Those astronomers keep finding new extrasolar planets — 350 of them so far — but none are just right. Two new planets have been discovered that are almost earthlike.
Gliese 581 e is the closest in size to Earth, only 1.9 times larger. Unfortunately, it’s also too close to its star, and is probably way, way too hot.
Gliese 581 d is even larger, but it’s sitting square in the habitable zone, where liquid water would be possible. The gravity would be a killer there, but…hmmm. If it were covered in water, it could be a perfect place for squid — huge colonies of space squid in a vast ocean. And it’s only about 21 light years away, right next door! As long as I’m imagining space squid, I think all I need to do is imagine a faster than light drive, and presto, I’m there!
“I think all I need to do is imagine a faster than light drive, and presto, I’m there!”
Or rather, you WERE there… even before you thought of it.
giant calamari!
Are you saying you’d miss the Minnesota winters?
http://scienceblogs.com/startswithabang/2009/04/the_gliese_system_addendum.php
There’s likely a more habitable planet that we can’t see.
Also, TypeKey keeps logging me out every so often. Any tips on how to stop this?
The Gliese system is the system that keeps on on giving. Thanks for posting this PZ since the BA is on his toor he is little behind posting astro news.
CTHULU!!!!!
It could be a great work out planet! So with your faster-than-light drive, we could just zoom there for a quick, grueling run, and zip right back. Once a day. OH, and talk with the squid, of course.
I see how it is. Here’s this awesome astronomical discovery, and you only acknowledge it because of possible space squid! I’m telling Phil!
:-p
The Gliese system is the system that keeps on on giving. Thanks for posting this PZ since the BA is on his toor he is little behind posting astro news.
There is much awesomeness here.
If I click the “save me” button, I appear to be good for 3 or 4 days before it needs a new login. Also, TypePad is the last thing queried when a page is opened, so if you respond too fast, the query may not be complete.
21 light years away. That is just too fucking awesome.
TypeKey does it to me as well. Although with a smaller periodicity than Nerd is experiencing.
We’ll just have to blame Einstein for the speed of light problem. Where’s the developer of the warp drive when we need him/her?
Given the rate of detection of “hot Jupiters”, there’s probably a ton of planets much nearer to Earth-like out there, but because of the way that we detect exoplanets, we tend to see those which are more massive and in tighter orbits. I’m fully expecting that as our ability to detect exoplanets improves, we’ll hit a point where there’s suddenly more known Earth-like exoplanets than we can count. I don’t expect it to be more than a few years.
Exciting times…
I’m torn between moving to Gliese 581 and Cancri 55
asjfa jlkjc,m wsdg lkjha jslkjdlk PZ ksdjfslfjammcvnmfkdkh
ksdhkflhsxck kljsakl;hsa sklfdllkdsh;nk;lasdvm
(Translation from Gliese d squiddish:
How to prepare a PZ: The best way to soften them up is to hit them on a rock until the crunchy bits inside are reduced to bite size bits)
I dunno, Gliese 581c was a big letdown when it was discovered a couple years ago. The other Gliese planets might be the same.
Speaking of Cthulhu, I was out today and some dude had a Cthulhu fish (http://www.arkhambazaar.com/images/products/DI001.jpg) on his car. It was totally badass and I wish I’d had my camera. D:
Josh could be right on the TypePad/Key sign in timing. I have three browsers in use between home (Firefox and Safari) and work (IE6), and can get a little confused on timing of the sign ins.
Damnit I’d totally spend 21 years in space to see that planet :(.
Perhaps a way to get around travelling faster than the speed of light would be to enlist the aid of a creotard whose god can certainly countermand the phenomena and get us there in short time. Hell, in no time at all, because his god can do anything, and since it created light it is no obstacle to shove it out of the way.
Seriously though, every time there is news of a new planet my head swirls with the composition and physics of these new worlds, all of which we will never see up close, let alone land on. This is why I describe Astronomy as a frustrating science, the frustration measured in time and distance. Amazes the hell out of me nevertheless!
I didn’t see in the article any definition of the term “size”. The composition (density) would affect the force of gravity, but so would the diameter, which is also affected by the composition. I think more information is needed before speculating on the gravity situation too deeply.
A blow to creationist I’m sure. Maybe its god’s time share?
Today is a tough day for the apologists, as its been announced that complex organic molecules have been discovered in interstellar space. Here is the story.
http://tinyurl.com/dgpp7d
Re; “Where’s the developer of the warp drive when we need him/her?”
Zefram Cochrane won’t be born until 2030.
So you won’t get there on the highway to the Danger Zone?
Earth 2.0?
Just 21 light-years from U of M, Morris,
Sits Gliese five-eighty-one D,
At just the right distance to hold liquid water,
Which sounds just delightful to me.
There might be an ocean with crystal-blue water—
There’s probably pretty good odds—
There might be some beings, whose bodily structure
Reminds us of cephalopods.
I picture some creature, with tentacles writhing,
Who’s lived in those oceans since birth,
His twenty-three eyes scan the starlight above him
And pause, for a minute, at Earth—
The strange constellations, to him so familiar,
Where every star sits where it ought,
Elicit a curious question he ponders,
Which gradually turns to this thought:
“I wonder…if maybe, across this vast distance,
That planet might hold… let me think…
Some alien creature—I rather imagine
It’s bony, bipedal, and pink…
With only two eyes, which need glasses to focus,
Its scalp and its chin full of hair—
I’m imagining this; I’ll imagine a faster-
Than-light drive, and presto! I’m there!”
