Seven earth-sized planets discovered circling a star 39 light years from Earth
1–10 of 754 posts
Re: Seven earth-sized planets discovered circling a star 39 light years from Earth
#2Let's go
Re: Seven earth-sized planets discovered circling a star 39 light years from Earth
#3At Voyager-I speed (17km/s) we need just 688k years to get there.
Not bad considering the humble satelite doesn't accelerate anymore.
Re: Seven earth-sized planets discovered circling a star 39 light years from Earth
#4Let's go
Well, it's estimated that it will still be around in 4-5 trillion years, so, if we can get there, and it's habitable, that gives humanity a little longer lease in the universe.
Re: Seven earth-sized planets discovered circling a star 39 light years from Earth
#5Let's go
It's a Trap ;)
On a serious note, if we can travel close to the speed of light , say 95%, using for example, nuclear rockets, how long would it take to arrive ? ( from the travellers perspective )
Re: Seven earth-sized planets discovered circling a star 39 light years from Earth
#6My favourite part of the press release:
> The planets also are very close to each other. If a person was standing on one of the planet’s surface, they could gaze up and potentially see geological features or clouds of neighboring worlds, which would sometimes appear larger than the moon in Earth's sky.
> In contrast to our sun, the TRAPPIST-1 star – classified as an ultra-cool dwarf – is so cool that liquid water could survive on planets orbiting very close to it, closer than is possible on planets in our solar system. All seven of the TRAPPIST-1 planetary orbits are closer to their host star than Mercury is to our sun.
https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-telescope-reveals-la...
Re: Seven earth-sized planets discovered circling a star 39 light years from Earth
#7Apparently finds are close enough to us that we should be able "to follow up, to see, for example with the James Webb Space Telescope that we're going to launch [next] year, the atmospheres and also to look at bio-signatures, if there are any" !
Re: Seven earth-sized planets discovered circling a star 39 light years from Earth
#8Link to live stream on YouTube (supports rewinding) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UdmHHpAsMVw
Re: Seven earth-sized planets discovered circling a star 39 light years from Earth
#9I was reading up about earth alternatives recently, and upon realizing the distance was always going to limit us, no matter how perfect the planet, I realized we need to travel at the speed of light.
I think our "best shot" at that right now, is to digitize humans. If we could store consciousness in binary, we could then transmit it at the speed of light (like we do with data every day!). You'd need a receiver on the distant planet though. So, your first 'payload' would have to be the receiver, and it would need to travel the slow old fashioned way :(
Re: Seven earth-sized planets discovered circling a star 39 light years from Earth
#10My favourite part of the press release: > The planets also are very close to each other. If a person was standing on one of the planet’s surface, they could gaze up and potentially see geological features or clouds of neighboring worlds, which would sometimes appear larger than the moon in Earth's sky. > In contrast to our sun, the TRAPPIST-1 star – classified as an ultra-cool dwarf – is so cool that liquid water cou…
So, basically, this is cooler than just about any world that's been depicted in sci-fi.