S E V E N Earth like planets orbiting o n e star.

[Thorgalaeg]

Wait what what what?! 7 Earth sized planets in the same system? Orbiting around the same star? That's insane, how such a coincidence could happen? Is this for real? Am I being trolled? This seems like... is this real?

From how quickly, easily and close we have found this coincidence, we can say with a high degree of certainty that solar systems with many earth-like planets must be pretty abundant across the galaxy.

 

[Snerk]

Can't be worse than in Norway

It's not too bad these days, we even have lot's of snow now!

 

[Sommerswerd]

Wait what what what?! 7 Earth sized planets in the same system? Orbiting around the same star? That's insane, how such a coincidence could happen? Is this for real? Am I being trolled? This seems like... is this real?

Reminds me of the "3 Worlds" system in the X-Series universe.

Love your Avatar and username BTW... Awaken, Awaken, Awaken, Awaken... Take the land that must be Taken...

 

[CavLancer]

Wait what what what?! 7 Earth sized planets in the same system? Orbiting around the same star? That's insane, how such a coincidence could happen? Is this for real? Am I being trolled? This seems like... is this real?

Nope. However this not being real doesn't make it any less relevant. Since we live in a simulation of a hologram something not being real shouldn't really be held against, should it?

 

[civvver]

Seven planets around an untracool dwarf star? Who else wants to name them Doc, Happy, Sleepy, Grumpy, Sneezy, Bashful, and Dopey?

And then Disney sues for copyright infringement

Even by our fastest probes, it would like nearly 1 million years to get to the star. We need to invent a warp drive or a hyperspace jumpgate. That is the only way humans are going to actually feasibly explore the cosmos.

Or we just need our future selves to bend time and communicate warp tech back to us from the future.

 

[El_Machinae]

Archbob, the Breakthrough Starshot program is being funded to the tune of $100 million, and it's intended to get up to .1 c. And at .1 c, lots of things are way closer.

Yah, life extension has to go right, or reincarnation.

Yup, true. People just have to intentionally fund it. Even obliquely.

edit: how did I post a blank post? 5cl no longer exists? Ugh.

 

[Thorgalaeg]

 

[Lohrenswald]

S E V E N
E
V
E
N

honestly I should read up on this but i haven't

 

[Truronian]

Its highly suspicious certainly. The odds against 7 planets in a habitable zone...interesting to see when they figure out the atmospheres. If they are all kinda the same, then that's it. I wonder if they would tell us they are all the same? Yup, I'm looking forward to a book. Not waiting for a crappy movie this go round.

They're not all in the habitable zone.

 

[Bootstoots]

Not just 7 Earth-like planets, some subset of 3-5 of which are in the habitable zone, but they are transiting planets - they pass directly in front of their stars as viewed from Earth. This means we can conceivably get some spectral information about their atmospheres from the differences in spectra when they are transiting the star, when they are behind the star, and when they are neither transiting nor behind it. Very, very interesting.

The real thing to look for is an atmosphere that shows signs of being far from equilibrium. Oxygen can be formed from photolysis of water molecules exposed to UV radiation, and methane exists in reducing environments everywhere (e.g. Titan). But detectable amounts of oxygen and methane at the same time - an oxidizing atmosphere with detectable levels of reduced compounds too - would be a telltale sign of life.

I am so looking forward to the James Webb telescope and really crossing my fingers that everything goes well with it.

 

[CavLancer]

They're not all in the habitable zone.

Thank you for the correction. Not as suspicious now. Still, how many Earth like planets have they found so far in all observable space? Now 7 in one spot, its still a tad odd.

 

[warpus]

This sounds like something that cannot happen without Intelligence moving planets
Interesting though, Exploration is a long way off. Iam cautious about sending probes due to learning about the dark forest theory

In many ways you could say the same thing about our solar system. It's got the right kind of planet for life at the right distance from the sun, at the right time of the sun's life, with the right type of moon, plus with planets in the right places to eventually protect it from most meteor impacts, with an inclination that gives us well balanced seasons, etc.

Wait what what what?! 7 Earth sized planets in the same system? Orbiting around the same star? That's insane, how such a coincidence could happen? Is this for real? Am I being trolled? This seems like... is this real?

We haven't seen what's in many other solar systems yet, so we have no idea what sort of solar system is "normal". Maybe Earth-sized planets are the norm and our solar system is really weird for only having 2 Earth-sized planets in it?

I leave on Monday. What should I bring though? Hard to say when I don't know the weather there.

Probably at least a towel and a couple good books. Let NASA figure out the rest for you.

I am so looking forward to the James Webb telescope and really crossing my fingers that everything goes well with it.