Exciting times indeed, BrainHertz. I liken it to the exploration of our own planet five centuries ago, or so. The things we discover as the next few generations explore our galactic neighborhood should be amazing to see.
I’ve just checked out Bad Astronomy – whats going on that PZ has this before Phil?
There’ll be trouble – mark my words!
With no registration Cuttlefish is back, yay! And in fine form too.
Does this mean Sven will still post too? Things are looking up.
Well, it looks like he’ll probably have to figure out a different approach for keeping the protective space-time bubble that surrounds the craft stable. Stoopid renormalized stress-energy tensor.
Hell, with a faster than light drive you might get there last month.
I still think it’s really exciting everytime a new exoplanet is discovered, but I keep wondering how creationists and other religious people explain these planets and what will those who are literalists of any of the Abrahamaic faiths do when we finally have evidence of some form of extra-terrestrial life. Oh well, at least cool new discoveries only reinforce my worldview :)
Fuckin’ go Cuttlefish.
Cuttlefish -> FTL-prose! Bravo!
@Charlie Foxtrot: Phil is traveling.
Cuttlefish still has it. Even if he must cut back, once a month would still be better than nothing.
My guess is that they’ll do what they always do. Make up new shit that protects the old shit they made up and prepares them to make up more shit for the yet to be discovered shit.
*claps*
OK, I’m admittedly phenomenally ignorant about all of this, but is
http://www.planetary.org/programs/projects/innovative_technologies/solar_sailing/20090401.html
as cool (or potentially cool) as it sounds?
*GASP* at #6!
My god man are you insane?! I’m not sure the great one takes kindly to His name being misspelled! Oh great Cthulhu, please show your great mercy! (by taking them as your first sacrifice and thereby easing their agonizing wait in the long line of sacrificial subjects)
According to the bible, the sky is just a dome held up by 4 pillars and the stars are just lights stuck on there. So probably they think we are just looking at dust particles and spider webs or something. Of course these were put there by god or satan to confuse people. This is creation astronomy, quite similar to creation biology.
The ID position is that this is evidence of god’s design. The probability of another solar system near earth is so low that it has to be due to an intelligent agent. Gonzalez would say that all these new planets are barren because the earth is the only privileged planet in the universe.
Fundie xians commonly believe that UFOs are real and piloted by demons from hell. Finding intelligent aliens would be no problem, they would simply burn them at the stake.
The Mormons think one of those planets is Kobol where god lives with his fleet of blonde wives making spirit babies. If PZ is right, they are going to be surprised when god and his wives look like giant squids.
I’m not so sure. We’ll probably have to employ some kind of New Clear Science.
I think it is quite surprising that we found 350 exoplanets with out limited detection capabilities and ALREADY found one in the habitable zone!
That is amazing! I am wondering what this does to Drake Equation, especially ne. WOW!
NBwaW – Ahh, that explains it. I missed that somehow. Cheers.
Still… I’d hate to see a turf war :)
(All that synchronised chorography and finger snapping in alleys – bleck!)
Gleise 581 d has 7 times the mass of earth. If you assume that it has the same density as earth (This is a good enough assumption for a ballpark calculation), then it has a radius equal to √7 times that of earth. That would make the gravitational acceleration at the surface 7/√7 that of earth, or roughly 2.6 g’s. That’s not too bad–especialy if you’re living in an ocean.
2.6 g’s is the acceleration you would feel if you went from 0 – 570 miles/hr in 10 seconds. By contrast, our normal gravity of 1 g is the same as going from 0 – 220 miles/hr in 10 seconds.
…and remember, the craft can only accelerate (at full “burn”) half the distance. Then is needs to reverse thrust for the last half.
So the Mormons were right! Kolob awaits…
Are these the planets where the Intelligent Designers live?
Thanks Pundit. That would put me at about 390 pound walking on land.
SC #39:
The solar sails have problems, mainly very slow acceleration. A photon doesn’t carry much momentum.
The good points are they’re cheaper to launch since they don’t have to carry any fuel, and although the acceleration is slow the top speed can be very high, a significant fraction of the speed of light. It just takes a long time to get there.
But yeah, they’re cool :P
Then again there is my favorite for interstellar travel: “folding space” or “traveling without moving.”
Gotta love the Spice-snorting Navigators in Dune, at first glance they almost look like marine invertebrates.
Totally, wholly, and unashamedly off-topic, but I don’t think anyone will blame me.
From a Texas Freedom Network missive received today:
“On Wednesday (April 22), the Senate Nominations Committee will hold a public hearing on the confirmation of Don McLeroy, R-Bryan, as SBOE chair. Gov. Rick Perry appointed McLeroy chairman in July 2007, after the last legislative session. So the Senate has never officially confirmed his appointment.”
That means that tomorrow, we might have a chance to boot McLeroy. Please, please, if you live in Texas, contact your committee member if let him/her know that incompetent ideologues like McLeroy have no business guiding education standards.
Find your committee member with this link:
http://www.tfn.org/site/R?i=_WlI6NLSYRtc4dzHDbAMFg..
