Comments on: New Planet Spotted, Could Be Habitable

Astronomers Spot Planet Which Could Have Earth-Like Climate, Water On Surface

[mikealford3]

According to Webster's, a lightyear is the distance traveled by light in 1 year. That's 365 days. So traveling at the speed of light, a person would travel 5.88 trillion miles in 1 lightyear or in 365 days? Having to travel 120 trillion miles at 5.88 trillions miles every 365 days, it would take 7,300 earth days or 20 human years. Either way, a human leaving today traveling at the speed of light would be 7,300 days or 175,200 hours or 20 years older, take your pick. It is a fantasy.

[big_john_1]

@rf35 get real !

First do your researches on earth then jump to 120 trillion mils away.

But there is no reason to wast public money to study something 20 light years away!

just sending a simple message takes 20 years and 20 years back = 40 years!

with the money they spend on planet hunting they can cure alot of desiese and help feed a lot of hungy people .

Btw dont even think of traveling 20 light years away when moon is just 300k km away.

If you study a lil bit the physic law then you understand that traveling such a distances is not possible in next 1000 year!

And dont think humen race will be alive until that time because in next 20 years people gonna make Nuke bombs in African desert!

Earth warming, a war between Russia and US, some sstrange desiese etc..

[rafterman1]

"granted we can't get close to the speed of light but anyway yes 20 years would have passed as we know it on earth. But in your scenario the 40 year old man would barely have aged because when you near the speed of light time slows down.(the time relative to that person nearing the speed of light)"

We can't get to the speed of light, but we can cheat. Artifical wormholes and space warping are two ways to do it. Matching, or even exceeding the speed of light isn't a physics problem any more, it's an engineering problem. For instance, to create an artifical wormhole would require the gravity (and therefore energy) of a thousand of our suns. But that doesn't say in the future, we wouldn't figure out how to generate that. Antimatter is a possbility. But we've been prducing anitmatter since the 1960's, yet we only have enough to fit on the head of a pin :)

[mikealford3]

rf35, Strange that you would mention Japan. I don't recall Japan having a space program or any astronuats yet the are leaps and bounds ahead of us in the areas of technology and similar things. Strange, America spends the money to go into space and research, and Japan benefits beyond America. Kinda odd.

[kennedy19106]

Oh great! Yet another place that people want to takeover. Heaven help this planet if they have OIL!!!!!

[enoughsaid55]

This is a great discovery, but lets's get really; we don't need another earth as we know it as now. Let's get smart and take our time. Stop trying to inhabit other planets as we have done to our planet.

[rafterman1]

"Because unlike the "politically correct", I say what's on my mind. I don't consider liberals to be "fellow Americans." I look upon them as one would look upon an appendage that serves no purpose other than to take resources away from the primay organism."

And you righties wonder why libs are angry all the time when you are so arrogant like that. Like someone crowned conservatives as keepers of America. Libs say the same thing about you, so what? Is the conservative vs liberal war always on your mind? Can't you take a break from it ever?

[Razzl]

People are rightly guessing that this is a planet too far for us to ever visit--we're not going to achieve lightspeed travel (for reasons Einstein laid out that are too much to even begin to explain) and at the maximum speeds we have achieved in space flight so far, about 20k mph, it would be a 90-million year flight.

Nonetheless, the continued existence of our species and all life of any type from this planet depends upon continuing exploration in space. Both the earth and the sun have finite lifespans (the "hardening core" scenario where we lose our protective magnetosphere when earth's core solidifies could happen within a mere century in some scenarios, so leapfrogging away from our solar system and colonizing whatever serviceable places are nearby is the only path to survival.

Because all these activities take place outside the lifespan of today's living, each person must decide what it's worth to them to make any contribution to the ultimate survival of life. It would be hard to blame anyone who doesn't consider it a practical issue, but concrete actions today will echo across eternity.

And a point worth considering is that, while the odds would seem against our being the only life in the universe, we haven't seen proof to the contrary yet. There may be no point to the universe if we make no effort to save ourselves...

[rf35]

(Part 2)

The sad fact of modern society is this: 7 billion additional dollars or 700 billion will not cure AIDS or feed the hungry. It would find its way into the pockets of a few select individuals and/or corporations and a tiny fraction would go to make a token effort toward its intended use. Actually, if a cure for HIV or cancer were found (if it hasn%u2019t happened already), that information would be patented, bought, and buried by the first pharmaceutical company that found out about it long before the information was ever seen by the public. As far as feeding the hungry, they cannot eat money. The problem isn%u2019t lack of funds, it is lack of planet!!! The Earth cannot sustain a population of 6.5+ billion. Not enough fresh water, space for food production, or space to live. BTW, divide up the money being used on the Pluto probe and you get just over $1 per person. That sure will help feed the hungry.

