Earthlike Planet Orbiting Nearby Star

The Bad Astronomer writes "Astronomers in Europe have announced the discovery of a planet with only 5 times the Earth's mass, orbiting a red dwarf star 20 light years away. It orbits the star so closely that it only takes 13 days to go around... but the star is so cool that the temperature of the planet is between 0 and 40 Celsius. At this temperature there could be liquid water. Models indicate the planet is either rocky like the Earth or covered in an ocean. While it's not known if there actually is liquid water on the planet, this is a really big discovery, and indicates that we are getting ever closer to finding another Earth orbiting an alien star."

Strange new worlds

[richdun]

This is a really big discovery...

And that, my friends, is the understatement of the millennium.

Re:This is worth sending a probe.

[Dr. Eggman]

But then our probe's signal transmitter would also be 20 light years away =(

Uninhabital new worlds

[Harmonious Botch]

1)It has 2.25G's,
2)It's probably tidal-locked which means quakes so living underground is not easy
3)The surface is probably soaked with radiation where it faces the sun and cold where it does not.
4)If there is any atmosphere it is probably turbulent due to hot and cold sides.

Even if I could travel a light-year a minute for a buck, I'd never consider trying to live there. Next?

Re:Uninhabital new worlds

[Anonymous Coward]

It's important because it has the potential for life. The little green men we may find there might even know of a location we could send ignorant assholes like you.

Re:How long to get there?

[s20451]

instantaneously by the perspective of the traveller

Unfortunately the traveller would not percieve the passage of time any more, having been transformed into raspberry jam by the accelleration forces.

A : )

[Anonymous Coward]

Indeed quite unlike our windless, quake-free, constant-temperature planet.

Rocky like Earth?

[dreamchaser]

Models indicate the planet is either rocky like the Earth or covered in an ocean.

Last time I checked, the Earth's surface is 75% covered by water.

Tag: theresnoplacelikehome

[rjamestaylor]

I, for one, am beginning to sense the need for a revolt against the "grass is greener" bandwagon seeking to promote colonization of another planet in lieu of taking proper care of the planet that has always been here for us, Earth. Join me in this revolt by tagging stories inciting the thought of fleeing Earth like some kind of foreclosed duplex -- trashed and slashed -- for the chance at taking over a pristine ecosystem with the tag "theresnoplacelikehome".

Thank you for your support.

Re:Strange new worlds

[JanneM]

That's like saying "I'm dating this girl who's like Jessica Alba. She's latina, has dark hair, and is only five times Jessica Alba's size! So you see, she is plainly like Jessica Alba!".

But it's still a living, breathing girl. By the same token, other discovered extrasolar planets would like trying to have a meaningful relationship with a bulk freighter.

Re:Tag: theresnoplacelikehome

[icebrain]

We don't propose abandoning Earth like a "foreclosed duplex"--and we certainly don't advocate letting things go to hell here while we look for a new place to trash. The idea is survival--colonizing other planets helps ensure survival of the species.
We could go completely green and make Earth a complete paradise--and then some rock could come along and kill all of us.

And, chances are, the knowledge we would gain just from trying to build a "slowboat" colony ship (one that does not travel at an appreciable fraction of c) would be of immense value in helping preserve Earth's environment. Such a ship would be an entire self-contained, self-sufficient ecosystem, having to last hundreds, if not thousands, of years with no resupply and no dependable external power source. Creating such a system would lead to incredibly-efficient systems, and the lessons could be transferred to everyday engineering projects and other systems. Think water reclamation, ultra-efficient farming and food production techniques (solves hunger problems too!), clean, efficient sources of energy...

Re:My Hope

[Blakey Rat]

Why? What does proof of alien life accomplish?

I think a true atheist wouldn't capitalize "Atheist." Makes it seem like a religion by a different name.

