First Habitable Planet Confirmed by French Scientists

[NathLines]

a group from Australia announced the discovery of a sixth plant in the Gliese 581 system

Wait! We've only discovered 6 plants so far? We're pretty oblivious to our surroundings, no?

 

[Canid117]

It can't support us...
Launch all nuclear weapons!
If we cant have it then no one can!

a group from Australia announced the discovery of a sixth plant in the Gliese 581 system

Wait! We've only discovered 6 plants so far? We're pretty oblivious to our surroundings, no?

you...
you have no idea how hard this is do you?

 

[StellarViking]

Twenty light-years is a mind-boggling distance. Let's say the distance from Earth to the Sun, 1 AU, is one centimeter. That's 155 million kilometers in one centimeter. The nearest star to the solar system is Proxima Centauri, which is ~4.22 light-years away. If the distance from Earth to the Sun is one centimeter, the distance from Earth to Proxima Centauri would be about two and one-third kilometers away. It takes us between two to five years to travel two inches in the same scale, but the distance to Gliese 581d is ten miles .

So yes, cosmically speaking, it's very close, especially considering the Milky Way itself is around 100,000 light years in diameter, but it's still a completely unreasonable distance at our current technology level. The other thing to think about is communication. Even if we can travel faster than light, radio waves can't. Assuming they travel at the speed of light, it'd still take twenty years for us to hear anything from Gliese 581d.

That being said, if we can colonize it, that would be awesome. I'd love to experience life on a planet that isn't Earth, something that would be completely new.

 

[The Last Nomad]

Awesome, a habitable planet, although I will never see it as its way too far away. Maybe we can send messages though, but they would also take a hellova long time.

 

[Merkavar]

so whats up with 581g? its looks slightly smaller than earth but is right smack bang in the godilock zone unlike the other 2 planets that look to be on the edges.

 

[Gerhardt]

I remember reading an article in a popular science type magazine a little while back about an engineer who was working on a kind of plasma based engine. The goal of it was to be used to transport a crew to Mars. I don't know what the timeline would be like for a 20 light year trip, but I suppose it's not impossible...

 

[Twilight_guy]

20 light-years? This calls for warp bubble technology, get my space bender!

That interesting to hear. With all the planets out there I'm sure there was an earth like one somewhere but its interesting to know that we actually found the first one.

 

[Deathfyre]

This is cool, though I'm not a fan of life having pre-defined parameters. Aliens could be radically different from what we're used to, but we're so convinced that life can be defined by the way it's found here that we could end up passing right by a planet covered in life, just because we don't think anything can survive there

 

[VGC USpartan VS]

I wonder if tall, blue people live there.

 

[Gerhardt]

This is cool, though I'm not a fan of life having pre-defined parameters. Aliens could be radically different from what we're used to, but we're so convinced that life can be defined by the way it's found here that we could end up passing right by a planet covered in life, just because we don't think anything can survive there

True dat, but I think it makes sense to look for similarities first before looking for radically different life forms. Plus there's the added bonus of potential colonization with finding an Earth-like planet.

 

[Cpu46]

a group from Australia announced the discovery of a sixth plant in the Gliese 581 system

Wait! We've only discovered 6 plants so far? We're pretty oblivious to our surroundings, no?

Only 6 in the Gliese 581 system, we are actually better at this than you would think.

The discoveries are part of several hundred new planet candidates identified in new Kepler mission science data, released on Tuesday, Feb. 1. The findings increase the number of planet candidates identified by Kepler to-date to 1,235. Of these, 68 are approximately Earth-size; 288 are super-Earth-size; 662 are Neptune-size; 165 are the size of Jupiter and 19 are larger than Jupiter. Of the 54 new planet candidates found in the habitable zone, five are near Earth-sized. The remaining 49 habitable zone candidates range from super-Earth size -- up to twice the size of Earth -- to larger than Jupiter.

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2011-036

 

[Android2137]

Well we not be able to go there, but are we at least able to check if they've got civilization there already?

 

[Angelblaze]

I wonder if tall, blue people live there.

yup.
And they hate marines.
Or they all hate spartans, whichever underhanded and slightly obvious joke you perfer.

 

[TheBoulder]

Fucking Einstein is always ruining our fun.
We should burn everything he's ever written so we don't have to play by his rules.

 

[Custard_Angel]

"Habitable planet"

"Double the gravity"

"Dense cloud cover"

Yeah... Sounds like a reasonable conclusion...

 

[poiuppx]

Several of these planets fall within the star's "Goldilocks" zone, neither too hot from proximity to the star nor too cold from being too far. If a planet is too hot, all water would be steam but if its too cold then it would be ice, neither of which can support life.

It should read human life, people should stop assuming that because life evolved on Earth, this exact set up is the only way life can thrive, instead the thought process should be life evolved in this particular way because of these particular set up

I think part of the issue with that is, we KNOW 100% certain that our planet can support life, because... well, look outside, or on TV, or in a mirror. If it can support life as WE know it, then there's a damn good chance of, well, either life being there or it being able to handle us if/when we get there. Realistically, set the parameters for life radically differently, such as not even needing to process oxygen, and almost any planet MIGHT have some vague form of life on it. THIS one has all the ingredients we take for granted aound here, and as such has a damn good chance of being, as the poets would say, Freaking Awesome.

 

[OptimisticPessimist]

Yay! But then again, they're French, so BOOOOOOOOO.

 

[kickyourass]

If anything actually comes from this, I think we will officially have to stop making fun of the French. I mean, discovering life outside of Earth sorta gives you immunity in my book.

 

[Formica Archonis]

If a planet is too hot, all water would be steam but if its too cold then it would be ice, neither of which can support life. Luckily, a group of astronomers from the National Centre for Scientific Research in France believe that the fourth planet - unimaginatively labeled Gliese 581d - is just right.

To play the devil's advocate: The idea of the Goldilocks zone is itself somewhat controversial, since it ignores things like tidal forces causing heat. (Like Europa's hypothesized oceans.) Also is rather carbon chauvinistic, as it assumes fairly Earth-ish life, built around CHON compounds.

"With a dense carbon dioxide atmosphere - a likely scenario on such a large planet - the climate of Gliese 581d is not only stable against collapse but warm enough to have oceans, clouds and rainfall," the report said.

Dense CO2? Not very habitable after all.:/

Kinda the problem with this: If it's looking for places for US to live, then the criteria are too wide. If it's looking for places for SOMETHING to live, then the criteria are too narrow and we don't have enough perspective to suss out the precise criteria anyway.

Is there any reason for why this stereotype even exists, besides the fact that it gives people who hate the French some misguided reason to make fun of them?

I thought it was more the post-9/11 unwillingness to join the "Coalition of the Willing vs. Axis of Evil" Iraq punch-up. Freedom Fries and all that.

 

[commodore96]

Gives me 300,000 years and a bowflex I will be ready for double the earths gravity. LET'S GO!!!