And there could be millions of them!

Astronomers have found the first alien world that could support life on its surface. It is both at the right distance from its star to potentially harbour liquid water and probably has a rocky composition like Earth.

"That's the most exciting exoplanet I've seen yet," says James Kasting of Pennsylvania State University in University Park, who was not involved in the discovery.

"The planet orbits a dim red dwarf star 20 light years from Earth called Gliese 581. Four planets were already known around the star, with two lying near the inner and outer edges of the habitable zone, where liquid water – and therefore potentially life – could exist on its surface.

One of those, which travels on a 13-day orbit, seems too hot for liquid water. The other, on a 67-day orbit, may be just warm enough for liquid water, but its status is not completely settled, says Kasting. Opinions "may continue to swing back and forth because it is hovering right near the outer edge", he says.

The newly found "Goldilocks" planet, called Gliese 581 g, lies in between the hot and cold ones. "You're smack dab in the middle of the habitable zone, so that's perfect," says Kasting, who has studied the two planets on the zone's edges."

Source:
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn19...-life.html

Very cool but scientists have had their eyes set on other Earth-Like planets before this (I can't remember which ones though for some reason...)

I wonder which God created the life on that planet...if there is any.

(September 29, 2010 at 10:02 pm)theVOID Wrote: Source:
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn19...-life.html

Of course, we can only really tell that it might be habitble by checking what colors it appears to be and using the light from its reflections to guage what the chemical compositions might be. Of course, even if we did find a very likely to be a dense (and therefore rocky) little blue dot is an amazing discovery.

Not quite as definitative as being able to say "that's an M-class planet" but it's the best shot we have.

Of course, the next best thing we can think to accomplish over the next fifty years is deciding just what, if anything, we can actually do about it. I think that would generally include plans for a robotic flyby from probe going near the speed of light for most of the journey and slowing down enough for a flyby or, better yet, establishing orbit and sending back pictures and scientific scans of the planet from orbit.

Such an undertaking is currently beyond our ability, but not by much. Still, a near-light flyby (that was capable of slowing down enough for a glance) would still take 40~50 years.
Still - a whole new world would definately make the effort worthwhile - even if the only resemblance to earth was oceans of liquid water.

Granted This si still awesome news, especially considering the relative ease in which this planet was discovered.

The jesus freaks will simply insist that their sky daddy created this too. Nothing dissuades the truly ignorant in their quest for 'god.'

(September 29, 2010 at 10:16 pm)theVOID Wrote: Granted This si still awesome news, especially considering the relative ease in which this planet was discovered.

No kidding.
If it really is an M-type planet (or even a close approximation of one), then only good things can follow.
What's great news about it is that if we can build a ship fast enough, we won't need a star-trek level ship to reach it. A ship that can travel even half the speed of light (for a one-way 40 year journey) would be more than enough to reach it within a lifetime (and a very nice retirement for an initial crew of 20-year-olds.)
The implications are only better if you consider near-light travel in which the lorentz factor can cut the journey much shorter (for the crew making the trip.)
Still - in stellar terms - the possibility of an "M-Class" planet so close to us is beyond amazing. It's in the territory of "ths is better than we could have possibily hoped."

I would like to propose to NASA that 'habitable' planets be classified as "Roddenberry-Class" planets.
(Lucas can have the classification of a hot methane-based gas giant.)

Travelling near light speed would induce a much less desirable consequence of the lorentz factor, relativistic mass It would make everything aboard gain a ridiculous amount of mass and possibly cause the ship and everyone in it to implode

Not sure what you mean by M-Class though, where are you getting this rating mechanism?

(September 29, 2010 at 11:15 pm)theVOID Wrote: Travelling near light speed would induce a much less desirable consequence of the lorentz factor, relativistic mass It would make everything aboard gain a ridiculous amount of mass and possibly cause the ship and everyone in it to implode

Not sure what you mean by M-Class though, where are you getting this rating mechanism?

The increased mass only matters for anything affected by the ship's relative momentum. It wouldn't cause the ship to become a black hole. It is a neat way to turn a rock into a weapon of mass destruction, however, if can accelerate a high-density object to nearly the speed of light, you can cause a huge amount of damage to whatever you hit if the rock were big enough.

The classification system I used (such that it is) is based on Star Trek's system - in which "M-Class" is the same thing as "Earthlike" - otherwise known as "we can shoot on-location instead of a green-room" (for the newer television series) or "we can shoot on an actual location instead of fake rocks painted into a different color." (for the older television series.)

(September 29, 2010 at 10:57 pm)Minimalist Wrote: The jesus freaks will simply insist that their sky daddy created this too. Nothing dissuades the truly ignorant in their quest for 'god.'

That's fine. We just send them all there with all of their literature on the sky-daddy subject and pretend the whole thing never happened.

(September 29, 2010 at 11:28 pm)TheDarkestOfAngels Wrote: The increased mass only matters for anything affected by the ship's relative momentum. It wouldn't cause the ship to become a black hole. It is a neat way to turn a rock into a weapon of mass destruction, however, if can accelerate a high-density object to nearly the speed of light, you can cause a huge amount of damage to whatever you hit if the rock were big enough.

Sorry that was a brain fart.

You're correct, I think, thought I don't think stating it as "affected by the ship's relative momentum" is quite the right way of putting it, rather, while you are travelling at near c relative to everything else you are still at a stand still and everything is moving away from you at near c and from your perspective they are the ones gaining mass, from all other frames of reference you appear to be gaining mass as you approach c. correct?

Quote:The classification system I used (such that it is) is based on Star Trek's system - in which "M-Class" is the same thing as "Earthlike" - otherwise known as "we can shoot on-location instead of a green-room" (for the newer television series) or "we can shoot on an actual location instead of fake rocks painted into a different color." (for the older television series.)

That's why I haven't heard of it I hate that show.

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(September 29, 2010 at 11:35 pm)Shell B Wrote:

(September 29, 2010 at 10:57 pm)Minimalist Wrote: The jesus freaks will simply insist that their sky daddy created this too. Nothing dissuades the truly ignorant in their quest for 'god.'

That's fine. We just send them all there with all of their literature on the sky-daddy subject and pretend the whole thing never happened.

NO THEY CAN'T HAVE IT, IT'S MYYYYYNE!

Besides, after a few generations on that planet they would all think that they were put there by a god, and after several more generations they'd be looking out at the stars thinking "how fucking cool is it that god made this planet just for us?"