Freshly Discovered Earth-Like Planet Orbiting Nearby Star Could Be the First Truly Habitable Exoplanet

Next Step: Develop a telescope powerful and sensitive enough to view the planet directly and SPY on the surface.

Alright, now we just need to find a way to travel at light speed. Send some kids on a trip and let them be schooled along the way. They get there at the nice age of about 25 and boom new habitation.

When going at the speed of light time slows down for the riders, so the people going there near the speed of light it will that them only a few months. however from our perspective(earth) it will still take them 20 years.

Anyone else think they were born 100 years to early? Assuming we haven't destroyed ourselves by 2100 just imagine the technology and knowledge that would be common. A knowledge you can't even phantom.

Remember, if they were traveling near light speed, time would slow and the kids wouldn't age that much.

antic, that notion that people do not age is correct if we travel at the speed of light, which is impossible. HOWEVER we can travel long distances using wormholes so thats still a possibility. so if the people at CERN can get going we can really see if this planet is worth it cause mars sure as hell isnt

Wonder how long before Glen Beck starts using this foreign threat as a scare tactic to sell more gold.

@Slushie, antic is correct, the closer you get to the speed of light the slower time mover in relative to the outside world. Remember Einsteins theory of relativity?

For an example I got from Through the universe with Stephen hawking, If man was to build a ship and this ship was to travel very very close to the speed of light for 100 years, the passengers of the ship would only age about a week or so.
Worm holes are very unreliable, due to there very small size and what not will not be around for a very long time if ever.

@Thunderf00t - You mean like the knowledge of how to spell "fathom"?

The next few years should be pretty exciting for this type of research though...

Umm, helloooo? Cryosleep? Why does everyone immediately jump to the idea that "we must travel at the speed of light to get anywhere in the universe"? Hibernate in a cryochamber for 20 years, then wake up after you've reached your destination, and SHAZAM - you're on a new planet and haven't aged a minute. We should invest much more time and energy into safely freezing people for long-distance travels. Lightspeed travel is a joke. Learning how to manipulate worm holes and such would take us 10,000 years, if it's even possible to do so. I think that if we learned more about quantum entanglement and brought an entangled pair along on the mission, then you have instant communication with Earth, 20 light years away. :)

@Bushmaster, the thing is that the trip will only take 20 years if the ship moves at the speed light.

Any slower and it'll probably take as long for the ship to get there as it does to research wormholes.

We need all the help we can get here...

Everyone immidiately thinks of distance in terms of light speed. This is good to establish a minimum time, but that doesn't mean that we must go that speed to get there in a reasonable timeframe.

The best method we know of would be to revive Project Orion, where we could get up to a city-sized dome into space and then propel it to the planet. With fission bombs, using a copper coated blast shield that is sprayed between explosions to avoid abrasion, we could achieve about 10% the speed of light, which is still descent. A 200 year trip isn't that bad for how monumental that is.

As a side note, Fusion bombs could increase that to 20 or 30% if I remember correctly, and anti-matter bombs (distant future) could propel up to 50 to 80% the speed of light, making the trip in as little as 25 years to traverse the distance. Short of Warp Drive, thats the upper limit of getting people to another planet.

In short, no, we can't move at light speed, but we can get 20 lightyears awa within a century or two, which is a good start, and even less as technology progresses.

@brian144 Our technology is no were near able to do something like that. Light sails are our best bet with our current level of technology.

MuNcHiEs1122 Please please please send a probe sometime soon so we can see the surface of the planet. I want to see this before I die!!!!

My father tells me that when he was young people used to fantasize that one day it would be possible to send messages to anyone, anywhere, almost instantly!

The mechanism they proposed to accomplish this was a system of programmable 'smart' rockets. You would sit at your desk write a letter and put it in a little rocket. Program in the recipient's address, and off it would go, buzzing through the air and ending up at its destination faster than anyone ever thought possible!

