There Better Be Some Aliens in This Solar System with Earth-Sized Planets

Megalith

Megalith

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Since yesterday, NASA and the science community have been gloating about the discovery of seven Earth-like planets in the TRAPPIST-1 system, which is “only” 235 trillion miles away from us. That sounds pretty damn far to me, but what do I know. Apparently, experts are already convinced of the planets’ composition and the possibility that they may even have liquid water on the surface. You can check out a very cool microsite on the TRAPPIST-1 system here.

The discovery sets a new record for greatest number of habitable-zone planets found around a single star outside our solar system. All of these seven planets could have liquid water—key to life as we know it—under the right atmospheric conditions, but the chances are highest with the three in the habitable zone. “This discovery could be a significant piece in the puzzle of finding habitable environments, places that are conducive to life,” said Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator of the agency’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. “Answering the question “are we alone” is a top science priority and finding so many planets like these for the first time in the habitable zone is a remarkable step forward toward that goal.”
 
There goes more money that won't get used here. I guess NASA needed something to get the funds flowing again since I guess a 18 billion dollar budget wasn't cutting it.

EDIT... too many 8's
 
DrLobotomy said:
There goes more money that won't get used here. I guess NASA needed something to get the funds flowing again since I guess a 188 billion dollar budget wasn't cutting it.
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More like 19 billion. Less than .5% of the total budget.
 
DrLobotomy said:
There goes more money that won't get used here. I guess NASA needed something to get the funds flowing again since I guess a 188 billion dollar budget wasn't cutting it.
Click to expand...

Go away.

You're one of the those people that believes we should dump infinite money attempting to solve unsolvable social problems rather than progressing as a species? You're in the wrong place.

edit: by the way, I would love for NASA's budget to be 188 billion. Imagine what they could accomplish with 1/3rd of what the US spends on defence each year.
 
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Isn't their budget like .5%, down from the 4.5 percent it was in the mid 60s? How can you complain about that and not see how important the research is?
 
It's an interesting star, barely large enough to fuse hydrogen and only 500 million years old. It's fusing hydrogen so slowly that it will be around for trillions of years, assuming the universe lasts that long. The downside is that the planets will all be tidally locked to the star like our moon is to Earth. One side will always be lit and the other dark. We don't really know how this will effect habitability.

It's about 40 light years away and the planets transit the disk of the star as seen from Earth. With larger telescopes it will be possible to determine the atmospheric composition of these planets.
 
DrLobotomy said:
There goes more money that won't get used here. I guess NASA needed something to get the funds flowing again since I guess a 18 billion dollar budget wasn't cutting it.
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What "won't get used here"? NASA employees, subcontractors, etc. all live on this planet and spend their paychecks here. Not to mention the earthly innovations we have gained from having a space program.
 
NeoNemesis said:
Go away.

You're one of the those people that believes we should dump infinite money attempting to solve unsolvable social problems rather than progressing as a species?
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Hell no. But I would like a road without 20 potholes in it and maybe some internet access when I am 5 miles away from down town.

Maybe pay off some debt that already exists.

Unless we are researching how to send snowflakes to this new discovery location, then spend the money more wisely.
 
DeathFromBelow said:
It's an interesting star, barely large enough to fuse hydrogen and only 500 million years old. It's fusing hydrogen so slowly that it will be around for trillions of years, assuming the universe lasts that long. The downside is that the planets will all be tidally locked to the star like our moon is to Earth. One side will always be lit and the other dark. We don't really know how this will effect habitability.

It's about 40 light years away and the planets transit the disk of the star as seen from Earth. With larger telescopes it will be possible to determine the atmospheric composition of these planets.
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There would likely be a thin 'twilight' band that would be a reasonable temperature if they are tidally locked.

I don't see why they would necessarily be though. Mercury isn't tidally locked to our star and all of these are much larger than Mercury.

exoplanet-comparison.jpg


b1967fc80fd9216530b48be3da1a8834


That said I know very little about astrophysics.
 
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DrLobotomy said:
Hell no. But I would like a road without 20 potholes in it and maybe some internet access when I am 5 miles away from down town.

Maybe pay off some debt that already exists.

Unless we are researching how to send snowflakes to this new discovery location, then spend the money more wisely.
Click to expand...

What you seem to fail to realize, or reject, is that the money spent on science directly impacts your life in a more meaningful manner. I could go on for hours about tech NASA has directly had a hand in but why not do your own research: https://spinoff.nasa.gov/Spinoff2008/tech_benefits.html

There are other things we can cut out of the budget and fix your issues. Plus pot holes are more typically in locally maintained roads so maybe you should take it up with your local municipality and see where they are wasting your tax dollars at the local level?

