We Live in the Rarest Type of Planetary System

[gboisjo]

We would be better off colonizing the moon instead of Mars. At least the sun is strong enough to grow plants and make enough solar power to split water for oxygen . Not to mention being much closer to earth. There is little left of Mars to support life.

NASA wants to colonize both the moon and Mars.

 

[gboisjo]

My ultimate take is that everything in this universe - including us - was meant to be destroyed, just as it was meant to be created. Everything that has a beginning, has an end. We will end.

Absolutely, our sun will use all of its energy and eventually die ..before it does it will expand and roast the inner Planets.

Eventually all the stars and black holes in the universe will die ..leaving the Universe a cold dark place forever.

A cold dark place where no life exist.

 

[gboisjo]

Well, you are partially right. The distances involved make it currently impossible to travel to another solar system. However, that does not mean that we cannot move to a new planet. There is, of course, Mars. I also would not be concerned about Earth. It will still be here long after we become extinct.

I agree humanity days are numbered whether we move to another planet or moon in our solar system or not.

When we're gone Earth will heal unless we cause catastrophic damage with either weapons or human induced irreversible climate change.

 

[Glitch]

Absolutely, our sun will use all of its energy and eventually die ..before it does it will expand and roast the inner Planets.

Not quite.

First, Mercury, Venus, and Earth will become uninhabitable long before the sun dies. When the sun does begin to die, having burned up all of its hydrogen, it will begin fusing helium. That will make the sun even hotter, and it will begin expanding. However, as it expands it will also be shedding mass. As the sun sheds mass its gravitational hold over the planets weakens and the orbits of the planets begin to increase.

By the time the sun radius reaches 1 AU, it will have consumed Mercury and Venus, but Earth's orbit will now be somewhere around Mars. So Earth will escape being consumed, although it would have been a lifeless cinder for billions of years prior to that.

Eventually all the stars and black holes in the universe will die ..leaving the Universe a cold dark place forever.

A cold dark place where no life exist.

That is one theory. Another theory is that there is too much mass in the universe and the expansion will eventually stop and a collapse will begin. Eventually leading us into the Big Crunch. There are at least 8 or 9 other theories on how the universe will end. Including the multiverse view, where the universe never really ends.

 

[Glitch]

I agree humanity days are numbered whether we move to another planet or moon in our solar system or not.

When we're gone Earth will heal unless we cause catastrophic damage with either weapons or human induced irreversible climate change.

You never know. While some species last a few million years, others have existed for hundreds of millions of years. Arthropods have existed for 450+ million years and arachnids have existed for ~380 million years. Humanity's days are surely numbered, but that number could be a hundred million years from now or more.

 

[gboisjo]

The l

Not quite.

First, Mercury, Venus, and Earth will become uninhabitable long before the sun dies. When the sun does begin to die, having burned up all of its hydrogen, it will begin fusing helium. That will make the sun even hotter, and it will begin expanding. However, as it expands it will also be shedding mass. As the sun sheds mass its gravitational hold over the planets weakens and the orbits of the planets begin to increase.

By the time the sun radius reaches 1 AU, it will have consumed Mercury and Venus, but Earth's orbit will now be somewhere around Mars. So Earth will escape being consumed, although it would have been a lifeless cinder for billions of years prior to that.


That is one theory. Another theory is that there is too much mass in the universe and the expansion will eventually stop and a collapse will begin. Eventually leading us into the Big Crunch. There are at least 8 or 9 other theories on how the universe will end. Including the multiverse view, where the universe never really ends.

The leading theory is the one I posted ..the universe will continue to expand using up all of its usable energy.

What energy is left will be tied up in rocks ..it will become a cold dark place forever.

A somewhat talked about theory is some sort of a pulsating universe ..I have my doubts about that

 

[Loulit01]

Um, before we hop on our intergalactic spaceship, let's develop the first tenable method of interstellar travel. Ain't happened yet except in sci-fi.