Well, they were close! That is, we can now send messages to anyone, anywhere, and a hell of a lot faster (not to mention safer!) then their proposed rocket technology.

Could you imagine living in such a world, constantly dodging mail traffic? Not to mention the greenhouse gas emissions from all that rocket fuel . . . .

They can't be blamed though. It was the cold war after all, and between nuclear arms and visiting the moon rockets were the most advanced technology they could imagine.

And now here we are, theorizing about sending people to habitable exoplanets via cryochambers, wormholes and anti-matter propelled city rockets.

I'm not saying we're completely wrong, but I'm sure hoping we are!

With any luck I'll be spending my retirement vacationing on Gliese 581g, soaking up some red rays, laughing to my grandkids about the ridiculous ways we primitive folks thought we'd use to get there!

Just get the Technocore to build us a farcaster already.

Keeping in mind that this planet could already be inhabited.

In that case, it is imperative that we send missionaries over, to guide their lost souls to the true path of Christ!

I understand that the Nostromo is there answering a distress call right now ...

if we ever get there though, there would be a large amount of power that could be generated by the difference in heat between the dark and light side

Isn't this planet tidal locked? That means no atmosphere and no life. Water on the hot side boiled off and the cold side frozen.

Also isn't space expanding? so you have to factor in that into space travel. Everything is space is moving farther apart at an alarming rate. We are so far from these far off objects that we don't notice.

I want to have a closer look at this planet too. The prospect of going to Mars doesn't impress me anymore - let's go all the way!!

We just need a few things:
 - quantum entangled photons for communications (NASA's Advanced Concepts wrote a paper about it)
 - the probe(s) to explore there (or people if you want)
 
And the Burkhard Heim 'hyperdrive' 
 - if we used this as transport, we could get there in about 5 months (but I would recommend cryosleep for the journey anyway)

@boka, as I understand it the space between galaxies is expanding due to dark energy perhaps. This newly discovered planet is in our own galaxy, which is held together by gravitational force and remains relatively the same distance away.

The real issue with colonization on a planet of this size is the fact that earth life is accustomed to earth gravity. We are so accustomed to our own gravity, that astronauts in microgravity can suffer bone loss, muscle loss, circulation problems, and face a constant threat of embolism.

3 times earth gravity would be massively detrimental to human life. Someone who weighed 120 pounds on earth would weigh 360 pounds on this planet. This has a massive effect on the life processes of an organism. Everything from breathing to circulation would be hindered, movement would be difficult, and the stresses on the heart would be massive.

This discovery is huge from a scientific standpoint, but from a human colonization standpoint, this is just a little too far beyond the threshold of survivability for carbon-based life.

The fact that this planet is tidally locked with its star is also problematic for life. Life as we know it was stabilized by our sattelite, and tides made life possible here on earth. This planet of course, could have been around for a much longer time, due to its star being a longer-burning red dwarf.

However, red dwarves are not friendly to life compared to our yellow star. Our star pumps out massive radiation and charged particles that are only fended off by our magnetic field.

A red dwarf planet must be closer to its star, and as such, its magnetic field is going to be assaulted by the star's own field much more often, and this will cause contant bombardment by solar storms to be much more disruptive to life on the planet.

Water-based organisms, however, would still be possible, but it is unlikely that water-based organisms can develop comparative human intelligence and leave their planet. At this stage in the game, though, even viruses and other "non-life" would be a game changer.

The other problem is travel through space. Light speed requires infinite energy to acheive, and we do not have an effective generator for anything even close to light speed. Over a number of years, a fusion reactor and an ion drive would get into percentages of the speed of light, and would be our best bet for interstellar travel, and solar sails would only acheive stellar speeds, and not interstellar speeds before the energy of the sun's rays would peter out.

The accelleration would take so long with either, that any astronauts sent out on this journey would have their bones, muscles, and circulatory systems completely destroyed by the constant microgravity. In other words, we need artificial gravity, otherwise our interstellar astronauts would die of embolism in deep space before interstellar speeds could be acheived.

