2-3 times the size of Jupiter, 100AUs out, 400ly away. It's a young system, and one of the more likely candidates to EVENTUALLY have rocky Earth-like worlds, once everything settles down.
posted
Huh. And here I was, expecting a picture of the green guy from the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy covers, or something.
Registered: Mar 1999
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-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
Registered: Aug 2002
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Slokunshialgo
Ex-Member
posted
So, how long until humans start sending probes there?
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posted
I will be gladly surprised if we've sent a probe to Europa within 25 years.
I mean, come on, 400 light years. According to some random website, the fastest human vehicle is Pioneer 11, at 172,163 kph. My math is probably very wrong, but if it isn't, it would take this, our fastest thing ever, 250,917,792 years to get there. What could possibly be the point of such an expedition? Unless you're willing to say that we'll all be posthuman by 2030, eager to unload archival copies of ourselves on unsuspecting planets, which, I will grant, is just vaguely possible, but not, I'll wager, by 2030.
Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
And why send probes there anyway? The photographed plnets are gas giants: we dont know shit about the ones in our own solar system yet.
I too, will be happy to see a probe sent to Europa in the next 25 years.
Speaking of Space, Japan announced today that it's going ahead with plans for a Lunar settlement.
Given Japan's current econemy.....I kinda doubt it.
Mabye we can jointly crash the (useless) ISS on the moon and build from there...
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
Registered: Aug 2002
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Slokunshialgo
Ex-Member
posted
quote:Originally posted by Sol System: According to some random website, the fastest human vehicle is Pioneer 11, at 172,163 kph. My math is probably very wrong, but if it isn't, it would take this, our fastest thing ever, 250,917,792 years to get there.
In the current time, yes, but with the way technology is advancing, how are the people of this time to know?
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posted
Well, sure; and we might discover a wormhole orbiting the sun. (There are those curious accelerational anomalies both Pioneers have been reporting.) Lots of things could happen between now and then. But I am going to go out on a limb and say that spacecraft are not going to be several orders of magnitude faster in five years than they are now. And if they're capable of a significant fraction of light speed in 25 years, well, I'll be surprised.
Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
250,917,792 + 400 if you want confirmation of arrival
Registered: Mar 1999
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Cartman
just made by the Presbyterian Church
Member # 256
posted
And, if you want to be anally retentive to the max, spacecraft are already capable of significant fractions of lightspeed, just not of reaching them within periods of time you or I would find practical.
Registered: Nov 1999
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posted
I see your "what if they accelerate for a really long time" and match it with a "no fuel tank large enough exists." Plus maybe "or engines designed to last that long without breaking."
I HOPE I GET A CROWN!
Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
Ion Drive. ou know, the one that works but on one uses.
I just want to develop my own FTL device and claim all the planets in the system for myself.
....of course, so lobbiest fuck in Washington would probably make me get insurance and pay taxes on them...
See?!? This is why there's no FTL drive. Right here.
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
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