Slog - Comments on Earth 2 http://slog.thestranger.com/2007/04/earth_2 Exciting news on the science front: Astronomers reported on Wednesday they had discovered a "super-Earth" more than 20 light years away that is the most intriguing world found so far in the search for extraterrestrial life. About five times the mass of Earth, the planet orbits a cool, dim "red dwarf" star located in the constellation of Libra, the team from the European Southern Observatory (ESO) said in a press release. The star, Gliese 581, has already been identified as hosting a planet similar in size to Neptune, the frigid gas giant on the edge of our own Solar System.... Copyright 2008 Wed, 25 Apr 2007 09:38:07 -0800 Wed, 25 Apr 2007 19:59:25 -0800 http://www.movabletype.org/?v=3.34 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Comment by Will in Seattle I say we send Bush on a one-way trip to investigate. He can take Cheney with him if need be, and maybe AG Gonzales as well.

]]> Will in Seattle http://slog.thestranger.com/2007/04/earth_2#c701554 http://slog.thestranger.com/2007/04/earth_2#c701554 What the Wed, 25 Apr 2007 10:13:35 -0800 Comment by COMTE Well, except for the fact that the cost of the trip - even one-way - would probably equal what we've spent to-date in Iraq (assuming of course, you actually want them to survive the journey and report back), I'd be in agreement with you.

Although, on the other hand, I doubt we could rely on them giving us anything in the way of accurate, factual reporting on their observations.

Not to mention the fact that we'll all be long-dead before anything they had to say actually got back to us.

]]> COMTE http://slog.thestranger.com/2007/04/earth_2#c701567 http://slog.thestranger.com/2007/04/earth_2#c701567 What the Wed, 25 Apr 2007 10:24:21 -0800 Comment by Jordyn They found Krypton, basically.

]]> Jordyn http://slog.thestranger.com/2007/04/earth_2#c701592 http://slog.thestranger.com/2007/04/earth_2#c701592 What the Wed, 25 Apr 2007 10:32:45 -0800 Comment by keshmeshi I'm pretty sure that they would be dead too.

]]> keshmeshi http://slog.thestranger.com/2007/04/earth_2#c701593 http://slog.thestranger.com/2007/04/earth_2#c701593 What the Wed, 25 Apr 2007 10:33:08 -0800 Comment by summertime #1 nah leave em here on earth to fight their own Wars and shoot pesky
critters.

Unless there is something like
'The Thing' on that planet all these what I call destructoids can sit their happy asses down and ponder their stupidity and spend there time debating God and war while science and reasonable humans get the honor to go
because they got their act together.

]]> summertime http://slog.thestranger.com/2007/04/earth_2#c701599 http://slog.thestranger.com/2007/04/earth_2#c701599 What the Wed, 25 Apr 2007 10:35:38 -0800 Comment by summertime counterpoint to my comment I can see this becoming some space race to see who gets to go when the time comes when our planet is through.
Saddely its a long way off and I bet this world is gonna be so broke to even accomplish the attempt if we keep on 'Spending Money and scientific knowledge on War!' hello planet earth
wake up. What do you want to do now huh World Leaders?

]]> summertime http://slog.thestranger.com/2007/04/earth_2#c701615 http://slog.thestranger.com/2007/04/earth_2#c701615 What the Wed, 25 Apr 2007 10:47:23 -0800 Comment by Ryan I don't even know why people are talking about going there, did you notice it says more than 20 light years away.

]]> Ryan http://slog.thestranger.com/2007/04/earth_2#c701636 http://slog.thestranger.com/2007/04/earth_2#c701636 What the Wed, 25 Apr 2007 11:00:01 -0800 Comment by elswinger I am curious to know how long it would take to get there. Since we cannot travel at the speed of light, I think it would take hundreds, maybe thousand of years.

It took Voyager 27 Earth yeas to travel 13 light-hours

Gliese 581c is 20.40 light-years away.

Maybe one of you math nerds can tell us how long it would take to get there with present technology.

]]> elswinger http://slog.thestranger.com/2007/04/earth_2#c701644 http://slog.thestranger.com/2007/04/earth_2#c701644 What the Wed, 25 Apr 2007 11:02:10 -0800 Comment by Lawrence Molloy It would take a long time to get there, 13,476 years. Without some kind of stasis the community that left on the outbound ship would be a very different community by the time they arrived. Also, with that mass, the gravity is strong, so they are all very, very short and incredibly wide "green people"

]]> Lawrence Molloy http://slog.thestranger.com/2007/04/earth_2#c701654 http://slog.thestranger.com/2007/04/earth_2#c701654 What the Wed, 25 Apr 2007 11:09:40 -0800 Comment by Ryan elswinger, that isn't too much of a math nerd thing. Or I'm a math nerd and don't know it. If distance equals speed times time then 13 light hours = (X)27 earth years. meaning we travel at .48 light yours a year. using the same equation (ok I am a math nerd because I used the word equation on the slog) we travel 178704 light hours from here to there at a rate of .48 light hours a year. We'd be touching down and rolling out space sleeping bags in about 372300 years. This may be wrong, it's been a while since I was in algebra.

