# A Home Away From Home? New Earth-Like Planets Found



## Curt Chiarelli (Apr 21, 2013)

It was just a matter of time before astronomers began finding these:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/19/s...//json8.nytimes.com/pages/science/index.jsonp


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## Harpo (Apr 21, 2013)

Keep up Curt, I posted about that days ago
http://www.sffchronicles.co.uk/forum/540263-distant-planetary-system-is-a-super-sized-solar.html


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## Curt Chiarelli (Apr 21, 2013)

Harpo said:


> Keep up Curt, I posted about that days ago
> http://www.sffchronicles.co.uk/forum/540263-distant-planetary-system-is-a-super-sized-solar.html



Harpo, these are two entirely different stories.


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## Vertigo (Apr 21, 2013)

Not quite, I think Harpo mentions this one a little bit farther down in that thread.


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## Curt Chiarelli (Apr 21, 2013)

Vertigo said:


> Not quite, I think Harpo mentions this one a little bit farther down in that thread.[/QUOT
> 
> Yes, I didn't see it further down the queue.
> 
> ...


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## Lady of Winterfell (Apr 21, 2013)

I'm just glad there are other people out there who care about these things.


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## Curt Chiarelli (Apr 21, 2013)

Lady of Winterfell said:


> I'm just glad there are other people out there who care about these things.



Yes, indeed! I wish our species would re-align its priorities. Instead of squandering vast amounts of resources and human capital on war and exploiting the populace, I wish governments would devote their energies toward stabilizing and enriching our world and then focus on a programme of space exploration to find other worlds and life! To quote Tina Fey's character, Liz Lemon on _*30 Rock*_: "I want to go there!"


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## Harpo (Apr 22, 2013)

I sit corrected


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## Curt Chiarelli (Apr 22, 2013)

Harpo said:


> I sit corrected



I guess we both are!


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## Lady of Winterfell (Apr 22, 2013)

Curt Chiarelli said:


> Yes, indeed! I wish our species would re-align its priorities. Instead of squandering vast amounts of resources and human capital on war and exploiting the populace, I wish governments would devote their energies toward stabilizing and enriching our world and then focus on a programme of space exploration to find other worlds and life! To quote Tina Fey's character, Liz Lemon on _*30 Rock*_: "I want to go there!"


 
Hear hear!!


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## Nightspore (Jul 5, 2013)

Gliese 674 and planetary companion. Created on Celestia 1.6.1.


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## Mirannan (Jul 5, 2013)

Curt Chiarelli said:


> Yes, indeed! I wish our species would re-align its priorities. Instead of squandering vast amounts of resources and human capital on war and exploiting the populace, I wish governments would devote their energies toward stabilizing and enriching our world and then focus on a programme of space exploration to find other worlds and life! To quote Tina Fey's character, Liz Lemon on _*30 Rock*_: "I want to go there!"



An interesting point of view, but I disagree somewhat. One point is quite simple: Why does it have to be governments that do it? IMHO the only way that significant space presence for H. sapiens is ever going to happen is for it to become possible to make money out of it. Fortunately, there are ways to do that, even in the medium term (20-50 years) - specifically SPS, with the materials obtained from the Moon and/or near-Earth asteroids. Incidentally, exploiting the latter would also remove a major threat to Earth.

Also IMHO, the best way to stabilise and protect Earth's environment would be to go outwards and exploit resources Out There. The advantage, of course, is that with the possible exception of Europa and rather less likely Mars, there is no ecology Out There to muck up. Unless one thinks of lifeless rock, ice and dust as an ecology.

Once we have enough space hardware to make it easy to mount exploration missions - that's when to start serious exploring in person. Maybe, once there are people out there, the old Orion plans could be dusted off?

Finally, extrasolar planets are going to remain inaccessible for a very long time indeed. Unless, of course, some unforeseeable breakthrough occurs - probably as a result of anomalies found in experiment that, to start with, seems to have nothing to do with hyperdrive. That Eureka moment could occur tomorrow, twenty years from now - or never.


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## Nightspore (Jul 5, 2013)

What about the Alcubierre drive? When you think about it, if it's a possibility, someone somewhere has probably already built it.


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## Venusian Broon (Jul 5, 2013)

Nightspore said:


> What about the Alcubierre drive? When you think about it, if it's a possibility, someone somewhere has probably already built it.


