7 Earth like planets found...only 39 light years away

[rugatika]

http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/7-...ered-1.3992156

Scientists have discovered what looks like the best place so far where life as we know it may exist outside our own solar system.

Seven Earth-sized planets, all of which could contain water, have been found orbiting a small star 39 light-years away.

"We have made a crucial step toward finding if there is life out there," said Amaury Triaud, co-author of a study published Wednesday in the science journal Nature.

"I don't think any time before we had the right planets to discover and find out if there was.

"Here, if life managed to thrive … then we will know. Before, it was indication; now, we have the right target."

The discovery is the first of its kind. Never before have so many Earth-like planets been found orbiting a single star.

Got me thinking...how long would it take to get there?
https://www.quora.com/How-long-would...at-high-speeds

If you're travelling close to the speed of light, it unsurprisingly takes 40 years.**

If you're asking "using current technology how long would it take", then the answer is a depressingly long time.

The fastest receeding spacecraft at the moment is Voyager 1, which is exiting the solar system at 62,000kmh

A brief calculation shows that this is:

V=0.00005758c

Or about 1/17,000 the speed of light.

Therefore to go 1 light year at the speed Voyager 1 is going, would take 17,000 years.

To go 40 light years, would take 700,000 years.

[Fisherpeak]

Warp 9 Mr. Sulu. Be there in 3 days, check out the alien chicks. Spock, stay with the ship, you are a downer.

[Selkirk]

Originally Posted by Fisherpeak

Warp 9 Mr. Sulu. Be there in 3 days, check out the alien chicks. Spock, stay with the ship, you are a downer.

Mac

[bobtodrick]

Originally Posted by Fisherpeak

Warp 9 Mr. Sulu. Be there in 3 days, check out the alien chicks. Spock, stay with the ship, you are a downer.

Let's see....at 120km/h I should be there in...

[icehunter]

I wonder what the carbon tax would be on the fuel for a trip like that?

[Stonecutter]

Originally Posted by rugatika

http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/7-...ered-1.3992156


Got me thinking...how long would it take to get there?
https://www.quora.com/How-long-would...at-high-speeds

Interesting. It also means that the images they are looking at through all the fancy telescopes are also from 1978.

[pintailslammer]

Maybe our pm could send some of the border crossers there

Pin

[TBark]

Yep, what stonecutter said,
It took 39 yrs of that telescope in place for those images to appear.
Amazing and hard to comprehend, speed of light and all.

TBark

[borisdavenport]

This is really a great discovery. As per current technology it is impossible to get there.

[Sushi]

Earth-like is an exaggeration. Potential to be Earth-like maybe. Still very cool and interesting.

[Zip]

Seems pretty Awesome that they can see out that far into space, now I just have to wonder who really cares! Seems like a big waste of money and time going into something that most likely will never effect the human race.
But still pretty cool all the same.
Zip

[jungleboy]

Originally Posted by pintailslammer

Maybe our pm could send some of the border crossers there

Pin

Maybe we could send our PM there

[neilsledder]

So interesting it's crazy! And we can only see a very very small section of our galaxy. And there's billions of galaxies! And people say there's no such things as aliens.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[gmcmax05]

Originally Posted by TBark

Yep, what stonecutter said,
It took 39 yrs of that telescope in place for those images to appear.
Amazing and hard to comprehend, speed of light and all.

TBark

The Spitzer telescope was launched in Aug of 2003, not 1978 like mentioned by stonecutter.

[madras]

Cool find for sure. IMHO the likelihood of the presence water is irrelevant to potential life. That would assume Earthlike life forms wouldn't it?

[Shepard..]

They sure like the #7...

[caliberX]

It is still best to make Mars a liveable planet.

[barsik]

very interesting development, perhaps the Trump administration will be able to restore funding to NASA after Obama slashed it. also, the James Webb telescope is due for an October 2018 launch and it will have much better resolution for deep space exploration. it is highly likely that an almost infinite number of planets exist in the universe, and we humans have just begun to find them.

[58thecat]

Hmmmmm wonder if there is another fool out there on a forum too

[rugatika]

Originally Posted by barsik

very interesting development, perhaps the Trump administration will be able to restore funding to NASA after Obama slashed it. also, the James Webb telescope is due for an October 2018 launch and it will have much better resolution for deep space exploration. it is highly likely that an almost infinite number of planets exist in the universe, and we humans have just begun to find them.

http://principia-scientific.org/trum...cized-science/

Donald Trump is poised to eliminate all climate change research conducted by Nasa as part of a crackdown on “politicized science”, his senior adviser on issues relating to the space agency has said.

Nasa’s Earth science division is set to be stripped of funding in favor of exploration of deep space, with the president-elect having set a goal during the campaign to explore the entire solar system by the end of the century.

[Stonecutter]

Originally Posted by gmcmax05

The Spitzer telescope was launched in Aug of 2003, not 1978 like mentioned by stonecutter.

Not quite what I said. The light hitting the lens of the telescope left the system they are depicting 39 years ago, meaning what we see through our telescope is an image of 39 years ago. We are looking back through time!

[dukla]

Would that be considered crown land??

[wolf308]

Originally Posted by icehunter

I wonder what the carbon tax would be on the fuel for a trip like that?

Yeah that and I wonder how long the crap DEF system would last

[bat119]

In about 40 years they'll be here to turn us into pet food

[Albertadiver]

Originally Posted by Fisherpeak

Warp 9 Mr. Sulu. Be there in 3 days, check out the alien chicks. Spock, stay with the ship, you are a downer.

http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Risa

[WesternAlien]

Next step will be to try to catch the specular reflection of their local sun in there oceans - to, well, discover that they are not only "earth-sized" but also have oceans. May be tricky if those worlds are cloudy, though... Finally, it should be possible to catch the specter of the light going through atmosphere. Planets with advanced life (the ones we know for now ) have quite distinct atmospheric composition signature, so this may be confirmed without flying there.

[260 Rem]

Originally Posted by Zip

Seems pretty Awesome that they can see out that far into space, now I just have to wonder who really cares! Seems like a big waste of money and time going into something that most likely will never effect the human race.
But still pretty cool all the same.
Zip

No doubt the knowledge/technology involved with this exploration has and will continue to affect mankind.

[rugatika]

Makes you wonder about the feasibility of colonizing one of these planets (or attempting to).

Send a self sustaining space ship (or ships?) with 1000? genetically selected people who would maintain a stable population and environment on said ship for half a million years!! Wow. Seems unthinkable, but maybe possible at some point in the future. Wasn't that the premise of Battlestar Gallactica? (been 40 years since I saw it) If Earth was in dire circumstances, maybe.

And then find out none of the planets are habitable after all! Bummer!

[Ken07AOVette]

Originally Posted by neilsledder

So interesting it's crazy! And we can only see a very very small section of our galaxy. And there's billions of galaxies! And people say there's no such things as aliens.

People say the earth is flat
People say the earth is 6000 years old
People say a whole lot of stupid feces

[Flight01]

I have to believe there are other planets supporting life and even intelligent life.
It's just a matter of math. How many galaxies? How many stars in each galaxy? How many planets for each star?

It's mind bottling