If you live in Austin, please consider testifying at the meeting tomorrow. (Link and quote from TFN, but I don’t think they’ll mind the publicity)
are light years indicative of what we are seeing being in what we call the past, present or future? i.e. if a planet is 21 light years away which presumably means that the light we see bouncing off of it in our present bounced off of it (the planet) 21 years ago meaning we know it was in existence in what we refer to as our past (from our point of reference or reference frame) 21 years ago, then if we had the capability to send a space shuttle traveling at the speed of light 21 years ago then it would land on the planet we see now at exactly the time we see the light reaching us today in what we refer to as our present. If we presume that the planet persist on for another 100 years then past the moment we see now then we can assume that if the space ship that we sent 21 years ago traveling at the speed of light returns immediately almost as if bouncing off of it in the same way that light does then it will arrive back on earth exactly 42 years from when it originally left earth from the perspective of those who watched it take off from earth in the first place. That being the case, in order to know from our perspective that the experiment worked and the space ship was able to reach this planet by today it would have to have taken off 42 years ago in order that it should make it to the planet and bounce back back by today for us to see it, completing a round trip in 42 light years. If this is all verified and the space shuttle makes the round trip then we know for a fact that the other planet existed in coincidence with ours at every year between year 0 and year 21 on this time line but we know we can only know this in 42 years from the date the space ship initially launches. Stated differently we assume that we can only know that it existed in a coincident present in our own future or that the present on the other star is something we will only be able verify in 42 years from now. So their present always coincides with our future and our present always coincides with thier future and yet our presents always coincide as long as they do not have to be revealed to one another. As soon as knowledge of one another is required we can only see each others pasts in our presents and in our futures we can only see each others presents (which have already evolved into our respective pasts by our futures, and yet at the time of their unrevealed existence coincided in the same universal present) Can there be any such universal present? Or do our frames of reference firmly place our existences in each others pasts even though they may have existed at the same time since we can only verify and know each other at a point in our respective futures?
Science Pundit @ #45: Mass scales as the cube of the radius, not the square. So a rocky planet of seven Earth masses would have a radius of ~1.9 Earth radii (which is the figure given for Gliese 581e).
The simplest rule of thumb is that for a given density, surface gravity scales linearly with radius. So a rocky planet of 1.9 Earth radii has a surface gravity of ~1.9 g.
PZ, you *must* read “Manifold: Time” by Stephen Baxter. Not only does it feature space squid, it even has a space squid sex scene.
2.6 g is like what you feel on an average roller coaster. That isn’t bad for small creatures, like up to insect size maybe. An acceleration of ~25 m/s^2 still isn’t that much force when you have less than a gram of mass. I have no doubt that ant or beetle-like creatures could deal with that, much less microbes.
That much gravity might make surface pressure a problem depending on how much atmosphere there is. Not so much the pressure itself for the little creatures, but the temperature of all that pressurized gas. Don’t forget that Venus is in what would be a ‘habitable zone’ if it had less atmosphere.
You don’t need to travel faster than light if you don’t mind just a little subjective travel time. Of course, you must still accelerate to near light speed, but the time dilation will make the trip seem much quicker. But we left-behinds (so to speak) would have to wait 21 years to see if PZ liked his new home!
AAAACK!!!
Thanks Gregory! I actually wrote down cube root on my crib sheet, but when I pulled out the calculator–for some reason–I calculated square root and then carried the mistake through.
Ugh!
*Looks in the mirror and facepalms*
Awesome PZ – here’s the plan:
1. tell all the creationists about it; get them to raise money to blast PZ off the planet
2. take the money, buy a pleasant island somewhere, set up your own university, and retire to your island-university
shorter Roga:
42 is the answer.
You just don’t understand the question.
…maybe we should rename the planet Stavromula Beta?
:P
The recently launched kepler telescope should be able to find a home for pz. It will take up to three years, I’m told.
Alex @ 37
In other words, it is still shit and will always remain shit.
Hey, Cuttlefish. Thanks for the drive by. Good to see you.
*Still pretty fast on the draw, ain’t ya, podner?*
They cite them as evidence that they were right all along (don’t immediately have a reference to hand, sorry). Specifically, since none of the discovered exoplanets are in the habitable zone* it proves that the Earth is specially made for us** and therefore the Bible and their beliefs were right all along and, in fact, reinforced by this new evidence.
I think we have enough evidence to make a rock solid prediction here…
they’ll interpret the new evidence as supporting what they believed all along. The new evidence is, in fact, exactly what was amazingly predicted by Genesis 1:20 and Genesis 1:7-8. Note that the “waters above the firmament” in Gen 1:7 are clearly a reference to the water on other Earth like planets. I mean, what else could anybody possibly think that was talking about? And since Gen 1:20 says “…let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life…” it’s clearly telling us that God made life on other planets!! Before “science” was able to confirm it!!! The Bible wins over science again!!1!one!***
* Yes, I know this isn’t true. But untrue things become true if you repeat them enough.
** Yes, I know this isn’t true either, since the number of Earth-like planets known is a function of our ability to detect them, not how many exist
*** No, you can’t reconcile this with the above two. But those points weren’t being made by real Christians.
Why bother with FTL? It only annoys Einstein. Just ramp up to an average velocity of .999c and your trip will take a little under a year (ship time.)
I do suggest that you use something the size and density of a solid Jovian moon for your ship; because and those speeds random bits of interstellar hydrogen hit like bombs, and all the light in your direction of travel is going to be blue-shifted up to a short wavelength.
bon voyage!
