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Post by valderra on Apr 26, 2007 4:12:29 GMT -5
I read about this in the newspapers yesterday, and would have sworn that someone else would have already made a thread about it. But no one has, so it will be my privilege to enlighten you. LOL " The discovery of a new Earth-like planet was announced today (Wednesday) bt a team of European astronomers, using a telescope in La Silla in the chilean Andes. The Earth-like planet that could be covered in oceans and may support life is 20.5 light years away, and has the right temperature to allow liquid water on its surface. This remarkable discovery appears to confirm the suspicions of most astronomers that the universe is swarming with Earth-like worlds. We don't yet know much about this planet, but scientists believe that it may be the best candidate so far for supporting extraterrestrial life. The new planet (named Gliese 581c), which orbits a small, red star called Gliese 581, is about one and a half times the diameter of the Earth (Earth is 8000 miles from pole to pole, this new planet is 12.000 miles from pole to pole). It probably has a substantial atmosphere and may be covered with large amounts of water - necessary for life to evolve - and, most importantly, temperatures are very similar to those on our world. Gliese 581c, as the planet is known for the time being, has a mass 5 times that of earth, probably made of the same sort of rock as makes up our world and with enough gravity to hold substantial atmosphere. The surface gravity is probably around twice that of the Earth and the atmosphere could be similar to ours. Although the new planet is in itself very Earth-like, its solar ststem is about as alien as could be imagined. The star at the centre (Gliese 581), is small and dim, only about a third the size of our Sun and about 50 times cooler. However, the Earth-like planet orbits its sun at a distance of only six million miles or so (our Sun is 93 million miles away), travelling so fast that its 'year' only lasts 13 of our days. The two other planets orbiting around this Sun are huge, Neptune-sized worlds called Gliese 581b (15x the size of Earth, and orbiting its Sun in 5.4 days - it's too hot to sustain life) and Gliese 581d (8z the size of Earth, and orbiting the Sun in 84 days - it's too cold for life). The full article can be read here: www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/technology/technology.html?in_article_id=450467&in_page_id=1965
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Post by The Doctor on Apr 26, 2007 14:32:39 GMT -5
Well, we are certainly one step closer to discovering extra-terrestrial life. It may not be there, but it's a start. Now what we need is warp drive!
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Post by valderra on Apr 26, 2007 17:00:11 GMT -5
I kind of feel sad for not being able to witness it when people are actually able to go fast enough to reach that and other Earth-like planets, and tell us what they find there. *sigh*
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Post by Tobbles on Apr 27, 2007 10:20:32 GMT -5
I saw it on the News. It's really interesting that there may be a world out there that is able to support life. Although we won't live to see humans travel to those kinds of planets there is still interesting objects close to us like the Moon and Mars.
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Post by xkamelx on Apr 28, 2007 10:59:36 GMT -5
Amazing Discovery! Thanks for sharing Val. The potential for life on that planet is extremely likely, but even if there is no life, I'm sure there will be one day. Considering the ancient age of the stars, a dew civilisations have have already risen and fallen.
As was said above this is possible the closest we've came to discovering life on other planets. I interesting part about this is since their year is 13 says (or something like that) the life that may have evolved there would be nothing like the life which evolved on Earth.
I'm very excited about this news.
And like you Val, it makes me sad to know we'll never reach this planet on out lifetime.
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Post by The Doctor on Apr 28, 2007 11:30:52 GMT -5
And like you Val, it makes me sad to know we'll never reach this planet on out lifetime. Of course, for us born at a later date, if Warp Drive really is invented in 2063, you never know.
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Post by Tobbles on Apr 28, 2007 14:42:57 GMT -5
Of course, for us born at a later date, if Warp Drive really is invented in 2063, you never know. At 72 your more likely to be bothered about your pension than Warp Drive. That planet only has a 13 day year. So what are we going to do when we colonise other worlds with different year lengths?
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Post by The Doctor on Apr 28, 2007 17:13:27 GMT -5
Of course, for us born at a later date, if Warp Drive really is invented in 2063, you never know. At 72 your more likely to be bothered about your pension than Warp Drive. That planet only has a 13 day year. So what are we going to do when we colonise other worlds with different year lengths? I'd just stick with the ordinary Earth-style calendar and disregard the seasonal mis-alignment.