]]> Ryan http://slog.thestranger.com/2007/04/earth_2#c701657 http://slog.thestranger.com/2007/04/earth_2#c701657 What the Wed, 25 Apr 2007 11:10:58 -0800 Comment by COMTE Nothing wrong with your math, SFAIKT (not being a math nerd myself), however, we can probably reduce that travel time significantly, say down to the order of a few hundred years (!) using currently available technology such as sustained low-thrust ion propulsion. This however, doesn't take the relativity factor into account, since the passage of time would be different for people on earth than it would for the Bush-Cheney expedition.

Still and all, it ain't gonna be a quick trip by any stretch...

]]> COMTE http://slog.thestranger.com/2007/04/earth_2#c701723 http://slog.thestranger.com/2007/04/earth_2#c701723 What the Wed, 25 Apr 2007 11:46:30 -0800 Comment by Will in Seattle @4 - a risk I would be willing to take.

]]> Will in Seattle http://slog.thestranger.com/2007/04/earth_2#c701728 http://slog.thestranger.com/2007/04/earth_2#c701728 What the Wed, 25 Apr 2007 11:49:35 -0800 Comment by Carl Sagan Maybe the residents of the new planet can send us instructions via radio waves on how to build a machine that humans can use to travel there. We can pick up their signals with our radio telescopes. There's a nice one in Puerto Rico.

]]> Carl Sagan http://slog.thestranger.com/2007/04/earth_2#c701768 http://slog.thestranger.com/2007/04/earth_2#c701768 What the Wed, 25 Apr 2007 12:15:30 -0800 Comment by jackie treehorn Who cares. Honestly. We'll never visit it, its simply too far away. Might as well be made of cat food.

]]> jackie treehorn http://slog.thestranger.com/2007/04/earth_2#c701812 http://slog.thestranger.com/2007/04/earth_2#c701812 What the Wed, 25 Apr 2007 12:49:50 -0800 Comment by keshmeshi Only incredibly stupid aliens would want us around. Incredibly stupid aliens probably aren't technologically advanced enough to help us out.

]]> keshmeshi http://slog.thestranger.com/2007/04/earth_2#c701837 http://slog.thestranger.com/2007/04/earth_2#c701837 What the Wed, 25 Apr 2007 13:02:48 -0800 Comment by summertime The discovery does add weight to the argument we are not alone, and there is other worlds out there. And being that it is inhabitable there must be some odd life there if there is any to survive. Unless that life is more advanced than we are and has something more ancient up their sleeve in terms of mathematics and algebra and human theories.
On the other hand I can see religous nuts and scientoligists going all gaga that this some how validates their claims too. Like maybe that planet is heaven and maybe this Earth is hell. Heres where we are when we are alive and there is where we go when we die.
You know all that metaphysical stuff.
Until Dr. Noah gets there on his space ark and proves otherwise heres to it being that that is where UFOs have been comming from.

]]> summertime http://slog.thestranger.com/2007/04/earth_2#c701848 http://slog.thestranger.com/2007/04/earth_2#c701848 What the Wed, 25 Apr 2007 13:09:23 -0800 Comment by summertime And God might resemble an insect.

]]> summertime http://slog.thestranger.com/2007/04/earth_2#c701857 http://slog.thestranger.com/2007/04/earth_2#c701857 What the Wed, 25 Apr 2007 13:14:06 -0800 Comment by COMTE Carl:

It's my understanding that SETI researchers have given a listen to Gliese 581 a couple of times in the past, and most likely it'll jump back up to the top of the list again with this new discovery.

]]> COMTE http://slog.thestranger.com/2007/04/earth_2#c701897 http://slog.thestranger.com/2007/04/earth_2#c701897 What the Wed, 25 Apr 2007 13:39:46 -0800 Comment by Lloyd Clydesdale I wonder if the Dalai Lama can scan Christianity and indicate where the next incarnation of Noah is currently breastfeeding.

I wouldn't mind commanding the trip myself (I'm likely in the running for this voyage somewhere in line between the entire staff of the Hollowed-Out Mountain and the Dafur refugees) if only to experience the post-touch down satisfaction of taking a dump outside and cracking open a bottle of Herradura.

Then taking a thunderstruck look around. Then a noodle-legged sitting down. Then a sucking of the thumb.

]]> Lloyd Clydesdale http://slog.thestranger.com/2007/04/earth_2#c701932 http://slog.thestranger.com/2007/04/earth_2#c701932 What the Wed, 25 Apr 2007 14:05:59 -0800 Comment by Ryan @18

I hope they hear "Shit, they found us"

]]> Ryan http://slog.thestranger.com/2007/04/earth_2#c701934 http://slog.thestranger.com/2007/04/earth_2#c701934 What the Wed, 25 Apr 2007 14:07:39 -0800 Comment by COMTE It'll probably be more along the lines of, "Do you MIND? This is a PRIVATE conversation!"

]]> COMTE http://slog.thestranger.com/2007/04/earth_2#c701967 http://slog.thestranger.com/2007/04/earth_2#c701967 What the Wed, 25 Apr 2007 14:31:51 -0800 Comment by matthew fisher wilder BEST SLOG MUSIC PUN EVER! CHEERS AND BEERS TO BRADLEY!

]]> matthew fisher wilder http://slog.thestranger.com/2007/04/earth_2#c702294 http://slog.thestranger.com/2007/04/earth_2#c702294 What the Wed, 25 Apr 2007 19:59:25 -0800