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#1 2007-04-25 12:12:33
- Tom Kalbfus
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Re: How about terraforming this planet?
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news … 43885.html
They say it is five times as massive as Earth, three times as distant from its sun as we are to ours, and its sun has only one fifth the mass as our own. This planet is 20,000 light years away toward the center of our galaxy. Five times the mass means 1.7 times the diameter and 1.7 times the gravity, if we assume Earthlike densities. But this planet is as cold as Pluto, so what does this suggest about its composition? It suggests that the planet is composed of alot of ices.
The density of earth is 5.515 g/cm^3, the density of water is 1.000 g/cm^3. Now if you increased the diameter of the planet to 2.217 times that of Earth while keeping the mass the same, you would have one Earth gravity on its surface, that would require that the planet have a density of 2.488 g/cm^3, this is greater than Pluto's and our four gas giants. The diameter of this planet if it had these values would be 28,400 km approximately. A mirror about 1,100,000 km in diameter can focus the distant star's light onto this planet's far side, making it the day side of the planet, while the side closer to the star would experience a level of illumination directly from the star similar to full Moonlight. Chances are if a planet like this were heated up to Earth temperature, what we'd end up with would be a Thassalasic planet completely covered in oceans and surrounded by an atmosphere of unbreathable gases. The next step would be to introduce simple plants to convert the C02 into oxygen, and perhaps break down the methane. The atmospheric composition may be similar to Titan's which would mean a substantial amount of nitrogen. this planet is 20,000 light years away. A fast starship travelling at 0.1 c could reach it in 200,000 years, and a sleeper ship traveling at 0.02c could reach it in 1,000,000 years and if things go right and the planet has the right physical characteristics, the colonists could arrive at a thasalassic planet with a breathable atmosphere in about 1,000,000. Of course freezing the colonists and successfully reviving them 1,000,000 years later is not a trivial problem.[/url]
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#2 2007-04-25 12:50:55
- Number04
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Re: How about terraforming this planet?
given that we are having a problem convincing people to go on a six month trip to mars... a 200,000 year minimum might ramp up the difficulty level a bit.
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#3 2007-04-26 01:51:02
- Tom Kalbfus
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Re: How about terraforming this planet?
given that we are having a problem convincing people to go on a six month trip to mars... a 200,000 year minimum might ramp up the difficulty level a bit.
Mars can't be terraformed in six months.
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#4 2007-04-26 11:07:54
- Number04
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Re: How about terraforming this planet?
I was referring to the travel time to get there.
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#5 2007-04-26 11:55:18
- X
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Re: How about terraforming this planet?
But the time would be twice that wouldn't it. Someone or something has to go and do the prep work before the colonists leave don't they?
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#6 2007-04-26 12:47:17
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Re: How about terraforming this planet?
Lets think about this more of a problem in technology than distance.
100 years ago how long did it take to go around the world?
How long now?
And how long 100 years from now?
20 LY's might seem an unimaginable distance right now, but will it be so unimaginable in 100 years, or even a less daunting distance 100 later than that.
The planet.....
We should probably have someone here that knows more about red dwarf star formation process, the radiation that star produces and the likeliness that a planet orbiting at 15 day years could even have an atmosphere.
If it is about 2.2 G X Earth then we probably could adapt ourselves to it, but more likely we would adapt the planet to us.
If we have the technology to go visit it, then we probably have the technology to rework it to our likening.
Science facts are only as good as knowledge.
Knowledge is only as good as the facts.
New knowledge is only as good as the ones that don't respect the first two.
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#7 2007-04-26 13:25:17
- Number04
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Re: How about terraforming this planet?
I personally think the more interesting topic is the social impact that this could have. At current, the world is in a religious frenzy. The idea that life exists other then here is against their beliefs. Now, Christians once told everyone the earth was round and that was it. That has since changed and there is no reason that in time they could come to understand this as well.
But, there is a mountain of tension already between different religions and especially in the USA, religion VS science.
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#8 2007-04-26 14:39:06
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Re: How about terraforming this planet?
Number04,
What is the bible passage?
Something like ... mankind has domain of all creatures on Earth...
A god of all the universe makes more sense to me than a god limited to just earth in all the universe.
If god exists in any religion he should be god of everything, not just Earth.
Pretty simple for any religion to embrace a grander god.
Science and religion need not clash.
Sure finding another Earth like place will be a tough pill to swallow for a regional species, but an easy one to swallow for a species of the universe.
