Closest Earth-like planet a stroll away

Closest Earth-like planet a stroll away

www.news.com.au

EARTH-LIKE worlds may be closer and more plentiful than anyone imagined.
Astronomers reported on Wednesday that the nearest Earth-like planet may be just 13 light-years away - or some 77 trillion miles (124 trillion kilometres).

That planet hasn't been found yet, but should be there, based on the team's study of red dwarf stars.

Galactically speaking, that's right next door.

If our Milky Way galaxy were shrunk to the size of the United States, the distance between Earth and its closest Earth

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I love it when astronomers and scientists play down these kind of findings.

77 Trillion miles . Sound like the USA debt.

Big numbers that get smaller and smaller. Years ago, trillions of miles was a very big number. Today trillions of miles is a walk across the park.

So in that sense if ET life is out there and that close to us, pretty soon we will be knocking on their door and trying to do a deal for their resources. But because it is so close we could still take hot dogs and they would still be fresh!.

What is the next milestone? 1000 trillion miles?...... A billion trillion miles? It takes a little bit longer to get there but the trip is a pleasant one with some great sites to see along the way.

www.news.com.au
(visit the link for the full news article)

Originally posted by magma
Big numbers that get smaller and smaller. Years ago, trillions of miles was a very big number. Today trillions of miles is a walk across the park.

Maybe as a one way ticket perhaps.
Unless they have plans for inter-planetary ships that are self-sustaining over a period of 100's of years.
And expect the crew's great-great grandchildren to return with their findings.

Or would they just drop communication-relay drones along the way to send back information?

Those kinds of distances are ridiculous to even consider.
At that point they might as well be going to attempt to habituate the exo-planet and build up a civilization from there that can send a message back or something.

Thirteen light years is still pretty far away, considering the farthest any human being has ever traveled away from Earth is less than 250,000 miles, or around 3.25 x 10^-6 of the way. Nobody's knocking on anybody's door.

Eventually, we'll just give up on space travel or looking for other Earth like planets with potential aliens and just be satisfied with the virtual worlds we'll create on our own. We're just not physically or mentally built for long space travel.

Originally posted by magma

I love it when astronomers and scientists play down these kind of findings.

77 Trillion miles . Sound like the USA debt.

Big numbers that get smaller and smaller. Years ago, trillions of miles was a very big number. Today trillions of miles is a walk across the park.

So in that sense if ET life is out there and that close to us, pretty soon we will be knocking on their door and trying to do a deal for their resources. But because it is so close we could still take hot dogs and they would still be fresh!.

What is the next milestone? 1000 trillion miles?...... A billion trillion miles? It takes a little bit longer to get there but the trip is a pleasant one with some great sites to see along the way.

www.news.com.au
(visit the link for the full news article)

edit on 6-2-2013 by magma because: (no reason given)

In fairness, other articles contain quoutes saying how close it might be, not confirming it actually is...


www.bbc.co.uk...

It's most likely inhabited already. Should send probes first.

reply to post by something wicked


ytour right, it is a specualtive planet.

I find it interesting that there is something along these lines in the MSM every week.

Makes me wonder if shortly they will reveal a planet with humoid life on it.

Originally posted by Blue Shift
We're just not physically or mentally built for long space travel.

That's why we are dabbling in trans-humanism and cyborgs.

We would replace dying tissues and organs with ones we've grown genetically in labs and the rest of the components making up our bodies would be electrically outputted.

We would slowly replace ourselves over the duration of the trip.

The digital realm idea could come into play for maintaining the mind's awareness and intelligence during the trip.

Originally posted by yourmaker

Originally posted by Blue Shift
We're just not physically or mentally built for long space travel.

That's why we are dabbling in trans-humanism and cyborgs.

Oh, I heartily agree that our intelligent machine offspring -- although probably without any actual human cellular material, because, why bother? -- would certainly be able to make the trip, no matter how long it took. They could just turn themselves off when they left the solar system, have a nice sleep, and turn themselves back on in a few hundred thousand years or so when they get to the destination -- providing they haven't been damaged too much during the trip. Space is a pretty hostile environment, after all.

And once they got there, they could start working on reproducing themselves using the available materials, and then shoot off another generation toward the next target. Wouldn't even necessarily have to be Earth-like, seeing as how they could adapt to pretty much any environment. And why would they be sentimental?

But that's not exactly us doing all the cool exploration, is it? Certainly not you or me. We and very possibly our entire species will be long dead by then.

Originally posted by Blue Shift
But that's not exactly us doing all the cool exploration, is it? Certainly not you or me. We and very possibly our entire species will be long dead by then.

Wouldn't that be part of our natural progression within evolution?

No species stays the same forever, they all flexibly move in all directions,
wouldn't a trans-humanist still be a human at it's core?
It's emotions and wonder wouldn't die with that progression? Would it?

We are different from Neanderthal, but do we not look out at the world with a feeling as well?
Regardless of what that feeling is?

The part I think would change with being trans-humanist is the ability for longer life,
not the way we interpret it.

