This is a repository for all cool scientific discussion and fascination. Scientific facts, theories, and overall cool scientific stuff that you'd like to share with others. Stuff that makes you smile and wonder at the amazing shit going on around us, that most people don't notice.
Post pictures, vidoes, stories, or links. Ask questions. Share science.
Originally Posted by ShiftyEyedWaterboy:
Awesome. Thanks for posting that. Unless I'm a dumbass I can't rep yet, or I would.
I don't THINK n00bs are restricted with regard to giving rep (it's the little red pill looking icon on a post), but regardless, you've got full privs now. [Reply]
Originally Posted by DaFace:
Crazy. I'd feel a lot better about humanity if we could just wander over to another nearby planet and make ourselves at home.
Originally Posted by Fish:
They didn't talk a lot about it, and I can't find any further info yet.
They did touch a bit on the general challenges of harboring life in the system. Despite the abundance of planets in the G zone, most scientists are still doubtful of life as we know it being there. The fact that it's a Red Dwarf system presents problems in itself. They are smaller and fainter. Which makes the planets orbit much much closer. That tidally locks the planets, creating planets where half receives constant sunlight, and the other is in perpetual darkness. Being that much closer to the star also makes the planets more susceptible to solar flares and radiation. Red Dwarfs are usually very active when they're young. Lots of radiation. Computer simulations show that this type of system likely destroys the atmospheres of the planets, which bakes the light side and freezes the dark side of the planet.
But still.... Jeff Goldblum quotes and stuff....
"That is one big pile of shit"?
So I was watching the video on another site and one of the comments with a fair amount of up votes declared that this is fake because "when they find stuff like this they never include photos". Someone in this thread earlier mentioned the system being 39-40 light years away.
So, I'm assuming we don't have pictures because either it's too far and we can't actually see the planets or they'd just look like little bright dots in a black back drop. Is that correct? Also, the woman in the video mentioned that she couldn't believe the find but that "the data was all there". So maybe we don't even actually see the planets but can tell they're there through other means, like gravity in the area perhaps? [Reply]
Originally Posted by ThaVirus:
"That is one big pile of shit"?
So I was watching the video on another site and one of the comments with a fair amount of up votes declared that this is fake because "when they find stuff like this they never include photos". Someone in this thread earlier mentioned the system being 39-40 light years away.
So, I'm assuming we don't have pictures because either it's too far and we can't actually see the planets or they'd just look like little bright dots in a black back drop. Is that correct? Also, the woman in the video mentioned that she couldn't believe the find but that "the data was all there". So maybe we don't even actually see the planets but can tell they're there through other means, like gravity in the area perhaps?
We don't have telescopes anywhere near good enough to get a picture of one of these planets. See the recent flyby of Pluto to give you an idea of how grainy our Earth-bound telescopes even for a planet that's in our own neighborhood.
The way they find this stuff is by measuring the light that a star puts off and looking for periods when the light dims from that star (when a planet crosses in front of it). By measuring the magnitude of the dimming and the frequency at which the light dims in the same way, they can get a feel for how big the planet is that caused it and how long its orbit is.
Taking it a step further, different compounds cause the light to dim in different ways. That's where the JWST comes in. It should be able to give us an idea of what compounds are present in the atmosphere of these planets. Mostly, we're looking for oxygen. If we find oxygen, it's highly likely that there is at least SOME form of life there. [Reply]
Originally Posted by DaFace:
We don't have telescopes anywhere near good enough to get a picture of one of these planets. See the recent flyby of Pluto to give you an idea of how grainy our Earth-bound telescopes even for a planet that's in our own neighborhood.
The way they find this stuff is by measuring the light that a star puts off and looking for periods when the light dims from that star (when a planet crosses in front of it). By measuring the magnitude of the dimming and the frequency at which the light dims in the same way, they can get a feel for how big the planet is that caused it and how long its orbit is.
Taking it a step further, different compounds cause the light to dim in different ways. That's where the JWST comes in. It should be able to give us an idea of what compounds are present in the atmosphere of these planets. Mostly, we're looking for oxygen. If we find oxygen, it's highly likely that there is at least SOME form of life there.
Yep. Crazy what they can tell from light curves. I studied the Kepler/K2 mission quite a bit in one of my aerospace courses. [Reply]
Originally Posted by DaFace:
We don't have telescopes anywhere near good enough to get a picture of one of these planets. See the recent flyby of Pluto to give you an idea of how grainy our Earth-bound telescopes even for a planet that's in our own neighborhood.
The way they find this stuff is by measuring the light that a star puts off and looking for periods when the light dims from that star (when a planet crosses in front of it). By measuring the magnitude of the dimming and the frequency at which the light dims in the same way, they can get a feel for how big the planet is that caused it and how long its orbit is.
Taking it a step further, different compounds cause the light to dim in different ways. That's where the JWST comes in. It should be able to give us an idea of what compounds are present in the atmosphere of these planets. Mostly, we're looking for oxygen. If we find oxygen, it's highly likely that there is at least SOME form of life there.
Wouldn't it be weird if we discovered one of these life planets and found they were completely populated with ISIS terrorists. [Reply]
If two of those planets happened to develop intelligent life at the same time, how would the discovery process have gone? Here on earth we developed telescopes a few hundred years before radio, but telescopes likely wouldn't have led to the discovery, right? Could you see signs of life on other planets?
And then once they figured out that the other world was happening, what happens? We invented radio not too long before flight and less than a century before space flight. So I presume they would've figured out how to communicate before they could get any kind of physical contact. I think that would've been a good thing.
And then presuming that one of them is a bit ahead of the other in space flight, would they share information and work together to meet? It seems like it's in the best interest of the more advanced one to not share the information and to get access to the other world. Or is that too selfish? Would you want free exchange of beings and good like it's NAFTA? [Reply]
A bunch of new telescopes being unleashed soon are going to change a lot. There's a really exciting push for new telescopes over the next 30 years or so. It'll be like the jump in clarity of Hubble's initial images that wowed everyone. Who knows what they will discover.
If you want to check it out, take a look at the following links. These telescopes have huge potential...