Finally - you probably wouldn't be able to reply to this thread without NASA...at least not without half your house being taken up by a computer ;).
 
DrLobotomy said:
Hell no. But I would like a road without 20 potholes in it and maybe some internet access when I am 5 miles away from down town.
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So bitch and moan to your local government. I for one do NOT want to have any sort of national system pay for internet, or road ways. I'm pretty irate about the fact that my gas tax dollars go to fix some roads in some area where the population density makes it impossible for their own gas tax to maintain their roads so heavier populated areas are literally footing the bill for those fuckers to have better roads.

Oh and don't fucking get me started on the extortion deal any sitting President has with states by threatening to withhold roadway funds too if the states don't do what the President wants.
 
NeoNemesis said:
I don't see why they would necessarily be though. Mercury isn't tidally locked to our star and all of these are much larger than Mercury.
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The big difference is the size of the star. In order for a planet to be in a "habitable area" of a red dwarf star they need to be extremely close to the star, as your picture shows closer than Mercury and about the same distance as the Galilean moons (assuming that's to scale) and those moons are all tidally locked to Jupiter. It's has nothing to do about the planet size and more to do with the location to object it's orbiting.

Also it's worth noting that while Mercury isn't tidally locked it is in a 3:2 resonance (3 rotations for every 2 orbits) and the reason for that is due to the fairly large eccentricity of the orbit, if it was more circular it almost certainly would be tidally locked
 
DrLobotomy said:
Hell no. But I would like a road without 20 potholes in it ....
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Those belong to your City and State not the Fed

DrLobotomy said:
...and maybe some internet access when I am 5 miles away from down town.....
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Welcome to Capitalism. Internet is not a Constitutional right, your are not entitled.

DrLobotomy said:
...Maybe pay off some debt that already exists.....
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Happens, when people are not demanding the money be spent on roads and free internet.

DrLobotomy said:
...Unless we are researching how to send snowflakes to this new discovery location, then spend the money more wisely.
Click to expand...

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/...le-emdrive-physics-peer-review-space-science/
http://www.sciencealert.com/it-s-of...wed-em-drive-paper-has-finally-been-published

They're trying. Want a ticket?
 
DrLobotomy said:
There goes more money that won't get used here. I guess NASA needed something to get the funds flowing again since I guess a 18 billion dollar budget wasn't cutting it.

EDIT... too many 8's
Click to expand...
According to Mark Dubowitz, in total, the Obama administration may have paid as much as $33.6 billion now by current estimates to the Iranian government. If we can afford that, we can afford NASA doing some far out space-shit IMO. There's plenty of fat to trim, but lets look at other places for waste first.
 
Only 235 trillion miles? Pfft..

The Juno spacecraft holds the record for the fastest man-made object, it got up to about 132,650 mph relative to the Sun.

At that speed, humans could get to Trappist in only 145,000 years. And then figure out some way to stop.
 
sfsuphysics said:
The big difference is the size of the star. In order for a planet to be in a "habitable area" of a red dwarf star they need to be extremely close to the star, as your picture shows closer than Mercury and about the same distance as the Galilean moons (assuming that's to scale) and those moons are all tidally locked to Jupiter. It's has nothing to do about the planet size and more to do with the location to object it's orbiting.

Also it's worth noting that while Mercury isn't tidally locked it is in a 3:2 resonance (3 rotations for every 2 orbits) and the reason for that is due to the fairly large eccentricity of the orbit, if it was more circular it almost certainly would be tidally locked
Click to expand...

Would the youth of the star also be a factor here? At only 500 million years old wouldn't it take more time for them to become tidally locked?
 
Dullard said:
Only 235 trillion miles? Pfft..

The Juno spacecraft holds the record for the fastest man-made object, it got up to about 132,650 mph relative to the Sun.

At that speed, humans could get to Trappist in only 145,000 years. And then figure out some way to stop.
Click to expand...

Stopping is the easy part ;)
 
NeoNemesis said:
Would the youth of the star also be a factor here? At only 500 million years old wouldn't it take more time for them to become tidally locked?
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It could be a factor, but 500 million years is more likely enough time to lock a planet up, when the planets are forming and still in a "gooey" stage everything is settling in such that the planet's natural rotation is slowed.
 
Dullard said:
Only 235 trillion miles? Pfft..

The Juno spacecraft holds the record for the fastest man-made object, it got up to about 132,650 mph relative to the Sun.

At that speed, humans could get to Trappist in only 145,000 years. And then figure out some way to stop.
Click to expand...

which is “only” 235 trillion miles away from us. That sounds pretty damn far to me, but what do I know.
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These reminded me of some responses of my students who said putting telescopes in space is useful because it gets them closer to the stars.... yeah I failed them.
 
