.
Your post only shows I was justified. If you think your 10 year old sister, I hope it's a sister because you have one and not because you think woman are inferior, understands these concepts well shows you miss completely the nuance embedded in everything I say.
Also, if you have a 10 year old sister you are either a child yourself or your parents somehow missed the invention of anti conception. So when you run into an adult on the internet, please have some manners.
Also, you made no arguments. So why should I make one? You just attempted to ridicule what I said, without understanding anything about it. What kind of response do you expect?
You made claims that intelligence evolved for 'no good reason', humans are the only 'intelligent species' and you made claims that it could possibly be unlikely without anything to back said claims, maybe start there?
Also I retract my million year statement, I made the assumption (unfounded it would seem) that you implied homo-sapiens at that length.
What good does intelligence gives you when you are running in the wild against thousands of different species trying to kill you. Humans were lucky to have emerged in a place with little amounts of predators. Were they to emerge in America at that time, they would die to Sabre tooth giant flightless birds and others. Reason wouldn't help you then and you wouldn't be able to begin to think about makin tools.
Wow , well said i have always thought humans were pretty puss , we are not particularly strong or fast , we are pretty fragile too. Intelligence doesn't help you when a grizzly finds you in the bush . We are an anomaly i think usually other creatures on land that are smart are quite small.
I didn't say that humans evolved intelligence 'for no good reason', though that may actually be correct. If humans evolved intelligence through sexual selection, which is a good theory to explain intelligence, then that is not a good evolutionary reason. It's similar to peacocks or birds of paradise. It is sexual selection that can force a very costly trait to evolve.
It remains to be see if even for humans intelligence actually was a product of natural selection.
This of course can also be seen as an argument for intelligence being more common. It does not have to be a demand from the environment for it to evolve.
Yes intelligence has allowed us to use tools and fire. But animals have no need for tools and fire at all. So it explains nothing.
What would explain the rise in intelligence as we go down the evolutionary chain would be natural selection itself. More intelligent creatures are more fit and more likely to survive. What you are saying is silly. An ape would be more capable of hunting if it had a sniper rifle.
On March 04 2013 08:45 travis wrote: What would explain the rise in intelligence as we go down the evolutionary chain would be natural selection itself. More intelligent creatures are more fit and more likely to survive. What you are saying is silly. An ape would be more capable of hunting if it had a sniper rifle.
Well, in a given situation, being smarter is obviously useful. However, being smart is not free, you need to feed that gigantic brain. So the question is whether being smart is cost efficient in a given situation. Basically, you guys are grossly oversimplifying this stuff. You can rationalize almost anything as being something that should be a selection advantage.
The one thing that can be said for certain is that we don't have enough data to provide a defintive answer as to how often evolution produces higher intelligence. We only know that we are apparently the first, and we don't appear to really give any other species a chance to be the second, as we are rapidly changing the world basically instantly after gaining the necessary level of intelligence. Now, if we did not have this, we would not be able to ask the question. And we really can't establish a pattern based on only our own existence. We can make a few guesses based on how long it took earth to evolve intelligent life, but that is about it, but that really is not even close to a good estimate regarding how often intelligent life evolves. We also don't have anything close to an accurate number how often life itself starts to exist. So all of these numbers lead to several orders of magnitude of uncertainty. Don't act like this is anything exact.
No. Intelligence comes with a metabolic cost. The investment made into intelligence has not only have to pay off. It has to pay off with dividend. Also, intelligence doesn't give sniper rifles. Not to apes, not to humans.
So yes, it is entirely the opposite. It is basically the case that less intelligent creatures are more likely to survive. Creatures have to function in their niche and do their thing. Any overhead, be it muscle, brain cells, or whatever, is wasteful and is a drag to that species.
If intelligence just makes you more fit, and one can say that more brain cells make one more intelligent, every species with brains would basically have their brains getting slightly bigger every so many generations. It doesn't work that way.
All of us here ( or most of us at least ) BELIEVE that it's impossible for humans to be the only "intelligent" life forms in the universe.
...
Now if these races are far more advanced than we are, chances are they have developed faster-than-light travel and even more crazy stuff than we could ever dare to believe existed.
I used to believe there were millions of intelligent species in the universe, but I have started to have serious doubts.
First, IF another species existed that we would deem to show intelligence, the chances that they live in the same tiny time-frame as us is very very small.
Secondly, one thing I read or heard somewhere was about how often traits separately evolved in different species. Intelligence (for what we know) evolved just once on earth, while eyes and hearing probably evolved hundreds of times separate, and even sonar have evolved four times or more independently of each other.
Thirdly, the dinosaurs had to be killed off, without that meteorite to hit exactly like it did humans would never have appeared.
Life certainly exist on millions of planets, but intelligent life I doubt.
BTW: If there are several intelligent species somewhere at exact this tiny time frame we humans exist, they would sadly never be able to travel here. Faster-than-light travel is impossible. Yes, I know they said so about aeroplanes and computers etc as well. But, keep in mind that galaxy clusters in relation to each other travel several times faster than light away from each other, so for anyone to reach us they need to basically teleport.
On March 04 2013 09:11 HowardRoark wrote: . But, keep in mind that galaxy clusters in relation to each other travel several times faster than light away from each other, so for anyone to reach us they need to basically teleport.
On February 28 2013 02:55 FoxerGames wrote: I think the important issue here is how are we going to survive without becoming extinct. Personally as an young engineer, todays technology feels very basic in terms of getting technology to transition and migrate to other planets.
So much war, hatred, killing in this world today that I really can't think that humans are able to survive not even after 500 years from now. We need a ton more time to develop technology such as surviving insane accelerations and manipulating the laws of physics.
Sorrys boys and girlst, but unless we are able to eradicate war and violence forever.. We should never even consider life on other planets. I mean common we just need a couple million of years to survive on earth and in that time we just don't need a world war 3 or perhaps a world war 4.
I feel like you need to put your comments in perspective. Compare the world we're living in now to what it used to be...there are no foreseeable, major wars coming up thanks to international trade and the forces of globalization. The only remaining pockets are in the form of revolutions against dictators (a good thing, obviously). The only truly unstable actor that remains is North Korea, but they're overwhelmingly isolated, and even China is pressuring them now. Iran is now participating in talks concerning their nuclear program, and apparently they're making progress to be "optimistic" about.
The only major problems we're encountering now are environmental and economic problems, and I feel like those can be solved through proper regulations and more transparency. Just like fighting for any human right, if people protest for this or if the government puts it in place all by itself, eventually it will happen and there will be a fair system of capitalism.
Even if we fail on the environmental level, its not going to be something that can't be fixed eventually. Countries at this point, are far too interested in maintaining their economies to do anything drastic, and they're intelligent enough not to just assume oil will last forever so they're investing in green energy. That way we'll avoid any future conflicts over these types of non-renewable resources. PLUS, we're going to space to mine asteroids in the near future.
I think you're being overly pessimistic. I think its really easy, especially today, to hear about the updates of a rebellion or terrorist attack every news cycle, and think that the world is a horrible place. But I think its clear, if you were actually aware of all of the amazing, positive changes taking place in Europe, the US, and other countries, that the world has never been a better place to live. The amount of awareness and transparency the internet brings is changing everything; no one can get away with anything anymore. I guess its also kind of scary and Orwellian in a way, but at least it means public figures can be more accountable.
All of this probably also explains why in my debate class debating "be it resolved, that the world today is better than it has been in the past" is a truism (taken to be a fact) that no one will want to debate. The world is always improving, why not expect it to in the future? I predict global government (each country will be like a state in the US is to its government), peace on Earth, and space exploration.
I've always believed interstellar travel to be the biggest issue. Its one thing to go fast, its another to account for all the potential trillions objects of debris that you may crash into going from point A to B.
On March 04 2013 09:57 a176 wrote: I've always believed interstellar travel to be the biggest issue. Its one thing to go fast, its another to account for all the potential trillions objects of debris that you may crash into going from point A to B.
The faster you go the less an object getting in your way matters, your force increases with speed so it could be possible, with proper construction, to devise a system that measures large debri (bigger then small space rocks) and the rest would just simply blast away like waves to a boats hull.
But yeah, that would definitely be something to watch for hahaha and maybe I could be wrong, it may be a bigger problem or a non-existent problem.
Its a crazy thought, but we have about 6 billion years or so until our sun burns out right? surely thats enough time to move to another planet, we created the iphone in our first, what, couple thousand centuries as humans?
On March 04 2013 10:32 Aveng3r wrote: Its a crazy thought, but we have about 6 billion years or so until our sun burns out right? surely thats enough time to move to another planet, we created the iphone in our first, what, couple thousand centuries as humans?
Michio Kaku has a cool presentation about the three levels of human advancement (control planet (us), solar system travel, galactic travel) and at each step there are different defining features (like being able to build our own suns etc).
Anyway, he said that humanity is basically racing against it's self-destructively small frontal lobes (paraphrased) and its technological advancements, one will defeat the other and as of now it's unknown as to which will win.
On March 04 2013 10:32 Aveng3r wrote: Its a crazy thought, but we have about 6 billion years or so until our sun burns out right? surely thats enough time to move to another planet, we created the iphone in our first, what, couple thousand centuries as humans?
We also created the nuke in our first couple thousand centuries as humans.
On March 04 2013 09:57 a176 wrote: I've always believed interstellar travel to be the biggest issue. Its one thing to go fast, its another to account for all the potential trillions objects of debris that you may crash into going from point A to B.
The faster you go the less an object getting in your way matters, your force increases with speed so it could be possible, with proper construction, to devise a system that measures large debri (bigger then small space rocks) and the rest would just simply blast away like waves to a boats hull.
But yeah, that would definitely be something to watch for hahaha and maybe I could be wrong, it may be a bigger problem or a non-existent problem.
This is blatantly false.
The faster you go, the more does it matter when something gets in your way. If you look at the collision between two objects, the force of the impact is based on relative velocity. So if you are faster, stuff hits you harder. Which also makes it harder to deflect away from you without taking damage.
But people also underestimate just how empty space really is. If you look at SciFi movies or games, space is full of stuff. It is not. In fact, basically the most crowded area of space by some orders of magnitude at the moment is in earth orbit, because of all the shit we shoot up there and just leave lying around when it breaks.
Also, since our current probes and satellites appear to be able to deal with the problem at the speeds they are travelling at, i am confident that we will find ways to deal with it in case we ever reach speeds where the density of objects in space becomes a real problem
Predicted by the Drake Equation (or at least the first half of it) rather nicely.
Current acceleration / kinetic-based forms of travel are a dead-end on reaching planets that are "only" 35 LY away. Before we think of colonizing other planets, we'll need an overhaul in our understanding of physics. Nevertheless I am excited about this discovery and the ongoing discoveries.
Michio Kaku has a cool presentation about the three levels of human advancement (control planet (us), solar system travel, galactic travel) and at each step there are different defining features (like being able to build our own suns etc).
Does this mean we need an equivalent of a Dyson Sphere before we can harness the energy required for extra-solar travel??
But in all seriousness, traveling to far away planets is going to be a colossal technological issue that I don't think will be resolved any time soon. Our knowledge of physics is going to have to be turned upside-down by a huge discovery that would allow for very fast travel, like allowing traveling 35 LY in a couple days.
I would be surprised if humans were to survive even a couple of more thousand years with the way the planet is looking today.
There is just too much "shit" (if I were to even try making a list it would need a thread of its own) going on in this world.
To put it in political correct words.
I see the biggest problem of the human race is that it puts to much energy into believing in unverfiable things and then goes on fighting over which of the thousands of non verifiable objects is the best one to follow instead of putting effort into things that we can actually do something about, ie science.
Something ive always wondered about colonizing other planets, wouldnt you need a pretty big amount of people to do it? Cause chances are theres gonna be Disease we have NO immunity to, that would prolly wipe out alot of people pretty quickly wouldn't there?
If there is a lot of life on a planets not too far away and not too hard to observe, we can find one within 20 years or so if we invest in the space telescopes needed. If not, 50 years. If our galaxy is overflowing with life, we will know within our lifetime.
All we need is to find a planet that has oxygen in the atmosphere and then get a spectrum measurement of that atmosphere showing indeed oxygen is there.
Our world is always improving? Is that so? In the western world our generation will probably be less rich than the generation of our parents. And it's not like the same thing hasn't happened in history before. Look at the Romans. It took a long long time fr the world to improve back to their level of civilization.
On March 04 2013 09:57 a176 wrote: I've always believed interstellar travel to be the biggest issue. Its one thing to go fast, its another to account for all the potential trillions objects of debris that you may crash into going from point A to B.
The faster you go the less an object getting in your way matters, your force increases with speed so it could be possible, with proper construction, to devise a system that measures large debri (bigger then small space rocks) and the rest would just simply blast away like waves to a boats hull.
But yeah, that would definitely be something to watch for hahaha and maybe I could be wrong, it may be a bigger problem or a non-existent problem.
This is blatantly false.
The faster you go, the more does it matter when something gets in your way. If you look at the collision between two objects, the force of the impact is based on relative velocity. So if you are faster, stuff hits you harder. Which also makes it harder to deflect away from you without taking damage.
But people also underestimate just how empty space really is. If you look at SciFi movies or games, space is full of stuff. It is not. In fact, basically the most crowded area of space by some orders of magnitude at the moment is in earth orbit, because of all the shit we shoot up there and just leave lying around when it breaks.
Also, since our current probes and satellites appear to be able to deal with the problem at the speeds they are travelling at, i am confident that we will find ways to deal with it in case we ever reach speeds where the density of objects in space becomes a real problem
we have had the benefit of, well, billions of years of solar system and planetary formation to help clear our neighborhood of most debris. outside the influence of the sun its a turkey shoot.
On March 04 2013 09:57 a176 wrote: I've always believed interstellar travel to be the biggest issue. Its one thing to go fast, its another to account for all the potential trillions objects of debris that you may crash into going from point A to B.
The faster you go the less an object getting in your way matters, your force increases with speed so it could be possible, with proper construction, to devise a system that measures large debri (bigger then small space rocks) and the rest would just simply blast away like waves to a boats hull.
But yeah, that would definitely be something to watch for hahaha and maybe I could be wrong, it may be a bigger problem or a non-existent problem.
I'm sad that you are wrong in this case mate You are right about the fact a bigger speed makes objects crash and stuff, but that doesnt work how you hope it would haha. Fact is, the smaller the particle is you crash into, the bigger the potential damage. Weh nyou fly with (in the future who knows) lightning speed into something like a piece of dirt, the pressure that piece of dirt puts on your ships hull is calculated like: Speed difference between the objects (your ship and the object you collide into) and its size. Aka if its REALLY small, the pressure on your hull is REAAAAAAALLLYYY big. chances are it cuts through all your ship without too much effort. Imagine a space sandstorm and you are pretty much screwed im afraid. ;p
On March 04 2013 09:57 a176 wrote: I've always believed interstellar travel to be the biggest issue. Its one thing to go fast, its another to account for all the potential trillions objects of debris that you may crash into going from point A to B.
The faster you go the less an object getting in your way matters, your force increases with speed so it could be possible, with proper construction, to devise a system that measures large debri (bigger then small space rocks) and the rest would just simply blast away like waves to a boats hull.
But yeah, that would definitely be something to watch for hahaha and maybe I could be wrong, it may be a bigger problem or a non-existent problem.
I'm sad that you are wrong in this case mate You are right about the fact a bigger speed makes objects crash and stuff, but that doesnt work how you hope it would haha. Fact is, the smaller the particle is you crash into, the bigger the potential damage. Weh nyou fly with (in the future who knows) lightning speed into something like a piece of dirt, the pressure that piece of dirt puts on your ships hull is calculated like: Speed difference between the objects (your ship and the object you collide into) and its size. Aka if its REALLY small, the pressure on your hull is REAAAAAAALLLYYY big. chances are it cuts through all your ship without too much effort. Imagine a space sandstorm and you are pretty much screwed im afraid. ;p
You forgot the mass in there. Smaller pieces are less dangerous then large ones because, while the surface area hitting you scales quadratic with radius, the mass scales cubic. Meaning a larger pieces will put more pressure/area onto your ship then a smaller piece.
Pressure is Force/Area, and the force is proportional to the impacting mass.
Also, i am pretty sure that the object density inside a solar system is WAY higher than in interstellar space. Gravity fields tend to catch objects, and according to the theory of the history of the universe, there was a much higher chance of objects to form where stars form anyways, since those stars formed exactly due to that higher object density accumulating interstellar matter through gravity. So, while space in our solar system is already very empty, outside of it it is even more empty.
On February 27 2013 06:49 MrRicewife wrote: Speak for yourself. Intelligence is random. There is just as much chance of life being unintelligent as there is to being intelligent. For eons this earth was occupied by unintelligent life. To be certain of anything involving intelligent life on other planets is asinine. I appreciate theories and good discussion but come on ... You act divine.
Or you successfully just trolled me.
You don't really understand how randomness works, it's as much about probability as it is 'random' occurring events. With that in mind. It would be an astronomically small chance, you'd have a better chance winning the lottery every day of the week for the next 10 years then the universe not having anymore intelligent life... There are an estimated 10 trillion planets just in our galaxy alone... It's estimated there are 200 billion galaxies (probably more)... It is estimates at 10^24 planets in the universe (rough obviously). It's no longer about 'random', it's simply statistics, it's what we call a negligible probability to think this very very unimportant planet (with respect to others of similar note) is the only planet that 'lucked' out.
You also have to take into account that when we look into space, thousands of light years literally means thousands of years in the past, so any planet that is similar to ours would be living in Roman times (if they grew similar to us) and our telescopes would have no ability to detect life, nor would it have the ability to see if that civilization is a prospering giant traveling through space (similar to them looking at us). This is all assertion, it could be the case that that planet had not evolved as quickly due to other occurences (sun size, orbit etc) but the fact remains, it's a much bolder and improbable statement to think 'maybe intelligent life is so random it only happened once' then to assume it is very VERY common.
I wouldn't be so quick to question the other poster if your own understanding of probability is skewed.
We have a sample size of 1 for intelligent life existing in the universe - us, humanity (and by extension, all those with the same shared primate ancestry). We do not have a clear understanding on the exact mechanic's of the formation of intelligent life, or life in general. Thus it is utterly impossible to infer any probability on the existence of additional intelligent life. It may be relatively common (at least on the galactic scale) or it may be outrageously uncommon. The fact of the matter is that the observable universe is actually not nearly as large to account for huge probability problems as astrophysicist's sometimes like to imply. Relatively simple probability problems can sometimes yield numbers of vastly more orders of magnitude than 10^24 planets can account for. For further reading see Graham's Number.
If it does turn out that intelligent life is outrageously rare, orders of magnitude greater than the cosmos, You may find yourself bewildered by the hand fate as dealt you and asking the philosophical question, much like the patient dying of the rare 1 in a billion disease, "why us?". In which case I direct you to the Anthropic Principle , it's a cop out but it will do.
For me personally I am endeared by the concept of other intelligent life existing and believe it's a worthy goal to try to find out but it's just that, a belief, it's not actually based in anything scientific per se, more the emotional feat of human exploration.
I cringed while reading this thread because of all this ignorance, if you have limited scientific knowledge you should atleast look it up before posting blatantly wrong information.
The truth is not halve as exciting as our fantasys unfortunatly.
Asymetric above is right . That famous calculation showing there could be thousends of civilisations has big flaws. We estimate a change we have no idea of,(well several changes infact, not only the change for live to evolve but also for the live to then evolve into intelligent live) and we have indeed only 1 sample of intelligent live. We should consider ourselves unique till we find evidence we are not.
"I cringed while reading this thread because of all this ignorance, if you have limited scientific knowledge you should atleast look it up before posting blatantly wrong information."
Well you right kinda but instead of just commenting on how bad everyones contribution is, you could also be helpfull and point out the glaring errors made.
On March 04 2013 21:59 Rassy wrote: The truth is not halve as exciting as our fantasys unfortunatly.
Asymetric above is right . That famous calculation showing there could be thousends of civilisations has big flaws. We estimate a change we have no idea of,(well several changes infact, not only the change for live to evolve but also for the live to then evolve into intelligent live) and we have indeed only 1 sample of intelligent live. We should consider ourselves unique till we find evidence we are not.
"I cringed while reading this thread because of all this ignorance, if you have limited scientific knowledge you should atleast look it up before posting blatantly wrong information."
Well you right kinda but instead of just commenting on how bad everyones contribution is, you could also be helpfull and point out the glaring errors made.
i would need to point out every single one and that would take far too much time, during exam-time i favor just skimming through some threads while having a break.
On February 27 2013 07:32 Hitch-22 wrote: There are an estimated 10 trillion planets just in our galaxy alone...
sorry but where did you get this bizarrely high figure? It's estimated there are between 200-400 billion stars in the milky way. Even if it were 400 billion, each star would need to have over 20 planets in orbit :/.
Those Drake derived equations say nothing about life or biology (or sociology). All they say is about how many stars there are and more recently about how many planets there are. Just by the fact that it has a total blank in it for everything related to biology or life must mean it cannot help you to gain any insights in biology or life.
As for the universe being big enough for everything extremely rare to happen at least twice. Say you have a universe where life emerges once. Then say one doubles the size. Now life emerges twice. But who is to say that by doubling the size of that universe you don't get some phenomenon that happened less than once in the normal size universe but now once and just once in the double size universe?
Even in a universe that is extremely big, very unlikely phenomenons are going to happen only a very few times. Maybe the universe is filled with many different kinds of extremely rare phenomenons and life is just one of those. Just the fact that the universe is big means very little.
Also, what is much more relevant is the likelihood of life in our galaxy. Life on the other side of the visible universe for all practical purposes changes nothing. Some of those galaxies in some sense are transitioning outside of our reality anyway(since transfer of information between us and them is now impossible).
I am happy to accept that life is something relatively common when given the right conditions. But I don't see any reason why I have to abandon the idea of life being an extreme unlikelihood. I see no argument for it. And who is to say that were won't find 2000 planets with liquid water containing blue/green/brown/red goo but nothing else? Earth was like that for 1.2 billion years. Life didn't have a need, or ran into an impossibility, to evolve further. Then something odd and unexplained happened.
Gaymon, why should we care about anything you say when you have nothing to contribute yourself? Your posts are now merely waste of space, worse than those uninformed posts. Your argument that you eiter only complain or address every singe point seems obviously false yet you asses it as if it were a truism to all of us.
On March 04 2013 22:43 Tadatomo wrote: Those Drake derived equations say nothing about life or biology (or sociology). All they say is about how many stars there are and more recently about how many planets there are. Just by the fact that it has a total blank in it for everything related to biology or life must mean it cannot help you to gain any insights in biology or life.
As for the universe being big enough for everything extremely rare to happen at least twice. Say you have a universe where life emerges once. Then say one doubles the size. Now life emerges twice. But who is to say that by doubling the size of that universe you don't get some phenomenon that happened less than once in the normal size universe but now once and just once in the double size universe?
Even in a universe that is extremely big, very unlikely phenomenons are going to happen only a very few times. Maybe the universe is filled with many different kinds of extremely rare phenomenons and life is just one of those. Just the fact that the universe is big means very little.
Also, what is much more relevant is the likelihood of life in our galaxy. Life on the other side of the visible universe for all practical purposes changes nothing. Some of those galaxies in some sense are transitioning outside of our reality anyway(since transfer of information between us and them is now impossible).
I am happy to accept that life is something relatively common when given the right conditions. But I don't see any reason why I have to abandon the idea of life being an extreme unlikelihood. I see no argument for it. And who is to say that were won't find 2000 planets with liquid water containing blue/green/brown/red goo but nothing else? Earth was like that for 1.2 billion years. Life didn't have a need, or ran into an impossibility, to evolve further. Then something odd and unexplained happened.
Gaymon, why should we care about anything you say when you have nothing to contribute yourself? Your posts are now merely waste of space, worse than those uninformed posts. Your argument that you eiter only complain or address every singe point seems obviously false yet you asses it as if it were a truism to all of us.
It's very possible for a planet to be nothing but goo as long as life exist as perfect replication with no possibility of mutation. As soon as mutation is a certainty within the population there is differentiation. Where there is differentiation I think evolution would be inevitable since adaptation is enabled.
On March 04 2013 09:57 a176 wrote: I've always believed interstellar travel to be the biggest issue. Its one thing to go fast, its another to account for all the potential trillions objects of debris that you may crash into going from point A to B.
The faster you go the less an object getting in your way matters, your force increases with speed so it could be possible, with proper construction, to devise a system that measures large debri (bigger then small space rocks) and the rest would just simply blast away like waves to a boats hull.
But yeah, that would definitely be something to watch for hahaha and maybe I could be wrong, it may be a bigger problem or a non-existent problem.
This is blatantly false.
The faster you go, the more does it matter when something gets in your way. If you look at the collision between two objects, the force of the impact is based on relative velocity. So if you are faster, stuff hits you harder. Which also makes it harder to deflect away from you without taking damage.
But people also underestimate just how empty space really is. If you look at SciFi movies or games, space is full of stuff. It is not. In fact, basically the most crowded area of space by some orders of magnitude at the moment is in earth orbit, because of all the shit we shoot up there and just leave lying around when it breaks.
Also, since our current probes and satellites appear to be able to deal with the problem at the speeds they are travelling at, i am confident that we will find ways to deal with it in case we ever reach speeds where the density of objects in space becomes a real problem
My apologies, as I said I could be false I just made the assumption (like, for instance, a bull running through a wall) force > small force, or rather small rocks just get taken out.
On February 27 2013 07:32 Hitch-22 wrote: There are an estimated 10 trillion planets just in our galaxy alone...
sorry but where did you get this bizarrely high figure? It's estimated there are between 200-400 billion stars in the milky way. Even if it were 400 billion, each star would need to have over 20 planets in orbit :/.
On February 27 2013 07:32 Hitch-22 wrote: There are an estimated 10 trillion planets just in our galaxy alone...
sorry but where did you get this bizarrely high figure? It's estimated there are between 200-400 billion stars in the milky way. Even if it were 400 billion, each star would need to have over 20 planets in orbit :/.
We basically only know our own solar system, and we are actually still discovering planets like CFBDSIR2149, which is wandering behind our farthest planet Neptune. Also, our sun is actually really smal compared to most other stars, so the odds are quite big most solar systems have over 20 planets in them.
On March 04 2013 09:57 a176 wrote: I've always believed interstellar travel to be the biggest issue. Its one thing to go fast, its another to account for all the potential trillions objects of debris that you may crash into going from point A to B.
The faster you go the less an object getting in your way matters, your force increases with speed so it could be possible, with proper construction, to devise a system that measures large debri (bigger then small space rocks) and the rest would just simply blast away like waves to a boats hull.
But yeah, that would definitely be something to watch for hahaha and maybe I could be wrong, it may be a bigger problem or a non-existent problem.
This is blatantly false.
The faster you go, the more does it matter when something gets in your way. If you look at the collision between two objects, the force of the impact is based on relative velocity. So if you are faster, stuff hits you harder. Which also makes it harder to deflect away from you without taking damage.
But people also underestimate just how empty space really is. If you look at SciFi movies or games, space is full of stuff. It is not. In fact, basically the most crowded area of space by some orders of magnitude at the moment is in earth orbit, because of all the shit we shoot up there and just leave lying around when it breaks.
