First Habitable Planet Confirmed by French Scientists

[Yossarian1507]

I think the bigger news is that if it could support life, it could have evolved it. The bad news: With twice Earth gravity, our future alien overlords would be built like friggin' tanks. The good news: Presumably, they wouldn't be able to breathe our atmosphere if they invade before we turn it into theirs.

Maybe it's the planet of the Krogans? Maybe even we can even write a petition to change this stupid name to Tuchanka, while there's still some time?

 

[samsonguy920]

These french scientists seem to be missing an important detail. Gliese 581 is a red dwarf. Astronomy has taught us that red dwarves are what the Sun is to become after it depletes enough of its hydrogen fuel and expands into a giant star. During this stage goldilocks planets get swallowed up by said star or super-cooked ala Mercury. Then the giant star sheds its outer layers, shrinking down to a red dwarf.
If Gliese 581 is a typical red dwarf that went through all this rigamarole, then 581d is hardly habitable. Considering what it had gone through plus the carbon dioxide content, I think it is about as fit to live on as Venus. Only with the need to be able to lift twice your weight to get around.
But who cares about what we have figured out before, Gliese 581d is a goldilocks planet. Let's get excited for a world we won't be visiting for several generations yet!

If at all.

 

[Infernai]

I wonder if tall, blue people live there.

Nope, it's inhabited by large black creatures with curved heads and spiky tails (But strangely no eyes) who have acid for blood and like eating anything that moves.

 

[samsonguy920]

Nice. Shame the gravity and atmosphere are slightly horrible to us, but I'm sure if we somehow end up there we'd be fine somehow.

Also, it's not impossible, due to quantum physics and all that jazz. Bloody science is always changing it's view, though faster than light is always an odd topic to be poking around.

I thought traveling at the speed of light was impossible if you have any mass at all?

Far as I know relativity is still living next door nice and healthy, telling those kids that they can't go the speed of light on their lawn. Quantum physics has certain basis in finding ways around relativity, but you still need to shed all your mass to go as fast as the speed of a photon. Talk about being The Biggest Loser! Now surpassing that speed, that's a different kettle of wax especially with the navigation issues. I know of one smuggler who has the skills, but he lived a long time ago very far away.
You can still come as close as you can without touching it, though. Just don't expect to find any friends or family when you come back. Or current civilizations. Might find apes in control even. Or dolphins.

 

[samsonguy920]

Well, we could just hurry up and discover mass effects to propel ourselves there in the event that our planet becomes unsustainable.

Seriously though, I wonder how living on that planet would be like, 3x gravity and all..

The Lensman series touched on that with an idea. One planet with a high gravity was colonized, though it was hell for the colonists to be there. Their children and further descendants, however, were born with stronger skeletons and muscle density to handle that planet just fine. Those same children and descendants made for the hardiest warriors to serve Earth's space forces ever. This idea makes sense to me. We always manage to adapt to our surroundings, though it may be a generational affair.

 

[Vanguard_Ex]

So...we build a giant harpoon gun and pull it closer.

That would work, right?

 

[E-Penguin]

Wait, does this mean that France legally owns them, or do they have to actually land there first to own it?

No nations are allowed to claim a celestial body according to something I heard a long time ago from an unverifiable source I can't remember.

 

[sulld1]

I think the bigger news is that if it could support life, it could have evolved it. The bad news: With twice Earth gravity, our future alien overlords would be built like friggin' tanks. The good news: Presumably, they wouldn't be able to breathe our atmosphere if they invade before we turn it into theirs.

Haha, just what i was thinking, but i think evolution would go the easy way by making them really small and thin so that gravity has less of an effect on their bodies... But it would be cool if the were tonk

 

[StreetPizza]

These french scientists seem to be missing an important detail. Gliese 581 is a red dwarf. Astronomy has taught us that red dwarves are what the Sun is to become after it depletes enough of its hydrogen fuel and expands into a giant star. During this stage goldilocks planets get swallowed up by said star or super-cooked ala Mercury. Then the giant star sheds its outer layers, shrinking down to a red dwarf.

Those are white dwarfs (yes, dwarfs instead of dwarves. Haven't these astronomers ever read Tolkien?!) that are the remnants of low-mass stars. Red dwarf stars are perfectly fine, assuming something like tidal locking doesn't screw our future home over.

 

[Ilke]

Watch out for mind worms!

 

[Bobbity]

Twice our planet's gravity? Yes. Very habitable. I suppose we *could* survive there, but it'd be a hell of a chore. Imagine trying to get the spaceships back *off* the ground...

 

[kingmob]

Wow that's stupidly close..........I mean twenty light years is nothing.

And yet, we complain when we have to drive 20 miles to someplace.

Overall, it's nice news, but as soon as we actually think about it, it's completely crushing to know that we'll never reach it unless we discover some godly technology that allows us to move faster than light. Eh, I'm sure Microsoft and and Electronic Arts will think of somethin- oh, wait...

