Habitable planet discovered nearby! (Well, relatively nearby)
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beyeajus,
Posted on: 2010-09-29 21:29 in Comic and Hero-Villain Culture
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Originally Posted by Rylas
Relative, schmelative. There's way too many assumptions being made here. Atmosphere, temperature, adequate amounts of water, a magnetosphere capable of blocking out harmful cosmic radiation. It's very poor science to use this term so loosely.
I don't have issues with using relative terms for distance. The universe is too big a place to be so strict on the word "nearby." But habitability is too narrow a range to do so. |
Now, properly speaking you are right, it would be better to say Potentially habitable.
But, it is such an exciting prospect/discovery that it is fair to accept it as communicated and not quibble.
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Again I think relative to all the super-massive gas giants orbiting just a few million miles from their respective stars that we've found so far this new planet is in fact "habitable". It's described as being in the "goldilocks" zone. Clearly we don't really know if it's even remotely "Earth-like", but even the Moon or Mars would be "habitable" inside well-constructed indoor environments.|
Originally Posted by Rylas
Relative, schmelative. There's way too many assumptions being made here. Atmosphere, temperature, adequate amounts of water, a magnetosphere capable of blocking out harmful cosmic radiation. It's very poor science to use this term so loosely.
I don't have issues with using relative terms for distance. The universe is too big a place to be so strict on the word "nearby." But habitability is too narrow a range to do so. |
I think the problem is you're holding the word "habitable" to a far higher standard than it deserves for the purposes of this discussion. It's not like we're going to get there anytime soon anyway and by then we may have found an even more likely "Earth-like" candidate by then.
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Higher standard? Nah. I just think before anyone makes any claims, they need to have substantial information. All we know is that it's in a "zone" and it's tidally locked, with "estimated temps" no one (or hardly anyone) would want to live in. The "zone" idea is also sketchy, since there could be conditions on many planets outside these theorized zones that still make them habitable.|
Originally Posted by Lothic
I think the problem is you're holding the word "habitable" to a far higher standard than it deserves for the purposes of this discussion. It's not like we're going to get there anytime soon anyway and by then we may have found an even more likely "Earth-like" candidate by then.
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To say the moon is habitable so long as you create a dwelling space to protect you from the moon's environment sounds very contradictory. We don't even know if this planet would be a good candidate to build a habitat on. Venus is "Earth-like." It has land. It's not tidally locked. But it's far from habitable, even by your example.
It's just not responsible science when you make these claims in the media.
@Rylas
Kill 'em all. Let XP sort 'em out.
umm
It sounds like you just don't understand what it said.
Habitable means that if a human were to be dropped there without some super survival suit they wouldn't die from the lack of oxygen, water, or temperatures that are too low or too high.
Scientists can determine a large number of things about a planet/star without "seeing" it through spectroscopic analysis. Like we can estimate a planets temperature from the distance from the star + analysis from the planet's reflection of light + plus the star's light itself. It's a fairly simple process to figure this stuff out.
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Billy Mays?
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Originally Posted by beyeajus
sweet! If we can get there in time we can start making up future dates of when it will end for future generations to worry about, only to be history-trolled! Just like the Aztecs, Maiyans, Nosrtadamus, and that other guy!
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By galactic standards it's as close as we've ever seen. Temperatures that allow liquid water, only 1.5 G gravity, and only a 6 year trip from Earth. The only possible lack is oxygen in the atmosphere...and we can put a colony in a dome.|
Originally Posted by DumpleBerry
New definitions of the terms "habitable" and "nearby," I take it?
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Yeah, 'habitable' and 'nearby' would seem to apply in this case. If you're looking for a garden of Eden out there, you ain't gonna find it.
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It's close enough that we can get there in a human lifetime.
It's in an environmental niche such that we could set up an insulated survival pod and survive.
In intergalactic scales, this is damn near as near as we are EVER likely to get to "close" and "habitable".
As opposed to all the others so far that have been thousands of years of travel away and/or hot enough to melt rock/cold enough to freeze air.
