Archive for the 'Alien life' Category

In the previous article, the topic was Gliese 581c a Earth-like planet recently discovered. Gliese 581c is very noteworthy because this planet is located in the habitable zone of it’s “sun” (red dwarf star Gliese 581c). This means that the orbit meets the “Goldilocks principle” and it’s neither too close or too far from the heat of red dwarf sun. A lot of further research is needed to determine if 581c has other characteristics necessary for life (the presence of water has been theorized but is far from confirmed), but it has become of the most promising candidates for extraterrestrial life.

Let’s say that further tests do show an Earth-like atmosphere and large of amounts of water. We would obviously send a space probe, but could we ever send a manned mission there? Not impossible, but extremely difficult at this point because while 581c is “relatively close” it’s still 20.5 light years away (194 trillion km or 120 trillion miles) away!

This distance is extremely daunting because even at the top launch speed achieved by a space probe (the New Horizons mission to Pluto was clocked at 58,356 km/hr or 36,261 mph), it would take 379,132.96 years to get to Gliese 581c! We could launch a probe and maybe our great-(great times ~15,000)-grandchildren could analyze the data, but there is also a huge problem in that NASA is only comfortable with a lifetime of 63 years before today’s spacecraft technology will break down.

While researchers have explored in a serious matter some very exotic ways of getting there like wormholes and theoretical light-speed propulsion systems, I think it’s safe to say that we won’t be getting to Gliese 581c via Star Trek warp drive. However, more powerful propulsion systems are definitely down the road, so the commute to Gliese will probably be shortened. Regardless, it will take a long time to travel there and even microscopic cosmic dusk has a sandblasting effect that might cause serious damage and eventual long-term breakdown of the probe. A solution to that problem is that if humans were abroad, we could do the repairs necessary to keep things moving along. Repair robots could also do the job for a probe, but over thousands of years they would be just as vulnerable (even if these robots built new robots to replace themselves) and artificial intelligence does have it’s limits. This leads to probably the most feasible solution to exploring and settling Gliese 581c: a generation ship that would involve setting up a small society to live and reproduce inside a spacecraft along the long road to Gliese 581c.

Of course, this solution has its own set of unique problems. First, maintaining morale and order in this mini-society could prove to be difficult. There are stories from the Biosphere 2 project and the overall field of psychology that raise some ominous doubts about a generation ship. Biosphere 2 (Planet Earth is Biosphere 1) was an experiment were humans entered into air-tight greenhouse structure and tried to survive completely isolated from the outside. One of the biggest problems with Biosphere 2 was the psychology of humans living together in really close quarters, but the stress of not being to grow enough food is probably more to blame for the high level of tension inside. More and more studies of this nature would be needed to create a healthy mini-society for the generation ship.

The second problem would be maintaining a healthy gene pool through the years. A population of 150 would the bare minimum, but that would be cutting it close. This problem could be solved by building up a huge bank of frozen sperm and eggs, but a small population is still vulnerable to the any possible disease outbreaks and if societal breakdown does occur. The best solution would be send something like a 100,000 people that could be governed like a city. Plus, this set-up would be easily transferred to actually settling Gliese 581c as a new home. (Don’t forget the eventual goal of this ambitious mission) The serious drawback is that we would have to build an immense spacecraft, so there would probably have to be a compromise between population size and ship size.

Much more to come on intersteller travel and concepts like the generation ship. Obviously we have serious problems that we have to deal with on Biosphere 1 first, but it’s definitely something to keep on the backburner. While it’s a fun and fascinating concept to think about settling on another planet, it’s also a serious issue in case of some kind of extinction level event (ELE) that humanity can’t handle. No matter what, we can’t put it off “forever” because the Sun will become a red giant star one day. Notice that forever is in quotation remarks because that day is 4-5 billion years away. Interesting fact: the Earth won’t actually engulfed by the Sun as previously thought. Recent research has concluded that the Earth will be pushed away as the Sun enters the red giant phase, but all the water and atmosphere will be boiled away so our great-(great times ~160 million)-grandchildren will be pretty much screwed at that point.

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Posted by Tim Roth, author of the political blog Think Anew and Act Anew

Sources:
1. “Stunning new planet discovery”, previous article on this blog.

2. “Interstellar travel”, Wikipedia entry

3. “Biosphere 2″, Wikipedia entry

4. “Sun”, Wikipedia entry

The possibility of extraterrestrial life is a topic that is endlessly fascinating. Every since the confirmed discovery of the first exoplanet, or extrasolar planet in 1995, every single discovery fell victim to the “Goldilocks Problem”. This means that they were either too hot, too cold, or giant gas planets like Jupiter.

This all changed this week when astronomers at the European Southern Observatory announced the existence of “581 c” a planet that lies within the habitable zone of the red dwarf star called Gliese 581. This means the 581 c is just the right distance from the Gliese 581 “sun”.

There are many unanswered questions about this planet that may diminish the chances for life, but this is a major step in this field. After all, Mars falls within the hospitable zone of the Sun and it’s not thriving with life. As a counterpoint, it should be noted that there is a growing possibility that Mars has life below the surface or was inhabited in the past.

With that note of caution out of the way, what would life be like on 581 c?

- Probably a rocky surface like Earth, but might be a giant iceball with pools of water. Either way there is decent chance that 581 c has a lot of water based on the theories of planetary formation.

- Average temperature is believed to be 32-104 degrees F (0-40 degrees C)

- Gravity is about 1.6 times stronger on Earth, so multiply your weight times 1.6 and that would be your weight on 581 c.

- The sun, Gliese 581 c, is very close because a red dwarf star is much cooler than our Sun. A sunny day on 581 c results in a giant red sun in the sky that would be twenty times bigger than the Moon in our sky.

- Your birthday would be every 13 days.

- There might not be a sunrise or sunset. The astronomers have concluded that it probably doesn’t rotate (not a confirmed fact, though), so the light side of the planet could be an optimal place for life to prosper under a giant red “charcoal ember” in the sky.

This is definitely one of the most exciting stories I’ve heard in a long time, so stay tuned for more on this story as scientists try to confirm the presence of water and what atmosphere this new planet has. Also, the existence of a planet of a red dwarf star (let alone a potentially Earth-like planet) was somewhat of a surprise for scientists and they have spent more time on more Sun-like stars in the past, so there’s a good chance of hearing about more Earth-like planets in the future. This adds further excitement to the story because 80% of the stars relatively “close” to Earth are red-dwarfs….so cool.

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On a lighter note, a sign of how significant this story is can be found in reports from our good friends across the big pond in England. Upon the news of 581 c, bookmakers have lowered the odds of extraterrestrial life from 1000-1 to 100-1!

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On a more romantic note, scientists at SETI (Search for Extra-Terrestrial Life Institute) quickly made plans to focus more attention on 581 c in hopes of hearing what’s playing on the radio stations on 581 c. Wouldn’t that be something, eh?

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Posted by Tim Roth, author of the political blog Think Anew and Act Anew

Sources:
1. “Extrasolar planet”, Wikipedia entry.

2. “Potentially Habitable Planet Found” by Seth Borenstein of the Associated Press.

3. “Scientists find most Earth-like planet yet”, very similar AP report to the above Washington Post source (the introduction is different).

4. “Bookies give alien life good odds”, Peter Sorel-Cameron for CNN