One of the reasons that the budget of NASA has shrunk a bit is due to some developments that are over. Jim Webb Telescope is now in operation. Boeing/Lockheed are eating a lot of cost of the SLS/Orion because of SpaceX. So far the proposed budget is a 5% increase over the 2015 operating plan. The 2016 budget is from a CR which Congressmen and Senators tend to load up these CR's with crap.
 
DrLobotomy said:
Hell no. But I would like a road without 20 potholes in it and maybe some internet access when I am 5 miles away from down town.

Maybe pay off some debt that already exists.

Unless we are researching how to send snowflakes to this new discovery location, then spend the money more wisely.
Click to expand...

Then talk to your local government about those actions, NASA's budget has nothing to do with your local streets. Also educate yourself how the government actually works, that would also be a good idea.You have access to far more comforts than you realize as a direct result of the space program.
 
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Dekoth-E- said:
Then talk to your local government about those actions, NASA's budget has nothing to do with your local streets. Also educate yourself how the government actually works, that would also be a good idea.You have access to far more comforts than you realize as a direct result of the space program.
Click to expand...
I never said ANYTHING about eliminating NASA. Let me use an example to establish the idea.

My wife has a credit card with a $3000 limit. She has used up $2800 and walks by the store window and sees a new purse and instead of being content with what she has, she buys it anyways, even though she promised to pay off the card first before she bought anything else.

This is what this reminds me of. We are in debt and see something shiny and immediately think we should drop more cash, cuz. you know, shiny.
 
DrLobotomy said:
I never said ANYTHING about eliminating NASA. Let me use an example to establish the idea.

My wife has a credit card with a $3000 limit. She has used up $2800 and walks by the store window and sees a new purse and instead of being content with what she has, she buys it anyways, even though she promised to pay off the card first before she bought anything else.

This is what this reminds me of. We are in debt and see something shiny and immediately think we should drop more cash, cuz. you know, shiny.
Click to expand...
NASA is actually a net benefit towards our economy because we can actually take the innovations discovered or created from operations run by NASA and re-implement these benefits into society. When companies start implementing these discoveries, it becomes a significant contributor to tax receipts. Honestly, I think NASA's budget should be bigger than it is but because of public perception, they think it's a waste of money because they don't see the immediate effects themselves.
 
DrLobotomy said:
I never said ANYTHING about eliminating NASA. Let me use an example to establish the idea.

My wife has a credit card with a $3000 limit. She has used up $2800 and walks by the store window and sees a new purse and instead of being content with what she has, she buys it anyways, even though she promised to pay off the card first before she bought anything else.

This is what this reminds me of. We are in debt and see something shiny and immediately think we should drop more cash, cuz. you know, shiny.
Click to expand...

Wrong analogy. Its more like: Your wife has a credit card debt of $2,800. And your kid (if you have a kid), goes and buys a new toy with his own allowance that you gave him/her.

The kid's money pool has no bearing on the wife's debt.

NASA's budget has no bearing on the local government level.
 
DrLobotomy said:
There goes more money that won't get used here. I guess NASA needed something to get the funds flowing again since I guess a 18 billion dollar budget wasn't cutting it.

EDIT... too many 8's
Click to expand...
Sorry but you can't eat money. Money is just paper, useless in reality. It's just the monopoly game we play. So wasting money is not wasting resources. They can waste all the money they like and more. I don't give a damn.
 
I'd love for NASA to stop finding planets, and figure out ways to get us to said planets- like tomorrow! :D
 
Dekoth-E- said:
Then talk to your local government about those actions, NASA's budget has nothing to do with your local streets. Also educate yourself how the government actually works, that would also be a good idea.You have access to far more comforts than you realize as a direct result of the space program.
Click to expand...
I live in Texas. I drive mostly on Interstate highways. There is only one listing on my paycheck that shows 'Federal Tax'. I don't care how it got divided up from which pile with which title.
 
DrLobotomy said:
I never said ANYTHING about eliminating NASA. Let me use an example to establish the idea.

My wife has a credit card with a $3000 limit. She has used up $2800 and walks by the store window and sees a new purse and instead of being content with what she has, she buys it anyways, even though she promised to pay off the card first before she bought anything else.

This is what this reminds me of. We are in debt and see something shiny and immediately think we should drop more cash, cuz. you know, shiny.
Click to expand...

This is quite possibly one of the dumbest things I've read around here in a while. Investing money into programs that are a net gain for society as a whole is never a wasted investment. You don't get a country out of debt by cutting programs that educate and push society forward. You get out of debt by cutting things that are unnecessary and do not educate or push society forward in some way.
 
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