37 replies to this topic

[Live Forever]

Most "Earthlike" planet ever found outside of our solar system has been reported by scientists:

http://www.cnn.com/2...reut/index.html
http://story.malaysi...id/243780/cs/1/

The radius is only 1.5 times that of Earth, with temperatures between 0 and 40 degrees C. (32-104 F) Should either be rocky or covered with oceans (like Earth). The planet orbits Gliese 581 which is among the 100 closest stars to Earth, just 20.5 light-years away in the constellation Libra.

Cool!

[Live Forever]

Anyone up for a road trip?

[caston]

Yeah do you need money for gas?

[knite]

thats rather amazing i must say, gives me a bit of hope for our future. Although, reading the comments that follow the second link instantly takes that hope for the species away, oh well.

[caston]

Don't forget the importance of having a sense of humour.

[bgwowk]

The rate at which extrasolar planets are now being discovered is staggering. Long before probes ever travel to any of them, it is cheaper and faster to build huge space telescopes for detailed imaging and spectroscopy. Before the end of this century, we will probably know intimate details of thousands of worlds in our part of the galaxy.

[AdamSummerfield]

I think it's safe to say that if it does have oceans on it, then it's only a matter of time if not already, that bacterial life gains a hold on it. Once that happens then there's little stopping life from evolution. Maybe there's a primitive civilisation existing there, or fierce battles for domination among the animal kingdom....

[Richard Leis]

It is nice to see this is also appearing as a top story on all the major news sites. The discovery apparently strikes a particular nerve.

The history of exoplanetary research is interesting, especially because it is less than 20 years old!

1995 - first generally accepted exoplanet detection (1989 I think was the first "maybe" detection)
2005 - first image of an exoplanet
2007 - first Earth-sized exoplanet detected in habitable zone of parent star

COROT should rapidly accelerate the detection of rocky exoplanets over the next two or three years, followed by Kepler. Then, over the next decade technology should advanced quickly enough to return the first images of Earth-sized planets and new information about their atmospheres and surfaces.

This is exactly what I was so excited for as a little kid. During the 1980s and early 1990s when we could not even successfully return to Mars, I thought we might never learn anything more about our own solar system, let alone discover exoplanets. What a difference a few key successes and discoveries have made!

[Live Forever]

COROT should rapidly accelerate the detection of rocky exoplanets over the next two or three years, followed by Kepler.  Then, over the next decade technology should advanced quickly enough to return the first images of Earth-sized planets and new information about their atmospheres and surfaces.

Don't forget the planned missions SIM PlanetQuest and the European Space Agency's "Darwin", which will both be for finding extrasolar planets as well.

This really is an exciting time for space exploration.

[MichaelAnissimov]

My comments on this one are here.

[Live Forever]

My comments on this one are here.

Michael, your comments are kind of in the vein of "why should anyone care because we need to use our own planet and don't need to worry about colonizing other planets". I don't necessarily think that is why people are excited. I think most people are excited because if we find a planet like ours somewhere, then it is the best chance at finding life outside of our planet.

(Plus it is just neat because any "first discovery" is neat.)

[OutOfThyme]

This is very exciting news and will hopefully lead to an increase in funding.

Though I'm not sure its in our best interest to find intelligent life out there other than to identify it and stay out of its way... microbial--no problem.

We treat each other badly enough and seem unable to get over our own physical differences, never mind what another species might do to us. I consider it a blessing we haven't been visited.

[bgwowk]

On his blog, Michael Anissimov wrote:

To those desperate to get off the planet post haste, I ask: where’s your creativity?

It is now time to repeat the story of Carl Sagan visiting Timothy Leary in prison. Leary, as we know, is in prison for smoking weed, the deed for which Richard Nixon called him, "The most dangerous man in America." The prison is in lock-down. As Leary sits in shackles, Sagan asks, "Tell me again, Tim, why you want to leave the planet?"

