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Holy Crap! (outer space content)
Posted: Thu Sep 30, 2010 10:35 am
by ohsojayadeva
http://news.discovery.com/space/earth-l ... -life.htmlTLDR; earth-like planet found only TWENTY LIGHT YEARS AWAY, scientists consider it capable of supporting life. It's orbit is different from ours- more like our moon. On half the planet it is always day, the other half is always night.
I realize I'm getting ahead of myself... but think about the classic image of 'greys' that have been around forever: Pale, grey skin and huge eyes. If they evolved on the half of the planet that was always night, there'd have been no reason to evolve melanin... pale grey skin. Their eyes could have evolved extra large to take in whatever small amount of light there was on that half of the planet....
The possibilities here are too cool for me to fathom.
Re: Holy Crap! (outer space content)
Posted: Thu Sep 30, 2010 12:05 pm
by devnulljp
jdavyd wrote:I realize I'm getting ahead of myself... but think about the classic image of 'greys' that have been around forever:
You mean since Close Encounters of the Third Kind, which although a while ago isn't exactly forever.
And 28 light years is still a long fucking way off -- 280 trillion kilometres -- that would still take a pretty long time to travel. Not likely you'd be going "
Bye honey, I'm just off to stick a probe up some guy's ass on a dark country lane in Kentucky and cut the lips off a couple of cows. Be back by teatime."
Re: Holy Crap! (outer space content)
Posted: Thu Sep 30, 2010 1:24 pm
by ohsojayadeva
Of course, that's assuming that their technology is similar to what we have here. We can't and won't know the capabilities of other potential races in the galaxy until they decide to make contact.
Incidentally, according to Wiki, the first appearance of Greys in sci fi was in an HG Wells story in 1893.
Re: Holy Crap! (outer space content)
Posted: Thu Sep 30, 2010 1:54 pm
by Derelict78
In comparison to how big the universe is this planet is a next door neighbor. Right now it would take generations to get there but for space travel that is not a long time. The sweet spot on this planet would prob be the constant dawn area. The dark side is probably wicked cold and the day side extremely hot.
Re: Holy Crap! (outer space content)
Posted: Thu Sep 30, 2010 2:53 pm
by devnulljp
jdavyd wrote:Incidentally, according to Wiki, the first appearance of Greys in sci fi was in an HG Wells story in 1893.
Yes, but there was a huge spike in descriptions of abductions by those guys right around the time of Close Encounters and that;s when they entered the collective subconscious as the image of an alien.
Best places to go fishing for ET right now are Mars and Europa (it's got an ocean).
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zfAzaDyae-k[/youtube]
Re: Holy Crap! (outer space content)
Posted: Thu Sep 30, 2010 3:40 pm
by Derelict78
This cat is fucking hilarious! Brain Malfunctions!
Re: Holy Crap! (outer space content)
Posted: Thu Sep 30, 2010 4:27 pm
by Ryan
Anybody who is into ponderings of aliens, the universe, the supernatural, and related conspiracies should check out this torrent site:
http://tracker.concen.org/index.phpReally fun place if you're into that kind of stuff!
Re: Holy Crap! (outer space content)
Posted: Thu Sep 30, 2010 6:37 pm
by Gunner Recall
...and this just came out today.
Coincidence? I think not.
Re: Holy Crap! (outer space content)
Posted: Thu Sep 30, 2010 7:14 pm
by D3rP
Re: Holy Crap! (outer space content)
Posted: Thu Sep 30, 2010 7:44 pm
by Jero
Gunner Recall wrote:...and this just came out today.
Coincidence? I think not.
Dude is that a fleshlight?
Re: Holy Crap! (outer space content)
Posted: Thu Sep 30, 2010 8:57 pm
by Gunner Recall
Jero wrote:Dude is that a fleshlight?
Re: Holy Crap! (outer space content)
Posted: Fri Oct 01, 2010 3:15 am
by devnulljp
Here's the actual paper all the fuss is about:
AbstractWhole thing (PDF)
So, it reports a survey over 11 years, it's interesting, exciting too (money quote: "If the local stellar neighborhood is a representative sample of the galaxy as a whole, our Milky Way could be teeming with potentially habitable planets" That's awesome.), but you'll also notice there's not a single mention of grey anal probers, cow mutilators, speculations on light/dark scifi monster evolution, citadels of gold in the sky, Captain Janeway, or blue neoprene porta-pussy.
The Lick-Carnegie Exoplanet Survey: A 3.1 M_Earth Planet in the Habitable Zone of the Nearby M3V Star Gliese 581
Authors: Steven S. Vogt, R. Paul Butler, Eugenio J. Rivera, Nader Haghighipour, Gregory W. Henry, Michael H. Williamson
(Submitted on 29 Sep 2010)
Abstract: We present 11 years of HIRES precision radial velocities (RV) of the nearby M3V star Gliese 581, combining our data set of 122 precision RVs with an existing published 4.3-year set of 119 HARPS precision RVs. The velocity set now indicates 6 companions in Keplerian motion around this star. Differential photometry indicates a likely stellar rotation period of ~94 days and reveals no significant periodic variability at any of the Keplerian periods, supporting planetary orbital motion as the cause of all the radial velocity variations. The combined data set strongly confirms the 5.37-day, 12.9-day, 3.15-day, and 67-day planets previously announced by Bonfils et al. (2005), Udry et al. (2007), and Mayor et al (2009). The observations also indicate a 5th planet in the system, GJ 581f, a minimum-mass 7.0 M_Earth planet orbiting in a 0.758 AU orbit of period 433 days and a 6th planet, GJ 581g, a minimum-mass 3.1 M_Earth planet orbiting at 0.146 AU with a period of 36.6 days. The estimated equilibrium temperature of GJ 581g is 228 K, placing it squarely in the middle of the habitable zone of the star and offering a very compelling case for a potentially habitable planet around a very nearby star. That a system harboring a potentially habitable planet has been found this nearby, and this soon in the relatively early history of precision RV surveys, indicates that eta_Earth, the fraction of stars with potentially habitable planets, is likely to be substantial. This detection, coupled with statistics of the incompleteness of present-day precision RV surveys for volume-limited samples of stars in the immediate solar neighborhood suggests that eta_Earth could well be on the order of a few tens of percent. If the local stellar neighborhood is a representative sample of the galaxy as a whole, our Milky Way could be teeming with potentially habitable planets.
Re: Holy Crap! (outer space content)
Posted: Sun Oct 03, 2010 5:42 pm
by sutarappa