 
Cool! We just need to find some negative mass....

ah if it does exist, probably all forever at the edges of the universe repelled by all the mass that makes up our universe, if only we had an Alcubierre drive to go there and pick some up


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## Nightspore (Jul 5, 2013)

Venusian Broon said:


> Cool! We just need to find some negative mass....
> 
> ah if it does exist, probably all forever at the edges of the universe repelled by all the mass that makes up our universe, if only we had an Alcubierre drive to go there and pick some up



It looks like NASA are optimistic about it anyway.

NASA Actually Working on Faster-than-Light Warp Drive ~ Time Tech


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## Mirannan (Jul 5, 2013)

Alcubierre is one of the things I was thinking of. Apparently, someone has reworked the maths and the energy requirement has come down by a number of orders of magnitude. Actually, the energy requirement was always fairly low - or at least much lower than apparent at first glance - because the enormous amount of energy in the bubble is to some extent compensated for by an almost equally enormous amount of negative energy elsewhere in the bubble. I can't remember the details, though.


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## Nightspore (Jul 5, 2013)

Fomalhaut with planetary companion. Created with Celestia 1.6.1


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## Nightspore (Jul 5, 2013)

Mirannan said:


> Alcubierre is one of the things I was thinking of. Apparently, someone has reworked the maths and the energy requirement has come down by a number of orders of magnitude. Actually, the energy requirement was always fairly low - or at least much lower than apparent at first glance - because the enormous amount of energy in the bubble is to some extent compensated for by an almost equally enormous amount of negative energy elsewhere in the bubble. I can't remember the details, though.



Yeah, I have read about this. Apparently some scientist discovered that by phasing the 'warp' field or something drastically lowered the energy requirements. 

If it really is possible to build warp engines, I'm pretty sure someone has built them somewhere in the universe.


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## Venusian Broon (Jul 5, 2013)

Nightspore said:


> It looks like NASA are optimistic about it anyway.
> 
> NASA Actually Working on Faster-than-Light Warp Drive ~ Time Tech


 

Double cool. 

Although the article just wasn't clear if you still needed (a much reduced) amount of negative mass or not - or just a "bucket load" of energy placed in a correctly designed ship.

If it's the first and negative mass doesn't exist, then it's just a lovely exercise in Sci-Fi physics.


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## Nightspore (Jul 5, 2013)

Venusian Broon said:


> Double cool.
> 
> Although the article just wasn't clear if you still needed (a much reduced) amount of negative mass or not - or just a "bucket load" of energy placed in a correctly designed ship.
> 
> If it's the first and negative mass doesn't exist, then it's just a lovely exercise in Sci-Fi physics.



LOL Yeah! I'm kinda hoping it could be for real.


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## Venusian Broon (Jul 5, 2013)

Nightspore said:


> LOL Yeah! I'm kinda hoping it could be for real.


 


Yeah I had a look at his paper - you still need the energy density (now reduced significantly of course) to be negative, 

which apparently breaks a heap load of relativisitic energy conditions, that as far as we know seem to be true. 

But hey, Relativity is - in my eyes - just a stop-gap to the next theory. So who knows...


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## Nightspore (Jul 5, 2013)

Venusian Broon said:


> Yeah I had a look at his paper - you still need the energy density (now reduced significantly of course) to be negative,
> 
> which apparently breaks a heap load of relativisitic energy conditions, that as far as we know seem to be true.
> 
> But hey, Relativity is - in my eyes - just a stop-gap to the next theory. So who knows...



Yeah, I am still trying to figure Bohr's 'Copenhagen Interpretation'. My knowledge of quantum physics is not good. I'm just not a science graduate.


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## Venusian Broon (Jul 5, 2013)

Nightspore said:


> Yeah, I am still trying to figure Bohr's 'Copenhagen Interpretation'. My knowledge of quantum physics is not good. I'm just not a science graduate.


 
Now QM was my field as a young lad - so as Feynman said - just get to grips with the double slit experiment and you'll have the basics of it all!


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## Nightspore (Jul 5, 2013)

Venusian Broon said:


> Now QM was my field as a young lad - so as Feynman said - just get to grips with the double slit experiment and you'll have the basics of it all!



It hasn't escaped my notice that Hawking kind of almost glossed over the DS experiment in his _Brief History of Time_. He is one of those scientists still hoping to find the Grand Unified Theory putting gravity, electromagnetism, & the weak & strong forces all together in some nice simple equation. It defeated even Einstein.


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