Also, since our current probes and satellites appear to be able to deal with the problem at the speeds they are travelling at, i am confident that we will find ways to deal with it in case we ever reach speeds where the density of objects in space becomes a real problem
My apologies, as I said I could be false I just made the assumption (like, for instance, a bull running through a wall) force > small force, or rather small rocks just get taken out.
Simberto was correct. Your assumption is wrong because you were thinking of wall which by using a bigger force, they will shatter but that doesnt mean the object that you hit it with will take less force. A good real life example is bullet traveling through water or meteor traveling through the atmosphere. The more force you exert in water, the more it resist your movement and slows you down.
On March 04 2013 09:57 a176 wrote: I've always believed interstellar travel to be the biggest issue. Its one thing to go fast, its another to account for all the potential trillions objects of debris that you may crash into going from point A to B.
The faster you go the less an object getting in your way matters, your force increases with speed so it could be possible, with proper construction, to devise a system that measures large debri (bigger then small space rocks) and the rest would just simply blast away like waves to a boats hull.
But yeah, that would definitely be something to watch for hahaha and maybe I could be wrong, it may be a bigger problem or a non-existent problem.
This is blatantly false.
The faster you go, the more does it matter when something gets in your way. If you look at the collision between two objects, the force of the impact is based on relative velocity. So if you are faster, stuff hits you harder. Which also makes it harder to deflect away from you without taking damage.
But people also underestimate just how empty space really is. If you look at SciFi movies or games, space is full of stuff. It is not. In fact, basically the most crowded area of space by some orders of magnitude at the moment is in earth orbit, because of all the shit we shoot up there and just leave lying around when it breaks.
Also, since our current probes and satellites appear to be able to deal with the problem at the speeds they are travelling at, i am confident that we will find ways to deal with it in case we ever reach speeds where the density of objects in space becomes a real problem
My apologies, as I said I could be false I just made the assumption (like, for instance, a bull running through a wall) force > small force, or rather small rocks just get taken out.
Simberto was correct. Your assumption is wrong because you were thinking of wall which by using a bigger force, they will shatter but that doesnt mean the object that you hit it with will take less force. A good real life example is bullet traveling through water or meteor traveling through the atmosphere. The more force you exert in water, the more it resist your movement and slows you down.
On March 04 2013 09:57 a176 wrote: I've always believed interstellar travel to be the biggest issue. Its one thing to go fast, its another to account for all the potential trillions objects of debris that you may crash into going from point A to B.
The faster you go the less an object getting in your way matters, your force increases with speed so it could be possible, with proper construction, to devise a system that measures large debri (bigger then small space rocks) and the rest would just simply blast away like waves to a boats hull.
But yeah, that would definitely be something to watch for hahaha and maybe I could be wrong, it may be a bigger problem or a non-existent problem.
This is blatantly false.
The faster you go, the more does it matter when something gets in your way. If you look at the collision between two objects, the force of the impact is based on relative velocity. So if you are faster, stuff hits you harder. Which also makes it harder to deflect away from you without taking damage.
But people also underestimate just how empty space really is. If you look at SciFi movies or games, space is full of stuff. It is not. In fact, basically the most crowded area of space by some orders of magnitude at the moment is in earth orbit, because of all the shit we shoot up there and just leave lying around when it breaks.
Also, since our current probes and satellites appear to be able to deal with the problem at the speeds they are travelling at, i am confident that we will find ways to deal with it in case we ever reach speeds where the density of objects in space becomes a real problem
My apologies, as I said I could be false I just made the assumption (like, for instance, a bull running through a wall) force > small force, or rather small rocks just get taken out.
Simberto was correct. Your assumption is wrong because you were thinking of wall which by using a bigger force, they will shatter but that doesnt mean the object that you hit it with will take less force. A good real life example is bullet traveling through water or meteor traveling through the atmosphere. The more force you exert in water, the more it resist your movement and slows you down.
Another nice example is people who jump from bridges into water, and die from the impact. At high speeds, fluids can be modelled as being compressible, and thus instead of moving out of the way they compress and apply pressure. The net result is similar to hitting concrete.
On March 04 2013 18:58 arb wrote: Something ive always wondered about colonizing other planets, wouldnt you need a pretty big amount of people to do it? Cause chances are theres gonna be Disease we have NO immunity to, that would prolly wipe out alot of people pretty quickly wouldn't there?
Pray tell, how would a virus that could target human physiology evolve on a planet without humans? Keep in mind viruses have evolved to EXACTLY match the organism they are invading. IE Most viruses that infect our closest primates, chimps, can't infect humans, and the ones that do (like TB) are extremely rare.
Ha ha that is actually a verry good point. Well thats one thing less to worry about then, alien virusses but that doesnt mean there cant be verry harmfull micro organisms like bacteria though. Hmm after thinking a bit more about it i am not to sure about virusses either but your argument looks convincing.
There are so many steps in a virus life cycle, and just looking at step#1, entering the cell, if the virus doesn't have the exact proteins required to infiltrate into the cell, it's completely useless and will just float around in the host (like the VAST majority of viruses, btw. Your body is a busy, busy place.)
If the planet we would land onto would be without animal life, I think the most dangerous thing would be the countless microbes we carry on ourselves. Keep in mind all the bacteria in our body that we absolutely need to live healthy lives only persist because they are the most fit for their niche. If those bacteria can find another niche on another planet, it could absolutely devastate all plant/microbe life.
So keep in mind we might one day meet intelligent life only to wipe each other out :/
A team of astronomers has combined new observations of Gliese 667C with existing data from HARPS at ESO’s 3.6-metre telescope in Chile, to reveal a system with at least six planets. A record-breaking three of these planets are super-Earths lying in the zone around the star where liquid water could exist, making them possible candidates for the presence of life. This is the first system found with a fully packed habitable zone.
Gliese 667C is a very well-studied star. Just over one third of the mass of the Sun, it is part of a triple star system known as Gliese 667 (also referred to as GJ 667), 22 light-years away in the constellation of Scorpius (The Scorpion). This is quite close to us — within the Sun’s neighbourhood — and much closer than the star systems investigated using telescopes such as the planet-hunting Kepler space telescope.
Previous studies of Gliese 667C had found that the star hosts three planets (eso0939, eso1214) with one of them in the habitable zone. Now, a team of astronomers led by Guillem Anglada-Escudé of the University of Göttingen, Germany and Mikko Tuomi of the University of Hertfordshire, UK, has reexamined the system. They have added new HARPS observations, along with data from ESO's Very Large Telescope, the W.M. Keck Observatory and the Magellan Telescopes, to the already existing picture [1]. The team has found evidence for up to seven planets around the star [2].
These planets orbit the third fainter star of a triple star system. Viewed from one of these newly found planets the two other suns would look like a pair of very bright stars visible in the daytime and at night they would provide as much illumination as the full Moon. The new planets completely fill up the habitable zone of Gliese 667C, as there are no more stable orbits in which a planet could exist at the right distance to it.
“We knew that the star had three planets from previous studies, so we wanted to see whether there were any more,” says Tuomi. “By adding some new observations and revisiting existing data we were able to confirm these three and confidently reveal several more. Finding three low-mass planets in the star’s habitable zone is very exciting!”
Three of these planets are confirmed to be super-Earths — planets more massive than Earth, but less massive than planets like Uranus or Neptune — that are within their star’s habitable zone, a thin shell around a star in which water may be present in liquid form if conditions are right. This is the first time that three such planets have been spotted orbiting in this zone in the same system.
A team of astronomers has combined new observations of Gliese 667C with existing data from HARPS at ESO’s 3.6-metre telescope in Chile, to reveal a system with at least six planets. A record-breaking three of these planets are super-Earths lying in the zone around the star where liquid water could exist, making them possible candidates for the presence of life. This is the first system found with a fully packed habitable zone.
Gliese 667C is a very well-studied star. Just over one third of the mass of the Sun, it is part of a triple star system known as Gliese 667 (also referred to as GJ 667), 22 light-years away in the constellation of Scorpius (The Scorpion). This is quite close to us — within the Sun’s neighbourhood — and much closer than the star systems investigated using telescopes such as the planet-hunting Kepler space telescope.
Previous studies of Gliese 667C had found that the star hosts three planets (eso0939, eso1214) with one of them in the habitable zone. Now, a team of astronomers led by Guillem Anglada-Escudé of the University of Göttingen, Germany and Mikko Tuomi of the University of Hertfordshire, UK, has reexamined the system. They have added new HARPS observations, along with data from ESO's Very Large Telescope, the W.M. Keck Observatory and the Magellan Telescopes, to the already existing picture [1]. The team has found evidence for up to seven planets around the star [2].
These planets orbit the third fainter star of a triple star system. Viewed from one of these newly found planets the two other suns would look like a pair of very bright stars visible in the daytime and at night they would provide as much illumination as the full Moon. The new planets completely fill up the habitable zone of Gliese 667C, as there are no more stable orbits in which a planet could exist at the right distance to it.
“We knew that the star had three planets from previous studies, so we wanted to see whether there were any more,” says Tuomi. “By adding some new observations and revisiting existing data we were able to confirm these three and confidently reveal several more. Finding three low-mass planets in the star’s habitable zone is very exciting!”
Three of these planets are confirmed to be super-Earths — planets more massive than Earth, but less massive than planets like Uranus or Neptune — that are within their star’s habitable zone, a thin shell around a star in which water may be present in liquid form if conditions are right. This is the first time that three such planets have been spotted orbiting in this zone in the same system.
WASHINGTON -- WASHINGTON (AP) — Space is vast, but it may not be so lonely after all: A study finds the Milky Way is teeming with billions of planets that are about the size of Earth, orbit stars just like our sun, and exist in the Goldilocks zone — not too hot and not too cold for life.
Astronomers using NASA data have calculated for the first time that in our galaxy alone, there are at least 8.8 billion stars with Earth-size planets in the habitable temperature zone.
On February 27 2013 07:32 Hitch-22 wrote: There are an estimated 10 trillion planets just in our galaxy alone...
sorry but where did you get this bizarrely high figure? It's estimated there are between 200-400 billion stars in the milky way. Even if it were 400 billion, each star would need to have over 20 planets in orbit :/.
I'm not giving exact numbers here, but I just want to say that that our galaxy has at least 100billion stars.
...And it is estimated, that the number of planets that has no orbit (doesn't orbit any star), is over 100 000 times more than the number of stars. Then add the number of star orbiting planets
This is all just fantasy and dreaming. We can all hope for life out there, even if there is there is no where near any technology that can get us there for the next imaginable future. There are enough stuff to do on this planet! Lets focus on fixing it rather than spend time, money and energy on something that is out of reach. My two cents
On November 05 2013 20:07 ThePhan2m wrote: This is all just fantasy and dreaming. We can all hope for life out there, even if there is there is no where near any technology that can get us there for the next imaginable future. There are enough stuff to do on this planet! Lets focus on fixing it rather than spend time, money and energy on something that is out of reach. My two cents
That bolded part is what we're spending on it right now. With that attitude we'll all still be sitting in our gravity well when the next killer asteroid enters the earths atmosphere, which could happen at any time.
On November 05 2013 20:07 ThePhan2m wrote: This is all just fantasy and dreaming. We can all hope for life out there, even if there is there is no where near any technology that can get us there for the next imaginable future. There are enough stuff to do on this planet! Lets focus on fixing it rather than spend time, money and energy on something that is out of reach. My two cents
That bolded part is what we're spending on it right now. With that attitude we'll all still be sitting in our gravity well when the next killer asteroid enters the earths atmosphere, which could happen at any time.
Not to mention that sooner or later this planet is going to die.
It's not like we are going to wake up one day and have the technology to travel trillions of light years to new places. One has to take tiny steps and that is why every bit of science is important and will take us closer to finding new planets and maybe one day for humans to travel there instead of getting extinct.
On November 05 2013 20:07 ThePhan2m wrote: This is all just fantasy and dreaming. We can all hope for life out there, even if there is there is no where near any technology that can get us there for the next imaginable future. There are enough stuff to do on this planet! Lets focus on fixing it rather than spend time, money and energy on something that is out of reach. My two cents
That bolded part is what we're spending on it right now. With that attitude we'll all still be sitting in our gravity well when the next killer asteroid enters the earths atmosphere, which could happen at any time.
The chances of that happening is slim compared to a world war or any human made conflict
On November 05 2013 20:07 ThePhan2m wrote: This is all just fantasy and dreaming. We can all hope for life out there, even if there is there is no where near any technology that can get us there for the next imaginable future. There are enough stuff to do on this planet! Lets focus on fixing it rather than spend time, money and energy on something that is out of reach. My two cents
That bolded part is what we're spending on it right now. With that attitude we'll all still be sitting in our gravity well when the next killer asteroid enters the earths atmosphere, which could happen at any time.
Not to mention that sooner or later this planet is going to die.
It's not like we are going to wake up one day and have the technology to travel trillions of light years to new places. One has to take tiny steps and that is why every bit of science is important and will take us closer to finding new planets and maybe one day for humans to travel there instead of getting extinct.
I read somewhere that we have about 600million years of habitable Earth left. I'm pretty sure that with the rate of advancement in technology we should be pretty good to go by the time that becomes an issue.
Not that finding ways to spend more money on things like research is a bad idea by any means.
If we assume higher life forms are possible on other planets, we have to assume, that there must be civilizations that are millions or billions of years more advanced then us. Likely on star systems that developed much earlier then ours.
If there are these civilizations, we should have picked something up by yet, or more likely they picked something up from us or even visited us if interstellar travel was even possible.
In my opinion, there might be other life or even higher life forms, but it is very unlikely we would pick up a definite sign of them. They either died out millions of years ago on their bubble that we call a solar system or they are so far away we will never know them.
I doubt that humanity will ever be capable of interstellar travel if it is possible at all.
On November 05 2013 20:07 ThePhan2m wrote: This is all just fantasy and dreaming. We can all hope for life out there, even if there is there is no where near any technology that can get us there for the next imaginable future. There are enough stuff to do on this planet! Lets focus on fixing it rather than spend time, money and energy on something that is out of reach. My two cents
That bolded part is what we're spending on it right now. With that attitude we'll all still be sitting in our gravity well when the next killer asteroid enters the earths atmosphere, which could happen at any time.
The chances of that happening is slim compared to a world war or any human made conflict
It doesnt matter if the chance is slim or not. If I remember the limited course in statistical probability I took years ago somewhat correctly, the chance is the same tomorrow or the next day or in a hundred years. We do know one thing as fact though, it will happen sometime, and if we're not ready we're toast. So it doesnt matter if we've built paradise on earth. Lets face it, Bruce Willis wont be around forever .......
Wouldnt it be more likely that aliens visit us before we manage to get the technology to visit them? Maybe we are a little crap planet compared to the rest and they just try to avoid us. Like a small village nobody wants to visit but the ppl in the village really want to check out the town.
This is cool though. Once you start thinking about this stuff you can end up sitting for hours just staring and thinking about all the possibilities.
And then we remember all those ridiculous explanations in 3X-games why so many species should start their discovery of the universe at the exact same time. Like Master of Orion, oh yeah, they were all created by some master species that programmed them to evolve at the same time. A couple of ten thousand years is nothing compared to the randomness when/if/how live develops on other worlds. Even if a planet develops intelligent live, and both them and us discover technology that defeats Einstein, the chance of it happening at the same microsecond of the lifespan of the universe is so ridiculously low.
On November 05 2013 21:17 Holy_AT wrote: If we assume higher life forms are possible on other planets, we have to assume, that there must be civilizations that are millions or billions of years more advanced then us. Likely on star systems that developed much earlier then ours.
If there are these civilizations, we should have picked something up by yet, or more likely they picked something up from us or even visited us if interstellar travel was even possible.
In my opinion, there might be other life or even higher life forms, but it is very unlikely we would pick up a definite sign of them. They either died out millions of years ago on their bubble that we call a solar system or they are so far away we will never know them.
I doubt that humanity will ever be capable of interstellar travel if it is possible at all.
I'm in the camp as to why we haven't heard from any other civilizations. If they had billions of years to grow and advance before us they should be way ahead of us by now, surely capable of emitting radio waves or some sort of signal that we could pick up.
The speed of light is so far our hard-barrier to space exploration. According to current theories it is impossible to break this limit, which means many many years to travel even to the closest star with planets. Space is just too big for us humans.
I also think that people underestimate just how rare life on earth is. It may be rarer than the stars and planets in the universe are numerous. Our planet is just so precious and some people treat it like garbage. We need to wake up and treat earth and each other much better than we do because we might have only each other in this huge place we call the universe.
lol guys the reason why we don't hear from others is because the universe is fcking huge. There are hundreds of light years between planets, stars, etc. so the probability that someone happens to find us by chance is very low. Even if someone has the capability to actively search around the galaxy to find higher life forms (ie humans like us), the chance they will find us is small.
And if humans attain the technology to travel in space, why the hell should we go around looking for others? It's like native americans in the 1500s traveling across the atlantic to let europeans know that they are available to be invaded. Terrible idea. Space travel would be most beneficial for economic and survival purposes (mining asteroids, space tourism, colonizing other planets, etc.).
On November 06 2013 04:05 white_horse wrote: lol guys the reason why we don't hear from others is because the universe is fcking huge. There are hundreds of light years between planets, stars, etc. so the probability that someone happens to find us by chance is very low. Even if someone has the capability to actively search around the galaxy to find higher life forms (ie humans like us), the chance they will find us is small.
And if humans attain the technology to travel in space, why the hell should we go around looking for others? It's like native americans in the 1500s traveling across the atlantic to let europeans know that they are available to be invaded. Terrible idea. Space travel would be most beneficial for economic and survival purposes (mining asteroids, space tourism, colonizing other planets, etc.).
I think the distance problem for interstellar travel is overstated. There are hundreds of stars within 20 lys, probably hundreds of terraformable planets and exomoons within the same distance.
The problems are relatively short human lifespans and our tiny energy budget. Both of which are fixable in situ. If humanity could harness 0.1% of the Sun's total energy output (not just the part that reaches the Earth, but the total energy produced by the Sun every second) and human lifespan could be increased to 200-300 years interstellar travel would become a real possibility.
It depends on the trajectory of human civilization. I don't think the kind of technological and industrial development that has been the norm in the last 200 years will continue indefinitely. But if it did we would see humans (or whatever our descendants call themselves) in a different solar system in a few centuries.
If I recall correctly SETI project is listening for radio signals emanating specifically from those habitable candidate planets but haven't found a clue that supports the existence of advanced intelligent life.
On November 06 2013 04:05 white_horse wrote: lol guys the reason why we don't hear from others is because the universe is fcking huge. There are hundreds of light years between planets, stars, etc. so the probability that someone happens to find us by chance is very low. Even if someone has the capability to actively search around the galaxy to find higher life forms (ie humans like us), the chance they will find us is small.
And if humans attain the technology to travel in space, why the hell should we go around looking for others? It's like native americans in the 1500s traveling across the atlantic to let europeans know that they are available to be invaded. Terrible idea. Space travel would be most beneficial for economic and survival purposes (mining asteroids, space tourism, colonizing other planets, etc.).
I think the distance problem for interstellar travel is overstated. There are hundreds of stars within 20 lys, probably hundreds of terraformable planets and exomoons within the same distance.
The problems are relatively short human lifespans and our tiny energy budget. Both of which are fixable in situ. If humanity could harness 0.1% of the Sun's total energy output (not just the part that reaches the Earth, but the total energy produced by the Sun every second) and human lifespan could be increased to 200-300 years interstellar travel would become a real possibility.
It depends on the trajectory of human civilization. I don't think the kind of technological and industrial development that has been the norm in the last 200 years will continue indefinitely. But if it did we would see humans (or whatever our descendants call themselves) in a different solar system in a few centuries.
Well you could just have a multi-generational ship where some people live and die on the ship while it is in transit. I think one big problem (I seem to recall reading about this being an issue for a hypothetical manned Mars mission) is fitting enough food/water. Obviously, a multi-generational ship would need to be self-sustaining somehow.
WASHINGTON -- WASHINGTON (AP) — Space is vast, but it may not be so lonely after all: A study finds the Milky Way is teeming with billions of planets that are about the size of Earth, orbit stars just like our sun, and exist in the Goldilocks zone — not too hot and not too cold for life.
Astronomers using NASA data have calculated for the first time that in our galaxy alone, there are at least 8.8 billion stars with Earth-size planets in the habitable temperature zone.
I realize it's cool to find places that are similar to Earth, but I don't see what's stopping life from potentially sprouting up in any random planet (heck, life forms on stars why not?). Why is it that life couldn't exist in 1000 C temperatures in a methane atmosphere? We evolved to our environmental conditions, other organisms could evolve to their own. Of course, how life "originates" in itself is a mystery.
On November 06 2013 05:24 mantequilla wrote: If I recall correctly SETI project is listening for radio signals emanating specifically from those habitable candidate planets but haven't found a clue that supports the existence of advanced intelligent life.
Ahhh that was a hard sentence
The only possible sign which I know of is the "wow" signal. But that's tenuous, and a one-off.
To the poster higher-up: diverting, for example, the world's military budget (or even just the redneck gun-crime budget) onto technological advancement for travel, exploration and even terraforming of planets such as Mars would be a massive plus for the world, rather than a hindrance.
For people talking about old civilizations finding us look at it this way.
We have absolutely zero understanding of beyond human intelligence. For all we know we're not even considered sentient beings to an alien race. We could be considered what insects are to us. Unfortunately it's flawed thinking to believe that an alien race would let themselves be known to us. What makes us think we're so special? Look at us as a species we're awful. This is just humanity being self-centered as usual, when we could very well be insignificant to alien races.
I don't think people quite comprehend just how large the universe and our galaxy is either. Let's say hypothetically you were a super advanced race capable of interstellar travel. Say it only took you a few minutes to travel to a different star.
For the sake of this post we'll say it takes 5 minutes to travel to any star regardless of it's distance. There are approx. 300 billion stars in our galaxy. It would take 1.5 trillion minutes to visit every single star. The average person lives 39.5 million minutes. It would take roughly 38 000 life times to visit all the stars.
Now if you're some super advanced race, would you even bother checking every single star? It would be the equivalent of you looking through every single blade of grass in your city just to find something interesting, that would most likely have little to no pay off.
On November 06 2013 06:44 Krohm wrote: For people talking about old civilizations finding us look at it this way.
We have absolutely zero understanding of beyond human intelligence. For all we know we're not even considered sentient beings to an alien race. We could be considered what insects are to us. Unfortunately it's flawed thinking to believe that an alien race would let themselves be known to us. What makes us think we're so special? Look at us as a species we're awful. This is just humanity being self-centered as usual, when we could very well be insignificant to alien races.
I don't think people quite comprehend just how large the universe and our galaxy is either. Let's say hypothetically you were a super advanced race capable of interstellar travel. Say it only took you a few minutes to travel to a different star.
For the sake of this post we'll say it takes 5 minutes to travel to any star regardless of it's distance. There are approx. 300 billion stars in our galaxy. It would take 1.5 trillion minutes to visit every single star. The average person lives 39.5 million minutes. It would take roughly 38 000 life times to visit all the stars.
Now if you're some super advanced race, would you even bother checking every single star? It would be the equivalent of you looking through every single blade of grass in your city just to find something interesting, that would most likely have little to no pay off.
Haha, this is exactly right. If you think about the ant-to-human ratio on the planet (according to antweb.org) it is likely that the number of ants who actually encounter humans is much lower than the number of humans that are purported to have encountered aliens. So I think it would be safe to say that if ants are capable of thoughts of this depth, they would most likely believe that human beings are a myth. The problem I see with SETI is that they are looking for radiowaves as communications when another form of life may very likely not be communicating using radiowaves.
On November 05 2013 21:17 Holy_AT wrote: I doubt that humanity will ever be capable of interstellar travel if it is possible at all.
We are already capable of interstellar travel, it's just not feasible. You need a generation ship, probably nuclear pulse propulsion Project Orion style. It would take decades to plan and build and would cost many countries insane amounts of cash, with a very real possibility that it would fail. But it not impossible, it would take a nuclear pulse propulsion ship about 50 years to fly to alpha centauri, and the actual nuclear pulse technology is relatively old by now though it was never tested for real.
On November 06 2013 07:47 ninazerg wrote: The problem I see with SETI is that they are looking for radiowaves as communications when another form of life may very likely not be communicating using radiowaves.
There are people who look at optical pulses too. But I think all current SETI efforts look for communications from more advanced civilizations that deliberately target us. The hope is that they would know what we're looking for or at least what is 'easiest' to achieve and not use their most advanced methods
In any case you can only look for what you know. Maybe 'everything else' is more likely but until someone builds a telescope that detects everything else we are stuck with radio waves.
WASHINGTON -- WASHINGTON (AP) — Space is vast, but it may not be so lonely after all: A study finds the Milky Way is teeming with billions of planets that are about the size of Earth, orbit stars just like our sun, and exist in the Goldilocks zone — not too hot and not too cold for life.
Astronomers using NASA data have calculated for the first time that in our galaxy alone, there are at least 8.8 billion stars with Earth-size planets in the habitable temperature zone.
I realize it's cool to find places that are similar to Earth, but I don't see what's stopping life from potentially sprouting up in any random planet (heck, life forms on stars why not?). Why is it that life couldn't exist in 1000 C temperatures in a methane atmosphere? We evolved to our environmental conditions, other organisms could evolve to their own. Of course, how life "originates" in itself is a mystery.
Well, Earth-based life has a couple substances that are really important to it due to the way those substances work i.e. carbon and its astounding array of combinations. At these planets scientists are discovering, some substances which are endemic to Earthly life can be found in abundance, meaning we can find Earth-like life, which has a potential to operate at least vaguely like us. These planets are also significant in that they *may* be able to be colonized. Finally, the goldilocks zone was a very special thing until relatively recently. We thought we were special snowflakes for a while. Turns out we aren't. You are right though. Life could be conceivably found anywhere. Best to start where we already know it can thrive, though. We haven't seen anything to suggest that boiling gas giants, for example, encourage teeming ecosystems.
Its actually quite informative to go to the SETI website and read about their reasoning and how they go about the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. Here's a link.
Basically they say that the best way to communicate across the stars at the fastest speed is to use some type of electromagnetic wave as they travel at the speed of light. Now over long distances gas and dust can absorb many types of radiation, but they leave radio waves essentially unimpeded. So that is why they theorize that if a civilization wanted to communicate across space with its colonies, one of the best choices would be to use radio waves. The idea is that we want to try to pick up on these frequencies.
Furthermore there is a particular range of frequencies that are ideal; you have our galaxy emitting a large amount of noise at lower frequencies, and at higher frequencies, assuming the planet is life supporting and has water, the atmosphere absorbs and releases a large range of these higher frequencies as noise.
So the best bet is actually to transmit radio waves somewhere in the middle. Incidentally they talk about how water molecules actually transmit certain frequencies themselves which (to our great fortune) lies within this quiet zone. So we can search for planets that have water as well (they call this small band "the water hole").
To distinguish between natural frequencies and artificial ones they look for very thin frequency bands; as natural phenomena tend to cover a very broad range of frequencies, but technological forms of communication (at least as far as we know) typically take up only a fraction of the frequency scale.
