or, we could just use the reverse engineered alien technology they keep at area 51! and get there a lot sooner!

2/6/2011 1:03:05 AM

Quote :

"^high school freshman Earth Science ITT"

haha exactly what i teach.

2/6/2011 11:02:26 AM

Quote :

""it does rotate. it just so happens that it takes the same time to make one rotation around it's axis as it does one revolution around the earth. " Interesting I never knew that. Apparently it rotates at just the right speed to keep the same face facing Earth."

Same logic states that the earth rotates 366.25 times in every orbit around the sun. We "feel" 365.25 rotations, and then you have to add in the single additional rotation of the earth to account for somethingsomethingsomething. I believe it's the difference between a Sidereal day and a Solar day. A solar day is the amount of time it takes for the sun to go from directly overhead to directly overhead. A sidereal day is the amount of time it takes for the earth to rotate exactly 360 degrees. The two are slightly different, because a solar day has to account for the distance that the earth has moved in that ~24 hours.

Well that was a bit of a diversion from the original topic....

2/6/2011 12:46:46 PM

I think tidally locked stuff came up because Gliese 581c is tidally locked. Reading Wikipedia makes me doubt if this is known or just suspected, but either way...

Tidally locked planets might be able to support life. Or they might not. This is why Kepler is a massive scientific buzz, it's probing into abundant unknowns for us. There are a lot of really cool possibilities.

Personally, I would want to move to a Earth-like planet that orbits a super Jupiter that then orbits a (relatively) sun-like star. That would be totally baller. You'd look up into the sky and see a whole bunch of stuff.

2/6/2011 4:44:56 PM

^So essentially you mean a moon the size of Earth that has an atmosphere. Kinda like Pandora or Endor.

2/6/2011 11:22:14 PM

Quote :

"I think tidally locked stuff came up because Gliese 581c is tidally locked. Reading Wikipedia makes me doubt if this is known or just suspected, but either way... "

I don't think it's known as a fact(I don't think much more can be known except that Gliese 581c is there due to the vast distances).

I think it's believed to be a certainty that it's tidally locked based of its vicinity to it's sun. Now figuring out that math is way beyond my comprehension....from what I understand, based on what little we do know and can measure, it's considered to be a near certainty that it's locked. Don't think we'll know for sure in our lifetimes....

2/6/2011 11:37:21 PM

Space platforms built with resources gathered from the asteroid and Kuiper belts seem much more realistic as long term answers for housing human population than colonizing other solar systems.

2/7/2011 12:20:00 AM

well that's true for the near future anyway.

2/7/2011 10:01:33 AM

Quote :

"Kinda like Pandora or Endor."

Yes, wouldn't that be awesome?

^^ yes asteroid belt comes before those others. But before them all...

2/7/2011 10:44:45 AM

I hope we find some primitive peoples and teach them to build pyramids and stuff. Then we can just abandon them and leave them guessing for the next couple thousand years, lol

2/7/2011 11:14:06 AM

how cool would it be if we actually did find another intelligent species out there?

2/7/2011 11:36:23 AM

even if we found a planet with animals close to intelligent, we'd probably screw with them until we created intelligent varieties. Either that, or we would mine unobtainium from it.

I think it would be cool to find a planet similar to when the Earth had dinosaurs. But James Cameron already had this idea, and made a movie of it in 3D. I loose.

2/7/2011 11:46:15 AM

Quote :

"how cool would it be if we actually did find another intelligent species out there?"

I can't decide which would be more interesting.... we find life or we don't find life.

I guess we'll never verify with 100% certainty 'There is no life anywhere else', so I guess finding life would be more exciting.

What if we were alone, though? That is a crazy thought (And not at all statistically likely, but still).

What would finding life elsewhere do to religion?

[Edited on February 7, 2011 at 1:01 PM. Reason : ]

2/7/2011 1:00:31 PM

Wouldn't do anything to religion...

They'd still say a wizard God did it

2/7/2011 1:07:06 PM

Quote :

"I can't decide which would be more interesting.... we find life or we don't find life."

That just means more Hydrogen for us! Gar har har har

2/7/2011 1:09:19 PM

Quote :

"Wouldn't do anything to religion... They'd still say a wizard God did it"

seriously? it would fundamentally unravel many core beliefs in many religions throughout the world.

