Mankind's next home?

Belanos

I just came across this story when browsing the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's website:

http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/7-earth-like-planets-discovered-1.3992156

Astronomers have announced the discovery of a star system that may have as many as 7 Earth-like planets that are capable of supporting life. And it's only 39 light years away from us. Mankind may actually have a place we can travel to that we could call home. It will take time and some effort on our part, but it may just be possible. This is going to completely change our focus regarding space exploration.

Kurumi

Yup.. I just read about it, too and am very excited!!! \\//, LLAP!!!

Belanos

Me too, that is huge news. I won't be around to see how it all unfolds, being an old fogey already, but I can certainly see our focus changing in the coming years. To hell with the moon, to hell with Mars, let's think about sending people to the Trappist system! We may yet touch the stars! Even if it turns out that all the planets are tidally locked, there should still be a small band on each of them that's capable of maintaining a colony. With 7 planets, that could mean a sizable population in time.

JuliusBorisov

https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-to-host-news-conference-on-discovery-beyond-our-solar-system

https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-telescope-reveals-largest-batch-of-earth-size-habitable-zone-planets-around

Belanos

I'd say the next step for NASA should be to figure out a way of sending a probe there and see exactly what it's like. We certainly won't be setting up colonies any time soon, but at least we now have some sort of focus. And it's not really out of our reach either. Cosmologically, 39 light years is really not that far.

Kurumi

I agree... gosh, just imagine what humankind could achieve (or better said could already have achieved) without all the conflicts and petty squabbles.. well, perhaps this amazing discovery will change things a bit.. at least I hope so.

JuliusBorisov

I actually think this discovery will improve the situation with the Mars project - we need experience for space travellings, we need to establish a base that is not on Earth. Mars - Io (or Europa) - ...

Belanos

JuliusBorisov said:

I actually think this discovery will improve the situation with the Mars project - we need experience for space travellings, we need to establish a base that is not on Earth. Mars - Io (or Europa) - ...

I agree. Just like setting up a base on the Moon, which is something we should have done years ago, would help us learn how to get to Mars. Still, now we have something longer term that we can focus on. Interplanetary travel is nothing compared to the challenges of heading off to another star system. And that wasn't about to happen until we found a good candidate. We may have just done that now.

semiticgoddess

The planets always have one side facing their sun, which would mean crops would grow rather quickly on one side but be virtually nonexistent on the other. And without a Jupiter in the solar system, all 7 of the planets would be relatively vulnerable to asteroids. The level of radiation might also be an issue.

But it really boils down to whether there would be substantial water on the planets. If there is, they'd be a viable choice for colonization.

Nimran

I wonder if there is some kind of alien life there...

Kurumi

Nimran said:

I wonder if there is some kind of alien life there...

Well, if the prerequisites for life are met, then I wouldn't be surprised if there is.

Belanos

semiticgod said:

The planets always have one side facing their sun, which would mean crops would grow rather quickly on one side but be virtually nonexistent on the other.

They're not certain though whether all of them will be tidally locked. They're acknowledging that at least some of them may have some sort of rotation. As for asteroids, that would depend on the system. There may not be a lot of small debris that would pose a threat. And with the sun being so much smaller, radiation wouldn't pose the same problem as ours would, since there would be a lot less of it. The bottom line is that we need to learn more about the Trappist system, but it certainly does show some promise.

Belanos

Kurumi said:

Well, if the prerequisites for life are met, then I wouldn't be surprised if there is.

And it doesn't sound like the prerequisites for life are all that hard to come by. They've even announced evidence recently of organic compounds on the dwarf planet Ceres.

semiticgoddess

My dad suggested that, if all the planets had one side that always faced a nearby sun, any water on the planet could have weird and powerful gravitational currents pulling all of it mostly in one direction. Unlike our planet, where the currents vary based on a single moon.