But I think it will be a very hard search. Not even in terms of the size of the universe (we really only look at the center of our galaxy where most of the stars are), there is quite a lot of space to cover as we can only focus our telescope arrays in very small areas at a time, and we are assuming these intelligences are going through this phase of communication while we are alive (i.e. these waves didn't already pass through long before we were capable of listening in). This is actually the biggest point to me; on a cosmological time scale our existence is an incredibly small fraction of time.
Moreover they could have simply passed through this phase and found a better means of communication than with radio waves. Its hard to say what the probability is, we simply don't know what technologies are possible. But Alpha Centauri, the closest star system that could potentially support life, is only 4.4 light years away. So in less than 5 years an EM wave could reach Earth. So its definitely possible, and we do have access to a very large area. But we have to actively search this area, and hope that one planet is going through the phase of radio wave communication. Within a century or two of our planet.
Another question is, with the incredibly rate of advancement that our technology has seen, what really IS the window for communication using radio waves? If its just a century then that's very small indeed. We have passed from the industrial age to the computer age in a century. What will the world be like a century from now? Two centuries from now? What new forms of communication will exist? Too many uncertainties (all this considered together) to really say that if life existed we would have heard from them by now.
On November 06 2013 04:05 white_horse wrote: And if humans attain the technology to travel in space, why the hell should we go around looking for others? It's like native americans in the 1500s traveling across the atlantic to let europeans know that they are available to be invaded.
come on, thats crazy. thats like if we went out of our way to destroy some microbes on an ant hill in africa.
On September 13 2011 05:39 zimz wrote: i always knew there were thousand if not millions of planets like earth out there like over 10 years ago. i thought it was quite close minded for many people to assume earth is exceptionally rare and maybe the only one etc.
I feel people are close minded when it comes to other life. By that I mean people who think other life has to necessarily have the same living conditions as us when for all we know they have to live opposite (we'll never know at least not in our life time).
Why do people always think aliens are some rampaging zerg-like creatures? Why aren' t they kind and nice or both? and why all the generalization
iirc There' s something like bilions of different planets and milions of solar systems. So matematically there probably are different kinds. TIme to start thinking that maybe a lot of things have always been happening but we where never (or only in the long past) aware of them. Modern humans are not in touch with theor soul enough
On November 05 2013 20:07 ThePhan2m wrote: This is all just fantasy and dreaming. We can all hope for life out there, even if there is there is no where near any technology that can get us there for the next imaginable future. There are enough stuff to do on this planet! Lets focus on fixing it rather than spend time, money and energy on something that is out of reach. My two cents
That bolded part is what we're spending on it right now. With that attitude we'll all still be sitting in our gravity well when the next killer asteroid enters the earths atmosphere, which could happen at any time.
Not to mention that sooner or later this planet is going to die.
It's not like we are going to wake up one day and have the technology to travel trillions of light years to new places. One has to take tiny steps and that is why every bit of science is important and will take us closer to finding new planets and maybe one day for humans to travel there instead of getting extinct.
From that Wiki: The NASA research team has postulated that their findings could reduce the energy requirements for a macroscopic spaceship moving at ten times the speed of light from the mass–energy equivalent of the planet Jupiter to that of the Voyager 1 spacecraft (~700 kg)[9] or less.[10] By harnessing the physics of cosmic inflation, future spaceships crafted to satisfy the laws of these mathematical equations may actually be able to get somewhere unthinkably fast—and without adverse effects.[11] Also, Physicist and EarthTech CEO Harold E. Puthoff explained that contrary to widespread belief even the highly blue-shifted light seen on board such a spaceship would not fry its crew, being bathed in strong UV light and X-rays. It would however be dangerous to anyone seeing it fly by closely.[1]
As I understand it, we are finding more and more habitable planets which means *if* we manage to figure out a way to reach them we will be sorted but we may not figure out how to do that in time.
Is there any possibility of finding potentially habitable planets that our closer to Earth than those we have already discovered, or are we simply finding more and more further afield?
On November 07 2013 03:55 pebble444 wrote: Why do people always think aliens are some rampaging zerg-like creatures? Why aren' t they kind and nice or both? and why all the generalization
iirc There' s something like bilions of different planets and milions of solar systems. So matematically there probably are different kinds. TIme to start thinking that maybe a lot of things have always been happening but we where never (or only in the long past) aware of them. Modern humans are not in touch with theor soul enough
why is it always the position of the egghead set that aliens would always be benign?
On November 07 2013 08:53 Reason wrote: As I understand it, we are finding more and more habitable planets which means *if* we manage to figure out a way to reach them we will be sorted but we may not figure out how to do that in time.
Is there any possibility of finding potentially habitable planets that our closer to Earth than those we have already discovered, or are we simply finding more and more further afield?
I would assume that the closest stars have been observed the most, so there's probably not much closer.
On November 06 2013 04:05 white_horse wrote: And if humans attain the technology to travel in space, why the hell should we go around looking for others? It's like native americans in the 1500s traveling across the atlantic to let europeans know that they are available to be invaded.
come on, thats crazy. thats like if we went out of our way to destroy some microbes on an ant hill in africa.
Any civilization that can accelerate stuff to a useful % of the speed of light for space travel can accelerate rocks fast enough to wipe out civilizations without the receiver being able to detect it. The only way to defend against that would be to preemptively wipe out other civilizations if they don't seem friendly or even before they find you if you are sufficiently paranoid.
Atleast that's what some of the cynical hard SF authors like to think about.
People arguing about why we haven't seen extraterrestrial life, watch this.
Very likely that it is impossible for a civilization to advance far enough before is dies out, likely drives it's own kind to extinction, or the 100-1500 million years that a planet is habitable by life is not enough for evolution or technology to reach far enough that such extreme space exploration would be possible. The other option is, that it may be possible to actually leave a galaxy because special things happen, just like when you leave the solar system, there is a lot more danger, maybe the Milky Way provides such a barrier as well.
So realistically, there are many possible reasons as to why another civilization will never find Earth.
On November 07 2013 08:53 Reason wrote: As I understand it, we are finding more and more habitable planets which means *if* we manage to figure out a way to reach them we will be sorted but we may not figure out how to do that in time.
Is there any possibility of finding potentially habitable planets that our closer to Earth than those we have already discovered, or are we simply finding more and more further afield?
There's a possibility but it requires different techniques. Most habitable planets have been found using the Kepler space telescope. Kepler looks at a large number of stars at the same time to see if their brightness dips. If these dips are happening periodically they are interpreted as a planet passing in front of the star causing a partial eclipse.
It turns out that stars don't have to be particularly close for this technique to work. All you need is the star to be reasonably 'quiet' (i.e don't change its brightness very much on its own), a field of the sky with many stars, and some luck. You need luck because the orbit of the planet has to be almost exactly aligned to your field of view, else the planet won't pass in front of the star from your point of view.
Kepler's field of view contains about 150,000 stars but as far as I know none of them are nearby. I think this could be deliberate a sun like star 10lys away would be much brighter than the typical Kepler star and could mess up the detectors.
On November 07 2013 08:53 Reason wrote: As I understand it, we are finding more and more habitable planets which means *if* we manage to figure out a way to reach them we will be sorted but we may not figure out how to do that in time.
Is there any possibility of finding potentially habitable planets that our closer to Earth than those we have already discovered, or are we simply finding more and more further afield?
I would assume that the closest stars have been observed the most, so there's probably not much closer.
There was actually a study published this week on the relative frequency of Earth-like planets around Sun like stars. It's based on Kepler data but done by people who don't work for the Kepler mission.
"What this means is, when you look up at the thousands of stars in the night sky, the nearest Sun-like star with an Earth-size planet in its habitable zone is probably only 12 light years away and can be seen with the naked eye," said co-author Erik Petigura, from the University of California, Berkeley.
How do we find these planets? The transit method used by Kepler can't work. You'd need a full sky survey and even then you'd only catch the planets whose orbits are exactly aligned. There are techniques that look for dopler shifts in the star's spectrum as planets pull it back and forth. But the signals are tiny for Earth-sized planets on 1 year orbits and potentially swamped by stellar activity. Plus it requires over a hundred observations over a few years on large telescopes.
For the transit method you only need to take a picture of the field of view and you get the brightness of 150,000 objects to a few parts per million. There are no similar instruments for spectroscopy. It used to be that even if you wanted to take the spectrum of two objects that were quite close on the sky you'd need to take two different pictures. There are some instruments that can take multiple spectra now, but none that would take thousands of spectra allowing for the kind of results Kepler produced.
Bottom line is there's no technique that guarantees finding a planet as long as it's there. The transit method relies on luck, the RV method doesn't scale and direct imaging only finds extremely large planets. We can speculate on how common these planets are based on the Kepler data, and indeed they seem to be quite common.
On November 06 2013 04:05 white_horse wrote: And if humans attain the technology to travel in space, why the hell should we go around looking for others? It's like native americans in the 1500s traveling across the atlantic to let europeans know that they are available to be invaded.
come on, thats crazy. thats like if we went out of our way to destroy some microbes on an ant hill in africa.
Any civilization that can accelerate stuff to a useful % of the speed of light for space travel can accelerate rocks fast enough to wipe out civilizations without the receiver being able to detect it. The only way to defend against that would be to preemptively wipe out other civilizations if they don't seem friendly or even before they find you if you are sufficiently paranoid.
Atleast that's what some of the cynical hard SF authors like to think about.
Technically you don't a planet when you're advanced far enough. And destroying the home planet of a civilization that already has significant assets in deep space can lead to nasty consequences.
If there's any civilization that does this kind of thing they are cutting it awfully close with humanity.
Stars are quite far away from us. I think the nearest star will still take us around 10.000-100.000 years to travel towards using current technology. Obviously that's too long for generation ships and the like.
On November 09 2013 22:03 Taekwon wrote: Welp. It looks like Kepler's new data shows that there are billions of Earthlike planets.
And by this you mean that scientist have made new estimations
Kepler has recearched over 150 000 starts, and identified over 3 000 possible planets. Scientists have made their conclusions from that data, and that information is collected from inside our galaxy only.
These calculations are based on the assumption that life can only be sustained on a rock based planet that can contain liquid water, and is orbiting a sun like star.
People arguing about why we haven't seen extraterrestrial life, watch this.
Very likely that it is impossible for a civilization to advance far enough before is dies out, likely drives it's own kind to extinction, or the 100-1500 million years that a planet is habitable by life is not enough for evolution or technology to reach far enough that such extreme space exploration would be possible. The other option is, that it may be possible to actually leave a galaxy because special things happen, just like when you leave the solar system, there is a lot more danger, maybe the Milky Way provides such a barrier as well.
So realistically, there are many possible reasons as to why another civilization will never find Earth.
This is a pretty popular theory. Another is that we may the be the most technologically advanced race which is why we've never seen other life forms because they're not even close to our technology.
Another thing is that when aliens view our planet, they may only see dinosaurs due to how far away we may be from them, similar to how we see stars, but some of those stars may have already disappeared (not COMPLETELY, but I don't know the scientific term I'm looking for). Also, this:
On September 13 2011 05:39 zimz wrote: i always knew there were thousand if not millions of planets like earth out there like over 10 years ago. i thought it was quite close minded for many people to assume earth is exceptionally rare and maybe the only one etc.
I feel people are close minded when it comes to other life. By that I mean people who think other life has to necessarily have the same living conditions as us when for all we know they have to live opposite (we'll never know at least not in our life time).
Alien life may not be visiting us because Earth doesn't have the resources they need to survive. Much like ourselves, why would we try to explore a planet where we don't see any valuable resources?
On November 06 2013 04:05 white_horse wrote: And if humans attain the technology to travel in space, why the hell should we go around looking for others? It's like native americans in the 1500s traveling across the atlantic to let europeans know that they are available to be invaded.
come on, thats crazy. thats like if we went out of our way to destroy some microbes on an ant hill in africa.
Don't we do that, though? People see bugs on the ground, and their instinct is to kill them. They're not really harmful, but people kind of go out of their way to kill that which seems to minuscule. If we reveal ourselves to other species, it's not out of the realm of possibility that they may not see us as we see other people - they may see us as bugs.
While we're on the topic of Xenobiology, everyone should read Ender's Game and it's sequels because it deals a lot with the philosophical concepts of meeting new species. The first book talks about one species, but the sequels (not the shadow series) talk about several other species that interact with the universe in different ways. Not saying it's the goto manual for alien relationships because our manual will be our experience - But I think he does a great job of showing our attitudes of other life, and how we as humans may treat them when the time comes.
On November 09 2013 22:03 Taekwon wrote: Welp. It looks like Kepler's new data shows that there are billions of Earthlike planets.
And by this you mean that scientist have made new estimations
Kepler has recearched over 150 000 starts, and identified over 3 000 possible planets. Scientists have made their conclusions from that data, and that information is collected from inside our galaxy only.
These calculations are based on the assumption that life can only be sustained on a rock based planet that can contain liquid water, and is orbiting a sun like star.
The best way to read this is as an estimate on the proportion of of K and G type stars having planets that are similar in size, composition and stellar irradiation to Earth. Whether these are sufficient or even necessary for life to start is unkown and that's not what these papers are about.
Even though the result is based on a relatively small number of planet candidates there's little reason to believe that it isn't true in the rest of the Universe. When stars form there's a disk of material left over circling the young star called the circumstellar disk. From first principles it seems to be easy for planets to form in this disk, so in that sense the high proportion of Earth-sized rocky planets on Earth-like orbits is not a surprise at all. Indeed, it would have been harder to explain a complete lack of Earth-sized planets.
On November 14 2013 16:39 SjPhotoGrapher wrote: The last things humans need to do is go spread their bullshit to other planets.
Hopefully if aliens ever find us they wipe us out just like the Colonial Americans did to the Native Americans.
This thread reminds me of this:
Your video expresses your point but I think its nonsensical. For once, if we get wiped out we're probably just being replaced by an equally worse species. So I'm not sure where you would get your satisfaction for "a better universe of peace and love". If such a human concept can even exist without said humans.
On November 08 2013 04:03 Grumbels wrote: Stars are quite far away from us. I think the nearest star will still take us around 10.000-100.000 years to travel towards using current technology. Obviously that's too long for generation ships and the like.
On November 08 2013 04:03 Grumbels wrote: Stars are quite far away from us. I think the nearest star will still take us around 10.000-100.000 years to travel towards using current technology. Obviously that's too long for generation ships and the like.
On November 08 2013 04:03 Grumbels wrote: Stars are quite far away from us. I think the nearest star will still take us around 10.000-100.000 years to travel towards using current technology. Obviously that's too long for generation ships and the like.
On November 08 2013 04:03 Grumbels wrote: Stars are quite far away from us. I think the nearest star will still take us around 10.000-100.000 years to travel towards using current technology. Obviously that's too long for generation ships and the like.
There have been concepts since about the 70s (getting more and more feasible) to accelerate a probe to on the order of 10% of the speed of light which would do the job, there just happens to be no money for it and we have a mental block about launching things into space that have the word "nuclear" in them.
On November 08 2013 04:03 Grumbels wrote: Stars are quite far away from us. I think the nearest star will still take us around 10.000-100.000 years to travel towards using current technology. Obviously that's too long for generation ships and the like.
There have been concepts since about the 70s (getting more and more feasible) to accelerate a probe to on the order of 10% of the speed of light which would do the job, there just happens to be no money for it and we have a mental block about launching things into space that have the word "nuclear" in them.
It's not a mental block, it's a result of rational analysis. Building a large nuclear arsenal and sending it into space is a huge security risk (I'm guessing we're talking about Project Orion type propulsion). It's not a route we should aim for, especially in the current environment. Plus there are probably other options that are feasible, like solar sail driven by lasers from Earth.
On a general note, worrying about unquantified risk is not irrational.
On November 14 2013 16:39 SjPhotoGrapher wrote: The last things humans need to do is go spread their bullshit to other planets.
Hopefully if aliens ever find us they wipe us out just like the Colonial Americans did to the Native Americans.
This thread reminds me of this:
This stance is short sighted. Yes, there are habits and customs on Earth that are surely not worth spreading, but rolling over and just die is not a solution (as kind of proposed by the last statement). People tend to ignore that culture and societies will evolve (maybe not as fast as technology), but it sure will evolve - unless we kill ourselves during the process. Alas, if this comment was not somewhat ironic/sarcastic I have to just say that cultural pessimism is something that is over"hyped", if I may use this term.
i love all this stuff and its great but its all pointless!! its too far to even our nearest dead planet! All too theoretical . . .the wonder i think keeps us going!
On November 08 2013 04:03 Grumbels wrote: Stars are quite far away from us. I think the nearest star will still take us around 10.000-100.000 years to travel towards using current technology. Obviously that's too long for generation ships and the like.
There have been concepts since about the 70s (getting more and more feasible) to accelerate a probe to on the order of 10% of the speed of light which would do the job, there just happens to be no money for it and we have a mental block about launching things into space that have the word "nuclear" in them.
It's not a mental block, it's a result of rational analysis. Building a large nuclear arsenal and sending it into space is a huge security risk (I'm guessing we're talking about Project Orion type propulsion). It's not a route we should aim for, especially in the current environment. Plus there are probably other options that are feasible, like solar sail driven by lasers from Earth.
On a general note, worrying about unquantified risk is not irrational.
^interesting read.. I'm feeling a lot more confident about the future of space travel :D
On November 15 2013 06:31 StatixEx wrote: i love all this stuff and its great but its all pointless!! its too far to even our nearest dead planet! All too theoretical . . .the wonder i think keeps us going!
On November 22 2013 04:39 TrishLovesET wrote: The Drake Equation:
N = R* • fp • ne • fl • fi • fc • L
Where,
N = The number of civilizations in The Milky Way Galaxy whose electromagnetic emissions are detectable.
R* =The rate of formation of stars suitable for the development of intelligent life.
fp = The fraction of those stars with planetary systems.
ne = The number of planets, per solar system, with an environment suitable for life.
fl = The fraction of suitable planets on which life actually appears.
fi = The fraction of life bearing planets on which intelligent life emerges.
fc = The fraction of civilizations that develop a technology that releases detectable signs of their existence into space.
L = The length of time such civilizations release detectable signals into space.
Oh and don't forget the Goldilocks Principle
The issue with that is the assumption that after the civ no longer exists, we wouldn't receive messages. We should be able to capture signals left long after civs go extinct. In theory, the number of extinct civs should far surpass extant civs. Since we've found no such communications, there must be some other problem. Perhaps related to dark matter or supersymmetry?
might've made a mistake ( though i don't care ), but based on the fact that light from sun to earth goes for roughly 8 min, this planet is only about 344*10^12 km from here and which is only 2 299 500 times further
A team of European astronomers has discovered a second planetary system, the closest parallel to our own solar system yet found. It includes seven exoplanets orbiting a star with the small rocky planets close to their host star and the gas giant planets further away. The system was hidden within the wealth of data from the Kepler Space Telescope.
KOI-351 is “the first system with a significant number of planets (not just two or three, where random fluctuations can play a role) that shows a clear hierarchy like the solar system — with small, probably rocky, planets in the interior and gas giants in the (exterior),” Dr. Juan Cabrera, of the Institute of Planetary Research at the German Aerospace Center, told Universe Today.
Three of the seven planets orbiting KOI-351 were detected earlier this year, and have periods of 59, 210 and 331 days — similar to the periods of Mercury, Venus and Earth.
But the orbital periods of these planets vary by as much as 25.7 hours. This is the highest variation detected in an exoplanet’s orbital period so far, hinting that there are more planets than meets the eye.
In closely packed systems, the gravitational pull of nearby planets can cause the acceleration or deceleration of a planet along its orbit. These “tugs” cause the variations in orbital periods.
They also provide indirect evidence of further planets. Using advanced computer algorithms, Cabrera and his team detected four new planets orbiting KOI-351.
Hi guys, i'm a Astronomy student, i'm still in diapers here (finishing first year), and i'm in love of exoplanets and life beyond earth, i'm about to give a speech about exoplanets ( it will be tomorrow!~) and i have recompiled quite a bit of info about the theme, anyways because of the trend of talk is moving more and more towards life i feel you would like to have a look at these pictures, they are a bit old for today's standards but i feel they will be good enough for you guys ^^
I'll let you guess where Kepler was pointing at ;D
I hate to be a pessimist but I'm pretty sure every government on earth would burn babies rather than release any real info out to the public. Some things are worth more than money and its fun to speculate but they're not even sharing the money what makes any of you think they'd share their secret knowledge bombs with us lowly folk?
On November 29 2013 21:25 LibertyRises wrote: I hate to be a pessimist but I'm pretty sure every government on earth would burn babies rather than release any real info out to the public. Some things are worth more than money and its fun to speculate but they're not even sharing the money what makes any of you think they'd share their secret knowledge bombs with us lowly folk?
Good thing organizations like CERN are unaffiliated with any governments!
On November 29 2013 21:25 LibertyRises wrote: I hate to be a pessimist but I'm pretty sure every government on earth would burn babies rather than release any real info out to the public. Some things are worth more than money and its fun to speculate but they're not even sharing the money what makes any of you think they'd share their secret knowledge bombs with us lowly folk?
Good thing organizations like CERN are unaffiliated with any governments!
On November 29 2013 21:25 LibertyRises wrote: I hate to be a pessimist but I'm pretty sure every government on earth would burn babies rather than release any real info out to the public. Some things are worth more than money and its fun to speculate but they're not even sharing the money what makes any of you think they'd share their secret knowledge bombs with us lowly folk?
It's not pessimism it's acute paranoia.
Why would "governments" hide anything to anyone regarding planets that are light years away? That doesn't make sense. It's not like you could travel there tomorrow morning. And even if you could I don't really see what difference it would make.
On November 14 2013 16:39 SjPhotoGrapher wrote: The last things humans need to do is go spread their bullshit to other planets.
Hopefully if aliens ever find us they wipe us out just like the Colonial Americans did to the Native Americans.
You should really read some more before you blindly post such comments. Even some people who were disgusted by humans as a species in the beginning, describing them as akin to parasites (this was even referenced in The Matrix) and destructive force have changed their mind over the years.
Take for example Lovelock's Gaia hypothesis (if you ask why it's important in the exoplanet thread then you should know that Lovelock is the guy who invented the way of finding exoplanets except he was using it to study our own - it's all about the atmosphere composition and it's instability where life is present). In great oversimplification it states that the planet is one big organism and all living organisms there function to keep it alive etc. etc. Of course, as with all living organisms, you have your pathologies. At first humans were thought to be something akin to cancer or other illness but now Lovelock (at age 94 I believe) stated that he was wrong and in fact humans might be Gaia's developing brain.
It's all very interesting. The hypothesis itself and how it has evolved over the years with people trying to both debunk and support it leading to some incredible scientific discoveries.
On November 08 2013 04:03 Grumbels wrote: Stars are quite far away from us. I think the nearest star will still take us around 10.000-100.000 years to travel towards using current technology. Obviously that's too long for generation ships and the like.
There have been concepts since about the 70s (getting more and more feasible) to accelerate a probe to on the order of 10% of the speed of light which would do the job, there just happens to be no money for it and we have a mental block about launching things into space that have the word "nuclear" in them.
It's not a mental block, it's a result of rational analysis. Building a large nuclear arsenal and sending it into space is a huge security risk (I'm guessing we're talking about Project Orion type propulsion). It's not a route we should aim for, especially in the current environment. Plus there are probably other options that are feasible, like solar sail driven by lasers from Earth.
On a general note, worrying about unquantified risk is not irrational.
See, all I said was "nuclear" and you instantly jump to there might be a risk with one kind, nuclear pulse propulsion. What about nuclear thermal rockets, what about nuclear electric propulsion, what about fusion rockets?
If you think there is some vague risk inherent to nuclear arsenals, that's an issue separate of using the technology for something useful like propulsion or electricity. Nuclear arsenals exist anyways. They are already a latent threat. Similarly, there is a risk in driving a car but so far it hasn't made everyone up and switch to bikes. There are nuclear reactors in orbit right now so it's hard for me to be worried.
If you think there is some specific risk with nuclear pulse propulsion that you can't articulate, the only reason it's "unquantified" risk to you is because either you didn't read the studies, or because the studies don't exist (in which case the solution is for us to study the technology not just dismiss it out of hand as "unquantified" risk which is just lazy). Of course a technology's risks aren't fully known if it's new. It's cowardly, not rational, to curl up into a ball with your fingers over your ears anytime a new technology comes along and say "I've got a personal computer and a portable phone, the rest of you can stop trying to move civilization forwards now."
On November 08 2013 04:03 Grumbels wrote: Stars are quite far away from us. I think the nearest star will still take us around 10.000-100.000 years to travel towards using current technology. Obviously that's too long for generation ships and the like.
There have been concepts since about the 70s (getting more and more feasible) to accelerate a probe to on the order of 10% of the speed of light which would do the job, there just happens to be no money for it and we have a mental block about launching things into space that have the word "nuclear" in them.
It's not a mental block, it's a result of rational analysis. Building a large nuclear arsenal and sending it into space is a huge security risk (I'm guessing we're talking about Project Orion type propulsion). It's not a route we should aim for, especially in the current environment. Plus there are probably other options that are feasible, like solar sail driven by lasers from Earth.
On a general note, worrying about unquantified risk is not irrational.
See, all I said was "nuclear" and you instantly jump to there might be a risk with one kind, nuclear pulse propulsion. What about nuclear thermal rockets, what about nuclear electric propulsion, what about fusion rockets?
Yes, I made an assumption: I said so in my post. You too have made a bunch of assumptions about what I believe and decided to attack them. When someone comes along who actually believes all those things I'm sure he'll answer your post in detail.
All I could glean from your post was "nuclear bad, oh and look solar sails" which didn't change my original claim that many people have a mental block about this kind of technology. Having so little to go off of, I wrote everything about you in conditionals hoping something would be applicable, and that if none of it was, you could still clarify what if anything you think about the subject. I posted because I think space is fascinating, not to watch some guy get offended.
Astronomers have discovered direct evidence of water on the dwarf planet Ceres in the form of vapor plumes erupting into space, possibly from volcano-like ice geysers on its surface.
Using European Space Agency's Herschel Space Observatory, scientists detected water vapor escaping from two regions on Ceres, a dwarf planet that is also the largest asteroid in the solar system. The water is likely erupting from icy volcanoes or sublimation of ice into clouds of vapor.
"This is the first clear-cut detection of water on Ceres and in the asteroid belt in general," said Michael Küppers of the European Space Agency, Villanueva de la Cañada, Spain, leader of the study detailed today (Jan. 22) in the journal Nature.
The research has implications for how Ceres formed, and supports models that suggest the planets moved around a lot within the solar system during its formation, Küppers told SPACE.com. [See more photos of the dwarf planet Ceres]
Ceres, a dwarf planet or giant asteroid (depending on the definition used), is the largest object in the asteroid belt, orbiting at 2.8 astronomical units (the distance from Earth to the sun).
The "snowline" is thought to partition the solar system into dry objects inside the asteroid belt, and icy objects such as comets further out. But the finding of water on Ceres suggests more mixing has occurred.
Scientists believe they have detected the first liquid waves on the surface of another world.
