NASA and NSF-Funded Research Finds First Potentially Habitable Exoplanet

http://www.nasa.gov/topics/universe/features/gliese_581_feature.html

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100929/ap_on_sc/us_sci_new_earths

I am moving there next winter btw guyes

watmm meetup?

I am bouncing out and heading there regardless but I suppose you guys should roll over too.

we are reaching a very exciting period of our history and it's pretty clear now that we are close to discover whether space colonization is going to be real or continue only as motif to science fiction writings.

i wish i could stay longer and be there. let my own eyes watch everything happening.

and i wonder what will happen to our beloved earth, where all began, where it all happened, if we finally settle ourselves in new galaxies and new systems where we can find a new, exciting better life (?).

Like some scientists have theorized if you aren't over 40 or so right now you might be able to see when we can extend human shells to live past 200 hundred or more. I definitely think we should be able to grow artificial organs (even brain tissue everything) at some point in the near future enough to make people live for a long fucking time. Though that is probably going to be a very very expensive luxury. Who knows maybe some people alive today will survive by means of artificial extension to see the day when we colonize our first Goldilocks planet.

i am not really interested in getting to a period where it is possible to live for hundreds of years, or live for such amount of time.

i can understand the urge to reach such level of human scientific knowledge and technological capabilities, but maybe my generation and past generations as well still find it hard to picture and understand. at least i admit i do.

i hope men don't get blinded by all the progress, turn the new discoveries against themselves and write their own judgement, as we have seen happening in the past with a vast number of creations.

but there is always the good and bad side in everything, so men will eventually fail again, inevitably.

maybe the only reason for science fiction to exist is so that it can give us a slight glimpse, a virtual sense of experience of what really comes as good for human beings, but can't be materialized.

Nothing would make me happier than to see us colonize another planet, unfortunately I won't see it. I think it will be a good few generations before we colonize a planet. Before that we have to test colonizing space, either the moon, Mars or another planets orbit to see if we can survive without serious health or psychological implications.

I was reading about generation ships as a potential for spreading human influence and it struck me that the biggest challenge for sending a generation ship out to another planet travelling for hundreds of years isn't down to the science of it, but the human aspect. Imagine being born and growing up on a generation ship, learning that your whole life is basically decided so that you have to learn a certain thing to make yourself useful to the mission, only to be required to have kids yourself before dying. Never living outside of the ship...

There's a lot of political considerations for such a venture.

Space colonization = interesting

terrans

lol

but yeah, space colonization is more and more becoming our only chance of survival as a species.

very exciting discovery. it's all happening...

ET lives there now

  On 9/30/2010 at 12:58 PM, Obel said:

Nothing would make me happier than to see us colonize another planet, unfortunately I won't see it. I think it will be a good few generations before we colonize a planet. Before that we have to test colonizing space, either the moon, Mars or another planets orbit to see if we can survive without serious health or psychological implications.

Get yourself cryogenically frozen!

I am actually thinking about it. No shit. Was watching a prog on BBC 1 the other day called Back from the dead and it has been proven that without a shadow of a doubt that life can be restarted from what is for all intents and purposes considered dead. There was a story about a woman who was in an accident and trapped under ice - she had been completely dead (no heartbeat and no brain activity) for about 2 or 3 hours but due to being frozen she was preserved in a way that she could be revived with zero damage or ill effects and is now compltely back to normal.

  On 9/30/2010 at 4:35 PM, Rambo said:

  On 9/30/2010 at 12:58 PM, Obel said:

Nothing would make me happier than to see us colonize another planet, unfortunately I won't see it. I think it will be a good few generations before we colonize a planet. Before that we have to test colonizing space, either the moon, Mars or another planets orbit to see if we can survive without serious health or psychological implications.

 

Get yourself cryogenically frozen!

 

I am actually thinking about it. No shit. Was watching a prog on BBC 1 the other day called Back from the dead and it has been proven that without a shadow of a doubt that life can be restarted from what is for all intents and purposes considered dead. There was a story about a woman who was in an accident and trapped under ice - she had been completely dead (no heartbeat and no brain activity) for about 2 or 3 hours but due to being frozen she was preserved in a way that she could be revived with zero damage or ill effects and is now compltely back to normal.

i've heard that the problem with long term freezing is that it makes most of your cells burst. i don't see how that could be fixed.

also, this scientist found a signal coming from gliese: http://www.vbs.tv/blog/ragbir-bhathal-aussie-alien-hunter

  On 9/30/2010 at 4:44 PM, Hoodie said:

  On 9/30/2010 at 4:35 PM, Rambo said:

  On 9/30/2010 at 12:58 PM, Obel said:

Nothing would make me happier than to see us colonize another planet, unfortunately I won't see it. I think it will be a good few generations before we colonize a planet. Before that we have to test colonizing space, either the moon, Mars or another planets orbit to see if we can survive without serious health or psychological implications.

 

Get yourself cryogenically frozen!

 

I am actually thinking about it. No shit. Was watching a prog on BBC 1 the other day called Back from the dead and it has been proven that without a shadow of a doubt that life can be restarted from what is for all intents and purposes considered dead. There was a story about a woman who was in an accident and trapped under ice - she had been completely dead (no heartbeat and no brain activity) for about 2 or 3 hours but due to being frozen she was preserved in a way that she could be revived with zero damage or ill effects and is now compltely back to normal.

 

i've heard that the problem with long term freezing is that it makes most of your cells burst. i don't see how that could be fixed.

 

also, this scientist found a signal coming from gliese: http://www.vbs.tv/blog/ragbir-bhathal-aussie-alien-hunter

Yeah, they can freeze you fine but long term they haven't figured out how to thaw properly yet.

