Potentially Habitable "Super-Earth" Discovered Only ~16LY Away; May Have the Same Temperatures as Ea - Polidicks

[QUOTE=draugur;45273054]We just need to reach ludicrous speed and we'll get there on time. [sp]Spaceballs[/sp][/QUOTE] Man, I don't wanna go plaid.

We will step on it, but we won't be humans anymore. We will be radically different animals evolved from out current form. [editline]2nd July 2014[/editline] If we don't die, that is [editline]2nd July 2014[/editline] And you can't disagree. Because statement includes the condition of not dying, if you live forever then you are destined to step on it in some form or shape.

[QUOTE=ElectricSquid;45270367]That or they'd become fucking [I]ripped[/I] from having to cope with higher gravity.[/QUOTE] Actually (of course by eyeballing the size of the other planet), the gravity would only be around 25% higher. Gravity abides(?) the inverse square law, and while the mass is 5 times higher it's also almost twice as thick. This is taken from a picture that says "artist's impression", so take with a grain of salt - I don't see any mention of its radius in the article.

[QUOTE=Solomon;45271582]AFAIK an Alcubierre drive will be impossible to produce for a long long long time, if at all.[/QUOTE] The way we will reach the stars is something nobody can even imagine yet. It'll be a sudden paradigm shift thing like the creation of microchips or the industrial revolution.

[QUOTE=Orkel;45273516]The way we will reach the stars is something nobody can even imagine yet. It'll be a sudden paradigm shift thing like the creation of microchips or the industrial revolution.[/QUOTE]Twelve Chinese men sitting in the engine room using blocks of pure gold to bash walnuts into tiny pieces. That is our future.

[QUOTE=LoganIsAwesome;45270225]Awesome discovery. It's a shame none of us will be alive to step foot on it though. I can only hope[/QUOTE] hmm, maybe, maybe not. If cryosleep is developed during our lifetime, you could have them freeze you and when the time comes, you'll be sent in your cryotank among the first colonists to GJ and when you arrive, you'll wake up in this brave new world. hey I'm a dreamer [i]but I'm not the only one[/i] *wink*

[QUOTE=GoDong-DK;45273495]Actually (of course by eyeballing the size of the other planet), the gravity would only be around 25% higher. Gravity abides(?) the inverse square law, and while the mass is 5 times higher it's also almost twice as thick. This is taken from a picture that says "artist's impression", so take with a grain of salt - I don't see any mention of its radius in the article.[/QUOTE] You're correct, the radius of the planet is unknown, but given the other statistics on it I'm sure a general estimate could be made given enough math done using the orbit, mass, etc.

[QUOTE=Amiga OS;45271104]You would arrive in 50 minutes according to the TNG warp scale.[/QUOTE] If only things were so simple.

[QUOTE=Whiplash~;45273711]hmm, maybe, maybe not. If cryosleep is developed during our lifetime, you could have them freeze you and when the time comes, you'll be sent in your cryotank among the first colonists to GJ and when you arrive, you'll wake up in this brave new world. hey I'm a dreamer [i]but I'm not the only one[/i] *wink*[/QUOTE] I hope someday we can join them. Dunno whether or not the world will be as one, though. Still, if we can't say "FUCK OFF!" to the oppressive dogma of the lightspeed limit by dipping into hyperspace or making wormholes, we might as well make ourselves immortal and able to sleep through the aeons-long voyages, even if everything's completely different on Earth if you ever make a return trip. You'd come back after all those years and find all the politics changed, your whole family long dead, and all sorts of new technology that passed you by during the voyages.

We could go there now if we wanted to; we have the technology to do it. Just not the funding. [I]"Exploring space on an ever declining scale!"[/I]

16 day orbit? Must be tidally locked.