The signature of isolated ripples was observed in a sea called Punga Mare on the surface of Saturn's moon Titan.
However, these seas are filled not with water, but with hydrocarbons like methane and ethane.
These exist in their liquid state on Titan, where the surface temperature averages about -180C.
Planetary scientist Jason Barnes discussed details of his findings at the 45th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference (LPSC) in Texas this week.
Titan is a strange, looking-glass version of Earth with a substantial atmosphere and a seasonal cycle. Wind and rain shape the surface to form river channels, seas, dunes and shorelines.
But much of what's familiar is also turned sideways: the moon's mountains and dune fields are made of ice, rather than rock or sand, and liquid hydrocarbons take up many of the roles played by water on Earth.
The vast majority of Titan's lakes and seas are concentrated around the north polar region. Just one of these bodies of liquid - Ligeia Mare - is estimated to contain about 9,000 cubic km of mostly liquid methane, equating to about 40 times the proven reserves of oil and gas on Earth.
I guess since Titan has an atmosphere and was known to have liquid surfaces that's not so surprising Did they find out how large the waves were, though? IIRC there was a proposed mission to send a flotable probe to one of Titan's liquid areas, but they didn't know how the winds and waves would affect the survivability of the probe.
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — Scientists have uncovered a vast ocean beneath the icy surface of Saturn's little moon Enceladus.
Italian and American researchers made the discovery using Cassini, a NASA-European spacecraft still exploring Saturn and its rings 17 years after its launch from Cape Canaveral. Their findings were announced Thursday.
This new ocean of liquid water — as big as or even bigger than North America's Lake Superior — is centered at the south pole of Enceladus and could encompass much if not most of the moon. Enceladus (ehn-SEHL'-uh-duhs) is about 310 miles across.
The data do not show if the ocean extends to the north pole, said the lead researcher, Luciano Iess of Sapienza University of Rome. At the very least, it's a regional sea some 25 miles deep under miles-thick ice. On Earth, it would stretch from our South Pole up to New Zealand — at the very least.
Cassini's rudimentary instruments also cannot determine whether the moon's ocean harbors any form of life. Another mission using more sophisticated instruments is needed to make that search.
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — Scientists have uncovered a vast ocean beneath the icy surface of Saturn's little moon Enceladus.
Italian and American researchers made the discovery using Cassini, a NASA-European spacecraft still exploring Saturn and its rings 17 years after its launch from Cape Canaveral. Their findings were announced Thursday.
This new ocean of liquid water — as big as or even bigger than North America's Lake Superior — is centered at the south pole of Enceladus and could encompass much if not most of the moon. Enceladus (ehn-SEHL'-uh-duhs) is about 310 miles across.
The data do not show if the ocean extends to the north pole, said the lead researcher, Luciano Iess of Sapienza University of Rome. At the very least, it's a regional sea some 25 miles deep under miles-thick ice. On Earth, it would stretch from our South Pole up to New Zealand — at the very least.
Cassini's rudimentary instruments also cannot determine whether the moon's ocean harbors any form of life. Another mission using more sophisticated instruments is needed to make that search.
NASA's Kepler Discovers First Earth-Size Planet In The 'Habitable Zone' of Another Star
Using NASA's Kepler Space Telescope, astronomers have discovered the first Earth-size planet orbiting a star in the "habitable zone" -- the range of distance from a star where liquid water might pool on the surface of an orbiting planet. The discovery of Kepler-186f confirms that planets the size of Earth exist in the habitable zone of stars other than our sun.
While planets have previously been found in the habitable zone, they are all at least 40 percent larger in size than Earth and understanding their makeup is challenging. Kepler-186f is more reminiscent of Earth.
"The discovery of Kepler-186f is a significant step toward finding worlds like our planet Earth," said Paul Hertz, NASA's Astrophysics Division director at the agency's headquarters in Washington. "Future NASA missions, like the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite and the James Webb Space Telescope, will discover the nearest rocky exoplanets and determine their composition and atmospheric conditions, continuing humankind's quest to find truly Earth-like worlds."
So when do we start terraforming? Terraforming is gonna be fun; I wonder what the international rules and norms about it are. As much as it'd be fun to start, it's probably better to go slow, given how hard it is to dislodge life once it's in place.
I remember watching an interesting documentary on sea life, like deep deep sea life, like the kind that uses sulfur to breathe, and it then jumped into suggesting that (name of astronomer) was convinced that this means our best bet for finding life was in planets that had ice exteriors (even those without atmospheres). The core would heat up the interior ice and overtime this is where life would form.
Of course all speculation and I can't find the documentary anymore... but you know cool stuff.
And they've done studies on how many people you'd need to send on a colonization mission to maintain genetic diversity... around 40,000. Gonna be a long time before we build anything capable of going into space and holding 400 people much less 40,000, not even considering needing to travel hundreds of light-years...
You don't need that many people; you need that much genetic diversity. With effective cryostorage you need only a few dozen people or even less, maybe none, though none would be hard to do; with tens of thousands of embryo in storage. Far less to ship while providing enough genetic diversity.
On April 19 2014 12:15 Nacl(Draq) wrote: I remember watching an interesting documentary on sea life, like deep deep sea life, like the kind that uses sulfur to breathe, and it then jumped into suggesting that (name of astronomer) was convinced that this means our best bet for finding life was in planets that had ice exteriors (even those without atmospheres). The core would heat up the interior ice and overtime this is where life would form.
Of course all speculation and I can't find the documentary anymore... but you know cool stuff.
That's why europa is a candidate, ice sheet and possible warming core.
And they've done studies on how many people you'd need to send on a colonization mission to maintain genetic diversity... around 40,000. Gonna be a long time before we build anything capable of going into space and holding 400 people much less 40,000, not even considering needing to travel hundreds of light-years...
And they all need to know what they're doing too. X__X
And they've done studies on how many people you'd need to send on a colonization mission to maintain genetic diversity... around 40,000. Gonna be a long time before we build anything capable of going into space and holding 400 people much less 40,000, not even considering needing to travel hundreds of light-years...
That's the same number of people that were on each of the supercarriers in Starcraft!
And they've done studies on how many people you'd need to send on a colonization mission to maintain genetic diversity... around 40,000. Gonna be a long time before we build anything capable of going into space and holding 400 people much less 40,000, not even considering needing to travel hundreds of light-years...
That's the same number of people that were on each of the supercarriers in Starcraft!
And then in 2 centuries they'll breed to many billions of people! Wait what?
I dont see how we could ever travel these unimaginable distances between the stars.
I think we should strongly consider the possibility that we will never be able to leave this planet and consequently think about how we preserve our resources here as good as possible.
On April 20 2014 09:41 Redox wrote: I dont see how we could ever travel these unimaginable distances between the stars.
I think we should strongly consider the possibility that we will never be able to leave this planet and consequently think about how we preserve our resources here as good as possible.
On April 20 2014 09:41 Redox wrote: I dont see how we could ever travel these unimaginable distances between the stars.
I think we should strongly consider the possibility that we will never be able to leave this planet and consequently think about how we preserve our resources here as good as possible.
I think until we (humans) can travel across the galaxy as feasibly as we could cross the Atlantic in the 1500s or 1600s (or 1000s if you're a badass Norseman), then forming colonies on foreign planets should be a very low priority.
Considering the possibility of what you propose is certainly wise. Until we reach a point in technology that allows for some type of space travel at velocities that are magnitudes faster than light, we should focus 100% on our own planet
If you want to get really sci-fi, we should wait until we can generate/modify atmospheres so that we can settle on the Moon or Mars.
Though to be honest, the infinite supplies of ores from asteroid mining would certainly be a huge milestone in extraterrestrial resource extraction.
On April 19 2014 12:29 zlefin wrote: You don't need that many people; you need that much genetic diversity. With effective cryostorage you need only a few dozen people or even less, maybe none, though none would be hard to do; with tens of thousands of embryo in storage. Far less to ship while providing enough genetic diversity.
Congratulation, you have shipped enough genetic diversity. Now what?
A few dozen women will bear 40000 embryos! Surrogate wombs you say? Who will change 40000 diapers? How about a few dozen people teaching 40000 kids?
Or do you want to slowly add your genetic diversity? Would you have all second borns (does this word exist in the english language?) be implanted? What to do with women who don't want to do that? Go all Aeon Flux on their asses... erm vaginas?
How long would it take for "a few dozen" to change the new planet towards supporting 40000 people? Bring robots? Might be too much to ship....
On April 19 2014 12:29 zlefin wrote: You don't need that many people; you need that much genetic diversity. With effective cryostorage you need only a few dozen people or even less, maybe none, though none would be hard to do; with tens of thousands of embryo in storage. Far less to ship while providing enough genetic diversity.
Congratulation, you have shipped enough genetic diversity. Now what?
A few dozen women will bear 40000 embryos! Surrogate wombs you say? Who will change 40000 diapers? How about a few dozen people teaching 40000 kids?
Or do you want to slowly add your genetic diversity? Would you have all second borns (does this word exist in the english language?) be implanted? What to do with women who don't want to do that? Go all Aeon Flux on their asses... erm vaginas?
How long would it take for "a few dozen" to change the new planet towards supporting 40000 people? Bring robots? Might be too much to ship....
Clone 40000 people, from stored genetic material, overwrite their minds with stored human consciousness', that were stored on the ships computer.
Go to sleep in a lab on Earth wake up in a clone bay on a planet lightyears away.
On April 20 2014 09:41 Redox wrote: I dont see how we could ever travel these unimaginable distances between the stars.
I think we should strongly consider the possibility that we will never be able to leave this planet and consequently think about how we preserve our resources here as good as possible.
I think until we (humans) can travel across the galaxy as feasibly as we could cross the Atlantic in the 1500s or 1600s (or 1000s if you're a badass Norseman), then forming colonies on foreign planets should be a very low priority.
Considering the possibility of what you propose is certainly wise. Until we reach a point in technology that allows for some type of space travel at velocities that are magnitudes faster than light, we should focus 100% on our own planet
If you want to get really sci-fi, we should wait until we can generate/modify atmospheres so that we can settle on the Moon or Mars.
Though to be honest, the infinite supplies of ores from asteroid mining would certainly be a huge milestone in extraterrestrial resource extraction.
Well we did land on the moon in what was basically a tin can with a TI-84 for a computer. And it wasn't long ago the first man made object left our solar system. We are getting closer and closer to understand how we could travel distances near or beyond the speed of light. It's not so far fetched to imagine humans reaching the edges of our solar system in 100-200 years.
But truth be told I'd bet we do something to set humanity back before we get there. Something along the lines of burning the libraries of Alexandria mixed with some World War II. But theoretically we already have enough tech to do quite a bit if we just reallocated some funding.
On April 19 2014 12:29 zlefin wrote: You don't need that many people; you need that much genetic diversity. With effective cryostorage you need only a few dozen people or even less, maybe none, though none would be hard to do; with tens of thousands of embryo in storage. Far less to ship while providing enough genetic diversity.
Congratulation, you have shipped enough genetic diversity. Now what?
A few dozen women will bear 40000 embryos! Surrogate wombs you say? Who will change 40000 diapers? How about a few dozen people teaching 40000 kids?
Or do you want to slowly add your genetic diversity? Would you have all second borns (does this word exist in the english language?) be implanted? What to do with women who don't want to do that? Go all Aeon Flux on their asses... erm vaginas?
How long would it take for "a few dozen" to change the new planet towards supporting 40000 people? Bring robots? Might be too much to ship....
Could be reasonable that by the time we can travel interstellar distances we also know how to make babies without a woman and robots able to make other robots.
On April 19 2014 12:29 zlefin wrote: You don't need that many people; you need that much genetic diversity. With effective cryostorage you need only a few dozen people or even less, maybe none, though none would be hard to do; with tens of thousands of embryo in storage. Far less to ship while providing enough genetic diversity.
Congratulation, you have shipped enough genetic diversity. Now what?
A few dozen women will bear 40000 embryos! Surrogate wombs you say? Who will change 40000 diapers? How about a few dozen people teaching 40000 kids?
Or do you want to slowly add your genetic diversity? Would you have all second borns (does this word exist in the english language?) be implanted? What to do with women who don't want to do that? Go all Aeon Flux on their asses... erm vaginas?
How long would it take for "a few dozen" to change the new planet towards supporting 40000 people? Bring robots? Might be too much to ship....
Clone 40000 people, from stored genetic material, overwrite their minds with stored human consciousness', that were stored on the ships computer.
Go to sleep in a lab on Earth wake up in a clone bay on a planet lightyears away.
Yeah, just "clone", easy as that. "Overwrite minds", child's play. Why not just beam ourselves to that new planet, eh?
On April 19 2014 12:29 zlefin wrote: You don't need that many people; you need that much genetic diversity. With effective cryostorage you need only a few dozen people or even less, maybe none, though none would be hard to do; with tens of thousands of embryo in storage. Far less to ship while providing enough genetic diversity.
Congratulation, you have shipped enough genetic diversity. Now what?
A few dozen women will bear 40000 embryos! Surrogate wombs you say? Who will change 40000 diapers? How about a few dozen people teaching 40000 kids?
Or do you want to slowly add your genetic diversity? Would you have all second borns (does this word exist in the english language?) be implanted? What to do with women who don't want to do that? Go all Aeon Flux on their asses... erm vaginas?
How long would it take for "a few dozen" to change the new planet towards supporting 40000 people? Bring robots? Might be too much to ship....
Could be reasonable that by the time we can travel interstellar distances we also know how to make babies without a woman and robots able to make other robots.
And certainly we will be able to modify our DNA, so we just have to bring a hard drive with the sequence of these 40k people, or even not need to worry about genetic diversity as we can change our DNA as we want. I don't think genetic diversity will be the limit factor for interstellar space travel. Cost/expected reward seems to be a more important problem then, seeing how that is what governs everything today.
On April 19 2014 12:29 zlefin wrote: You don't need that many people; you need that much genetic diversity. With effective cryostorage you need only a few dozen people or even less, maybe none, though none would be hard to do; with tens of thousands of embryo in storage. Far less to ship while providing enough genetic diversity.
Or do you want to slowly add your genetic diversity? Would you have all second borns (does this word exist in the english language?) be implanted? What to do with women who don't want to do that? Go all Aeon Flux on their asses... erm vaginas?
How long would it take for "a few dozen" to change the new planet towards supporting 40000 people? Bring robots? Might be too much to ship....
Yes, you would add genetic diversity as needed, not all at once, when your actual crew is 100
The assumption is that people would accept being surrogate mothers in advance. Also knowing that the alternative was inbreeding, genetic decay and the inevitable extinction of all your offsprings would act as a strong incentive.
So genetics seems to be a minor problem compared to the engineering and social challenges.
I guess if we could build a ship to go there, i believe it would make so much years that population would have to renew itself ON BOARD of the ship, so you would need a vessel way over 40K people capacity.
Also i wonder in how many years 40K different people would start to have cross genes (i mean you know, if you breed in the same family you have a chance of the child being... retarted (sorry i don't know the english word but you understand what i mean).
On April 23 2014 22:27 FFW_Rude wrote: I guess if we could build a ship to go there, i believe it would make so much years that population would have to renew itself ON BOARD of the ship, so you would need a vessel way over 40K people capacity.
Also i wonder in how many years 40K different people would start to have cross genes (i mean you know, if you breed in the same family you have a chance of the child being... retarted (sorry i don't know the english word but you understand what i mean).
If we model this in a perfect scenario... 20k men, 20k women, each couple has 2 kids, averaging out to 1 boy and 1 girl. If we assume no cross-generational mating, there are now 20k men and 20k women that can have kids with 19,999 of the opposite sex without fear of inbreeding. Every generation, this subtraction doubles, 3rd generation has 19,998, 4th 19,996, 5th 19,992, and so on. You have to get to the 13th generation in this perfect world to have a pool of about half of potential mating partners. By the 4th generation or so, though, most defects are negligible (you theoretically only share 0.002% of significant inherited genetic material with 4th cousins), which leaves the idealized chance of mating with somebody undesirable at 1 in 19,996, or 0.005% of dangerous inbreeding in every generation if done randomly.
Of course, this increases as more imperfections are added to the model, but 40k people is more than enough to maintain enough genetic diversity to not have significant problems with birth defects. One might have to establish some sort of rules or regulations that ensure inbreeding doesn't occur, but it shouldn't exactly be common.
On April 23 2014 22:27 FFW_Rude wrote: I guess if we could build a ship to go there, i believe it would make so much years that population would have to renew itself ON BOARD of the ship, so you would need a vessel way over 40K people capacity.
Also i wonder in how many years 40K different people would start to have cross genes (i mean you know, if you breed in the same family you have a chance of the child being... retarted (sorry i don't know the english word but you understand what i mean).
I don't understand. You only need genetic material of 40k people, and women who are able and willing to offer their wombs to supply genetically diverse babies (ones that are not their own). In theory you need only a big fridge a single woman and a person who is able to plant embryos into her. Ofcourse you also need people to build other things but you certainly dont need thousands of people on a single spaceship...
There's no need to make a gigantic space ship that could support more than 40K people, we could just as easily build more ships of lesser size, and it would be more safe that way (if one of the ships is destroyed, there are others still en route to the other planet).
About the social problems being in a space ship with no way out causes, if there's more than one ship, you could move to one of the others vessels in case there's any problem of importance (like, someone threatened to kill you, or something). If the ships are still large enough, it would be just like living in a small village, so this topic probably doesn't deserve much attention, apart from the fact that you're stuck in space. I think the best way to overcome this is by either educating children so that they love being in space, or at least, they don't feel deppresed about it, or by putting them in hibernation, which would solve any problem about this topic because they'd be effectively dead.
Lastly, I'm sure we'll find a way to overcome inbreeding by the time we're capable of interstellar travel, so maybe we won't need 40k people in spaceships in the first place, maybe only a thousand or so. Or we may even be able to just send robots and make them artificially create humans (robot sex :D).
P.S.: All of this is, of course, just a random guy from the internet theorycrafting. So I'm probably wrong :D
On April 23 2014 23:27 FallenStar wrote: There's no need to make a gigantic space ship that could support more than 40K people, we could just as easily build more ships of lesser size, and it would be more safe that way (if one of the ships is destroyed, there are others still en route to the other planet).
About the social problems being in a space ship with no way out causes, if there's more than one ship, you could move to one of the others vessels in case there's any problem of importance (like, someone threatened to kill you, or something). If the ships are still large enough, it would be just like living in a small village, so this topic probably doesn't deserve much attention, apart from the fact that you're stuck in space. I think the best way to overcome this is by either educating children so that they love being in space, or at least, they don't feel deppresed about it, or by putting them in hibernation, which would solve any problem about this topic because they'd be effectively dead.
Lastly, I'm sure we'll find a way to overcome inbreeding by the time we're capable of interstellar travel, so maybe we won't need 40k people in spaceships in the first place, maybe only a thousand or so. Or we may even be able to just send robots and make them artificially create humans (robot sex :D).
P.S.: All of this is, of course, just a random guy from the internet theorycrafting. So I'm probably wrong :D
You are absolutely right. Also, depending on the trajectory, the denizens may be able to not only craft new ships in drydock but also acquire new resources from extra-solar objects. Keep in mind drydock is possible during any period of no acceleration.
Don't forget that the potential for research is huge; it's likely the majority of the crew will be scientists of all backgrounds with enough work to keep them busy for at least a few years.
Also, the bit about genetic diversity is a bit of guesswork. It's just as likely that 100 people breeding into 40,000 will survive just as well as 40,000 people with a stagnation birth rate. Diversity is more important in the realm of infection than anything else, and in space it may be possible to completely eliminate infections (especially in ships of 200 people or less).
Ideally you could send robots ahead of the colonization fleet before you move out. Ships with only robotic factories can be cheaper and travel faster than human ships since they don't need any pesky life support stuff. That way when the humans arrive they can have at least housing and a surveyed planet ready and waiting for them. By the time we can send a colony ship I'm pretty sure computers should be able to handle setting up factories and mining operations on their own.
Step 1: Send a couple of drone fleets that begin basic things like survey work, building landing pads and housing, setting up basic factories and if they are able to strip mine resources. Step 2: Send a small contingent of human engineers (100-200 or so, enough that social problems aren't to harsh. They can live in a colony ship and then a smaller spaceport) that should arrive ~30-50 years before main colony fleet together with another drone fleet. These guys set up robot mining operations, more advanced facilities (basically the previous drones have dug out and set up houses, these guys make the hospitals etc). Step 3: Main colony fleet arrives.
Since different ships can go at different speeds you can basically send all of them at once too.
On September 13 2011 06:06 sh4w wrote: I believe Stephen Hawking theorized that with how fast and efficiently life began on Earth, it would be silly to assume that there were no other instances like Earth in the universe. I believe that if these planets CAN support life on them that we WILL find life on them. I think this is the next big venture for mankind...I really hope that we are doing everything we can to make reaching other worlds possible.
The idea that if a planet can support life we will find life on it is not logical from all data we have. For that to be true we should see evidence of life starting on earth continuously but its not.
The complexity of a simple single cell is amazing. I believe the smallest combination of genes we have found in a living cell is around 600 in an algae, which should be roughly 400 times less than a human has. We don't see things coming together and almost forming life or anything like that. My biology professor said that biologists in general think we don't see new life forming because there are so many efficient "killing machines" that it doesn't take hold, but granted that it also must be a very rare, very specific circumstance for the life on this planet to have come about.
Most of the talk of life being everywhere is almost a cult-like religious following. Its weird because its like atheism as a religion with the need to show that life erupts everywhere. Why not just study and see and figure out what it would take? Because we haven't figured that out yet...
I think all the data suggests that we will the galaxy a lonely place. We could get lucky though and the only planet with life in our galaxy could be somewhat close in the Orion arm. One thing that we should remember is that our sun is really big for a star (88.6% of stars are classified in sizes smaller than the sun) and most stars are tiny red dwarves (78%) and if we are going to look for similar situations there aren't near as many as just saying planets in the habitable zone. Start looking at similar stars with similar planets, but I mean...if life is as common as so many people want to believe we should find floating organisms in Venus's clouds or underground on Mars or in the ocean on Europa. However, this seems to be wishful thinking at this point.
Let's work on sub light speed travel and figure out how to get some exploration done of our neighbor stars and see what we see. If we could get a probe to 30% of light speed it would only take about 13 years of travel time to get to our neighbors and then there would be a reasonable wait for the transmissions to start coming in on what the probe sees. Although the next generation of telescopes are going to be telling us a ton more about what's out there in less than 10 years.
On April 24 2014 03:31 CuddlyCuteKitten wrote: Ideally you could send robots ahead of the colonization fleet before you move out. Ships with only robotic factories can be cheaper and travel faster than human ships since they don't need any pesky life support stuff. That way when the humans arrive they can have at least housing and a surveyed planet ready and waiting for them. By the time we can send a colony ship I'm pretty sure computers should be able to handle setting up factories and mining operations on their own.
Step 1: Send a couple of drone fleets that begin basic things like survey work, building landing pads and housing, setting up basic factories and if they are able to strip mine resources. Step 2: Send a small contingent of human engineers (100-200 or so, enough that social problems aren't to harsh. They can live in a colony ship and then a smaller spaceport) that should arrive ~30-50 years before main colony fleet together with another drone fleet. These guys set up robot mining operations, more advanced facilities (basically the previous drones have dug out and set up houses, these guys make the hospitals etc). Step 3: Main colony fleet arrives.
Since different ships can go at different speeds you can basically send all of them at once too.
Don't you think by the time we colonize space with spaceships, we'll have the technology to make drones that are better builders than engineers..?
On September 13 2011 06:06 sh4w wrote: I believe Stephen Hawking theorized that with how fast and efficiently life began on Earth, it would be silly to assume that there were no other instances like Earth in the universe. I believe that if these planets CAN support life on them that we WILL find life on them. I think this is the next big venture for mankind...I really hope that we are doing everything we can to make reaching other worlds possible.
The idea that if a planet can support life we will find life on it is not logical from all data we have. For that to be true we should see evidence of life starting on earth continuously but its not.
The complexity of a simple single cell is amazing. I believe the smallest combination of genes we have found in a living cell is around 600 in an algae, which should be roughly 400 times less than a human has. We don't see things coming together and almost forming life or anything like that. My biology professor said that biologists in general think we don't see new life forming because there are so many efficient "killing machines" that it doesn't take hold, but granted that it also must be a very rare, very specific circumstance for the life on this planet to have come about.
Most of the talk of life being everywhere is almost a cult-like religious following. Its weird because its like atheism as a religion with the need to show that life erupts everywhere. Why not just study and see and figure out what it would take? Because we haven't figured that out yet...
I think all the data suggests that we will the galaxy a lonely place. We could get lucky though and the only planet with life in our galaxy could be somewhat close in the Orion arm. One thing that we should remember is that our sun is really big for a star (88.6% of stars are classified in sizes smaller than the sun) and most stars are tiny red dwarves (78%) and if we are going to look for similar situations there aren't near as many as just saying planets in the habitable zone. Start looking at similar stars with similar planets, but I mean...if life is as common as so many people want to believe we should find floating organisms in Venus's clouds or underground on Mars or in the ocean on Europa. However, this seems to be wishful thinking at this point.
Let's work on sub light speed travel and figure out how to get some exploration done of our neighbor stars and see what we see. If we could get a probe to 30% of light speed it would only take about 13 years of travel time to get to our neighbors and then there would be a reasonable wait for the transmissions to start coming in on what the probe sees. Although the next generation of telescopes are going to be telling us a ton more about what's out there in less than 10 years.
Your counter-logic doesn't make much sense. How do you know that there isn't new life forming all the time? It's microscopic. You wouldn't be able to see it form out in the ocean or in the depths of the earth's mantle because you don't have microscopes there all the time looking at organic particles and lipid membranes floating into and out of existence. Any life that did form would take millions and millions of years to evolve into a macroscopic life form. How long has science been around? About 500 years. How on earth (pun intended) do you propose to have found new life forms evolving in that time period?
There are plenty of very simple organisms and an increasing number of theories proposed for how those life forms would have come about. If you are arguing that we don't have a whole bunch of transitional forms from non-life lipid membranes to "living" organisms that too is pretty weak. Any transitional form would likely not last very long, as it needs a stable way to reproduce in order to be a living thing.
On April 23 2014 22:27 FFW_Rude wrote: I guess if we could build a ship to go there, i believe it would make so much years that population would have to renew itself ON BOARD of the ship, so you would need a vessel way over 40K people capacity.
Also i wonder in how many years 40K different people would start to have cross genes (i mean you know, if you breed in the same family you have a chance of the child being... retarted (sorry i don't know the english word but you understand what i mean).
If we model this in a perfect scenario... 20k men, 20k women, each couple has 2 kids, averaging out to 1 boy and 1 girl. If we assume no cross-generational mating, there are now 20k men and 20k women that can have kids with 19,999 of the opposite sex without fear of inbreeding. Every generation, this subtraction doubles, 3rd generation has 19,998, 4th 19,996, 5th 19,992, and so on. You have to get to the 13th generation in this perfect world to have a pool of about half of potential mating partners. By the 4th generation or so, though, most defects are negligible (you theoretically only share 0.002% of significant inherited genetic material with 4th cousins), which leaves the idealized chance of mating with somebody undesirable at 1 in 19,996, or 0.005% of dangerous inbreeding in every generation if done randomly.
