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Multiple Asteroid Belts Found Orbiting Nearby Star
Posted by
Soulskill
on Tue Oct 28, 2008 06:59 PM
from the no-word-on-asteroid-suspenders dept.
from the no-word-on-asteroid-suspenders dept.
Kligat writes "Scientists have found two asteroid belts around the star Epsilon Eridani, the ninth closest star to our solar system. Epsilon Eridani also possesses an icy outer ring similar in composition to our Kuiper Belt, but with 100 times more material, and a Jovian mass planet near the edge of the innermost belt. Researchers believe that two other planets must orbit the 850 million year old star near the other two belts. Terrestrial planets are possible, but not yet indicated."
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Summary neglects the important news... (Score:2, Funny)
It's one possible location for Star Trek's planet Vulcan!
Babylon 5 (Score:5, Interesting)
While talking about Sci-Fi, it might be worth noting that this system is the home of Babylon 5. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epsilon_III [wikipedia.org]
Parent
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Sci-Fi seems to have limited originality. It's also Vulcan's system.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vulcan_(Star_Trek_planet) [wikipedia.org]
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Vulcan's system is 40 Eridani (which is actually a triple system, including the first discovered white dwarf). This star is Epsilon Eridani. Not the same.
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Interesting. I posted this from memory, based on the James Blish novelization of "Amok Time" that I read in the mid-70's. In the novelization he/she explicitly said Epsilon Eridani. I suppose the canon has moved on since then.
Construction debris (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Construction debris (Score:5, Funny)
Poor Zathras. Never any rest for Zathras.
Parent
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Unfortunately Zathras finally got some rest [variety.com] a few years ago.
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heresy! (Score:5, Funny)
epsilon eridani only 850 million years old? there is no way a race as ancient and wise as the vulcan could have come from such a young star system
look, i am an avid supporter of scientific progress as much as the next slashdotter, but when these so-called astronomers report something that contradicts well-established star trek canon, i have to put my foot down and wonder at the agenda of these propagandizers
yours,
star trek fundamentalist
Re:heresy! (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
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Frighteningly, I seem to be even more of a Trek geek than you are — Vulcan is in the 40 Eridani star system, aka Omicron Eridani, not Epsilon Eridani.
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This is Omicron Eridani. ... Epsilon Eridani exploded six months after we were left here. The shock shifted the orbit of this solar system and everything was laid waste. Admiral Kirk ...never bothered to check on our progress.
Re:heresy! (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
mod parent up (Score:3, Interesting)
All kidding aside, it's very hard to try to figure out just how long it would take to come up with life (almost as we know it) under circumstances even marginally different than our own. That said, the Vulcan are very similar to us because humanoids originate from the same planet. For more on this, see TNG episode 6x20.
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Interestingly enough, this was one bit of canon that originated in the Star Trek novels well before that episode was written. I wish I could remember which ones — it has been over 20 years since I read those things. They were called the Progenitors in a number of the books.
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that's the one where they find bits and pieces of code hidden in the DNA of various lifeforms on different planets, right?
does that mean that humans didn't actually evolve naturally, but instead were the result of genetic engineering (intelligent design)? if so, that was a dumb plot line. i mean, don't various humanoid civilizations in the Star Trek universe have vastly different ages? i know humanity isn't 851 million years old, not even by the 24th century. besides, there was also that episode where the E
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Vulcans could have come from humanoid-like *settlers*
Just another failed Pak colony [wikipedia.org].
(sorry about crossing the streams, though Niven did write one animated Star Trek episode).
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Someone send a rescue message?
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though Niven did write one animated Star Trek episode
Well, yes and no. It was an adaptation (which he did) of his earlier Known Space story, "The Soft Weapon", with Spock substituting for the Puppeteer Nessus in the animation (and other minor variations). (As I'm sure you knew.) Thus the Kzinti end up the Star Trek universe.
(Niven also did some episodes of "Land of the Lost", none based on his Known Space stories, AFAIK.)
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One month they put on a few of these animated apisodes and I got a surprise when I recognised Niven's story.
I didn't think much of the episode, though
Hmm. (Score:5, Informative)
For those of you who dont want to RTFA but want some reference on why this is important, let me put a quote for you:
"Studying Epsilon Eridani is like having a time machine to look at our solar system when it was young,"
Oh crap! (Score:3, Funny)
Do we have time to assemble a crack team of oil-rig roughnecks to land on them and nuke them? More importantly, does this mean another terrible Aerosmith song?!?
More Informative Article (Score:5, Informative)
This one [sciencenews.org] actually gives some information on how they detected the belts (short version: it's based on infrared emissions that could only come from rocky debris).
And here [arxiv.org] is the actual paper on arXiv, if you want the full technical details of their methods.
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I wonder if a bunch of orbiting solar panels would generate a similar signature? In other words, if another civilization was mining star-light via panels, their signature could resemble asteroid belts. Of course its hard to really know without knowing more about the technology they actually use, but we might find something unnatural about it upon further study.
