Milky Way has 8.8 billion Earth-size, Goldilocks zone planets

fuji

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Another radical possibility is to launch frozen fertilized eggs and then start growing and educating them about twenty years prior to arrival at the destination. That would not require powered life support for the thousand year trip, only for the last few decades.
 

bishop

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We just need to get better at multi generational planning. We could launch a human populated ship at another solar system, even a distant one, if it was self sustaining. The humans that reached the destination would be the descendants of those who left earth, but that should be possible.

Aside from the technical challenges of building a sustainable ecosystem, there are some social engineering problems to ensure that the mission maintains its broad objectives across generations.

But given enough time to develop, that should be achievable.
Naw man we are still killing each other on earth even with all that free space around us, on a small ship with multi generations it is going to be really f*cked up like you see on survivor but with more incest. All you need is a small crew and a huge ship full of food, the crew would still be alive by the time they reach another star due to time dilation if they travel close to the speed of light which is possible with ion drives which is basically a giant CRT tube in them old TVs.

But nobody is going to build such a ship since there is no return on investment, and any crew that volunteers to go; you would probably not want them on the ship anyways. Even a dirt cheap robotic ship nobody would want to build since humanity would be long dead by the time the ship makes it to another star.

Humanity could be duped into building such a ship if we thought the ship was going to where Jesus lives, aside from that there is no way to motivate us to build such a ship.
 

fuji

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I am less pessimistic. Once building such a ship becomes technologically feasible, enough people will be interested that it will eventually get funded. There will be no shortage of volunteers, we are a pioneering species, a small percentage of us are wired for exploration. A small percentage times billions gives a large pool of recruits.

Whoever sends their DNA on this thing potentially forms the future of the species.
 

Kilgore Trout

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The engineering problems involved in building a spacecraft that can fly at say, 99%of the speed of light, are pretty enormous.
Earth has been prime real estate for about 500 million years and there's no evidence that any advanced civilization from outside our solar system has ever visited us in a spacecraft.

I think I read somewhere once that if a spaceship ever hit even one solitary atom at 90% of the speed of light, the kinetic energy unleashed would utterly destroy the spaceship.
Another problem is that the center of our galaxy is much more densely populated with stars and all those stars combined emit so much radiation that it makes it that much harder for life as we know it to thrive in the center of the universe due to so much radiation. Earth is located way out in the suburbs of our galaxy where there are fewer stars and hence less radiation.

And of course with space travel there's the problem that prolonged exposure to radiation tends to literally shred human dna.
Unfortunately, space is filled with radiation that goes through spaceships and humans inside them like they weren't even there.
I think the nature of spacetime is that it is extremely belligerent /hostile or filled with mocking derision to any notion that it is obligated to be 'friendly' or 'welcoming' to humans who want to do interstellar space travel. That's just the nature of the beast.

As an aside , a lot of theoretical physicists out there speculate that if a big bang can happen once it can happen an infinite number of times and so there could be literally billions of universes out there in the "multiverse".

 

oil&gas

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Ghawar
.......................
I think I read somewhere once that if a spaceship ever hit even one solitary atom at
90% of the speed of light, the kinetic energy unleashed would utterly destroy the spaceship.
........................
I think what you read was something like one tiny asteroid of a size of 1 cm in
diameter. Exposure to radiation within a densely populated part of the galaxy is
one major risk. But I suspect the chance of getting hit by even a minute asteroid in
interstellar travel is essentially zero.

If the destination is a rogue star system, one which is not located
within a galaxy (of which there are as many as one trillion) radiation
shouldn't be a concern. I think one seemingly insurmountable hurdle
to interstellar travel is the impact of zero gravity on human physiology.
 

fuji

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I think the nature of spacetime is that it is extremely belligerent /hostile or filled with mocking derision to any notion that it is obligated to be 'friendly' or 'welcoming' to humans who want to do interstellar space travel. That's just the nature of the beast.
We once thought the same thing about the sea. Dealing with the challenges is a matter of technological and organizational development.

I think we are more likely to send a "slow" ship that takes hundreds of years, with either an ecosystem, or frozen people, or frozen embryos, than solve the near light speed problems.

(P.S., it is heresy to oppose space travel whilst calling yourself Kilgore Trout.)
 

George The Curious

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The universe is vast. If it was a human body, then earth and every planet is merely a cell in its body. I like to think Humans and other intelligent lives as viruses. There is no doubt one day humans will consume all the resources on earth and leave it to die, and move on to another habitable planet until the entire universe is consumed - the patient with infection dies.
 

slowandeasy

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GTA
Humanity could be duped into building such a ship if we thought the ship was going to where Jesus lives, aside from that there is no way to motivate us to build such a ship.
LOl..
 

slowandeasy

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. But I suspect the chance of getting hit by even a minute asteroid in
interstellar travel is essentially zero.
Not sure why that would be. Given that there are stars exploding, and universes colliding, would that
not mean there must be debris in between the planets? Is there something that I am missing?