Originally posted by yourmaker
No species stays the same forever, they all flexibly move in all directions,
wouldn't a trans-humanist still be a human at it's core?
It's emotions and wonder wouldn't die with that progression? Would it?

It's hard to say. Because the next step in the evolution of intelligent beings like us won't be a result of random forces in the environment acting to mold us a particular way. It will be a conscious effort on our part, which is a bit different. Yeah, we will modify ourselves when we get control of our own DNA, and instead of giving ourselves tattoos we'll be able to give ourselves dragonfly wings or whatever. And so humanity as we know it will vanish that way.

As for our manufacturer offspring, who won't share our DNA at all, I figure our intelligent machines will have emotions at first, those that we program into them. And they'll probably be a lot like ours to start with. But given the freedom to chose what emotions they want to keep and which ones they want to get rid of, I don't know which direction they'll go.

That immortality factor is a real unknown. When you have the potential to "live" forever, and you also have the ability to modify yourself and your brain and your physical form in any way you see fit, what do you choose? Life on Earth? Exploration of the entire universe? Life inside a virtual world?

reply to post by magma


Unfortunately, what I see happening is that humanity will get to a point where they send off a ship that will take quite a number of years to get to "where ever" but then, as technology improves back here on earth, another ship will be sent many years later and actually get there BEFORE the first launched ship. That will mean that the first crew and possibly their offspring will turn up to humans that are much more advanced and will be viewed as "our primitive" ancestors, no more than a curiosity to both any ET species that is found and also to the "more advanced" humans that left late but arrived first. But in saying that, if there is a ship being organised, sign my beautiful wife and me up

Reply to post by greatfriendbadfoe

"Unfortunately, what I see happening is that humanity will get to a point where they send off a ship that will take quite a number of years to get to "where ever" but then, as technology improves back here on earth, another ship will be sent many years later and actually get there BEFORE the first launched ship."

Thats exactly what would happen. hell, we will be fossils by time anybody on this planet reachs one of these earth like planets.

We could start sending off supplies, and when we finally have the tech to travel there we would have plenty of supply/fuel station floating that way.


Posted Via ATS Mobile: m.abovetopsecret.com

I love stories like this, "It should be there." But no proof. I understand that it is an educated guess, and,with a word I love to use is PROBABILITY. Yes, with all the stars that are like our sun, the probability of life is almost a gurantee. As I was told on a field trip to Indiana dunes," There are as many stars as there are grains of sand on earth."

Let's just hope that IF there is another life form, they aren't as STUPID as we are.

There is a big difference between stupidity, and ignorance. I'd claim ignorance before stupidity.

It's called Webester's Dictionary. Look it up.

Originally posted by greatfriendbadfoe
reply to post by magma

 

Unfortunately, what I see happening is that humanity will get to a point where they send off a ship that will take quite a number of years to get to "where ever" but then, as technology improves back here on earth, another ship will be sent many years later and actually get there BEFORE the first launched ship. That will mean that the first crew and possibly their offspring will turn up to humans that are much more advanced and will be viewed as "our primitive" ancestors, no more than a curiosity to both any ET species that is found and also to the "more advanced" humans that left late but arrived first. But in saying that, if there is a ship being organised, sign my beautiful wife and me up

edit on 6-2-2013 by greatfriendbadfoe because: changed tense

OK so my son has just thrown a curve ball on this concept. He reckons that instead of the first ship to leave earth turning up AFTER the second one. It takes so long that when it arrives, people on the first ship find after DNA testing that the now decendants of the second ship actually have some of their DNA. Which means that the first ship people are meeting THEIR decendants. How bizarre. Instead of finding people from your past, you find people from your future

reply to post by greatfriendbadfoe



This is probably already going on. Thanks for your input.

reply to post by Blue Shift


If one day we ever manage to build one of these (not in my lifetime of course, but hopefully one day): www.daviddarling.info... then a 13 light year journey would by a 5.3 year journey to those on the spaceship, even though 14.8 years would pass on earth. A round trip would only take about 30 years for those on earth and a little over 10 for those on the spaceship.

They're full of BS.

"That planet hasn't been found yet, but should be there, based on the team's study of red dwarf stars."

All that money spent on the science of space research and this is what they come up with? Idiots if you ask me.

reply to post by hp1229


And 200 years or so ago, we did not have petrol engines.

So yes what a waste ....

Originally posted by Blue Shift
Eventually, we'll just give up on space travel or looking for other Earth like planets with potential aliens and just be satisfied with the virtual worlds we'll create on our own. We're just not physically or mentally built for long space travel.

I don't believe it's that difficult to built either a kind of ark for multiple generations to go to other planets or send a machine with materials to grow babies on another planet. Why bother? There are more things out there and if our planet comes to an end one day, we wouldn't have a link to our afterlife like we have now so we could move that to another inhabitated planet. Earth in this perspective is pretty much the hardware of a computer which is needed to read and write to the afterlife, without it a lot of things would not be possible anymore and humanities afterlife would not be as it is now.