I'm not sure where people are getting their info from, but we have the technology right now to go there in about 200 years (give or take a hundred, i did not calculate it exactly . I remember the calculation for proxima centaury though; ~50 years). The statement in the article is simply false. Using for instance fission bombs (or in the future maybe even fusion) we are able to accelerate a starship to great speeds. We are already harnessing enormous explosive power, which is all there is to rockets in the end. The problem of course is that making fast spacecraft is not economcally viable, since the fuel is so massive and more than a little dangerous. But it is far from impossible, we would be able to get there in only several generations if we really wanted to.

 

[ProfessorLayton]

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

This is what I'm wondering. I will die a happy man if I at least know that there is life on other planets... wow, if there is even a tiny civilization on that planet so close to us... think about the advanced civilizations that might be on the other side of the universe... news like this makes me incredibly happy... what if the other planet is looking at us as well?

Sorry... this is just really exciting news to me.

 

[kingmob]

These french scientists seem to be missing an important detail. Gliese 581 is a red dwarf. Astronomy has taught us that red dwarves are what the Sun is to become after it depletes enough of its hydrogen fuel and expands into a giant star. During this stage goldilocks planets get swallowed up by said star or super-cooked ala Mercury. Then the giant star sheds its outer layers, shrinking down to a red dwarf.
If Gliese 581 is a typical red dwarf that went through all this rigamarole, then 581d is hardly habitable. Considering what it had gone through plus the carbon dioxide content, I think it is about as fit to live on as Venus. Only with the need to be able to lift twice your weight to get around.
But who cares about what we have figured out before, Gliese 581d is a goldilocks planet. Let's get excited for a world we won't be visiting for several generations yet!

If at all.

Just google it next time before you start theorizing that someone who studied for it is wrong
A red dwarf is the coolest type of main sequence star. That means it is a stable star with hydrogen fusion, that is on the smaller and cooler side of the scale (hence it is the color red and a 'dwarf').
What you are looking for is a red giant and/or a white dwarf. The red giant is the final stage of several type of main sequence stars, a white dwarf is the stage after, where there is no longer fusion, but the star still radiates thermally, eventually dimming to nothingness.

 

[Vault Citizen]

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.

Now I have a mental image of a 300/Avatar crossover and all I can say is that I really want to see that movie.

 

[samsonguy920]

Those are white dwarfs (yes, dwarfs instead of dwarves. Haven't these astronomers ever read Tolkien?!) that are the remnants of low-mass stars. Red dwarf stars are perfectly fine, assuming something like tidal locking doesn't screw our future home over.

Just google it next time before you start theorizing that someone who studied for it is wrong
A red dwarf is the coolest type of main sequence star. That means it is a stable star with hydrogen fusion, that is on the smaller and cooler side of the scale (hence it is the color red and a 'dwarf').
What you are looking for is a red giant and/or a white dwarf. The red giant is the final stage of several type of main sequence stars, a white dwarf is the stage after, where there is no longer fusion, but the star still radiates thermally, eventually dimming to nothingness.

My bad. Of course I knew that, teaches me to jump on the bandwagon late at night. And it would need a high bit of CO2 to be warm enough even in the goldilocks zone.
Not sure I would want to live there for that kind of air content, though. The gravity I could handle. I'm built for that.

 

[Reishadowen]

I'm not sure where people are getting their info from, but we have the technology right now to go there in about 200 years (give or take a hundred, i did not calculate it exactly . I remember the calculation for proxima centaury though; ~50 years). The statement in the article is simply false. Using for instance fission bombs (or in the future maybe even fusion) we are able to accelerate a starship to great speeds. We are already harnessing enormous explosive power, which is all there is to rockets in the end. The problem of course is that making fast spacecraft is not economcally viable, since the fuel is so massive and more than a little dangerous. But it is far from impossible, we would be able to get there in only several generations if we really wanted to.

Well, that's great and all, but I would think that strapping bombs to the back of a spacecraft would propel it forward so suddenly, anyone inside would probably be crushed to death by their own organs and the sudden surge of momentum. So yeah, just traveling fast isn't really enough unfortunately. Not that it would matter if future US presidents don't actually start giving a d*mn about the space program again though...

 

[kingmob]

Well, that's great and all, but I would think that strapping bombs to the back of a spacecraft would propel it forward so suddenly, anyone inside would probably be crushed to death by their own organs and the sudden surge of momentum. So yeah, just traveling fast isn't really enough unfortunately. Not that it would matter if future US presidents don't actually start giving a d*mn about the space program again though...

We are already strapping bombs to the back of spacecraft, we call them rockets. You don't have to go from 0 to 0.95c in a second you know (although it would be cool), you can take a few years to accelerate and decelerate.