Of course, this increases as more imperfections are added to the model, but 40k people is more than enough to maintain enough genetic diversity to not have significant problems with birth defects. One might have to establish some sort of rules or regulations that ensure inbreeding doesn't occur, but it shouldn't exactly be common.
Wow, i wasn't thinking someone would take the time to calculate That's really interesting.
On April 23 2014 23:27 FallenStar wrote: There's no need to make a gigantic space ship that could support more than 40K people, we could just as easily build more ships of lesser size, and it would be more safe that way (if one of the ships is destroyed, there are others still en route to the other planet).
About the social problems being in a space ship with no way out causes, if there's more than one ship, you could move to one of the others vessels in case there's any problem of importance (like, someone threatened to kill you, or something). If the ships are still large enough, it would be just like living in a small village, so this topic probably doesn't deserve much attention, apart from the fact that you're stuck in space. I think the best way to overcome this is by either educating children so that they love being in space, or at least, they don't feel deppresed about it, or by putting them in hibernation, which would solve any problem about this topic because they'd be effectively dead.
Lastly, I'm sure we'll find a way to overcome inbreeding by the time we're capable of interstellar travel, so maybe we won't need 40k people in spaceships in the first place, maybe only a thousand or so. Or we may even be able to just send robots and make them artificially create humans (robot sex :D).
P.S.: All of this is, of course, just a random guy from the internet theorycrafting. So I'm probably wrong :D
Well you have problems with lots of ships. Every ship would have is own "mini governement" and you would have rivalties to deal with etc...
On April 24 2014 03:31 CuddlyCuteKitten wrote: Ideally you could send robots ahead of the colonization fleet before you move out. Ships with only robotic factories can be cheaper and travel faster than human ships since they don't need any pesky life support stuff. That way when the humans arrive they can have at least housing and a surveyed planet ready and waiting for them. By the time we can send a colony ship I'm pretty sure computers should be able to handle setting up factories and mining operations on their own.
Step 1: Send a couple of drone fleets that begin basic things like survey work, building landing pads and housing, setting up basic factories and if they are able to strip mine resources. Step 2: Send a small contingent of human engineers (100-200 or so, enough that social problems aren't to harsh. They can live in a colony ship and then a smaller spaceport) that should arrive ~30-50 years before main colony fleet together with another drone fleet. These guys set up robot mining operations, more advanced facilities (basically the previous drones have dug out and set up houses, these guys make the hospitals etc). Step 3: Main colony fleet arrives.
Since different ships can go at different speeds you can basically send all of them at once too.
Don't you think by the time we colonize space with spaceships, we'll have the technology to make drones that are better builders than engineers..?
Engineers are not construction workers, if that's what you're implying. Farrrrrrrrrrrrr from it.
I think you mean construction work though, right?
Future robots could potentially do a fair amount of construction work, but you can't replace the work that goes into engineering with dumb build bots. As it's kind of what I do, I can assure you, while we're far, far away from having robots replace construction work, we're infinitely far away from having them replace engineers, as well as the underlying sciences. Robots cannot replace that ingenuity and creativity.
On April 24 2014 17:52 Crushinator wrote: Howcome we aren't detecting alien radio signals? I've never really found a satisfying answer to that question, maybe somebody can help me out.
That is a reaaallly vague question to ask Maybe Aliens don't use radio signals
On April 24 2014 17:52 Crushinator wrote: Howcome we aren't detecting alien radio signals? I've never really found a satisfying answer to that question, maybe somebody can help me out.
That is a reaaallly vague question to ask Maybe Aliens don't use radio signals
Why wouldn't they? It would seem to me that radio signals would be part of any intelligent species path of technological advancement. It would also seem to me that our planet would be of interest to other intelligent species, as it should be apparent to them it can support life when they do detect it, so they would have an interest in aiming shit at us. Considering the number of intelligent species suggested by people like Sagan, it seems strange that we aren't getting anything at all.
On April 24 2014 17:52 Crushinator wrote: Howcome we aren't detecting alien radio signals? I've never really found a satisfying answer to that question, maybe somebody can help me out.
TLDR: Signals get much weaker compared to distance travelled. Unless aimed right at us, probably wouldn't see them unless within a few light years. Random website but sounds reasonable.
On April 24 2014 17:52 Crushinator wrote: Howcome we aren't detecting alien radio signals? I've never really found a satisfying answer to that question, maybe somebody can help me out.
That is a reaaallly vague question to ask Maybe Aliens don't use radio signals
Out of curiosity, how easily detectable are our radio signals (or other artificially generated electromagnetic waves) from several light years away?
On April 24 2014 17:52 Crushinator wrote: Howcome we aren't detecting alien radio signals? I've never really found a satisfying answer to that question, maybe somebody can help me out.
That is a reaaallly vague question to ask Maybe Aliens don't use radio signals
Why wouldn't they? It would seem to me that radio signals would be part of any intelligent species path of technological advancement. It would also seem to me that our planet would be of interest to other intelligent species, as it should be apparent to them it can support life when they do detect it, so they would have an interest in aiming shit at us. Considering the number of intelligent species suggested by people like Sagan, it seems strange that we aren't getting anything at all.
Well it would be if they are like us. But they could not need them sine ... random specifics or not be advandced enough. And i believe radio signals gets weaker in space or something
I believe we will find life on other planets at some point. Not intelligent life, but bacteria or other simple life forms. I believe we have found traces of life on Mars which is only barely in the habitable zone so why not on one of these exoplanets?
Intelligent life tho, that's a different story. If we look at how short the time frame is that humans live on earth compared to how long earth, the galaxy or even the universe exists, it really only is a glimpse. And we might very well go extinct in a couple thousand years.
In order to communicate with intelligent life on other planets, we would have to be very lucky that these civilizations exist in the same time frame AND use the same kind of communication technology. It gets even more unlikely if you think about how long radio signals take to travel. If there was another civilization out there that sends radio signals in our direction, we might never detect them because by the time the signals reach us, we might not use radio anymore. Maybe space-archeology will become a thing in a couple hundred years tho
As others have said, Space is mind bogglingly big. While there is almost certainly other intelligent life out there the chance they are near enough to us to be detectable is tiny. That is before we factor in the chance of them using detectable signals in the first place. While it may be normal for us to think about radio signals there is no guarantee that radio is somehow required for technology to advance, it depends on so many social factors how a civilization advances it is hard to predict what form they will take.
There were actually some very interesting points being made in that article Moonfire posted. I thought I would quote it here for easy reference:
So Why Does SETI Bother To Listen To Radio Signals In Space?
While no alien civilization is likely to pick up our television or radio broadcasts unless they’re within a few light-years, radio signals can be focused and amplified. Most of our broadcasts were not intended for detection in space. Radio signals can be aimed, focused and amplified to mitigate signal degradation for interstellar communication. These signals would also eventually degrade but are able to travel much, much further before degradation occurs. Hundreds of light-years or more depending on how much power is used.
It’s now becoming possible to detect the atmospheric composition of extrasolar planets. This breakthrough has allowed researchers to narrow down our hunt for earth-like worlds. It’s quite possible that an advanced alien culture can also do this, and detected an abundance of water in our atmosphere. If they have, they may have sent a focused radio message in our direction. If we’re not listening though, we may just miss it.
On April 25 2014 00:01 FFW_Rude wrote: I'm going to read that article. It sounds interesting.
Actually there is a second, quite fascinating article written on the same blog about Warp drives (specifically the Alcubierre warp drive). Just completely fascinating stuff about what the current level of research (string theory) says about how feasible they are. If string theory is true, it is easier to do than before, and the speeds you could travel are unbelievably fast. From the article:
However, if you could travel at that speed, you would be able to reach the edge of the visible universe (14 billion light years) in 4.4 femtoseconds flat.
Gliese 832, also known as HD 204961 or LHS 3685, is a M1.5 dwarf located in the constellation Grus, about 16 light-years from Earth. It has about half the mass and radius of the Sun.
This star is already known to harbor Gliese 832b, a cold Jupiter-like planet discovered in 2009.
“With an outer giant planet and an interior potentially rocky planet, this planetary system can be thought of as a miniature version of our Solar System,” said Prof Chris Tinney, an astronomer with the University of New South Wales and a co-author of the discovery paper accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal.
The newly discovered exoplanet, labeled Gliese 832c, has an orbital period of 35.68 days, a mass 5.4 times that of Earth’s and receives about the same average energy as Earth does from the Sun.
Gliese 832c might have Earth-like temperatures, albeit with large seasonal shifts, given a similar terrestrial atmosphere.
“If the planet has a similar atmosphere to Earth it may be possible for life to survive, although seasonal shifts would be extreme,” Prof Tinney said.
A denser atmosphere, something expected for Super-Earths, could easily make this planet too hot for life and a Super-Venus instead.
Saturn's moon Enceladus is a mystery. From Earth it looks tiny and cold, and yet it's not a dead hunk of rock. Passing spacecraft see trenches and ridges, similar to Earth's, and in 2005 NASA's Cassini mission spotted ice geysers streaming from its south pole.
"The moon is actually alive in a sense," says Sean Hsu with the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Colorado at Boulder.
Beneath the surface, most researchers believe it even has a liquid ocean. Now Hsu and his colleagues have found new evidence that it's a downright balmy ocean.
The team used the Cassini spacecraft, which orbits Saturn, to detect tiny particles of silica floating in space. It's not sand exactly, but researchers think the particles did come from the bottom of Enceladus' ocean.
The silica particles could only be made if that ocean were hot. "We think that the temperature at least in some part of the ocean must be higher than 190 degrees Fahrenheit," Hsu says. "If you could swim a little bit further from the really hot part then it could be comfy."
In fact, 190°F is cooler than many hydrothermal vents at the bottom of Earth's oceans. Hsu says experiments on Earth also suggest the ocean is similar in salinity and pH to oceans here.
The evidence, published in the journal Nature, is somewhat circumstantial. The theory is that the silica formed and then dissolved in seawater beneath Enceladus' icy crust. It then left the moon through geysers, and filled Saturn's E-ring. From the E-ring, the silica eventually wound up in the giant planet's magnetosphere, which is where Cassini saw it.
"It's not like they flew through the plumes of Enceladus and measured these particles," says Bill McKinnon, a planetary scientist at Washington University in St. Louis.
Nevertheless, he and other independent researchers think the hypothesis has a reasonable chance of being right. "It's very hard to make silica in the Saturn system except if you have a warm wet environment," says John Spencer, a researcher at the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colo. Enceladus is the most likely place.
Why is tiny Enceladus so warm? Spencer suspects it's the gravitational pull of Saturn and some of its other moons. Their attraction could tug the water and rock inside Enceladus, causing it to slosh around and heat up.
But current models show that gravity alone can't explain the warm oceans, says McKinnon. He thinks something else could be generating that energy.
Jupiter’s largest moon, Ganymede, has solidified its membership in the growing cadre of solar system locales where liquid water flows beneath the surface.
“The solar system is now looking like a pretty soggy place,” Jim Green, director of NASA’s Planetary Science Division, said March 12 at a news conference.
The ocean showed itself not with plumes or pools but via subtle changes in Ganymede’s aurora, the moon’s version of the Northern Lights. Jupiter’s magnetic field should interfere with Ganymede’s, causing the moon’s aurora to rock back and forth by about 6 degrees. Observations with the Hubble Space Telescope, however, showed that the aurora shifted by only about 2 degrees. Joachim Saur, a geophysicist at the University of Cologne, Germany, and colleagues deduced that an electrically conductive fluid beneath the surface — a saltwater ocean, for example — would create a secondary magnetic field that counteracted Jupiter’s interference.
Astronomers have spotted the closest thing yet to the first true ‘Earth twin’ — a small planet orbiting the bright star Kepler 452, at a distance where liquid water could exist.
“It is the first terrestrial planet in the habitable zone around a star very similar to the Sun,” says Douglas Caldwell, an astronomer at the SETI Institute in Mountain View, California.
The alien world is 60% larger than Earth and orbits its star at a distance similar to that between Earth and the Sun. The star itself lies 430 parsecs from Earth, in the constellation Cygnus. It is slightly brighter than the Sun, making its planet a better Earth analogue than planets announced last year and in January, both of which orbited dim, cool stars.
NASA announced the planet, dubbed Kepler-452b, on 23 July, as part of the latest harvest of worlds spotted by its Kepler spacecraft. From 2009 to 2013, Kepler stared at a small patch of sky looking for slight decreases in starlight that signalled a planet moving across the face of a star. The spacecraft has discovered more than 1,000 confirmed planets, including Kepler-452b, and more than 4,660 candidates.
The latest batch includes 11 other candidate planets that are all less than twice the diameter of Earth and orbit in their stars’ habitable zones, says Natalie Batalha, Kepler's mission scientist and an astronomer at NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California.
Astronomers say three recently discovered planets similar to Earth’s size and temperature may have conditions that could sustain life.
An international team observed the three planets orbiting a reddish, ultracool dwarf star, once thought too dim to anchor a solar system. Their research, published in the journal Nature on Monday, said these are the first planets ever seen orbiting an ultracool dwarf star.
“Systems around these tiny stars are the only places where we can detect life on an Earth-sized exoplanet with our current technology,” co-author Michael Gillon, of the University of Liege in Belgium, said in a statement. “So if we want to find life elsewhere in the universe, this is where we should start to look.”
Previously, scientists have only found exoplanets — planets that do not orbit our sun — with conditions unlike Earth’s. In November, for instance, a rocky, Earth-sized planet was found 39 light years away, but its temperature was estimated at 300 degrees to 600 degrees. The discovery of the three potentially habitable planets may encourage researchers to look more closely at the huge numbers of ultracool dwarf stars.
The three planets orbit a star in the Aquarius constellations named Trappist-1, which is about the size of Jupiter. But the planets are close enough to the star to have “temperate” conditions on their surface, MIT researcher Julien De Wit told NPR.
Astronomers using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope have imaged what may be water vapor plumes erupting off the surface of Jupiter's moon Europa. This finding bolsters other Hubble observations suggesting the icy moon erupts with high altitude water vapor plumes.
The observation increases the possibility that missions to Europa may be able to sample Europa's ocean without having to drill through miles of ice.
"Europa's ocean is considered to be one of the most promising places that could potentially harbor life in the solar system," said Geoff Yoder, acting associate administrator for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. "These plumes, if they do indeed exist, may provide another way to sample Europa's subsurface."
The plumes are estimated to rise about 125 miles (200 kilometers) before, presumably, raining material back down onto Europa's surface. Europa has a huge global ocean containing twice as much water as Earth's oceans, but it is protected by a layer of extremely cold and hard ice of unknown thickness. The plumes provide a tantalizing opportunity to gather samples originating from under the surface without having to land or drill through the ice.
The team, led by William Sparks of the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore observed these finger-like projections while viewing Europa's limb as the moon passed in front of Jupiter.
The original goal of the team's observing proposal was to determine whether Europa has a thin, extended atmosphere, or exosphere. Using the same observing method that detects atmospheres around planets orbiting other stars, the team realized if there was water vapor venting from Europa's surface, this observation would be an excellent way to see it.
"The atmosphere of an extrasolar planet blocks some of the starlight that is behind it," Sparks explained. "If there is a thin atmosphere around Europa, it has the potential to block some of the light of Jupiter, and we could see it as a silhouette. And so we were looking for absorption features around the limb of Europa as it transited the smooth face of Jupiter."
In 10 separate occurrences spanning 15 months, the team observed Europa passing in front of Jupiter. They saw what could be plumes erupting on three of these occasions.
Off all the planets found I have not seen a single one able to support complex life (more then 1 cell) as we know it. They are either to heavy (gravity problem) or the solar system In which they are is to volatile to have made possible the evolution of life.
All the so called "super earths" still have 3-4 times the mass of the earth and many of them are in double star systems. Maybe planets exactly like earth are far more rare then people think based on the famous formula predicting millions of alien civilisations across the universe.
We might very well be the highest developed life form in our milky way.
On October 04 2016 09:08 pmh wrote: Off all the planets found I have not seen a single one able to support complex life (more then 1 cell) as we know it. They are either to heavy (gravity problem) or the solar system In which they are is to volatile to have made possible the evolution of life.
All the so called "super earths" still have 3-4 times the mass of the earth and many of them are in double star systems. Maybe planets exactly like earth are far more rare then people think based on the famous formula predicting millions of alien civilisations across the universe.
We might very well be the highest developed life form in our milky way.
I fail to see the gravity problem you're talking about (but I don't look at this much)
Gravitation force is m/r^2... So a planet with say 4x Earth mass... You have V = 1.333pi*r^3, so 4x volume results in radius 4^0.333 larger.
And so you get 1.587x the gravity of the Earth. I'm not expert, but I do see why life couldn't exist at 2x, or even 3x of current gravity. Sure, humans would have a tougher time, but life, no... We have fish living in deep sea oceans where the pressure is so immense, and they are okay. Plus, I believe that earth is denser than most of the planets looked at, so the gravity would be even lower than in my approximation.
Just from intuition, I'm fairly sure that our bodies could adapt to handle 20m/s^2 acceleration due to gravity.
edit: Heck, the only two planets that have gravity higher than earth on their surface is Neptune with 1.12x, and Jupiter with 2.36x. I think we have little worry about it.
A rocky planet discovered in the "habitable" zone of the star nearest our Sun may be covered with oceans, researchers at France's CNRS research institute said Thursday.
A team including CNRS astrophysicists have calculated the size and surface properties of the planet dubbed Proxima b, and concluded it may be an "ocean planet" similar to Earth.
Scientists announced Proxima b's discovery in August, and said it may be the first exoplanet—planet outside our Solar System—to one day be visited by robots from Earth.
The planet orbits within a "temperate" zone from its host star Proxima Centauri, some four light years from us.
It is estimated to have a mass about 1.3 times that of Earth, and orbits about 7.5 million kilometres (4.6 million miles) from its star—about a tenth the distance of innermost planet Mercury from the Sun.
"Contrary to what one might expect, such proximity does not necessarily mean that Proxima b's surface is too hot" for water to exist in liquid form, said a CNRS statement.
Proxima Centauri is smaller and 1,000 times weaker than our Sun, which means Proxima b is at exactly the right distance for conditions to be potentially habitable.
"The planet may very well host liquid water on its surface, and therefore also some forms of life," the statement said.
The size of exoplanets are generally calculated by measuring how much light they block out, from Earth's perspective, when they pass in front of their host star.
But no such transit of Proxima b has yet been observed, so the team had to rely on simulations to estimate the planet's composition and radius.
On October 04 2016 09:08 pmh wrote: Off all the planets found I have not seen a single one able to support complex life (more then 1 cell) as we know it. They are either to heavy (gravity problem) or the solar system In which they are is to volatile to have made possible the evolution of life.
All the so called "super earths" still have 3-4 times the mass of the earth and many of them are in double star systems. Maybe planets exactly like earth are far more rare then people think based on the famous formula predicting millions of alien civilisations across the universe.
We might very well be the highest developed life form in our milky way.
I fail to see the gravity problem you're talking about (but I don't look at this much)
Gravitation force is m/r^2... So a planet with say 4x Earth mass... You have V = 1.333pi*r^3, so 4x volume results in radius 4^0.333 larger.
And so you get 1.587x the gravity of the Earth. I'm not expert, but I do see why life couldn't exist at 2x, or even 3x of current gravity. Sure, humans would have a tougher time, but life, no... We have fish living in deep sea oceans where the pressure is so immense, and they are okay. Plus, I believe that earth is denser than most of the planets looked at, so the gravity would be even lower than in my approximation.
Just from intuition, I'm fairly sure that our bodies could adapt to handle 20m/s^2 acceleration due to gravity.
edit: Heck, the only two planets that have gravity higher than earth on their surface is Neptune with 1.12x, and Jupiter with 2.36x. I think we have little worry about it.
Ok this seems to be a fair point,i did assume the difference in gravity would be larger. Still I think the balance is incredibly subtile when it comes to the evolution of complex life. 3/4 times the mass of earth is not "earth like" to me. orbiting a red dwarf seems to rule out any possibility of complex life. I just wish they found one planet,just one,that was almost exactly like earth,orbiting a similar star like the sun at a similar distance. But none have been found.
On October 04 2016 09:08 pmh wrote: Off all the planets found I have not seen a single one able to support complex life (more then 1 cell) as we know it. They are either to heavy (gravity problem) or the solar system In which they are is to volatile to have made possible the evolution of life.
All the so called "super earths" still have 3-4 times the mass of the earth and many of them are in double star systems. Maybe planets exactly like earth are far more rare then people think based on the famous formula predicting millions of alien civilisations across the universe.
We might very well be the highest developed life form in our milky way.
I fail to see the gravity problem you're talking about (but I don't look at this much)
Gravitation force is m/r^2... So a planet with say 4x Earth mass... You have V = 1.333pi*r^3, so 4x volume results in radius 4^0.333 larger.
And so you get 1.587x the gravity of the Earth. I'm not expert, but I do see why life couldn't exist at 2x, or even 3x of current gravity. Sure, humans would have a tougher time, but life, no... We have fish living in deep sea oceans where the pressure is so immense, and they are okay. Plus, I believe that earth is denser than most of the planets looked at, so the gravity would be even lower than in my approximation.
Just from intuition, I'm fairly sure that our bodies could adapt to handle 20m/s^2 acceleration due to gravity.
edit: Heck, the only two planets that have gravity higher than earth on their surface is Neptune with 1.12x, and Jupiter with 2.36x. I think we have little worry about it.
Ok this seems to be a fair point,i did assume the difference in gravity would be larger. Still I think the balance is incredibly subtile when it comes to the evolution of complex life. 3/4 times the mass of earth is not "earth like" to me. orbiting a red dwarf seems to rule out any possibility of complex life. I just wish they found one planet,just one,that was almost exactly like earth,orbiting a similar star like the sun at a similar distance. But none have been found.
I'm not sure if it's been addressed in this thread yet, but I think there's a massive difference between being able to sustain life and to create life, which isn't our current theory that is just kind of spontaneously happens with very simply cells?
Just thinking of us as people and what we might need for people to survive on another planet without some massive technology:
-Terrestrial planet -Forces within the strength range of molecular bonds, so gravity of 20-25m/s^2 or less on the surface -Water -Water and atmosphere at between 0C and 100C at all points of the day at a given location -Sufficiently fast day to prevent large temperature fluctuations, 3 days~ or less with Earth conditions seems reasonable -Sufficiently slow day to prevent large winds due to coriolis effect, 1/3rd~ of day on earth or longer (animals can adapt/evolve to different sleeping schedules) -A partial pressure of oxygen of 10kPa or higher~, actually no idea, since that's what we've evolved to, but animals can survive in highly varying conditions, or live in water, etc. -Liquid core made of nickel/iron/cobalt to generate a magnetic field -Standard composition of elements due to nuclear fusion in advanced stages, as well as a few post-iron elements from a nearby supernova. -Readily available carbon source in the form of CO2. Level of CO2 in the atmosphere don't really matter, we can adjust (even though it controls everything in our bloodstream), the big impact is on temperature. -Need "something" unreactive to fill in the rest of the pressure so blood doesn't boil, etc. Any noble gas, or ideally nitrogen. -Nitrogen cycle stuff, since nitrogen doesn't really form friendly compounds that are solid, you'd need at least some small percentage in the atmosphere.
I think that's really all the main stuff there's to it when looking at it from a distant view, all the other stuff is something that you have to think about how to get around, for example carbon monoxide in the atmosphere: evolve animals to use a different chemical in hemoglobin (this imo could even be performed in a laboratory if the need was there)... Ways for life to deal with high lead, arsenic, PCB's, perchlorates, etc.
To me it seems that we could reasonably easily "terraform" a lot of planets to be habitable, what starts life nobody knows, I imagine the probability of this event occurring is so small, that it may just happen once every 1 octillion years on a planet comparable to earth, and hence the limiting factor is just finding a planet where this actually occurred (and then didn't die out right away).
Isnt it that everytime a new "habitable" planet is found, it actually means the planet in question passed according to a few of several criteria, but it will fail due some other criteria which conveniently had not been checked at the time of the big press release?
7 new planets,wow. The stock of interstellar real estate is expanding all the time. Not to excited about the planet type though,would it emit enough energy? One day though we will find our 2nd earth,and one day we will settle there
That system seems fucked though. Tiny shitty star with planets rocketing around it at extremely close distances.
yes,it does not look particulary attractive/promising. I cant wait till the james webb telescope is online,then we can really start to search.
Isn't there life here on Earth in the deep sea that lives off undersea volcanoes though?
Scientists say they have detected an atmosphere around an Earth-like planet for the first time.
They have studied a world known as GJ 1132b, which is 1.4-times the size of our planet and lies 39 light years away.
Their observations suggest that the "super-Earth" is cloaked in a thick layer of gasses that are either water or methane or a mixture of both.
The study is published in the Astronomical Journal.
Discovering an atmosphere, and characterising it, is an important step forward in the hunt for life beyond our Solar System. But it is highly unlikely that this world is habitable: it has a surface temperature of 370C.
Dr John Southworth, the lead researcher from Keele University, said: "To my knowledge the hottest temperature that life has been able to survive on Earth is 120C and that's far cooler than this planet."
Could there be life under the icy surface of Saturn's moon Enceladus?
Scientists have found a promising sign.
NASA announced on Thursday that its Cassini spacecraft mission to Saturn has gathered new evidence that there's a chemical reaction taking place under the moon's icy surface that could provide conditions for life. They described their findings in the journal Science.
"This is the closest we've come, so far, to identifying a place with some of the ingredients needed for a habitable environment," Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington, said in a statement.
However, the scientists think that because the moon is young, there may not have been time for life to emerge.
In 2015, researchers said that there was evidence of a warm ocean under the moon's surface, as NPR's Geoff Brumfiel reported.
This posed an exciting prospect — researchers wondered whether that warm ocean might be interacting with rock to create a form of chemical energy that could be used by some forms of life.
If true, it would be analogous to ancient organisms on Earth fueled by the energy in deep-sea ocean vents.
[b]under the surface of Enceladus. By flying through a plume spraying out of its icy shell, Cassini was able to detect molecular hydrogen.
NASA said in a press release that the presence of hydrogen in the sub-surface ocean "means that microbes – if any exist there – could use it to obtain energy by combining the hydrogen with carbon dioxide dissolved in water." Called methanogenesis, it's a reaction that it says is "at the root of the tree of life on Earth."
As the lead author Hunter Waite put it, the reaction would basically provide a "candy store for microbes."
So what exactly could be lurking under the surface?
"Most of us would be excited with any life, and certainly when we're talking about the sources of energy, this is to feed the base of a food web. So we're going to start with bacteria and if we get lucky, maybe there's something that's larger," NASA astrobiology senior scientist Mary Voytek said at a news conference.
Astronomers have added 219 candidates to the growing list of planets beyond our solar system, 10 of which may be about the same size and temperature as Earth, boosting their chances of hosting life.
Scientists found the candidates in a final batch of Nasa’s Kepler Space Telescope observations of 200,000 sample stars in the constellation Cygnus.