I suppose if they can suss how to thaw without human intervention then it would be the best way. In that case you can have ships going with a frozen crew, AI and robots looking after the ship and they're thawed when it arrives.

I wonder what would be the best way to have faster communication between galaxies? Right now it'd take days or weeks or something for something as simple as an email surely..

I wonder if they'd "drop" satellites from the ship as it flies or something?

  On 9/30/2010 at 4:44 PM, Hoodie said:

 

 

i've heard that the problem with long term freezing is that it makes most of your cells burst. i don't see how that could be fixed.

 

It's not a static science, i know that much. I'll be looking into that i think. It'd be fucking amazing if it worked.

I heard about that signal thing before. Fucking cool. My dream is that we detect a batman-style projection of Simon Cowells face coming from another planet.

You may enjoy this:

  On 9/30/2010 at 4:44 PM, Hoodie said:

i've heard that the problem with long term freezing is that it makes most of your cells burst. i don't see how that could be fixed.

Wait, is that the thing where ice crystals form? I remember reading that certain creatures have been discovered to have evolved in a way (cant remember the details) that ice crystals didn't form in their cells when they are frozen. So in effect, the could be frozen indefinitely. So it's not unheard of. I'd imagine this is an area they are going to study. Freezing people to do operations or to do other wacky treatments seems to be a bit of a hot area of research at the moment i've noticed. Seems to be a fair bit happening.

  On 9/30/2010 at 5:14 PM, luke viia said:

You may enjoy this:

 

yeah i remember that.

ps. i need to stop derailing threads

  Quote

 

 

also, this scientist found a signal coming from gliese: http://www.vbs.tv/blog/ragbir-bhathal-aussie-alien-hunter

I found an update to that article

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1316538/Gliese-581g-mystery-Scientist-spotted-mysterious-pulse-light-direction-newEarth-planet-year.html?ITO=1490

  On 9/30/2010 at 4:54 PM, Obel said:

I wonder what would be the best way to have faster communication between galaxies? Right now it'd take days or weeks or something for something as simple as an email surely..

 

I wonder if they'd "drop" satellites from the ship as it flies or something?

if something is 20 light years away, the absolute minimum for information to make a round trip is 40 years regardless of method. information cannot travel faster than light. there's thoughts you could use quantum entanglement for instantaneous communication, but it's very very theoretical stuff.

  On 9/30/2010 at 7:16 PM, kaini said:

  On 9/30/2010 at 4:54 PM, Obel said:

I wonder what would be the best way to have faster communication between galaxies? Right now it'd take days or weeks or something for something as simple as an email surely..

 

I wonder if they'd "drop" satellites from the ship as it flies or something?

 

if something is 20 light years away, the absolute minimum for information to make a round trip is 40 years regardless of method. information cannot travel faster than light. there's thoughts you could use quantum entanglement for instantaneous communication, but it's very very theoretical stuff.

I've always figured quantum entanglement could lead to an astro morse-code. If two people in different places watch the same atom and measure the changes maybe you could compose a message.

But yeah, that's insanely difficult to put into action, but when you do it does open up the ability to instantly communicate and travel.

  On 9/30/2010 at 7:31 PM, Gary C said:

  On 9/30/2010 at 7:16 PM, kaini said:

  On 9/30/2010 at 4:54 PM, Obel said:

I wonder what would be the best way to have faster communication between galaxies? Right now it'd take days or weeks or something for something as simple as an email surely..

 

I wonder if they'd "drop" satellites from the ship as it flies or something?

 

if something is 20 light years away, the absolute minimum for information to make a round trip is 40 years regardless of method. information cannot travel faster than light. there's thoughts you could use quantum entanglement for instantaneous communication, but it's very very theoretical stuff.

 

I've always figured quantum entanglement could lead to an astro morse-code. If two people in different places watch the same atom and measure the changes maybe you could compose a message.

But yeah, that's insanely difficult to put into action, but when you do it does open up the ability to instantly communicate and travel.

some of the more interesting ideas on what to use quantum entanglement for are actually coming out of sci-fi: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ansible

Well, to get to that newly discovered planet, we would have to travel at the speed of light for 20 years.

The first step is getting a bigger engine...

  Quote

The most habitable zone on the planet's surface would be the line between shadow and light (known as the "terminator").

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pCZ6h28mixI

  On 9/30/2010 at 4:54 PM, Obel said:

 

I wonder what would be the best way to have faster communication between galaxies? Right now it'd take days or weeks or something for something as simple as an email surely..

 

I wonder if they'd "drop" satellites from the ship as it flies or something?

I think you have a bit of an error in your understanding of distance. The distance to the nearest star is about 4 light years. That means any information would 4 years to reach earth as nothing travels faster than light. An email sent to mars would even take 20 minutes to travel (depending on where it is in relation to earth).

All the stars you can see are in our own galaxy. The distance to the next nearest galaxy (Andromeda Galaxy) is about 2 MILLION light years. Your email would take that long to get there.

In essence that pretty much means that humans will never leave this galaxy. Even if we left now at the speed of light we would not be human any more when we arrived due to the forces of evolution. Even if we could travel that fast, there is virtually zero energy in the space between galaxies, meaning no stars, very little matter, and nothing to capture power from. There is no way to possibly carry enough energy for a 2 million year trip haha.

Think of galaxies as continents in the ocean of space, except the only boats we have are inflatable mattresses.

Yep. Kaini set me straight on that one, I don't know where I pulled those times from really.

if we ever discover life "out there" then it will more than likely be from our own galaxy. if we ever colonize other worlds it will be in our own galaxy. The distances in space render far objects little more than conceptual entities.