Re:Uninhabital new worlds

[TapeCutter]

1) So mice have thicker bones and birds run rather than fly.
2) I don't think quakes are a big problem for life in general.
3 & 4) Complex life forms live around thermal vents where the temprature varies by hundredes of degrees over a few inches. Our own biosphere is also a chaotic system where order "emerges" in the form of a dynamic equilibrium.

"Even if I could travel a light-year a minute for a buck, I'd never consider trying to live there."

I think you missed the point (or maybe you were aiming for cynical humour), we are a long way technologically from colonising the stars, so much so that we are only now infering the existance of interesting targets. We co-evolved with Earth's biosphere and it's very unlikely we will find a hospitable duplicate where we can lay around on a beach or picnic by a river. Given the huge technology gap, our species must first learn how to sustain the only hospitable biosphere we have for millenia before we can "consider" moving to another planet.

"Next?"

Yes, by all means keep this research going, great stuff!

Re:Tag: theresnoplacelikehome

[Paulrothrock]

The long-term survival of the species depends on leaving Earth to colonize other Earth-like worlds. Anyone who opposes this simply wishes the human race to become extinct.

Also, the idea that we need to destroy any ecosystem we come into contact with is a false dichotomy. It's people like you who give rational environmentalists like me a bad name. I'm an environmentalist because I want to help save humanity, not because I think we shouldn't be allowed to survive.

Re:How long to get there?

[Your.Master]

It may not make sense, but if you can travel at light speed (and survive it), or close enough to it, then "instantaneous" travel from your own perspective is close enough to being true. The guy running the blog at the following link worked out that, at constant-g acceleration, you can get there in 3.65 years your time. Of course, you're going basically the speed of light, so you'll miss it if you blink. Plugging in half the distance into his formula and multiplying the result by 2 gives you the ship-time it takes if you accelerated there for half the journey and the decelerated for the other half. Comes out to 6.04 years. Give or take a bit (we were really only given one significant digit -- 20 light years away). Okay, now use his equation with a = c. You'll come out with...a very small number. http://www.sunclipse.org/?p=54 [sunclipse.org]

Re:This is worth sending a probe.

[strider44]

"allow a maximum speed of 0.6 X the speed of light"

... something tells me you're not really a fan of the theory of relativity are you?

Re:Uninhabital new worlds

[246o1]

I would be willing to bet that humans could live in 2.5 G. The human body is incredibly resilient, especially when it has grown up in a new environment. There are people living everywhere from sea level to several miles up, and in environments ranging from yearly average temperatures of over 30C to under 0C.

This does raise an interesting point, however. A great deal of money and research time has been spent studying how human and animal physiology react to low- or micro-gravity, but I am not aware of any long-term studies of higher G's, such as raising monkeys in a giant centrifuge or somesuch. Sure, this would take a lot of money, but hopefully less than for sending things to space, and it is vital knowledge for space exploration (long-term acceleration or living on these planets are the two key reasons).

The discovery of this planet provides some hope for those of us who hope the human race will escape Earth before we destroy it, or those who hope for Earth-similar life. And we can only expect the discovery of these planets to accelerate in the future, as out technology makes it easier to find them.

Re:Hi-rez imaging

[networkBoy]

and I use a french press, what's your point?
(mine tastes better than yours too)

Re:Tag: theresnoplacelikehome

[Nazlfrag]

Indeed, such a project could show us why GP is right, that there is no place like home, and that we are already on that slow boat. The colony ship would need 100% reclamation of all materials, with no toxic byproducts. This already rules out nearly all of our modern farming, manufacturing and other techniques. Our problem is how to decontaminate and sustain an already toxic colony ship, a much more difficult task, but one that needs the first steps to be taken. Colony ships seem to be the most likely first step.

So if you value the Earth and want to see it become a sustainable habitat, I cannot think of a better project to encourage than interstellar colonization.

Re:This is worth sending a probe.

[niktemadur]

As much as I love the idea, sorry to poop the party but we're forgetting the white elephant in the room: 3D interstellar billiards.