Balrog99

Unfortunately if there's life there it'll take 39 years for us to get them a message and another 39 for them to reply. I'm 50 already so barring an ageing remedy I won't be alive to see the result. Damn it!

Sylvus_Moonbow

Mankind will never visit such a location physically with current technology. The distance alone would take 44 million years.

Kurumi

Sylvus_Moonbow said:

Mankind will never visit such a location physically with current technology. The distance alone would take 44 million years.

It was once said/thought that the oceans never could be crossed, that the moon never could be reached.. perhaps the best trait of mankind is the longing for knowledge about the mysteries of the universe and the ability to make things thought impossible possible!!! *^_^*

AstroBryGuy

Belanos said:

I'd say the next step for NASA should be to figure out a way of sending a probe there and see exactly what it's like. We certainly won't be setting up colonies any time soon, but at least we now have some sort of focus. And it's not really out of our reach either. Cosmologically, 39 light years is really not that far.

Currently, the farthest man-made object, Voyager 1, is 18 billion km from Earth (about 1/500th of a light year). TRAPPIST-1 is 370 TRILLION km away from Earth. It may be "around the corner" on a Galactic scale, but it's still over 20,000 times farther than any man-made object has traveled into space.

However, with the soon-to-be-launched James Webb Space Telescope, we will have the ability to study the atmospheres of these planets (if they have them).

Belanos

Sylvus_Moonbow said:

Mankind will never visit such a location physically with current technology. The distance alone would take 44 million years.

No. Awhile ago I read an article about finding a potential Earth-like planet in the Alpha Centauri system. One of the scientists involved mentioned that using ion propulsion we could get a probe there within about 20 years. The Trappist system is roughly 10x as far away as Alpha Centauri, so we could potentially get there in 200 years with our current technology. And who knows what we'll come up with in 200 years. It's not an impossibility at all.

JuliusBorisov

I like the latest Google Doodle - it's so positive:

Kamigoroshi

I am actually convinced that aliens would be more than happy to have humans stay confined at one celestial body. Like, forever.

Teflon

If travel method is ready, then I hope there is enough room for all the ppl on earth. It would be fun to trip 39 years. Maybe hybetnation, i guess

DJKajuru

Kamigoroshi said:

I am actually convinced that aliens would be more than happy to have humans stay confined at one celestial body. Like, forever.

Indeed, why would they allow us to build a base on their planet if we keep destroying ours?

dunbar

Every time I hear people talk about humans travelling to another planet I think of 'Independence Day' - only in my scenario we're the invading aliens who've stripped our home planet bare.

Mathsorcerer

DJKajuru said:

Indeed, why would they allow us to build a base on their planet if we keep destroying ours?

So many people presume that non-terrestrial civilizations must be more advanced than we are when there is absolutely no evidence of this whatsoever. They could be significantly more technologically advanced or they could just now be learning how to make their equivalents of bread and beer in their early agricultural period.

Similarly, many people hypothesize that non-terrestrial civilizations must be more socially or ecologically advanced than we are when, again, there is absolutely no evidence of this. This mode of thinking boils down to "wishful thinking", projecting onto aliens that they are everything we are not. What if the first non-terrestrial civilization we encounter for real is of the "they spread like locusts" type, completely devastating a planet then moving on to the next one without regard for any other form of life? What if they are the distilled essence of our own worst motives?

We will never travel to any of these exoplanets in our current biological form. The only way any of us will get there will be once we have managed to digitize our consciousness, upload ourselves into robotic forms with computers for brains, and then hit the road; this obviates the need for food, water, breathable air, etc. and requires only electricity. Of course, most of the trip will be "nothing to see here" so that time could be spent in a powered-down mode, turning ourselves back on only if certain conditions are met--course correction required, malfunction of a component, weekly update, etc.

Hypothetically, it is possible that if we were able to quantum entangle two particles, send one to them, then somehow manipulate the one we keep the entangled particles should allow us to communicate with them in real time since entanglement is not limited by the speed of light. Imagine basic morse code with an effective distance of 100 light years in real time--fascinating stuff.

