SRL Archive - World News

Astronomers believe the two ocean dominated worlds, which are around one and a half times the size of Earth, lie within the so-called Goldilocks zone around their star.
This is the distance from the star where it would be neither too hot nor too cold for there to be liquid water on the planet surface.
Scientists using Nasa’s Kepler space telescope, which has been searching for habitable planets outside our solar system, spotted the two planets orbiting a star called Kepler-62 1,200 light years away.

They found three other planets orbiting the same star – which is slightly smaller and cooler than our sun.
By calculating the amount of light the planets blocked out as they passed in front of their star, astronomers were able to calculate their size and orbit.

One of the planets – called Kepler-62f – is 1.4 times larger than the Earth and may even be a rocky planet while another, called Kepler-62e, is 1.6 times the size of Earth and is closer to the star.

Most other planets discovered in the habitable zone around stars have been giants, many times larger than our own.
Dr Eric Agol, an astronomer at University of Washington who was one of the team to discover the planets, said: “Planets this small found until now have been very close to their stars and much too hot to be possibly habitable.
“This is the first one that Kepler has found in the habitable zone that is a small size.”
Computer modelling by researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy and the Harvard-Smithsonian Centre for Astrophysics, suggests the two new planets may be covered in global oceans.

They said that while Kepler-62e was likely to have a cloudy and humid climate, Kepler-62f would be cooler and could even be covered in large areas of ice.
"These planets are unlike anything in our solar system,” said Dr Lisa Kaltenegger, who conducted the modelling. “They have endless oceans.
"Life on these worlds would be under water with no easy access to metals, to electricity, or fire for metallurgy.
“Nonetheless, these worlds will still be beautiful blue planets circling an orange star."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/space/10003826/Two-Earth-like-blue-planets-discovered-orbiting-distant-star.html


Cool!

that is cool man!

now we just need to sort out warp speed/hyper space and we'll be sweet! :p

I read about this. I thought it said 3, hmm, maybe I read wrong.
Yeah if only we had the means to travel such a vast distance. I don't see that possible anytime soon.

From: Neznam
I read about this. I thought it said 3, hmm, maybe I read wrong.
Yeah if only we had the means to travel such a vast distance. I don't see that possible anytime soon.

yeah there are 3 other planets as well apparently.

somehow i dont think we will ever make it that far :p … nuclear war will come way before serious space travel in my opinion.

We should 'break a tab, open our arms to the side' and hope to appear on those planets..lol
I dont think we will ever reach that far into space..

From: Silentcore
We should 'break a tab, open our arms to the side' and hope to appear on those planets..lol
I dont think we will ever reach that far into space..

Not in our life time of course not and if we aren't destroyed by nuclear war or some super virus then yeah I believe one day it will be possible. Technology is advancing more and more.

So the real question: Do you think there's life on those planets? It's a possibility!

From: Aph0tix
So the real question: Do you think there's life on those planets? It's a possibility!

i would say given enough time in the right conditions (millions of years) eventually some basic life form would emerge … and then given conditions are still favourable evolution is a natural process … not that i know much about these things, just what i have picked up from the discovery channel :p aha

From: EngageTheRage
i would say given enough time in the right conditions (millions of years) eventually some basic life form would emerge … and then given conditions are still favourable evolution is a natural process … not that i know much about these things, just what i have picked up from the discovery channel :p aha

There could already be life there, I'm guessing the telescope isn't powerful enough to pick up anything as small as an animal or plant. Hey, maybe there's a group of people over there playing a game called ScapeRune?

From: Neznam
Not in our life time of course not and if we aren't destroyed by nuclear war or some super virus then yeah I believe one day it will be possible. Technology is advancing more and more.

The universe is expanding. Distances between planets get bigger. If I would shoot a bullet at that planet which travels above the 2000km/hour, it will never reach the planet. The expansion is way bigger. Many planets can not be reached. I would be surprised if it ever became possible.

From: Neznam
Not in our life time of course not and if we aren't destroyed by nuclear war or some super virus then yeah I believe one day it will be possible. Technology is advancing more and more.

Nah, the distances are too vast, I'm afraid.

From: masterBB
The universe is expanding. Distances between planets get bigger. If I would shoot a bullet at that planet which travels above the 2000km/hour, it will never reach the planet. The expansion is way bigger. Many planets can not be reached. I would be surprised if it ever became possible.