When or if we find Earth2 the universe will still be the same, just our understanding of it will change.
When we find Earth99 we might have a start on understanding the universe as it really is.
Just my 2 1/4 cents cnd... = 2 cents USA.
Science facts are only as good as knowledge.
Knowledge is only as good as the facts.
New knowledge is only as good as the ones that don't respect the first two.
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#9 2007-04-26 18:35:18
- X
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Re: How about terraforming this planet?
At current, the world is in a religious frenzy. The idea that life exists other then here is against their beliefs.
That's not true. Every major religion on the planet predates the discovery of the Americas, and their discovery didn't cause any serious problem (at least of the type you're describing). Besides there's nothing particularly special about plants and animals as far as most religions are concerned since they're viewed as lacking souls, and those that do believe they have souls believe in reincarnation so there's nothing precluding you from being reborn as the equivalent of a cow on some other world.
The creation of a truly intelligent machine or the cloning of human would be a harder doctrinal problem than the discovery of an intelligent alien species, and even those would likely be resolved within a few years.
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#10 2007-04-27 07:30:22
- Tom Kalbfus
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Re: How about terraforming this planet?
I personally think the more interesting topic is the social impact that this could have. At current, the world is in a religious frenzy. The idea that life exists other then here is against their beliefs. Now, Christians once told everyone the earth was round and that was it. That has since changed and there is no reason that in time they could come to understand this as well.
But, there is a mountain of tension already between different religions and especially in the USA, religion VS science.
I don't know which religion your refering to that says there are no extraterrestrial civilizations, but I don't hear anything about it in the Catholic Church. Most of the tensions between religions I see are in the Middle East.
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#11 2007-04-27 11:04:46
- Number04
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Re: How about terraforming this planet?
Well, in any case I’m way off topic with religion. I reposted it here.
http://www.newmars.com/forums/viewtopic … highlight=
Do we even need to attempt terra forming? I could be that all we need to do is dump some algae in the water it might have to get us some oxygen. Time will tell I suppose.
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#12 2007-04-27 19:04:57
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Re: How about terraforming this planet?
Number04,
Maybe this new planet is made of lighter things than earth.
Could be a red dwarf takes much longer to form and uses up more heavy elements than a standard yellow star like ours.
This planet could be five times the size of earth and still have similar gravity.
Or it could be 5 times earth gravity since red dwarfs form quicker leaving much more heavy material for planets to be created from.
Lets not put our regional prejudices on other worlds and star types 
Wish a red dwarf expert would now arrive for a few educated guesses
Science facts are only as good as knowledge.
Knowledge is only as good as the facts.
New knowledge is only as good as the ones that don't respect the first two.
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#13 2007-04-29 11:09:26
- Tom Kalbfus
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Re: How about terraforming this planet?
A planet with 5 times the mass of Earth won't have 5 times the gravity unless its also 5 times as dense or about 25 g/cm^3. If the planet was made out of platinum or osmium, you can expect some compression at the core and a good chance of the planet's overall density being somewhere in the neighborhood of 25 g/cm^3. I think however that solid platinum planets are decidedly rare. and with only 5 times the mass of Earth to work with five time the Earth's gravity cannot normally be achieved. If you had a planet with 5 times the Earth's diameter and the same density, you would have 5-gs at its surface, it would take 125 Earth-masses to achive this though. Holding a planet's density constant, it's surface gravity is proportional to its diameter.
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#14 2007-04-29 11:12:54
- Tom Kalbfus
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- Registered: 2006-08-16
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Re: How about terraforming this planet?
Number04,
Maybe this new planet is made of lighter things than earth.
Could be a red dwarf takes much longer to form and uses up more heavy elements than a standard yellow star like ours.This planet could be five times the size of earth and still have similar gravity.
Or it could be 5 times earth gravity since red dwarfs form quicker leaving much more heavy material for planets to be created from.
Lets not put our regional prejudices on other worlds and star types
Wish a red dwarf expert would now arrive for a few educated guesses
One possibility would be a water planet, this is not merely a planet with a global ocean and no land surfaces, but one whose oceans are perhaps thousands of miles deep and surround a small rocky core. A water planet that was 5 times Earth's mass could have a surface gravity that was the same as Earth's, it could also have an atmosphere that is similar to Earth's as well. Life would somehow have to survive in the water, plants would have to grow in the water and create oxygen there.
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