Life Beyond Earth --New Possible Habitable Planets!

[Retro Rob]

Scientists have found three possible Planets that are the best candidates for habitable worlds -- but they are very very far away.... 1,200-2,700 light-years away. This is a mind-boggling distance.

You won't be swimming on the planets anytime soon, though. The Kepler-62 star is 1,200 light-years away; Kepler-69 is 2,700 light-years away. A light-year, the distance that light travels in a vacuum in one year, is nearly 6 trillion miles.

This is just a fraction of the countless billions of stars and potential hundreds of billions of planets that are orbiting them!

Space discovery has alway grabbed and held my attention and imagination. I sure hope that someday, though not anywhere near our lifetimes, that manned voyages can be made to not only planets in our own Solar System, but to planets outside of our own Solar System. :awe:

http://phl.upr.edu/projects/habitable-exoplanets-catalog

 

[Agent11]

All we need is a energy source capable of powering a constant 1g acceleration, and the means to shield the craft from doppler shifted cosmic background radiation.

The problem is that some radiation isn't capable of being diverted with magnetic fields...And it's the nasty stuff. So we would need to figure something else out.

If we had a good enough energy source that weight wasn't an issue maybe lots and lots of dense material would do the trick, like lead. It would get melted, but if we could hold a thick cloud of molten dense metal around the ship using a magnetic field that would maybe do the trick.

A super power source and a dense material we could manipulate with a magnetic field that would not be vaporized by insane heat but that would block gamma rays from frying us... Thats all we need for interstellar travel.

 

[randomrogue]

Yeah and we need to extend the human lifespan by about 500,000 years. These distances are absolutely enormous and without bending space, going faster than light, or something else we haven't thought of we'll never get to these planets before our star dies.

 

[Moonbeam]

The question I have would be this:

If the universe is so vast that information happening in one part of it is so distant from another part, receding away at the speed of light, how can the universe be a single entity. If your right hemisphere dies the left side of your body disappears as well as any knowledge that it exists. So it would seem to me that the universe is connected to itself instantly in some other dimension. This would be like going back in time to a place where anyplace you wanted to go would be right next to you and they going there and moving forward again in time. Thus you could disappear on the earth and reappear on one of these water planets, no time having passed.

 

[Agent11]

http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/Relativity/SR/rocket.html

At a constant 1g you would be surprised how fast we could get moving.

On earth a long time would pass, but for the people traveling near the speed of light much less would be experienced.

 

[Retro Rob]

Yeah and we need to extend the human lifespan by about 500,000 years. These distances are absolutely enormous and without bending space, going faster than light, or something else we haven't thought of we'll never get to these planets before our star dies.

From what I've read, it would take about 82 years AT LIGHT SPEED to reach the center of the Milky Way, let alone other galaxies!

Yeah, I think the best we could humanly do is watch and wait for another "WOW" signal.

 

[Agent11]

Do you have any idea how many stars are in the milky way? There would be no reason to have to leave our galaxy, except for the fact that andromeda will collide with the milky way in the distant future, but thats a problem so very far in the distant future we may as well not even think about it.

You could cross the milky way in 12 years of experienced time at 1g of constant acceleration.

 

[Retro Rob]

Do you have any idea how many stars are in the milky way? There would be no reason to have to leave our galaxy.

Sure, but what if we find life in the Andromenda? We'd kill to find away to reach, even with a signal, that 2.5 Million ligh-year distance!!!

Wow, that's far...

 

[randomrogue]

The milky way is 100,000 light years in diameter. What's the math behind getting 12 years to pass relativistically?

 

[Agent11]

I already linked the math. Scroll up.

 

[Retro Rob]

http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/Relativity/SR/rocket.html

At a constant 1g you would be surprised how fast we could get moving.

On earth a long time would pass, but for the people traveling near the speed of light much less would be experienced.

This is a good link, btw..

 

[randomrogue]

Either way 100,001 years will pass on Earth during that trip. Assuming the 12 year figure is correct from their inertial frame's point of view.

 

[Agent11]

If we had the technology a trip that far would be about spreading mankind across the stars, and would be a one way venture most likely. Earth would not be the center of the universe anymore for those people.

Anyhow, shorter trips would have much less relativistic baggage.

 

[randomrogue]

Yeah I know. I think most of us look at it from our current evolutionary point of view. You'd want to be able to travel at speeds and cross distances fast enough to keep the human race as one race. Once you start using constant acceleration drives you're basically creating a new human race with each new destination. That might be appealing for us if the Earth was in catastrophic danger but not really from exploration as the human race.

I remember studying all these theoretical ideas. What I don't remember was time dilation being so dramatic.

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

Yeah I know. I think most of us look at it from our current evolutionary point of view. You'd want to be able to travel at speeds and cross distances fast enough to keep the human race as one race. Once you start using constant acceleration drives you're basically creating a new human race with each new destination. That might be appealing for us if the Earth was in catastrophic danger but not really from exploration as the human race.

