Did you hear about NASA’s recent discovery of a planet in the so called Goldilocks Zone?

I’m ready to go boldy where no man has ever gone before and declare dibs! But, oh shoot, no transportation available. Crap!

The artist’s rendering of this possibly Earth-like planet, not too hot not too cold is lovely. What are the chances there could be mountains of gold there or extremely sexy green and purple humans?

I heard, I packed, I’m ready!

@JilltheTooth Googling and checking EBay for an affordable Starship right now. Will notify once I purchased one. Don’t forget your toothbrush and reading materials, oh yeah and donuts for me! Lol.

Loading up the Nook as we speak, mending ski mask to facilitate robbery of neighborhood Dunkin Donuts…

It’s not really a surprise. We’ve discovered tons and tons of exoplanets over the last two decades, limited by our technology only to pretty big planets (so excluding planets out there that would be the size of Earth). It’s just a matter of statistics that some of them would be in the habitable zone.

Of course, being in the habitable zone is not remotely the same as having life. But developing the techniques to identify exoplanets is an important first step both for identifying any life out there and eventually deciding which planets to colonize.

I hope it’s a heavy metal planet with tons of Mad Max type stuff going on. I wanna pal around with the kid that throws the razor boomerang and siphon gas from the bad guys all whilst Meshuggah plays at 110dbs. in the back ground.
Maybe even sprinkle in a little bit of Star Wars in there too or Spaceballs.
Dang, and some leather clad bikini babes that totally dig me.

No I didn’t, and thanks for bringing it to my attention.

I see that it’s 2.4 times the size of Earth. If the article is referring to mass, then that means Kep -22b is about 10,711 miles in diameter.

Since it’s 600 light years away, I know that I’ll be long gone before even a terrestrial probe reaches Kep’s stellar system.

I doubt that humans will be able to travel to other star systems within the next 1,000 years. I think the maximum speed of any terrestrially-launched vehicle is about 25,000 MPH. Even if we had craft that could go 100,000 MPH, it would take about 36 billion years to get to Kep.

I’m not saying that this means we’ll never be able to travel to another star system, it’s just that with a travel time of that magnitude, it’s going to be a LOOOOONG time before “we”* develop what is a heretofore unimaginable technology.

Another about this that concerns me is that AFAIK, no interstellar intelligent beings have ever visited Earth. This could mean that even though there are probably numerous modern civilizations in our galaxy- some of whom may have been developing space travel for thousands of years longer than humans- none of them have yet developed the means for interstellar travel.

Hopefully, it could be that some civilizations have achieved interstellar travel, but their SETI sytems just haven’t yet discovered Earth.

*I say “we” because our species might become extinct before we ever develop interstellar travel.

@mazingerz88
I like how you think.
Thank you all. It makes me smile that your excited by Science as I am. Science matters to us all.
I think before our Ancestors came to the US people talked about what was a cross the Ocean. As we discuss the Universe.

@Brian1946 thanks for ruining my interstellar dreams of cool.

@judochop
I appreciate Brains thoughts.
I dream of Space Travel too. I am more optimistic like you.
I read Dr Kaku’s books.
If we can survive long enough we will get there.

Yeah I heard of that today. It made for a pretty good lunch discussion, where I also learned that one of Jupiter’s moons actually has an ocean on it…but it’s under ice. How does that work out? O_o

But yeah, this is cool news. First thoughts that came to me were, how big is it, and is there anything that lives on it? It’s really fucked up when you think about it. Maybe there’s beings over there! Maybe they know about us, too. Haha so weird.

Also, I’m willing to bet that Bill Gates is already planning to buy land there.

@Brian1946 I think your timeline is a little off. We went from the speed of horses and wind power to breaking earth’s gravitational pull in just over 150 years. We may not make it in my lifetime but I would like to think my great grandkids would have a shot at it.

@WestRiverrat
I agree.
I am currently reading one of Dr Kaku’s book we are making progress. What holds us back is some peoples lack of comprehension about the importance of Science and exploration. The way some people make everything Political and War. In the end everything revolves around funding.

@WestRiverrat

“I think your timeline is a little off.”

It could be- I’m not exactly the Nostradamus or Arthur C. Clarke of space travel. ;-)

“We may not make it in my lifetime but I would like to think my great grandkids would have a shot at it.”

I’d love to see us make it in our lifetimes, but beyond that and what little I know about interstellar travel, all I can do is hope.

I don’t believe there’s an afterlife, but if there is, perhaps we can somehow at least vicariously enjoy the occasion if it happens.

