NASA news conference: TRAPPIST-1 system has 7 Earth-sized planets, 3 in habitable zone.
55 replies, posted
[quote]NASA to Host News Conference on Discovery Beyond Our Solar System
NASA will hold a news conference at 1 p.m. EST Wednesday, Feb. 22, to present new findings on planets that orbit stars other than our sun, known as exoplanets. The event will air live on NASA Television and the agency's website.[/quote]
[url]https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-to-host-news-conference-on-discovery-beyond-our-solar-system[/url]
We always get overhyped for these conferences.
[editline]22nd February 2017[/editline]
[url]https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/22/science/trappist-1-exoplanets-nasa.html?_r=0[/url]
[media]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iuwpBoIbSrA[/media]
"we uh got a message from aliens..."
"OMGOMGOMG WHAT DID THEY WANT!"
"they uh wanted us to wire 4500 space-bucks to a neylerian prince who needs it for good faith money..."
".......shit"
Hope they found a good one, because I'm finished with this one. :v:
[QUOTE=Alxnotorious;51850933]Hope they found a good one, because I'm finished with this one. :v:[/QUOTE]
there's a really cool planet you might be interested in. it's much closer and we even know a lot about its surface conditions. it's called mars.
for real though, i'm excited for the conference. i remember last time they found very good earth candidates near one of our nearest stars if i recall correctly.
let's hope it's close, very close ;)
[QUOTE=Trixil;51851960]there's a really cool planet you might be interested in. it's much closer and we even know a lot about its surface conditions. it's called mars.
for real though, i'm excited for the conference. i remember last time they found very good earth candidates near one of our nearest stars if i recall correctly.[/QUOTE]
Saturn is way better. high wind currents for electricity generation, earth-like gravity, plenty of water and and ammonia for fuel and sustenance, a great view, rumored concentrated deposits of He3, etc... I don't get all this nonsense about the red rock when so many other planets and moons in our solar system are much more suited to sustaining life than that craggy irradiated desert.
[QUOTE=Shirt.;51852560]Saturn is way better. high wind currents for electricity generation, earth-like gravity, plenty of water and and ammonia for fuel and sustenance, a great view, rumored concentrated deposits of He3, etc... I don't get all this nonsense about the red rock when so many other planets and moons in our solar system are much more suited to sustaining life than that craggy irradiated desert.[/QUOTE]Well I mean Mars is only 34 million miles away whilst Saturn is 746 million miles away soooo there is that.
Saturn also doesn't have a solid surface that we can walk on and build things on.
All this "nonsense" about the red rock has to do with the fact that it's the closest Earth-like rocky planet near us, and may have even looked like Earth at one point with greenery and watery oceans. (although that's debatable)
Not sure why you're so excited about a planet over 10 times the distance away from us compared to Mars. It's going to be hard enough getting to Mars, logistics wise and crew member mental health wise, could you even imagine trying to get to Saturn?
[QUOTE=Dwarden;51852493]let's hope it's close, very close ;)[/QUOTE]
Hate to be a defeatist, but there's no point in holding your breath. The closest 'habitable' exoplanet may 'only' be 4 lightyears away, but it's only 'habitable' if you forget that its sun is a red dwarf (and red dwarfs can be very active), sending thousands of times more radiation and stellar winds to the planet than what we receive on Earth (so it probably never had an atmosphere). And because it's so close to its sun, it's probably tidally locked, so one side is permanently burnt to a crisp, while the other side is permanently frozen stiff.
And, while keeping in mind that it is the closest 'habitable' exoplanet, it would still take us hundreds of thousands of years to reach it. Recorded human history is only a few tens of thousands of years old, in comparison.
[editline]21st February 2017[/editline]
We should focus on preserving the Earth rather than worrying about potentially habitable exoplanets that we would never reach anyways.
[QUOTE=Killer900;51852570]Well I mean Mars is only 34 million miles away whilst Saturn is 746 million miles away soooo there is that.[/QUOTE]
Saturn being 746 million miles away also means that if we establish a base of operation there then we have easy access to the outer solar system and its riches in fuels, water and minerals.