[QUOTE=Mr.95;45270803]I really want them to just go with that project in the near future and when everyone gets pissed just be like " lol it's already up there whatcha gonna do? " , though joking aside didn't that project get shut down because it'd violate some treaty or pollution thing?[/QUOTE] i think you're confusing it with project orion [url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Orion_%28nuclear_propulsion%29[/url] that was just a study to confirm fesability, however i think the data on that is off by a lot, theres been much more work done on confined fusion since the 1970s [editline]2nd July 2014[/editline] also even if this is an awsome discovery, the thought of pulling 5g's just standing up is painful [editline]2nd July 2014[/editline] [QUOTE=Orkel;45273516]The way we will reach the stars is something nobody can even imagine yet. It'll be a sudden paradigm shift thing like the creation of microchips or the industrial revolution.[/QUOTE] im still holding out for an interstellar stargate network but we'd probably see the radiation of such a network by now if it existed

[QUOTE=Saturn V;45274237]16 day orbit? Must be tidally locked.[/QUOTE] Yeah I was about to say this, any planet in the habitable zone of a red dwarf would be tidally locked. There'd be no day/night cycle, one side would be in permanent darkness. If the atmosphere isn't very high pressure then it'd be likely that it would liquefy or even freeze solid on the dark side. This effect would produce absolutely nightmarish weather systems. In addition red dwarfs are much less stable stars than yellow dwarfs (our sun) and orange dwarfs (possibly even better for life than yellow dwarfs). Although they last far longer, M-type stars can vary hugely in their brightness, potentially causing more terrifying climate effects and are very prone to all sorts of "space weather". Some red dwarf stars can be covered by up to 40% sunspots at any one point, and storms are much more common than they are around the sun. Wrap this all up with the fact that you're [I]much closer[/I] to this star and suddenly it doesn't seem like such a great destination for human settlers. [editline]2nd July 2014[/editline] [QUOTE=Mbbird;45270527]It's in the measure of distance man! Light takes 16 years to travel 16 light years. Matter can't travel at that speed, but 16 light years is still encouragingly close! If we could travel at 1/3 the speed of light, which some hypothetical projects theorize is possible with huge space missions, that's still within ~50 years for us on earth, and thanks to relativity and all its mindfucks, less than that for the occupants.[/QUOTE] At 1/3 the speed of light the time flow would be 6% different, not exactly a deal maker.

[QUOTE=Solomon;45271582]AFAIK an Alcubierre drive will be impossible to produce for a long long long time, if at all.[/QUOTE] You're right. It could happen tomorrow, or it could never happen. The theory requires the existence of exotic matter, aka matter that defies the laws of physics. No such matter has been discovered.

I don't think it'd be a good idea to pack up and send colonists there without atleast getting some probe data first, I mean, what if you spent 50 years traveling somewhere and then it turns out the planet has giant angry storms or something?

[QUOTE=Mr. Foster;45274682]You're right. It could happen tomorrow, or it could never happen. The theory requires the existence of exotic matter, aka matter that defies the laws of physics. No such matter has been discovered.[/QUOTE] Exotic matter does not defy the laws of physics in itself. Somewhat more sketchy is a mechanism that could produce exotic matter. We won't go into the fact that the Alcubierre drive is a silly thought experiment and nothing more. Or that any form of faster-than-light propulsion or communication necessarily violates causality itself (it's inseparable from time travel).

If it's the same temperature as here and clearly has water, it could easily have life on it, we need to figure out a way to see the surface.

[QUOTE=DeVotchKa;45274870]If it's the same temperature as here and clearly has water, it could easily have life on it, we need to figure out a way to see the surface.[/QUOTE] The only way is to send a vehicle there, a telescope lens or (more likely) mirror would have to be truly colossal (I mean on planetary scales) in order to image the surface of a planet across interstellar distances. We can't even see the shapes of the very nearest stars.

[QUOTE=find me;45270428]Why is everyone rating you stupid? People can believe two rocks collided and created humans. But it's not plausible that two rocks collided somewhere else and created other complex organisms that could potentially be plague or disease like to humans?[/QUOTE] People believe two rocks collided and created humans? Is that some new age religion I'm unaware of? Never heard of this before.

[QUOTE=WitheredGryphon;45270343]Outside of the Gliese system[/QUOTE] There is no "Gliese system". It refers to the "Gliese Catalogue of Nearby Stars", a standard list of stars within 25 parsecs. This is common for exoplanets because nearer stars are both more interesting, and easier to scan. You also sometimes see references to the Henry Draper Catalogue, a list of stars above a certain apparent brightness, or to stars by constellation. "Gliese 832" is a star system, 832 being the number assigned to that star. "Gliese 832 c" is the second planet discovered in that system ('a' is skipped), the first being Gliese 832 b. Note that uppercase letters are different - "Gliese 667" is a triple-star system, the three stars being "Gliese 667 A", "Gliese 667 B", and "Gliese 667 C". Gliese 667C has several known planets, which are named "Gliese 667 Cb", "Gliese 667 Cc", and so on. Edit: Woah, didn't see the three more pages of discussion. If someone already yelled at you for this, sorry.

