Earth 2.0 could be in the nearest star system

I think that Alpha centauri could host the closest Earth-like planet.

A study shows that 22% of G and K-type stars could have Earth-like planets orbiting in the habitable zone.

There are 9 Sun-like stars within 25 light-years. If we make the calculation, two of those stars could have an Earth-like planet.

One of those two exoplanets could be Tau Ceti e. Which exoplanet could be the other one?

7 out of the 9 closest Sun-like stars have low metallicity. The only two stars with high metallicity are Alpha Centauri A and Delta Pavonis, but this star is suspected to be variable.

What do you guys think?

originally posted by: Albert015
What do you guys think?

We won't know until we get more data. But the odds of another earth-like planet so relatively close are extremely low. And I say "relatively close" because if we took off for it on our fastest rocket, it would take us... forever... to get there.

Still, it would be nice to shoot a hot-burning enhanced velocity nuclear powered probe in that direction to get a better look in a couple hundred years. Just out of curiosity.

Andromeda...just saying

Rainbows
Jane

a reply to: Albert015

I am pretty certain we would have detected something by now but you are correct and there is the mystery.

But what if, what if in the past a dying star bathed this region of space in neutron radiation and life somehow survived on the earth but was wiped out elsewhere.

What if there was a terrible conflict of to us unimaginable proportions long ago and while some world's may have recovered other's are like Mars and Venus are today with even those that did recover enough to sustain life perhaps not having any life left to sustain upon them.

Perhaps our world is a spark of life, a green shoot in a dead battlefield like a flower rising above ancient death.

OR are we really the first intelligent life in this particular neighborhood.

How many of these stars SHOULD have world's but don't, how many of them DID have world's but no longer do.

How many of those world's have at some point in there existence been able to support some form of life.

And how many of those world's DID support some form of life.

Out of them how many could have or could today support life in a form we could understand with conditions not that different to our own.

In our own solar system there are at least TWO other world's that fit this criteria, Mars and Venus, once long ago Mars had a thicker warmer atmosphere and a magnetic field strong enough to retain it, it had liquid water on it's surface, rivers, lakes and even sea's and closer to the sun perhaps as recently as up to 600 million years ago but no one know's for sure is another planet the almost identical twin of the earth except that it's day's are six months long and the sun rises in the west and sets in the east, an ocean basin that cover's most of the planet, plate tectonic's and at least TWO highland continent's that rise above the now hot and dry - except for molten metals and other materials that are not suitable for life as we know it - sea bed, for perhaps more than two billion years it is possible that Venus was a warm but not too hot world with a slightly (not as much as it is today) thicker atmosphere, vast warm oceans and every ingredient necessary for life, then something happened, natural or not it does not matter but many believe it was probably vulcanism and the debate today is was it over a long time or over a very short time that Venus turned from a near paradise world into HELL itself, it's oceans boiled and the air got thicker and hotter until it reached pressures that would put a pressure cooker to shame and an temperature at least twice what your kitchen cooking appliance can achieve, it is so hot that lead would be molten on it's surface.

In between these two graveyard worlds lies the earth, today warm enough for liquid water AND over 2.2 billion years ago it was warm enough for liquid water as well BUT from about 2.2 or 2.3 billion years until as late as 550 million years ago the planet was wracked by super ice ages collectively known as the SNOW BALL EARTH, during this time when Venus may have been a tropical paradise world and Mars may have been even more welcoming the earth was the very image of Hoth from the star wars movie The Empire Strikes Back, several time's the entire planet froze over COMPLETELY and a geological mystery known as the great non conformity was created as the ice sheet's scoured away at least a mile perhaps several of the earth's surface.

So how many of these distant world's if they exist may ONE DAY but not today hold life and be earth like.

In the seemingly endless eon's to come how many young being's will look up at the stars and wonder if there are other worlds out there, or if there ever were.

originally posted by: Blue Shift

originally posted by: Albert015
What do you guys think?

We won't know until we get more data. But the odds of another earth-like planet so relatively close are extremely low. And I say "relatively close" because if we took off for it on our fastest rocket, it would take us... forever... to get there.

Still, it would be nice to shoot a hot-burning enhanced velocity nuclear powered probe in that direction to get a better look in a couple hundred years. Just out of curiosity.

Correct me if I am wrong but Proxima Centauri a small red dwarf is our closest neighbor and to get there light from our sun takes about 4.35 years, since we can not yet reach anywhere near to the speed of light our ship's would likely take many hundreds at best and indeed thousands of years to get there - and if they ever did reach it would they reach it intact and functional after such a time, would there be anyone left here to listen to what they relayed back.

Still I live in the hope that future generations of humanity may yet learn to work around this problem.

But perhaps some future humanity will send out seed ship's with archives of all that we were and bank's of automated life recreating machines to recreate the earth as it once was on distant barren but habitable worlds, ship's that can and will weather the long flight so that humanity may be reborn long after it has ceased to exist here.

a reply to: Albert015

It's possible every star could harbour life in its solar system, maybe not life as we know it of course, but conscious entities, in fact who's to say every star isn't conscious itself. We know very little about our own consciousness so anything is possible.
Not saying this is true but we do know very little yet we think we know so much.

originally posted by: angelchemuel
Andromeda...just saying

Another GALAXY, not just another star system. Not viable unless we have warp drive or wormhole travel.

a reply to: schuyler

Pure sci fi and based on a tongue in cheek comedy sci fi show that was actually better than the competing star trek (Fungus drive) new series.

The Orville interactive experience.
store.steampowered.com...

