Awesome Extrasolar Planets

[Niri Te]

Originally Posted by Human No More

...there's no need to make such statements that many people don't necessarily follow - you can talk about how amazing something is without turning it into a personal lecture.

Except that I was answering Iron Jones who I know is a Christian. I will go to my room now.

[iron_jones]

Originally Posted by Niri Te

I will go to my room now.

And it BETTER be clean when I come back! i'm checking under the bed and in the closet, too!

[Moco Loco]

Who thought this was a good idea

[Clarke]

If you want large and accurate telescopes, you want to put your observation platform in orbit at 550AU. This allows you to use the Sun as the lens.

Originally Posted by Niri Te

GOD has never been mundane, or boring, and neither is HIS handiwork.
Niri Te

I think you undersell the universe if you say it was designed. IMO, it's so much more fulfilling for it to be simple enough that you can write the whole thing down on one side of a piece of paper.

[Iluvrien]

Originally Posted by Clarke

If you want large and accurate telescopes, you want to put your observation platform in orbit at 550AU. This allows you to use the Sun as the lens.

Which is great, as long as you remember that the longest travelling satellite (Voyager) has covered barely a fifth of that distance in the 35 odd years it has been flying, and that at that distance transmissions will take about 3 days to even arrive.

Interstellar space. Terrifying.

[Human No More]

Ateyo, please stop stating your beliefs everywhere - everyone already knows what you think and you aren't going to convince everyone, it just turns out as flamebait. Clarke, don't encourage it. Irayo

Originally Posted by Iluvrien

Which is great, as long as you remember that the longest travelling satellite (Voyager) has covered barely a fifth of that distance in the 35 odd years it has been flying, and that at that distance transmissions will take about 3 days to even arrive.

Interstellar space. Terrifying.

That isn't so bad in terms of latency for a telescope - maybe humans will make one in a few hundred years

Myself, I'll be really happy when we find another Earthlike planet that isn't 'close but uninhabitable', or another with sentient life ... I just hope it will be within my lifetime

[Iluvrien]

Originally Posted by Human No More

That isn't so bad in terms of latency for a telescope - maybe humans will make one in a few hundred years

Not so bad in terms of the delay on getting information back. Getting the installation there in the first place would be the kicker. Of course if we were pushing something out that far (into interplanetary space beyond the heliopause) then we might as well seed small relay stations into the Lagrangian points on the way thus making transmission of the received data far easier and more error free.

Originally Posted by Human No More

Myself, I'll be really happy when we find another Earthlike planet that isn't 'close but uninhabitable', or another with sentient life ... I just hope it will be within my lifetime

Here's hoping, with the current financial difficulties the world is in, and the resultant cutbacks to Science and Space Exploration, hope may be all we have. And I hoping just as much as you are, Space is my field! (Albeit solar-terrestrial Space rather than interplanetary)

[iron_jones]

Originally Posted by Clarke

it's so much more fulfilling for it to be simple enough that you can write the whole thing down on one side of a piece of paper.

Yeah, you go and write down the universe on a slip of paper and let me know how it goes.

[Clarke]

Originally Posted by Iluvrien

Which is great, as long as you remember that the longest travelling satellite (Voyager) has covered barely a fifth of that distance in the 35 odd years it has been flying, and that at that distance transmissions will take about 3 days to even arrive.

Interstellar space. Terrifying.

I never said you could do it quickly.

Originally Posted by iron_jones

Yeah, you go and write down the universe on a slip of paper and let me know how it goes.

ATM, it takes about 10 pieces of paper to describe 95% of the universe. Theories in the pipeline take 2 to describe all of it. I think that's a lot more awesome than having to go through and create trillions of stars individually.

[Clarke]

There aren't (shouldn't be?) stationary Lagrangian points out there, since there are no major gravity sources. You could be absolutely mad and put it in the one between Sol and Proxima Centauri, which would work, but that'd take years.

[Iluvrien]

Originally Posted by Clarke

There aren't (shouldn't be?) stationary Lagrangian points out there, since there are no major gravity sources. You could be absolutely mad and put it in the one between Sol and Proxima Centauri, which would work, but that'd take years.

I was talking about inside the solar system. Relay stations would be useful in establishing communications during any later explorations of the outer planets as well as the basis of links with said telescope or any other craft, station or installation beyond that.

If we carry on as we are, the comms channels out there are likely to become as congested as our own are now. Just planning ahead.

Of course L-points outside the solar system are a daft idea, not least because, as you point out, there are no major gravity sources. The spatial drift due to gravity out there would be so small that you wouldn't need them anyway.

[SaphirJD]

there is quite some amazing stuff out there for sure

[Sight Unseen]

I personally think that the criteria set for planets that possibly could sustain life are crazy. Scientists have a tendency to romanticize the concept of extraterrestrials into the idea that life elsewhere is going to be earthlike. There's no major reason why you couldn't have life based on chemistries other than CHON, and most of these chemistries would live in places that we aren't actively searching for.

Hypothetical types of biochemistry - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[Human No More]

I've always said that - but then again, everyone still wants to be able to meet them in the same atmosphere and temperature

[Iluvrien]

Originally Posted by Human No More

I've always said that - but then again, everyone still wants to be able to meet them in the same atmosphere and temperature

This. I would also expect that selling the idea of visiting lifeforms that we know could exist in such conditions to funding bodies, the public and governments is probably a lot easier than selling the idea of visiting (or even looking for) life based on chemistries that are, at the moment, still hypotherical.

Before you can do the science, you usually have to find someone willing to pay you to do it.