This system of planets is more like Jupiter and its four large moons. The planets are surely tide locked and cold, but with seven planets in a small volume of space, tidal effects will be significant, so maybe one of the planets is a super-Europa, and another is a super-Io.
If there is life in this system, I reckon it may have started in the star, not on the planets.
Oh, great. Another seven entire planets infected with confused dimwit assholes? Awesome. At least I’ll be dead or an android before I have to listen to their awful music.
(I’m assuming androids can turn down their hearing, like my uncle’s remote control for his hearing aid when my mom talks too much.)
The appropriate form of words in Mockney is, “Shuuuuut iiiiiiit!”
4ly, 40ly, makes little difference except the size of sensor needed. Not going to either.
It’s difficult for me to imagine that any water present wouldn’t have condensed out of any atmosphere into a permanent icecap on the dark side of these tidally locked planets. Which would tend to make them inhospitable, even at a latitude* which had reasonable temperatures.
*for a tidally locked planet I’d suggest that we define the poles as sunward and spaceward, and use the terms latitude and longitude accordingly. How you define spherical coordinates for a tidally locked planets really depends on whether you’re more interested in describing the climate and local conditions on the planed, or the appearance of the stars in the sky. (which, if there is a significant atmosphere, you’re only going to be able to see from the dark side)
I like @cstross’s explaination.
http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2007/06/the_high_frontier_redux.html
Here’s a handy metaphor: let’s approximate one astronomical unit — the distance between the Earth and the sun, roughly 150 million kilometres, or 600 times the distance from the Earth to the Moon — to one centimetre. Got that? 1AU = 1cm. (You may want to get hold of a ruler to follow through with this one.)
The solar system is conveniently small. Neptune, the outermost planet in our solar system, orbits the sun at a distance of almost exactly 30AU, or 30 centimetres — one foot (in imperial units). Giant Jupiter is 5.46 AU out from the sun, almost exactly two inches (in old money).
…
Proxima Centauri is 4.22 light years away.A light year is 63.2 x 103 AU, or 9.46 x 1012 Km. So Proxima Centauri, at 267,000 AU, is just under two and a third kilometres, or two miles (in old money) away from us.
But Proxima Centauri is a poor choice, if we’re looking for habitable real estate. While exoplanets are apparently common as muck, terrestrial planets are harder to find; Gliese 581c, the first such to be detected (and it looks like a pretty weird one, at that), is roughly 20.4 light years away, or using our metaphor, about ten miles.
Try to get a handle on this: it takes us 2-5 years to travel two inches. But the proponents of interstellar travel are talking about journeys of ten miles. That’s the first point I want to get across: that if the distances involved in interplanetary travel are enormous, and the travel times fit to rival the first Australian settlers, then the distances and times involved in interstellar travel are mind-numbing.
Tell them there is oil and oppressed Christians there. They’ll be on the next ship out!!
You forgot BACON!!!
I thought the big news was a message from the Verse saying “STAY HOME EARTHLINGS!!”
New planets means escape route for the 1%.
Traveller reference FTW!
The real world B ark would have all its crew dead of radiation damage before it got very far, if you could construct it at all. The 1% aren’t going to escape; they’ll just make sure that the climate wars kill off the poor people while they occupy safer places.
Well for me it’s ‘I have heard somewhat plausible sounding theories on how to get a probe there within a human lifetime with achievable technology within MY lifetime.’ It’s a stepping stone, and possibly somewhere we could build ‘my first out of system colony.’ Think of it as the interstellar version of the moon. Somewhere relatively close we can look at and go ‘Hold my beer I’m gonna try it.’
What a fascinating concept. Any idea what that might look like?
Welcome to Sol (H8679FD-9)
Life would have started in the twilight ring between hot and cold sides of the planet. The Gaia effect would also extend that zone somewhat into previously lethal longitudes. Any intelligent life arising there would take very little time to explore their entire system with probes, possibly even to colonize adjacent planets. However, it remains easier there, as here, to build orbital colonies, if there is suitable material already floating around.
Depends primarily on the thickness of the atmosphere; previous models of these types of planets show that a reasonably thick atmosphere will distribute the heat from the subsolar point fairly well over the entire planet, including onto the night side.
*trump becomes president*
— Sammy☠️ (@SammyAlbon) February 23, 2017
NASA: Shit
*a few weeks later*
NASA: we've found 7 planets, 3 we can live on and there's enough room for everyone
Remember: If we send the Space Mormons first, it has to be two missionary ships. Everyone knows that.
I’m excited for both reasons, thank you very much. However many thousands of years it might take.
Watching the night sky would be like it was jammed on fast-forward! Imagine other planets going from a small crescent to full and several times the Moon over several hours!
