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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

#281

Post by isodev »

parasti wrote: post #164
isodev wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would help if our science wasn’t distracted by things like global warming and nazi governments though. There are definitely ways we can help the process * right now *

Good luck doing anything on any other planet if you can't even handle your own that's perfectly suited for your kind of life form.

Was it my comment you really wanted to reply to? My point is that there are things we can do right now/today in order to heal our society from the sort of malignancies that distract us from advancing as a race.

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

#282

Post by embedding-shape »

dTal wrote: post #87
mekdoonggi wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to AI, an equivalent would be roughly when Google maps shows you 10mi/20km reference scale. Turning off the labels, aliens would probably assume that the world is naturally full of green stuff that is dealing with some strange grey infestation.

Even on that scale, major roads and agricultural grids are clearly visible. The mark of abstract intelligence is unmistakeable.

I wonder if there are conscious ants and similar small infrastructure-builders running around on the ground with the exact same ideas. "Of course the big-beings-in-the-sky recognize our tracks here are major roads and agricultural areas, they must understand we're intelligent"

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

#283

Post by creesch »

globular-toast wrote: post #271
chrsw wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Science fiction has entertained and inspired millions of people and we should all be grateful for that but it has also distorted what people think space really is. When you consider the scale of space it becomes pretty understandable why the Milky Way isn't teeming with civilizations sending large amounts of mass all over the galaxy. A realization one comes to despite the facts that it has taken humans a blink of an…

Project Hail Mary does a pretty good job, although probably doesn't come across in the film. SF that doesn't even bother using wormholes or some other FTL travel (e.g. warp speed) is quite annoying, though.

I mean, even there they pretty use the Astrophage as a plot device to fill in the huge gap in technology needed to cover those distances. They make it clear that they would have no chance to cover those distances without the Astrophage, but it is very convenient.

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

#285

Post by creesch »

jimbokun wrote: post #254
creesch wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just going to recycle this comment I made in reply to an almost identical comment as yours. I don't think you folks realize how big space actually is. The speed of light is 1079 252 848 km/h, the fastest space craft ever made was the Parker Solar probe (using a sling shot) clocking in at 692 000 km/h. So at that speed it would take, 1559 years to travel one light year. This planet sits at a distance of 48 light years…

I want to know what future technologies could accelerate an object to a significant fraction of the speed of light. What kinds of scientific breakthroughs would be required? Could those breakthroughs be achieved in the next 2 or 3 centuries?

> I want to know what future technologies could accelerate an object to a significant fraction of the speed of light.

With all due respect, this has been extensively debated online and is extremely easy to look up.

> Could those breakthroughs be achieved in the next 2 or 3 centuries?

Any predictions on future scientific breakthroughs are wishful thinking. Even directions that seem promising at some point can end up being dead ends and we simply don't know what we will or will not achieve.

With current technologies, even hypothetical ones we can't get there in a time period that is under a few centuries at best and over a millennium at worse. Even for the centuries figure we'd require technologies we haven't been able to crack yet.

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

#286

Post by duchenne »

hparadiz wrote: post #106
neom wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great in depth youtube video on this project: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=go-50Dpzs20

This requires sending something to at least about 548 AU and then effect falls off from there but anything you send that far will be going at a velocity that would keep it going. You would be in effective range for some time but basically you'd need to keep sending satellites to that distance in order to keep using the technique. You'd also want to send them into different directions in order to image different parts…

Nuclear-powered ion thrusters could solve this issue. They provide low acceleration for a long time consuming very little consumable. This would allow the telescope to stay at the right position for observation.

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

#288

Post by dudinax »

embedding-shape wrote: post #282
dTal wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even on that scale, major roads and agricultural grids are clearly visible. The mark of abstract intelligence is unmistakeable.

I wonder if there are conscious ants and similar small infrastructure-builders running around on the ground with the exact same ideas. "Of course the big-beings-in-the-sky recognize our tracks here are major roads and agricultural areas, they must understand we're intelligent"

Maybe we do

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

#289

Post by dopidopHN2 »

andrewflnr wrote: post #41
detritus wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Yep. We haven't really figured out how to do a good government that lasts more than 200 years. Maybe unless you think monarchy is good, in which case I still don't want to share a spaceship with you.

Plenty of countries are currenyly a 1000 year old.

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

#290

Post by eaenki »

creesch wrote: post #280
leobuskin wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I understand correctly, time spent within this interstellar ship reference frame would be significantly less than 75k years. And at 1c speed, 48 years on Earth would be ~2 years of "flight" for the passengers, correct me if I'm wrong.

You are not wrong, but it still wouldn't make a whole lot of difference. First of all with any technology we currently have, including hypothetical proposals, we can't even get close to 1c. The best we can do, and this assumes purely hypothetical unproven ideas, is accelerate to a fraction of the speed of light. Acceleration itself will take up a significant amount of time and even then we are nowhere near the speed…

Man, that’s not how intelligence works. Eventually if a civilization doesn’t blow itself up, it will achieve anything, and it’s not incremental steps. Speed has never been incremental steps. in 1810 you would’ve been thinking about faster horses or some shit like that. Def not rockets. OP said hundreds of years. In hundreds of years from now our rulers will definitely have that kind of tech, whatever tech it is.
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