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Thread: Astronomers find an Earth-size world just 11 light-years away

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    Lightbulb Astronomers find an Earth-size world just 11 light-years away




    Fewer stellar flares coming from the planet's star is a good thing for habitability.



    Source: Ars Technica


    Astronomers have discovered a planet 35 percent more massive than Earth in orbit around a red dwarf star just 11 light years from the Sun. The planet, Ross 128 b, likely exists at the edge of the small, relatively faint star's habitable zone even though it is 20 times closer to its star than the Earth is to the Sun. The study in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics finds the best estimate for its surface temperature is between -60 degrees Celsius and 20 degrees Celsius.

    This is not the closest Earth-size world that could potentially harbor liquid water on its surface—that title is held by Proxima Centauri b, which is less than 4.3 light years away from Earth and located in the star system closest to the Sun. Even so, due to a variety of factors, Ross 128 b is tied for fourth on a list of potentially most habitable exoplanets, with an Earth Similarity Index value of 0.86.

    In the new research, astronomers discuss another reason to believe that life might be more likely to exist on Ross 128 b. That's because its parent star, Ross 128, is a relatively quiet red dwarf star, producing fewer stellar flares than most other, similar-sized stars such as Proxima Centauri. Such flares may well sterilize any life that might develop on such a world.

    Ultimately, the question of habitability on these worlds will have to wait for more powerful telescopes to come online. For worlds that transit in front of their star, such as the promising exoplanet TRAPPIST-1 d, the James Webb Space Telescope should have the capability to characterize the composition of their atmospheres with just a few hours of observation.

    For other worlds that don't make such a transit, such as Ross 128 b, other methods will have to be employed. The next generation of large ground-based telescopes, including the European Extremely Large Telescope, should be able to resolve features such as oxygen in the atmosphere of these nearby exoplanets. And if one of them has oxygen, our confidence that life is probably there will increase dramatically.


    Source: Ars Technica
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    Senior Member Emil El Zapato's Avatar
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    That's from a year or two ago isn't it.

    Back in the Day, 11 years was a significant number. World UFO/UAP flaps seemed to occur in 11 year cycles. When I saw the 11 light years distance I wondered if there might be a connection. It would be interesting I suppose if the 'light year' was the operative concept in UFO travel.

    NAP

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    Quote Originally posted by NotAPretender View Post
    That's from a year or two ago isn't it.
    No, you are probably conflating this discovery with either the discovery of an Earth-like planet at 39 light-years away or the discovery of the seven Earth-sized planets orbiting the Trappist-1 system, both from earlier this year.

    Quote Originally posted by NotAPretender View Post
    Back in the Day, 11 years was a significant number. World UFO/UAP flaps seemed to occur in 11 year cycles. When I saw the 11 light years distance I wondered if there might be a connection. It would be interesting I suppose if the 'light year' was the operative concept in UFO travel.

    NAP
    Well, you have to understand that what we call a light-year is the distance that light can travel (in a vacuum) over a period of one year, but what constitutes one year for us is the completion of Earth's orbit around the sun. In other words, a light-year, as a unit of distance, is very specific to our terrestrial metrics.
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    Senior Member Emil El Zapato's Avatar
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    Quote Originally posted by Aragorn View Post
    No, you are probably conflating this discovery with either the discovery of an Earth-like planet at 39 light-years away or the discovery of the seven Earth-sized planets orbiting the Trappist 1 system, both from earlier this year.



    Well, you have to understand that what we call a light-year is the distance that light can travel (in a vacuum) over a period of one year, but what constitutes one year for us is the completion of Earth's orbit around the sun. In other words, a light-year, as a unit of distance, is very specific to our terrestrial metrics.
    lol...yeah roughly 6 trillion miles...I've always had that number in my head ... 22 years round trip...11 and 11. Which is why my ears perk up anytime I hear that number.

    year - light year. The analogy i was suggesting is as of today not known ... 1 year is to 1 light-year as traveling to the Netherlands is to what? Nyuk! Nyuk! Nyuk!

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    Quote Originally posted by NotAPretender View Post
    lol...yeah roughly 6 trillion miles...
    Please note that the mile is an Imperial Measurements unit, and that the Imperial Measurements system is completely inconsistent and hopelessly outdated — not to mention that an Imperial gallon and a US gallon are different in size. This discrepancy came about for the exact same reason as the difference in spelling between British English and US English, i.e. it is an artificial distinction, historically created with the nationalistic intent of making the US appear more independent from the UK.

    The metric system, while far from perfect, is at present time still the best measurements system for anything on this planet.

