AdelaideNow… New earth find suggests we are not alone — Does anyone else but me think that we should load up vials of frozen life forms and launch a missile at this planet to inoculate it? Or does anyone think that perhaps there are folks on this planet that did that to us? Or do I join the nutball club for thinking this way?
ASTRONOMERS have found a “new Earth” – the first planet outside our solar system with the potential for life as we know it.
The Earth-like planet is 20.5 light years away, orbiting the “red dwarf” star Gliese 581 in the constellation Libra.It is one of three planets in that solar system, with the Earth-like planet named Gliese 581C.
Commenting on the discovery by a team of European scientists, University of Adelaide Professor Roger Clay said this was the first time a planet with a mass or weight similar to the Earth’s had been found.
Does anyone else find the lack of understanding of basic physics and Special Relativity on this web site appalling?
41. No, I’m the dumbest guy in the room, explain it to me.
40, mark, we’ve got nukes, too. In a few hundred more years I’ll bet we can decimate our local arm of the Milky Way galaxy… that’ll show ‘em.
39, Angel, oh Lord, say it ain’t so.
43. Another good reason to avoid earth like a plague. And people wonder why they dont give W a big Texas Howdy!
Mark, I found the perfect web site to teach you about Special Relativity.
P.S. To everyone else … if you learn how to use the anchor tag on this web site you don’t have to use TinyURL.
44, mark, you can tell just how smart the W is by how many World Series the Texas Rangers won while he owned the team. I’ll never forget the fan sitting behind him (just in front of me) in one game, who hollered “George — more pitching!!’ That message will reach Gliese 581 in approx. 10 years, since it was broadcast and heard quite clearly on national TV. No wonder no one wants to visit Earth, even if they could.
41, Improbus, lack of understanding of basic physics
We’re all in a blog room, after all. Wish I had time to work out #34′s question, I’ll leave it to you. I’m fishin’ for two more days, come on big bass !!
45. Thats two things I’ll have to learn today, my hair is starting to hurt.
46. Yeah, Texas scares the shit out of em….Dont mess
BubbaRay, I work for a living. I will leave it as an exercise for those that are curious. Just look up the equations and plug in the numbers.
The people of that planet have done nothing to us, why should we “inoculate” the little varmints? But don’t worry, in time Humanity will spread through the universe like a hell bent viral infection. Kind of like George and his bunch spreading their freaky little brand of “democracy”.
45. “P.S. To everyone else … if you learn how to use the anchor tag on this web site you don’t have to use TinyURL. ”
So I dont have time to learn physics today, I work too. But I am interested in the anchor tag tip, what is it?
Mark, if you look under the “Please leave a comment” at the end of the comments you will see the anchor example. Put the entire URL into the href quotes and put the anchor text (the text you want underlined for the link) in between the anchor tag and the close anchor tag.
Sheesh, right under my nose. Told you I was the dumbest guy in the room. Thanks.
#32 – Bussard ramjet? Yeah those are feasible, but the amount of radiation kicked back into the crew module would be ENORMOUS, and as such it would have to be unmanned.
You’ve raised a good point though – how would we communicate w/ such a probe? Surely the probe could communicate back with no problems, Earth is essentially a fixed point. The damn radio signals that we currently use are just too slow. We need some sort of hyper or FTL communications technology.
A few of you are getting the points…
Good..
The theory MAY have a flaw in it(einsteins)…AS there has been no way to Disprove it… If its SO…Then the Bussard jet WONT work, it would probably Explode with all the Extra fuel it Cant combust.
YOU CANT KNOW what will happen, totally…Until we DO it…
ECA your words cause cognitive dissonance in anyone trying to understand you. I think your brain may work on a different principle than most humans. You are from this planet, right?
If we send Earth life there, all we can succeed at doing is to lower the cumulative intelligence of the inhabited universe. Nobody would win.
The Drake Equation:
(this formula was dissed by guys like Michael Crichton as being bogus, having no data to plug into the variables… but look, it’s starting to get filled in! (albeit slowly, to be sure)
N = N* fp ne fl fi fc fL
The equation can really be looked at as a number of questions:
N* represents the number of stars in the Milky Way Galaxy
Question: How many stars are in the Milky Way Galaxy?
Answer: Current estimates are 100 billion.
fp: The fraction of stars that have planets around them
Question: What percentage of stars have planetary systems?
Answer: Current estimates range from 20% to 50%.
ne: The number of planets per star that are capable of sustaining life
Question: For each star that does have a planetary system, how
many planets are capable of sustaining life?
Answer: We seem to be getting closer to this one lately. Red
dwarf stars? Who would’ve known?…
57, Comment by Pterocat — 4/26/2007 @ 5:11 pm
RE; Drake equation:
fc is the fraction of fi that communicate
fL is fraction of the planet’s life during which the communicating civilizations live
How long until we destroy the planet? You are correct. Wonder what the actual values of fc and fl are?
Where is Neil deGrasse Tyson when we need him?
http://research.amnh.org/~tyson/
Dang, I hate posting late, no one will ever read this.
How do you slow down a Bussard ramjet on approach to destination?
#34, KarmaBaby, There is a way to compute how much time would pass for the travelers on the ship
Well, since I can’t fish all day, I worked out the relativistic ‘ship time’ accelerating at one G to Gliese 581 — the traveler ages about 9 years.
#59, Timbo, that’s an excellent question, and some have proposed ‘magnetic parachutes’ using the Bussard technology. But the deceleration phase would certainly be longer than the acceleration time.
For robot probes to the nearest stars, deceleration wouldn’t be a problem.