 

[gboisjo]

You never know. While some species last a few million years, others have existed for hundreds of millions of years. Arthropods have existed for 450+ million years and arachnids have existed for ~380 million years. Humanity's days are surely numbered, but that number could be a hundred million years from now or more.

Modern humans originated in Africa within the past 200,000 years and evolved from their most likely recent common ancestor, Homo Erectus.

So when one considers Dinosaurs reined for 200 million years and never did any harm to the planet, its an eye opener.

Humans will be lucky if they make it to the next century, forget millions of years.

 

[gboisjo]

Um, before we hop on our intergalactic spaceship, let's develop the first tenable method of interstellar travel. Ain't happened yet except in sci-fi.

Never happen, the best we can hope for is voyager 1 having reached interstellar space.

Voyager 1 entered the vastness of interstellar space on August 25, 2012, making it the first spacecraft to do so.

15 billion miles from Earth as of July 2022 ..its the most distant man-made object from us and Earth ever.

Voyager 1 is traveling at 38,000 mph and will pass by its first body, a dwarf star called Gliese in 44,000 years.

Humans IMO will never make it to the closest star Proxima Centauri ..It lies at a distance of about 4.3 light-years or about 25,300,000,000,000 miles away.

Plenty to explore in our own solar system.

 

[Loulit01]

Never happen, the best we can hope for is voyager 1 having reached interstellar space.

Voyager 1 entered the vastness of interstellar space on August 25, 2012, making it the first spacecraft to do so.

15 billion miles from Earth as of July 2022 ..its the most distant man-made object from us and Earth ever.

Voyager 1 is traveling at 38,000 mph and will pass by its first body, a dwarf star called Gliese in 44,000 years.

Humans IMO will never make it to the closest star Proxima Centauri ..It lies at a distance of about 4.3 light-years or about 25,300,000,000,000 miles away.

Plenty to explore in our own solar system.

Quantum entanglement (spooky action at at a distance) was theorized in 1935 and proven true by John Stewart Bell in 1965. That's it. That's as close as we've gotten to FTL.

 

[gboisjo]

First, Mercury, Venus, and Earth will become uninhabitable long before the sun dies. When the sun does begin to die, having burned up all of its hydrogen, it will begin fusing helium. That will make the sun even hotter, and it will begin expanding. However, as it expands it will also be shedding mass. As the sun sheds mass its gravitational hold over the planets weakens and the orbits of the planets begin to increase.

By the time the sun radius reaches 1 AU, it will have consumed Mercury and Venus, but Earth's orbit will now be somewhere around Mars. So Earth will escape being consumed, although it would have been a lifeless cinder for billions of years prior to that.

Whats interesting is as the sun expands over millions of years it might warm up Jupiter's and Saturn's moons.

Europa, Enceladus, Titan and more, these are some of the most interesting bodies in our Solar System.

Bottom line, the consequences of our expanding, dying sun and its effects on the outer planets and moons is unknown.

 

[gboisjo]

Quantum entanglement (spooky action at at a distance) was theorized in 1935 and proven true by John Stewart Bell in 1965. That's it. That's as close as we've gotten to FTL.

That's a long way from humans traveling in Interstellar Space.

Exploring and exploiting our solar system will keep us busy for a 100 years ..if we last that long.

 

[anatta]

There are many factors involved. Let’s start at the galactic level. Any star system with any hope of supporting complex life must be within a galaxy’s habitable zone. In our galaxy, only 0.3% of stars are located in the habitable zone. That automatically takes you down from 100 billion stars to 300 million where the mere idea of complex life is even worth contemplating.

Now we go to stars. Ours is a rare Class G main sequence star that is only 7% of all the stars in our galaxy. That takes you down from 300 million stars to 21 million stars. What also makes our star rare is that is has no stellar companion. 85% of stars exist in a binary or other multiple system. So that takes you down from 21 million stars to 3.1 million stars.

