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First atmosphere found on Earth-like planet in habitable zone of distant star

bbc.com

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Re: First atmosphere found on Earth-like planet in habitable zone of distant star

#21

Post by criddell »

DaveZale wrote: post #12
jimbokun wrote: post #2

48 light years is in our back yard. Close enough that we could probably develop a probe to get there in the next few centuries and check it out. What are the current popular candidates for propulsion systems capable of accelerating to near the speed of light?

need to get small fusion reactors online, then many options blossom. And work out safe systems for hibernation, maybe rotate the crew in shifts Oh yeah this is the stuff of science fiction coming to life

If we had a probe in orbit around this planet, do we have a way to stream data across 48 light years with any kind of reliability?

Re: First atmosphere found on Earth-like planet in habitable zone of distant star

#22

Post by quaintdev »

jimbokun wrote: post #2

48 light years is in our back yard. Close enough that we could probably develop a probe to get there in the next few centuries and check it out. What are the current popular candidates for propulsion systems capable of accelerating to near the speed of light?

If we design a probe that travels at speed of light it would reach there in 48 years and it would send back what it's seen after another 48 years. It would take multiple generations of scientists to work on this project. The longest we have worked on, are Voyager projects. Can we expect that level of commitments from our governments or corporations? Voyager became successful because people could see distant futures. We can barely plan few years ahead.

Re: First atmosphere found on Earth-like planet in habitable zone of distant star

#23

Post by Jeff_Brown »

JMKH42 wrote: post #3
jimbokun wrote: post #2

48 light years is in our back yard. Close enough that we could probably develop a probe to get there in the next few centuries and check it out. What are the current popular candidates for propulsion systems capable of accelerating to near the speed of light?

laser propelled solar sails are the only plausible solution at the moment and it is not a given that even that is possible. Lots of engineering challenges there that may not have solutions. other ideas: 1. be way more patient 2. anti matter based propulsion (more out there than solar sails) 3. nuclear bomb based propulsion One issue is as you get to these speed little bits of dust will anhillate the probe, so you nee…

One of the Voyager probes measured the density of the interstellar vacuum at 80,000 protons (and the same number of electrons) per cubic meter. A proton going through a piece of aluminum foil delivers a roughly constant amount of energy regardless of speed; a relativistic proton will pinch through and carry most of its energy with it.

(No punchline; I just think that's cool. I understand that the real problem is the rare dust grain, not the ubiquitous gas.)

Re: First atmosphere found on Earth-like planet in habitable zone of distant star

#24

Post by functionmouse »

quaintdev wrote: post #22
jimbokun wrote: post #2

48 light years is in our back yard. Close enough that we could probably develop a probe to get there in the next few centuries and check it out. What are the current popular candidates for propulsion systems capable of accelerating to near the speed of light?

If we design a probe that travels at speed of light it would reach there in 48 years and it would send back what it's seen after another 48 years. It would take multiple generations of scientists to work on this project. The longest we have worked on, are Voyager projects. Can we expect that level of commitments from our governments or corporations? Voyager became successful because people could see distant futures.…

We cannot design a probe that travels at the speed of light.

Re: First atmosphere found on Earth-like planet in habitable zone of distant star

#25

Post by ErenayDev »

jonathaneunice wrote: post #7
jimbokun wrote: post #2

48 light years is in our back yard. Close enough that we could probably develop a probe to get there in the next few centuries and check it out. What are the current popular candidates for propulsion systems capable of accelerating to near the speed of light?

Astrophage

Project Hail Mary :)

Re: First atmosphere found on Earth-like planet in habitable zone of distant star

#26

Post by slfnflctd »

quaintdev wrote: post #22
jimbokun wrote: post #2

48 light years is in our back yard. Close enough that we could probably develop a probe to get there in the next few centuries and check it out. What are the current popular candidates for propulsion systems capable of accelerating to near the speed of light?

If we design a probe that travels at speed of light it would reach there in 48 years and it would send back what it's seen after another 48 years. It would take multiple generations of scientists to work on this project. The longest we have worked on, are Voyager projects. Can we expect that level of commitments from our governments or corporations? Voyager became successful because people could see distant futures.…

> Can we expect that level of commitments from our governments or corporations?

Clearly, right now we cannot. This is one of the worst obstacles to progress in these areas that I see, and I don't see any obvious way to fix it.

The situation we're currently in would've been utterly unfathomable to me 30 years ago. I have lost a great deal of the hope and optimism I held in the past. Interstellar exploration is but one of many fields where we are suffering due to short term thinking.

Re: First atmosphere found on Earth-like planet in habitable zone of distant star

#27

Post by detritus »

buildbot wrote: post #18
andy_ppp wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably more likely that we work out how to fold spacetime than we get there in anything like a high enough percentage of the speed of light - the fastest object we ever made travelled at something like ~0.064% * C so we are looking at ~750 years with current technology and presumably we'd need to switch on the probe in 3/4 of a millennium and figure out how to slow it down and get it into some sort of orbit around…

Honestly a near millennia long expedition would be very cool, and doesn’t seem too long on the scale of space stuff.

Perhaps, but it is horrifically long in terms of human stuff.

Re: First atmosphere found on Earth-like planet in habitable zone of distant star

#29

Post by detritus »

1970-01-01 wrote: post #10
jimbokun wrote: post #2

48 light years is in our back yard. Close enough that we could probably develop a probe to get there in the next few centuries and check it out. What are the current popular candidates for propulsion systems capable of accelerating to near the speed of light?

Back yard meaning we can see it but never touch it. If the ship to get there was ready today, it would get there in the year one-million? Back yard is Mars, Venus, moon. And I'm being generous with Mars and Venus.

Yeah, if your username is any indication of your age, you've possibly taken much the same trajectory of pessimism that I have. As a youth, I assumed we'd be hitting multiple Cs or bending space time when I was an adult; As an adult I thought we might get a percentage of C and conquer the solar system; Now I realise Just How Much Effort it would be to accomplish much of any value on our own Moon, never mind Mars.

I still hold on to the idea that very long term we might make strides in our own solar system, but it is a depressingly-longer timescale than I always used to believe.

Unless we have some magic-level shift in our understanding of physics, we're never getting anything beyond Von Neumann probes to other stars, and even then we're talking thousands of years.

Re: First atmosphere found on Earth-like planet in habitable zone of distant star

#30

Post by hliyan »

singpolyma3 wrote: post #11

> The gas detected in the atmosphere is helium, which would not be able to support life Nonsense. You mean not able to support terrestrial life.

Helium is a noble gas. It forms no bonds and is unable to produce even a simple molecule, let along the complex ones needed for life.
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