It looks like you're using an Ad Blocker.
Please white-list or disable AboveTopSecret.com in your ad-blocking tool.
Thank you.
Some features of ATS will be disabled while you continue to use an ad-blocker.
Originally posted by d1k
Originally posted by pepsi78
Big discovery, but 20 light years is still far away, it would take a probe hudreds of years to get there, it would take an object betwen 80 and 100 years to get there, and that if it the object were to be traveling at a quorter of light speed.
[edit on 24-4-2007 by pepsi78]
Using 1950's technology. I'm positive our government has near light speed and maybe even faster secret technology.
Originally posted by pepsi78
It's true there is tehnology capabile of accelerating an object at speed near the speed of light by constant sustained acceleration in time it could reach a very high speed let's say over a period of couple of years, the ion drive can do this in fact.
1
The problem is the kinetic mass it would acumulate at that speed, at such great spead it's hard to stop because it's mass would be "it's mass X times light speed" it would have to reduce speed at a great distance to be able to manuver at all if it does not want to miss it's tajectory, it's imposible to decelerate in a short period of time because of the kinetic mass of the object due to it's speed.
2
The probe would be uncontrolable from earth, even if it's traveling at light speed people from earth would not be able to control it once it's out of reach and far away since radio waves take alot of time to travel from one part of the galaxy to another, an automatic trajectory is hard to accive on such a long jurney because even 1 centimiter off course can throw it off course for good, since it would be moving 1 centimeter away at light speed in 20 light years the probe would be in a totaly different location, probaly not even close to the solar sistem it wanted to get to.
Other than the ion drive there is no other propulsion sistem capabile of doing this , maybe just nuclear reactors but that is not an option,and it's not a problem with the propulsion sistem but the problem is how to control the probe really from so far away.
[edit on 24-4-2007 by pepsi78]
Originally posted by johnsky
...
Originally posted by carnival_of_souls2047
Perhaps we could send a sleeper generational ship to this world for exploration. Maybe we can establish a base of operations there or find life forms that will greet us with pitchers of margaritas.
Originally posted by pepsi78
I don't know what good does this do humanity if we can't even see it.
It might be just like mars, dry.
I think with a little more contribution from all the nations on this planet, if not from all at least from most of them we would have a biger eye to wach the universe in a better detailed picture.
I hear that there is a project of some sort of laser telescope that would work with small telescopes...
Space Interferometry Mission
aritst's concept of Space Interferometry Mission
Proposed Launch: 2015
Purpose: Space-based optical interferometer to study stars and detect extra-solar planets
The Space Interferometry Mission (SIM) is an orbiting interferometer that will link a pair of telescopes to function in unison as a much larger "virtual telescope." One goal is to detect planets of varying sizes -- from huge planets several times the size of Jupiter down to planets about as massive as Earth. It will do this by precisely locating nearby stars and looking for signs of any wobble in their positions, which may indicate that gravity from orbiting planets is tugging at them.
In addition, the mission will determine positions and distances to stars with an accuracy several hundred times greater than current technology allows. SIM will open the era of "precision astrophysics." It will permit the construction of a "street map" to our Milky Way galaxy which could lead to breakthrough discoveries in astronomy. The mission will determine the distances to important signposts throughout the Milky Way as well as the motions of nearby galaxies and it can study the activity deep in the cores of external galaxies. All of this will help us expand our understanding of the universe.
Partnering with JPL are Northrup Grumman Space Technology and Lockheed Martin, as well as numerous institutions represented on the science teams.
"The Kepler Mission will, for the first time, enable humans to search our galaxy for Earth-size or even smaller planets," said principal investigator William Borucki of NASA's Ames research Center, Moffett Field, California. "With this cutting-edge capability, Kepler may help us answer one of the most enduring questions humans have asked throughout history: Are there others like us in the universe?"
Kepler will detect planets indirectly, using the "transit" method. A transit occurs each time a planet crosses the line-of-sight between the planet's parent star that it is orbiting and the observer. When this happens, the planet blocks some of the light from its star, resulting in a periodic dimming. This periodic signature is used to detect the planet and to determine its size and its orbit.
The Large Binocular Telescope Interferometer (LBTI) will study the formation of solar systems and will be capable of directly detecting giant planets outside our solar system.
Two 8-meter class telescopes on Mount Graham, Arizona, will be connected in an infrared interferometer. The resulting instrument will have a maximum baseline of 22.8 meters.
Because of its unique geometry and relatively direct optical path, the LBTI will offer science capabilities that are different from other interferometers. It will provide high-resolution images of many faint objects over a wide field-of-view, including galaxies in the Hubble Deep Field with 10 times the Hubble resolution.
Nulling techniques will enable the LBTI to study emissions from faint dust clouds around other stars. These dust clouds reflect light and give off heat, and so interfere with the search for planets. By helping to characterize these emissions, the LBTI will provide critically needed data for the design of the Terrestrial Planet Finder, a future mission that will study planets orbiting nearby stars.
Originally posted by sardion2000
Well I doubt this planet is habitable in the traditional sense. There is one hypothesis that this planet is an Iceball so that would make it unlikely that it harbors any intelligent life. Though if an intelligent species were to evolve on that planet, they would be adapted to such extreme conditions that I don't think that even staring right at it from a foot away, we'd recognize it as anything intelligent. But that speculation is for the future. Now we just have to continue observations to see what other planets there are in the 80 or so other Red Dwarf stars in our vicinity. Remember space is huge. We got something like half a trillion stars in our own galaxy so don't expect to hit gold right away.
Originally posted by johnsky
Wouldnt 5 times earths mass mean 5 times it's gravity? Maybe I'm just so tired at the moment I'm forgetting something...
Either way, this is a great find by the astronomers. If life had started there, I wonder what a creature built to move in 5 G's would look like?
Originally posted by sardion2000
I hope China and India get in on the fun though as there is a big blind spot where they're at.
Originally posted by d1k
Are there bigger/better instruments that we could use to get more information from this "super-earth"? If it were up to me i'd have every telescope on earth pointed at this thing getting as much data as possible
20 light years is pretty close if I'm not mistaken. Isn't this the closest exo-planet found yet?
Originally posted by neformore
Its interesting that, a couple of days after we find out that the UN may be debating how to establish contact with alien cultures, that this story comes out.
I'm assuming its zeitgeist rather than anything planned, but it does make you wonder, doesn't it?