Posted on 03/07/2008 5:44:45 PM PST by KevinDavis
Earth may have a twin orbiting one of our nearest stellar neighbors, a new study suggests.
University of California, Santa Cruz graduate student Javiera Guedes used computer simulations of planet formation to show that terrestrial planets are likely to have formed around one of the stars in the Alpha Centauri star system, our closest stellar neighbors.
Guedes' model showed planets forming around the star Alpha Centauri B (its sister star, Proxima Centauri, is actually our nearest neighbor) in what is called the "habitable zone," or the region around a star where liquid water can exist on a planet's surface.
The model also showed that if such planets do in fact exist, we should be able to see them with a dedicated telescope.
"If they exist, we can observe them," Guedes said.
Guedes' study has been accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal.
(Excerpt) Read more at space.com ...
We need to send a probe there. We have the technology, we just don’t have the funding.
Earth II?
The Diggers won’t be happy to see us.
"doppelganger."
Did that show make it to a second season?
They are probably up to Clinton’s 4th term by now.
I don’t think so. It had potential but they decided that it needed to crawl and it became unwatchable.
ahh..You can’t get there from here. You would have to last longer than Mom’s fruitcake to get a reasonable fraction of the distance there and you wouldn’t enjoy the trip.
I think I lost interest around the time Tim Curry joined the show.
I always heard the it has the wrong kind of star — not like our sun.
Didn’t help that it had a “man is evil and spoils everything he touches” message.
I liked the “just-add-water horse” they had that show. That was funny as all get out!
I think it would take 50,000 years.
Nope...you can do it in under 50 years. If you accelerate at 0.1g the whole trip (half would be acceleration, half deceleration) the trip takes about 10 years, at 5 years for signal reception and you’ve got a minimum of 15 years. Lower accelerations give you longer trip times. I have a chart in a book somewhere.
I just don't to get there and find out it's not there....
ping for future.
I truly hate the vacuous space articles that are being pumped out it seems daily about new planets, etc.
All of these articles are speculation and conjecture. I have never seen so many “may”, “might”, “could”, “perhaps”, “if” and the rest of the article goes on assuming all the coulds and ifs have been proven true.
These articles are more science fiction than science. They are wishing so damn for this stuff to be true, and can;t help themselves writing it as if it is.
I heard there was a revolt on Alpha C. ;’)
Nearest Star System Might Harbor Earth Twin
Space.com | 07 March 2008 | Andrea Thompson
Posted on 03/07/2008 5:28:00 PM EST by jmcenanly
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Unfortunately, the amount of fuel required to do things that way gets outrageous pretty quickly. Call the mass of the ship without fuel S, and figure that the mass of fuel required to accelerate an empty ship continuously at 0.1g for a week be the same as the mass of the ship. Then the mass of fuel required to provide one week's acceleration to the ship plus one week's fuel would be 2S. The mass of fuel required one one week's acceleration for ship plus two weeks' fuel would be 4S. The mass of fuel required for one week's accelleration for ship plus ten weeks' fuel would be about 1,000S. For twenty weeks, 1,000,000S. For 52 weeks, more than 4,000,000,000,000,000S. No even remotely-plausible improvements in efficiency are going to achieve numbers anywhere near useful.
Fusion rockets, solar sails, Bussard ramjets. All near-term technologies that could be developed to do it.
If I'm not mistaken, the Centaurus system is a system with six stars dancing nutzo orbits around each other. Two sets are inside the system and orbiting each other and the 3rd set is running outside of the system orbiting each other at the periphery.
THIS is the reason that it was always considered EXTREMELY unlikely that any of the Centauri stars could support a planet. They'd keep running over each others planets. Maybe not literally but gravitationally at least.
While not necessarily in this case, the evidence for exoplanets is quite (there's a qualification) strong, and in the Solar System, water is common, although it is usually in solid form.
And not to mention the problem of cosmic radition, too. The trip to the moon had the protection of the Van Allen belts, but outside of that...even to Mars...good luck.
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