New Earth-like planet has been discovered

[John]

It's a bit more than 20 light years away, but it's the closest and most "Earth like" planet to be discovered so far...

http://www.astronomy.com/asy/default.aspx?c=a&id=5471

What do you think?

Any chance that ET lives there?

Would be nice if we had the technology to get a good view. Heck, even being able to send a satellite there within this lifetime would be nice.

A great idea just came to mind. Somebody make a sig or other art piece on this very topic.

[Smiling Demon]

yeh saw that in the paper the otherday. i dont think there will be inteligent life tho there may be plant life. biggest thing is that it could be a saviour in a way (if we get the technology) as we r killing this planet and overpopulating it.

i'll give the sig ago

[John]

I'm with ya on there probably not being intelligent life there. Would probably be very, very unlikely. I agree about the plant life, etc. Maybe some very basic life forms. Even that would be a HUGE discovery. That would be proof of there being life elsewhere.... even if it is only some type of toxic mold... eh

It could be a saviour as you mentioned. It's not just that Earth is taking a beating from us.... but all it would take is a single strike from some kind of space object to wipe us all out. Obviously that would need to be a significantly large object (of which there are many) and it would probably be moving along at 30000+ miles per hour. That would be one blink then a poof of dust for Earth.

Maybe the world should investigate further... we're gonna need a backup plan sooner or later. Could be that's what the scientists have been looking for...

[Smiling Demon]

yup it would only take one strike from some asteroid 2 kill us... or even something like the yellowstone volcano errupting (not really likely i no lol). tho even wit the asteroid we would probably spot it a couple of months before it reached us... and there would b alot of waiting wondering if it will actualy hit (when it came tho it would take seconds and we probably wouldn't notice lol). but yeh it might be required if the human race is 2 continue lol.

[John]

That's one of the reasons we need to start terra-forming Mars now. Just plant the seeds and let time do the rest for a while. Then when we have better technology and resources the atmosphere there will have started to build at least just a little.

I believe it wasn't all that long ago when a fairly large object passed Earth within a very close distance, relatively close anyhow. In space even large distances to us are very small in the grand scheme of things. I recall the object passing by Earth within 600k miles or so. Maybe I'm a bit mistaken on the details... that may have been about an object predicted to come that close in the future. Now I'm curious...

The Discovery channel plays a movie once in a while about the yellowstone volcano. I think the movie was titled Super Volcano, or something like that. It is a "fictional" movie, but much of the science discussed in that movie is very true. They also follow the movie up with some real science talk by the host. The Yellow Stone super volcano has erupted something like 3 times in the past 2.1 million years or so... and when those times are averaged out that puts us at the current time within the 10,000 year period when another eruption is expected. Well, that's IF it ever erupts again. Erupting 3 times in so many years doesn't really give good stats analysis for future prediction...

Earth2 here we come! ....

[Smiling Demon]

lol yup sounds great. speaking of tera-forming Mars ever read the Mars series by Kim Stanley Robinson (Red Mars, Blue Mars and Green Mars) great books for anyone into sci-fi novels. all about terra-forming mars lol.

Cant wait for Earth2 lol, lets call it Gaia!

[John]

I haven't read any novels about terra forming Mars, but have watched a few shows on Discovery about it. One of the ways discussed, just to start the atmosphere building process, was to being with Algae. Algae has proven to be able to survive and often prosper in some of the worst environments on Earth. So if Algae can get started on Mars, even if only on a small level initially, it will gradually help to change the planet. Then over time as things change other plant life can be introduced. It's expected that it could take a very long time for that process to work, none of us would still be around - but a backup plan for Earth might still be a good idea, even if it takes that long to accomplish.

[Smiling Demon]

yeh that is true, they can survive almost anywhere. and even if the backup isnt there for us, it could be there for our childern, or their children. and it probably wont be us that need it anyway.

[Bmc]

Well generally at the moment we can't really discuss changing Mars or reaching this newly-discovered planet, since we lack the means to even send people to Mars. About starting plant life in Mars to help change it's atmosphere, Mars has other properties except the atmosphere that make it an uninhabitable planet - it's larger orbit course around the sun, it's temperatures, and other phenomena that are probably well beyond me.

As for this new planet, it's very problematic to determine wether it has water and/or any form of life, mainly because we can't really see it. The discovery was made by calculating gravitational and other effects on it's sun, a red midget. from those movements it was possible to determine it's orbit, many conditions on the surface, it's temperatures etc... but as for actually seeing it, the light reflected in our direction from it's sun, being a red midget and not very strong, is not at all sufficient for us to actually see the planet itself.

[John]

If an atmosphere was developed on Mars, that might sort out the temperature issues. It wouldn't do much for the orbit or different gravity, though. If Earth was ever wiped out and Mars was the only option for the human race to survive... might be a good idea for there to be an alternative option for us. Well, not "us" but whoever is here a few thousand years from now when it could be needed.

Supposedly the new planet lies within the habitable zone, sort of the "sweet spot" in terms of how far away it is from its own sun. Not too close and not too far, which means water may exist in liquid form there. At certain distances there is no possibility of liquid water. I think the news article stated that it orbits around the sun once ever 2 weeks or so. We would all be so dizzy!!