Hard Light Productions Forums
Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: Bryan See on February 24, 2017, 12:03:08 pm
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(https://exoplanets.nasa.gov/system/news_items/main_images/1419_Pressrelease1280t.jpg)
Have you heard of the press release on February 22, 2017 (https://exoplanets.nasa.gov/news/1419/nasa-telescope-reveals-largest-batch-of-earth-size-habitable-zone-planets-around-single-star/), where NASA announced the discovery of the most Earth-sized planets found in the habitable zone of a single star, called TRAPPIST-1? It sounds exciting for us to set up shop there :D
(https://exoplanets.nasa.gov/system/content_pages/main_images/2981_t1d_system.jpg)
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Fun Fact: Elite Dangerous' galaxy generation algorithm (Something they termed the Stellar Forge) is actually good enough that it spit out a system very close to the one NASA found in that region of space (And the differences between the Stellar Forge version of this system and the one we found are differences that cannot be detected using current technology)
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I am not sure what's better:
- That they found a system with 7 such planets, which is amazing
- What the E just said
- That they named the whole thing after beer brewing monks (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trappist_beer)!
What a time to be a geek!
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More cool things to note:
- 3 of The system's 7 planets are in the stars habitable zone.
- The star is at least 500 million years old, a toddler by geological standards. (our sun is about 9X that age) but is has a potential lifespan hundreds of times longer than the sun's.
- a year on most of these plants is only a few / few dozen days.
- It's about twice as far as Gliese-581.
- We could learn a lot about planetary formation by studying these planet's orbital relationships.
- The star has a high metallicity. "Yo, Milky way- you got a gray hair!"
- Everything on Joshua's bullet list.
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This looks like it would be a really cool fantasy world to write stories in. Imagine if life evolved, independently and roughly at the same time, on every habitable planet of the system. It probably won't be long before this system appears in SF (it's especially nice because if you just make up a system like that, people will call you out on how unlikely it is :)).
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Only 39.5 light years away. Just a stone's throw and a bit :)
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Only 39.5 light years away. Just a stone's throw and a bit :)
Charlie Stross should get his light/laser sail powered "soda can" ready to explore !
Oh wait, we need mind uploads for that first ... ah well. ;-)
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Let's move to TRAPPIST-1 before something catastrophic happens on Earth (i.e. a third World War, climate change, asteroid impact or some threatening geological event like earthquakes and volcano eruptions).
But first, are there any Shivans and Vasudans there?
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Unlikely, but it certainly wouldn't hurt to beam a message with a large narrow beam antenna their way, just in case. After all, what is 40 years on interstellar scales? If we were to get an answer, some of the people who originally sent it may still be alive (though pretty ancient) by the time it gets there, assuming they reply promptly and not get bogged in a "His Master's Voice"-style conundrum. :)
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You're referring to the scale of two times the distance between us and Gliese 581.