Probably as close as WE will ever get in our current lives to flying between the stars but I don't want to put the mockers on the kid's of the future by telling them something is not possible and just hope they prove us all wrong and do achieve a way to do so.

originally posted by: Blue Shift
Still, it would be nice to shoot a hot-burning enhanced velocity nuclear powered probe in that direction to get a better look in a couple hundred years. Just out of curiosity.

Makes me think that it might be a better idea to build better (space based) telescopes instead of trying to send probes, that will take hundreds of years to reach their destination.

Now imagine that there might be an alien civilization doing just that. Instead of traveling the space they are just watching it, watching us, our past that is.

a reply to: schuyler
I was actually wondering how many galaxies there were in the universe after reading this thread so I checked and the number most quoted was 2 trillion. I cannot even fathom the size of the milky-way or its big brother that's gonna devour it Andromeda never mind another 2 trillion, honestly my head hurts just thinking about that.... Life outside our solar system is a God dam certainty.

a reply to: ManyMasks

We seem to be technologically insufficient when thinking in terms of searching out extra terrestrial Earth like planets .If the Universe is as big as it seems lets say infinite, then we are talking of an infinite number of civilizations and the odds of humans being the first star traveler gets more remote. Because even at the speed of light, some places of interest could be a thousand light years away. If we go faster than light we would get there before we go. This would also apply to any extra terrestrials. The only practical way of getting to some other place in the larger Universe is to go through a worm hole, where the time line is stable. Then we have the probabilities that this has already been done by one of the infinite numbers of technically advanced societies in the Universe, which means the likelihood of them giving us that gift would be remote, because by any reasoning were all a bit to Primitive.

a reply to: Albert015

As it has been mentioned already, the sheer amount of possibilities due to the size of the Universe is truly mind boggling. When I attempt to take my imagination out far enough to try and envision the enormity, it collapses in on itself...my mind gives in and returns to the mundane because my head hurts. Imagine the sadness of Earth being the only inhabitable planet in the entire Universe and then weigh it against the improbability of that being the case.

I refuse to believe or accept that humanity is alone, ditto that our current incarnation of civilisation is the first or the last. I stick with my belief that trans-humanism is lying in wait for us and that in itself will give humanity and machine the right tools to reach the stars.

It doesn't really matter because we'll never have the technology to travel that far in space with humans.

Kinda puts a damper on things.

originally posted by: moebius

originally posted by: Blue Shift
Still, it would be nice to shoot a hot-burning enhanced velocity nuclear powered probe in that direction to get a better look in a couple hundred years. Just out of curiosity.

Makes me think that it might be a better idea to build better (space based) telescopes instead of trying to send probes, that will take hundreds of years to reach their destination.

Now imagine that there might be an alien civilization doing just that. Instead of traveling the space they are just watching it, watching us, our past that is.

Telescopes are good but without using some quantum wormhole camera there will always be resolution problems. Sure, any interstellar attempt will be a leapfrog affair with newer technology catching up to and surpassing the old probes periodically. But you just can't wait around for breakthroughs. Someone has to take the first jump. As for saving money, this wouldn't be an endeavor where anyone can expect direct profits, just rights for technology development.

And maybe some glory for finding aliens or something, if anyone still cares by the time it happens, if ever.

There is always our nearest system

Alpha Centauri.

a reply to: Albert015

Good thing they're all so far away from this planet that we
can't even see em. I'm sure we'd just have to go screw'n
around with em.

Why don't we spend some money on more practical goals for
awhile? Clean up the mess we got g'o'n on this planet. we
got people defecating in city streets for cry'n out loud.

Get everything straightened out on this planet first.
Then we can go play space man.

originally posted by: carsforkids
a reply to: Albert015
Why don't we spend some money on more practical goals for
awhile? Clean up the mess we got g'o'n on this planet. we
got people defecating in city streets for cry'n out loud.

Get everything straightened out on this planet first.
Then we can go play space man.

Which relates to what I was saying about "if anybody cares" in the future about space and aliens and all that stuff. People are flighty. Maybe someday this fad of aliens and space will fade away as we focus more on virtual exploration / entertainment and taking care of our own planet. People are slowly getting used to the idea that just the sheer size of the universe and the brutal reality of space itself makes it extremely unlikely that we'll ever interact in any meaningful way with other worlds or intelligences similar to ours, if there are actually any out there for us to find.

Which could be a good thing. We need to start focusing on Earth and figuring out an optimal carrying capacity for the planet in terms of population; how to protect ourselves against Extinction Level Events from stray asteroids and comets, how more easily live and work in the oceans and take full advantage of them rather than just the surfaces, and so on.

We can always amuse ourselves in by having adventures in virtual reality if we want entertainment. But if we screw up the Earth in some way -- either by ignoring or overcompensating for climate changes or pollution, or various other threats -- there is no backup like in Hitchhiker's Guide. We (the future "we") will just be royally boned, and future generations will consider us as evil as any Satan / Ahriman.

a reply to: Blue Shift

Good God man written so very well. I can only concur and ad

that this is our home. I've been to many others and some are
a perfect example of what the earth is becoming. I do not
want to leave my descendants the kind of world. That will
certainly only be more of mess than it is right now. We've
already rendered t much of it uninhabitable. Does nobody
even think of what it would be like if Instead Chernobyl
happened in San onofre?

Why oh why does the human race claim to be so intelligent?
Or how can it make such a claim, when every time it gets a new
toy it acts like a child with it? So what if we can make spaceships
we have responsibilities that come first. Sure go ahead and
keep working on better designs keep that economy strong.
We've gone to the moon and back good enough for now.
We need to be more patient.

The amount of people on the planet right now can be sustained.
Lets find away to keep it that way so the gods of our own creation.
Don't have any good reason to band together and wipe a shlt load
of us out. And if anyone thinks that isn't possible you should be
out there in space. The biggest threat to us is us.