Earlier quoted context omitted.
See comment above yours, does your point still apply?
Absolutely.
oh ok , you win , thanks for your replies ^_^
Seven earth-sized planets discovered circling a star 39 light years from Earth
251–260 of 754 posts
Re: Seven earth-sized planets discovered circling a star 39 light years from Earth
#252To get a spacecraft there it would take: Accelerating at 1g the 1st half, and decelerating at 1g the 2nd half, the traveler would experience 7.3 years of time. For observers it would take 41.8 years at a max speed of 0.998c If you had a near perfect hydrogen -> helium fusion engine, it'd take about 6 million tons of fuel (about the mass of the Pyramids of Egypt or 2,000 Saturn V rockets)
> you had a near perfect hydrogen -> helium fusion engine, it'd take about 6 million tons of fuel (about the mass of the Pyramids of Egypt or 2,000 Saturn V rockets) That is assuming constant energy consumption to sustain 1g, but unfortunately that's not the case, the closer you get to the speed of light, the more energy you'd need to sustain 1g, and this becomes unrealistic long before you are anywhere close to the…
Its probably more clear to say that a constant 1G acceleration in the local reference frame takes constant fuel, but produces a progressively smaller acceleration (asymptotically approaching zero as speed in the fixed frame approaches c) in the fixed reference frame you were launched in (or of the point you are trying to reach, the logic is equivalent) because relativity.
Re: Seven earth-sized planets discovered circling a star 39 light years from Earth
#253So, are there any plans to try to "communicate" with this planets? Or we are going to just sit and watch.
Re: Seven earth-sized planets discovered circling a star 39 light years from Earth
#254Let's change #OccupyMars to #OccupyTrappist ;-)
Re: Seven earth-sized planets discovered circling a star 39 light years from Earth
#255Earlier quoted context omitted.
Thats the one I read. It sounds awesome. Srsly give me 5% of the GDP of the US and I'll put a monkey on Trappist within 5 years. Monkey time. *Im not being serious, I have no idea how much it would cost or if it would even work.
Give me 0.1%, and I'll put a vanOverbruggen "Suzanne" model into a photo-realistic virtual reality imitation of one of the Trappist planets, and I'll throw in reduced head-motion lag in the viewing headgear at no additional charge.
Can I have half of that to design the marketing website?
Re: Seven earth-sized planets discovered circling a star 39 light years from Earth
#256Earlier quoted context omitted.
My layman's reading of physics-for-layman books has taught me that if we were to travel at the speed of light, we'd convert into energy. However, I'm not so sure about 99.999999% the speed of light. That's really OK, as far as we know?
As far as we know, as long as you don't actually reach light speed (which is currently thought to be impossible anyway) you can pretty much get as close as you want and be fine.
Thanks. It's quite counter intuitive to think about. You'd be going along at 99.99999999999999999999999999999999% and then hit that last bit and poof now I'm photons.
Re: Seven earth-sized planets discovered circling a star 39 light years from Earth
#257Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's almost equally depressing. "Really, we're the best the universe has to offer?"
That's not depressing. It gives us a moral imperative to transplant Earth-origin life onto every somewhat concentrated mass that we can reach. Then we can wait a few billion years, and the universe will likely have generated a superior successor species which can then re-seed over everything we had previously tilled, and then some. And they'll all be rubber-forehead aliens to one another, because they'll be billionth…
> It gives us a moral imperative to transplant Earth-origin life onto every somewhat concentrated mass that we can reach.
And in the very likely scenario that we are never able to "reach" outside our solar system... Then what?
Re: Seven earth-sized planets discovered circling a star 39 light years from Earth
#258Wiki says "TRAPPIST-1 is an ultracool dwarf star that is approximately 8% the mass of and 11% the radius of the Sun. It has a temperature of 2550 K and is at least 500 million years old." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRAPPIST-1 Too young star for alien life hopes?
That's "at least"; the age is a lower limit. These stars basically live forever, even in astronomical terms, and evolve extremely slowly, so all you know is that it's not "young".
Re: Seven earth-sized planets discovered circling a star 39 light years from Earth
#259Earlier quoted context omitted.
It would take 37 days at warp 6 (assuming we're using the new warp factors established in The Next Generation). I have no idea how much dilithium crystal would be required though.
> I have no idea how much dilithium crystal would be required though. Depends on the plot needs for the ~~episode~~ journey.
Particularly in Voyager. They were either running extremely low early in the show or had a virtually infinite supply later in the show. No explanation given.
Which is particularly troublesome given the plot of the Equinox episodes. Since on that ship they were harvesting creates to extend their dilithium crystal supply allowing them to travel faster/less efficiently.
But even throughout those episodes they never discussed why Voyager rarely had issues with supply after the first couple of seasons. Just hand waved it away with Voyager having a bigger crew, like that magically solves it.
Re: Seven earth-sized planets discovered circling a star 39 light years from Earth
#260Earlier quoted context omitted.
My layman's reading of physics-for-layman books has taught me that if we were to travel at the speed of light, we'd convert into energy. However, I'm not so sure about 99.999999% the speed of light. That's really OK, as far as we know?
You are technically travelling at 99.99999% of the speed of light right now, relative to something.
What determines my speed limit? Is it set at 0 here on earth? What if I travel to another galaxy, this one was going at .5c relative to me when I was on earth. Then after trillions of years, inflation causes all of the galaxies to separate beyond sight from me in this new galaxy. Now, the centre of this galaxy appears at rest. Does my velocity get "reset?"