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Atmosphere discovery makes Trappist-1 exoplanet priority in hunt for alien life

https://www.theguardian.com/science...ority-in-hunt-for-alien-life?CMP=share_btn_tw

An Earth-sized world that swings around a star in the constellation of Aquarius has become a priority in the search for extraterrestrial life after scientists found that an atmosphere could have enveloped the planet for billions of years.

The planet is one of seven circling a small and feeble star called Trappist-1 which astronomers reported in a wave of excitement in February this year. The rocky world lies in the habitable zone around its parent star, where temperatures should allow for free-running water, but that would count for little if the planet has no atmosphere.

“Since the discovery of the seven planets there has been a great deal of interest in using telescopes such as the upcoming James Webb Space Telescope to determine whether these planets have atmospheres, and if so, what their composition is like,” said Manasvi Lingam at Harvard University. “It is fair to say that the presence of an atmosphere is perceived as one of the requirements for the habitability of a planet.”

qK44SbC.jpg


I for one, etc, etc.
 

Kieli

Member
Wow, that title is even worse than clickbait because it's deliberately misleading. At least with clickbait, you won't know what you're missing out on or what you won't believe until you click on it.
 

UCBooties

Member
Fun fact: Because of time dilation a trip to Trappist-1 at a constant 1g of acceleration would take something like 7 years of subjective ship-board time. Meanwhile 40+ years would have passed on earth.

Wouldn't it take longer because you'd have to start decelerating halfway through the trip?
 

G.ZZZ

Member
A model proving that there CAN be atmosphere around such a planet is a completely different thing from actually observing said atmosphere, come on dude. We'll need 2 to 3 years AT THE LEAST to actually observe the presence of an atmosphere.
 

UCBooties

Member
I'll be so very sad if the JWST doesn't get to it's deployment spot and properly deploy :(



The 7.3 year value includes this

I believe the 7 years includes deceleration for the second half of the trip. I just read that from people smarter than me on the internet, though.

E: Here's a nice graphic from Wikipedia. Trappist-1 falls between Arcturus and Aldebaran.

Roundtriptimes.png


The article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_travel_using_constant_acceleration

Cool, thank you for the clarification.
 

Stinkles

Clothed, sober, cooperative
Well, I got my first hate match where a dude goes off yelling about my dr. fate. I wasn't even being zoney with him. After that, I teabagged and sat in the corner and put a wall of projectiles up heh

There is so much crap where I have no idea if it hits high or low because it animates so fast

What the dickens...
 
Fun fact: Because of time dilation a trip to Trappist-1 at a constant 1g of acceleration would take something like 7 years of subjective ship-board time. Meanwhile 40+ years would have passed on earth.
Honestly makes it worse,
It could be a feasible trip but without FTL...
 

Blizzard

Banned
Honestly makes it worse,
It could be a feasible trip but without FTL...
I feel like there has been at least one horror book or movie like this, where a really slow expedition is sent. Then, years later, a faster ship is sent.

Eventually the original ship is close to arriving, but the faster ships discovered some horrible evil at the destination, and/or the origin world has been destroyed, and/or any manner of other horror has happened.
 
“Since the discovery of the seven planets there has been a great deal of interest in using telescopes such as the upcoming James Webb Space Telescope to determine whether these planets have atmospheres, and if so, what their composition is like,” said Manasvi Lingam at Harvard University. “It is fair to say that the presence of an atmosphere is perceived as one of the requirements for the habitability of a planet.”

Sixty Symbols recently uploaded a video on the JWST. It sounds like a massive technical challenge.
 

TCRS

Banned
there must be millions of planets with atmospheres. the probability of only one planet with atmosphere (ie our earth) in the entire universe must be tending towards zero. so there's probably aliens buzzing around everywhere.
 
there must be millions of planets with atmospheres. the probability of only one planet with atmosphere (ie our earth) in the entire universe must be tending towards zero. so there's probably aliens buzzing around everywhere.

And they are all trapped into their solar systems.
 
there must be millions of planets with atmospheres. the probability of only one planet with atmosphere (ie our earth) in the entire universe must be tending towards zero. so there's probably aliens buzzing around everywhere.

Yeah there's a few in our own system. Mars, Venus, Jupiter etc.
 

parmanu

Member
there must be millions of planets with atmospheres. the probability of only one planet with atmosphere (ie our earth) in the entire universe must be tending towards zero. so there's probably aliens buzzing around everywhere.

The problem is that visible universe is so unimaginably vast that with current technology it is almost impossible to detect any such worlds even if they are in our neighborhood.
 

Joni

Member
Of course. We created high expectations by naming the planets after the best type of beer. This would be the one to deliver.
 
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