Wormholes would be a nice option if we could generate enough exotic matter to stabilize one, but the fact of the matter is, exotic matter is exceedingly rare, and tachyons have still yet to be proven outside of theory.

Antimatter as a fuel source is also completely possible, the problem is that antimatter requires massive ammounts of energy to sequester and store. If antimatter touches matter, it creates a thermonuclear explosion, therefore, we have to use constant high energy fields to sequester this exotic matter, and as such, it is massively expensive, energy-wise.

Then there's space-warping technology, like the alqubierre drive, which literally creates a gravity wave in space, and then rides it. The object itself doesn't move, and therefore can move at speeds faster than the speed of light, due to the fact that the object is stationary, and space itself is not bound by the laws of relativity.

There is one problem with the alqubierre drive, though. It is theorized that it would take infinite density to produce a wave of gravity, and as such, tidal forces would tear apart any object near the bubble. Infinite mass, also, cannot be undone, and therefore, there is no way to stop the alqubierre drive once it gets moving. It is also thought to be impossible to send a signal through the gravity wave, as an infinitely dense wave would warp local space so much that any object reaching the center of the wave would take infinite time. Once it's on, it's on. This is where tachyons come in. They travel faster than the speed of light. They can actually not slow down below the speed of light. They are bound by the opposite rules of matter because they have negative mass... But of course, like I said, there's no proof of them in the first place.

So, solve some of these problems, and it's a go, just... Not for this planet.

This is bs seriously. You know how many stars and planets and shit like that they bring up every year saying something's living on it? these people researching stars and planets are all retards in my opinion -.- stop with the damn opinions and find facts. "There's a 3% chance of life on this star". Stfu and find life 100% stop getting peoples hopes up.

@ InvaderZim: Oh! The Humanity! Those savages have not found the Saviour!

@ Xill: There seems to me to be shenanigans in your comment

@ lokimotion: Why the pessimism? You say yourself to stop with the opinions, so don't call 'these people' retards by calling their research bullshit. Oh, out of curiosity, how many stars and planets and 'shit like that' do they bring up saying something's living on it?

All these scientists looking for earth-like worlds so they can seek out intelligent life do not realize that you have to have a species that can manipulate tools, understand how to make fire, and after that, understand how to manipulate steam to generate locomotion and electricity. To do that on a massive scale they will first need fossil fuels. That means that no alien life form could advance to or beyond our technological state without the alien planet having been inhabited for billions of years prior to that intelligent alien species’ existence.

A lot of hooey here - what you want do do is accelerate your spacecraft at one G to about half way to the destination and the decelerate at one G until arrival to maintain normal gravity. Now do the math..........

A new planet? Too bad it orbits a red dwarf and is tide locked. Nevertheless if we can find one we can find more. Now might be a good time to start thinking about a multigenerational ship with an Ion drive powered by thorium perhaps? An ion drive would be ideal for a long voyage but instead of using the thorium as the fuel use the thorium reactor to excite another material into releasing Ions the length of the trip determines the speed. Ion drives are much like a sail boat the longer the wind blows and the more sail you clew up the faster you go...to a point. I say good luck to all who are willing to attempt it. I could wish that I was born 100 years from now but such foolish notions are a waste of thought. Better that those of us alive now begin to prepare the way so our progeny can benefit from our mistakes...preferably before we exhaust this planets ability to sustain life.

the only way to travel at light speed is to convert a human being into photons or something close to it, with the capability to re-assemble upon reaching the destination

@steelymix If you are going to call shenannigans, you are obligated to reference the exact point you see falsehood in.

All of my points are based in physics, and theoretical physics as I understand them. If there are shenannigans, either I am misunderstanding something, or I have communicated poorly. Please do us all a favor and point out what you have a problem with.

