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Earth-like planet spotted orbiting Sun’s closest star

nature.com

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Re: Earth-like planet spotted orbiting Sun’s closest star

#121

Post by YeGoblynQueenne »

parksy wrote: post #4

Sweet let's crank up the generation ships. Of course picking a suitably inspiring name should be the first priority. Unity? Terra Nova? Gaia? On a more serious note is this a good candidate for JWST, would it be able to infer chemical composition from the planet's spectrum or something? Awesome though we went from (in my lifetime) learning at school that other planets have never been observed, to finding them sprinkl…

>> Sweet let's crank up the generation ships. Of course picking a suitably inspiring name should be the first priority. Unity? Terra Nova? Gaia?

Titanic. Moribund. Lethe. Purgatory I-X. etc.

Re: Earth-like planet spotted orbiting Sun’s closest star

#122

Post by HWR_14 »

psd1 wrote: post #117
HWR_14 wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> pointing at frail people with wrinkly faces and laughing, same way we do today with antivaxxers. Except those people are more likely to be too poor to afford it instead of unwilling to take it.

Or, worse, the young will never get any power because the old will not relinquish control. Then you have the "surfeit of princes" problem. This isn't just grand political power: imagine being unable to progress in your career because geriatrics above you aren't retiring. That's just one possible secondary effect. We could enumerate many others.

Oh yes. That's a very clear concern. I'm reacting to the "people who decline will he like antivaxers" comment. But it seems far more likely people will be priced out as opposed to voluntarily refuse treatment.

Re: Earth-like planet spotted orbiting Sun’s closest star

#123

Post by Drainik »

spaetzleesser wrote: post #64
uwuemu wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A probe based on nuclear pulse propulsion could do it in around 50 years, with today's technology. It's not that we can't do it fast (within one average human lifespan), it's that the project would be very expensive and something like Nasa has a relatively tight budget. I mean we, as humanity, have to have an eccentric billionaire start a Martian fire (SpaceX Starship) under our lazy asses to even start to think abou…

Going to Mars seems pretty useless to me at this time. It’s a super hostile environment and we don’t have the technology yet to have a self sustaining base there. Give it a few decades and progress in robotics will make a Mars base much easier. There is plenty of work to be done on Earth. We have to solve clean energy production and in general reduce pollution. These are massive technological challenges that deserve…

Did you know NASA only get 0.36% of the US Federal budget? Everything else gets "massive funding".

Re: Earth-like planet spotted orbiting Sun’s closest star

#124

Post by GoblinSlayer »

politician wrote: post #67
semi-extrinsic wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe an unpopular opinion, but Musk is just plain wrong when he thinks there is any urgency to Mars exploration (or it's just vicarious arguments because rockets are cool). Basically, the tech you need to make a Mars colony truly self sufficient is something like a compact fusion powerplant. Before we have that, no point in worrying about using Mars as a "backup plan", because if Earth was screwed, Mars would have a…

This is hopeful negativism. - They don't need fusion. A StarShip can deposit hundreds of solar panels and put them on the ground. No, dust isn't an issue because they'll bring a roomba. No, this isn't a joke, NASA martian probes' solar panels were cleaned by a light Martian breeze. - They will be able to become self-sufficient rapidly. They're not going to send 1M tons of cargo to Mars without a deployment plan. Spac…

>They're not going to send 1M tons of cargo to Mars without a deployment plan.

Can this happen? I imagine before we can settle on Mars we first should be comfortable flying there, and the latter should be sufficient for asteroid mining. But, right, our technology is just not at a comfortable level yet.

Re: Earth-like planet spotted orbiting Sun’s closest star

#125

Post by YeGoblynQueenne »

bluGill wrote: post #86
mrweasel wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We should perhaps be extra sure that there isn't life there already, before starting to attack a distant planet with terraforming weaponry.

Why bother, even if there is no life there now that doesn't mean their won't be when we finally arrive. Or contrary if there is life there now that doesn't mean it will survive until we get there. The odds that there is life on our generational ship when we arrive are not that great either.

I seem to remember in an Iain M. Banks novel that there was some controversy about terraforming, like there was an other civilisation that considered it an atrocity and hated The Culture fot that?

Re: Earth-like planet spotted orbiting Sun’s closest star

#126

Post by darepublic »

I feel like there is definitely a trend of astronomy articles low key alluding to or hinting at life on other planets in their titles. Presumably to garner clicks and be bait, but when you read the article invariably it's good old science and no life to be found yet.

Re: Earth-like planet spotted orbiting Sun’s closest star

#128

Post by oceanplexian »

semi-extrinsic wrote: post #60
uwuemu wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A probe based on nuclear pulse propulsion could do it in around 50 years, with today's technology. It's not that we can't do it fast (within one average human lifespan), it's that the project would be very expensive and something like Nasa has a relatively tight budget. I mean we, as humanity, have to have an eccentric billionaire start a Martian fire (SpaceX Starship) under our lazy asses to even start to think abou…

Maybe an unpopular opinion, but Musk is just plain wrong when he thinks there is any urgency to Mars exploration (or it's just vicarious arguments because rockets are cool). Basically, the tech you need to make a Mars colony truly self sufficient is something like a compact fusion powerplant. Before we have that, no point in worrying about using Mars as a "backup plan", because if Earth was screwed, Mars would have a…

> Musk is just plain wrong when he thinks there is any urgency to Mars exploration (or it's just vicarious arguments because rockets are cool).

Mars might not be sustainable in our lifetime but in a century or two? I think it's within the realm of possibility.

As for the urgency, the last two years has demonstrated the exact opposite to me. Modern civilization is a hop, skip, and a jump away from instability and disaster. When you say that we should instead spend resources on large zero-emissions energy production, well, we've had Nuclear Fission for half a century. The reason we didn't use it to prevent Climate Change is 90% political, not technical, another problem that having a self-sustaining colony, outside the sphere of Earth's influence, would solve.

Re: Earth-like planet spotted orbiting Sun’s closest star

#130

Post by roveo »

virgildotcodes wrote: post #73
grishka wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Frankly, I believe that any form of mind upload or consciousness transfer is a much harder problem than both rejuvenation and interstellar spaceflight. Looking at current aging research, there's a good possibility we'll see rejuvenation in the next decade or two and it'll profoundly change our society. In 20 years, everyone will be looking 25 years old and pointing at frail people with wrinkly faces and laughing, sam…

Any chance you could link to some stuff that's making you so optimistic about rejuvenation on that timeline?

Look up the stuff David Sinclair is doing with his team. They are already rejuvenating and regrowing severed optic nerves with Yamanaka factors in mice and are preparing to start human trials.

It's not rock-solid that this is going to happen for the whole body soon, but some truly breakthrough things are happening right now in this field, nothing like the previous decades.

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