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[dabig2]

I love Carl Sagan. So the photons of light that reach us from Andromeda are only 28 years old even though they took 2.5 million years to get here. Whoa.

Actually, that 28 years thing is only when you're accelerating and decelerating at 1g. Since photons are massless, they don't even experience time.

So technically from a photon's POV, the amount of time it took to reach us from Andromeda is instantaneous.

 

[LookAtMeGo]

Mind blown

 

[omnislayer]

This is fascinating! I feel that each year we get closer and closer to discovering life on a distant planet.

But then I remember that a lot of people will just refuse to believe it because it wasn't in some book written a few thousand years ago :/

 

[keuja]

I know I'm late to the party but HOLY FUCK
from NASA:

That's awesome. Imagine there is a civilisation there that manages to develop even limited space travel. They would have access to 3 inhabitable worlds and to maybe the resources of the 4 other ones.

 

[efyu_lemonardo]

That's awesome. Imagine there is a civilisation there that manages to develop even limited space travel. They would have access to 3 inhabitable worlds and to maybe the resources of the 4 other ones.

They could probably travel to neighboring planets with not much more than Apollo era tech. The distance is roughly 1.5 million km. Plus there would be a much stronger cultural incentive for such a civilization to develop the required tech as soon as possible.

 

[Kinan]

They could probably travel to neighboring planets with not much more than Apollo era tech. The distance is roughly 1.5 million km. Plus there would be a much stronger cultural incentive for such a civilization to develop the required tech as soon as possible.

Also those stars are way more long-living than our Sun, so there is a lot of time for live to develop.

Let us just celebrate this remarkable discovery.

Cheers:

 

[efyu_lemonardo]

Also those stars are way more long-living than our Sun, so there is a lot of time for live to develop.

Let us just celebrate this remarkable discovery.

Cheers:

Cheers indeed!
Did you watch the NASA Q&A? They made the exact same reference LOL

 

[fanboi]

Thanks all for your answers.

 

[Kinan]

Cheers indeed!
Did you watch the NASA Q&A? They made the exact same reference LOL

Ha, no I didn't. :=) Its a Karneval days here in Germany now, everyone is drinking beer, so it sets the mood, lol.

 

[fierrotlepou]

I know I'm late to the party but HOLY FUCK
from NASA:

That's awesome.

As beautiful as our Earth is, this would be way cooler.

 

[Steejee]

This is really damn cool. I already have a mental picture of that system being a major hub of humanity in a few thousand years, if we can get space flight to that point...

It's crazy to think of how when I was a kid the idea of discovering Exoplanets from Earth seemed far fetched, and now we're filling out our galactic neighborhood one star at a time, and finding planets by the bucketloads.

 

[efyu_lemonardo]

Ha, no I didn't. :=) Its a Karneval days here in Germany now, everyone is drinking beer, so it sets the mood, lol.

https://youtu.be/TB4acbZyFBw
Just after the 21 minute mark

Q: "Have you decided on [popular] names for the planets yet?"

A: "We have plenty of possibilities, all related to Belgian beers"

 

[Valdfellgar]

Hey... What's wrong with MASH?

? I didn't say there was anything wrong with MASH. Just that that was an example of a TV show they'd be watching.

 

[Bisnic]

That's awesome.

As beautiful as our Earth is, this would be way cooler.

Imagine seeing 2 planets the size of the moon(or even bigger) in the sky. And maybe even a 3rd or 4th planet, but smaller since they're further away. How cool would that be?

 

[Chiaroscuro]

https://youtu.be/TB4acbZyFBw
Just after the 21 minute mark

Q: "Have you decided on [popular] names for the planets yet?"

A: "We have plenty of possibilities, all related to Belgian beers"

Just think about in a few centuries, first contact, and then trying to explain why we call their home planet that....

 

[efyu_lemonardo]

Imagine seeing 2 planets the size of the moon(or even bigger) in the sky. And maybe even a 3rd or 4th planet, but smaller since they're further away. How cool would that be?

All (six other) planets would be easily visible from the surface of any one of the seven. The distances are ridiculously small.

 

[Kinan]

All (six other) planets would be easily visible from the surface of any one of the seven. The distances are ridiculously small.

And a year there is less than 10 days, so basically no real seasons? I'm sure people are building basic climate models for the planets as we speak.

 

[eso76]

As already mentioned, the faster you go the flatter the universe appears, so it wouldn't take you the full 40 years to get there even going less than the speed of light.

Apparently going close to the speed of light it'd take only 28 years to get to the Andromeda galaxy. Carl Sagan can explain it better than me.

But people on earth wouldn't know until after...uhmm... a lot longer than that, so unless you're on the spacecraft yourself, it doesn't really matter, does it ?

 

[fanboi]

And a year there is less than 10 days, so basically no real seasons? I'm sure people are building basic climate models for the planets as we speak.

They are tidal locked as well so one side is always dark and one is always sunny.

 

[efyu_lemonardo]

And a year there is less than 10 days, so basically no real seasons? I'm sure people are building basic climate models for the planets as we speak.