2/7/2011 1:36:07 PM

if humans are unique as the only "intelligent species" in the univere, but there are other habitable planets, and we were able to set up colonies on them via generation ships, suspended animation, [insert sci-fi-esque travel method here], or whatever, each colony would then pretty much be isolated from the bulk of humanity...

over time they might develop/evolve into new races and/or species, and perhaps millions of years later, would in fact look alien. (this was briefly explored in the foundation series by Asimov)

[Edited on February 7, 2011 at 1:41 PM. Reason : ]

2/7/2011 1:41:09 PM

^^ummm... history of science. shit

^I think that could happen, but there are a few conceptual blocks for me. Speciation does usually occur when two groups of a species are separated by a barrier (geographical or not). However, the environment on each side of the barrier needs to be different. The first thing we'll do when we get to a new planet is live indoors, set the central heat to 70, and bust out our favorite old world snack.

The second issue is a lack of selection pressure. If civilized society is present on our new planet, living to a reproductive age and having children isn't much of an issue.

2/7/2011 1:59:46 PM

^^^ many scientific discoveries have "shaken" core beliefs over the past few centuries, and religious people are still able to cling to their faith.

^^If we were able to develop a means of space travel that enabled us to create multiple colonies, I would think there would still be some cultural interaction between them. Unless it is a doomsday scenario where the earth is destroyed/uninhabitable and we send out several ships hoping that at least one will survive.

[Edited on February 7, 2011 at 2:01 PM. Reason : ^]

2/7/2011 2:00:09 PM

Quote :

"each colony would then pretty much be isolated from the bulk of humanity... "

Firefly was kinda like that where each colony had it's own specific culture and whatnot but humans hadn't really evolved away from each other.

2/7/2011 2:09:23 PM

I think that the discovery of extraterrestrial life would be a global consciousness raiser on a level that has never before been seen. True believers would continue to deny facts but you'd see a vast majority of people leaving organized religion. Humans would no longer be seen as special by most people rather than some.

But even though the possibility of extraterrestrial life is almost certain, the size of the Universe makes the chance of us ever detecting them almost zero. We're doomed to nuclear death at the hands of apocalyptic cults.

2/7/2011 2:11:02 PM

oh i don't think people would abandon organized religion... some might even embrace it more than ever. Some core beliefs might be examined/updated though... for example... on earth, christians believe that jesus came to earth as the son of god to die for our sins. did jesus appear and die on other planets as well? did jesus die on earth for the sins of an alien society? if so, how would they know about it? (before meeting us that is)

that's just an example, but there definitely would be MAJOR religious implications, but i don't think people would abandon it. (too many people take the stance that it has to be either science or religion... one or the other. there are plenty of people who intertwine the two.)



As far as speciation... alien planets are bound to have different biochemistry, different amounts of sunlight (and different spectra), different gravity, different atmospheric compositions, etc.

These things have caused humans to become vastly different just on Earth... remember that evolution happens over thousands of generations, and even a slight preference to a given trait can cause change, even in "society"

2/7/2011 2:30:44 PM

Quote :

"However, the environment on each side of the barrier needs to be different. The first thing we'll do when we get to a new planet is live indoors, set the central heat to 70, and bust out our favorite old world snack."

Dude, just imagine how different Europe would be right now it if was separated from the East Coast by 2 or 3 light years. I think we can all agree on completely different.

Quote :

"over time they might develop/evolve into new races and/or species, and perhaps millions of years later, would in fact look alien. (this was briefly explored in the foundation series by Asimov)"

The scales confuddle what you're trying to get at. The closest star is like 4 light-years and the nearest planet we know of is like 10 light-years and the nearest super-Earth we think we've found is 20 light-years away (I think).

To inhabit another planet, we would need to identify a real good Earth analog. We don't yet know how far this will be, but 20 light-years might not be a bad figure since all we know right now are the easy to detect ones and Kepler was only looking in one direction anyway But maybe we'd want better? Maybe we keep looking until we find Oxygen and send a generation spaceship to that planet. There are likely millions of Earth like planets in the Milky Way (based on recent blogger speculation with recent Kepler data), and a few, or a lot, might have low level metabolizing bacteria that would be relevant to our interests and biological needs. The Milky Way is like 100k light years across, so we wouldn't go any further than that, so the only case that makes sense for millions of years of separation would be for colonizing the furthest reaches of the galaxy with v << c.

If we entertain some more realistic near-century homesteading, we're probably talking about dozens of years of isolation before care packages can be exchanged at great cost. I claim that the time taken will be a significant issue for information transfer (though bandwidth is unconstrained), but the bandwidth and costs for transfer of materials and people will be the most significant limiting factor.

