Outer Space Thread

[Jocephus]

[/youtube]

[pioneer98]

Closest 'Alien Earth' May Be 13 Light-Years Away

The team pulled out a sample of 3,897 red dwarfs — stars dimmer and smaller than our own sun — and determined that Kepler has identified 95 exoplanet candidates circling them. Three of these candidates are roughly Earth-size and orbit within their stars' "Goldilocks zone," where liquid water (and possibly life as we know it) can exist.

Kepler isn't able to detect every planet circling every star that it's watching, researchers noted. Many worlds don't orbit in the right plane for Kepler to observe transits, and the signals of others may be masked by brightness variations inherent to red dwarfs.

Taking this into account, about 6 percent of red dwarfs in the Milky Way galaxy should host Earth-like planets, the astronomers said.

Since about 75 percent of the galaxy's 100 billion stars are red dwarfs, this translates to an estimated 4.5 billion "alien Earths" spread throughout the galaxy. The research team stressed, however, that this is a tentative figure because the distribution of stars varies widely.

[Vidor]

Comet ISON photographed by the Deep Impact space probe

http://www.universetoday.com/99777/deep ... -will-try/

Why is this interesting? Because

Although observing predictions for the brightness of comets are sometimes notoriously wrong and they can fade away precipitously, there is some well founded hope that ISON could put on a spectacular sky show for observers in both the northern and southern hemispheres.
The comet will continue to expand in size and grow in brightness as it journeys inward.
“ISON might be pretty spectacular,” said Green. “If things work out it might become bright enough to see during the day and be brighter than the Moon. The tail might be 90 degrees.”

ETA Nov. 2013

[IMADreamer]

Comet ISON photographed by the Deep Impact space probe

http://www.universetoday.com/99777/deep ... -will-try/

Why is this interesting? Because

Although observing predictions for the brightness of comets are sometimes notoriously wrong and they can fade away precipitously, there is some well founded hope that ISON could put on a spectacular sky show for observers in both the northern and southern hemispheres.
The comet will continue to expand in size and grow in brightness as it journeys inward.
“ISON might be pretty spectacular,” said Green. “If things work out it might become bright enough to see during the day and be brighter than the Moon. The tail might be 90 degrees.”

ETA Nov. 2013

I'm so excited about this. I remember Hale Bopp well and it was awesome. They are saying this could be greater then that. It could also fizzle to nothing. I'm hoping for a great show though now that I'm a bit older, have some decent photo gear, and can appreciate these things more.

[Vidor]

Hale Bopp was pretty sweet. Saw that one in the middle of the bright lights of downtown Orlando. This one--I'm afraid to get my hopes up, because a comet bright enough to be visible IN THE DAYTIME would be pretty goddamn awesome.

[jim]

Closest 'Alien Earth' May Be 13 Light-Years Away

The team pulled out a sample of 3,897 red dwarfs — stars dimmer and smaller than our own sun — and determined that Kepler has identified 95 exoplanet candidates circling them. Three of these candidates are roughly Earth-size and orbit within their stars' "Goldilocks zone," where liquid water (and possibly life as we know it) can exist.

Kepler isn't able to detect every planet circling every star that it's watching, researchers noted. Many worlds don't orbit in the right plane for Kepler to observe transits, and the signals of others may be masked by brightness variations inherent to red dwarfs.

Taking this into account, about 6 percent of red dwarfs in the Milky Way galaxy should host Earth-like planets, the astronomers said.

Since about 75 percent of the galaxy's 100 billion stars are red dwarfs, this translates to an estimated 4.5 billion "alien Earths" spread throughout the galaxy. The research team stressed, however, that this is a tentative figure because the distribution of stars varies widely.

I don't think there is any doubt that there is life in the universe ... in fact I think it's teeming with it. Once it was discovered that planetary systems were not one-of's, case closed. Think about the number - 4.5 billion - in *this* galaxy. Even if it's off by orders of magnitude that's an unimaginable number of planets in that Goldilocks zone.

We are not alone.

[IMADreamer]

You can't ignore the math that's for sure. No doubt there is other life out there. What excites me is that with some major advancements that are probably on the horizon we could be exploring some of these places in a few generations. I'm sad I won't be around to see it, but it's an awesome though. Think about it the nearest planet is 13 light years away. That means if we can develop a way to travel half the speed of light it could be reached in 26 years. That to me seems very doable with in say 200 years.

It wasn't much more then about 100 years ago the fastest anyone ever traveled was about 20mph. Now we are in the 1000s of MPH. It's exciting.

[jim]

You can't ignore the math that's for sure. No doubt there is other life out there. What excites me is that with some major advancements that are probably on the horizon we could be exploring some of these places in a few generations. I'm sad I won't be around to see it, but it's an awesome though. Think about it the nearest planet is 13 light years away. That means if we can develop a way to travel half the speed of light it could be reached in 26 years. That to me seems very doable with in say 200 years.

It wasn't much more then about 100 years ago the fastest anyone ever traveled was about 20mph. Now we are in the 1000s of MPH. It's exciting.

26 years for the observer. For the guy in the ship it would only be about 22 years.

edit ... nobody is ever going to build a ship to travel .5c.

[go birds]

Can't remember if I saw it here or somewhere, but I read that it was theoretically possible to travel near the speed of light via something. Crap now I'll have to scour to find it.


Edit: I don't think this is the article I read....as the one I read made a very compelling argument....but it was also a little while back. Anyway....here's something related if its not:

http://io9.com/5963263/how-nasa-will-bu ... warp-drive

[AWvsCBsteeeerike3]

Was it this one: http://gizmodo.com/5942634/nasa-starts- ... warp-drive

Edit: Same thing. But, yeah, shrink space-time so it takes less time to go through space.