24 replies to this topic

[Selena]

http://www.nytimes.c...auri.html?_r=1


Science enthusiasts rejoice! There's a planet in the system next door!

It orbits so close to Alpha Centauri B that it's insanely hot, of course, but it's still there. And that's pretty neat. There is a likely chance that other planets exist within the system, so there's still hope for some sort of alien beach colony. ...Or at least something that isn't 1200 degrees. That'd be fine, too.

Somebody give NASA enough funding to probe dat.

[Steel Samurai]

Somebody give NASA funding period.

[Veteran]

Somebody terraform Ganymede. It's 2012. Hoverboards in 3 years!

[J-Roc]

Somebody terraform Ganymede. It's 2012. Hoverboards in 3 years!

Its pretty eerie that they predicted a baseball team in Florida.

[Sir Deimos]

Ganymede better be terraformed in time for when Cowboy Bebop takes place. D:

[Wolf O'Donnell]

This wouldn't be the same Alpha Centauri that has the Planet Chiron, would it?

If so... MIND WORMS!

[Manifold_Usurper]

The first landing probe is gonna get swallowed in a xenofungal bloom.

[SOAP]

This wouldn't be the same Alpha Centauri that has the Planet Chiron, would it?

If so... MIND WORMS!

Or the one with planet Earth. The real one, before this one.

[LoreleiRaven]

Or the one with planet Earth. The real one, before this one.

I need to know more of this real Earth...

But really... How likely is travel to other planets and systems (by humans), in our life time?

[Selena]

I assume he's referencing Battlestar Galactica. Again. XP



Travel to another system in our lifetime is pretty much impossible - even an unmanned probe wouldn't make it there in our lifetimes if we sent it out today, at least with current technology. We can't even get a manned mission to Mars. We'll get to Mars and other local planets within our lifetimes, I'm sure, but it's taking longer than it should. NASA's a shadow of its former self because politicians don't have proper money management skills.

[Egann]

Eh. Assuming any medical advances at all, "our" lifetimes is probably closer to 90 or 100 than 70, and it's only 4 light years. We *could* conceivably get a probe there in our lifetimes. By "probe," I mean an empty soda can that zips through and relays back perhaps one picture.

Then there's the catch. For about 1/100,000th of *that* cost, we can launch the James Webb telescope and learn orders of magnitude more about the universe as a whole. Yeah. The choice is obvious.

On topic, though, I'm not really surprised Alpha Centauri has only one planet we've detected thusfar, or that it's really close to the star; it's a binary system with eccentric orbits, and that's ignoring Proxima Centauri, which may or may not be orbiting the common barycenter. Planets will not have stable orbits unless they are really close to one star or the other, exactly like this one is.

[SOAP]

I assume he's referencing Battlestar Galactica. Again. XP

Do you really have to assume?

Edited by SOAP, 22 October 2012 - 09:14 PM.

[LoreleiRaven]

I meant more, what is the likeliness of the technology for even beginning the trip coming about in our life time?

[SOAP]

I meant more, what is the likeliness of the technology for even beginning the trip coming about in our life time?

In our lifetime? With our current technology? Probably none.

[LoreleiRaven]

We should start a NASA fund raiser...

[Showsni]

Anyone ever played Journy to Alpha Centauri (the video game)? (As inspired by a Terry Pratchett book).

It involves travelling to Alpha Centauri. In real time. Takes slightly over three thousand years to complete.

[Manifold_Usurper]

photo sharing websites

[J-Roc]

photo sharing websites

One's a space program, the other is eating your body weight in magic mushrooms without dying.

[arunma]

Or the one with planet Earth. The real one, before this one.

Haha, I see what you did there.

The first landing probe is gonna get swallowed in a xenofungal bloom.

Seriously though, it would be the second. NASA actually scrubs down all its interplanetary probes of any microbial life so that lifeless but habitable places (possibly e.g. Europa) don't get contaminated by stuff that will later evolve. Who knows, maybe we'll accidentally create the aliens that come wipe us out. Which brings me back to the Cylons...

[Sir Deimos]

What if that's how we got here? o_o

[J-Roc]

What if that's how we got here? o_o

Oh shit. What if thats how white people to the planet, fucking bacteria!

[Selena]

Update. Tau Ceti got jealous of all the attention Alpha Centauri was getting:

http://www.universet...habitable-zone/


Five planets. A supposed super-Earth in the system's habitable zone. 12 lightyears away.

[Sir Deimos]

Wow. Only 12 light years. That's amazing.

[Egann]

Hmm. There's an interesting observation in that article.

“This discovery is in keeping with our emerging view that virtually every star has planets, and that the galaxy must have many such potentially habitable Earth-sized planets,” said astronomer Steve Vogt from UC Santa Cruz, coauthor of the paper describing the discovery. “We are now beginning to understand that nature seems to overwhelmingly prefer systems that have multiple planets with orbits of less than 100 days. This is quite unlike our own solar system, where there is nothing with an orbit inside that of Mercury. So our solar system is, in some sense, a bit of a freak and not the most typical kind of system that Nature cooks up.”

When last I heard, that was considered to be observation bias. Even Kepler should find detecting short-period planets easier than ones with higher orbits.

Also, I just poked around on Tau Ceti's Wikipedia page. Tau Ceti has all sorts of weird anomalies; it has terrestrial planets and a thick asteroid disk...despite being almost 10 billion years old and having a low metal content. Odd to say the least.

Edited by Egann, 20 December 2012 - 12:56 PM.

[Showsni]

So if we beamed a message at them with lights it would get there in 12 years? Has anyone sent one yet?