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NASA exoplanet discovery conference (7 Earth-sized planets, 3 in habitable zone)

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ahoyhoy

Unconfirmed Member
NASA just discovered the perfect system for humanity. Our species could be established and almost all planets of that system and have short trade and travel routes between them.

Also, ""only"" 40ly wow.

Even though none of us will likely get to go, I think discovering a habitable world close by would do wonders to Kickstart a newfound enthusiasm in space travel.

The benefits of spending time and money improving space travel will be more obvious if there's a practically habitable Planet close by waiting to be colonized.
 
Doesn't the fact that the star is smaller mean it will have a shorter lifespan? Or am I off the mark here?

Smaller and cooler stars burn their hydrogen much MUCH slower than bigger, hotter stars. TRAPPIST-1 is expected to shine, as is, for another 4 TRILLION years or more.
 

Hastati

Member
Jokes aside, we'd definitely have sent an unmanned probe first and found about that long before any human got near the planet.



I assume the probability is low for any short amount of time, but if a planet has similar properties to earth, and is capable of being stable for long enough (though enough means probably near billion(s) years) I'd bet it happens eventually for all Earth like planets.

Yeah, that makes sense to me.

I also feel that if our galaxy has had any organism with technology equivalent to or greater than ours over the past 3 billion years or so they would have already mapped out the locations of stars and planets with the highest likelihood of forming technology-dependent organisms, so we may already have been on someone's radar in the past. Too bad geology and astronomy act on a rather inaccessible scale of time relative to your average lifespan.
 

mreddie

Member
The_Red_Dwarf_sapce_ship_as_seen_in_series_10.jpg

Let's go!
 
If we can see them then maybe they can see us. Maybe they'll get to us before we get to them.

Fascinating though. Would be amazing to find actual other species that exist.
 

Gritesh

Member
If we can see them then maybe they can see us. Maybe they'll get to us before we get to them.

Fascinating though. Would be amazing to find actual other species that exist.

It always amazes me how we assume that other species on other planets would always be so exponentially advanced over ourselves.

Perhaps there may be a semi advanced species, but they could be lagging behind us in evolution no?

Sometimes I think that maybe there is a species somewhere that is still living in primitive times like cavemen?
 
If we can see them then maybe they can see us. Maybe they'll get to us before we get to them.

Fascinating though. Would be amazing to find actual other species that exist.
SETI didnt pick up any signals from there. But maybe they have a differet kind of technology we dont know about yet.

Maye its like Avatar and they use spirit technology.
 
Wow, exoplanet detection techniques have improved so fast!

It really is close-by, I mean, only 40 ly! It is a ridiculous distance in human terms, but it is practically our neighbor on a galactic scale. We should definitely send a probe, though I wonder if we could even receive an image with enough power to be detectable from such a distance with current technology? Then again, it would be detected like, centuries from now, so who knows.

A fun aside, if you could travel near light-speed, from your point of view, the trip could take an arbitrarily short amount of time, because of time dilation. Of course, from "outside", say, from Earth, it would still take at least 40 years. At 80% light-speed, for instance, 50 years would pass on the Earth, but only 30 for a passenger on the ship.
 
Man, at that sort of orbit size, once a colony would be established there it'd be a relative breeze to travel between planets. On the other hand, it would take literal centuries to get there even move at a significant portion of the speed of life.

Ah well.

The more immediately interesting aspect is that any information we receive from those planets, and the star as well, are accurate to within 40 years. That is damned close on a cosmic scale, and allows for relative accuracy. If we manage to pick up signs of life from forty years ago - or hell, just get a decent look at the planets (in terms of astronomy) - then that information is almost certainly relevant now. That is just... mindblowing.
 
Wow, exoplanet detection techniques have improved so fast!

It really is close-by, I mean, only 40 ly! It is a ridiculous distance in human terms, but it is practically our neighbor on a galactic scale. We should definitely send a probe, though I wonder if we could even receive an image with enough power to be detectable from such a distance with current technology? Then again, it would be detected like, centuries from now, so who knows.