Course correction on the way will be next to impossible, so we'd have to know the exact position of the planet, to the second, of the probe's arrival to the gravitational influence of the planet. Here we are, messing up martian probes with six months' travel time because of measurement glitches, and now this? We'll have to wait much longer for a manned mission.

Um, yeah, *liquid*

[Russ Nelson]

temperature of the planet is between 0 and 40 Celsius. At this temperature there could be liquid water.

Errrr, we have liquid water on earth at this temperature. More importantly, what is the air (if any) pressure. That will affect whether you have liquid water at 40C or not.

Re:My Hope

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

It is [a religion]. Atheism assumes without evidence. That is just as much a matter of faith as believing in creator(s).

Hardly. Atheism is as much a religion as not collecting stamps is a hobby.

Re:Uninhabital new worlds

[falsified]

As far as I see, the article only claims a chance for life to be on this planet. I don't see anything in there that talks about there being humans on this planet.

Go to a non-Starbucks coffee shop

[Rix]

You'll get better coffee, and they won't try to give you the vocabulary of a corporate whore.

Seti @ Home

[Stripsurge]

Would it be worth pointing a radio telescope at this thing?

Re:water

[Anonymous Coward]

Bollocks. There are plenty of people (most of them Americans) who are 100% overweight, yet they manage to stumble about quite effectively. 2.25G is in NO WAY a showstopper for human exploration. 20 lightyears is a much tougher challenge.

Re:My Hope

[asninn]

Atheism is certainly not a religion, but I think that's just because it's not organised - it *is* a spiritual conviction (and I'm saying that as an atheist). A conviction based on considerations of plausibility, Occam's razor and so on, of course; a conviction that makes sense and doesn't just assert the existence of big bogeymen in the sky, flying spaghetti monsters and invisible pink unicorns secretly controlling the world; and a conviction that (some? many? most?) people would probably be willing to abandon if presented with strong actual evidence[1] that it is not, indeed correct, but a spiritual conviction nonetheless.

1. Given the claims typically made by religion, such evidence would have to be VERY strong indeed, and withstand a whole lot of attempts to deconstruct it over a very long period of time, but I think most atheists base their conviction on reason rather than irrational beliefs (like most "religious" people seem to do), and therefore, I think that most atheists would be able to willing to reconsider their conviction if provided with compelling, strong, well-tested evidence. But on the other hand, since I *am* an atheist, I think that all this is just a theoretical question, anyway. ;)

Re:Semi-inhabital new worlds

[Serengeti]

"they will probably live a lot shorter."

And not as old, either!

Re:How long to get there?

[Anonymous Coward]

We don't have a people shortage, or even a crazy people shortage. Skip the probe and send volunteers. Promise enough funds to support their families for life and you will get cheap volunteers from third world nations that are throwing babies into rivers due to overpopulation. You can't lose.

Yes! I agree wholeheartedly. I have been arguing this for years now, we should have had thousands of one-way manned probes launched by now, the data coming in would be amazing. The problem with our space programs is that the cost is prohibitive because people expect to return. We number in the billions, the sacrifice of a few thousand for space exploration is a pittance, the returns would be immense. We probably lose more people to car accidents every year than we'd ever consume in a one-way space program. However the value placed on the individual in western society is paramount, and has been crippling the progress of humanity for quite some time now. I would volunteer in a flash, I can't imagine a greater contribution to humanity, even if all I found at my destination was a cold lifeless rock.

Re:Uninhabital new worlds

[AGMW]

Space travel is a luxury that earth can't afford.

Hmmmmm. It may well be something that the Earth (ie the planet) can't really afford, but it is something the Human Species MUST do at some point if it wants to survive. More than that, it may be something the Human Species can only really afford to do in the next hundred years or so, because as the Earth fills up with more and more people, all the resources will end up being used, leaving nothing left to attempt to get at least some of our species to "safety".

IMHO, the Human Species cannot afford NOT to do it, and we MUST do it soon or it may be too late!