NASA news conference: TRAPPIST-1 system has 7 Earth-sized planets, 3 in habitable zone.
55 replies, posted
Seeing all the planets in the sky sounds pretty romantic.
More hype for the first light of the JWT and the E-ELT!
[QUOTE=RetaDepa;51860277]Fair enough. That eliminates one of the issues. Radiation will still be a major hurdle though.[/QUOTE]
Radiation is the largest issue. While life could potentially exist around the terminator of a tidally locked planet, life may absolutely struggle to exist when planets have an orbit so close to their star that they receive several thousand times more radiation than what we receive on Earth.
[editline]23rd February 2017[/editline]
[QUOTE=papkee;51859847]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.[/QUOTE]
Just don't confuse the grand scheme of things with what is realistically achievable; it would literally take us millions of years just to travel 40 lightyears. Even if we developed spacecraft that could travel 100x faster than the fastest objects we've made, it would still take tens of thousands of years to get there.
Its like interstellar just more realistic!
[QUOTE=AbbaDee;51852871]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]
Venus actually isn't too hot as the temperature in its higher atmosphere is way cooler. Nobody ever said you have to settle on the surface.
[QUOTE=TrulliLulli;51864927]Venus actually isn't too hot as the temperature in its higher atmosphere is way cooler. Nobody ever said you have to settle on the surface.[/QUOTE]
Venus colonization would be a permanent game of "Floor is Lava"
In the upper atmosphere of Venus, it gets to earth Atmosphere density, doesn't have highly corrosive chemicals floating around, and would actually be quite survivable. You could live on Venus now in a floating city, just need to stay above the toxic stuff.
Forget mars, lets make some cloud cities.
Given how close these 7 planets are, I wonder what the gravitational interaction is like.
[QUOTE=Gunner th;51864973]Given how close these 7 planets are, I wonder what the gravitational interaction is like.[/QUOTE]maybe something like, every 5.3 years they get close enough to give eachother a global tectonic apocalypse
[QUOTE=AbbaDee;51852871]
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]
Venus is honestly our actual best bet for colonization. While it's hot as hell, and the pressure are extreme, that's only actually on the surface. Up in the atmosphere, there are areas where the temperature is a cool 70 degrees Fahrenheit, the pressure is about 1 atmosphere, and is all around just a great place to be compared to the irradiated, atmosphereless, waterless, crisp that Mars is. Not to mention, Venus is nearly the same size of earth, a shorter distance from Earth, and a number of other great benefits. Of course we'll never actually colonize it first, there's far to many people dug into their idea of a Mars colonization, but Venus would be a far better idea than Mars.
[video=youtube;gJ5KV3rzuag]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gJ5KV3rzuag[/video]
That is.. Truly incredible.
[QUOTE=TornadoAP;51865091]Venus is honestly our actual best bet for colonization. While it's hot as hell, and the pressure are extreme, that's only actually on the surface. Up in the atmosphere, there are areas where the temperature is a cool 70 degrees Fahrenheit, the pressure is about 1 atmosphere, and is all around just a great place to be compared to the irradiated, atmosphereless, waterless, crisp that Mars is. Not to mention, Venus is nearly the same size of earth, a shorter distance from Earth, and a number of other great benefits. Of course we'll never actually colonize it first, there's far to many people dug into their idea of a Mars colonization, but Venus would be a far better idea than Mars.
[video=youtube;gJ5KV3rzuag]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gJ5KV3rzuag[/video][/QUOTE]
i still believe mars is a better solution for colonization. although i concede to venus having more optimal conditions for colonization, i think our incapability to use the benefits of the surface is an important factor because it should affect our access to resources. this might mean that either technology will have to be developed to sustain greenhouses on blimps (or aircraft that is close to it) or regular supply missions will have to be sent to keep the astronauts alive. also, i researched a bit more about the havoc mission concept by nasa and, from my understanding, [B]the havoc mission concept is designed purely from a research standpoint and not a colonization standpoint.[/B] on nasa's website it says nothing about colonization. i'm eager to hear other thoughts on this argument because i think outer space colonization is very interesting and important.