Third, I submit that we should think carefully before sending off colonists to far-away places without ensuring that they’re capable of protecting the fundamental freedoms of their citizens, and not degenerating into the primitive tribes that humans seem automatically programmed to create in the absence of a checks-and-balances infrastructure.

Freedom to leave is a fundamental freedom! The line, "We're not letting you leave so that we can better protect you," is the calling card of tyranny. As Leary no doubt replied to Sagan, escape from centralized authority and prescriptions of what is and isn't good for us is the best reason to always be on the frontier. Freedom is a prerequisite for all creativity. Advocacy for all intelligent civilization to be subsumed under a Sysop is just awful.

[Kalepha]

My sentiments are with bgwowk about tyranny, but that's another issue and an implication that Michael's article could've easily done without, but it's Michael.

The discovery is neat, but perhaps showing too much excitement – and not that there should be no excitement – is indicative of not comprehending or appreciating more the importance of developing highly sapient particles before finding excuses for exceedingly wasteful government projects that arguably represent unnecessarily high opportunity costs. Discovering this kind of planet is neat with important implications, but more advanced and resourceful sapient particles is neater with much more important implications and deserves the feasible general reduction of ignorant distractions.

Perhaps for a more intuitive way to look at it, our particular inherited sense of space and time is a serious contingency. If we thought faster and at more compact volumes, a zero-gravity prison cell with brain-direct VR could suddenly give you pure-fidelity experiences of wealth higher than you would imagine of yourself owning the universe as you currently know it from your physics education. The challenge, then, is to gain a sense of what you might do in your nearly uninhibited experience space, and it doesn't start from being easily excited about discoveries of simplistic anticipations. Again, though, external or astronomical knowledge is important, just only to a point of expense that shouldn't be instinctively disregarded.

[vortexentity]

I saw this info yesterday when one of my fellow researchers brought it to my attention. I was excited to see it of course as many of us who are space colony enthusiasts did I am sure. I think much is to be done on this planet first of course and after that near space colonies and moon and asteroid colonies are to be developed first in my opinion. If in some future time we can fold space or worm hole from one solar system to another going out to see these places is of great interest to me. I think that as stated in other posts we should build space telescopes capable of imaging the planet in more detail. I think robot probes that test our first FTL drives will visit first. Perhaps we will send a mission to assemble a star gate for mass transport through a stable worm hole.

I would like to get the orbital data and a model build and get a Celestia .SSC file made for the new planet. Celestia only has 1 of the larger planets in orbit Gliese 581 b at present in their database of objects.

[bgwowk]

Perhaps for a more intuitive way to look at it, our particular inherited sense of space and time is a serious contingency. If we thought faster and at more compact volumes, a zero-gravity prison cell with brain-direct VR could suddenly give you pure-fidelity experiences of wealth higher than you would imagine of yourself owning the universe as you currently know it from your physics education. The challenge, then, is to gain a sense of what you might do in your nearly uninhibited experience space, and it doesn't start from being easily excited about discoveries of simplistic anticipations. Again, though, external or astronomical knowledge is important, just only to a point of expense that shouldn't be instinctively disregarded.

I understand exactly what you are saying. But FEELING free is objectively not the same as BEING free. And I have to tell you that everytime I hear another one of these we'll-make-you-deleriously-happy-in-our-virtual-reality exhortations, the more urgently I feel the need to get away. No matter what kind of complex, accelerated, computronium nirvana gets built at Sol, it could always be built elsewhere with less red tape. And then it really would be an individual experience space, not someone else's rental space. Do you understand what I'm saying?

[Kalepha]

Yes I do. It was too implicit but I think we share the same sense of importance for actual first-order proprietary experience space. I just also happen to think that you could be better off by first being more inward faring, so to speak, than outward faring. If you are at first outward faring, it might turn out easy enough physically to justify yourself to your external reality ("because you can") but probably with much more difficulty at any particular point to justify yourself to your internal reality provided just an extra few more episodes of relatively abstract sequences. Heuristically, the weaker your internal reality (including advanced opiate-class consequences neglect), the potentially more hazardous your life's horizon.

