Kepler Spacecraft Finds System With Multiple Planets Transiting the Star 136
Posted
by
timothy
from the they've-probably-found-us-too dept.
from the they've-probably-found-us-too dept.
rhaas writes "NASA's Kepler spacecraft has discovered the first confirmed planetary system with more than one planet crossing in front of, or transiting, the same star. They found two planets almost the size of Saturn, and possibly a third, small, very hot planet with a radius about 1.5 times that of Earth."
Exoplanets vs. inter-stellar travel (Score:5, Insightful)
The exoplanets search is the most exciting thing in space exploration since the moon landings IMHO for one important reason: one day, a project like Kepler will find an Earth sized planet orbiting within a foreign star's habitable zone. It's the stated goal of the project, yes, but when it actually happens, things will be different.
Imagine what the day will be like when we find something like that. We'll know it's there, we'll know it's the right size and at the right distance from its star, but we'll know little else. We'll know that life very probably *could* exist there, but without getting much, much closer to it, we'd never know for sure.
And we're not talking about the extremely remote possibilities of microbial life on Mars, or some kind of funky aquatic life on Europa's hypothetical subsurface ocean, we're talking about plants and animals. Maybe even intelligent animals like us.
What could possibly be a better motivator for our society to start pushing the limits of propulsion technology again? If we had something *tangibly* interesting to explore in a relatively nearby star system, like the ones Kepler is exploring, we might just get that extra kick in our pants we need to start innovating again.
WWII motivated us to enter a brand new energy age with the development of atomic power and the perfection (I'll use that term loosely ;)) of rocketry. Would discovering a planet in another star system with a high degree of habitability give us the motivation we need to efficiently produce and harness antimatter or some other next-generation power source?
Yeah, I'm being all misty eyed here. Relativity is a pesky little fucker, among other issues. But I can't shake the feeling that we're an amazing species of innovators when properly motivated. And I just don't think exploring other star systems has captured our collective attention the way landing on the moon did.
I desperately want to see us that motivated again some day. And I think finding a reasonably high enough probability of habitability on a planet orbiting a foreign star would give us back what we let slip away from us in the 1970s.
Re:The first? (Score:4, Insightful)
Actually, all this means is they finally found a star system where they were viewing planets along (edge on to) the plane of ecliptic, and therefore able to measure multiple planets actually cross the disk of star.
Which suggest all the other multi-planet systems were viewed somewhat orthogonal to the ecliptic, because there are no shortage of multi-planet systems.
Re:Exoplanets vs. inter-stellar travel (Score:4, Insightful)
I think our best bet at getting more information about these planets is pushing the limits of telescope technology again. As in having linked telescopes at opposite ends of the solar system and similar projects. That way, we won't have to make those pesky trips over tens or even hundreds of light years.
Re:Perspective (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Exoplanets vs. inter-stellar travel (Score:3, Insightful)
Hmmm, I am not sure if you are only dangling a hook to see if anyone bites. However...
Nothing wrong with the earth. However it is the only place where humanity exists. If we get hit by an extinction level event (ELE), be it an asteroid, super volcano, or whatever, then that is that. We need to have a plan B. And forget about the moon or Mars. We do not have the know-how to create a self-sufficient environment there or anywhere else. We need a nice friendly planet in the Goldilocks zone.
And destruction is inevitable. An ELE WILL happen. It is just a matter of time. The earth has had a lot of near misses lately, one of which was only discovered after it had passed us. So forget about mounting some faint hope expedition. If you can't see it coming...
Re:Exoplanets vs. inter-stellar travel (Score:5, Insightful)
If I were to be, then my money would be on us reaching the technology to create a self-sufficient environment on, say, Mars much earlier than us reaching the technology to send anything other than a robotic probe over interstellar distances.
This is simply because travelling interstellar distances pretty much requires the technology to create a quasi-self-sufficient environment ... or warp drive technology.
Re:Exoplanets vs. inter-stellar travel (Score:1, Insightful)
The problem is if the rules of the universe dont enable us to get there in any practical way.
Nonsense. The rules of the universe say we can get there in practically no time at all for the people actually doing the traveling; and that's just old fashioned 100 year old special relativity. Add in what may very well be quantum and/or GR shortcuts (tunneling drives or Alcubierre drives or whatever) and "the rules of the universe" practically give us the ability to go wherever we want.
Granted, we don't have the technology to build anything so exotic at the moment, but the underlying science says the universe is ours for the taking.
Re:Exoplanets vs. inter-stellar travel (Score:3, Insightful)
Physical limits vs. technological limits (Score:5, Insightful)
The only limits in the 1800s were technological. Given enough development in stronger and lighter materials, escape velocity became possible.
The light of speed limit is an ultimate physical limit of the universe. The first hint of this limitation was found in 1887 [wikipedia.org] and has been confirmed many times in many different ways. Simply put, given all the experimental data we have, if faster than light travel were possible time would be bidirectional; causality would be violated.
This does not mean FTL is absolutely impossible, maybe we will one day find a flaw in our current understanding of physics that will let us travel faster than light. However, the resultant implications would be so huge that travelling to distant stars would perhaps be one of the least interesting things to do with our new physics.