New Solar System Habitable?

[Colten 0]

Scientists in NASA have found a solar system 41 light years away. It holds 4 planets and some are habitable because they have gravity and can hold water in a liquid form. However, each of the four planets are the size of Neptune or bigger. They also all revolve around a large sun.

I didnt copy this article, but if you'd like to read more about it you can check out http://www.space.com/ and search for new solar system

[FLaKes 0]

Every time I read or find about something like this it makes me wonder why I wasnt born many years in to the future, since I love space and I think space travelling would be really fun. Discovering other places and things in space would be amazing.

[Colten 0]

Every time I read or find about something like this it makes me wonder why I wasnt born many years in to the future, since I love space and I think space travelling would be really fun. Discovering other places and things in space would be amazing.

Same here

[Lyon2 0]

It is a very important discovery in fact, this is good news because maybe we are not alone in this universe, and so maybe we can get some help resolving our very big problems of our planet.I find that site very interesting, and discovering stuff in the space must be quite interesting and exciting at least.I beleave it must be one of the most exciting jobs one person could ever have on a life time.I will visit that site more often indeed.Thanks for sharing the news and the site link.

Edited December 1, 2007 by Lyon2 (see edit history)

[cangor 0]

I'm pretty sure humans couldn't live on such a large planet, even if the other conditions are all right. The truth is, they've discovered hundreds of planets in other solar systems, but with the technology they have now there's no way they can detect something small enough that we could live on it.

[A200 0]

Same story pops up all the time... the fact is that even if we did discover another planet, it would likely be far far far away, uncontactable via common methods, and its just another planet human kind will eventually stuff up!

[suberatu 0]

Now this is interesting news. I can relate to what FLaKes and Colten are saying. I too wish that I was born at a time when actual space travel was possible. So many interesting possibilities...

[day_armstrong 0]

I used to dream that way, too. But come on guys, 41 light years away. 41 years travelling with the speed of light. I personally can not imagine the shuttle ship to be used for the journey. How they design the ship so that the crew are not much affected by acceleration until such a speed? How they find fuel for 41 years at least? ( remember Einstein rule: nothing faster than light).

[csp4.0 1]

I used to dream that way, too. But come on guys, 41 light years away. 41 years traveling with the speed of light. I personally can not imagine the shuttle ship to be used for the journey. How they design the ship so that the crew are not much affected by acceleration until such a speed? How they find fuel for 41 years at least? ( remember Einstein rule: nothing faster than light).

That is where you are terribly wrong... so wrong... We have higher technology than you think (da-di-da... Plasma shields (yes, plasma shields), railguns (yes, rail guns...)) And just by a little bit of chance we have a way to increase the speed of light, it works kind of like a wind tunnel (don't blame me for not thinking of a better example). So if nothing can go faster than the speed of light, why not make the speed of light go faster?

But what if we could envelope a 'ship' in an area of space which does not apply the normal laws of physics and so the craft can go faster than the speed of light, and also because it does not obey the normal laws of physics it can just by chance travel in real-time (so 1 minute inside is also 1 minute outside regardless of the object's speed). You mentioned fuel, or in this case energy. What if we can create a device which 'uses' the zero point energy in this universe (I know the vacuum energy is minucule but this universe is vast, its energy reserves are... are infinite)
Edited January 3, 2008 by csp4.0 (see edit history)

[Arkan 0]

The big problem is speed. Yeah, we know some planets have the conditions suitable for human life, the question is - how do we go there? It's been a half on a century since man got his feet on the moon but no incredible development has been made since then. We've got rockets exploding, missions having big problem, the only breakthrough are some probes we sent in the early 90s and the telescopes that enable us to see further.

[Forbez 0]

I can't find the article, did you catch the name of this new solar system?It's great making discoveries like that then, for us, to read about them. Really puts your life into scale. Their finding new solar systems, new stars and all sorts out there. We may think we're all thats here, but were not. Which, can be scary but alsoa happy feeling of life prolonging somewhere out there.

[musicmaza 0]

Yes that could be of great benefit as research tells that due to increasing global warming the ice-caps could melt and the whole earth could get submerged in waterSo if theres a new solar system with planets having water in liquid form then its really good and it would of great benefit for mankind.So people are already bying land on mars,so the land on those four planets 41 light years away should also be sold now.well I m thinking to buy a land there,though it would be costly,before everyone buys and already gets an assurance to his/her life.

[Caius 0]

Firstly, I am amazed by this discovery, and also thank you for posting this... I now need to go bookmark an astronomy/physics news site. Thank you for reminding me I'll now check the article for all relevant data. Er, can't find it in 3 seconds so I'll comment on what I know:Providing the gravity of these worlds is less than 5 gs people could live there, but be uncomfortable at worst (at least by gravity). 10gs extended can be deadly sometimes. 3gs, or around and approaching three times the mass of earth is good and potentially a easy world to adapt to, noted that moving an object would take proportionately more energy. My brain is needing an update to cache data about this but I beleive Neptune is between 5-10 gs, perhaps seven... but then again this is uncached data I am reconstructin. Even that is a usable world and depending on atmosphere and temperature, perhaps habitable.Getting to a world like that would require either patience or one of the technologies we have yet to even partially understand. It is not impossible, as wormholes, time/space modification, and zero-point energy feilds (of standard and non-standard demensional interpretations) have yet to be disproved.If those worlds are there, perhaps we, or some race more aclimated to the world from their own, will colonize there. Technollogy may very well still accelerate into the Similarity (look it up) and who knows when progress will slow or when we will have the capiblity to get there.If it is already inhabited (if it can it likely will be) please keep in mind that we must not destroy that ecosystem.Also, If a civilization lives there, let their fate not be that of neandertal, mammoth, and aboriginal tribes worldwide in being forced to change to our perspective....Let us hope that this shall be Earth's first true experience with Xenobiology...the biology of what is subjectively alien to us.

[csp4.0 1]

Who knows? The world's population is increasing dramatically, within maybe one thousand years Earth may look something like Coruscant or even worse, Holy Terra. But by then, Mars should be completely terra-formed. Ayway, we need to develope advanced and exotic technologies if the human race is to survive, and one way is to find planets suitable of being inhabited. And not to alert possibly hostile aliens to the location of Earth. Discovering this solar system among the many others will greatly improve on how Solar Systems are discovered and lower the percentage of chance of being false alarms. As you said, we must be very careful to not destroy that eco-system, the common cold which is a nuisance on Earth, might be some great plague that wipes out their civilization withing seconds. And we must make sure that first contact is friendly and that we (the human race) will not give them (if more advanced than they (the aliens) are) our technology until they are trusted to do so.We must also make sure that the planet has no 'hidden surprises' so that the planet won't be a giant super-volcano or the Sun is really unstable and will suddenly go supernova if any iron is in contact with the hydrogen core.And last of all, we must respect their technology, and must not scavenge it for our own (possibly evil) uses. We must also respect them.All the above is what we should do if we do make contact, but there is always the chance that this planet is a gas giant twenty times the size of Jupiter and half of it goes inside the sun during summer...

[strange-garden 0]

"each of the four planets are the size of Neptune or bigger. They also all revolve around a large sun."So they're not habitable. You dirty filthy liar, you.<3