I remember studying all these theoretical ideas. What I don't remember was time dilation being so dramatic.

It's possible that one might leave the Earth as human only to find we've found a faster way to travel. Leave as human and arrive as a comparative a ape.

 

[randomrogue]

Well you could definitely have some really weird things happen. Lets say you went to the Andromeda Galaxy. You'd arrive like 30 years later but 2,000,000 years would have passed on Earth. So you'd be in the evolutionary stone ages if the people on Earth somehow could bend space and arrive at the same time as you but with a time delta of 2M years.

This kind of technology would be a bit on the stupid side for long distances.

 

[dawp]

That depends on if we keep evolving. Some think we have stopped because of a lack of outside influences and will keep our present form indefinitely.

 

[randomrogue]

That depends on if we keep evolving. Some think we have stopped because of a lack of outside influences and will keep our present form indefinitely.

Who thinks that?

Our brains are shrinking and 35% of the population is not born with wisdom teeth.

 

[Charles Kozierok]

Great thread, thanks for posting it, Rob.

My guess is that, assuming we don't destroy ourselves first, we will find a way to travel to other systems. And it will be done using technology that right now we haven't even dreamed of.

As part of my work I've been researching and documenting the evolution of early computers. All of the early digital electronic machines used vacuum tubes, and they were massive. ENIAC weighed 60,000 pounds, took up 1800 square feet and used 150 kW of power. But the machines were improving steadily, so people thought that maybe one day they might be able to get the machines down to, say, 1,000 pounds, so they'd be more practical.

And then came the transistor. And shortly after that, the IC. If you had told the men who designed ENIAC that 50 years later someone would duplicate its capabilities on a device smaller than a fingernail, using 0.00000003% as much energy, and also running 200 times faster, they would have thought you were insane.

I think the same could happen for space travel. The breakthrough could be in an area we can't even conceive of. Maybe we'll never be able to travel very fast, but we'll be able to store our minds in a computer system and build ourselves new bodies when we arrive. Who knows?

 

[Retro Rob]

Who thinks that?

Our brains are shrinking and 35% of the population is not born with wisdom teeth.

I read an article some time ago about this very thing and it stated that we *could* be based on us changing our environment and not allowing it to change us (medicine, agriculture, cars, etc..).

For some reason, from that POV, I can see this as very plausible. We build, can hide from the elements and a whole host of other things.

 

[dawp]

Who thinks that?

Our brains are shrinking and 35% of the population is not born with wisdom teeth.

just something I read years ago, don't remember the source.

edit:

http://bigthink.com/videos/mankind-has-stopped-evolving

 

[Retro Rob]

Great thread, thanks for posting it, Rob.

My guess is that, assuming we don't destroy ourselves first, we will find a way to travel to other systems. And it will be done using technology that right now we haven't even dreamed of.

As part of my work I've been researching and documenting the evolution of early computers. All of the early digital electronic machines used vacuum tubes, and they were massive. ENIAC weighed 60,000 pounds, took up 1800 square feet and used 150 kW of power. But the machines were improving steadily, so people thought that maybe one day they might be able to get the machines down to, say, 1,000 pounds, so they'd be more practical.

And then came the transistor. And shortly after that, the IC. If you had told the men who designed ENIAC that 50 years later someone would duplicate its capabilities on a device smaller than a fingernail, using 0.00000003% as much energy, and also running 200 times faster, they would have thought you were insane.

I think the same could happen for space travel. The breakthrough could be in an area we can't even conceive of. Maybe we'll never be able to travel very fast, but we'll be able to store our minds in a computer system and build ourselves new bodies when we arrive. Who knows?

Thanks.

No offense, but that sounds like something straight outta Star Trek...... but I guess that how guys felt 50 years ago too.

What if there are beings that have warp travel and can open worm holes?

 

[smackababy]

The theory of faster than light travel is sound. Just creating a device that an expand space behind you and contract space in front of you with gravity is a bit tricky. Once we develop that technology, we should be able to travel just about anywhere.

 

[randomrogue]

just something I read years ago, don't remember the source.

edit:

http://bigthink.com/videos/mankind-has-stopped-evolving

Generally speaking evolution is not looked at in decades. I think we'll continue to evolve based on our environment. Here's some food for thought:

Have you ever been in a car or bus with someone who has never been on one or rarely is in one? They get incredibly sick and start vomiting all over. To them the speed of a bus at 30mph is just too much. I can imagine that our bodies will adjust in some way to the faster speeds that we travel. Over very long periods of time though. Not decades.

 

[Jaskalas]

just something I read years ago, don't remember the source.

edit:

http://bigthink.com/videos/mankind-has-stopped-evolving

The fact that we have races proves that evolution has continued in recent (geological) history. I expect it to continue and see no reason to believe otherwise.

Surely the next clearest example is sitting at a desk all day. That WILL force an evolutionary change, but you may not see it in your lifetime.