They include 10 newly discovered rocky worlds that are the right distance from their parent stars for water, if it exists there, to pool on the surface. Scientists believe liquid water is a key ingredient for life.
“An important question for us is, ‘Are we alone?’” Kepler program scientist Mario Perez said in a conference call with reporters. “Maybe Kepler today is telling us indirectly ... that we are not alone.”
Nasa launched the Kepler telescope in 2009 to learn if Earth-like planets are common or rare. With the final analysis of Kepler data in hand, scientists said they will now work on answering that question, a key step in assessing the chance that life exists beyond Earth.
During a four-year mission Kepler found 2,335 confirmed planets and another 1,699 candidates, bringing its tally to 4,034. That number includes about 50 worlds that may be about the same size and temperature as Earth.
Including other telescope surveys, scientists have confirmed the existence of nearly 3,500 planets beyond the solar system.
Kepler’s data also provided a new way to assess whether a planet has a solid surface, like Earth, or is made mostly of gas, like Neptune. The distinction will help scientists home in on potential Earth-like planets and better the odds for finding life.
The Kepler team found that planets which are about 1.75 times the size of Earth and smaller tend to be rocky, while those two to 3.5 times the size of Earth become gas-shrouded worlds like Neptune.
“It’s like finding what we thought was a single species of animal is really two different things,” said Benjamin Fulton, a graduate student in astronomy who analysed the Kepler data.
So far, these planets, which scientists refer to as “super-Earths” and “mini-Neptunes”, have not been found in Earth’s solar system, though scientists are on the hunt for a potential ninth planet far beyond Pluto.
“It is interesting that we don’t have what appears to be the most common type of planet in the galaxy,” Fulton said.
The cool thing is that even without some amazing breakthrough in technology we could be looking at humans living on other planets in a reasonable time frame (a few hundred years).
We need perhaps a hundred more years to develop the tech to build a colony ship staffed by robots as well as a synthetic womb and the ability to print DNA chemically. If we can get the thing to accelerate to 20 % the speed of light it would take ~200-300 years to get to a habitable planet, set up an outpost and clone up the first human being.
So essentially we should only need to not wipe our self out in a hundred years give or take and we could be a multi planet species given some times, if we wanted too. Not that anyone on Earth would ever get to experience a message from the actual planet but it would still be awesome.
On June 21 2017 04:29 CuddlyCuteKitten wrote: The cool thing is that even without some amazing breakthrough in technology we could be looking at humans living on other planets in a reasonable time frame (a few hundred years).
We need perhaps a hundred more years to develop the tech to build a colony ship staffed by robots as well as a synthetic womb and the ability to print DNA chemically. If we can get the thing to accelerate to 20 % the speed of light it would take ~200-300 years to get to a habitable planet, set up an outpost and clone up the first human being.
So essentially we should only need to not wipe our self out in a hundred years give or take and we could be a multi planet species given some times, if we wanted too. Not that anyone on Earth would ever get to experience a message from the actual planet but it would still be awesome.
I would say we don't need that long of a time frame until we launch. We could likely launch within 30 years if we threw all military budgets at it. We won't though, so your time frame holds true for when it gets cheap enough that somebody actually funds it.
On June 21 2017 04:29 CuddlyCuteKitten wrote: The cool thing is that even without some amazing breakthrough in technology we could be looking at humans living on other planets in a reasonable time frame (a few hundred years).
We need perhaps a hundred more years to develop the tech to build a colony ship staffed by robots as well as a synthetic womb and the ability to print DNA chemically. If we can get the thing to accelerate to 20 % the speed of light it would take ~200-300 years to get to a habitable planet, set up an outpost and clone up the first human being.
So essentially we should only need to not wipe our self out in a hundred years give or take and we could be a multi planet species given some times, if we wanted too. Not that anyone on Earth would ever get to experience a message from the actual planet but it would still be awesome.
Proxima b is 4 lightyears away and could well be habitable. Even if it isn't there may still be a cozy rocky planet in the habitable zone around a less annoying star within 10 lightyears.
If you want an oxygen rich atmosphere from the get-go that might prove to be a problem. Earth's atmosphere had far lower oxygen concentration for most of its history. So even microbial life doesn't guarantee a breathable atmosphere.
Scientists have identified two planets circling round a dim dwarf star as especially likely candidates for habitable worlds, with probable water and a source of heat, conditions thought necessary for life beyond Earth.
Since their discovery last year, the seven planets and their star, called Trappist-1, have thrilled astronomers hunting for a world resembling Earth. Never before had scientists found so many Earth-sized planets around a single star, or in a zone where the extreme temperatures of space would not obliterate the chances of life.
The finding suggested that there may be planets as rocky and large as Earth all over the Milky Way, and scientists quickly set to work analyzing the Trappist-1 system.
With colleagues in Hungary, Dr Amy Barr, of the Planetary Science Institute built mathematical models of the seven planets and their interiors, and found that six of the seven worlds likely have water, as liquid or ice, with a global ocean possible on one. The team then modeled the planets’ orbits to determine a likely surface temperature on the worlds.
“That’s one of the main innovations of the paper,” Barr told the Guardian. “The planets are also on eccentric orbits – kind of egg shaped – so every time the planet goes around the star it gets stretched and squeezed.”
Jupiter’s moon Io, experiences the same kind of push-pull, called tidal heat. Io’s surface is riven by erupting volcanoes, lava flows, scars and caldera. Barr said the same forces are probably at work in the Trappist-1 system: “The planet kind of works its own internal friction, because that stretching and squeezing creates heat in the interior.”
In the paper, set to be published in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics, the team concluded that planets b and c (each world goes by a lower-case letter), experience tidal heat, and that planet c likely has little to no water, but mostly iron and rock. Planets d and e – the two identified as most likely to be habitable – also experience tidal heat, they found, but much less.
They calculated that those planets are “in this kind of temperate region”, Barr said, with a “very reasonable surface temperatures”. Planet d, the team estimates, has a temperature around 15C (59F) or perhaps as low as slightly warmer than the melting point of ice. Planet e was colder, Barr said: “the temperatures you would get in Antarctica, but also reasonable”.
The likelihood of tidal heating is encouraging to scientists in search of planets with the conditions for life. Tidal heat not only warms a planet, but also drives chemistry and flow in its mantle, conditions amenable to the development of life – at least as humans know it.
Because Nasa has yet to launch its next generation space telescope, the James Webb, scientists like Barr and her colleagues have turned to computers to investigate puzzles with limited data. A paper last year found that Trappist-1, although older and more dim than our sun, projects a stellar wind far more severe than the solar wind that lashes Earth from our sun. This wind likely stripped away the atmosphere – another condition for life – from the planets closest to Trappist-1, while the more distant planets fared better. Another team investigated whether the Trappist-1 worlds could hold water – another condition – and found that four of the seven might.
But while the pieces of research by various teams have generally supported each other, Barr and other astronomers, astrophysicists and geophysicists are most eager for more observations. Should the James Webb launch on schedule this year, it will provide far more data about specific exoplanets, and ease the challenge of writing about a system as a whole.
“It’s hard to write a paper about seven planets all at once,” Barr said.
On June 21 2017 04:29 CuddlyCuteKitten wrote: The cool thing is that even without some amazing breakthrough in technology we could be looking at humans living on other planets in a reasonable time frame (a few hundred years).
We need perhaps a hundred more years to develop the tech to build a colony ship staffed by robots as well as a synthetic womb and the ability to print DNA chemically. If we can get the thing to accelerate to 20 % the speed of light it would take ~200-300 years to get to a habitable planet, set up an outpost and clone up the first human being.
So essentially we should only need to not wipe our self out in a hundred years give or take and we could be a multi planet species given some times, if we wanted too. Not that anyone on Earth would ever get to experience a message from the actual planet but it would still be awesome.
I think this is far to optimistic,i doubt we will have a self supporting colony on another plantet outside our solar system before the year 10k.
In that case, we would never have that There is no way humans survive another 100 years without changing society well enough to make projects like these reasonable.
Astronomers have discovered a pretty interesting multi-planetary system orbiting a nearby star. Each of the exoplanets is apparently a gas giant, but two of them orbit the star in the habitable zone, where liquid water could exist!
To be clear, gas giants don’t have a surface — they have such tremendous atmospheres that as you go down inside them the air just gets thicker, merges into a liquid mantle, then finally gets crushed into a solid deep down near the core — but they do tend to have moons, some of them quite large. And that makes this system very interesting indeed…
The planets orbit the star HD 34445 (the 34,445th entry in the Henry Draper catalog of brightish stars). The star itself is at first glance a lot like the Sun: It’s a type G0 star, just slightly warmer and just a scosh more massive than the Sun (1.07 times as massive, to be specific).
I was surprised, however, to see it’s bigger than I expected, about 1.38 times the Sun’s diameter, and twice as luminous. I’d think those numbers would be much closer to the Sun’s, but then I saw the age and understood: It’s 8.5 billion years old, nearly twice as old as the Sun, and that means it’s starting to run out of fuel in its core. It’s starting the slow expansion into red giant territory.
It’s pretty close to us as stars go, about 150 light years away, so it appears relatively bright as well — about 7th magnitude, which is a little bit fainter than you can see with the naked eye, but could easily spot in binoculars.
Through a big telescope, then, it’s really bright, and that makes it a good target to look for planets. Bright stars mean lots of photons for your camera, and that helps when you’re looking for small effects.
The first planet, HD 34445b, was announced in 2010. They found it using what’s called the reflex velocity method. The way I like to think of that is this: Imagine a big person facing a smaller person, and they hold hands. Now they swing each other around. The smaller person makes a big circle, and the bigger person makes a small circle. The “reflex” part comes in because as one person moves away from you the other moves toward you, and vice versa.
Same with stars and planets. A planet orbits the star due to the star’s gravity, but the planet has mass and gravity too, so the star responds by making a smaller circle. They actually both orbit their mutual center of gravity/center of mass, what astronomers call the 'barycenter.' We can’t see that planet directly because the star is bright and the planet faint, and the circle the star makes is far too small to see directly either.
But, as the star moves in a circle it sometimes approaches us, and sometimes moves away. When it approaches us its light is slightly shifted to the blue due to the Doppler effect, and it shifts to the red as it moves away. That can indeed be measured, though it's a small effect. The very first exoplanets were found this way!
After the first planet was found around HD 34445, astronomers concentrated on this star, using bigger and better telescopes and instruments to look for more. In October of 2017, another team announced they had found five more planets, for a total of six! They had taken 333 observations over 18 years to get them, so this is a really long-term project.
As is the convention, the planets are named HD 34445 b through g, in the order of their discovery. HD 34445 b takes 1057 days to orbit the star (about 3 years), and the rest take 215, 118, 49, 677, and 5,700 days (that last one is pretty far out from the star). And they're all pretty big: In terms of Jupiter's mass, they are (again in order) 0.63, 0.17, 0.1, 0.05, 0.12 and 0.38 as big as our own biggest planet.
For comparison, Saturn is about 1/3rd of Jupiter's mass, and Neptune about 1/20th. Jupiter is over 300 times the mass of Earth, so it seems like a decent bet that all these planets in the HD 34445 system are gas giants.
Right away that's interesting; this is clearly a very different solar system from our own! We only have four such big planets. They're also spread out around HD 34445, ranging from 40 million to a billion kilometers out from their star. There might be more farther out, but they would be very hard to detect; the reflex velocity method is easier to use for massive planets closer in to the star.
I'll note there could be more Earth-sized planets here too; there's room for them between the bigger ones or closer in to the star, but again this method makes it hard to spot them because of their lower mass.
But don't fret about not finding habitable worlds around HD 34445 just yet. This is where things get interesting indeed.
Two of the planets — HD34445b and f — are located in the star's habitable zone: the region around the star where liquid water can exist on the surface of a body. For this star, that's about 200 – 350 million kilometers out. Closer than the inner edge and it gets too hot (for a terrestrial (rocky) planet, you get a runaway greenhouse effect and the planet gets scorched), and farther than the outer edge and even the best greenhouse effect won't keep you from freezing.
HD 34445b is 311 million km out, and HD 34445f is 230 million. Not bad.
Now again, these are gas giants! HD 34445 b is 200 times the mass of the Earth, and HD 34445f, while smaller, is still about 40 times our heft. These are not going to be planets our Earth.
But they might have moons. Exomoons! Our own solar system's gas giants have huge retinues of such satellites, and some are big: Ganymede (orbiting Jupiter) and Titan (Saturn) are about as big as Mercury! And it’s not too ridiculous to think even bigger ones might exist, making some of these moons potentially Earth-sized, and maybe, maybe, Earth-like.
Heck, Titan is well over a billion kilometers from the Sun, and it has an atmosphere thicker than ours! If it were in a more Earth-like orbit around the Sun, it could possibly be a pretty nice place to live. Could there be such habitable moons around these alien worlds?
If so, I have to wonder. Their star is old and slowly expanding, becoming more and more luminous over time. If these moons exist and if they are habitable and if there is life there, it's in trouble. As the star turns into a proper red giant those moons will get good and truly cooked. It's a story played out over and again in the galaxy, and will here too with our own Sun. Eventually, like in a few billion years or so.
One interesting bit, though, is that moons farther out from HD 34445 will go from frozen to quite clement. Will they get a chance for life? Maybe, but then their warm season won’t last that long; eventually the star sheds its outer layers in a series of violent paroxysms and finally reveals its core: a white dwarf that’s very hot but so small it provides very little warmth. Everything in the system will eventually freeze.
Now, this is all speculation. We don't know there are moons orbiting these planets, and we have no idea if it's possible to have a habitable moon orbiting a gas giant just because they're in the habitable zone around their star. I can think of lots of reasons this could be a nasty place (the radiation around the gas giant incited by a strong magnetic field, huge tidal stresses causing endless seismic activity, and so on).
… but the Universe is vast, and in such an expanse even the unlikely is bound to happen many times. Finding an example of gas giants like these in a fairly nearby star implies it's common in the galaxy (if it were very rare what are the odds it would happen in a star that's only a tenth of a percent of the galaxy’s diameter away from us?).
Right now, we just don't know. But our collection of known exoplanets grows nearly every day, as does our ability to explore them. Nature has a way of surprising us the deeper we investigate it. And the science fiction fan in me would love to see these be true. Let's hope.
A faraway planet in the constellation of Leo has been named the most habitable known world beyond the solar system after astronomers detected water vapour in its atmosphere.
It is the first time a planet in its star’s “Goldilocks zone” – where the temperature is neither too hot nor too cold for liquid water to exist – has been found to bear the life-sustaining substance in the blanket of gases that surround it.
The discovery has raised hopes that the planet, and similar worlds spotted in recent years, not only have conditions that can be suited to life, but in some cases may host living organisms.
“This is the first potentially habitable planet where the temperature is right and where we now know there is water,” said Angelos Tsiaras, an astronomer at University College London. “It’s the best candidate for habitability right now.”
The planet, named K2-18b, was first spotted in 2015 by Nasa’s Kepler space telescope. Roughly twice as big as Earth and eight times as massive, it orbits a cool red dwarf less than half the size of the sun, 110 light years away.
Red dwarfs produce far less heat than the sun, but K2-18b is warmed to about 10C (50F) by circling close to its star. From a mere 14m miles out, a sixth of the distance from the Earth to the sun, the planet completes an orbit every 33 days, making a year there pass as swiftly as a month on Earth.
Today’s technology is too feeble to take photos of the surfaces of such distant worlds, and they are too far away to send probes to. But space-based telescopes can glean some information about the atmospheres on alien planets.
The UCL team turned to Nasa’s veteran Hubble space telescope, which observed K2-18b in the two years after its discovery. In particular, they analysed measurements of starlight from the red dwarf as the planet wandered across its face on eight separate occasions.
The data revealed that as K2-18b crossed in front of its star, wavelengths of light that are absorbed by water suddenly dropped off, and then rose again as the planet moved on. The effect is seen as a smoking gun for water vapour in the planet’s atmosphere.
“To our great surprise we saw a pretty strong signature of water vapour,” said Giovanna Tinetti, a member of the UCL team. “It means first of all that there’s an atmosphere, and second that it contains a significant amount of water.”
Nothing has driven the search for life elsewhere more than the presence of water. On Earth, there is no life without the substance, and the same is expected on other planets, at least for life as we know it.
The discovery of water vapour on K2-18b does not prove there is water on the surface. But it ticks one more box in the hunt for worlds where the conditions are ripe for life. “We don’t know any other planet with the right temperature that has water in its atmosphere,” Tsiaras told the Guardian. According to the report in Nature Astronomy, K2-18b has between 0.01% and 50% water in its atmosphere.
In astronomy jargon, K2-18b is a super-Earth, putting its size between Earth’s and Neptune’s. But rather than Earth’s twin, K2-18b is more like our home planet’s cousin. It is two-thirds the density of Earth and though it may have a rocky surface, it could equally be a water world.
Humans would not fare well on the planet. If it has a hard surface, it would be impossible to stand. With gravity eight times stronger than on Earth, the average human would weigh half a tonne. Added to that are intense UV rays that would drive cancer-causing mutations. But get around these and the view, at least, might be pleasing to the eye: wispy clouds, a giant red sun, and an inner planet that rises like Venus. As Ingo Waldmann, a researcher on the team, said: “It’s maybe not quite your vacation destination just yet.”
Ryan Cloutier at the Harvard and Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics said an independent analysis, or fresh observations, would be valuable to confirm the detection of water vapour. But he added that the apparent presence of water was promising for K2-18b’s habitability.
“It’s a good sign,” he said. “Overall, the presence of water in its atmosphere certainly improves the prospect of K2-18b being a potentially habitable planet, but further observations will be required to say for sure.”
Astronomers now hope to study more super-Earths for signs of water in their atmospheres. That work is due to be transformed in coming years with the launch of Nasa’s James Webb space telescope in 2021 and the European Space Agency’s Ariel mission in 2028. Observations from these telescopes should reveal more about the makeup of atmospheres on distant worlds, including the presence of methane and other gases that could be direct signs of life.
Gravity might be 8x stronger from mass, but the planet is twice as large so you'd only have 2G on the surface. It'd be very hard for most people, but if you were very fit you could definitely walk around and do some light activity.
I don't think we'll leave our solar system in my lifetime though, so it's kind of a moot point anyways.
On September 12 2019 07:10 Amui wrote: That's a pretty neat discovery.
Gravity might be 8x stronger from mass, but the planet is twice as large so you'd only have 2G on the surface. It'd be very hard for most people, but if you were very fit you could definitely walk around and do some light activity.
I don't think we'll leave our solar system in my lifetime though, so it's kind of a moot point anyways.
Gravity 2g means you won't survive for long, our body is designed for 1g excusivly.
Such gravity means you'll have to grow bigger hearth, possibly even two, because a proper blood circulation require so.
In addition your muscular apparatus would suffer roughly two times harder. Atmospheric pressure also usually much higher in such conditions.
I also should correct myself, humans designed for 1g, specific pressure, atmosphere, land, temerature, only for Earth.
Well, and the worst thing is that the closest star is ~4,5 light years away, impossible to reach at the moment and maybe never at all. Unless you take some kind of "Pandorum" try. Wormholes is a fiction at the moment also.
A faraway planet in the constellation of Leo has been named the most habitable known world beyond the solar system after astronomers detected water vapour in its atmosphere.
It is the first time a planet in its star’s “Goldilocks zone” – where the temperature is neither too hot nor too cold for liquid water to exist – has been found to bear the life-sustaining substance in the blanket of gases that surround it.
The discovery has raised hopes that the planet, and similar worlds spotted in recent years, not only have conditions that can be suited to life, but in some cases may host living organisms.
“This is the first potentially habitable planet where the temperature is right and where we now know there is water,” said Angelos Tsiaras, an astronomer at University College London. “It’s the best candidate for habitability right now.”
The planet, named K2-18b, was first spotted in 2015 by Nasa’s Kepler space telescope. Roughly twice as big as Earth and eight times as massive, it orbits a cool red dwarf less than half the size of the sun, 110 light years away.
Red dwarfs produce far less heat than the sun, but K2-18b is warmed to about 10C (50F) by circling close to its star. From a mere 14m miles out, a sixth of the distance from the Earth to the sun, the planet completes an orbit every 33 days, making a year there pass as swiftly as a month on Earth.
Today’s technology is too feeble to take photos of the surfaces of such distant worlds, and they are too far away to send probes to. But space-based telescopes can glean some information about the atmospheres on alien planets.
The UCL team turned to Nasa’s veteran Hubble space telescope, which observed K2-18b in the two years after its discovery. In particular, they analysed measurements of starlight from the red dwarf as the planet wandered across its face on eight separate occasions.
The data revealed that as K2-18b crossed in front of its star, wavelengths of light that are absorbed by water suddenly dropped off, and then rose again as the planet moved on. The effect is seen as a smoking gun for water vapour in the planet’s atmosphere.
“To our great surprise we saw a pretty strong signature of water vapour,” said Giovanna Tinetti, a member of the UCL team. “It means first of all that there’s an atmosphere, and second that it contains a significant amount of water.”
Nothing has driven the search for life elsewhere more than the presence of water. On Earth, there is no life without the substance, and the same is expected on other planets, at least for life as we know it.
The discovery of water vapour on K2-18b does not prove there is water on the surface. But it ticks one more box in the hunt for worlds where the conditions are ripe for life. “We don’t know any other planet with the right temperature that has water in its atmosphere,” Tsiaras told the Guardian. According to the report in Nature Astronomy, K2-18b has between 0.01% and 50% water in its atmosphere.
In astronomy jargon, K2-18b is a super-Earth, putting its size between Earth’s and Neptune’s. But rather than Earth’s twin, K2-18b is more like our home planet’s cousin. It is two-thirds the density of Earth and though it may have a rocky surface, it could equally be a water world.
Humans would not fare well on the planet. If it has a hard surface, it would be impossible to stand. With gravity eight times stronger than on Earth, the average human would weigh half a tonne. Added to that are intense UV rays that would drive cancer-causing mutations. But get around these and the view, at least, might be pleasing to the eye: wispy clouds, a giant red sun, and an inner planet that rises like Venus. As Ingo Waldmann, a researcher on the team, said: “It’s maybe not quite your vacation destination just yet.”
Ryan Cloutier at the Harvard and Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics said an independent analysis, or fresh observations, would be valuable to confirm the detection of water vapour. But he added that the apparent presence of water was promising for K2-18b’s habitability.
“It’s a good sign,” he said. “Overall, the presence of water in its atmosphere certainly improves the prospect of K2-18b being a potentially habitable planet, but further observations will be required to say for sure.”
Astronomers now hope to study more super-Earths for signs of water in their atmospheres. That work is due to be transformed in coming years with the launch of Nasa’s James Webb space telescope in 2021 and the European Space Agency’s Ariel mission in 2028. Observations from these telescopes should reveal more about the makeup of atmospheres on distant worlds, including the presence of methane and other gases that could be direct signs of life.
Source
8 times the mass of the earth around a red dwarf. Maybe there can be life but it wont be highly developed. Seeing the enormous amount of effort in detecting those planets I find the results very disappointing. There has not been found even ONE planet that is somewhat similar to earth. The longer it takes to find one,the more we should realize how incredibly lucky we are with having earth.
On September 12 2019 06:37 {CC}StealthBlue wrote: Huge bump.
A faraway planet in the constellation of Leo has been named the most habitable known world beyond the solar system after astronomers detected water vapour in its atmosphere.
It is the first time a planet in its star’s “Goldilocks zone” – where the temperature is neither too hot nor too cold for liquid water to exist – has been found to bear the life-sustaining substance in the blanket of gases that surround it.
The discovery has raised hopes that the planet, and similar worlds spotted in recent years, not only have conditions that can be suited to life, but in some cases may host living organisms.
“This is the first potentially habitable planet where the temperature is right and where we now know there is water,” said Angelos Tsiaras, an astronomer at University College London. “It’s the best candidate for habitability right now.”
The planet, named K2-18b, was first spotted in 2015 by Nasa’s Kepler space telescope. Roughly twice as big as Earth and eight times as massive, it orbits a cool red dwarf less than half the size of the sun, 110 light years away.
Red dwarfs produce far less heat than the sun, but K2-18b is warmed to about 10C (50F) by circling close to its star. From a mere 14m miles out, a sixth of the distance from the Earth to the sun, the planet completes an orbit every 33 days, making a year there pass as swiftly as a month on Earth.
Today’s technology is too feeble to take photos of the surfaces of such distant worlds, and they are too far away to send probes to. But space-based telescopes can glean some information about the atmospheres on alien planets.
The UCL team turned to Nasa’s veteran Hubble space telescope, which observed K2-18b in the two years after its discovery. In particular, they analysed measurements of starlight from the red dwarf as the planet wandered across its face on eight separate occasions.
The data revealed that as K2-18b crossed in front of its star, wavelengths of light that are absorbed by water suddenly dropped off, and then rose again as the planet moved on. The effect is seen as a smoking gun for water vapour in the planet’s atmosphere.
“To our great surprise we saw a pretty strong signature of water vapour,” said Giovanna Tinetti, a member of the UCL team. “It means first of all that there’s an atmosphere, and second that it contains a significant amount of water.”
Nothing has driven the search for life elsewhere more than the presence of water. On Earth, there is no life without the substance, and the same is expected on other planets, at least for life as we know it.
The discovery of water vapour on K2-18b does not prove there is water on the surface. But it ticks one more box in the hunt for worlds where the conditions are ripe for life. “We don’t know any other planet with the right temperature that has water in its atmosphere,” Tsiaras told the Guardian. According to the report in Nature Astronomy, K2-18b has between 0.01% and 50% water in its atmosphere.
In astronomy jargon, K2-18b is a super-Earth, putting its size between Earth’s and Neptune’s. But rather than Earth’s twin, K2-18b is more like our home planet’s cousin. It is two-thirds the density of Earth and though it may have a rocky surface, it could equally be a water world.
Humans would not fare well on the planet. If it has a hard surface, it would be impossible to stand. With gravity eight times stronger than on Earth, the average human would weigh half a tonne. Added to that are intense UV rays that would drive cancer-causing mutations. But get around these and the view, at least, might be pleasing to the eye: wispy clouds, a giant red sun, and an inner planet that rises like Venus. As Ingo Waldmann, a researcher on the team, said: “It’s maybe not quite your vacation destination just yet.”
Ryan Cloutier at the Harvard and Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics said an independent analysis, or fresh observations, would be valuable to confirm the detection of water vapour. But he added that the apparent presence of water was promising for K2-18b’s habitability.
“It’s a good sign,” he said. “Overall, the presence of water in its atmosphere certainly improves the prospect of K2-18b being a potentially habitable planet, but further observations will be required to say for sure.”
Astronomers now hope to study more super-Earths for signs of water in their atmospheres. That work is due to be transformed in coming years with the launch of Nasa’s James Webb space telescope in 2021 and the European Space Agency’s Ariel mission in 2028. Observations from these telescopes should reveal more about the makeup of atmospheres on distant worlds, including the presence of methane and other gases that could be direct signs of life.