It looks like you beat me to this question. There is very little doubt to me that life is not only more common thn we think in our own neck of this galaxy, not only in the entire galaxy, not only in galaxies in our area of the universe but throughout the entire universe itself. This Kepler-22b is believed to be a planet about a little more than twice the size of our planet that has an ocean covered surface with a rocky core. There is even some speculation that intelligent life could already exist there but it’s too early to tell yet.

I heard. It’s quite exciting. I don’t think we’ll be traveling there unless we learn some really revolutionary new physics though. It is about 500 light years away so even at the speed of light it’d be problematic. The next step will be to try to analyze its spectrum to learn about the composition of its atmosphere.

“Hopefully, it could be that some civilizations have achieved interstellar travel, but their SETI sytems just haven’t yet discovered Earth.”

It could also be that if indeed some extraterrestrials have achieved interstellar travel, they’ve only been concerned with locating specifically uninhabited, liveable planets. I.e., they may have already discovered Earth, but have decided that it’s too f’n crowded and polluted anyway.

I also think it’s possible that interstellar travel is simply, for all practical intents and purposes, impossible for matter-based organisms.

@Qingu
Research is being done. There are researchers developing Computers that can find solutions. There is the Multiverse Theory. There is Quantum Mechanics. Dr. Kaku and other Physicist discuss these issues in their books.
Human kind prevails and makes progress. Eventually we will find away to reach the stars if we survive long enough.
Having a positive attitude, working hard and not wasting money on War would help. Unfortunately humanity is still not able to end war and endless arguments based on rhetoric.
I wish you and everyone a happy Holiday Season.

It is difficult to overstate how far away we are from a solution to interstellar travel. We can’t even manage manned interplanetary travel.

The distances between planets are infinitesmal compared to the distances between the stars.

I am not remotely optimistic that interstellar travel will be achieved within my lifetime, unless I live like a million years.

This reminds of that Star Trek Next Generation movie where humans first launch a ship using warp drive and Vulcans who happened to be passing by ( ! ) in their ship saw it and so stopped by to meet us. Lol.

For any terrestrial life form to travel to another star system just before the star itself and any of its inhabitable planets die from natural causes, would take a major advance in our present technology.

@Qingu

“I am not remotely optimistic that interstellar travel will be achieved within my lifetime, unless I live like a million years.”

Here’s hoping to both! ;-)

@mazingerz88
Yes an a lot of Science Fiction is becoming reality.
I read and watch Science Channel. The recent Nova Series is also good.
LOL I can’t wait till they prove that we are part of a Multiverse. Once we have Quantum Computers all research will move faster. They will be able to Multi Task all problems in away No conventional computer can.
I prefer reading about such things to Political BS.

What would the gravity be like on a planet twice the diameter of earth? Even if we could get there would we be comfortable?

@WestRiverrat Depends on its composition. If it’s not very dense the gravity could be weaker than on Earth.

@WestRiverrat

According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moon , Earth has four times the diameter of its moon and 81 times the moon’s mass. Even so, IIRC, the moon has 1/6 the gravity of Earth.

A planet with the same composition as Earth and twice its diameter would have about 8 times its mass, so I imagine the increased gravity would be surmountable.

From what I understand about the Kepler -22b article, its mass or volume is 2.4 times that of Earth, so the increased gravity is probably negligible.

Saturn, the least dense planet in our system, has about the same surface gravity as Earth. (Though this has never made sense to me as Saturn lacks a solid surface… I’m assuming this means the force of gravity at some Earthlike pressure level within Saturn’s atmosphere.)

Assuming the same density as Earth…

Mass increases as the cube of the radius, so the planet would be about 8 times more massive (2 cubed). Gravity increases linearly with mass and decreases with the square of the radius. So multiply the gravity by eight due to larger mass, then divide it by four (two squared) due to larger radius, and the gravity on the surface would be about twice as strong as on Earth.

This how Dr. Kaku sees the future.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tjG3IGbK0Pg&feature=player_embedded#!

Dr. Kaku is amazing. Yet we can never travel the speed of light.

@whitetigress
If they can prove that we are part of a Multiverse we may not have to travel at light speed.
We may be able to use Antimatter to navigate Space. We maybe be able to build Star Trek type Spaceships. I believe that what seems impossible now will become possible.
Our world is more like what was Science Fiction when I was a child every year.
LOL why not Light Speed too?
I have a vivid imagination and I love Science.
Happy Holidays to you.