Astronomers find their 'Holy Grail' !

Morrisseeee

From the Indo.

ASTRONOMERS have discovered their "holy grail" - a planet capable of supporting life outside our solar system.

The planet lies in what they describe as a 'habitable zone', neither too near its sun to dry out or too far away which freezes it.

And the discovery could help answer the question of whether we are alone in the universe, which has been plagued astronomers and alien fanatics for years.

Scientists found the planet, Gliese 667Cc, orbiting around a red dwarf star, 22 light years away from the earth.

Me thinks we'll eventually find 'other' life out-there, and I hope it's in my lifetime (caveat: unless they're hell bent on destroying us, although we're doing a good job of that ourselves).

Rubecula

I suppose it would depend partly on how long that particular system has been stable for.

Too short a time and life may not have evolved, (even if conditions are right for it to do so)

Hal1

We'll need a worm hole to get there .

Our new home

An0n

22 Light years is a fair old distance.
That's 208,280,160,000,000 Km!

Just to give you an idea, a space shuttle in orbit is travelling at a hefty 28000 km/hr. Alas, it would still take the shuttle almost 850,000 years to get to that planet! Which is a phenominal amount of time. The people on board would have to raise and teach about 11000 generations to chance a single way trip!

If you were to drive to the planet, at 100 km/hr; it would take you almost 240 Million years to get there! That means the initial drivers would only make up 0.000032% of the time if they started driving as a toddler and lived to be 75 years of age.

We're a long way from interstellar travel yet folks.

~An0n

BULLER

An0n wrote: »

22 Light years is a fair old distance.
That's 208,280,160,000,000 Km!

Just to give you an idea, a space shuttle in orbit is travelling at a hefty 28000 km/hr. Alas, it would still take the shuttle almost 850,000 years to get to that planet! Which is a phenominal amount of time. The people on board would have to raise and teach about 11000 generations to travel to that planet alone!

If you were to drive to the planet, at 100 km/hr; it would take you almost 240 Million years to get there! That means the initial drivers would only make up 0.000032% of the time if they started driving as a toddler and lived to be 75 years of age.

We're a long way from interstellar travel yet folks.

~An0n

Mind = Blown

Doom

An0n wrote: »

22 Light years is a fair old distance.
That's 208,280,160,000,000 Km!

Just to give you an idea, a space shuttle in orbit is travelling at a hefty 28000 km/hr. Alas, it would still take the shuttle almost 850,000 years to get to that planet! Which is a phenominal amount of time. The people on board would have to raise and teach about 11000 generations to travel to that planet alone!

If you were to drive to the planet, at 100 km/hr; it would take you almost 240 Million years to get there! That means the initial drivers would only make up 0.000032% of the time if they started driving as a toddler and lived to be 75 years of age.

We're a long way from interstellar travel yet folks.

~An0n

Imagine the smell in the ship by the time ye get there:o

Rubecula

An0n wrote: »

Just to give you an idea, a space shuttle in orbit is travelling at a hefty 28000 km/hr. Alas, it would still take the shuttle almost 850,000 years to get to that planet! Which is a phenominal amount of time. The people on board would have to raise and teach about 11000 generations to chance a single way trip!

Mind you is that in a straight line or making use of planetary gravity for acceleration? In a straight line the old Saturn Five could just about halve the time. Even so it is not going to get you there quick enough.

Not sure how to work it out but how long would it take at a constant 1 g acceleration and 1 g deceleration after halfway? (If we could do that of course.)

maninasia

Well nobody would use the space shuttle for interplanetary trips would they, that would be like using a horse and cart on the motorway.

Using ion drives the trips could be acheived much more quickly.

As for the 'not too cold', 'not too hot' stuff, you may find it interesting that the best candidates for OUR TYPE OF LIFE outside Earth in the Solar System, excluding Mars (which may have microbial subsurface life), are Jupiter's moons. And they are frozen on the surface and heated by gravitational forces internally.

Masteroid

Once the spacecraft in in space then nuclear powered engines could take over and provide almost constant thrust, couldn't they?

Of course, we would need to be 100% efficient in our recycling but steam power might be the answer to intergalactic travel.

An0n

Masteroid wrote: »

Once the spacecraft in in space then nuclear powered engines could take over and provide almost constant thrust, couldn't they?