Planets are likely tidally locked to the star meaning they rotate around it and themselves at the same rate so that the same side is always facing it (just like our moon is tidally locked to the earth). This means no day/night cycle as well as no seasons. But since the planets are so close to each other relative to their size there are also a ton of gravitational interactions between them which complicate things considerably.

Edit: for example, years aren't consistently the same length.

 

[Kinan]

They are tidal locked as well so one side is always dark and one is always sunny.

 

[valkillmore]

I know I'm late to the party but HOLY FUCK
from NASA:

Fuck me that is amazing

 

[fierrotlepou]

All (six other) planets would be easily visible from the surface of any one of the seven. The distances are ridiculously small.

Wouldn't that be messed up if the planets had oceans? I imagine the gravitational pull must be astronomical.

 

[efyu_lemonardo]

That's awesome.

As beautiful as our Earth is, this would be way cooler.

It also means the environment is potentially way less suitable for complex life to develop as gravity on any of these planets would be seriously messed up and vary noticeably in the span of an earth day.

Wouldn't that be messed up if the planets had oceans? I imagine the gravitational pull must be astronomical.

Indeed.

 

[Raiden]

Just think about in a few centuries, first contact, and then trying to explain why we call their home planet that....

Damn i know we Belgian people love our beer but come on..

 

[Crispy75]

It also means the environment is potentially way less suitable for complex life to develop as gravity on any of these planets would be seriously messed up and vary noticeably in the span of an earth day.

Not so much that you'd be yanked around by a passing planet, but I imagine the tides would be very interesting!

 

[efyu_lemonardo]

Not so much that you'd be yanked around by a passing planet, but I imagine the tides would be very interesting!

Honestly I'd love to see some simulations of gravitational effects on the surface of these planets. For example there could be huge seismic effects.

Edit: doing some quick math: the moon's mass is roughly 1% that of the earth and it's roughly four times closer to us than these planets are to each other when they're at their closest. Assuming the planets are earth like that means whenever one transits by the other each would experience a pull that is about 100/4^2 = ~6 times the force between the earth and the moon. And whenever more than one planet transits that force could be even greater (or weaker) depending on the transit.

What's more these extreme changes would occur on an almost daily (as in 24 earth hours) basis.

 

[Kinan]

Life on tidal locked planets (PDF):

Life, if it manages to struggle along on such a planet, will be very hard or perhaps be underground. More likely a circular belt between the two sides - a sort of “twilight zone” - could be the place for life to evolve and flourish. In this dusk band around the planet, where star will be permanently hanging very low near the horizon or perhaps the stellar disc partially peeking above the horizon, with an ever-colourful red, yellow sky due to scattered light, the temperatures would be more moderate, right in between the hot and cold sides. However the heat on one side would cause the air to rise, creating a low pressure system, while the cold on the other side would cause the air to sink, creating a high pressure system. This would cause the planet to experience a constant and violent circulation of air, or, essentially a planet-wide hurricane. The constant air circulation would actually circulate the temperatures extensively and extremes in temperature would mitigate. Water cycles with huge rivers crossing from cold to hot side might make living there possible.

 

[Makai]

Planet Shocktop and its Blue Moon

 

[Aselith]

Planet Shocktop and its Blue Moon

Don't forget Budweiser, King of Planets

 

[Chiaroscuro]

Edit: for example, years aren't consistently the same length.

We found Westeros!

 

[efyu_lemonardo]

We found Westeros!

These planets would not have solar days, let alone seasons.

 

[liquidtmd]

We found Westeros!

The seasons would come in as a timely fashion as the Winds of Winter release date

Spoiler

It's never happening

 

[Chiaroscuro]

I know, I just could not resist the joke.

 

[Smokey]

There's no way they can figure out if the planet is habitable just by it being the right size and in the Golden Zone.

The Earth is a miracle with millions of factors that went into its creation.

There's no way we can know until we get there.

And how do we know it's a "miracle"?

The issue with this is, we only have our perception of what life is to go by. It's entirely possible water isn't needed for life. Or maybe there is life somewhere but our understanding and technology isn't at a level where we can detect it if life doesn't fit our perceived perception of it.

 

[Insane Metal]

I have no doubt that we'll find potentially habitable planets in the next 10 years. Webb and TESS will be key to finding those.

 

[GaimeGuy]

I know that time is going faster for people in space but I don't understand nor can I wrap my head around it. It's basically like time travel when I can get somewhere where 1 year for me means 5 years on earth.

Conceptually, i like to think of c as not an upper bound on your speed, but an upper bound on your velocity through spacetime, from your frame of reference.

So, as your speed increases, time slows down. As it decreases, time speeds up. And the lower bound is entropy.

The really crazy part is that c is an upper bound from all reference frames.

 

[Cimarron]

=D This guy gets it!

 

[NLCP Gaming]

So someone explain this to me. NASA said it took 40 years for a signal to reach them. So does that mean we're looking at this planet from 40 years ago?

And if we discover a planet 2 million light years away, does that mean we are looking at the planet how it was 2 million years ago?

 

[Chiaroscuro]

So someone explain this to me. NASA said it took 40 years for a signal to reach them. So does that mean we're looking at this planet from 40 years ago?