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If at a distance of 10 light years we could detect solar panels and confuse them for an asteroid belt, there are some aliens with quite an energy bill.
Sounds like a great place to send a probe too. (Score:2)
In a hundred or so years when we have the technology to get there. Might even be the ideal place for a colony someday.
A couple decades more likely (Score:3, Interesting)
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Yes, it would be a good candidate for a probe, especially since we could learn more about the early solar system.
But as for setting up a colony, that seems doubtful. The star is only 850 million years old, it doesn't seem likely that any rocky planets in orbit would be stable enough yet to support life (it would be a lot easier to set up camp on a planet teaming with at least primitive life, assuming an ecosystem compatible with life from Earth). Not to mention the increased likelihood of cometary impacts o
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The place to put the colony is in the inner asteroid belt. Earthlike planets if any would be just a bonus. Based on what little we already know about the system, it's an obvious place to go.
Maybe just robots and nanites at first.
I wish I'd kept a copy of when I submitted this story earlier today, although the posted version is as good as mine.
see previous slashdot stories
http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/02/18/1359214 [slashdot.org] Interstellar Ark
http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/05/11/214248 [slashdot.org] Mi
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I don't see that life by age 850M is particularly improbable. There is a good chance that Earth had some sort of life by that age and photosynthesis not much later. It is not a great stretch to assume that things might have happened a bit faster elsewhere, especially if the late heavy bombardment happened earlier (or not at all).
An ecosytem compatible with Earth life, on the other hand, seems extremely unlikely (not that it would be necessary, as long as there was an oxygen atmosphere).
Not to rain on this parade but... (Score:5, Insightful)
In a hundred or so years when we have the technology to get there. Might even be the ideal place for a colony someday.
Look, I agree that it's a nice place to go visit, but if you looked into things, you would find that it is 10.5 Light Years Away [solstation.com] from earth it would take close to an eternity to get there with current rocket technology [northwestern.edu] and certainly what is being developed. And not to rain on the parade again, but before anyone goes touting ION ENGINES will get us there, no, they really won't. You see Ion Engines [northwestern.edu] need large amounts of power to run. Really large amounts that are generally limited to the amount of juice that can be generated by huge solar panels. Short of putting a nuclear reactor on this ship to get us there, we simply won't have enough sunlight to make the engine run once is starts to fade away from the centerish part of our solar system.
In short, I would love to agree, but I really think that you would need to change the "hundred or so" part of your post to be "many hundreds or so".
That's assuming we can deal with the massive solar winds [wikipedia.org] that are 30 times as powerful as the ones in our system. Did I forget that part?
Parent
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There's no real theoretical reason why we couldn't send a probe to a star even 10 light years away with current or near current technology. It would just take quite a while to get there. Yes, it would definitely carry a nuke of some sort.
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"quite a while to get there"
yeah, like maybe 100,000 years.
Re:Not to rain on this parade but... actually (Score:3, Interesting)
IMO, what's mor
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3 rings - not 2 (Score:5, Informative)
From TFA:
Two rings of rocks, and one of ice.
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No, that was Z'ha'dum. Waaay out on the rim.
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Hang on, I mean, I totally have no idea what that reference means. I have never....
Blame Mars (Score:2)
Suggestions for basic astronomy/cosmology book? (Score:2, Interesting)
A co-worker and I were discussing this story today. He had a very poor education growing up and I had to explain a great deal for him to really 'get' what's going on at Epsilon Eridani.
Can anyone recommend a good basic astronomy/cosmology book that I can give him to bring him somewhat up to speed? For reference, I had to explain that all the stars in the sky are just like our sun; that's his level of understanding. He's very smart and motivated to learn, but has very little background in science.
Thanks!
Re:This is off topic, but...(Fiction recommendatio (Score:2, Informative)
To be fair, Epsilon Eridani is featured in quite a few [wikipedia.org] works of fiction.
Re:Astrologers thing they are so smart (Score:5, Informative)
I bet they can't even accurately predict what the odds are of successfully navigating through this asteroid belt.
Easy. Just stay out of plane.
Parent
Re:Astrologers thing they are so smart (Score:4, Funny)
I bet they can't even accurately predict what the odds are of successfully navigating through this asteroid belt.
Easy. Just stay out of plane.
Can't do that, chief, there's a star destroyer on my back.
Parent
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(It'd take me only 10 parsecs to figure it out. That's how good I am at).
It would take you around 300 000 000 000 000 kilometers to work out if you can get through something roughly 8 975 880 000 km wide?
You too can read about what a parsec [wikipedia.org] and astronomical unit [wikipedia.org] is in the privacy of your own home.
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Besides, how can you bring yourself to glorify such an obvious scientific error (whatever the context was)?
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The high population of the main belt makes for a very active environment, where collisions between asteroids occur frequently. Collisions between main belt bodies with a mean radius of 10 km are expected to occur about once every 10 million years.
If you were to take a random picture of some place in the belt, you'd get nothing but blackness. If I recall correctly, the average distance between asteroids in the belt is around 100,000 miles. You have an extremely good chance of not hitting anything even by blindly going through.