From: superuser
Nah, the distances are too vast, I'm afraid.

Of course the distances are great and yes the universe is expanding, but I'm not saying we'll be able to do this in the next decade, nor century. It may take a few centuries or even a millennium, but yea one day it will be possible.

Maybe wormholes would be possible, or reaching speeds of speed of light or greater (yet even then it would take a long time). You never know what the future holds. I'm optimistic. Shame we won't live to see it. Would be amazing.

There will never be speed faster than the speed of light in terms of human travel because it violates the safety of the vertebrae. You would probably die of severe spinal trauma resulting in your cervical vertebrae becoming detached from your skull. If you didn't die you would most likely have that one "warped-spine" thing I forget the name of it. So in my opinion, travel to those planets is impossible.

From: Neznam
Of course the distances are great and yes the universe is expanding, but I'm not saying we'll be able to do this in the next decade, nor century. It may take a few centuries or even a millennium, but yea one day it will be possible.

Maybe wormholes would be possible, or reaching speeds of speed of light or greater (yet even then it would take a long time). You never know what the future holds. I'm optimistic. Shame we won't live to see it. Would be amazing.

The speed of light constitutes a universal speed limit. Theory of special relativity dictates that an object gains mass as it accelerates. The faster it goes, the more massive it becomes. The more massive it becomes, the more thrust or push it requires in order to maintain its speed. According to relativistic predictions, if an object with any mass were to achieve the speed of light, its mass would become infinite, which seems impossible in its own right. But assuming that the object did achieve infinite mass during light-speed travel, to keep moving, the power behind its thrust or push would need to be infinite as well.

No force in the known universe can achieve this, short of space-time itself :(

From: Joseph D
There will never be speed faster than the speed of light in terms of human travel because it violates the safety of the vertebrae. You would probably die of severe spinal trauma resulting in your cervical vertebrae becoming detached from your skull. If you didn't die you would most likely have that one "warped-spine" thing I forget the name of it. So in my opinion, travel to those planets is impossible.

From: superuser
The speed of light constitutes a universal speed limit. Theory of special relativity dictates that an object gains mass as it accelerates. The faster it goes, the more massive it becomes. The more massive it becomes, the more thrust or push it requires in order to maintain its speed. According to relativistic predictions, if an object with any mass were to achieve the speed of light, its mass would become infinite, which seems impossible in its own right. But assuming that the object did achieve infinite mass during light-speed travel, to keep moving, the power behind its thrust or push would need to be infinite as well.

No force in the known universe can achieve this, short of space-time itself :(

Ok people be open minded and please read what I wrote on my last post, this wont be attained anytime soon because YES it is impossible but you never know what the future holds.

I love the vastness of space, gosh i wish we were in the future already where space travel is more convenient.

Even if we were travelling at the speed of light, it would still take 1,200 years (unless I read that incorrectly…) That is about 14 life spans.

Worm Holes would be the only viable way, but that has not been studied nearly enough for us to make any assumptions to how they actually work… Also could we create our own wormholes etc. etc.

Anyway, time will tell… I believe by the time I am 80+ the technology we have will have improved 1000 fold, that is to say certain "laws" stay in place cough Moore.

And we will never know if this was legit.

yes but don't forget there's always the possibility of 'freezing' our bodies as we travel to these distant planets, soon enough we may be able to utilise this and actually be able to discover planets that are thousands of years away.. or maybe i just watch to many movies :)

Cool, but those are too far away to be investigated closely?

Time to look for wormholes and make avatar movie a reality. Imagine if we found sth like a bronze or stone age civilization :p

From: l6bustank
Time to look for wormholes and make avatar movie a reality. Imagine if we found sth like a bronze or stone age civilization :p

I would get my smithing level so high :)

But yeah a second planet would be awesome. Would have some strict environmental rules though.

We need a stargate.

should just not fucked this planted up i suppose.

It took Billions of years for Earth to habitabal by humans, maybe those planets are on their way or maybe earth is the only one. Only god knows.

From: xtrapsp
We need a stargate.

Who is to say we do not have it already. =P but yes i do totally agree, we definitely need to come up with FTL ships or well find a stargate in Antarctica