All of this is all really making me feel like I'm living in the future. This is exactly the kind of stuff I wanted humanity to be doing when I was a kid

 

[Synobun]

Thank you for the correction. Not as suspicious now. Still, how many Earth like planets have they found so far in all observable space? Now 7 in one spot, its still a tad odd.

Earth-like? Not many.

Exoplanets in general? Quite a few.

 

[Lohrenswald]

I can't believe "exoplanet" was the term they went with. It's like the dumbest one of all they considered

 

[Synobun]

I can't believe "exoplanet" was the term they went with. It's like the dumbest one of all they considered

why you gotta hate the greeks man

 

[Sommerswerd]

In many ways you could say the same thing about our solar system.

Sure... and those "ways" are called Catholicism, Islam, Judaism, Protestantism...

The Google Doodle for this historic occasion is really nice BTW... makes me happy

 

[hobbsyoyo]

I can't believe "exoplanet" was the term they went with. It's like the dumbest one of all they considered

Do you hate everything? What's wrong with the term?

It's 40 light years away, guys. Don't grab the tourism or exploration brochures quite yet. This discovery more so has implications for the new telescope being launched next year. We'll be able to figure out the atmospheres of these planets and possibly get a ballpark estimate on whether or not they can support life*.

* As we understand it.

That last point is soooo crucial here. There are too many unknown unknowns to even be sure we interpret evidence correctly

Even by our fastest probes, it would like nearly 1 million years to get to the star. We need to invent a warp drive or a hyperspace jumpgate. That is the only way humans are going to actually feasibly explore the cosmos.

As someone pointed out, there's actually a pretty reasonable plan to launch large numbers of tiny probes at a fraction of c. It would be a major, Apollo-level undertaking but nearby stars are not out of our reach entirely.

Its highly suspicious certainly. The odds against 7 planets in a habitable zone...interesting to see when they figure out the atmospheres. If they are all kinda the same, then that's it. I wonder if they would tell us they are all the same? Yup, I'm looking forward to a book. Not waiting for a crappy movie this go round.

What's suspicious about 7 planets in a solar system? We have 8 and many, many moons and large planetoids. Many of the solar systems we've found out there are also multi-planet as well. I would go so far as to say that our solar system is probably pretty typical when it comes to planet size and count for our star size. The thing that's been holding back discoveries of more systems with smaller planets has been our detecting technology, not an actual scarcity of these types of planets.

Right now we just don't have the technology required to find Earth-sized planets except in very special circumstances like this one.

An colony ship ejecting nuclear bombs can achieve a portion of light, but I forget the details. The slower the longer it takes, that's all. The ship would have to be able to feed itself with grow lights and hydroponics... The Earth has managed the trick without technology, unless we've had help.

The US did some very preliminary design work on this idea, it was called Project Orion. It's feasible - particularly if we could get it off the planet before igniting the bombs.

Even at a fraction of the speed of light, you'd need strong magnetic shields or space dust will pwn you.

Yes and no. Strong magnets help but don't stop all debris. However, no civilization that could get to a good fraction of c would not be able to produce the required fields. For stopping non-ionized particles you just need lots of mass to shield you which again, a civilization of this advanced level wouldn't have problem with. A colony ship by definition is going to be absolutely massive to begin with so that problem almost solves itself.

Wait what what what?! 7 Earth sized planets in the same system? Orbiting around the same star? That's insane, how such a coincidence could happen? Is this for real? Am I being trolled? This seems like... is this real?

It's not really that surprising really, see above.

From how quickly, easily and close we have found this coincidence, we can say with a high degree of certainty that solar systems with many earth-like planets must be pretty abundant across the galaxy.

Yeah pretty much. Our detecting technology is generally not up to finding Earth-sized planets but this system made it easy for us. It's a tiny star so any light that the planets block while transiting is by definition a higher % of the total (relative to the light a planet around a large star blocks) and thus easier to detect. Because the star is so small, the planets are very close to it which again makes them block more light. And finally, the whole system is inclined toward us so we could use the transit-detection techniques which are far more sensitive than the light-shifting techniques.

Earth-like? Not many.

Exoplanets in general? Quite a few.

There are probably trillions of Earth-like planets in our galaxy but we just can't detect them right now.

 

[warpus]

Imagine what sorts of weird things might exist on some of those planets. And that's just in our galaxy, we probably don't have anywhere near the weirdest planet in the whole Universe. It's like the universe is some grand simulation where each solar system is a different roll of the dice to see what will stick and what just isn't going to work at all.

 

[CavLancer]

Hobby, nothing is suspicious about 7 planets in a solar system. However 7 Earth like is another matter. These are all rocky worlds full of fast food joints, or something like that. No gas giants or whatever else doesn't qualify as Earth like.

Question for anyone willing to field it... How many Earth like planets, according to the qualifications used on these 7, are there in our solar system? Does Venus qualify?