Topic: Earth like planet discovered! zomgs!

[Pugnate]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-11444022

[Xessive]

Amazing! I hope they'll have more details soon.

Now we can start fantasizing about populating a new world

[K-man]

Hope they're not housing covenant.

[idolminds]

The idea of a planet that rotates like our moon, so one side always faces the sun, is awesome. Life living on the "rim", evolving to fit the stable environment.

I'll pack my bags.

[Cobra951]

Too bad you can't wait long enough for Earth to get there.  It will, unless something destroys it first.

I wonder how they can know all this from 10 light-years away.  We're looking 10 years into the past too.

[Ghandi]

I wonder how they can know all this from 10 light-years away.  We're looking 10 years into the past too.

I get how they can measure mass and distance by how the light bends around the gravity of the sun, but I have no idea how they guessed the surface temperature. Wouldn't that depend on more than just the size of the sun and the planets distance from it?

[sirean_syan]

It's probably a ballpark figure, but I imagine that's all you need to create life-sustaining temperatures (considering the extremes we've found organisms here).

With knowledge of the light output and mass of the planet's star we can get two things: a general age of that particular solar system and the amount of energy it's putting out. The age of the solar system would be important because we use it to venture a guess as to the amount of heat the interior of the planet it putting out since we know its relative mass. Because of the planet's position in the solar ring, we can also know if it's rocky or gaseous due to the position of the star. Mass and age would allow us to calculate some sort of internal temperatures it has remaining from the original formation and knowing that it's rocky means the outward flow of heat can be calculated as well. The amount of energy/light the star is putting out will tell us what sort of energy is being transferred to the surface of the planet in question since we have an idea of its orbital radius as well. By combining the two input temperatures and understanding how it's cooling on the dark side, temperatures at a given location on the planet can be calculated. From what I understand, most of these calculations are pretty straightforward for people in this field as the physics have been worked out to the point where we have equations that just require inputs of things like mass and age.

When I got my crash course in all this stuff I was surprised in how much you can do with so little information. Since you're dealing with such large scales a lot of generalizations can be made about the composition and conditions on entire planets.

[idolminds]

And then they break out the smelloscope...

[Pugnate]

One of the biggest problems right now with space travel is that the lack of gravity will turn our skeletons and muscles to jello, if we conduct lengthy travel. Right now, astronauts suffer significant bone and muscular loss etc.

The solution is to manufacture a ship that has the same gravity as we find on Earth. Of course, when we are so technologically advanced that we can travel the stars, I am sure we would have figured that part of it out as well.

[Cobra951]

Interstellar travel may as well be magic at this point in our development.  Ignoring that, one way to get 1 gravity (G) in a spacecraft is to accelerate continuously at 1 G until the midpoint in the trip, then turn the ship around and decelerate at 1 G for the rest of the way.  During such a long trip, speeds would get relativistic.  Light speed (C) cannot be exceeded, so acceleration would constantly decrease by applying constant thrust to an increasing mass.  (Mass increases greatly as it approaches C.)  But the passengers would feel like they are accelerating at 1 G, and in fact, there is no way for them to determine that they aren't.  As far as they can determine, they will be reaching speeds in excess of C.  This happens because time distorts as well, according to relativity.  Their time will slow down.

Real time to get there will be, oh, maybe centuries.  (I lack the specific knowledge to calculate this time, though I'm sure it's doable.  Plug the distance, acceleration, and deceleration into the right equations, and out pops the result.)  But the passengers won't age nearly that much.

[Pugnate]

Centuries we have!

I like your first statement. It might as well be magic at this point.

[Xessive]

And then they break out the smelloscope...

Someday.. someday.

[iPPi]

Cool.

Baby steps.  We need to take small baby steps into space travel before we can even think about going to a place like that.

[W7RE]

What about the spinning space stations seen in some movies? Is that a realistic way of producing artificial gravity, or just shit they thought up for movies?

Also, the idea of a planet that has no day/night cycle is really interesting. The idea that it's hot on one side, cold on the other, and just right in the middle is great. That would make for a really unique setting for a game/movie.

[shock]

Interstellar travel may as well be magic at this point in our development.  Ignoring that, one way to get 1 gravity (G) in a spacecraft is to accelerate continuously at 1 G until the midpoint in the trip, then turn the ship around and decelerate at 1 G for the rest of the way.  During such a long trip, speeds would get relativistic.  Light speed (C) cannot be exceeded, so acceleration would constantly decrease by applying constant thrust to an increasing mass.  (Mass increases greatly as it approaches C.)  But the passengers would feel like they are accelerating at 1 G, and in fact, there is no way for them to determine that they aren't.  As far as they can determine, they will be reaching speeds in excess of C.  This happens because time distorts as well, according to relativity.  Their time will slow down.

Real time to get there will be, oh, maybe centuries.  (I lack the specific knowledge to calculate this time, though I'm sure it's doable.  Plug the distance, acceleration, and deceleration into the right equations, and out pops the result.)  But the passengers won't age nearly that much.

This.  I think the effects of space on the human body are a "relatively" easy fix, I think.

The way mass increases as you approach the speed of light makes it theoretically impossible to ever reach that speed with anything that has mass (read: spacecraft).  And even reaching that speed won't get us far in the universe.  20 light years is a LONG way, and I'm sure this place is really cool, but I want to go further.  To another galaxy.  But physics as we know and understand it says this isn't feasible.

It's just such a shame that we can see things we probably won't ever be able to reach.  And not just "we" as in our generation.  I don't think it will ever be realistic to travel light years in anything shorter than.. nearly a light year.  But we shall see.

[Cobra951]

What about the spinning space stations seen in some movies? Is that a realistic way of producing artificial gravity, or just shit they thought up for movies?

Yes, it would work, but my understanding is that the spinning ring people inhabit would have to be huge because otherwise the gravity-like effect from centripetal acceleration would vary too much between your head and your feet, making you feel ill constantly.  If this way of thinking is correct, you'd be hard pressed even to keep your balance.

This reminds me of Clarke's Rendezvous with Rama.  Interstellar travel at sub-light speed in a gargantuan spinning cylinder which is like an artificial world.  Love the book and the concept.

[angrykeebler]

why go to them when we can just be a lazy species and just send messages to them asking them to come to us?