discovery of Gliese 581g, a rocky, roughly Earth-size planet

[2pacZ]

Astronomers have discovered a habitable planet only 20 lightyears away, orbiting a red dwarf! That's only slightly longer than the Kessel Run. It's named Gliese 581G

 

 

http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/exoplanet-possibly-supports-alien-life100930.html

 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/09/29/581g-goldilocks-planet-co_n_744635.html

 

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2010/09/29/article-0-0B675EE4000005DC-793_634x393.jpg

 

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/roughsketch/bylynettecook.jpg

[»Xog]

Ugh. I've seen this on every single forum I visit except TW.

 

also, *only* 20 light years away

 

 

you don't understand how far this is do you?

 

(in relative terms, at least)

[»Xog]

fyi 20 light years is about 120,000,000,000,000 miles (that's 120 trillion), and it would take 300,000 years for us to travel there with our current technology.

 

we've only got a recordable human history of 50,000 years based on DNA. We'd most likely evolve by the time we reached there, not to mention create better traveling technology.

 

So what's this mean for us as of right now?

 

 

Nothing, other than confirming the fact that there is a 100% chance that there is life on other planets. The question that remains is - is it intelligent?

[2pacZ]

Gives us an idea, there are actually a better chance of finding more earthlike planets.

 

Yeah sure we don't have the technology yet but its safe to know there is other life out there.

[»Purge]

Did I miss something? This doesn't prove there is life on other planets, only the potential for life.

[Yupa]

Wouldn't it be funny to send people out there and then pass them in better technology later on?

[Dav]

They talk a lot about chemical signatures for life. This is making a huge assumption that extra terrestrial life works based on the same chemistry as ours.

 

It is well worth a look though, if that planet has a similar chemical makeup to earth then there is no reason why life couldn't have started there in a similar way, but i think atm people are jumping to conclusions.

 

and yeah, 20 light years is not far in the grand scheme of things, but our technology is far from taking us even this "short" distance.

[»Xog]

Did I miss something? This doesn't prove there is life on other planets, only the potential for life.

 

 

I thought this at first too, but then it dawned on me. This scientist found a whole new habitable planet (over the course of like 20 years of studying this star). I won't debate his argument that there's a 100% chance there's life on it.

Edited October 1, 2010 by Xog

[»Purge]

A few key assumptions like an atmosphere existing would make the potential for life greater, but only an overzealous person would give a 100% figure at this point.

[Sass]

If we send a spaceship now it will be blown up 1/2 way by a high power defensive laser beam from that planet just after the vessel runs out of resources and the crew eat each other.

 

We're stuck. gg

[»Xog]

A few key assumptions like an atmosphere existing would make the potential for life greater, but only an overzealous person would give a 100% figure at this point.

 

There is no solid evidence at the moment that suggests what surface conditions might be like, or even if liquid water and an atmosphere are actually present.

 

What researchers know is that the planet exists at the right distance from its star to have liquid water. It's also at the right distance to have an atmosphere which can protect that water, if exists on the surface.

 

But one of the planet's discoverers, astronomer Steven Vogt of the University of California, Santa Cruz, pointed out that "it's pretty hard to imagine that water wouldn't be there."

 

He likened it to the examples of the Earth, its moon, Mars, and the moons of Jupiter and Saturn. He also noted that theOrion Nebula is making enough water every 24 seconds to fill all the oceans of the Earth.

 

Researchers also know that the planet is tidally locked to its star. That means one side experiences eternal daylight, and the other side experiences unending darkness. Such a locked configuration helps to stabilize the planet's surface climate, Vogt said.

 

3-D global circulation models have shown that the temperature differences on the day and night sides of the planet would not be enough for water to either freeze or boil off. They also suggest that the atmospheric circulation and wind patterns would be relatively benign.

 

[»Purge]

I understand what you are saying, but I don't think you understand what I meant. I was critiquing the "100%" statistic. With all of those observations based on current spectrometer testing techniques that can only offer estimates and glimpses, we can not say that there is definitively 100% chance of life on the planet. In a few decades, maybe, but not now.

 

You've made that clear in your above post. I think Vogt wanted to hype up the media for this discovery.