Source
8 times the mass of the earth around a red dwarf. Maybe there can be life but it wont be highly developed. Seeing the enormous amount of effort in detecting those planets I find the results very disappointing. There has not been found even ONE planet that is somewhat similar to earth. The longer it takes to find one,the more we should realize how incredibly lucky we are with having earth.
.
The technology we have in space right now is much better at finding larger exoplanets rather than anything earth-sized, so it's no surprise that we're mostly finding superearths. I don't know why you find that disappointing somehow.
On September 12 2019 07:10 Amui wrote: That's a pretty neat discovery.
Gravity might be 8x stronger from mass, but the planet is twice as large so you'd only have 2G on the surface. It'd be very hard for most people, but if you were very fit you could definitely walk around and do some light activity.
I don't think we'll leave our solar system in my lifetime though, so it's kind of a moot point anyways.
Gravity 2g means you won't survive for long, our body is designed for 1g excusivly.
Such gravity means you'll have to grow bigger hearth, possibly even two, because a proper blood circulation require so.
In addition your muscular apparatus would suffer roughly two times harder. Atmospheric pressure also usually much higher in such conditions.
I also should correct myself, humans designed for 1g, specific pressure, atmosphere, land, temerature, only for Earth.
Well, and the worst thing is that the closest star is ~4,5 light years away, impossible to reach at the moment and maybe never at all. Unless you take some kind of "Pandorum" try. Wormholes is a fiction at the moment also.
We could build generation ships and go there (4,5 light years) with current technology. We would likely die upon reaching there and not having a habitable planet waiting though.
Slightly future tech is artificial wombs, frozen eggs and embryos. That requires less from the craft going there but probably half a century of robot development. A thing to note, removing people fully from the trip makes it much simpler.
Terraforming or having a civilisation viable in space without a habitable planet is the deal breaker though. If we manage living full time in space with 0 resources required to be supplied from Earth there isn't any major hindrances for going. If we did a solid push for it I don't see why we couldn't have it all done in 50 years. More likely 100 years since we aren't pushing for it.
On September 12 2019 07:10 Amui wrote: That's a pretty neat discovery.
Gravity might be 8x stronger from mass, but the planet is twice as large so you'd only have 2G on the surface. It'd be very hard for most people, but if you were very fit you could definitely walk around and do some light activity.
I don't think we'll leave our solar system in my lifetime though, so it's kind of a moot point anyways.
Gravity 2g means you won't survive for long, our body is designed for 1g excusivly.
Such gravity means you'll have to grow bigger hearth, possibly even two, because a proper blood circulation require so.
In addition your muscular apparatus would suffer roughly two times harder. Atmospheric pressure also usually much higher in such conditions.
I also should correct myself, humans designed for 1g, specific pressure, atmosphere, land, temerature, only for Earth.
Well, and the worst thing is that the closest star is ~4,5 light years away, impossible to reach at the moment and maybe never at all. Unless you take some kind of "Pandorum" try. Wormholes is a fiction at the moment also.
We could build generation ships and go there (4,5 light years) with current technology. We would likely die upon reaching there and not having a habitable planet waiting though.
Slightly future tech is artificial wombs, frozen eggs and embryos. That requires less from the craft going there but probably half a century of robot development. A thing to note, removing people fully from the trip makes it much simpler.
Terraforming or having a civilisation viable in space without a habitable planet is the deal breaker though. If we manage living full time in space with 0 resources required to be supplied from Earth there isn't any major hindrances for going. If we did a solid push for it I don't see why we couldn't have it all done in 50 years. More likely 100 years since we aren't pushing for it.
Yea, removing people definitely helps, but it takes away this feeling of discovery, of something new. Imagine Columbus on a greater scale, crossing an ocean is one thing, but crossing the freaking void of space is something entirely different. Frightening and exciting at the same time.
Also there is a problem with deep space travel. Enormous amount of radiation outside of heliospere is a threat.
I've cought myself thinking what life might look like on planets with different stats. And it all depends on various aspects. Size/type of star, distance to star, planet rotation rate, planet tilt, planet gravity, atmosperic pressure, atmosperic composition, chemical variety, geological activity, average temperature, magnetic field, orbital satellite - all it matters.
People around mentioned a planet orbiting a red dwarf, that is usually a bad thing for a number of reasons. First of all, the planet probably tidally locked, which means life could be only in twilight zone, plants should be dark red/black colors. Radiation levels would be high due to a small distance to the star. It will look like an eye from space. Forehead is a scorched desert, and on the other side is a land of always winter. I've "seen" a systems where all the planets (5 or 6) around such dwarf are orbiting closer then Mercury to Sun distance. Life cannot be comlicated by definition on such planets, unless "life" is not carbon based, then we don't know.
Full video still not out. But NY Times has broken the story.
High in the toxic atmosphere of the planet Venus, astronomers on Earth have discovered signs of what might be life.
If the discovery is confirmed by additional telescope observations and future space missions, it could turn the gaze of scientists toward one of the brightest objects in the night sky. Venus, named after the Roman goddess of beauty, roasts at temperatures of hundreds of degrees and is cloaked by clouds that contain droplets of corrosive sulfuric acid. Few have focused on the rocky planet as a habitat for something living.
Instead, for decades, scientists have sought signs of life elsewhere, usually peering outward to Mars and more recently at Europa, Enceladus and other icy moons of the giant planets.
The astronomers, who reported the finding on Monday in a pair of papers, have not collected specimens of Venusian microbes, nor have they snapped any pictures of them. But with powerful telescopes, they have detected a chemical — phosphine — in the thick Venus atmosphere. After much analysis, the scientists assert that something now alive is the only explanation for the chemical’s source.
Some researchers question this hypothesis, and they suggest instead that the gas could result from unexplained atmospheric or geologic processes on a planet that remains mysterious. But the finding will also encourage some planetary scientists to ask whether humanity has overlooked a planet that may have once been more Earthlike than any other world in our solar system.
“This is an astonishing and ‘out of the blue’ finding,” said Sara Seager, a planetary scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and an author of the papers (one published in Nature Astronomy and another submitted to the journal Astrobiology). “It will definitely fuel more research into the possibilities for life in Venus’s atmosphere.”
“We know that it is an extraordinary discovery,” said Clara Sousa-Silva, a molecular astrophysicist at Harvard University whose research has focused on phosphine, and another of the authors. “We may not know just how extraordinary without going back to Venus.”
Sarah Stewart Johnson, a planetary scientist and head of the Johnson Biosignatures Lab at Georgetown University who was not involved in the work, said, “There’s been a lot of buzz about phosphine as a biosignature gas for exoplanets recently,” referring to the search for life on worlds that orbit other stars. “How cool to find it on Venus.”
She added: “Venus has been ignored by NASA for so long. It’s really a shame.”
David Grinspoon of the Planetary Science Institute in Tucson, Ariz., who was not part of the work but has long promoted the possibility of life in Venus’s clouds, said, “That is pretty damn exciting!”
The work needs to be followed up, he said, “but this could be the first observation we’ve made which reveals an alien biosphere and, what do you know, it’s on the closest planet to home in the entire cosmos.”
Venus is one of the most beautiful objects in Earth’s sky. But at a closer glance, the less lovely it becomes.
Often called Earth’s twin, Venus is roughly the same mass as Earth. Many scientists think that Venus was once covered in water and possessed an atmosphere where life as we know it could have flourished.
In earlier days of the solar system, Earth was not so hospitable to the likes of us. There was life here then, even an entire biosphere that did not survive in the oxygen-rich environment that later developed. And much as Earth over time became a home for jellyfish, ferns, dinosaurs and Homo sapiens, Venus was transformed by something into a hell.
Today, the second planet from the sun has an atmosphere stifled by carbon dioxide gas, and surface temperatures that average more than 800 degrees Fahrenheit. The dense atmosphere of Venus exerts a pressure of more than 1,300 pounds per square inch on anything at the surface. That is more than 90 times the 14.7 pounds per square inch at sea level on Earth, or the equivalent to being 3,000 feet underwater in the ocean.
It is hardly a place that makes visiting or research easy, although that doesn’t mean people haven’t tried. Space programs have tried dozens of robotic missions to Venus, many of them in the Soviet Union’s Venera series. But the planet eats metal, within minutes melting down and crushing spacecraft that have landed there. Of all those attempts, only two managed to directly capture images of the planet’s surface.
Whereas frigid Mars is currently ringed by orbiters and prowled by NASA rovers, Venus is being studied by only one probe, the lonely Japanese spacecraft Akatsuki. Future missions to the planet are still mere concepts.
Although the surface of Venus is like a blast furnace, a cloud layer just 31 miles below the top of its atmosphere may reach temperatures as low as 86 degrees Fahrenheit, and has a pressure similar to that at ground level on Earth. Many planetary scientists, including Carl Sagan and Harold Morowitz, who proposed the idea 53 years ago, have hypothesized life may exist there.
Jane Greaves, an astronomer at Cardiff University in Wales, set out in June 2017 to test that hypothesis using the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope in Hawaii, looking for signs of various molecules on Venus. Different species of molecules will absorb radio waves coming through the clouds at different characteristic wavelengths. One of the chemicals was phosphine. She did not expect to find it.
“I got intrigued by the idea of looking for phosphine, because phosphorus might be a bit of a sort of go-no-go for life,” Dr. Greaves said.
Chemists compare phosphine to a pyramid — one atom of phosphorus topping a base of three hydrogen atoms. The NASA spacecraft Cassini detected it in the atmospheres of Jupiter and Saturn. In that setting, Dr. Sousa-Silva said, life is not necessary to form phosphine. The immense heat and pressures can jam the phosphorous and hydrogen atoms together to form the molecule.
But on smaller, rocky planets like Earth and Venus, the researchers say, there is not enough energy to produce copious amounts of phosphine in the same way. There is one thing, however, that appears to be very good at producing it: anaerobic life, or microbial organisms that don’t require or use oxygen.
On such worlds, “as far as we can tell, only life can make phosphine,” Dr. Sousa-Silva said. She has long studied the gas, on the theory that finding it being emitted from rocky planets that orbit distant stars could be proof that life exists elsewhere in the Milky Way.
Here on Earth, phosphine is found in our intestines, in the feces of badgers and penguins, and in some deep sea worms, as well as other biological environments associated with anaerobic organisms. It is also extremely poisonous. Militaries have employed it for chemical warfare, and it is used as a fumigant on farms. On the TV show “Breaking Bad,” the main character, Walter White, makes it to kill two rivals.
But scientists have yet to explain how Earth microbes make it.
”There’s not a lot of understanding of where it’s coming from, how it forms, things like that,” said Matthew Pasek, a geoscientist at the University of South Florida in Tampa. “We’ve seen it associated with where microbes are at, but we have not seen a microbe do it, which is a subtle difference, but an important one.”
Dr. Sousa-Silva was surprised when Dr. Greaves said that she had detected phosphine.
“That moment plays in my mind a lot, because I took a few minutes to consider what was happening,” she said.
If there really was phosphine on Venus, she believed there could be no other obvious explanation than anaerobic life.
“What we find circumstantially also makes complete sense with what we know thermodynamically,” she said.
The team needed a more powerful telescope, and the scientists next used the Atacama Large Millimeter Array, in Chile, in March 2019.
This time, they found, all signs pointed to phosphine, and a lot of it, ranging from 5 to 20 parts per billion. Although those numbers might seem small, that’s thousands of times more than what is in Earth’s atmosphere.
Dr. Sousa-Silva, Dr. Greaves and their colleagues had planned to complete additional telescope observations earlier this year. But the coronavirus pandemic and Venus’s limited time above the horizon interfered with their ability to gather more evidence, leaving many questions unanswered.
“The finding itself is astonishing,” said Paul Byrne, a planetary scientist at North Carolina State University in Raleigh who was not involved in the research. He said that although he was “skeptical of it being life, I don’t have a better explanation for what it is.”
The team spent a year recreating the Venusian environment in computer simulations to test different explanations for the phosphine’s source and abundance.
“The light is constantly breaking the phosphine down, so you have to continuously replenish it,” said William Bains, a biochemist at M.I.T. and one of the co-authors of the papers.
Volcanic activity and lightning on Venus would not be sufficient to add more of this constantly disappearing phosphine, according to the researchers’ models. But living things could emit enough of the gas.
“What we’ve done is rule out all other sources of phosphine other than life,” Dr. Bains said.
Other planetary scientists counter that a non-biological origin cannot be ruled out.
“Despite prior speculation (mostly by the same authors), this can hardly be taken as a biosignature,” Gerald Joyce, a biologist at the Salk Institute in California who has experimented with creating life in the lab, said in an email. In their own paper, he noted, the researchers wrote that “the detection of phosphine is not robust evidence for life, only for anomalous and unexplained chemistry.”
A similar note of caution was voiced by James Kasting, a geoscientist and expert on planetary habitability at Pennsylvania State University in State College, who said, “The model atmospheric composition that they show is, at best, incomplete.”
The finding also follows a history of detections of gases on other worlds that can be byproducts of life. But these gases, such as burps of methane or oxygen on Mars, can also be produced by chemical reactions that do not involve life at all. So far, such signals have been intriguing, but they are not convincing proof of aliens.
While few doubt whether this phosphine is there, what kind of life in the clouds of Venus would it take to actually make the gas?
Such living things would have had to evolve to survive in a high-acid environment, perhaps with protective outer layers similar to microscopic organisms in Earth’s most extreme environments.
In a paper published in August, Dr. Seager and her colleagues suggested that microbes borne aloft on air currents called gravity waves could live, metabolize and reproduce inside drops of sulfuric acid. And given the amount of gas being produced, the population of these microbes would be ample.
As to how these microbes got there, the best guess, she said, is that they originated on the surface when Venus had oceans as late as 700 million years ago, but they were forced into the skies when the planet dried up.
And nobody knows whether the microbes, if real, are based on DNA like us, or something entirely different.
“When looking for life elsewhere, it’s so hard to not be Earth-centric,” Dr. Sousa-Silva said. “Because we only have that one data point.”
Before their imaginations run away, the researchers want to gather more telescope data and see their models tested and challenged. Robotic space missions to Venus could also advance the search.
India’s space agency has proposed a mission, in the coming years, as has a private rocket company, Rocket Lab.
And NASA, which has declined to fund a number of Venus missions in recent decades, announced in February that it would consider a pair of proposed spacecraft among four finalists competing for a round of funding.
“For the last two decades, we keep making new discoveries that collectively imply a significant increase of the likelihood to find life elsewhere,” said Thomas Zurbuchen, the head of NASA’s science directorate, who helps select missions to explore the solar system. “Many scientists would not have guessed that Venus would be a significant part of this discussion. But, just like an increasing number of planetary bodies, Venus is proving to be an exciting place of discovery.”
That sounds insanely interesting. But would it be possible to confirm the presence of living micro organisms without taking a sample back ? It seems hard to get back a probe. Also another thing that somewhat bothers me, is the concentration of the constantly disappearing phosphine. Thousands times more than on Earth, which is definitly not void of life.
Scientists at a prominent SETI group say they’ve identified a signal coming from Proxima Centauri, the closest star to our Sun, that could possibly be from an alien civilization.
The news first broke yesterday in a story by The Guardian. The signal was discovered by Breakthrough Listen, a project founded to listen for signs of extraterrestrial life affiliated with the late physicist Stephen Hawking.
“It is the first serious candidate since the ‘Wow! signal’,” a researcher familiar with the finding, who requested anonymity to discuss the work, told the newspaper. The “Wow! signal,” recorded in 1977, is widely considered to be the most promising finding in the history of SETI — though, like the most recent finding, its implications have been hotly debated.
According to the Guardian‘s sources, the signal was picked up by the Parkes telescope in Australia last year, where it appeared to be originating from the Proxima Centauri system.
It caught the interest of researchers for several reasons. One is that it’s around 980MHz, a band in which there shouldn’t be any human spacecraft transmitting. Another is that its frequency is shifting in a way that scientists say indicates that it could be coming from the surface of an orbiting exoplanet — and Proxima Centauri is known to have an exoplanet in the “habitable zone.” The researchers are now working on a paper about the finding, according to the Guardian.
Still, the scientific community remains skeptical.
“The chances against this being an artificial signal from Proxima Centauri seem staggering,” University of Westminster astrobiologist Lewis Dartnell told the Guardian. “We’ve been looking for alien life for so long now and the idea that it could turn out to be on our front doorstep, in the very next star system, is piling improbabilities upon improbabilities.”
Dartnell also told the paper that Proxima Centauri’s most habitable-looking planet doesn’t seem, at first bluff, like a particularly strong candidate for life.
“But I’d love to be proved wrong,” he added.
The Guardian‘s reporting was corroborated later the same day by Scientific American, which locked down better access to the researchers behind the project and reported that they are urging skepticism — but, strikingly, are leaving open the possibility that it could be an alien technosignature.
“The most likely thing is that it’s some human cause,” Pete Worden, the executive director of Breakthrough’s parent organization. “And when I say most likely, it’s like 99.9 [percent].”
Insiders familiar with the finding also clarified to Scientific American that the signal does not appear to contain any information. In other words, it’s basically just a tone — and likely coming from a spacecraft launched from Earth.
“If you see such a signal and it’s not coming from the surface of Earth, you know you have detected extraterrestrial technology,” Jason Wright, a SETI researcher at Penn State University in Pennsylvania, told Scientific American. “Unfortunately, humans have launched a lot of extraterrestrial technology.”
Wright also had an intriguing exchange with the Scientific American writer later on in the story, when he was asked about the truism “it’s never aliens.”
“I hate that phrase, because if you say that then why even look,” he told the magazine. “What we mean by that is that it’s never been aliens before.”
That’s the spirit of possibility, of course, that motivates all SETI projects. To wit, the Guardian pointed out that when Breakthrough Listen kicked off, back in 2015, the famed physicist Stephen Hawking made remarks to the same effect.
“Mankind has a deep need to explore, to learn, to know,” he said, according to the paper. “We also happen to be sociable creatures. It is important for us to know if we are alone in the dark.”
Researchers from the United States and India working with NASA have now discovered four strains of bacteria living in different places in the ISS – three of which were, until now, completely unknown to science.
Three of the four strains were isolated back in 2015 and 2016 – one was found on an overhead panel of the ISS research stations, the second was found in the Cupola, the third was found on the surface of the dining table; the fourth was found in an old HEPA filter returned to Earth in 2011.
All four of the strains belong to a family of bacteria found in soil and freshwater; they are involved in nitrogen fixation, plant growth, and can help stop plant pathogens. Basically, good bacteria to have around if you're growing things.
You might wonder what such soil bacteria were doing all the way up on the ISS, but the astronauts living on the space station have been growing small amounts of food for years, so it's unsurprising that we've found plant-related microbes aboard.
One of the strains – the HEPA-filter find – was identified as a known species called Methylorubrum rhodesianum. The other three were sequenced and found to all belong to the same, previously unidentified species, and the strains were named IF7SW-B2T, IIF1SW-B5, and IIF4SW-B5.
The team, lead by University of Southern California geneticist Swati Bijlani, has proposed calling the new species Methylobacterium ajmalii after Ajmal Khan, a renowned Indian biodiversity scientist. This new find is also closely related to an already known species called M. indicum.
"To grow plants in extreme places where resources are minimal, isolation of novel microbes that help to promote plant growth under stressful conditions is essential," two of the team, Kasthuri Venkateswaran and Nitin Kumar Singh from NASA's JPL, explained in a press statement.
Huge bump. Planet around the size of Earth has been discovered in the habitable zone where liquid water to exist. Would think they would want to aim the JWST at it,
Another huge bump. The JWST has detected water vapor from a planet 370 light years away.
Astronomers using the NASA James Webb Space Telescope detected the super-hot water vapour in an inner ring of gas and dust around a distant star known as PDS 70 which shares a remarkable amount of similarities with the sun.
PDS 70 is roughly three-quarters the mass of the sun, and at 5.4 million years old is relatively close in age to the sun, which is roughly 4.6 billion years old.
The water vapor, detected using the James Webb Space Telescope’s mid-infrared instrument, was also found at a distance from the star similar to the Earth’s distance from the sun (93 million miles), signaling the area could be conducive to life.
Giulia Perotti, an astronomer at Germany’s Max Planck Institute for Astronomy who led the study told Space.com that knowledge about PDS 70 provides crucial information about how planets in the sun’s solar system likely formed, and confirms that water is present in a region where “planets similar to Earth may be assembling.”
Another potential life supporting planet found by the JWST. Only problem is it almost 9 times the size of Earth so whatever is down there would be massive, plus if we ever visited we could not land as we would not be able to get back into space.
A new investigation with NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope into K2-18 b, an exoplanet 8.6 times as massive as Earth, has revealed the presence of carbon-bearing molecules including methane and carbon dioxide. Webb’s discovery adds to recent studies suggesting that K2-18 b could be a Hycean exoplanet, one which has the potential to possess a hydrogen-rich atmosphere and a water ocean-covered surface.
The first insight into the atmospheric properties of this habitable-zone exoplanet came from observations with NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, which prompted further studies that have since changed our understanding of the system.
K2-18 b orbits the cool dwarf star K2-18 in the habitable zone and lies 120 light-years from Earth in the constellation Leo. Exoplanets such as K2-18 b, which have sizes between those of Earth and Neptune, are unlike anything in our solar system. This lack of equivalent nearby planets means that these ‘sub-Neptunes’ are poorly understood, and the nature of their atmospheres is a matter of active debate among astronomers.
The suggestion that the sub-Neptune K2-18 b could be a Hycean exoplanet is intriguing, as some astronomers believe that these worlds are promising environments to search for evidence for life on exoplanets.
"Our findings underscore the importance of considering diverse habitable environments in the search for life elsewhere," explained Nikku Madhusudhan, an astronomer at the University of Cambridge and lead author of the paper announcing these results. "Traditionally, the search for life on exoplanets has focused primarily on smaller rocky planets, but the larger Hycean worlds are significantly more conducive to atmospheric observations."
The abundance of methane and carbon dioxide, and shortage of ammonia, support the hypothesis that there may be a water ocean underneath a hydrogen-rich atmosphere in K2-18 b. These initial Webb observations also provided a possible detection of a molecule called dimethyl sulfide (DMS). On Earth, this is only produced by life. The bulk of the DMS in Earth’s atmosphere is emitted from phytoplankton in marine environments.
The inference of DMS is less robust and requires further validation. “Upcoming Webb observations should be able to confirm if DMS is indeed present in the atmosphere of K2-18 b at significant levels,” explained Madhusudhan.
While K2-18 b lies in the habitable zone, and is now known to harbor carbon-bearing molecules, this does not necessarily mean that the planet can support life. The planet's large size — with a radius 2.6 times the radius of Earth — means that the planet’s interior likely contains a large mantle of high-pressure ice, like Neptune, but with a thinner hydrogen-rich atmosphere and an ocean surface. Hycean worlds are predicted to have oceans of water. However, it is also possible that the ocean is too hot to be habitable or be liquid.
"Although this kind of planet does not exist in our solar system, sub-Neptunes are the most common type of planet known so far in the galaxy," explained team member Subhajit Sarkar of Cardiff University. “We have obtained the most detailed spectrum of a habitable-zone sub-Neptune to date, and this allowed us to work out the molecules that exist in its atmosphere.”
Characterizing the atmospheres of exoplanets like K2-18 b — meaning identifying their gases and physical conditions — is a very active area in astronomy. However, these planets are outshone — literally — by the glare of their much larger parent stars, which makes exploring exoplanet atmospheres particularly challenging.
The team sidestepped this challenge by analyzing light from K2-18 b's parent star as it passed through the exoplanet's atmosphere. K2-18 b is a transiting exoplanet, meaning that we can detect a drop in brightness as it passes across the face of its host star. This is how the exoplanet was first discovered in 2015 with NASA’s K2 mission. This means that during transits a tiny fraction of starlight will pass through the exoplanet's atmosphere before reaching telescopes like Webb. The starlight's passage through the exoplanet atmosphere leaves traces that astronomers can piece together to determine the gases of the exoplanet's atmosphere.
"This result was only possible because of the extended wavelength range and unprecedented sensitivity of Webb, which enabled robust detection of spectral features with just two transits," said Madhusudhan. "For comparison, one transit observation with Webb provided comparable precision to eight observations with Hubble conducted over a few years and in a relatively narrow wavelength range."
"These results are the product of just two observations of K2-18 b, with many more on the way,” explained team member Savvas Constantinou of the University of Cambridge. “This means our work here is but an early demonstration of what Webb can observe in habitable-zone exoplanets.”
The team’s results were accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.
The team now intends to conduct follow-up research with the telescope's MIRI (Mid-Infrared Instrument) spectrograph that they hope will further validate their findings and provide new insights into the environmental conditions on K2-18 b.
"Our ultimate goal is the identification of life on a habitable exoplanet, which would transform our understanding of our place in the universe," concluded Madhusudhan. "Our findings are a promising step towards a deeper understanding of Hycean worlds in this quest."
On September 12 2023 11:23 KwarK wrote: Surely a big heavy planet implies small life, not big life. You don't get bigger to deal with high gravity, you get smaller.
First of size /= mass. Mass is the most deciding factor for gravity.
For lifeforms, I can see both happening. Lifeforms on earth got smaller over the millions of years despite gravity not changing significantly. It could be insectlike lifeforms or huge amoebious krakenlike lifeforms. Since date suggests it is mainly water'ish surface I would imagine the latter. Those lifeforms on earth can take huge amounts of deep sea pressure. I'm just talking out my ass so if anyone has a real scientific explanation for either I would love to read it
On September 12 2023 11:23 KwarK wrote: Surely a big heavy planet implies small life, not big life. You don't get bigger to deal with high gravity, you get smaller.
For life to occur you need way, way more factors than just a hospitable planet.
Miller and Urey injected ammonia, methane and water vapor into an enclosed glass container to simulate what were then believed to be the conditions of Earth’s early atmosphere. Then they passed electrical sparks through the container to simulate lightning. Amino acids, the building blocks of proteins, soon formed. Miller and Urey realized that this process could have paved the way for the molecules needed to produce life.
Scientists now believe that Earth’s early atmosphere had a different chemical makeup from Miller and Urey’s recipe. Even so, the experiment gave rise to a new scientific field called prebiotic or abiotic chemistry, the chemistry that preceded the origin of life. This is the opposite of biogenesis, the idea that only a living organism can beget another living organism.
Some scientists think that some of the molecules important to life may be produced outside the Earth. Instead, they suggest that these ingredients came from meteorites or comets.
Would definitely be nice to find some other lifeforms but alas humans can't into space so those discoveries have little value for us for the forseeable future.
On September 12 2023 21:39 Manit0u wrote: Would definitely be nice to find some other lifeforms but alas humans can't into space so those discoveries have little value for us for the forseeable future.
As soon as the energy problem is solved, I expect huge leaps in all kinds of technology. Imagine rockets/ starships with a fusionreactor on board. Then we only need to convert that energy into forward momentum in space somehow and it would open the possibilty of insane travelling speed
On September 12 2023 21:39 Manit0u wrote: Would definitely be nice to find some other lifeforms but alas humans can't into space so those discoveries have little value for us for the forseeable future.
