Scientists find potentially habitable planet near Earth

[rbell]

SOURCE

OK, I'm willing to contribute $5 toward starting a fund to get Al Gore and any envirocrazies to go and populate that place.

Of course, I doubt if Al goes, any females will...but heck: We don't want to overpopulate now, do we?

Keep your eyes open for any collections being taken up. I think we oughta get on this pronto.

Just think: they could eat bark, eschew air conditioning and indoor plumbing, do without toilet paper and electricity, not burn anything, and refuse to exhale. A pollution-free utopia!

(Of course, the survivors there would have to hermetically seal their comrades' corpses when they died from malnutrition, disease, exposure, or...er....unsanitary backsides. And since they'd wanna go green even with that...does anyone know how to do that without using lead or plastic?)

 

[Jon-Marc]

Use that planet as a prison and send all the criminals there--permanently. They can prey on each other. I doubt that any criminals are smart enough to build a spaceship to come back here, but just keep an eye on the planet and blow anything they might build out of the sky.

 

[Jedi Knight]

So were not alone after all!

 

[kyredneck]

"For astronomers, eleven years of observation is considered a short time and 20 light years, which is roughly 117.5 trillion miles, rather close. The sun is around eight and a half light minutes from Earth."

So close yet so far away.

 

[Crabtownboy]

Pretty interesting. I have always thought there are probably quite a number of planets where life not only can but does exist. Is it intelligent life? I don't know. After all the question about intelligent life on earth is still an open question. :laugh:

 

[targus]

"The planet is tidally locked to its star, meaning that one side is always facing the star and basking in perpetual daylight, and the other is in perpetual darkness because it faces away from the star.

With surface temperatures decreasing the further one goes toward the dark side of the planet and increasing as one goes into the light side, the most habitable part of the new planet would be the line between darkness and light, which is known as the "terminator".

The researchers estimate that the average surface temperature of the planet would be between -24 and 10 degrees Fahrenheit (-31 to -12 degrees Celsius).

But actual temperatures would range from "blazing hot on the side facing the star to freezing cold on the dark side," they said."

Oh yes - this sounds like a most hospitable place for life.

 

[preachinjesus]

CNN led with the point that its almost a 100% certainty that there's life on this planet. That's just bad science and bad journalism. There is absolutely no way to tell if life exists, much less intelligent life (to be fair they didn't say intelligent life.)

For what its worth, if we grabbed a couple of families, hopped in the best space travel mechanism available, and started heading for the planet it would take about 340,000 years to reach this planet. (It takes about 17,000 years to travel one light year with current technology.) Well some people think it could be reduced to 3,000 or 4,000 years if we modified things.

So I guess we're not gonna be going on vacay anytime soon...

 

[HankD]

So we have probems achieving escape velocity (about 17,000 MPH) because of the large amount of fuel needed to reach escape velocity (e.g. The Apollo liftoffs),

What in the world would it take to achieve 186,000 miles per second let alone a 20-40 year food/water supply and plenty of valium to keep from going insane.

Even at that it would take 20 years to reach this place. Then what if we found out after we arrived that "Goldilocks" had an atmosphere of methane-ammonia or some other deadly conditions?

Oh well, 20 years wasted.

To return or not to return, that would be the question.

HankD

 

[HankD]

"The planet is tidally locked to its star, meaning that one side is always facing the star and basking in perpetual daylight, and the other is in perpetual darkness because it faces away from the star.

With surface temperatures decreasing the further one goes toward the dark side of the planet and increasing as one goes into the light side, the most habitable part of the new planet would be the line between darkness and light, which is known as the "terminator".

The researchers estimate that the average surface temperature of the planet would be between -24 and 10 degrees Fahrenheit (-31 to -12 degrees Celsius).

But actual temperatures would range from "blazing hot on the side facing the star to freezing cold on the dark side," they said."

Oh yes - this sounds like a most hospitable place for life.

When I was a kid I was a scf-fi book buff (no TV when I was a kid, well only the very rich owned one) and read a book about people going to Mercury which at the time was believed (or at least the author) to have the same locked scenario of terminator.

Anyway there was supposedly a 20 mile swath around Mercury's globe which was habitable.

It was an interesting book, forgot the name, forgot the author.

HankD

 

[kyredneck]

......(It takes about 17,000 years to travel one light year with current technology.).......

That sorta puts things in perspective.