Earth like (?) planet found 20 lightyears away

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The planet is the most Earth-like ever spotted and is thought to have perfect conditions for water, an essential ingredient for life. Researchers detected the planet orbiting one of Earth's nearest stars, a cool red dwarf called Gliese 581, 20 light years away in the constellation of Libra.

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- linkGood stuff.

Let's just hope we are all alive to see it lived on

What this article doesn't mention, though, is that the planet could be tidally locked. That would make for some interesting conditions.

Even if the conditions were right, what are the chances of that first cosmic accident (the creation of an imperfect replicator from inorganic matter) occurring?

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"We wouldn't be surprised if there is life on this planet," said Stephane Udry, an astronomer on the project at the Geneva Observatory in Switzerland.

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Hey Stephane, wanna bet?

I'd take that bet.But then, whether abiogenesis is likely or not is still a big unknown. But I tend to think that the appearance of observable life so early in Earth's history points to the event being positively likely.

Kolob.The mormons might be interested in this.

Unless we find a way to exceed the speed of light that won't happen before the next 200 years. Even at the unrealistic speed of 1/5 the speed of light its a 100 year trip to get there for the first unmanned probe. Then communication would take 20 years each way.I think the first trips into the vast reaches of space will either have to be generational or in hibernation of some kind. I just remember years ago watching an episode of nova where they calculated the probability that there was intelligent life outside earth. They simultaneously calculated it to be 1:1 and 1:10^57. The odds rested on the existence of extra-solar planets. This was obviously before we started finding all the currently known planet bodies.-xEdited by EighteenDelta, : My typing sucks

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"Debate is an art form. It is about the winning of arguments. It is not about the discovery of truth. There are certain rules and procedures to debate that really have nothing to do with establishing fact ” which creationists have mastered. Some of those rules are: never say anything positive about your own position because it can be attacked, but chip away at what appear to be the weaknesses in your opponent's position. They are good at that. I don't think I could beat the creationists at debate. I can tie them. But in courtrooms they are terrible, because in courtrooms you cannot give speeches. In a courtroom you have to answer direct questions about the positive status of your belief. We destroyed them in Arkansas. On the second day of the two-week trial we had our victory party!"
-Stephen Jay Gould

For star trek junkies, this is called an M-Class planet

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Disclaimer:

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Occasionally, owing to the deficiency of the English language, I have used he/him/his meaning he or she/him or her/his or her in order to avoid awkwardness of style.

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He, him, and his are not intended as exclusively masculine pronouns. They may refer to either sex or to both sexes!

Maybe it's Yuggoth. For H.P Lovecraft fans.

Dear God I hope it isn't planet Ekos!!

I think Sigma Iotia II might prove fun... Maybe that's just me.The Shatner gangster speak might kill me though.-x

Who says that's our only option? Why do we have only the choice to increase the speed of our spacecraft? Could we not, instead, simply increase the length of our lives?Jon

I'll take that bet too.I work on abiogenesis (ribozymes), so I have a darn good reason to think that I might make a chunk of change!

We need to consider other problems into this.(1) The distances between the stars are rediculous.
(2) Ever since the modern era started, our technological and cultural development have been increasing at an accelerated rate.
(3) The whole point of scientific inquiry is ultimately to somehow better humanity as a whole.How will all of these things mean?If we don't try to find faster means of interstellar travel, it will take literally hundreds of thousands of years to millions of years to go anywhere in the galaxy alone. At our current level of technology, it will take a space craft about 2 thousand years to get to the nearest star. This is not to mention the fact that roughly 90-95 percent of the ship's systems will be there to keep the astronauts alive. What's the point of exploring space if by the time you get back to Earth it will already be tens of thousands of years in the future?Jon, the only practical way I can think of to explore intestellar space with our current speed limit is for our entire civilization to embark on the journey. Otherwise, we'd end up with next to nothing to show for all the resources and efforts dumbed into the project.

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Disclaimer:

​

Occasionally, owing to the deficiency of the English language, I have used he/him/his meaning he or she/him or her/his or her in order to avoid awkwardness of style.

​

He, him, and his are not intended as exclusively masculine pronouns. They may refer to either sex or to both sexes!

Back to Star Trek then. We just need to warp the space-time continuum.