As soon as the energy problem is solved, I expect huge leaps in all kinds of technology. Imagine rockets/ starships with a fusionreactor on board. Then we only need to convert that energy into forward momentum in space somehow and it would open the possibilty of insane travelling speed
There are more problems than just energy. Trips to other planet take a very long time (some may take generations) and you need food, water and oxygen for that. Not to mention spare parts and ability to repair stuff as it wears/breaks down on the ship.
When it comes to the fuel I think we'd need a good and reliable way of extracting hydrogen from various sources and using it, since it's the most common element in the universe and we can't rely on stuff that's on Earth but might not be found elsewhere. Or maybe if the dark matter drives are a success, not sure.
Then there's the matter of potential terraforming because it's been proven that living in some enclosed colony hub is impossible for humans for long periods of time (and if we could terraform other planets we could just as well terraform Earth to suit our needs and no longer need to leave it). Humans can't even stand being locked up in a research station on Earth for a few months without developing serious issues, can't expect them to live years in a station that's surrounded by more inhospitable environment.
Right now we need to advance a lot of technologies to even begin thinking about moving away from Earth.
On September 12 2023 21:39 Manit0u wrote: Would definitely be nice to find some other lifeforms but alas humans can't into space so those discoveries have little value for us for the forseeable future.
As soon as the energy problem is solved, I expect huge leaps in all kinds of technology. Imagine rockets/ starships with a fusionreactor on board. Then we only need to convert that energy into forward momentum in space somehow and it would open the possibilty of insane travelling speed
While that would solve a major issue you’re still going to find that a vessel containing humans will require:
A. Gradual acceleration: people cannot handle even 2-3G for a prolonged period of time, and they can’t really handle 0G for a prolonged period of time either (your eyes will fall apart after a few years) so you’re going to be limited in that sense.
B. Space is very dangerous for people in terms of radiation exposure. There are stories of astronauts who spent time on the ISS who when they returned had 3-6% of their white blood cells with substantial cell mutations (precursor to cancer). And the ISS gets the benefit of Earths magnetic field, it just doesn’t get the added benefit of atmosphere - a ship without either is going to expose its astronauts to a gigantic amount of radiation.
C. From what we have seen in Fusion research the adage “bigger is better” has been pretty consistent and that is going to run into massive problems given we want this thing in space.
D. Space is very big. Even with a ship moving at 10% of the speed of light (on avg. over the trip duration) it will take 40 years to get to the closest star. That means a ship that leaves with people who are 30 years old are not going to arrive at the star until they are 70.
On September 12 2023 21:39 Manit0u wrote: Would definitely be nice to find some other lifeforms but alas humans can't into space so those discoveries have little value for us for the forseeable future.
As soon as the energy problem is solved, I expect huge leaps in all kinds of technology. Imagine rockets/ starships with a fusionreactor on board. Then we only need to convert that energy into forward momentum in space somehow and it would open the possibilty of insane travelling speed
While that would solve a major issue you’re still going to find that a vessel containing humans will require:
A. Gradual acceleration: people cannot handle even 2-3G for a prolonged period of time, and they can’t really handle 0G for a prolonged period of time either (your eyes will fall apart after a few years) so you’re going to be limited in that sense.
B. Space is very dangerous for people in terms of radiation exposure. There are stories of astronauts who spent time on the ISS who when they returned had 3-6% of their white blood cells with substantial cell mutations (precursor to cancer). And the ISS gets the benefit of Earths magnetic field, it just doesn’t get the added benefit of atmosphere - a ship without either is going to expose its astronauts to a gigantic amount of radiation.
C. From what we have seen in Fusion research the adage “bigger is better” has been pretty consistent and that is going to run into massive problems given we want this thing in space.
D. Space is very big. Even with a ship moving at 10% of the speed of light (on avg. over the trip duration) it will take 40 years to get to the closest star. That means a ship that leaves with people who are 30 years old are not going to arrive at the star until they are 70.
A. When you have no gravity and no weight, does that even matter? Did not know that about 0 G. Can this solved by having a pressured space suit? Keeping your eyes where they belong ^^'
B. Most definitely does a long range space ship need some kind of protection against radiation. Very good point
C. I do kinda expect a long range spaceship to be gigantic with a crew 100+ people just for the people on board not becoming insane because of isolation issues. If this can be constructed on earth or in some kind of space port needs to be seen.
D. Absolutely. Don't have anything to add to that right now.
On September 12 2023 21:39 Manit0u wrote: Would definitely be nice to find some other lifeforms but alas humans can't into space so those discoveries have little value for us for the forseeable future.
As soon as the energy problem is solved, I expect huge leaps in all kinds of technology. Imagine rockets/ starships with a fusionreactor on board. Then we only need to convert that energy into forward momentum in space somehow and it would open the possibilty of insane travelling speed
While that would solve a major issue you’re still going to find that a vessel containing humans will require:
A. Gradual acceleration: people cannot handle even 2-3G for a prolonged period of time, and they can’t really handle 0G for a prolonged period of time either (your eyes will fall apart after a few years) so you’re going to be limited in that sense.
B. Space is very dangerous for people in terms of radiation exposure. There are stories of astronauts who spent time on the ISS who when they returned had 3-6% of their white blood cells with substantial cell mutations (precursor to cancer). And the ISS gets the benefit of Earths magnetic field, it just doesn’t get the added benefit of atmosphere - a ship without either is going to expose its astronauts to a gigantic amount of radiation.
C. From what we have seen in Fusion research the adage “bigger is better” has been pretty consistent and that is going to run into massive problems given we want this thing in space.
D. Space is very big. Even with a ship moving at 10% of the speed of light (on avg. over the trip duration) it will take 40 years to get to the closest star. That means a ship that leaves with people who are 30 years old are not going to arrive at the star until they are 70.
A. When you have no gravity and no weight, does that even matter? Did not know that about 0 G. Can this solved by having a pressured space suit? Keeping your eyes where they belong ^^'
B. Most definitely does a long range space ship need some kind of protection against radiation. Very good point
C. I do kinda expect a long range spaceship to be gigantic with a crew 100+ people just for the people on board not becoming insane because of isolation issues. If this can be constructed on earth or in some kind of space port needs to be seen.
D. Absolutely. Don't have anything to add to that right now.
A. Yeah I just meant in terms of the propulsion system. It can’t be something that behaves even remotely like a chemical rocket as that sort of acceleration will not be tolerable for hours, let alone days. Our fusion propulsion needs to be able to output 1G of acceleration for what is essentially the entire duration of our trip.
Pressure suits are a definite no go. Not only are you asking very smart, very capable people to leave their families, friends, loved ones, oxygenated atmosphere and planet for a several decade long journey to a place that is likely a gravity well of hydrogen and helium surrounded by lifeless rock… You’re now asking them to do all of that while also having to wear hazmat suits at all times? So they also have to accept zero human intimacy or touch all while spending several decades in what could be best described as an iron maiden sans spikes and with a looking glass? I don’t think I can ever imagine that happening.
B. And remember you’re looking at ~10,000 kg/m^2 of atmosphere of protection here on Earth plus a gigantic magnetic field being spurred by (making this number up) several million-trillion kg of molten iron. You also have to consider that your shielding must still allow some sunlight to reach the astronauts to generate vitamin D.
C. I mean due to the simple nature of orbital mechanics you’re going to essentially have to make the thing in orbit as launching it all at once would require a ridiculously powerful engine that would be several times more powerful that you would likely need it to be - or a magical one.
I think we can both agree it’s very neat to think about, however I won’t deny that I’m extremely pessimistic that humanity will ever become a “star-fairing” species. A species that is “star-fairing” in terms of robotic exploration? I think that is an inevitability of human progress, assuming we don’t kill ourselves or our planet first. A species that is “star-fairing” in terms of human beings travelling to a single other star? Extremely unlikely outside of perhaps our very closest neighbours in the far, far future. And even then I don’t understand the “point” of it.
On September 12 2023 21:39 Manit0u wrote: Would definitely be nice to find some other lifeforms but alas humans can't into space so those discoveries have little value for us for the forseeable future.
As soon as the energy problem is solved, I expect huge leaps in all kinds of technology. Imagine rockets/ starships with a fusionreactor on board. Then we only need to convert that energy into forward momentum in space somehow and it would open the possibilty of insane travelling speed
While that would solve a major issue you’re still going to find that a vessel containing humans will require:
A. Gradual acceleration: people cannot handle even 2-3G for a prolonged period of time, and they can’t really handle 0G for a prolonged period of time either (your eyes will fall apart after a few years) so you’re going to be limited in that sense.
B. Space is very dangerous for people in terms of radiation exposure. There are stories of astronauts who spent time on the ISS who when they returned had 3-6% of their white blood cells with substantial cell mutations (precursor to cancer). And the ISS gets the benefit of Earths magnetic field, it just doesn’t get the added benefit of atmosphere - a ship without either is going to expose its astronauts to a gigantic amount of radiation.
C. From what we have seen in Fusion research the adage “bigger is better” has been pretty consistent and that is going to run into massive problems given we want this thing in space.
D. Space is very big. Even with a ship moving at 10% of the speed of light (on avg. over the trip duration) it will take 40 years to get to the closest star. That means a ship that leaves with people who are 30 years old are not going to arrive at the star until they are 70.
A. When you have no gravity and no weight, does that even matter? Did not know that about 0 G. Can this solved by having a pressured space suit? Keeping your eyes where they belong ^^'
B. Most definitely does a long range space ship need some kind of protection against radiation. Very good point
C. I do kinda expect a long range spaceship to be gigantic with a crew 100+ people just for the people on board not becoming insane because of isolation issues. If this can be constructed on earth or in some kind of space port needs to be seen.
D. Absolutely. Don't have anything to add to that right now.
A. Yeah I just meant in terms of the propulsion system. It can’t be something that behaves even remotely like a chemical rocket as that sort of acceleration will not be tolerable for hours, let alone days. Our fusion propulsion needs to be able to output 1G of acceleration for what is essentially the entire duration of our trip.
Pressure suits are a definite no go. Not only are you asking very smart, very capable people to leave their families, friends, loved ones, oxygenated atmosphere and planet for a several decade long journey to a place that is likely a gravity well of hydrogen and helium surrounded by lifeless rock… You’re now asking them to do all of that while also having to wear hazmat suits at all times? So they also have to accept zero human intimacy or touch all while spending several decades in what could be best described as an iron maiden sans spikes and with a looking glass? I don’t think I can ever imagine that happening.
B. And remember you’re looking at ~10,000 kg/m^2 of atmosphere of protection here on Earth plus a gigantic magnetic field being spurred by (making this number up) several million-trillion kg of molten iron. You also have to consider that your shielding must still allow some sunlight to reach the astronauts to generate vitamin D.
C. I mean due to the simple nature of orbital mechanics you’re going to essentially have to make the thing in orbit as launching it all at once would require a ridiculously powerful engine that would be several times more powerful that you would likely need it to be - or a magical one.
I think we can both agree it’s very neat to think about, however I won’t deny that I’m extremely pessimistic that humanity will ever become a “star-fairing” species. A species that is “star-fairing” in terms of robotic exploration? I think that is an inevitability of human progress, assuming we don’t kill ourselves or our planet first. A species that is “star-fairing” in terms of human beings travelling to a single other star? Extremely unlikely outside of perhaps our very closest neighbours in the far, far future. And even then I don’t understand the “point” of it.
A. Good point, so maybe not space suits but increased cabin pressure. So as you rightly point out, that is one of the smaller problems that I have no doubt will be solved.
B. I don't think Vit D is a problem. You can supplement that artificially already. So basically your ship hull has to have a lead isolation layer or something like that with very few windows to keep radiation at a minimum. It's the only thing I can come up with right now. Maybe smarter people have smarter ideas
C. No not really. You can launch from earth without having the (big) engine on board but planetside actually. I'm thinking like magnetic levitation train just bigger, faster and with upward trajectory. You could also start the lauch horizontally and then curve upwards. Give the space ship engine at least a running start.
Yeah I'm not thinking we'll be living in space in the next 100 years. Just theorizing what are the next steps and what are the big problems that need solving. I mean if we can build Elon's habitable (for scientists. Not gen pop obviously) Mars station in my lifetime, that would be something already
The first step would be making a colony on Luna or Mars, then probably on one of the moons of Jupiter/Saturn/Neptun. Once we do that, we will know a lot more about survival in space and long travels and we can start thinking about interstellar jurney..
On September 21 2023 18:04 Silvanel wrote: The first step would be making a colony on Luna or Mars, then probably on one of the moons of Jupiter/Saturn/Neptun. Once we do that, we will know a lot more about survival in space and long travels and we can start thinking about interstellar jurney..
They are also where we would build the ships if we do generational ones. Unless we get an orbital elevator going the gravity well of Earth makes things very expensive.
Seed ships probably makes the most sense. Robot ship that builds a colony and then fertilizes frozen eggs once it is ready. Doesn't matter if it takes 50 years to build upon arrival.
Generation ships makes sense once you hit massive scales. Where you have spin gravity at the outer edges to make it decent for humans. With large algae pools to protect the humans from radiation. Thus you don't need to accelerate for any large fraction of the journey. You join the journey and your grand-kids are the colonizers.
I honestly think it would be easy to get volunteers, just offer food and housing for a clan near starvation currently. Or just ask for volunteers and you will get flooded by people willing to go on a one-way trip, easily in the hundreds of thousands. Just need to offer living conditions such as some private time, food, water and electronic entertainment guaranteed. Just promising a 10-20 hour work week would be very attractive.
On September 21 2023 18:04 Silvanel wrote: The first step would be making a colony on Luna or Mars, then probably on one of the moons of Jupiter/Saturn/Neptun. Once we do that, we will know a lot more about survival in space and long travels and we can start thinking about interstellar jurney..
The thing is, we can't really do even that. As is people have a hard time doing a few months in a research facility in the Arctic, which is infinitely more hospitable than either Moon or Mars. After a few months there they typically need psychiatric help, develop alcoholism etc. Just imagine what would happen to humans having to live in a habitat surrounded by instant death. In the Arctic you can at least go outside, breathe some air and such.
On September 12 2023 21:39 Manit0u wrote: Would definitely be nice to find some other lifeforms but alas humans can't into space so those discoveries have little value for us for the forseeable future.
As soon as the energy problem is solved, I expect huge leaps in all kinds of technology. Imagine rockets/ starships with a fusionreactor on board. Then we only need to convert that energy into forward momentum in space somehow and it would open the possibilty of insane travelling speed
While that would solve a major issue you’re still going to find that a vessel containing humans will require:
A. Gradual acceleration: people cannot handle even 2-3G for a prolonged period of time, and they can’t really handle 0G for a prolonged period of time either (your eyes will fall apart after a few years) so you’re going to be limited in that sense.
B. Space is very dangerous for people in terms of radiation exposure. There are stories of astronauts who spent time on the ISS who when they returned had 3-6% of their white blood cells with substantial cell mutations (precursor to cancer). And the ISS gets the benefit of Earths magnetic field, it just doesn’t get the added benefit of atmosphere - a ship without either is going to expose its astronauts to a gigantic amount of radiation.
C. From what we have seen in Fusion research the adage “bigger is better” has been pretty consistent and that is going to run into massive problems given we want this thing in space.
D. Space is very big. Even with a ship moving at 10% of the speed of light (on avg. over the trip duration) it will take 40 years to get to the closest star. That means a ship that leaves with people who are 30 years old are not going to arrive at the star until they are 70.
A. When you have no gravity and no weight, does that even matter? Did not know that about 0 G. Can this solved by having a pressured space suit? Keeping your eyes where they belong ^^'
B. Most definitely does a long range space ship need some kind of protection against radiation. Very good point
C. I do kinda expect a long range spaceship to be gigantic with a crew 100+ people just for the people on board not becoming insane because of isolation issues. If this can be constructed on earth or in some kind of space port needs to be seen.
D. Absolutely. Don't have anything to add to that right now.
A. Yeah I just meant in terms of the propulsion system. It can’t be something that behaves even remotely like a chemical rocket as that sort of acceleration will not be tolerable for hours, let alone days. Our fusion propulsion needs to be able to output 1G of acceleration for what is essentially the entire duration of our trip.
Pressure suits are a definite no go. Not only are you asking very smart, very capable people to leave their families, friends, loved ones, oxygenated atmosphere and planet for a several decade long journey to a place that is likely a gravity well of hydrogen and helium surrounded by lifeless rock… You’re now asking them to do all of that while also having to wear hazmat suits at all times? So they also have to accept zero human intimacy or touch all while spending several decades in what could be best described as an iron maiden sans spikes and with a looking glass? I don’t think I can ever imagine that happening.
B. And remember you’re looking at ~10,000 kg/m^2 of atmosphere of protection here on Earth plus a gigantic magnetic field being spurred by (making this number up) several million-trillion kg of molten iron. You also have to consider that your shielding must still allow some sunlight to reach the astronauts to generate vitamin D.
C. I mean due to the simple nature of orbital mechanics you’re going to essentially have to make the thing in orbit as launching it all at once would require a ridiculously powerful engine that would be several times more powerful that you would likely need it to be - or a magical one.
I think we can both agree it’s very neat to think about, however I won’t deny that I’m extremely pessimistic that humanity will ever become a “star-fairing” species. A species that is “star-fairing” in terms of robotic exploration? I think that is an inevitability of human progress, assuming we don’t kill ourselves or our planet first. A species that is “star-fairing” in terms of human beings travelling to a single other star? Extremely unlikely outside of perhaps our very closest neighbours in the far, far future. And even then I don’t understand the “point” of it.
A. Good point, so maybe not space suits but increased cabin pressure. So as you rightly point out, that is one of the smaller problems that I have no doubt will be solved.
B. I don't think Vit D is a problem. You can supplement that artificially already. So basically your ship hull has to have a lead isolation layer or something like that with very few windows to keep radiation at a minimum. It's the only thing I can come up with right now. Maybe smarter people have smarter ideas
C. No not really. You can launch from earth without having the (big) engine on board but planetside actually. I'm thinking like magnetic levitation train just bigger, faster and with upward trajectory. You could also start the lauch horizontally and then curve upwards. Give the space ship engine at least a running start.
Yeah I'm not thinking we'll be living in space in the next 100 years. Just theorizing what are the next steps and what are the big problems that need solving. I mean if we can build Elon's habitable (for scientists. Not gen pop obviously) Mars station in my lifetime, that would be something already
A. Increased cabin pressure doesn’t do anything.
B. The problem is that a long journey will inevitably result in the ship being hit by high energy cosmic particles and being hit by radiation from solar storms etc…
C. That’s very wishful thinking. You’re talking about a jump in material science magnitude that’s greater than the jump from the wooden wheel to a modern jet engine.
You absolutely cannot start the launch horizontally. The pressure on the vehicle from the air is directly proportional to the density of the air and the square of the speed of the vehicle. I don’t want to start a math lesson but I promise you can rest assured that you would rip the vehicle apart by trying to launch it horizontally.
Yeah I don’t think we ever move past being a solar system fairing species. Not in 100 years, not in 10000 years. The physics of the problem are totally insurmountable at a certain point and the biology of human beings would need to be entirely resolved to the point of absolute immortality for human beings to ever meaningfully leave our solar system.
And yeah I’m not very confident in Elon’s ability to do that. I obviously hope I’m wrong, but I just don’t believe SpaceX is even remotely prepared to address the biological and chemistry issues that will occur by trying to live on Mars.
On September 21 2023 18:04 Silvanel wrote: The first step would be making a colony on Luna or Mars, then probably on one of the moons of Jupiter/Saturn/Neptun. Once we do that, we will know a lot more about survival in space and long travels and we can start thinking about interstellar jurney..
They are also where we would build the ships if we do generational ones. Unless we get an orbital elevator going the gravity well of Earth makes things very expensive.
Seed ships probably makes the most sense. Robot ship that builds a colony and then fertilizes frozen eggs once it is ready. Doesn't matter if it takes 50 years to build upon arrival.
Generation ships makes sense once you hit massive scales. Where you have spin gravity at the outer edges to make it decent for humans. With large algae pools to protect the humans from radiation. Thus you don't need to accelerate for any large fraction of the journey. You join the journey and your grand-kids are the colonizers.
I honestly think it would be easy to get volunteers, just offer food and housing for a clan near starvation currently. Or just ask for volunteers and you will get flooded by people willing to go on a one-way trip, easily in the hundreds of thousands. Just need to offer living conditions such as some private time, food, water and electronic entertainment guaranteed. Just promising a 10-20 hour work week would be very attractive.
Generation ships makes sense once you hit massive scales. Where you have spin gravity at the outer edges to make it decent for humans. With large algae pools to protect the humans from radiation. Thus you don't need to accelerate for any large fraction of the journey. You join the journey and your grand-kids are the colonizers.
I honestly think it would be easy to get volunteers, just offer food and housing for a clan near starvation currently. Or just ask for volunteers and you will get flooded by people willing to go on a one-way trip, easily in the hundreds of thousands. Just need to offer living conditions such as some private time, food, water and electronic entertainment guaranteed. Just promising a 10-20 hour work week would be very attractive.
I have to wonder how horrific it would have to be on Earth for people to willingly accept having their entire lives and the entire lives of their children and grandchildren spent inside a submarine moving through the almost infinite void. The idea that you could convince people to do that right now seems impossible to me. I know you’re suggesting impoverished people but do you really believe they would all agree to be locked into to a lifelong government experiment where they are entirely powerless the second it begins and have no ability to end the experiment even if the terms are not upheld?
I think when you get into what it would take to properly inform people of the risks and the actual nature of what it entails you wouldn’t find many healthy/stable people who would still be willing to sign up for it.
it is 100% clear humanity (as in the humans themselves) can never do real space travel (let alone intergalactical travel)
either it will be 100% (non biological) machines with which we can travel through the galaxies or if we somehow manage to do it including human entities the word human no longer would make any sense because in order to do this.. the human body would have to be augmented so much that calling it a human wouldnt make any sense at all anymore..
It might be possible one day to store human consciousness permanently, then send it to a habitable exoplanet of our choice and simply 3D print human bodies for the colonizers once the destination is reached. It's not as dangerous as interstellar travel near light speed and a much simpler solution to spread the "human virus" across the milky way and beyond.
Depends on how far advanced medical technology would be in terms compared to that of an artificial one. Imagine being in a damaged artificial one compared to a biological one. The biological one could easily be brought back, artificial perhaps not, at least not the same as before.
yeah I think we might not be that far away to store human consciousness permanently.. if things go extremely well on earth (no big wars, no metorite impacts, no insane pandemics) I reckon we might get there in 30-40 years.. maybe even sooner..
I doubt it Xeofreestyler..
As long as you can replicate anything biological good enough there is no reason I can think of.. like "having the real thing" is only an issue as long as u can discriminate the real thing from the artifical thing..
I assume if humanity survives there will be no way to tell the difference..
Man you guys are hopeful… It’s great to see, although I think you’re far too optimistic vis-a-via storing conscience (magic-phil) or fabricating human bodies that are then implanted with consciousness (thepungun).
I don’t see how body fabrication would ever work. We’re not able to synthetically fabricate even the most basic of living organisms even in the very best conditions here on Earth. We would literally need to recreate abiogenesis (I think impossible) and then engineer the entire package somehow (I almost know to be impossible). We’re still pretty far away from being able to conclusively know the 3-D structure of some proteins which are extremely critical to the basic functions of life.
Copying human consciousness doesn’t seem likely, although I suppose that it’s more of a philosophical question than a scientific one at some point. I think it’s hard to define when exactly a human even begins to be conscious and at which point they fail to be conscious - is a baby that left the womb 30 minutes ago conscious? how about someone who has been in a persistent vegetative state for over 15 years?
Even answering those questions I think another aspect becomes how much of consciousness stems from physical existence. Can you still be a ‘conscious human being’ if you lack the biology to create non-predictive amounts of certain chemicals in response to something such as pleasurable stimuli? If all of us can hear a compliment, or a song, or read a novel that provides us with some sense of ‘pleasure’ that will be entirely variable between every single individual whom has ever lived can you truly be conscious without it?
It’s hard to even say whether ‘human consciousness’ without biology is even ‘consciousness’ at all. I don’t believe that it would be, instead it would just be an approximation of human consciousness devoid of the innate, a priori bio-chemical existence of all humans.
I think you could probably manage (at some point not in my lifetime) to take a snapshot of the neural connections of a persons brain and then use computation to fairly accurately approximate what is happening electrically. I don’t think it’s possible to manage the entirely unique and unpredictable biochemical inputs that result in the entirely, fundamentally unique constant development of the natural human brain.
Last year, it was discovered K2-18b has a 'presence of carbon-bearing molecules including methane and carbon dioxide' - NASA revealed.
The discovery built on top of previous findings which suggested the planet could be a 'Hycean exoplanet' which is 'one which has the potential to possess a hydrogen-rich atmosphere and a water ocean-covered surface'.
"These initial Webb observations also provided a possible detection of a molecule called dimethyl sulfide (DMS)," NASA added.
But does this actually mean there's life on the planet?
Well, NASA explains: "The abundance of methane and carbon dioxide, and shortage of ammonia, support the hypothesis that there may be a water ocean underneath a hydrogen-rich atmosphere in K2-18 b.
"These initial Webb observations also provided a possible detection of a molecule called dimethyl sulfide (DMS). On Earth, this is only produced by life. The bulk of the DMS in Earth’s atmosphere is emitted from phytoplankton in marine environments."
However, NASA also notes the planet's large size could indicate it isn't habitable to life forms as the planet's 'interior likely contains a large mantle of high-pressure ice' or it's possible its ocean is 'too hot to be habitable or liquid'.
EPT![[image loading]](http://i.space.com/images/i/12043/original/super-earth-hd-85512-alien-planet-2.jpg?1315839262)
![[image loading]](http://i.space.com/images/i/12044/original/super-earth-hd-85512-alien-planet-3.jpg?1315839437)
![[image loading]](http://fc03.deviantart.net/fs70/f/2011/119/a/9/little_zergling_by_jkpopfever-d3f7mh1.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://fc01.deviantart.net/fs70/i/2011/080/5/e/teeny_tiny_zergling_by_lyseebell-d3c5w91.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://fc06.deviantart.net/fs70/i/2011/132/e/6/starcraft_2_zergling_chibi_by_mubblegum-d3g6yds.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://h2.abload.de/img/planetenyan.gif)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/g8PBI.jpg)
. (just a guess i am to lazy to calculate that now ^^; )
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/vFox7.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://www.wired.com/images_blogs/wiredscience/2011/12/kepler22-b.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://blogs.babycenter.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/NASA-discovers-earth-twin-planet-Kepler-22-b_dadler_parenting-parallel-universe-291x200.gif)
![[image loading]](http://images.spaceref.com/news/2011/ooPlanetLineup_4x3_ful.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/ifOjh.png)
![[image loading]](http://i.space.com/images/i/000/011/377/i02/mars-water-signs-newton-crater-gullies-110804.jpg?1312483871)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/UXCRaEV.png)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/DRNW2lq.png)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/hS45NBe.png)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/Vgl4M5t.png)
![[image loading]](http://cdn4.sci-news.com/images/2014/06/image_2029_4-GJ-832c.jpg)
![[image loading]](https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/styles/full_width/public/thumbnails/image/stsci-01h9rf3tqe6xa9x01kxxj351z6.png?itok=QoTxq7zg)