And if we discover a planet 2 million light years away, does that mean we are looking at the planet how it was 2 million years ago?

Yes and yes.

What we "see" with our eyes is the light reflected on objects. We see the light reflected by this planet. The light that we are seeing right now had to cross the distance between us, at the max velocitity it took 40 years, so we are seeing the light that left the planet 40 years ago, so we see an image from 40 years ago.

 

[mckmas8808]

This is fascinating! I feel that each year we get closer and closer to discovering life on a distant planet.

But then I remember that a lot of people will just refuse to believe it because it wasn't in some book written a few thousand years ago :/

There are alot of non religious people that think we haven't landed on the moon yet also.

 

[Mr. Giggles]

39 light years away.

Fuck

 

[Head of Vengarl]

Man that's so exciting! I feel like it's only a matter of time before we confirm that there's life out there.

 

[NLCP Gaming]

Yes and yes.

What we "see" with our eyes is the light reflected on objects. We see the light reflected by this planet. The light that we are seeing right now had to cross the distance between us, at the max velocitity it took 40 years, so we are seeing the light that left the planet 40 years ago, so we see an image from 40 years ago.

so are we not actually seeing the planet just light? or do we actually have images of these planets.

one more question, say an intelligent species thats 80 million light years away is looking at earth and observing the life on earth. That would mean they're observing dinosaurs correct? They wouldn't have any knowledge of humans or how earth is now right?

 

[fierrotlepou]

If you guys want to see how large the universe is and how mind numbingly slow light speed is, check out this link (if the moon were only 1 pixel)

Set the measurement on light MINUTES and let it travel at lightspeed.

39 lightyears is insanely far.

 

[Omega Kirby]

This is exciting, the Universe is such a intriguing and mesmerizing thing to witness

Man I wish I could be alive by the time we discover interstellar flight,

 

[Crispy75]

so are we not actually seeing the planet just light? or do we actually have images of these planets.

All we're actually seeing is the very slight dimming in brightness of the star as each planet passes in front of it, and the very slight wobble induced in the star's postion by the planet as it moves. Because we already know a lot about the characteristics of stars and orbital mechanics, all sorts of other facts can be teased out of this simple data.

These planets are far too small and far too close to their star to take direct images. There is a fundamental limit to the smallest thing observable by an optical telescope based on the size of the main mirror, distance to the target and the wavelength of visible light. To "see" these planets, you'd need a telescope kilometres wide.

Something we should be able to do with the next generation of telescopes - both space and ground based - is to measure how the *colour* of the starlight changes as the planet passes in front of it. Certain atmospheric gases block certain wavelengths of light, so with a sensitive enough instrument, we'll be able to find out what these planets' atmospheres are made of.

one more question, say an intelligent species thats 80 million light years away is looking at earth and observing the life on earth. That would mean they're observing dinosaurs correct? They wouldn't have any knowledge of humans or how earth is now right?

Correct, although if they are limited to the same telescopes as us, all they'd be able to tell is that Earth's atmosphere has loads of free oxygen in it, which is WEIRD AS HELL and probably means life.

 

[Shogmaster]

If you guys want to see how large the universe is and how mind numbingly slow light speed is, check out this link (if the moon were only 1 pixel)

Set the measurement on light MINUTES and let it travel at lightspeed.

39 lightyears is insanely far.

Google sez 217,500,000,000,000 miles. Google also sez about 25 miles per second for Apollo space craft max speed. So that's about 276,000 years to get there in max Apollo speeds?

 

[KoopaTheCasual]

so are we not actually seeing the planet just light? or do we actually have images of these planets.

one more question, say an intelligent species thats 80 million light years away is looking at earth and observing the life on earth. That would mean they're observing dinosaurs correct? They wouldn't have any knowledge of humans or how earth is now right?

No 'current' images, due to the nature of only being able to see 39 years into the past at best. And technically you're always "just" seeing light and not objects, even when you look at an apple on your desk.

To your second point, yes, 80 million light years away, other species (if they somehow possessed incredibly powerful telescopes) would only be able to see prehistoric images of our planet.

This has always been a conundrum when people think of the conventional method of "establishing contact". If we launch the James Webb telescope and discover a sustainable atmosphere on a distant planet and later discover that there is organic/basic life, by the time any type of craft could get there, there may have existed entire civilizations that wiped each other out and rendered the planet unlivable.

 

[Hrothgar]

so are we not actually seeing the planet just light? or do we actually have images of these planets.

one more question, say an intelligent species thats 80 million light years away is looking at earth and observing the life on earth. That would mean they're observing dinosaurs correct? They wouldn't have any knowledge of humans or how earth is now right?

Everything you see is because of the reflection of light, whether looking at a person on the street, or a planet 40 lightyears away. In this case however, we only see the dimming of the parent star as the planets pass in front of it. That's not always the case necessarily, see:

We can see big ones if we blot out the star's light, and we haven't even launched James Webb yet.

Here's the HR 8799 system observed by the Gemini Planet Imager:

There are four identified planets orbiting here, read all about 'em! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HR_8799#Planetary_system