New place for humans to live?

[Miulang]

So after humankind has totally crapped up Earth and made it uninhabitable, is there a possibility of colonizing another planet, way-----out----there (try "only" 120 trillion miles away), outside our solar system?
According to scientists, Gliese 581 c (http://news.aol.com/topnews/articles/_a/potentially-habitable-planet-found/20070424191309990001?ncid=NWS00010000000001) might have water in liquid form and slightly stronger gravity than Earth.

Miulang

[joshuatree]

So after humankind has totally crapped up Earth and made it uninhabitable, is there a possibility of colonizing another planet, way-----out----there (try "only" 120 trillion miles away), outside our solar system?
According to scientists, Gliese 581 c (http://news.aol.com/topnews/articles/_a/potentially-habitable-planet-found/20070424191309990001?ncid=NWS00010000000001) might have water in liquid form and slightly stronger gravity than Earth.

Miulang

Hmm, with gravity 1.6 times that of Earth, would women want to move there? :D

[helen]

A planet with a stronger gravity than Earth, orbiting a red star. Sounds more like they discovered Krypton (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krypton_%28comics%29).

Gilese 581c has an orbital period of 13 days, you got to be at least 590 years old before you can drink legally on that world.

[Leo Lakio]

Is there an indigenous species there that we can pillage, poison and plunder? If we can do that as a collective, we just might have finally found a way to stop hating each other for continually doing it to other human cultures over the eons.

[helen]

If there is life on Gilese 581c now, it will be a long, long time by our standards just to get there.

Heck we have been to the moon before but yet it's going to take years just for us to get there again. And even when we return to the moon it will take a different technology to reach planets on other stars.

[Lei K]

A planet with a stronger gravity than Earth, orbiting a red star. Sounds more like they discovered Krypton (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krypton_%28comics%29).

Gilese 581c has an orbital period of 13 days, you got to be at least 590 years old before you can drink legally on that world.

This whole post made me laugh Helen, mahalo. I'm all for finding Krypton if Superman lives there and he looks like Tom Welling. :D

[Leo Lakio]

we just might have finally found a way to stop hating each otherit will be a long, long time by our standards just to get there.Is it just me, or do these thoughts connect well?

[PoiBoy]

I'm sure Stephen Hawking is theorizing right now.

Him and Carl are gonna meet up soon.

*billions and billions*

[LocoBoy]

I'm curious as to how they can tell so much about this planet when its what, 21 light years away or something like that. I mean how can they tell what the gravitys like and if theirs liquid water or ice on the planet?

[Glen Miyashiro]

I'm curious as to how they can tell so much about this planet when its what, 21 light years away or something like that. I mean how can they tell what the gravitys like and if theirs liquid water or ice on the planet?Based on the brightness and color of the star Gliese 581, they know its mass and composition. And based on the size and frequency of the wobble that the planet causes in the star's motion, they know the planet's mass (about 5 times Earth) and its distance from its star (I forget the number) and how fast it revolves around the star (Helen said 13 days?).

So based on the distance from the star, and the brightness of the star, they can figure out roughly how much sunlight (starlight?) a planet at that distance would be receiving, and therefore what the temperature would be. It turns out to be in the same ballpark as temperatures here on Earth, which means that if water were present, it could be liquid water rather than ice or steam.

As for the gravity... they know that has about 5 times Earth's mass. They are assuming that this planet is terrestrial, like Earth and Venus and Mars and Mercury, made mostly of rock. Based on being made of rock, with that mass, they can calculate the rough size of the planet and also what the surface gravity should be.

Of course, they could be wrong about some of those assumptions.

The 5-Earth-mass figure is actually a minimum mass -- it assumes that we are looking at the planet's orbital plane edge-on. If we're looking at the orbital plane at an angle, or in the worst case at a 90-degree perpendicular, then the real mass might be a lot higher, which would mean that the planet is actually farther away from the star.

They're also assuming that the planet is terrestrial -- but what if it's actually a mini gas giant, like a little brother to Neptune or Uranus (which are 17 and 14 Earth masses, respectively)? In that case, the thing wouldn't be mostly rock -- it might be made of only a little bit of rock, and a lot of hydrogen and helium. We don't actually know what a 5-Earth-mass planet is supposed to look like since we don't have any here in our solar system.

[joshuatree]

I say we should start focusing on terraforming Mars. The Sun is projected to last another 5 billion years. But who knows if Earth will last that long with the way we go about. :p

[helen]

and its distance from its star (I forget the number)

Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gliese_581) has Gilese 581c listed at .073 AU from Gilese 581. In comparsion Mercury is only .4 AU from the Sun. It also says that Gilese 581 is one third the mass of our Sun.

I wonder if anyone has tried to check on the Alpha Centauri system to see if any planets exist there since it is closer to us at 4.3 light years.

[TATTRAT]

Even IF, habitable planets are 1 in a 1,000,000,000,000...that leaves millions of chances/opportunities.

The only reason I would like an extra 100 years is to see the outcome of space travel/space technology.