[QUOTE=find me;45270428]Why is everyone rating you stupid? People can believe two rocks collided and created humans. But it's not plausible that two rocks collided somewhere else and created other complex organisms that could potentially be plague or disease like to humans?[/QUOTE] Nobody's saying abiogenesis couldn't have happened anywhere else, they're just saying that A) you have no idea how a virus or bacteria works to exploit the human body, and B) we're not living in the dark ages where we can't control the incredibly unlikely event of infection. The odds of it turning into a global scale outbreak even if said infected person(s) did return to earth are even less likely than it being able to happen in the first place.

[QUOTE=gman003-main;45275482]There is no "Gliese system". It refers to the "Gliese Catalogue of Nearby Stars", a standard list of stars within 25 parsecs. This is common for exoplanets because nearer stars are both more interesting, and easier to scan. You also sometimes see references to the Henry Draper Catalogue, a list of stars above a certain apparent brightness, or to stars by constellation. "Gliese 832" is a star system, 832 being the number assigned to that star. "Gliese 832 c" is the second planet discovered in that system ('a' is skipped), the first being Gliese 832 b. Note that uppercase letters are different - "Gliese 667" is a triple-star system, the three stars being "Gliese 667 A", "Gliese 667 B", and "Gliese 667 C". Gliese 667C has several known planets, which are named "Gliese 667 Cb", "Gliese 667 Cc", and so on. Edit: Woah, didn't see the three more pages of discussion. If someone already yelled at you for this, sorry.[/QUOTE] Sorry if making it plural would have helped make sense more. I was trying to keep it simple, but there are "Gliese" systems. Gliese 832 is a system. Gliese 317 is a system. Etc. Relatively speaking they are all much shorter distances away in comparison to some other systems like the Kepler systems. So I just referenced them all as one.

[QUOTE=Saxon;45270299]Dat gravity though[/QUOTE] Future inhabitants will just become swole as fuck

[QUOTE=CrimsonChin;45275453]People believe two rocks collided and created humans? Is that some new age religion I'm unaware of? Never heard of this before.[/QUOTE] I've banged several rocks together in my day. Clearly I am god.

[QUOTE=ironman17;45271796]I've said this before concerning high-gravity worlds, but if there is macroscopic sapient life on that world, they'd be either snakemen slithering on their bellies or big bulky elcor that walk on all fours like space-gorillas. And be horrified by our lanky willowy emaciated corpse-like appearances (at least in comparison to their bulky stocky builds).[/QUOTE] So what you're saying is that we'll be the ones doing the probing that's ok

[QUOTE=CrimsonChin;45275453]People believe two rocks collided and created humans? Is that some new age religion I'm unaware of? Never heard of this before.[/QUOTE] I prefer the idea of two deific figures getting in a fist fight and one punches the other in the face so hard, that it created all existence. The two of them then stopped fighting and started watching, in awe. "Holy shit! What the fuck is that!" "I dunno, you think we should just let it do its thing?" "Sure, it's pretty looking." That's totally how it went, I call it Facepunchism.

[QUOTE=ZombieWaffle;45274757]I don't think it'd be a good idea to pack up and send colonists there without atleast getting some probe data first, I mean, what if you spent 50 years traveling somewhere and then it turns out the planet has giant angry storms or something?[/QUOTE] didn't stop em from settling kansas

with current technology we could acheive 10% light speed using nuclear pulse propulsion, but with the partial test ban treaty we arent allowed to detonate nuclear devices in space

[QUOTE=gamefighterx;45280002]with current technology we could acheive 10% light speed using nuclear pulse propulsion, but with the partial test ban treaty we arent allowed to detonate nuclear devices in space[/QUOTE] On the plus side, you'd be going too fast for anyone to be able to actually do anything about it.

[QUOTE=Canuhearme?;45270519]You could work out on that planet and get fucking ripped due to the gravity. It'd be like a... Planet Fitness.[/QUOTE] Does it include massage chairs and pizza parties?