In other words, both societies will know that the other is doing strange things like polka-dot pants fads, but they won't be able to talk back instantly and won't be able to attend any polka-dot pant parties, so they might wind up not caring anyway. They would observe the cultural divergence as it happens, but it would be nothing more than an occasional musing about their long-separated cosmic brethren.

[Edited on February 7, 2011 at 2:37 PM. Reason : ]

2/7/2011 2:37:01 PM

Pope's astronomer insists alien life 'would be part of God's creation'
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/popes-astronomer-insists-alien-life-would-be-part-of-gods-creation-828303.html

2/7/2011 2:42:12 PM

You guys are right, the more I think about this.

If the gigantic, violent, destructive, uncaring, merciless Universe that kills and makes us suffer needlessly isn't enough to make people abandon their religion, then a trifling little thing like aliens won't cause a dent in their delusions.

Quote :

"too many people take the stance that it has to be either science or religion... one or the other. there are plenty of people who intertwine the two."

It's not a choice. Science is the best way to determine whether things are true. The people that embrace both aren't "intertwining", they are compartmentalizing them apart.

[Edited on February 7, 2011 at 3:09 PM. Reason : .]

2/7/2011 2:51:34 PM

IF we get to the point of colonizing other worlds light years apart, more than likely the majority of exchange between earth and the colony would be knowledge and other types of communication. Frequent physical exchange (people/goods) would be prohibitively expensive and would frankly take too much time. (even communication would take decades.)

I would envision the genetic pool of people going on these missions would (from the beginning) be different than the average human, and would diverge even further very quickly.

It would be awesome to find a red dwarf sun (red dwarfs are much smaller and put out much less energy, but typically have much longer lives than stars like our own.) with a habitable planet and set up shop... 5 billion years from now our sun is going to bloat and probably swallow up the Earth... at that point in time, humans will HAVE to have other places to live in order for our species to live on. (although i doubt if we did survive that long we would be "humans" anymore.)


[Edited on February 7, 2011 at 3:03 PM. Reason : ]

2/7/2011 3:02:25 PM

Quote :

"delusions"

prove it

2/7/2011 3:33:13 PM

^Assuming we don't destroy life on Earth in the next few hundred years, humans wouldn't even have a bodies 5 billion years from now. We'd probably just be super smart bits of energy or something crazy like that.

2/7/2011 3:33:36 PM

^^http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/delusion

Quote :

"a fixed false belief that is resistant to reason or confrontation with actual fact"

Continuing to believe falsities in the face of contradictory evidence is a definition of delusion.

2/7/2011 3:41:06 PM

Quote :

"It would be awesome to find a red dwarf sun (red dwarfs are much smaller and put out much less energy, but typically have much longer lives than stars like our own.) with a habitable planet and set up shop"

Gliese 581 is your place!

There's even a few rocky planets for you to choose from once you get there

Quote :

"I didn't bring up the religious implications in this this thread"

And I should have known better than to ask 'how would it affect religion' question...

It was meant to be more of a rhetorical thinking question than a lob over the plate so someone could take a swing at religion.

[Edited on February 7, 2011 at 5:08 PM. Reason : ]

2/7/2011 5:02:41 PM

Quote :

"go ahead, kid, PROVE to me that there is nothing greater than humanity...nothing whatsoever...seriously, i'll wait"

this isn't mathematics. do you really want us to bring out Russell's teapot?

[Edited on February 8, 2011 at 9:19 AM. Reason : asf]

2/8/2011 9:16:39 AM

Please take it to the soap box guys, this thread is about space and planetary exploration.

2/8/2011 9:28:36 AM

Did my post get deleted?

I hate it when the admins do invisible things.

I mean, the omega point was totally relevant and my comment was witty and appropriate. Sorry for making educated, helpful, and snappy comments.

[Edited on February 8, 2011 at 12:27 PM. Reason : ]

2/8/2011 12:18:05 PM

I don't understand why some things got deleted, and others didn't...

2/8/2011 12:27:45 PM

To force relevancy...

54 habitable planets is awfully similar to a certain work of fiction...

2/8/2011 12:32:11 PM

yet they were called the "Hundred Worlds"

[Edited on February 8, 2011 at 2:15 PM. Reason : syntax]

2/8/2011 2:15:16 PM

^^Synopsis?

2/8/2011 2:39:36 PM

^^ based on order of magnitude with one significant figure, it matches perfectly!

