My 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…
Seven earth-sized planets discovered circling a star 39 light years from Earth
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Re: Seven earth-sized planets discovered circling a star 39 light years from Earth
#282Earlier 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…
Re: Seven earth-sized planets discovered circling a star 39 light years from Earth
#283Earlier quoted context omitted.
Very likely, since this happens between Mars and Earth: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martian_meteorite
Fascinating! Would vira or bacteria beable to survive travelling from Earth to Mars in or on a rock or vice versa?
Re: Seven earth-sized planets discovered circling a star 39 light years from Earth
#284raises the question
That's essentially what blueprint said. You didn't have any trouble figuring out what blueprint was saying, right?
Re: Seven earth-sized planets discovered circling a star 39 light years from Earth
#285Earlier 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…
If we seeded the galaxy with our life then a billion years from now we might get a star wars type reality where many species coexist together all because we seeded every corner of the galaxy.
Re: Seven earth-sized planets discovered circling a star 39 light years from Earth
#286Earlier quoted context omitted.
Of course, #askNasa didn't win me a question, but could any astrobiologists comment on this question: Tidal locking means the planets would always have a side facing the star, leading to very different thermodynamics in terms of climate and weather on the planet, not to mention radiation. Doesn't that very much hurt the chances for life on those planets?
The debate rages. The problem is that one side of the planet is essentially exposed to space and thus tends to be at cosmic background temperature, and the other side exposed to the star. It is thought by a lot of people that anything volatile enough to be a gas, ever (so, including water), would rapidly end up migrating over to the frozen side, so even if the planet started with the right mix of water and whatever o…
Re: Seven earth-sized planets discovered circling a star 39 light years from Earth
#287So I know nothing about this kind of star but I was reading something last year talking about risks to life. There's of course the obvious like being hit by comets and asteroids, gamma ray bursts and so on.
But there's also CMEs (coronal mass ejections). A CME from the Sun directly hitting the Earth would be devastating. The chance of getting hit by a CME is inversely proportional to your distance from the star just because you occupy a smaller arc from the star's perspective.
I wonder if this kind of star and having the worlds so close would pose a huge threat from CMEs. Does this kind of star even have the same number of CMEs as say the Sun?
Re: Seven earth-sized planets discovered circling a star 39 light years from Earth
#288Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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 disc…
Presumably, at some point around episode ~15, someone in either engineering, or the writing team realized that it is the third most abundant element in the universe.
Re: Seven earth-sized planets discovered circling a star 39 light years from Earth
#289Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's essentially what blueprint said. You didn't have any trouble figuring out what blueprint was saying, right?
What's wrong with begs the question? It's a regular part of my vocabulary and I'm a southern American.
See http://begthequestion.info/ for further info (and a laugh that this site exists).
Re: Seven earth-sized planets discovered circling a star 39 light years from Earth
#290My 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…
I'm blown away the planets haven't torn each other apart or all collided by now...