[struct]

just 20.5 light-years away in the constellation Libra

Just that!? not bad!! (relatively speaking)
Anyone has 'claimed' it yet so that people can buy some surfuce and keep an eye on their property from down/up here (Earth)?

[Live Forever]

You would be about 1.5 (actually closer to 1.6, but who is counting?) times heavier than on Earth if you were to step foot on this planet. Every time I think about this, it makes me think of Klingons in Star Trek. In the Start Trek timeline, they evolved on a planet bigger than Earth, which is why they are stronger than humans. (their muscles had to support the extra weight, be able to pick up heavier things relatively speaking, etc) So when they are in Earth-like gravity they seem much stronger.

Interesting thing to keep in mind, because if any life has indeed evolved on worlds larger than ours (any life large enough anyway, not bacteria or small animals), then they will probably be much stronger than humans. (note: I am not claiming they will be human-like in any way, because they will most undoubtedly not be, just that they will be much stronger than humans due to the larger amount of gravity)

Of course, this isn't here nor there, but that is what I keep thinking about when I think about this newly discovered world.

[Kalepha]

It would still also be interesting to keep in mind whether they had bulldozers and cranes along with their bigger muscles.

[xanadu]

Very nice but it means little to nothing. It's too far away to be of any use to us so the "earthlike" qualities are not important. We have planets in our solar system that fit the same scenario and are probably more inhabitable than this one. But don't let that put a damper on the celebrations. What is it we are celebrating again? Who cares, lets celebrate.

[Live Forever]

Very nice but it means little to nothing. It's too far away to be of any use to us so the "earthlike" qualities are not important. We have planets in our solar system that fit the same scenario and are probably more inhabitable than this one. But don't let that put a damper on the celebrations. What is it we are celebrating again? Who cares, lets celebrate.

The only other planet in our solar system remotely similar to ours is Mars, and its temperature range is outside of what this newly discovered one's is. Of course, this planet in particular might not hold much hope, but it is the idea that there might be other Earth like planets out there. (Some might also make the argument that it is best to spread the human race as far and as wide as possible. If there is a localized event on Earth, it is better to have people spread around on all parts of the Earth, which we have come far enough to achieve. If there is a worldwide event like nuclear disaster or an asteroid, it is best to be spread around to other planets in the solar system. If there is a solar system wide event then it would be best to be spread around to other solar systems.)

Also, "far away" is of course relative. It is one of the 100 closest stars to us, so on an astronomical level, it is very, very close. With today's technology it is still far away, of course, but hopefully it will soon be doable within a generation or so. (if we can achieve biological immortality, then within the same generation)

[eternaltraveler]

another data point for the drake equation.

[Kalepha]

(Some might also make the argument that it is best to spread the human race as far and as wide as possible. If there is a localized event on Earth, it is better to have people spread around on all parts of the Earth, which we have come far enough to achieve. If there is a worldwide event like nuclear disaster or an asteroid, it is best to be spread around to other planets in the solar system. If there is a solar system wide event then it would be best to be spread around to other solar systems.) . . .

(if we can achieve biological immortality . . .

LF, scattering is a good idea, but we should at least achieve trans-biological immortality first to be prudent. If you're letting biological immortality be hypothetical and an actual aim, you wouldn't be on much more shaky ground by letting trans-biological immortality be hypothetical and an actual aim, and in fact you'd be determining a higher utility (if you do the multiplication and stuff), especially if you want to be thinking about others.

[bgwowk]

Academic. Human or transhuman migration to the stars will not begin for centuries, long after society in the Solar System reaches a very advanced state. This is necessarily true because of the enormous resource base required for interstellar travel on a reasonable time scale. Anyone who leaves early, with primitive technology, is a fool. They will certainly be overtaken.