I suspect your issue was with the "Alcubierre drive", a proposed mathematical model for warping space to acheive superliminal velocities. I assure you the math has been repeatedly verified by scientists. I actually outlined the common criticisms of the method in my original post as well.

@chuck66 Accelleration does not incur G-forces in space. Mass is changed by accelleration through space, but only when an objet approaches significant fractions of the speed of light.

@skullshock That would be nice, but you are missing a fair point of relativity here. If no mass is being moved, it's entirely possible to move "faster" than the speed of light relative to your cosmic horizon. The reason for this, is mass is increased at significant velocities, bending space, and increasing the distance between the object and the destination. Since time and space are the same thing, the passenger would not be affected by the time-dilation, only everything else in the universe.

However, if space itself is the thing that's moving, it's entirely possible mathematically to bend space in such a way that an object is moved faster than the speed of light.

Physics might seem like a lot of "hooey" to you guys, but it has repeatedly been shown to be accurate, and a lot of "pure fantasy", such as relativistic time dilation has again and again been proven to be absolutely, inarguably true.

@XIII - One of Einstein's observations was that gravity and acceleration are indistinguishable whether standing on the ground or in an accelerating elevator/rocket. http://www.astronomynotes.com/relativity/s3.htm
Enlighten me please.

Touche' I guess I got caught up in my research on null g and was instead looking at velocity instead of acceleration. Interesting link there, had most of the astral body information down, but the acceleration thing is a bit wonky to wrap your mind around.

Thanks for that. Having accurate information is never a bad thing, even when you have to eat your own words from time to time.

That really solves the "kubric" problem, which requires angular velocity on an object of a certain size (which I might add, doesn't mesh well with the material cost of sending things into space) in order to generate artificial gravity without sickening humans from the differing regions of gravity close to the center of the spoke.

Building a craft that would support humans in artifical gravity would still be quite difficult to ensure that acceleration would not upend everything when decelleration would need to occur, seeing as a defined "down" in a craft would have to change during either, and as such, the craft would have to enter null gravity by rotating before decelleration in order to ensure a consistent "down".

@boka

try reading the article?
"If indeed Gliese 581g, as the planet is known, is habitable for humans, it would probably best sustain life right along the border between darkness and light."

@XIII
At mid-point you would have a lock-down, turn-around routine that wouldn't take very long. Of course, you could design the craft like a double ended ferry. ?:( nah, that wouldn't work.
Would anyone like to do the math on this? I'm too lazy.

A thought on bending space: it would seem that it would take as much energy (or more) as throwing a rocket out there, considering current proven physics. Yes? No?

It's not the issue of energy, Chuck. Chemical rockets, Ion propulsion, solar sails, etc. all rely on movement through space. The problem with moving THROUGH space is that the upper speed limit is the speed of light. As an object starts moving faster, the laws of physics state that it becomes more massive. As an object becomes more massive, it bends space, and takes more energy to gain velocity. This means that eventually, an object traveling at the speed of light would have infinite mass, and it would take infinite energy to get to that speed.

It's not so much an issue of energy as much as time. Moving space itself would allow an object to exceed the speed of light, with only one bottleneck, the mass needed to bend space. It's a much more economical solution, we just haven't figured out how to do it on a mass scale yet.

@XIII - I understand the light speed issue (maybe we should start calling it 'speed of energy'?) but I take issue with "It's a much more economical solution" for bending space-time. Seems to me that it would take an awful lot of power to create, say, 'pseudo-mass' to accomplish this solution. I'm trying to imagine the 'engine' (prime mover) that we would apply.

I've read Zubrin's 'The Case for Mars' in which he advocates current technology to accomplish space missions - heavy-lift rockets and astronauts as 'expendable test pilots' and all that. I wonder where we'd be if Columbus wanted to wait for steel ships with nuclear steam turbine engines?