^ people lived in dozens of world in close vicinity to Earth and only super rich ever traveled between them, but since relativistic travel was possible ppl like Ender lived for 3000 years and aged only 20 yrs or so while being absurdly influential the entire time, as could only happen in fiction. Oh yeah, and some numskull and completely unphysical stuff about instantaneous communication between them all. Different lifeforms are created or protected by the protagonist while the rest of society seems to be capable of shocking little on their own.

2/8/2011 2:56:16 PM

Quote :

"I don't understand why some things got deleted, and others didn't..."

because OmarBadu is in a power-tripping mood today?

let's see how long this post stays up unedited and/or i find myself suspended...his balls tend to shrivel when you call him out on things, and we can't have that...

[Edited on February 8, 2011 at 4:50 PM. Reason : if i strike it out, it's like i never wrote it in the first place!]

2/8/2011 4:46:15 PM

^^To make it even more interesting, the protagonist was the hero of a war waged against the only other known sentient beings in the universe. Due to the relativistic travel, he was able to go from superstar status to biggest mistake in history in his own lifetime. He ended up on the planet where the only other sentient beings were and was able to re-propagate the aliens he killed through a cocoon they had left and told him where it was from images they pulled from his dreams.

[Edited on February 8, 2011 at 5:54 PM. Reason : .]

2/8/2011 5:54:11 PM

i went through and deleted a few items to hopefully put the thread back on topic and remove the ridiculous off topic comments - i didn't fine tooth comb the entire thread

2/8/2011 10:02:48 PM

So glad I found this thread. Great posts.

So I've really only heard talk of worm holes and what not from watching the Universe on the history channel, but what are the outlooks on these. They seem a bit far fetched given the experience we have with them, which is strictly mathematical(no?), can anyone give me more insight as to how worm holes are viewed in the scientific world. Plausible?

also, I heard that there is one thing faster than electromagnetic radiations and that is the speed at which the universe is expanding. That's why earth is at the center of the known universe and we will never be able to see beyond the light horizon. This makes me sad if true

2/8/2011 11:50:41 PM

Earth is at the center of our "Observable" universe... (with a radius of ~12-14 billion light years) but not the center of the actual universe.

2/9/2011 7:13:56 AM

yeah, that's what I meant...that is the known universe, right?

[Edited on February 9, 2011 at 9:40 AM. Reason : j]

2/9/2011 9:39:04 AM

Nope. Anywhere you stand in the Universe is the center of the observable Universe. The known universe is much much larger than that and possibly infinite.

2/9/2011 11:29:07 AM

Quote :

"So I've really only heard talk of worm holes and what not from watching the Universe on the history channel, but what are the outlooks on these. They seem a bit far fetched given the experience we have with them, which is strictly mathematical(no?), can anyone give me more insight as to how worm holes are viewed in the scientific world. Plausible?"

I am absolutely no expert, and I just know a bit about the theory, so here goes and anyone can feel free to correct me if I'm wrong... My knowledge of these are slim, as you are about to see.

To this point, wormholes are a theory that obey the laws of relativity and are believed to be possible. However, they are not observed in nature and no natural cause could create one.

As I understand it, it's basically an infinite black hole. The warping of spacetime is so great you technically 'fold' it and can create bridges to travel instantaneously across spacetime.

With that said, if humans spaceships (for instance) were to ever attempt to travel this way, the massive amount of energy required to warp space time would make it nearly impossible. They also have problems with the mathematical equitions saying that they would collapse instantaneously, thus rendering them useless for travel. At this point it's a theory as to how we might one day be able to cross millions of light years in a split second, but it's incredibly far from being proven or much less feasible. With our technology today, The theoretical energy required to warp spacetime so massively would just be tremendous....not to mention we don't have the technology or understanding to do it

Someone who knows about these plz to correct me and give a much better, elaborate answer. I tried my best...ready...go!


[Edited on February 9, 2011 at 11:36 AM. Reason : ]

2/9/2011 11:32:34 AM

We don't even know how you'd go about creating one even if we had the energy. But I guess that's what the Large Hadron Collider is for right?

At this point wormholes are entirely theoretical.

2/9/2011 11:36:22 AM

not only that, but imagine the kind of structural engineering you would need to make a ship that could pass through a wormhole created by supermassive black holes.

2/9/2011 11:48:06 AM

Unless the current models change significantly there is nothing that can go near a black hole and survive the tidal forces.

2/9/2011 12:19:07 PM

it's like a rift through the curved flow of time through the universe. entirely theoretical at this point, but it provides the possibility of interstellar travel, since objects with mass physically cannot reach a speed in which it is feasible.

[Edited on February 9, 2011 at 12:57 PM. Reason : .]

2/9/2011 12:55:27 PM