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NASA’s Kepler Mission Discovers Bigger, Older Cousin to Earth

nasa.gov

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Re: NASA’s Kepler Mission Discovers Bigger, Older Cousin to Earth

#121

Post by rolilink_ »

staunch wrote: post #82
eastbayjake wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's jarring to think that if intelligent life were on Kepler 452-b and observing Earth, we're so far away that they would be seeing our "civilizations" in 615 AD: shrinking global population as the old Roman and Byzantine empires are overrun by barbarian hordes and Arab conquest, with some pockets of human progress in China. They would have no way of knowing that the descendants of those squabbling warlords just coo…

I hope they were recording the whole time and upload the videos to YouTube. I can't wait to watch Hannibal on the Pyrenees From Space.mp4

do they have a pirate bay?

Re: NASA’s Kepler Mission Discovers Bigger, Older Cousin to Earth

#122

Post by toomuchtodo »

Gravityloss wrote: post #111

The significance is this: it's very likely that there are a lot more such planets a lot nearer to us. This is because Kepler can only detect planets which lie in the same plane as earth and the star so the planet occults the star. Assuming random distribution, there's probably thousand fold amount of off plane planets. There are 259 stars within about 30 light years. Communication could be conceivable with such dista…

> This is because Kepler can only detect planets which lie in the same plane as earth and the star so the planet occults the star.

What would be necessary for a more comprehensive survey?

Re: NASA’s Kepler Mission Discovers Bigger, Older Cousin to Earth

#123

Post by rfreytag »

jrlocke wrote: post #116
Gravityloss wrote: post #111

The significance is this: it's very likely that there are a lot more such planets a lot nearer to us. This is because Kepler can only detect planets which lie in the same plane as earth and the star so the planet occults the star. Assuming random distribution, there's probably thousand fold amount of off plane planets. There are 259 stars within about 30 light years. Communication could be conceivable with such dista…

I believe you meant occludes rather than occults

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/occult#English

The verb form is used thus: "The earth occults the moon during a lunar eclipse."

Re: NASA’s Kepler Mission Discovers Bigger, Older Cousin to Earth

#125

Post by ilurk »

It feels extremely frustrating to know -- not just wonder but to know exactly where -- that there are planets similar to our own, which have a very high probability of harboring life, yet to be condemned to never be able to take a really close look at it.

No FTL travel, no working cryonics, no mind-upload tech. Just harsh reality.

Re: NASA’s Kepler Mission Discovers Bigger, Older Cousin to Earth

#126

Post by 33W »

anon4 wrote: post #95
Falcon9 wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My favorite thought is that they've sent probes millions of years ago and we could send a request to watch some HD surveillance of dinosaurs roaming the Earth. It'll just take ~3k years to receive the requested footage.

Not if you board a spaceship and travel to them at close to light speed! Then you, personally, would just wait a few hours.

Once again, it will be easier to bring people to the data, than data to people.

Re: NASA’s Kepler Mission Discovers Bigger, Older Cousin to Earth

#127

Post by ionwake »

danielweber wrote: post #74
ionwake wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there is a theory that we can travel nearly the speed of light , but yeah even then we are a millennia away :(

If you could accelerate at 1 g , you could reach it in 7 years, in your reference frame.

Wait for the observer... isnt it.... 1800 / 17.... 100 years.

So that means, a baby could reach the exoplanet, before it dies of old age, on a spaceship travelling 99% the speed of light, which can theoretically built right now.

How did you arrive at your calculation of 7 years?

Thanks!

Re: NASA’s Kepler Mission Discovers Bigger, Older Cousin to Earth

#128

Post by ImJasonH »

cstross wrote: post #70

I want answers to three questions before I get excited: 1. Does it have active plate tectonics? 2. Does it have a working deep carbon cycle? 3. Has its atmosphere hung on to its hydrogen (that is, has it managed not to lose it all to high-altitude UV splitting and solar wind)? If the answer to all three of those is "yes" then this suddenly gets a lot more interesting, whether or not we can see any free oxygen in the…

I'm curious why active plate tectonics makes the planet more interesting. Do those contribute to the "liveability" of a planet in some way?

Re: NASA’s Kepler Mission Discovers Bigger, Older Cousin to Earth

#129

Post by cstross »

ImJasonH wrote: post #128
cstross wrote: post #70

I want answers to three questions before I get excited: 1. Does it have active plate tectonics? 2. Does it have a working deep carbon cycle? 3. Has its atmosphere hung on to its hydrogen (that is, has it managed not to lose it all to high-altitude UV splitting and solar wind)? If the answer to all three of those is "yes" then this suddenly gets a lot more interesting, whether or not we can see any free oxygen in the…

I'm curious why active plate tectonics makes the planet more interesting. Do those contribute to the "liveability" of a planet in some way?

Google on "great oxygen catastrophe" and prepare for an eye-opening experience.

(Note that neither Mars nor Venus have active plate tectonics. The surface of Venus melts every couple of hundred million years due to trapped heat, while Mars has no magnetosphere to speak of ...)

Re: NASA’s Kepler Mission Discovers Bigger, Older Cousin to Earth

#130

Post by idlewords »

rolilink_ wrote: post #124

I think the most important issue is: Are they like us? a civilization that loves going to war and colonize others? that is the most important thing we need to know.

Are they enough like us be incapable of sustaining a space program?
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