A fun aside, if you could travel near light-speed, from your point of view, the trip could take an arbitrarily short amount of time, because of time dilation. Of course, from "outside", say, from Earth, it would still take at least 40 years. At 80% light-speed, for instance, 50 years would pass on the Earth, but only 30 for a passenger on the ship.
They did mention in the Q&A that there is a planet in the habitable zone around Proxima Centauri which is only 4 ly away. They just don't know if its a rocky planet or what yet.
 
Wow, exoplanet detection techniques have improved so fast!

It really is close-by, I mean, only 40 ly! It is a ridiculous distance in human terms, but it is practically our neighbor on a galactic scale. We should definitely send a probe, though I wonder if we could even receive an image with enough power to be detectable from such a distance with current technology? Then again, it would be detected like, centuries from now, so who knows.

A fun aside, if you could travel near light-speed, from your point of view, the trip could take an arbitrarily short amount of time, because of time dilation. Of course, from "outside", say, from Earth, it would still take at least 40 years. At 80% light-speed, for instance, 50 years would pass on the Earth, but only 30 for a passenger on the ship.

Eh...kind of. There's a considerably large amount of systems in the less than 40ly range so it's still pretty far away even when you account for us being locked in our own system still. It's an awesome find, but there are closer exoterra's in the goldilocks zone that would likely be first candidates for a probe. The quantity in this system is certainly going to make it one of interest once we actually break through that barrier though.
 

Geist-

Member
NASA just discovered the perfect system for humanity. Our species could be established and almost all planets of that system and have short trade and travel routes between them.

Also, ""only"" 40ly wow.

Seriously, this is by far the most promising place that humanity can expand to. We should be heading there as soon as we are able, which I assume means we need more advanced space ships and maybe stasis pods, although a generational ship could work in a pinch.

Time to start building the Nauvoo.

xpants.png
 
If we can see them then maybe they can see us. Maybe they'll get to us before we get to them.

Fascinating though. Would be amazing to find actual other species that exist.

Haha, on the flip side they would see three(3!) rocky planets in an average star's habitable zone. Imagine their disappointment to find out one of them has a surface temperature hot enough to melt lead.
 
Seriously, this is by far the most promising place that humanity can expand to. We should be heading there as soon as we are able, which I assume means we need more advanced space ships and maybe stasis pods, although a generational ship could work in a pinch.

Time to start building the Nauvoo.

xpants.png

As much as I want this to happen there's a real chance that stuff like that could take eons even if we had the technology to just teleport there now due to the likelihood of discovering many new diseases with little to no immunity. As cool as moving to another system is, being one of the first could be a truly horrifying experience.
 
They did mention in the Q&A that there is a planet in the habitable zone around Proxima Centauri which is only 4 ly away. They just don't know if its a rocky planet or what yet.

Eh...kind of. There's a considerably large amount of systems in the less than 40ly range so it's still pretty far away even when you account for us being locked in our own system still. It's an awesome find, but there are closer exoterra's in the goldilocks zone that would likely be first candidates for a probe. The quantity in this system is certainly going to make it one of interest once we actually break through that barrier though.

Oh yeah, looking here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_potentially_habitable_exoplanets, there are a few other closer candidates. Still, yeah, seven small close-by planets makes this system quite unique.
 
Oh yeah, looking here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_potentially_habitable_exoplanets, there are a few other closer candidates. Still, yeah, seven small close-by planets makes this system quite unique.
Oh definitely. I think this is by far the most exciting exoplanet discovery to date. I cant wait for this SPECULOOS and JWST to get going. They think that these planetary systems may be quite common around red dwarfs and they are by far the most abundant star types in the galaxy. Thats exciting as all hell. This basically removes any doubt in my mind that life of some form exist in our galaxy.

I had little doubt before this anyway.
 

kswiston

Member
I don't think it would take very long for gafville to implode Lord of the Flies style

- What killed the thousands of people living in this town?!

They massacred each other over whether or not ketchup is a suitable topping for hotdogs. The rest were killed when someone tried to put pineapple on pizza.
 
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