The Venus question would probably be a good question to ask Elon Musk. I wonder if their research team did any analysis of colonizing Venus vs Mars.
I'm posting from Trappist-1 right now B)
But women are from Venus... I don't want to get space cooties.
Can we please now begin pouring massive money into space exploration so I can stuff myself into a cryo-chamber sleeper ship and get the fuck outta here?
Imagine colonizing an alien planet... terrifying. Every day would be a struggle, and you'd probably end up getting eaten by aliens or starving to death or something - but it would totally be worth it.
[QUOTE=Coridan;51865567]Can we please now begin pouring massive money into space exploration so I can stuff myself into a cryo-chamber sleeper ship and get the fuck outta here?
Imagine colonizing an alien planet... terrifying. Every day would be a struggle, and you'd probably end up getting eaten by aliens or starving to death or something - but it would totally be worth it.[/QUOTE]
Would probably die to completely foreign viruses/bacteria above all.
[QUOTE=Abaddabadon;51865914]Would probably die to completely foreign viruses/bacteria above all.[/QUOTE]
Who's to say that they would even be compatible with us?
[QUOTE=TornadoAP;51866018]Who's to say that they would even be compatible with us?[/QUOTE]
The vast majority probably wouldn't even use the same proteins and chemicals our cells use, but there WILL be outliers and we should be cautious anyway.
Speaking of that "incompatibility", would that also mean that we'd be unable to eat the native wildlife on such a world, due to their cells breaking down differently? Would someone try to spit-roast a scarabou, eat a little, and find out that it's indigestible at best and gut-melting at worst?
I wouldn't be surprised, honestly.
[QUOTE=ironman17;51868974]Speaking of that "incompatibility", would that also mean that we'd be unable to eat the native wildlife on such a world, due to their cells breaking down differently? Would someone try to spit-roast a scarabou, eat a little, and find out that it's indigestible at best and gut-melting at worst?
I wouldn't be surprised, honestly.[/QUOTE]
Unless they are made of proteins, carbohydrates, and fats, we won't be able to gain any nutrition from them.
[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]
The tides on those planets must be fucked
[editline]24th February 2017[/editline]
Imagine trying to keep track of the tides with 7 planets flying by.. Okay, so it's gonna be low tide at 4 then at 4:13 it's gonna be high tide and then until 5:11 It'll be medium tide and then it'll high tide for 3 minutes and then it'll be kind of medium low for about 15 etc :v:
it's fairly close, would still take like 20,000 years to get there with current technology but the exciting thing is that technology grows exponentially and who knows in 1000 years time we might be at a stage where that kind of distance is possible in a reasonable time frame.
[QUOTE=Pat.Lithium;51871530]it's fairly close, would still take like 20,000 years to get there with current technology[B] but the exciting thing is that technology grows exponentially and who knows in [I]1000 years time[/I][/B] we might be at a stage where that kind of distance is possible in a reasonable time frame.[/QUOTE]
That's not exciting... That's depressing... :frown:
I noticed that Myles O'brian had a question about what instruments could be used to detect wheather these planets could harbour life:
[IMG]https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/7/75/Milesobrien.jpg/220px-Milesobrien.jpg[/IMG]
Was that a troll alias?
[QUOTE=Pat.Lithium;51871530]it's fairly close, would still take like 20,000 years to get there with current technology but the exciting thing is that technology grows exponentially and who knows in 1000 years time we might be at a stage where that kind of distance is possible in a reasonable time frame.[/QUOTE]
1000 years is a fucking lot considering how fast and exponentially technology has advanced in just 100 years. I'll give it 300-500 years until we figure out how to go about 1/5th of light speed. That would get us 40 lightyears in 200 years. Which is feasible for a generation ship.
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