Two potentially life-friendly planets found orbiting a nearby star

Post by codesushi42 » Wed, Jun 19, 2019, 7:59 AM UTC

dwaltrip wrote: post #342

codesushi42 wrote: post #339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not likely. Even traveling to a planet as "nearby" as Neptune by conventional means would take 12 years. Hardly within shooting range, and who knows whether our civilization will survive long enough for us to make it to even the edge of our solar system. And the OP was referring to a nearby star system, within "sublight year" range. Even < 1 light year could mean very, very far away.

They are referring to a single system... Here is the quote: >> And to think that there is likely an Easy Mode system out there. >> A habitable planet on the low end of the mass spectrum needed for a stable atmosphere with other habitable planets in-system. And all that close to another star with habitable planets, possibly in the sub-lightyear range. Yes, they mentioned another star system as an additional point, but…

Post by zilian » Wed, Jun 19, 2019, 8:57 AM UTC

LeifCarrotson wrote: post #253

zilian wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe the Great Filter is real and screwing up a system is as easy as screwing up a planet ;)

...why the winky face?

Post by isostatic » Wed, Jun 19, 2019, 9:07 AM UTC

npongratz wrote: post #313

isostatic wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The benefit of using a cycler rather than a ship that travels orbit-to-orbit is that there is no need to accelerate/decelerate the mass of the ship, just the perishables (people and provisions for the voyage) You would accelerate a small vessel (like a crew dragon or orion), intercept and dock with the much larger cycler, then enter the ship for your x-month trip. When you near mars, you get back into your dragon, an…

> You could presumably look at using a small asteroid to provide the bulk of the "cycler", offering plenty of shielding for the trip, you'd only have to get it into position once - far less fuel requirement. Or maybe even something like, as some have suggested (not me!), Phobos: http://enterprisemission.com/Phobos.html Warning: it's kind of out there. At the very least, it's perhaps interesting as speculative sci-fi.

Post by xelxebar » Wed, Jun 19, 2019, 9:46 AM UTC

snowwrestler wrote: post #326

soulofmischief wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm talking about the local solar density, not an individual star's density. Obviously that has little effect on the habitable zone of a planet. My question was about the ability of a system's star's own radiation to ward off extra-solar radiation and what kind of limitations we are aware of.

Electromagnetic radiation from one star does not repel electromagnetic radiation from other stars. If it did, we wouldn’t be able to see stars at night from the Earth.

Post by neuronic » Wed, Jun 19, 2019, 10:32 AM UTC

dTal wrote: post #354

XorNot wrote: post #107

The note that it's an old star makes me worry though. If they're older then us, and habitable, were they inhabited? Our current era is a few hundred years of real, directed technological development. A few thousands years either side of that and who knows what we'd be looking at, but you imagine that - hopefully - the general progression of technology is forward. So if they were inhabited, what happened to them? Are…

> you imagine that - hopefully - the general progression of technology is forward. I think this might be the key myth of our times. Our entire history is a blink of an eye along the timescales Earth normally changes on. But the last couple hundred years really takes the cake - within a couple human lifespans, we've gone from a lifestyle broadly recognizable to any human from history, to some kind of ravenous sci-fi t…