[inventagod]

Just in time for Rove, Cheney and Bu$h prison terms - going where no honest men have gone... again.

[rf35]

It is unbelievable that so many people have such short-sighted views. This is why Japan out-did America in business and technology. They looked at the profit margin 10 years from now, not just next quarter like the American executives. The %u201Cget rich quick%u201D strategy is great for a few top execs but hurts the overall corporation in the long run. This lesson applies in science as well. If we terminated all research that did not have an obvious immediate application, human knowledge and understanding would be stuck in neutral; the things that make our lives easier today would still be decades away from being discovered, if ever! Those $500 per pill cancer therapy drugs would not exist without seemingly unrelated pervious advances in chemistry and computer science along with the medical research.

(To Be Continuted)

[luvny-2009]

Because unlike the "politically correct", I say what's on my mind. I don't consider liberals to be "fellow Americans." I look upon them as one would look upon an appendage that serves no purpose other than to take resources away from the primay organism.
Posted by Infidel_US at 10:16 AM : Apr 25, 2007

You need some serious counseling, it's people with that attitude that go off on innocent people like at VA Tech.

[mikealford3]

itwasntme. I mean no harm in this but,

I'm curious because obviously I don't understand your reasoning, but that's ok.

I have a question based on your time thing. Are you saying that people age relative to the speed the earth rotates around the sun? I wonder if the earth rotated around the sun every 12 hours would a man who today 20 be 21 in 182 days or would it take 730 days for his body to be 21? Is your statement based on years or effects on the body?

[luvny-2009]

Because unlike the "politically correct", I say what's on my mind. I don't consider liberals to be "fellow Americans." I look upon them as one would look upon an appendage that serves no purpose other than to take resources away from the primay organism.
Posted by Infidel_US at 10:16 AM : Apr 25, 2007

[mikealford3]

FARTKNOCKER2,
You do not know me so how do you know what I contribute to society. Because of my brain cancer I was forced to retire. I now spend my time as a volunteer coach at the local middle school. You don't know that I met a young man named Sean a few years ago. At 8 years old Sean was delivering drugs for his sister, at 10 he stabbed his own father to stop him from beating his mother, at 13 Sean was a C-D student barely passing. Last May I saw Sean, he said "thank you coach Mike for encouraging me to do better". Last May Sean was a Sophomore in high school. He was a straight A student and at the time of our conversation, he had just returned from Central America. Sean spent his spring break with a mission group in Guatamala putting a new roof on a church. He gave me credit and said without my encouragement he never would have done what he'd done.

Perhaps my contribution to society is not as great as your's, but to that young man it's pretty *** special.

[itwasntme000]

if there is a planet 20 light years away that can support human life, what good is it to know? If we had a ship that traveled at the speed of light, a 40 year old man would be 60 years old by the time he arrived there.Posted by mikealford3 at 09:34 AM : Apr 25, 2007

granted we can't get close to the speed of light but anyway yes 20 years would have passed as we know it on earth. But in your scenario the 40 year old man would barely have aged because when you near the speed of light time slows down.(the time relative to that person nearing the speed of light)

[infidel_us]

That's real nice wishing a fellow american dead. How sick is that, even if you disagree with some one why would you say what you did.
Posted by luvNY at 09:41 AM : Apr 25, 2007

Because unlike the "politically correct", I say what's on my mind. I don't consider liberals to be "fellow Americans." I look upon them as one would look upon an appendage that serves no purpose other than to take resources away from the primay organism.

[extremophil]

Only 120 trillion miles? I'm all packed. Meet you guys at the magic rocket to dreamville.

[honest_news]

Some clarification:

If the newly discovered world were to orbit its sun in such a way that one side is perpetually sunlit and the other side dark, as the article states, this would mean that the planet DOES rotate. It would have a synchronous rotation that matches its orbital rate, just like our moon -- so that it rotates one full turn for every complete orbit.

[jetlizhan]

mikealford3

i'm with you - i've not the slightest interest in even entertaining the idea of traveling to a planet such as "C". it really makes me sick to think of all the money that will be spent on this type of 'research' when right here on good ole earth we need so much done and could use this money HERE.