    That said, when it comes to measuring large-scale distances in space, there are actually three different units in use today...:



    Quote Originally posted by NotAPretender View Post
    year - light year. The analogy i was suggesting is as of today not known ... 1 year is to 1 light-year as traveling to the Netherlands is to what? Nyuk! Nyuk! Nyuk!
    A better expression would be to say that a light-year is to a year — note that I've reversed the order of the words — as a day trip is to a day.
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    But is it? in this case the day trip is an undefined quanity

    So the extra-terrestrial speed limit is equal to 9,461,000,000,000 terrestrial kilometers a year.... yeah, that's it.
    Last edited by Emil El Zapato, 18th November 2017 at 22:09.

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    Quote Originally posted by NotAPretender View Post
    But is it? in this case the day trip is an undefined quanity

    So the extra-terrestrial speed limit is equal to 9,461,000,000,000 terrestrial kilometers a year.... yeah, that's it.
    Well, according to the traditional mainstream-scientific view, the speed of light in a vacuum would indeed be the highest possible speed within the spacetime continuum for any object without a rest mass — e.g. photons, which in a vacuum always travel at that constant speed — while for objects with a rest mass, the speed of light is unattainable, as it would require either an infinitely long acceleration with a finite amount of energy, or a finite acceleration with infinite energy.

    On the other hand, we also all know that spacetime can be warped — it's what both speed itself and acceleration (including gravity) do — and that it is therefore possible, in theory, to travel faster than the speed of light without violating general relativity, and thus without actually surpassing the light-speed barrier. It is even called "apparent faster-than-light" travel.

    So far, mainstream scientists believe that the bending of spacetime in order to create a warp drive of some sorts would require enormous amounts of dark energy, but David Pares has shown that extremely high voltage can also be used instead. And we all know that UFOs don't move relativistically.

    I'll leave it at that.
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    Quote Originally posted by Aragorn View Post
    Please note that the mile is an Imperial Measurements unit, and that the Imperial Measurements system is completely inconsistent and hopelessly outdated — not to mention that an Imperial gallon and a US gallon are different in size. This discrepancy came about for the exact same reason as the difference in spelling between British English and US English, i.e. it is an artificial distinction, historically created with the nationalistic intent of making the US appear more independent from the UK.

    The metric system, while far from perfect, is at present time still the best measurements system for anything on this planet.
    The Nature documentaries with David Attenborough, by the BBC, are by far my favorite programs. When he says for example: "It's 20m deep...and goes on for miles and miles", you know that Britain has not been completely converted to metric yet.

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    Quote Originally posted by Aragorn View Post
    Well, according to the traditional mainstream-scientific view, the speed of light in a vacuum would indeed be the highest possible speed within the spacetime continuum for any object without a rest mass — e.g. photons, which in a vacuum always travel at that constant speed — while for objects with a rest mass, the speed of light is unattainable, as it would require either an infinitely long acceleration with a finite amount of energy, or a finite acceleration with infinite energy.

    On the other hand, we also all know that spacetime can be warped — it's what both speed itself and acceleration (including gravity) do — and that it is therefore possible, in theory, to travel faster than the speed of light without violating general relativity, and thus without actually surpassing the light-speed barrier. It is even called "apparent faster-than-light" travel.

    So far, mainstream scientists believe that the bending of spacetime in order to create a warp drive of some sorts would require enormous amounts of dark energy, but David Pares has shown that extremely high voltage can also be used instead. And we all know that UFOs don't move relativistically.

    I'll leave it at that.
    faster than light in the outre sciences is commonly referred to superluminal and ostensibly has been accomplished.

    It occurred to me as kind of impulse and it actually made sense after I actually thought about it...the speed limit that is.

    In the back of my mind I've always wondered how and what the flap cycle meant in real terms...so in the way of 'mental background processing' that was what I was looking for...the speed limit was why I placed significance on the 11 light years distance to 'Earth-like planets'. Just a completely personal perspective on the who and why of UFO phenomena. No big deal, really.

    Thanks for the exchange...it clarified things for me.

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    Quote Originally posted by NotAPretender View Post
    faster than light in the outre sciences is commonly referred to superluminal and ostensibly has been accomplished.

    It occurred to me as kind of impulse and it actually made sense after I actually thought about it...the speed limit that is.

    In the back of my mind I've always wondered how and what the flap cycle meant in real terms...so in the way of 'mental background processing' that was what I was looking for...the speed limit was why I placed significance on the 11 light years distance to 'Earth-like planets'. Just a completely personal perspective on the who and why of UFO phenomena. No big deal, really.

    Thanks for the exchange...it clarified things for me.
    The reason why nothing with rest mass can ever attain the speed of light is because it requires infinite energy to accelerate it to that speed, but the reason why nothing can surpass the speed of light in a vacuum while traveling relativistically is far simpler. You see, the energetic particles making up for matter — e.g. the electrons orbiting the nucleus of an atom or molecule — are themselves also moving at the speed of light.
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