All in favour of dubbing Gliese 581 d “R’lyeh” in honour of the Tentacled one say “IA”.
“Gliese 581 e is the closest in size to Earth, only 1.9 times larger.”
Actually we don’t know that. It’s 1.9 times Earth mass which means that the planet could be the size of Earth or even smaller, just much denser.
We’d need to point Kepler at it to get an idea of its real size because all that’s measured is the wobble of its star, giving us only mass.
Unfortunately that would require about 10 gees of constant acceleration for the entire year. For one gee of acceleration, the subjective time lapse would be about six years.
How will Kepler tell us that, though? I was under the impression that it wouldn’t get us that kind of data.
Poor David Puddle… Earth, not so privileged after all…
Gonna put a dent in his anthromorphized universe… Nah, who am I kidding. His headle is denser than metal, mere facts will not penetrate a head that obdurate.
Isnt ne a constant,namely,2?
But I might be wrong,not my specialty.
Space Squid? HAH! You wish. Everyone who is anyone knows that there are M-Fing psionic space dolphins! I can prove it too!
http://liir.swordofthestars.com/we-are-liir/
“We’ll just have to blame Einstein for the speed of light problem. Where’s the developer of the warp drive when we need him/her?” – N of R
He’s with the Nuclear Sciences Institute in Mexico. Got any negative energy on hand?
I wonder if they’re flat too?
Fresh out. Wiki says negative energy is related to tachyons, a staple of SciFi.
I have issues with the extraordinarily common assumption that “earth like” necessarily means “can support current forms of terrestrial life.”
The earth is about 4.5 billion years old. Photosynthesis did not evolve until about one billion years ago; before then, the atmosphere (and therefore the disolved gases in the oceans) was dominated by methane and there was no free oxygen to be had. During the last billion years, there have been long periods when methane, carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide were at much higher levels than now, and any modern lifeforms teleported back to one of these periods would probably die gruesomely in a matter of minutes.
On the average, the earth has been extremely unsuitable for modern terrestrial life.
It wouldn’t take 21 years to get there, because of Time dilation. But you’d never go home.
And that’s nothing for a Mesklinite.
It is not that far. Only 20 1/2 light years. Maybe by the end of Obamas first term we will have Inter Galactic Space Travel. Sadly it is rumored God made this Planet too. This is my story.
http://noguyinthesky.blogspot.com/2009/04/god-creates-gliese-581d-in-5-days.html
Hmm… octopus. I have a great recipe in my book for Spanish octopus (Tapis) that’s worth the effort. PZ has a copy. I hope he liked it.
Thank you to those who’ve responded to my question re solar sailing.
I, for one, welcome our new… oh, who am I kidding? If some giant squid comes out of its flying saucer, I’m going to whack off its tentacles with a machete, and make calamari.
;-)
@SC,
there are a series of simulations of, and interviews about solar sailing on youtube – if you search through you might come across something you like.
What’s cooler than astronomy?
ASTROBIOLOGY!!!!
@#69,
Actually it would. Kepler is designed to watch for a transit, the time when a planet crosses in front of a star. By measuring the dimming of an alien sun, we can tell how big the planet actually is. It’s been done before to detect Hot Jupiters.
If I remember how this works, then general relativity says that you don’t need to travel faster than light. You just need to produce a substantial constant force. The only drawback is that everyone you ever knew on Earth will be dead by the time you return, excepting whoever comes with you. Who do you love more, PZ, us or your space squids? Easy choice, right?
The Kepler mission will be utilizing the transit method to provide the data that gives the astronomers the information needed to determine both the size and location of planets in the 100,000 stars it will be examining. The duration of the dimming of a stars light will indicate the location of the planets orbit, and the amount of dimming will indicate the size of the planet.
If they turn out to be sentient squid, it might be time to filter your tasty cephalapod stories and limit them to earth-bound IPs only.
Either that or get your stick and rock ready.
Just hope this ocean planet’s life hasn’t been killed off by the ultimate predator — The Despair Squid.
I see you’ve discovered the homeworld.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamera_vs._Viras
for video (just avoid the advertising) http://www.truveo.com/Gamera-vs-Viras-Trailer/id/224578505
Ah, Space Squid! All my erotic alien-Cephalopod fantasies combined in one exquisite multi-tentacled form . . . Sorry, this is too exciting. I think I’ll have to go and lie down for a bit . . .
So, re Kepler, what kind of proportion of the stars would have an ecliptic plane that would put an exoplanet between the star and the scope?
fizzy #87
That depends on whether we are close enough to the planet’s orbital plane.
Thanks – I didn’t realize that was the method that Kepler was using.
I guess we’ll have to wait and see what the data looks like…
Does anyone have a collection of quotes about the possibility or non-possibility of extra-terrestial life (intelligent or not) from the OEC/YEC/ID-ists? I’d like to know what their various positions on the subject are, and whether they are in agreement or not. I’m not the slightest bit interested in theology, but I’d enjoy watching the biblical literalists or even Roman Catholicism try to explain away another planet with even early plant life on it.
I read that it is possible in principle, at least, to infer the existence of life on a remote planet by observing the absorption spectrum of its atmosphere. Would anyone learned in this matter please explain, briefly? I know the basics, but how practical is it? How close are we to applying the technique to the known extra-Sol-system planets?