[QUOTE]
Saturn also doesn't have a solid surface that we can walk on and build things on.
[/QUOTE]
That's an easy fix! We not only could use Nuclear hot aircrafts, we could also settle on top of the many Ice clouds that lie hidden 200 km below the initial clouds of Hydrogen and Helium, and at that depth because Saturn is so massive, the gravity barely changes whatsoever there.
[QUOTE]
All this "nonsense" about the red rock has to do with the fact that it's the closest Earth-like rocky planet near us, and may have even looked like Earth at one point with greenery and watery oceans. (although that's debatable)
[/QUOTE]
Venus would like to have a word with you, as it is closer to us and also was rumored to have greenery at some point. (it's also way more habitable due to the fact that it has a an actual atmosphere.)
[QUOTE]
Not sure why you're so excited about a planet over 10 times the distance away from us compared to Mars. It's going to be hard enough getting to Mars, logistics wise and crew member mental health wise, could you even imagine trying to get to Saturn?[/QUOTE]
Totally: Turn Mars into a robotic manufacturing plant that produces spacecraft with specified trajectories to the Jovian moons and get small settlements on ganymede and europa, and from there produce Mothership spacecraft that carry cloud based settlement-stations to a logistics network in orbit around Titan which then directs and coordinates the settlements on Saturn.
It would be a rich full da... millennium!
(with the added benefit of industrializing the solar system no less!)
[QUOTE=Shirt.;51852643]Saturn being 746 million miles away also means that if we establish a base of operation there then we have easy access to the outer solar system and its riches in fuels, water and minerals.
That's an easy fix! We not only could use Nuclear hot aircrafts, we could also settle on top of the many Ice clouds that lie hidden 200 km below the initial clouds of Hydrogen and Helium, and at that depth because Saturn is so massive, the gravity barely changes whatsoever there.
Venus would like to have a word with you, as it is closer to us and also was rumored to have greenery at some point. (it's also way more habitable due to the fact that it has a an actual atmosphere.)
Totally: Turn Mars into a robotic manufacturing plant that produces spacecraft with specified trajectories to the Jovian moons and get small settlements on ganymede and europa, and from there produce Mothership spacecraft that carry cloud based settlement-stations to a logistics network in orbit around Titan which then directs and coordinates the settlements on Saturn.
It would be a rich full da... millennium!
(with the added benefit of industrializing the solar system no less!)[/QUOTE]
even if technically possible, the political climate on this world is legit not ready for space on the scale you want.
and im not sure if it is technically possible. I've only ever seen the walking on ice thing in Interstellar so.
[QUOTE=Shirt.;51852643]Saturn being 746 million miles away also means that if we establish a base of operation there then we have easy access to the outer solar system and its riches in fuels, water and minerals.
[/QUOTE]
No, "We" would not. Saturn is too far away for us to even consider it as a location at this stage. It's going to take us more than half a year to make it to Mars, it would take more than a decade to reach Saturn. That's not factoring in fuel, supplies, etc. Mars has a number of benefits in that it has easily-accessible water, solid ground and is relatively close-by. Mars gives us the opportunity to prepare for longer journeys and give us valuable experience and knowledge. The only people using the resources on Saturn would be the people on Saturn.
[QUOTE=Shirt.;51852643]That's an easy fix! We not only could use Nuclear hot aircrafts, we could also settle on top of the many Ice clouds that lie hidden 200 km below the initial clouds of Hydrogen and Helium, and at that depth because Saturn is so massive, the gravity barely changes whatsoever there.
[/QUOTE]
I'm not finding anything from a quick Google on Saturn having ice clouds, only a single ice cloud on Titan.
[QUOTE=Shirt.;51852643]Venus would like to have a word with you, as it is closer to us and also was rumored to have greenery at some point. (it's also way more habitable due to the fact that it has a an actual atmosphere.)
[/QUOTE]
Venus is FAR too hot to even consider a colony. It's 96% carbon dioxide and the surface temperature is over 450 degrees Celsius (870 degrees Fahrenheit).