Oh, certainly for mars, but let's say we want a craft to travel at half the speed of light. In order to get this craft to 50% the speed of light, it would take approximately 180 days of constant acceleration at 9.8m/second. The reason it would have to accelerate at that speed, is because human pilots would need to live in earth-gravity. Higher or lower gravity would be harmful to human health.

that equates to a year of acceleration, and a year of decelleration. The supplies required for a year-long space journey would be heavy, and as such, the volume of fuel would have to be increased. If the fuel is increased, the volume of fuel has to be further increased.

Then, you have to have some method of keeping the acceleration at 9.8m/second despite the constantly increasing mass due to approaching the speed of light. You can't slow down, or stop firing the engines, because that would kill the gravity, eventually causing the death of everyone on board by deterioration due to null gravity.

This requires even more fuel. Depending on the length of the journey, the difficulties become massive. 20 light years is literally 20 years at the speed of light. The nearest star to us, I believe is proxima centauri, at 4.25 light years. That's 8 years at half the speed of light before calculating time dilation.

But like I said, keeping those engines firing beyond 360 days to keep the velocity at 9.8m/sec acceleration, would be impossible for any distance, simply because you would be exceeding the speed of light (if you could supply the energy, due to mass increase of the spacecraft at velocity). Given current craft, extrasolar travel is completely outside of the realm of possibility.

However, using centrigal force, one would be able to provide continued gravity without exceeding the speed issues, and the engines could stop firing after the first 360 days, but the size of a craft able to create a region of gravity 6 feet tall with a force of 9.8m/sec is pretty large, when we talk about the size of spacecraft being built in orbit...

So, I defend my statement that discovery of harnessing exotic matter in order to bend space on a mass scale being much more economical, merely because the volume of exotic matter required to generate the space-dilating effects that have been witnessed in labs, is much lower than the volume of mass that would be required to not only build, but fuel a conventional craft between the nearest two stars.

The analogy to Columbus is a little misleading, though. I argue, that with current technology, humans reaching Proxima Centauri is more like columbus trying to land on the moon given technology in his time.

@XIII
So you did the math? Very good! Now I'm considering a series of accel/deccel with computer calculation/control and 'Damn the Energy - Full Speed Ahead'.
Hmm, Fuel - increase in mass = increase in energy.
On your using centrical force, I remember seeing a proposal to use an extremely long tether between two modules that would rotate around one another which would reduce the force differential over distance.
I just finished watching a Shatner's 'Weird or What' episode regarding time travel re: negative mass/energy soon to be researched at the new CERN lab (I think) which may answer the question about space-time bending. Lets hope.

Some one please tell me if I'm wrong..
but what happened to Newton's Law about, "An object will continue in a straight line until acted upon another force." so in this theory/law..
Once again correct me if I completely misunderstood this one..
If I'm in my car traveling 100mph and then let go of the gas I slow down because of gravity pulling me in a downward motion and also the friction of the tires and the pavement. However...
If I was traveling in my spacecraft at 1000 mph in space and turned my rockets off. Wouldn't I continue at that same speed since there technically isn't any gravity or friction to slow me down???..
Wouldn't I have to turn on my rockets in front of me to slow me down??..
Do those same rules apply to space travel???... I'm not a "Rocket Scientist" nor do I claim to be..
I'm just trying to get an understanding as to why I can't speed up to let's say 1000 mph less than "Light Speed" and continue going at that rate...
Because if so.. I should just need to get my spacecraft up to that speed then coast the rest of the way... to save on gas.. lol.. or whatever the case.. because I know that getting to "Light Speed" requires an infinite amount of energy but getting to 1000 mph less in theroy wouldn't therefore somewhat possible.. I know f'ing hard to do but not something for me to figure out how to do, but I'm sure a "Rocket Scientist" to shoot for.. ha ha..
I do however understand about the fact about humans and Zero Gravity and the bone mass loss..
So, Really I'm just asking someone to post something so I can understand if this is true or not..