Potentially Habitable Extrasolar Planet Discovered

[Uumke 0]

it's going to take a long while to get there: pioneer 10 is currently travelling to Aldebaran, a star in the constellation of taurus.

It will be there in 2 milion years..... and ...it has a golden plaque with some information of the earth etc.

Check wikipedia for that picture.

The human object, most far away form Earth is on of the Voyagers. It's about 100 AU from earth (so 100 * 149.5 milion KM)

But...nice to see that kind of planets,,the 3th superearth found now...

[Krio 626]

Originally posted by: patriots_1228 isnt a red dwarf star a dead star?? sorry i now nothing bout this stuff i had astronomy for like 2 months in sixth grade and thats it. anyway, if it was dead, i dont think radiation would be a problem.quote>

No, it's a DEATH STAR with bad ass superlaser!

[Uumke 0]

isn't it an alive star? only like 0.08 till 0,5 times the mass of our sun?

It's going to turn to a black dwarf sometimes....that will take billions of years,

[The boy formerly known as Evil Muzz 27]

*Sings "Is there life on... Gliese 581c?" *

[Barbarossa 51]

*Sings "Is there life on... Gliese 581c?" *quote>

Yes, and it is an exo-fungi named Bob. He likes hanging out with other fun-guys, soaking up solar radiation, and being doused in nitrogen. His pet peeves are solar flares and a fungi-eater named Ernie.

=)

Barbarossa

[Poetic 0]

This is a great discovery. I hope this adds to the popularity of astronomy. One of the few things I've agreed with Bush on was his spending on space programs. Astronomy seems to be pretty underfunded. I was actually considering a career in astronomy when I was younger, but got turned off by the horrible job outlook (far less than the average).

I think we'll be finding more earth-like (instead of only gas giants) planets thanks to a lot of new technology in the field. We've mostly been finding gas giants with the older technology, haven't we? I think we'll be finding a lot more planets, hopefully more habitable (Goldilocks) Zone planets.

[jammy 0]

But if you think that there is like 500,000,000,000 galaxies in spave and in each galaxy theres around 500,000,000,000 stars in it and a good 75% of them stars have a solar system there just has to be life out there!!!!!!

[Micah 16]

Jammy, that is certainly true. However, if we go by our standards of life, the precentage is automatically cut by 70%. Why? Well, it's dependent upon two things: What type of radiation does the star release and does the planet have a magnetic field? If the star emits gamma radiation and/or X-rays, it's highly unlikely that life can form because that sort of radiation would simply cause massive mutuations and/or cause life to die. And even if a star releases our sun's radiation, then you have to ask yourself if the planet has a mild magnetic field or not. Just look at Mars.

But you never know. Life could somehow adapt to that sort of radiation. Our standards for life may be different in other parts of the galaxy especially once you move closer to the center of the galaxy. And if life can adapt to all sorts of radiation, then you can bet your bottom dollar that the possibilities for life existing throughout our galaxy alone are endless.

[Amryai200 2]

well, this is good news to me. maybe within my lifetime someone will prove the existence of a really earth-like planet (less than 5 times the mass of earth, human-supporting atmosphere if we can detect that which i doubt, water etc) within a few light years.

still, the huge missed opportunities in space travel since the 1960s are annoying, and the failure of the orion project makes me really hate the nuclear test ban treaty...i'm not talking about the orion that's just a spruced up apollo capsule btw, i'm talking about the nuclear-powered rocket that was supposed to be fully feasible (back when it was being researched in the 60s i might add) and would have been way, way faster than the apollo...one article i read called it the V8 to the apollo's horse and buggy or something. basically it would drop hydrogen bombs out behind the ship and detonate them every few seconds or minutes, which could eventually accelerate a 100,000 ton ship up to a fraction of the speed of light...they were talking about mars by 1965, and saturn by 1970...which would have made 2001 (the movie) look quaint from the sounds of it...

but nooo, everyone was so scared of being obliterated by a nuke (probably justified, i wasn't alive then anyway) that the orion project became illegal and was scrapped...and to think that for the price we eventually paid for putting a man on the moon, we could have sent a hundred men to saturn (well, at least that was the idea)...the same article i read said it was the biggest technological advancement of the modern era to be scrapped in favor of politics (not even mentioning the fact that a fleet of nuclear pulse rockets would have gotten rid of american and russian nuclear stockpiles quite nicely)...of course the original plan for orion was to detonate a nuke on the surface to put the ship into space, which probably isn't a good idea...constructing the thing in space, though, and shipping pieces of it up at a time, would have solved that problem, although it would probably have added huge costs...

anyway rant over, hopefully after someone realizes that chemical rockets are getting us nowhere NASA or the ESA or the russians or someone will get wise to the idea that there are way better methods of space travel out there...oh yeah and i think superluminal travel will probably be discovered eventually, unless we have a nuclear war (although look at star trek, they had WW3 and got warp drive anyway...then again that's the movies), even if it takes a couple centuries...after all, back in the 1800s the most far-fetched sci-fi talked about men on the moon, and it didnt even take a hundred years for that to happen...so who knows...