Of course, we would need to be 100% efficient in our recycling but steam power might be the answer to intergalactic travel.

Interstellar*.

Intergalactic would be an almost unimaginable distance. The nearest galaxy from our current location is the Canis Major Dwarf galaxy. Which is 25,000 LIGHT YEARS from here! We would need to consider high fractions of light speed to even think about travelling that distance. Let's see, that would be 236,682,000,000,000,000 Km (2.36x10^20 m) from here.

I think it's wise to say that interplanetary travel is on our agenda first, then just.. perhaps.. we'll start thinking about interstellar travel. But intergalactic? I'd be surprized if our species lived long enough to see that possibility. But I digress, crazy thoughts all the same.

Masteroid

An0n wrote: »

Interstellar*.

Intergalactic would be an almost unimaginable distance. The nearest galaxy from our current location is the Canis Major Dwarf galaxy. Which is 25,000 LIGHT YEARS from here! We would need to consider high fractions of light speed to even think about travelling that distance. Let's see, that would be 236,682,000,000,000,000 Km (2.36x10^20 m) from here.

I think it's wise to say that interplanetary travel is on our agenda first, then just.. perhaps.. we'll start thinking about interstellar travel. But intergalactic? I'd be surprized if our species lived long enough to see that possibility. But I digress, crazy thoughts all the same.

But that would only mean that the human life-span is the main constraint on intergalactic travel. All we need to do is make humans live for more than 25,000 years and then we've (us?) cracked it.

(warning: may be tongue in cheek.)

An0n

Masteroid wrote: »

But that would only mean that the human life-span is the main constraint on intergalactic travel. All we need to do is make humans live for more than 25,000 years and then we've (us?) cracked it.

(warning: may be tongue in cheek.)

;D

If that were possible, it would be taxed immensely. The cost of living for a 25000 year old person would be huge. Money limits the world so much.

If you'd like an example research dichloroacetate, or smoking-quit-books.

(warning: I may just love you.)

Myrddin

An0n wrote: »

Interstellar*.

Intergalactic would be an almost unimaginable distance. The nearest galaxy from our current location is the Canis Major Dwarf galaxy. Which is 25,000 LIGHT YEARS from here!

Is that correct? Mad because isn't the Milky Way itself about 100k light years across, to think there's another galaxy a 'mere' 25k from the edge of the Milky Way puts it right in our back yard, galacticly speaking of course...

Rented Mule

Doom wrote: »

Imagine the smell in the ship by the time ye get there:o

I'm sorry but when I read 'Holy Grail' and then saw your comment, the first thing that popped into my head was:

I don't want to talk to you no more, you empty headed animal food trough wiper. I fart in your general direction. Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries. .

It's unimaginable what would be needed to do to make this trip with today's technology. The effects of the human body in a zero-G environment as well as exposure to radiation for generations makes me wonder exactly what these 'human beings' would look like coming out the other end.

An0n

EnterNow wrote: »

Is that correct? Mad because isn't the Milky Way itself about 100k light years across, to think there's another galaxy a 'mere' 25k from the edge of the Milky Way puts it right in our back yard, galacticly speaking of course...

Yeah, we're on one of the mid/outer rings of the rotation. The galaxy 25k away is more of a supercluster; it's small enough. They still class it as a galaxy though. ;P

Masteroid

An0n wrote: »

;D

If that were possible, it would be taxed immensely. The cost of living for a 25000 year old person would be huge. Money limits the world so much.

If you'd like an example research dichloroacetate, or smoking-quit-books.

(warning: I may just love you.)

Seriously though, I think that the best that we can expect from interstellar (and intergalactic) travel is an opportunity to seed another world with genetic material from earth and evolution would have to do the rest.

Like what happened on earth.

Capt'n Midnight

An0n wrote: »

Alas, it would still take the shuttle almost 850,000 years to get to that planet!

Isn't the shuttle limited to an altitude of 400Km or similar.

Shuttle won't even get to GEO - that takes about twice the energy it takes to orbit.

An0n

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

Isn't the shuttle limited to an altitude of 400Km or similar.

Shuttle won't even get to GEO - that takes about twice the energy it takes to orbit.

Yeah I was just making an example.