[QUOTE=Shirt.;51852643]Totally: Turn Mars into a robotic manufacturing plant that produces spacecraft with specified trajectories to the Jovian moons and get small settlements on ganymede and europa, and from there produce Mothership spacecraft that carry cloud based settlement-stations to a logistics network in orbit around Titan which then directs and coordinates the settlements on Saturn.
It would be a rich full da... millennium!
(with the added benefit of industrializing the solar system no less!)[/QUOTE]
Yeah no.
It's probably that asteroid everyone has been waiting for
Going by the panelists:
[QUOTE]Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator of the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington
· Michael Gillon, astronomer at the University of Liege in Belgium
· Sean Carey, manager of NASA's Spitzer Science Center at Caltech/IPAC, Pasadena, California
· Nikole Lewis, astronomer at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore
· Sara Seager, professor of planetary science and physics at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridg[/QUOTE]
It'll likely be "We found yet another planet that could be a potential host for life. It's about a bajillion light years away. We just thought you guys would want to know about it because we thought it was kinda cool. Here's an artists representation of it and this will be the last we speak of this planet."
I love space exploration and the idea of space travel and wish all space exploration programs out there nothing but the best, but NASA makes me hella depressed and angry about all the cool shit out there that my fat brown arse can't ever see in my lifetime. It's like showing me pictures of some ridiculously expensive things I could never afford to earn in my lifetime.
[editline]21st February 2017[/editline]
[QUOTE=BF;51852610]We should focus on preserving the Earth rather than worrying about potentially habitable exoplanets that we would never reach anyways.[/QUOTE]
Honestly, I'd really like for a deeper focus on living underwater and exploring our oceans. Three quarters of our planet is covered in water and we're [I]still[/I]discovering cool new (albeit terrifying) stuff down there, stuff that could also be useful in space exploration efforts.
Imagine the possibilities of landing on a planet where, Subnautica style, there's only water for the most part? We'd have the tech perfected to live on those planets, make our own Atlantis.
Undersea farming and housing could also address issues like housing a growing population beyond a point of sustainability on land.
Mark my words: We're just going to hear a pre-recorded message when we first contact aliens. We'll have to decode it or something and then it'll turn out it was sent by some bored human astronaut from the future.
Wow not one, not two, but [I]seven[/I] earthlike planets. That's amazing.
Don't think it deserves a new thread, maybe.
[url=https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/22/science/trappist-1-exoplanets-nasa.html?_r=0]From the Times[/url]
[quote]Not just one, but seven Earth-size planets that could potentially harbor life have been identified orbiting a tiny star not too far away, offering the first realistic opportunity to search for biological signs of alien life outside of the solar system.
The planets orbit a dwarf star named Trappist-1, about 40 light years, or about 235 trillion miles, from Earth. That is quite close, and by happy accident, the orientation of the orbits of the seven planets allows them to be studied in great detail.
One or more of the exoplanets — planets around stars other than the sun — in this new system could be at the right temperature to be awash in oceans of water, astronomers said, based on the distance of the planets from the dwarf star.
“This is the first time so many planets of this kind are found around the same star,” said Michael Gillon, an astronomer at the University of Liege in Belgium and the leader of an international team that has been observing Trappist-1.[/quote]
Worth noting that the star itself is a dwarf star which has the capability to [B]last atleast 4 trillion more years (i.e. ~290 times the age of the universe).[/B]
And so far they've already discovered [B]3 planets within the habitiable zone (1 isn't tidal locked).[/B]
[B]And its only 39ly away.[/B]
Colonization here we come.
While this is really cool, being in the habitable zone doesn't really mean much unless we know more about the planet, like how thick it's atmosphere is, if it has one, and it's composition. There are a lot of factors that can contribute to whether water can exist on the surface
Yeah 40ly is actually really fucking close in the grand scheme of things. A decent amount of the exoplanets we know of right now are all an order of magnitude (at least) further away.