To answer part of one of my own questions, this site about a NASA/JPL study for a ‘Terrestial Planet Finder’ project and mission:
http://planetquest.jpl.nasa.gov/TPF/tpf_index.cfm.
For those wondering about the response of the RCC
to speculations about extra-solar planets, life, &c.
I commend to you the example of Giordano Bruno.
@JMk2
I know a literalist (though I’m fairly certain he’s not a YEC, oddly enough) who got in trouble with his family for insisting that the bible did not say anything one way or the other on extraterrestrial life. Needless to say, the idea that they weren’t necessarily “special” wasn’t popular.
Nope. It would still take 42 years for us to *know*. (yes, 42 is the answer.)
Well, you’d have to get there before all the fundies do and claim the planet as their (gods) own!
Unless You meant 21 years since PZ arrival time. I did not think of that.
Speaking of planets–just watched the occultation of Venus by the moon. Wowie!
What, 100 replies and no Kang and Kodos reference?
yes, everything you percieve is in the past. There is no universal “now”. There is no common clock. But it can also be argued that even though it takes time for light to travel from there to here, since nothing is faster than light, it is just as reasonable to say that what we see is what is occurring “now” no matter how far away it is.
Regarding the possible number of orbital planes of those 100,000 Kepler stars someone was wondering about: How many solar systems you detect depends on the size of the orbit (like, if the planet was just skimming the surface of the star, all orbits except those closest to polar orbits perpendicular to line of sight would transit (to us) during some part of them. The farther out you get with the orbit, the lower the proportion. The ultimate relation therefore derives from the ratio of the star’s radius to the orbital radius, with larger orbital radii leading to smaller orbit/star ratios. Just picturing it mentally it seems light it ought to be nearly linear: if you double the orbital radius you cut in half the number of systems we’d be able to detect. But I could be misleading myself and should really get back to work, so I’m not going to doodle it out or look it up.
From what I remember, about 2% of all possible orbits in the expected distribution of habitable zones should transit for us. Which means we should be able to observe about 2,000 Earths, if all the stars have Earths.
To be sure, we’re likely to see close-in hot Jupiters before seeing habitable zone Earths, but together that information will give us a relation that will finally allow us to get some reliable numbers to plug into the Drake equation
Shitfuckdamn. Parentheses fail. I even previewed. Glad I don’t use emoticons.
S.F.D.:
“…seems like it ought…”
“…star/orbit ratio…”
Cuttlefish YAY. Always a joy to read you.
I have an idea! and very little knowledge backing it up…
Space is a vacuum, right? If we made a giant tube that went through our atmosphere, we could open up a valve and get sucked out… no fuel necessary! It would look similar to the Tropicana orange juice commercial but the orange would be Earth… this doesn’t solve the moving faster than light problem but it’s a start. It also brings to mind Spaceballs when they use the giant made to vacuum the planet.
http://blog.foolsmountain.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/megamaid-spaceballs.jpg
http://blogs.miaminewtimes.com/shortorder/tropicana%20old.jpg
I just had another thought…
When do you think our equipment will be powerful enough to see Star Wars play out… i realize it all happened a long time ago… but it was also in a galaxy far away…
anyone know the exact time and distance… on another note, why haven’t those astronomy nerds named a planet after star wars or star trek… Does anyone know of a planet named from some science fiction or know why they haven’t
OK buh bye
That would only work if the weight of the displaced air was much greater than the weight of the mass being lifted. Otherwise, it will get part way up and reach equilibrium, and just hang there. We do this on earth with barometers.
Education, much better than just SciFi.
so you’re saying it would work? we would just need to make the tube big enough to displace the right amount of air! or we could just let an entire space station hang in equilibrium MILES above the surface so we could launch rockets from there. or we could use it like a shotgun… just stick a bunch or rocks in it and shoot the moon!
No Tim, it wouldn’t work. I’ll leave it for you to do the math. After all, the best way to see that it won’t work is to see the math behind the barometer, then plug in some reasonable values for a space ship. Smart people do this before throwing out ideas.
wow, you were the one who said it would work! but anyways, i came up with a much better plan than yours. we have the same tube but fill it up with water! that way when you get in we release the hold on it and it floats to the top… Easy as pie!
Life bearing planets should have oxygen. Free oxygen is a product of photosynthesis.
The earth had no O2 in the atmosphere for billions of years. It rusted until all the oxygen scavengers were oxidized and then it built up. Water and O2 in the atmosphere should do it.
No Tim, you are showing your illiteracy now. I never said it would work the way you wanted. In fact, I explained what would happen. You are an ignorant cuss, and will get chewed to bits here. Time to fade into the bandwidth.
Don’t even need math:
Phase 1: Super-engineered, vacuum filled (if that even makes sense, but you get the idea), drinking straw (sucking straw?) reaching down to the Earth’s surface from geosynch (if we could do this, it would be even easier to build a regular-old skiffy beanstalk, but let’s briefly continue with craziness).
Phase 2: Prospective suck-o-naut enters vacuum filled sucking mega-straw, presumably through airlock. Stands there wondering where’s the magic.
Phase 3: Oh! Wait! we need for some sucking (yeah, yeah, the idea sucks after a few moments of thought already, but let’s go with some air sucking). Suck-o-naut opens the airlock door to let air rush in. Stands there in the mighty wind until the air column equilibrates and the whole apparatus is now just an air filled straw with the suck-o-naut still standing at the bottom.