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Post by Kmylove on Apr 29, 2007 3:46:40 GMT -5
The news about this new planet caught my attention as well. It would be really interesting if it turned out it actually has some life forms there.
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Post by xkamelx on Apr 29, 2007 4:03:14 GMT -5
And like you Val, it makes me sad to know we'll never reach this planet on out lifetime. Of course, for us born at a later date, if Warp Drive really is invented in 2063, you never know. We'd be in out 70's or 80's by then
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Post by The Doctor on Apr 29, 2007 4:40:24 GMT -5
Of course, for us born at a later date, if Warp Drive really is invented in 2063, you never know. We'd be in out 70's or 80's by then They may have found a treatment for aging by then.
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Post by valderra on Apr 29, 2007 14:07:14 GMT -5
Of course, for us born at a later date, if Warp Drive really is invented in 2063, you never know. At 72 your more likely to be bothered about your pension than Warp Drive. LOL Good reply, Tobbles. I don't think that any of us who are alive at the moment, no matter how young you are, will actually be able to witness anyone landing on that planet and reporting back. It's not just a matter of inventing something that will allow us to travel fast to other galaxies, but these things will need to be tested and other things need to be invented as well - whatever it is they will need on the trip and in order to land and survive on the planet and so on. And that will take a long time, especially since a lot of money that could be used towards such things is presently still used towards weapons to kill each other here on our own planet. We really need to get our act together and stop quarrelling, and become 'one'. Otherwise we will never succeed in anything outside our own planet. What am i saying... YOU will never succeed - I have nothing to do with all this. When I read this part, I was envisioning a 3-day Spring, a 3-day Summer, a 3-day Autumn, and a 4-day Winter. LOL Which means, you plant your seeds today, and harvest in less than a week later. But seriously... The thing is, we can't really comprehend what it is like to live on a planet with a different time zone. We just compare everything with our planet, which we must not do. After all, the '13-day revolution' around the Sun is only an Earth description, if you know what I mean. Time on that planet will move much different. We don't even know how long each day is. Might be that, because the planet is so much larger than ours, the day is twice as long as our day, for example. But you can't compare it with our time and say: Oh... I will be awake for 48 hours then. Because time on that planet, and therefore life on that planet, will move differently from life on Earth - if that makes sense to you.
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Post by The Doctor on Apr 29, 2007 15:06:09 GMT -5
At 72 your more likely to be bothered about your pension than Warp Drive. LOL Good reply, Tobbles. I don't think that any of us who are alive at the moment, no matter how young you are, will actually be able to witness anyone landing on that planet and reporting back. It's not just a matter of inventing something that will allow us to travel fast to other galaxies, but these things will need to be tested and other things need to be invented as well - whatever it is they will need on the trip and in order to land and survive on the planet and so on. And that will take a long time, especially since a lot of money that could be used towards such things is presently still used towards weapons to kill each other here on our own planet. We really need to get our act together and stop quarrelling, and become 'one'. Otherwise we will never succeed in anything outside our own planet. What am i saying... YOU will never succeed - I have nothing to do with all this. Please don't try to get our hopes down.
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Post by xkamelx on May 3, 2007 0:36:14 GMT -5
If we were to colonize this planet, I'm sure we'd go by Earth's calender. However, while this planet may be able to sustain human life, it climate would be totally alien to anything we know on Earth. A 13 day year would mean the seasons would change so fast that any life that evolved there would be so extremely alien to anything on Earth (no pun intended).
I think the fact that this world is so close to it's sun increases the chances of us finding more Earth like planets, and according to how close it is to gas giants, the view of the sky from the ground must be one hell of a view.
I so wish we could travel there, or develop a new space bound telescope to give us a true picture of the surface of this unnamed planet. It's got to be simply amazing.
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Post by The Doctor on May 3, 2007 16:20:19 GMT -5
I wonder how long it'll be before some businessman with a turnover of over $10,000,000,000 claims some land as his own on the place?
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