It's amazing how tiny the solar system is. The video says all 7 planets are within an orbit the size of Mercury's, and if you stood on one of the planets, you could see the other planets in the sky, bigger than the Moon looks to us on Earth.
[editline]22nd February 2017[/editline]
[quote]The planets also are very close to each other. If a person was standing on one of the planet’s surface, they could gaze up and potentially see geological features or clouds of neighboring worlds, which would sometimes appear larger than the moon in Earth's sky.[/quote]
Dude this is like some fantasy movie sky right there
[editline]22nd February 2017[/editline]
[url]https://exoplanets.nasa.gov/system/downloadable_items/315_TRAPPIST-1e_PRINT_E.jpg[/url]
[url]https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/thumbnails/image/1_main_pia21423-png.png[/url]
[QUOTE] Whatever secrets it may harbor, the TRAPPIST-1 system will surely be a sight to behold. Though the star is small, its nearness to the planets means that, from their perspective, it appears about three times as large as our sun. The outermost planets enjoy the daily spectacle of their neighbors passing across the sky and in front of their shared sun, each world a large dark spot silhouetted against the salmon-colored star. Its dim glow, which skews toward the red and infrared end of the light spectrum, bathes the planets in warmth and paints their skies with the crimson hues of a perpetual sunset.
[/QUOTE]
From the Washington Post's coverage
Freezing myself cuz I wanna see this shit with my own eyes.
[QUOTE=Orkel;51859929]It's amazing how tiny the solar system is. The video says all 7 planets are within an orbit the size of Mercury's, and if you stood on one of the planets, you could see the other planets in the sky, bigger than the Moon looks to us on Earth.
[editline]22nd February 2017[/editline]
Dude this is like some fantasy movie sky right there
[HUGE ASS PIC][/QUOTE]
I know you thumbed it but it's still a 10.1 MB 8160×11760 JPG file and it made my browser cry
[QUOTE=Headhumpy;51860022]I know you thumbed it but it's still a 10.1 MB 8160×11760 JPG file and it made my browser cry[/QUOTE]
o okay, fixed
i like space
[QUOTE=Orkel;51859929]It's amazing how tiny the solar system is. The video says all 7 planets are within an orbit the size of Mercury's, and if you stood on one of the planets, you could see the other planets in the sky, bigger than the Moon looks to us on Earth.
[editline]22nd February 2017[/editline]
Dude this is like some fantasy movie sky right there
[editline]22nd February 2017[/editline]
[url]https://exoplanets.nasa.gov/system/downloadable_items/315_TRAPPIST-1e_PRINT_E.jpg[/url]
[url]https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/thumbnails/image/1_main_pia21423-png.png[/url][/QUOTE]
Oh my god, if those images don't inspire awe and flashbacks to grand sci-fi books and film, then I don't know what would. This is amazing.
Huh, that's way closer than I thought it'd be.
It's pretty freaky how many exoplanets we've found in the habitable zones. Makes me ponder about the Fermi Paradox even more.
Only issue is that it's around a red dwarf star. Planets that orbit red dwarf stars that are in the habitable zone tend to be tidally locked, meaning that one side faces the star at all times. One side is constantly scorched while the other side is permanently frozen. There might be a thin band between that's habitable but it'll be constant hurricane-like weather there. Not a fun place to live.
Not to mention the radiation fluctuations and the close proximity of the planets being a hazard.
[QUOTE=RetaDepa;51860187]Only issue is that it's around a red dwarf star. Planets that orbit red dwarf stars that are in the habitable zone tend to be tidally locked, meaning that one side faces the star at all times. One side is constantly scorched while the other side is permanently frozen. There might be a thin band between that's habitable but it'll be constant hurricane-like weather there. Not a fun place to live.
Not to mention the radiation fluctuations and the close proximity of the planets being a hazard.[/QUOTE]
It's been stated by a user above that one of the planets was found to not be tidally locked.
[QUOTE=Revenge282;51860267]It's been stated by a user above that one of the planets was found to not be tidally locked.[/QUOTE]
Fair enough. That eliminates one of the issues. Radiation will still be a major hurdle though.
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