Realistically, flesh-and-blood humans will be the trailing edge of any colonization wave because humans are very inefficient replicators compared to what is theoretically possible. Ideological patternists have a big advantage here because they can just send their nanotech hardware ahead of them at near light speed, with their personal identity held as tightly packaged information, or even transmitted later, to be reassembled into flesh-and-blood at far flung destinations.

[Athanasios]

Ideological patternists have a big advantage here because they can just send their nanotech hardware ahead of them at near light speed, with their personal identity held as tightly packaged information, or even transmitted later, to be reassembled into flesh-and-blood at far flung destinations.

ha, I was just thinking of that today (there was context involved, ha)

[Kalepha]

Ideological patternists have a big advantage here because they can just send their nanotech hardware ahead of them at near light speed, with their personal identity held as tightly packaged information, or even transmitted later, to be reassembled into flesh-and-blood at far flung destinations.

Perhaps you will eventually make me understand otherwise, but ideological patternists will have more or less of an advantage depending on "one's" mode of ideological patternism. At the horizon (whatever that is), I expect a higher payoff would go to those who recognize that a duplicate is an additional moral agent, a new important life, added complexity in space, even if in a sense redundant, not a justification for an original's suicide or otherwise self-destructive behavior. And that's all still being pre-academic.

But that's you and your entourage, my friend.

[DJS]

Ideological patternists have a big advantage here because they can just send their nanotech hardware ahead of them at near light speed, with their personal identity held as tightly packaged information, or even transmitted later, to be reassembled into flesh-and-blood at far flung destinations.

Perhaps you will eventually make me understand otherwise, but ideological patternists will have more or less of an advantage depending on "one's" mode of ideological patternism. At the horizon (whatever that is), I expect a higher payoff would go to those who recognize that a duplicate is an additional moral agent, a new important life, added complexity in space, even if in a sense redundant, not a justification for an original's suicide or otherwise self-destructive behavior. And that's all still being pre-academic.

But that's you and your entourage, my friend.

It is hard to imagine a scenario that would justify the destruction of any particular copy of an identity, being that each copy is acquiring unique information after the moment of duplication. However, specific attitudes of duplicated identities could blur the line between destruction and creation. For instance, if the attitude is maintained that all duplications are sufficiently analogous to permit reintegration at some point (which, if we're assuming future tech that will allow for duplication, why not also reintegration?) , then much more aggregate experience is possible than for a comparable entity without this attitude. Such a "recombinant self" wouldn't have the same concerns about the corruption of its identity that might exist if multiple (non-duplicate) individuals were considering a similar merger.


...Although it should be noted that drastic divergence of the duplicates' dispositions could result in scenarios where a duplicate refuses reintegration because it recognizes that, with multiple configurations needing to be reconciled, the continuity of its new unique identity would not be adequately preserved. A perfect case for Court TV circa 2500.

[bgwowk]

One other point about real interstellar travel that differs from sci-fi: All trips are one-way. People and societies change so fast relative to interstellar travel times that no place harboring intelligent life would be the same on a return mision. You can never go home. Home is whatever you take with you.

[Kalepha]

Such a "recombinant self" wouldn't have the same concerns about the corruption of its identity that might exist if multiple (non-duplicate) individuals were considering a similar merger.

Definitely. Furthermore, I would still propose that even two or more identities with completely different histories wouldn't mind full integration. Granted that the details would be extremely technical, likely their only set of agreements would take the character that 1) the new identity won't be erasing any memories, that 2) it won't have too inflexible of a lifestyle as to be "emotionally" conflictive (which shouldn't be much of a problem in an advanced state of affairs), and that 3) any identity can detach at any time with or without some or all of the new memories from its integration. I think when we minimally recognize highly adaptive persons, the importance of memories, and the certain relevance of particular memory vehicles, we see new possibilities. The only constraint would indeed be about declaring neither clinical death nor a completely fulfilled purpose.