-np
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Just our luck we will finance a multinational team to explore this planet only to discover that some ignorant life forms that we do not accept will try to say the world is their own. We will just have to gun down a few thousand of them and give trinkets to the suddenly much more friendly neighbors. Ofcourse the exact opposite could happen. Maybe we should send this team with enough nukes to completely wipeout the ecosystem just in case. Yes, nothing bad could happen with that little added detail.
Won't need a multinational team or even a space agency. Just go up to Jim Cameron and suggest he can film Avatar II on location. Two years,tops.
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We simply don't know enough. |
Originally Posted by Lothic
Again I think relative to all the super-massive gas giants orbiting just a few million miles from their respective stars that we've found so far this new planet is in fact "habitable". It's described as being in the "goldilocks" zone. Clearly we don't really know if it's even remotely "Earth-like", but even the Moon or Mars would be "habitable" inside well-constructed indoor environments.
I think the problem is you're holding the word "habitable" to a far higher standard than it deserves for the purposes of this discussion. It's not like we're going to get there anytime soon anyway and by then we may have found an even more likely "Earth-like" candidate by then. |
All we found was a world in a potential goldilocks zone. Its possible for this world to have too much greenhouse effect and be too hot. The planet so still rather close to Glese 581 so its most likely tide locked with its 37 day orbit. M class stars might be more unstable and be more prone to violent solar flares which would blow away Glese 581g's atmosphere.
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It sounds like you just say stuff most of the time, without actually saying anything.|
Originally Posted by Durakken
It sounds like you just don't understand what it said.
Habitable means that if a human were to be dropped there without some super survival suit they wouldn't die from the lack of oxygen, water, or temperatures that are too low or too high. Scientists can determine a large number of things about a planet/star without "seeing" it through spectroscopic analysis. Like we can estimate a planets temperature from the distance from the star + analysis from the planet's reflection of light + plus the star's light itself. It's a fairly simple process to figure this stuff out. |
All that estimating is just best guessing. They may come close, they may be way off. As someone already mentioned, the planet could have an atmosphere that makes it warmer through green house effect. It may have no atmosphere at all. This article goes out of the way to not mention much, meaning there probably isn't enough information to go on.
@Rylas
Kill 'em all. Let XP sort 'em out.
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v.v Do have any idea how they arrived at the conclusion scientists did? It's not like they just said oooh it's in this region and thus it is likely habitable! It's almost like they use facts and proven methods to get information and then talk down to the common folk who don't know anything.
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Originally Posted by Rylas
It sounds like you just say stuff most of the time, without actually saying anything.
All that estimating is just best guessing. They may come close, they may be way off. As someone already mentioned, the planet could have an atmosphere that makes it warmer through green house effect. It may have no atmosphere at all. This article goes out of the way to not mention much, meaning there probably isn't enough information to go on. |
http://www.merinews.com/article/glie...s/125008.shtml
A much better article on it I think. Directly from the article for those people that thinks living there is even a distinct possiblity
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| Scientists also say that the star Gliese 581 or the sun for Gliese 581c is a red dwarf star, which is much cooler than our sun and is on the verge of death, this makes the possibility of the existence of the planet for quite a long time impossible. |
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Originally Posted by RemusShepherd
By galactic standards it's as close as we've ever seen. Temperatures that allow liquid water, only 1.5 G gravity, and only a 6 year trip from Earth. The only possible lack is oxygen in the atmosphere...and we can put a colony in a dome.
Yeah, 'habitable' and 'nearby' would seem to apply in this case. If you're looking for a garden of Eden out there, you ain't gonna find it. |
Ummmm when did i miss the technological advance that lets us travel not only at the speed of light but nearly 4X as fast LOL.
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A quick glean of that article shows 2 things. They didn't do their research on what a red dwarf star is and they aren't talking about the same planet.
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Originally Posted by Lucky
http://www.merinews.com/article/glie...s/125008.shtml
A much better article on it I think. Directly from the article for those people that thinks living there is even a distinct possiblity |
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what do you mean? the only thing they say about the red dwarf is that they are cooler then our type of star which is true and that it's about to die which also may true for all we know.