(Alternative phase 3) The mighty wind is so powerful it blows the suck-o-naut radially outwards (or maybe s-o-n has a parachute or something) until the air column equilibrates, then the suck-o-naut drifts back down.
Note: I thought Tim was just attempting a joke, but the set-up was so uninformed it was both unfunny and needed no comment and was ignore-worthy. Didn’t think it was serious. But since others have commented and I’ve got a bad case of the slacktoids, I thought I’d throw $0.02 in.
you are all ignoring my original premise… the pressure outside of our atmosphere is much lower than inside our atmosphere… you know the whole “space is a vacuum” thing i said?… we have a platform that is connected to the sides of the wall so that when you open the airlock (outside of the atmosphere) all the air within is sucked out and the platform is sucked upwards (it would have a gasket to keep the air from being sucked around it) but as redhead pointed out, it would probably only get about half way. so that’s why i made the new idea with the water which uses buoyancy instead of the vacuum.
Brain Hertz for Molly.
What?
Not even two weeks like Wikipedia? That’s ridiculous! Good that I never bothered registering.
Congratulations. You have rediscovered the theory of relativity. :-)
All that cannot spell Iä, let alone pronounce it, shall be eaten next-to-last.
No, carbon dioxide and nitrogen. Methane falls apart when the sun shines; ultraviolet radiation destroys it, leading to a Titan-style haze somewhere high up in the atmosphere.
(Trace amounts from photolysis of water and suchlike.)
Tim, do the math or shut up. Welcome to science. The burden of proof is always upon the claimant. Now show us the math that your inane idea will work. The physics behind a barometer can be found in a basic physics text. Go the library and see if it would work.
If you will forgive the self-linkage, I invite you to read some thoughts of mine on extra-terrestrial civilization, here.
Density of space 1.46 × 10^-18 Pa
Density of Earth at sea level 1.5 × 10^5 Pa
Volume of space is infinite (or close enough to it)
Volume of Earths atmosphere miniscule compared to infinity
So when you open the valve the tube everything in the tube is sucked out to equalize the inside of the tube with space, which is about zero. Its at that point we release the hold on the platform and the airlock underneath it causing air to rush in and equalize the tube with the rest of the atmosphere… there would be a tremendous amount of pressure pushing the platform upwards… I cannot do the math without knowing the size and weight of the platform. but 1 pascal is equal to 145.04×10^−6 psi. so the pressure acting would be near about 1.0 X 10^10 pounds per square inch so I think we can get a platform to work with it
you fail to realize the joke in this and refute the wrong thing… when you read that physics book yourself you will see why this would never work (and it has nothing to do with a barometer)
Tim, the pressure of the atmosphere is what actually moves the object, not the vacuum. The fact that you don’t see this means you are scientifically illiterate. And in a very long tube, say 150 miles long, the pressure inside will equlibrate to the surrounding atmosphere pressure due to the effect of gravity on the air molecules, and never shoot up out of the 150 mile long tube like you are pretending would happen. So, the platform will reach equilibrium just as I said above, for the same reasons a barometer will read about 760 mm Hg at atmospheric pressure.
how do you not understand this? this is the problem with the world people get into arguments in fields they have no understanding of… OK! take a big boeing 747 and poke a hole in it… everything gets sucked out! that’s only a very low pressure difference there… now think about what would happen if the space station were to get a whole in it… much greater pressure differences = much greater force.
Redhead, the pressure of your slurpee cup is what moves your delicious frozen beverage to your mouth not a vacuum. is that what you would have me believe?
Tim, if you are correct in your conceptualizing, the vacuum of space should pull all of Earth’s atmosphere away, and us with it. Sticking some super tube down from space isn’t going to change any of the basic relationships.
Nerd O’Redhead was being too kind, assuming you could pick up the necessary abilities by just reading. Go to the library, get one of those gigantic books with lots of solved physics story problems (titled something like “Physics Problem Solver”) and get some practice with actually putting your concepts together numerically. Then try to tackle this current problem. Or rather, if you’re successful at the practice part, you’ll see where your conceptualizing disappears from the plane of reality.
Did the calculations. An Apollo capsule was slightly less dense than water, so your imaginary non-frictional tube would raise it 11 meters with a one atmosphere differential before equilibrium would be achieved. Not likely to hit orbit at that rate.
Start pumping iron now, PZ!
Are you really doubting this? A vacuum doesn’t pull, it is the weight of the atmosphere pushing the slurpee up into the straw. Do really not understand how a barometer works? If not then you are not ready to be designing spaceships.
I suspect strategically-placed wormholes might be a better bet.
’tis a sad bunch… you should all probably read that physics book i recommended to redhead at #121
ISBN: 0-87784-341-4 (they’ve got it at amazon)
as an aside… i know this wouldn’t work but for none of the reasons any of you have said… and if it would work we would run out of air in our atmosphere if we kept letting it out!
which is why my water tube suggestion from #113 would be the best… we could even use the apollo capsule!
And the water comes from where? And what pressure would be required to make it go high enough? Do the math yourself this time Tim. Ideas mean nothing without a reality check. Which is what true scientists do before going public.
Yesterday I finally received confirmation of the existence of life on other planets; this is so exciting.