I am fascinated by these topics, so any info will help.
 

Yoga Face

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The findings also raise a blaring question, Marcy said: If we aren't alone, why is "there a deafening silence in our Milky Way galaxy from advanced civilizations?"



Because when sentient beings create technology they destroy themselves?
 

blackrock13

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The findings also raise a blaring question, Marcy said: If we aren't alone, why is "there a deafening silence in our Milky Way galaxy from advanced civilizations?"

Because when sentient beings create technology they destroy themselves?
Chances are if they can communicate with us, they are more advanced and don't want to encourage us.
 

slowandeasy

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The findings also raise a blaring question, Marcy said: If we aren't alone, why is "there a deafening silence in our Milky Way galaxy from advanced civilizations?"



Because when sentient beings create technology they destroy themselves?
This is true up to a certain point. Intelligent beings will hopefully be able to get past this destructive nature.
I would think that any civilization that survives and their technology thrives, will come to realize that destroying each other is a
pretty silly goal. If they have achieved scientific breakthroughs much greater than ours, and are able to communicate with us,
they will probably choose to have limited contact. Much like the prime directive (I think that was it) in Star Trek.
 

Yoga Face

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This is true up to a certain point. Intelligent beings will hopefully be able to get past this destructive nature.
I would think that any civilization that survives and their technology thrives, will come to realize that destroying each other is a
pretty silly goal. If they have achieved scientific breakthroughs much greater than ours, and are able to communicate with us,
they will probably choose to have limited contact. Much like the prime directive (I think that was it) in Star Trek.
there should be radio signals from societies that were at our level of technology floating around in space i would think

that there is not indicates they destroy themselves with technology
 

fuji

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there should be radio signals from societies that were at our level of technology floating around in space i would think

that there is not indicates they destroy themselves with technology
Radio signals don't make it far. Only a small number of systems are within radio range. Signal power drops off until it is indistinguishable from background noise.

Unless someone was targeting us with a focused effort, or their transmitter was supernova sized we wouldn't hear it.
 

oil&gas

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Ghawar
Not sure why that would be. Given that there are stars exploding, and universes colliding, would that
not mean there must be debris in between the planets? Is there something that I am missing?
Picture all stars, planets, asteroids and other matters in the
universe evaporate into atoms which then diffuse into the
space evenly. The universe will remain pretty much a perfect
vacuum. It will be something like one hydrogen atom in one
cubic meter. Density of the best laboratory vacuum is easily larger
than that by more than one million-fold.

Since the universe is pretty much a void the probability of
hitting on an asteroid in the space between stars and between
galaxies even when travelling near light speed is essentially nil.
As the spacecraft is approaching the destination star system
it will have to decelarate to a minute fraction of light speed.
Asteroids do not shot randomly in every direction in space
but orbit around planets. Hitting on an asteroid has never been a
concern for space probes like Voyager 1 and 2. It will be the last
thing to worry about in the future manned mission to Mars.


I am fascinated by these topics, so any info will help.
 

Cobra Enorme

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did jesus visit all 8 billion planets in our solar system to save the aliens one at a time?
 

slowandeasy

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Picture all stars, planets, asteroids and other matters in the
universe evaporate into atoms which then diffuse into the
space evenly. The universe will remain pretty much a perfect
vacuum. It will be something like one hydrogen atom in one
cubic meter. Density of the best laboratory vacuum is easily larger
than that by more than one million-fold.

Since the universe is pretty much a void the probability of
hitting on an asteroid in the space between stars and between
galaxies even when travelling near light speed is essentially nil.
As the spacecraft is approaching the destination star system
it will have to decelarate to a minute fraction of light speed.
Asteroids do not shot randomly in every direction in space
but orbit around planets. Hitting on an asteroid has never been a
concern for space probes like Voyager 1 and 2. It will be the last
thing to worry about in the future manned mission to Mars.
Thank you for this.... but of course I have more questions.

Why would something evaporate? For example, lets say for that one of our satellites escapes our orbit into space, and explodes. Would all that debris not just float around? Or if a supernova explodes, does it not thrown a lot of
debris into the vacuum? How does the vacuum break down this debris?

In my mind, I am picturing the place in between planets "the vacuum" as a place absent of gravity and magnetic fields as well as gasses etc...
 
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