Belanos

Mathsorcerer said:

We will never travel to any of these exoplanets in our current biological form. The only way any of us will get there will be once we have managed to digitize our consciousness, upload ourselves into robotic forms with computers for brains, and then hit the road; this obviates the need for food, water, breathable air, etc. and requires only electricity.

Or travel there on a generational ship with a self-contained ecosystem. While the original colonists would never reach the destination, their offspring could.

AstroBryGuy

Belanos said:

Sylvus_Moonbow said:

Mankind will never visit such a location physically with current technology. The distance alone would take 44 million years.

No. Awhile ago I read an article about finding a potential Earth-like planet in the Alpha Centauri system. One of the scientists involved mentioned that using ion propulsion we could get a probe there within about 20 years. The Trappist system is roughly 10x as far away as Alpha Centauri, so we could potentially get there in 200 years with our current technology. And who knows what we'll come up with in 200 years. It's not an impossibility at all.

If NASA were currently capable of sending a spacecraft to Alpha Centauri in 20 years, they would be doing it right now. New Horizons took 9 years to get to Pluto (launched in 2006, arrived 2015), which is ~7000 times closer than Alpha Centauri. So, they have no problem with decade-long travel times.

Our current ion drives are not capable of accelerating a spacecraft to 20% the speed of light (the speed required to reach Alpha Centauri in 20 years). The Dawn spacecraft uses ion propulsion, and set the speed record for an ion-drive propelled spacecraft with a delta-v of 10 km/s (36,000 km/hr), which is 0.0033% of the speed of light.

Ion drives are great. They are much more efficient than conventional rockets and can potentially achieve much higher speeds. But, they have low thrust (Dawn's ion drive would take 4 DAYS to accelerate the spacecraft from 0 to 100 km/hr). Higher thrust ion/plasma drives have been envisioned and some tests have been done, but a major problem is the power requirements. One proposed system, VASIMR, would potentially enable a 39-day trip to Mars (one-way), but it would require an on-board 200 MW nuclear reactor to power it.

kanisatha

Awesome thread! I also have been really excited about this latest find. Used to be an aerospace engineer a long time ago and even worked on a NASA funded research project.

@AstroBryGuy, your comments are spot on. Inadequate propulsion systems is one of the two major weaknesses we are still struggling with, the other being defenses against cosmic radiation. We will have to come up with some sort of space-time distorting tech; it's the only way to make interstellar travel even remotely logical.

Belanos

AstroBryGuy said:

Our current ion drives are not capable of accelerating a spacecraft to 20% the speed of light (the speed required to reach Alpha Centauri in 20 years). The Dawn spacecraft uses ion propulsion, and set the speed record for an ion-drive propelled spacecraft with a delta-v of 10 km/s (36,000 km/hr), which is 0.0033% of the speed of light.

Regardless, having a system like that at least gives us something to work towards. By setting it as a goal sometimes in the future, it may provide the incentive to improve the technology we currently have at our disposal. Just like we made a lot of advances trying to figure out how to get to the moon, the fact that we may have an interstellar destination that would be worthwhile checking out would drive advances in our interstellar capabilities.

kanisatha said:

We will have to come up with some sort of space-time distorting tech; it's the only way to make interstellar travel even remotely logical.

That's at least theoretically possible if we can solve the energy problem of the Alcubierre Drive.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcubierre_drive

Balrog99

All we need is a Holtzman Drive and some melange!

deltago

Can I burst everyone's bubble and remind people what happened when Human's migrated across the ocean and killed thousands of people because of the micro-organism that they carried with them to these new lands.

That was across water, what biological impact would we cause if we went to another already habited planet? What micro-organisms on that planet would wreck havoc on us.

Lets try to treat this planet a bit better before we dump it and destroy another one eh.