I got mail from the company that handles the warranty on my new car and is has printed on it, clear as day,
“Powered by LGM”
See! LGM – Little Green Men! It must be true, it was printed and stuff. Just like the wholly babble.
Hi Tim,
Are you realted to Jim Tanger, who was trolling around on a thread a few weeks ago?
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2009/04/another_texas_compromise_with.php
Say it ain’t so!
i did do the math… both times i might add. the water can come from the ocean… or if we don’t want to lose any of that we could melt Pluto and fill up our tube that way (point being there is plenty of liquid to fill up the giant tube…) all we need is a transporter less dense than the liquid inside the tube. we could use a submarine if we really wanted to. (they float and are already pressure sealed and airtight)
read “related” in place of “realted”
Tim, what volume would be needed, and what would be the pressure at the base of the column? Do the math, and give us the numberical answers. (I already did the pressure at the base of the column, so I can check your work.)
MrFire, maybe you should go through that thread and see if you can figure it out. you could read #215 from that thread
Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM Author Profile Page | April 8, 2009 8:00 PM
PZ just report on the Choice thread that Jim and Tim have the same IP address. Poes.
but you would probably get the wrong impression because it’s not true… awwww
the real truth is found at #221 written by me
really Redhead?? the pressure would be 3141592653589 psi
is it the same as yours??? Oh! we must have used different liquids… or different sized tubes. what were your figures? and I’ll do it your way
Now, what type of pump will be able to supply that pressure, along with the volume needed to fill the, say 10 M diameter cylinder, 150 KM high? Keep going on with the reality check. Also, what material of construction can handle that pressure? Details, details. If it is implausible, just say so.
Ah, so. Didn’t read that far.
There was a later correction, not be me, where the Jim had the same IP as one of our regulars. I misread what PZ said. Tim may be real. Not a bright bulb.
And even if your spaceship floated to the top of that 150km tube of water, it would not be in orbit, nor would it be free of earth’s gravity. Step over the edge of the tube and it will plummet back to the ground. It would still have to achieve escape velocity, very little would be gained by such a method.
Posts like this are one of the reasons I read this blog. Well, that and how often you make me LOL. I love you man, and I hope God sends you to that squidly planet.
Oh, wait…
MKK
ok, lets use YOUR physics book… even with YOUR physics it is easily possible it would just require some editing… we would need to stair step it because the pressure would be a bit high for current technology… so we fill up the tubes about 1 km high and build them up like staircases… you get to the top of one jump in the next one which is supported by solid rock… we can build a submarine that could withstand that, then we do that about 150 times and we’re in space! also this is with water we could use a lot of different liquids to speed it up… this is using your physics mind you (the flawed kind) there is a much simpler way that you would understand if you took a look at the physics book i recommended (i believe amazon lets you read a chapter) it may be over your head but there is a simpler introductory book written by Martin Heidegger, Professor Gregory Fried, & Professor Richard Polt but i dont remember where i bought it.. it may be on amazon as well so you might check there
“And even if your spaceship floated to the top of that 150km tube of water, it would not be in orbit,”
space begins at 118 km
http://www.livescience.com/space/090409-edge-space.html
SteveM, good point. He still needs a way to achieve the 17,500 mph orbital velocity very quickly, or become splatted spam in a can.
OMG! you people! if the bottom of the tube is fixed to the surface of the earth that means the tip of tube is rotating with it…
Tim, that is an areospace prize definition, not reality. You can’t orbit until about 100-120 miles, as there is still enough drag to make the orbit unstable. (I watched the first Mercury flights, and Walter Cronkite went through an awful lot of the science.) We are talking reality, and you are avoiding it. I’ve done the math. As the Mythbusters would say, “BUSTED”.
redhead… you seem to change your mind a lot. you were the one who said 150 km tube, now you are trying to say that i said it HAHA. is this that “real science” you were talking about. Since i was only talking about getting to space and not orbit the 150 km suited me just fine. from there it would take much less energy to make the jump into orbit! Now about the orbital velocity… hahaha you both should REALLY read into that because you are both way off (made me tear up a little it was so funny) seriously you both are clueless even to YOUR OWN physics!
Tim Janger:
Heidegger was a mid-twentieth-century philosopher, not a physicist. Fried and Polt are academics who have written about Heidegger.
Tim Janger is just trolling. Ignore him and stop responding.
It seems to me that Tim Janger’s water tube is basically just a space elevator that happens to use hydraulics as the lifting mechanism.
But I should point out that if one is thinking of filling this tube with water from the ocean, that means one is essentially boosting that water up into orbit (inside the tube), and that one cubic metre (about the volume occupied by a comfortable chair) of water weighs one metric tonne. I don’t think there is any conceivable material, not even carbon nanotubes, that is strong enough to hold up that amount of weight and pressure to that height, particularly since most of the volume of it will be the water and the water will provide nothing in terms of tensile strength.
And if you can envision filling it from the other direction with melted ice from space, and you have the technology to do that, then why are you even talking about space elevators, anyways?
No Tim, I have been fixed on the facts, and you are the one trolling with ignorance. I have the math, you don’t. Guess who has degrees, and who doesn’t. You are just an idiot, which is being pointed out to you. If you have a point, it was refuted long ago. Ideas are meaningless unless backed up by real evidence. Creobot and godbot ideas have no evidence in reality.
