Posted on 06/18/2019 3:30:41 PM PDT by EdnaMode
A tiny, old star just 12 light-years away might host two temperate, rocky planets, astronomers announced today. If theyre confirmed, both of the newly spotted worlds are nearly identical to Earth in mass, and both planets are in orbits that could allow liquid water to trickle and puddle on their surfaces.
Scientists estimate that the stellar host, known as Teegardens star, is at least eight billion years old, or nearly twice the suns age. That means any planets orbiting it are presumably as ancient, so life as we know it has had more than enough time to evolve. And for now, the star is remarkably quiet, with few indications of the tumultuous stellar quakes and flares that tend to erupt from such objects.
These factors, plus the systems relative proximity, makes the system an intriguing target for astronomers seeking to train next-generation telescopes on other worlds and scan for signs of life beyond Earth.
(Excerpt) Read more at nationalgeographic.com ...
12 light-years away!
10 light years is around 58.79 trillion miles.
Travelling near the speed of light it would take at least 10 years to get to 10 light years away.
Apollo 10 set the record for the highest speed attained by a manned vehicle at 24791 mi/h. At this speed, it would take around... 270000 years.
The fastest mad-made object ever built, the Helios 2. At this speed it would only take around 43000 years.
The two subjects of the article are nothing resembling Earth.
44 more years til Zefram Cochrane invents the warp drive...
Articles and books like The Anthropic Cosmological Principle (Barrow and Tipler, 1986), especially Chapter 8, "The Anthropic Principle and Biochemistry," discuss the significant advantages of carbon-based life processes, especially given the chemistry of hydrogen, carbon, oxygen, nitrogen, and some trace elements. Biochemistry based on predominantly silicon, phosphorus, or sulfur compounds has problems and it's even less likely for elements that have d-orbital electrons.
This is not "proof" that non-carbon-based cannot not exist, but that it is extremely unlikely in a universe with the same chemistry rules that we see existing in our solar system.
Great...have Elon Musk and Richard Branson fire up the rockets so we can ship liberals off to create their progressive Utopia. Either planet, it doesnt matter, theyll destroy themselves before long.
IIRC it would take 40000 yrs for our fastest spacecraft to travel 1 light year. We’re not going there anytime soon, if ever.
Well, I consider God a lot more imaginative than man is; and pretty far ahead of man’s knowledge and textbooks.
There are probably forms of life here on Earth that we don’t even look for, because we can’t yet imagine that they could exist; and we won’t find them for a very long time.
It was less than 600 (?) years ago (if we count by Copernicus) when we realized that the Earth revolves around the Sun.
Even if we count by Aristarchus, in terms of Earth history it seems like only the ‘blink of an eye’ that we’ve been able to systematically study our environment.
All kinds of things are probably still to happen in our awareness and knowledge.
it drives me nuts that so many people deliberately limit their own - and even God’s - imagination.
Send them on the B Ark.
So... if I can get the ol’ rocket up to the speed of light, I can get there in a mere twelve years....?
I believe it took so long because thousands of years earlier, the Greeks (if not someone before them) had worked out the mathematics of a geocentric universe.
God is omnipotent and can do what He wants to or not do what He doesn't want to.
But unless God's Word somewhere specifically states that God created non-carbon-based life forms somewhere in the universe (and someone claiming to have personally heard from God that He did doesn't count) we are free to look at the physical and chemical evidence to make probability estimates for or against non-carbon-based life forms.
And it doing that we can use the theorem of Rev. Thomas Bayes, an 18th-century English minister and statistician.
The bible does mention all manner of other lifeforms that do not appear to be carbon based; angles, seraphim, cherubim, spirits, various beings termed creatures, demons and a devil.
Thank you. I’m going to check that out.
LOL. Good one. :D
AOC: “Na we can’t go at night as we need the sunrise to power the spacecraft solar cells.”
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