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Originally Posted by Durakken
A quick glean of that article shows 2 things. They didn't do their research on what a red dwarf star is and they aren't talking about the same planet.
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Red Dwarf Stars have an estimated life span in the trillions of years...|
Originally Posted by Lucky
what do you mean? the only thing they say about the red dwarf is that they are cooler then our type of star which is true and that it's about to die which also may true for all we know.
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Human lifespan is to Sol's lifespan as Sol's life is to Gliese 581's lifespan
The cooler the star the longer the estimated lifespan.
The planet in that article is Gliese 581 c. The planet in question is Gliese 581 g.
We need better star and planet names >.>
People keep forgetting what "galactic scales" means.
"About to die" for a star is measured in the millions of years.
-np
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Originally Posted by Durakken
Red Dwarf Stars have an estimated life span in the trillions of years...
Human lifespan is to Sol's lifespan as Sol's life is to Gliese 581's lifespan The cooler the star the longer the estimated lifespan. The planet in that article is Gliese 581 c. The planet in question is Gliese 581 g. We need better star and planet names >.> |
Your right about that the planets are different, turns out there are multiple rocky planets oribting the star Gliese 581. And I did read that red dwarfs live in the trillions of years so IDK about that part. I did try to find another credible source that said Gliese 581 was dying but have yet to but if I do I'll post a link.
/em Random Thought
If Project Orion (1958) were upgraded with current technology, I wonder how improved would it be?
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Originally Posted by NinjaPirate
People keep forgetting what "galactic scales" means.
"About to die" for a star is measured in the millions of years. |
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Originally Posted by Lucky
Your right about that the planets are different, turns out there are multiple rocky planets oribting the star Gliese 581. And I did read that red dwarfs live in the trillions of years so IDK about that part. I did try to find another credible source that said Gliese 581 was dying but have yet to but if I do I'll post a link.
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What I think happened is the article was hastily written and thy didn't check their sources and confused Red Giant, which has a few million year lifespan, with Red Dwarf, which has 10 trillion plus year lifespan.
Given that this info is easy to find and easily checkable I wouldn't put the article in the sphere of credibility and denotes that even if there is some accurate statements in there the understanding of the subject and the representation is off so lowers over all value of the article in general.
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Originally Posted by Hero_of_Steel
/em Random Thought
If Project Orion (1958) were upgraded with current technology, I wonder how improved would it be? |
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| an Orion starship would require 100 years to travel 10 light years. |
Not sure if you'd even be able to make that technology any faster but perhaps when combined with other cryogenic stasis technology or what have you, it might be possible to make that trip in less than 2 generations of travelers.
Okay this virus talk always gets my goat. It usually indicates the person doesn't understand biology or nature in general. Humans are not like a virus. Virus need other cells to reproduce and can't reproduce on their own. Thats it. Thats the only difference between a virus and EVERYTHING else. We behave no different than any other organism. Given the chance, every other creature from a gorilla to the most simple e.coli will use up all the resources it can get its hands, paws, claws, tentacles, pseduopods or flagella on.
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Well we've invented a few new things since then like solar sails, ion drives, and other things that if you were to combine it would allow us to reach higher speeds than with just the nuclear explosion drive ideal. Because the removal of a lot of friction you can just continue to add thrust and the ship will go faster. It's just a matter of energy needed to move the weight of the energy. Solar sails would allow us to put the energy outside of the ship's weight and thus allow us to move faster than we could with just nuke drive
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Originally Posted by Leo_G
Not sure if you'd even be able to make that technology any faster but perhaps when combined with other cryogenic stasis technology or what have you, it might be possible to make that trip in less than 2 generations of travelers.
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I don't have issues with using relative terms for distance. The universe is too big a place to be so strict on the word "nearby." But habitability is too narrow a range to do so.
@Rylas
Kill 'em all. Let XP sort 'em out.