Having gruesome fun again today Nerd. :D
ok, i asked you for the tube dimensions you gave me 150km… NOW you’re saying “You can’t orbit until about 100-120 miles” maybe the problem lies in your conversion… you know miles and kilometers are different right? if that’s the case i would put my money on Me having degrees (i was there everytime i got one) and you probably not haveing any because you cant do simple math… but maybe its in something else, or it might be one of those degrees they give out as formalties to famous people.
Tim Janger, this quibbling about heights to space or orbit is irrelevant, actually. For any given structure whose apex sits at an elevation less than geosynchronous orbit, the top of the structure is moving with the rotation of the earth at a velocity less than what is needed to keep it in orbit. If you remove the supporting structure beneath it, it would immediately fall. So the top of your structure stays in the air only because it is supported by the rest of the structure below it. There is no known material, and no physically possible material (composed of normal baryonic matter, at any rate) that can support a tower to anything near the heights you envision.
If the top of your structure was in geosynchronous orbit, however, then it is moving at a velocity fast enough to remain in orbit, and the whole ballgame changes, because now instead of supporting your structure from the surface of the earth, you are actually hanging your structure from the orbital platform instead.
So, in terms of height, it is either geosynchronous orbit height (plus the extra length needed for the counter balance) or not at all.
Now if you had the technology to build a 150 km tower of neutronium (and there’s no guarantee that even neutronium would work, the gravitational field from that amount of neutronium by itself would be game changing) and pump several thousand metric tonnes of water up the entire 150km height, then why don’t you just use the same tech to lift your spaceship, which weighs much less than the same volume of water, directly into orbit instead?
Hey, Typekey hasn’t logged me out yet (home from toil!). Cool!
I agree with the poster who said we should ignore Tim Troll. At first there was a hint of enthusiastic, but naive, educability (say, like my 7-year old nephew), but his troll-like deceptors are now quite evident.
I doubt Nerd actually needs the troll-bashing practice, and may actually be enjoying it. After trying it a couple times on other threads, I find troll-bashing not to my particular taste (as with sour cream or vinegar, which I also don’t like but others love; I’m not making a value judgement on troll-bashing. I kind of like watching it).
Tim, if you had any physical science/engineering background, you would have never proposed your idiotic idea. And your math was wrong on the pressure at the bottom of the water tower by several orders of magnitude (looked remarkably like 12 digits of pi). That’s why I make my living doing science. That is why ideas are irrelevant without reality checks. You have a weird idea of reality.
I can do a little simple math — enough to know that Tim Janger’s tube idea sucks. (Not the tube, just his idea about it.)
If you could find a material to make this tube out of, strong enough to stand up under it’s own weight; if you could build a pump humongous enough to evacuate the air from it (and repeat after every shot); and if you could make a plunger with gasket that wouldn’t burn up from friction with the side of the tube — you could start up under the impetus of the air pressure at the bottom, about 15 pounds/square inch. But you would not accelerate. All the way up, the force beneath you would be resisted by your own weight, and by the weight of the air that has already entered the tube. That force will decrease steadily as you go up. By the time you reach the top of the tube — if you can even go that high — your upward velocity will be zero.
Jules Verne’s idea of a giant gunpowder cannon, in From the Earth to the Moon, was more plausible.
Redhead, I think you’ve been overly generous with Tim Janger to even engage him on the level of the math, and commit the effort to doing all the various calculations yourself.
The math is after all only the second step in vetting an idea. The first step is to make sure it’s actually conceptually possible. Only then does one need to do the math to determine feasibility rigorously from the physics and engineering viewpoints, and after that one has to do the practical test to confirm that it will actually work in the real world.
Tim’s tube idea fails at step one. You don’t need any math at all to see that it is bunk. The air tube idea fails because the gas and pressure laws he’s relying on to prove his case are all simplifications based on the assumption that the effect of gravity on the system is negligible and can be ignored, and in this application, gravity is the whole freakin’ point. The water tube idea would work, but only if one has access to a technology sufficiently advanced as to be indistinguishable from magic.
Tim, your posts have been brilliant. Your real name isn’t Lazlo Toth (or perhaps Don Novello), is it?
Tim your idea is brilliant. I think it is worthy of a science fiction novel. Maybe the squid on Gliese 581 could use that technology to get to earth. After all they are water dwelling creatures to begin with.
On the other hand if you are suggesting we try to build this thing in reality then the idea is completely bunk.
Please remember as you reply to the Janger idiot’s posts that he is not me. I actually have engineering degrees.
Amphiox, I used to teach, and it is always better if students can find their own mistakes. Needless to say, I wasn’t impressed at all with the ideas. Nor his inability to find his own mistakes.
Guys, not to rain on your parade, but wasn’t ‘Tim Janger’ one of the aliases that Matt guy used for his Poe ‘experiment’ a couple of weeks back?
Yep. I had been speculating that this new Tim had simply yanked Matt’s Poe handle.
*shrug*
Tim Janger wrote:
being in space is not the same as being in orbit, dumbass.
he also wrote:
The space station orbits the Earth in about 90 minutes, the top of your tube would be “orbiting” in 24 hours, far too slow to stay up without all the rest of the tube under it. Step off the top of the tube and you will fall, not orbit.
So, come on admit it, you are just screwin around; you really can’t be this stupid.
Dunno about a Poe, but I reckon Tim is trolling for sure.
This thread was much more interesting before the Tube of Stupid was brought up.