(Relatively) Earthlike Extrasolar World Confirmed

Ok, it’s a little on the big side, and kind of hot, but this extrasolar planet, in orbit around mu Arae, ranks as one of the most-Earthlike extrasolar planets discovered thus far.

Read all about it.

5 replies on “(Relatively) Earthlike Extrasolar World Confirmed”

  1. mine
    Yes, now all we need is a bubble of air and a space moped to get there… Cool find, if useless.

    I’m not against looking, but we definitely don’t have the tech to truly test a planet’s viability, and we don’t have the ability to even remotely get close to that distance with people. I hope the world’s space progs focus more on extra-planetary people rather than just robots. Otherwise we’ll end up like an Asimov world where robots did all the exploring and humans just sat around.

    • Re: mine

      I’m not against looking, but we definitely don’t
      have the tech to truly test a planet’s viability, and we
      don’t have the ability to even remotely get close to that
      distance with people. I hope the world’s space progs focus
      more on extra-planetary people rather than just robots.
      Otherwise we’ll end up like an Asimov world where robots
      did all the exploring and humans just sat around.

      I don’t think we can convince the bill payers that human
      lives are worth the risk until we’re extremely sure that
      we know what we’re sending them into. I think we should
      keep looking until we find a planet with a size, year, and
      star similar to what we’ve got here. That will be our
      best bet for convincing the bill payers that it’s worth
      risking people instead of expensive machines.

      • Re: mine

        I’m not against looking, but we definitely don’t
        have the tech to truly test a planet’s viability, and we
        don’t have the ability to even remotely get close to that
        distance with people. I hope the world’s space progs focus
        more on extra-planetary people rather than just robots.
        Otherwise we’ll end up like an Asimov world where robots
        did all the exploring and humans just sat around.

        I don’t think we can convince the bill payers that human
        lives are worth the risk until we’re extremely sure that
        we know what we’re sending them into. I think we should
        keep looking until we find a planet with a size, year, and
        star similar to what we’ve got here. That will be our
        best bet for convincing the bill payers that it’s worth
        risking people instead of expensive machines.

        Well, we could have some flexibility on the star type /year lenght combo, so
        long as the result is sufficiently comfy…

      • Re: mine

        I think we should
        keep looking until we find a planet with a size, year, and
        star similar to what we’ve got here.

        I don’t think year length is a problem, since travel and communication between Earth and (dare I say it) Earth2 will take so long as to destroy any “synchronicity”. Basically, if humans were ever to colonize such a world with sub-light engines, there are going to be far more critical “time” issues than the planet’s year.

        • Re: mine

          I don’t think year length is a problem, since travel and communication between Earth and (dare I say it) Earth2 will take so long as to destroy any “synchronicity”. Basically, if humans were ever to colonize such a world with sub-light engines, there are going to be far more critical “time” issues than the planet’s year.

          The problem is that I took a shortcut by saying “year” rather than “orbital radius and eccentricity.” Others have pointed out other failings in my phrasings, when all we really need is to find a world with similar surface conditions. It can be a larger, less dense planet that orbits a greater distance from a hotter star. It can be a smaller, moonless world that would have a thicker atmosphere without the tidal gravity. As long as most of the surface is similar to Earth’s, we’d manage just fine.

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