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Water found on a potentially life-friendly alien planet

nationalgeographic.com

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Re: Water found on a potentially life-friendly alien planet

#151

Post by not_a_cop75 »

chenning wrote: post #115

A very quick search suggests that earth will become uninhabitable somewhere between 500 million and 2 billion years from now. If we shot a probe to this life-friendly alien planet with some sort of primordial soup, even traveling at the speed of light it would take 4 billion earth years to get there. Do I have that right? Basically we'll never even come close to being around when it finally arrives, if it ever arrive…

It seems like it would be much easier to terraform the real estate around us than try to opt for something 100 light years away.

Mars has a leaky atmosphere - sure it's a real fixer upper. But we have a better chance of fixing it, or even correcting the orbit of our planet so that in 500 million years it's still livable.

Re: Water found on a potentially life-friendly alien planet

#152

Post by swarnie_ »

dragonwriter wrote: post #142
stickfigure wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you put some money in an interest-bearing account you could at least buy a new home when you got back.

> If you put some money in an interest-bearing account you could at least buy a new home when you got back. If you do it in a country that doesn't allow you to be declared legally dead when you are out of contact for a couple centuries, and if the institutions involved don't collapse, and if the interest on the account outpaces inflation, sure. What percentage of the banks that were around 222 years ago have not fail…

Probably tiny?

Lloyds bank founded 1765

Barclays founded 1736

I doubt any banks in the new world are as old.

Re: Water found on a potentially life-friendly alien planet

#154

Post by typeformer »

fooker wrote: post #74
typeformer wrote: post #25

I say let's go. Now, whether you believe it or not, it is a fact that the US government has acquired alien technology and yet continues to keep it hidden by being stuck in a cold war mindset of, "well, we can't let the Chinese or Russians get their hands on this". That is the ultimate expression of narrow thinking, especially when there is a whole universe out there! Bring on the downvotes but history will vindicate…

Evidence?

https://www.raytheon.com/news/feature/uap_atflir

I don't have that evidence but likely someone at Raytheon does...

“We might be the system that caught the first evidence of E.T. out there,” said Aaron Maestas, director of engineering and chief engineer for Surveillance and Targeting Systems at Raytheon's Space and Airborne Systems business. “But I’m not surprised we were able to see it. ATFLIR is designed to operate on targets that are traveling in excess of Mach 1. It’s a very agile optical system with a sensitive detector that can distinguish between the cold sky and the hot moving target quite easily.”

Re: Water found on a potentially life-friendly alien planet

#155

Post by 0xffff2 »

charlesju wrote: post #139
0xffff2 wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Strictly speaking, if you actually traveled at the speed of light , the trip would be instantaneous from the reference frame of the craft making the trip. It would still take 111 years from our frame of reference on Earth.

Also assuming no acceleration or deceleration time in this made up impossible scenario. In the more likely scenario where we can get to a fraction of the speed of light using current technology we do have to account for both factors in both time and space probe weight.

Yes, but we can't actually travel there with our current technology, and while you're speculating about future technology, you can pick the number of 9's to tack on to your cruise speed pretty much arbitrarily. So from the probe's perspective, it takes somewhere between a fraction of a second and many billions of years to arrive.

Re: Water found on a potentially life-friendly alien planet

#156

Post by grumpy8 »

not_a_cop75 wrote: post #151
chenning wrote: post #115

A very quick search suggests that earth will become uninhabitable somewhere between 500 million and 2 billion years from now. If we shot a probe to this life-friendly alien planet with some sort of primordial soup, even traveling at the speed of light it would take 4 billion earth years to get there. Do I have that right? Basically we'll never even come close to being around when it finally arrives, if it ever arrive…

It seems like it would be much easier to terraform the real estate around us than try to opt for something 100 light years away. Mars has a leaky atmosphere - sure it's a real fixer upper. But we have a better chance of fixing it, or even correcting the orbit of our planet so that in 500 million years it's still livable.

Or sending a HUGE human civilization spaceship somewhere.. maybe it will outlast the earth?

Re: Water found on a potentially life-friendly alien planet

#157

Post by rapind »

swarnie_ wrote: post #145
chenning wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah, right. Basically I vote for firing a primordial soup probe to this sucker.

That does raise a huge number of ethical issues. Do we have the right to interfere on a planet which may already have life?

Survival of the fittest. We launch our virus first... assuming they didn't already launch theirs, in which case it's mutual destruction.

Re: Water found on a potentially life-friendly alien planet

#158

Post by [deleted] »

chenning wrote: post #115

A very quick search suggests that earth will become uninhabitable somewhere between 500 million and 2 billion years from now. If we shot a probe to this life-friendly alien planet with some sort of primordial soup, even traveling at the speed of light it would take 4 billion earth years to get there. Do I have that right? Basically we'll never even come close to being around when it finally arrives, if it ever arrive…

[deleted]

Re: Water found on a potentially life-friendly alien planet

#159

Post by 0xffff2 »

carrozo wrote: post #153

So tired of hearing about “habitable” planets that would take millennia to get to. Call me when the space elevator has been commissioned.

If it makes you feel any better, virtually all of them are uninhabitable to humans. The excitement comes from the idea that they could be locations of alien life that we would easily recognize. In other words, we need better communications tools, not better space travel.

Re: Water found on a potentially life-friendly alien planet

#160

Post by po1nter »

swarnie_ wrote: post #152
dragonwriter wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you put some money in an interest-bearing account you could at least buy a new home when you got back. If you do it in a country that doesn't allow you to be declared legally dead when you are out of contact for a couple centuries, and if the institutions involved don't collapse, and if the interest on the account outpaces inflation, sure. What percentage of the banks that were around 222 years ago have not fail…

Probably tiny? Lloyds bank founded 1765 Barclays founded 1736 I doubt any banks in the new world are as old.

Berenberg Bank founded 1590 (429 years ago)
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