Now we go to planetary systems. Only 50% of stars have a planet our size or larger orbiting it within its habitable zone. That takes you down from 3.1 million stars to 1.5 million stars. Ours (Ordered) is the rarest type of planetary system out there. 80% are the Similar type. So that takes you down from 1.5 million stars to somewhere south of 240,000 star systems where you can start thinking about the possibility of complex life.

And the rarities go on and on until what you’re left with is a long series of very rare things that all have to happen and happen perfectly in a particular order to end up with intelligent life. It’s a fluke that’s not likely to have been repeated anywhere else in the galaxy and maybe even the universe.

excellent research and a true picture of the possibility of extraterrestrial intelligence life

 

[iguanaman]

Complex life like ourselves exceedingly rare IMO. The trajectory of life on our planet for millions of years was towards biological weapons, not brains.

Why, because life feeds on life. But for a freak asteroid 66 millions years ago rat like mammals would still live in holes beneath the dinosaurs feet.

Life yes. intelligent life like ourselves, exceedingly rare.

And some say that without the collision with another exo-planet billions of years ago that got earth spinning and formed our moon there would be no life at all on earth.

 

[iguanaman]

The sun is strong enough to both grow plants on Mars and split water for oxygen.

We receive between 1,321 and 1,413 W/m², depending on the location of our orbit. While Mars receives between 492 and 715 W/m².

Photosynthesis requires between 500 and 1,000 lux of sunlight, or a minimum of 4 W/m² and a minimum of between 150 and 180 ppmV of CO2 in the atmosphere. Mars has both, in spades. Hydrolysis is also possible on Mars, it would just take a little more than 2.5 times longer than on Earth or the moon. There is also considerably more CO2 in Mars' atmosphere than on the moon.

So the sun is 3 times stronger on the moon and there is nothing about mars that makes it a better place for colonization. Mars is a dead planet.

 

[Glitch]

Modern humans originated in Africa within the past 200,000 years and evolved from their most likely recent common ancestor, Homo Erectus.

So when one considers Dinosaurs reined for 200 million years and never did any harm to the planet, its an eye opener.

Humans will be lucky if they make it to the next century, forget millions of years.

The idea that a species - any species - could "harm" a planet is hubris beyond belief. By "human" I am referring to all up-right walking primates, which includes the ~20 various species that predate homo erectus or homo sapiens, which date back to around 4 million years. Just as you included a wide variety of different species in your dinosaur analogy.

We just happen to have some very sick and twisted people who hate their own species so badly that they want to do everything in their power to wipe them out completely. You may have heard of them, they are commonly referred to as leftists. It was those same leftists who were responsible for 100+ million deaths during the last century alone.

 

[Glitch]

So the sun is 3 times stronger on the moon and there is nothing about mars that makes it a better place for colonization. Mars is a dead planet.

Mars has an atmosphere and an abundance of various resources. Which is more than can be said about the moon. Even Europa would be a better choice than the moon. Other than a potential fuel source, the moon is a waste of time.

 

[Geoist]

Drawing some pretty specific conclusions from pretty sparse data. Why not just say it is all due to intelligent design or some other nonsense instead of dragging it out...

Creationism is so unpopular now they have to dog whistle their views just like they do with their bigotry.

 

[Glitch]

Whats interesting is as the sun expands over millions of years it might warm up Jupiter's and Saturn's moons.

Europa, Enceladus, Titan and more, these are some of the most interesting bodies in our Solar System.

Bottom line, the consequences of our expanding, dying sun and its effects on the outer planets and moons is unknown.

That is a distinct possibility. While they would certainly benefit from increased sunlight, while moving further away, they won't have much time to enjoy it. The sun will continue to shed mass, becoming what we call a "planetary nebula" (even though the process has nothing to do with planets).

Planetary nebula | Definition, Temperature, Size, & Facts | Britannica

Planetary nebula, any of a class of bright nebulae that are expanding shells of luminous gas expelled by dying stars. They have a relatively round compact appearance rather than the chaotic patchy shapes of other nebulae—hence their name, which was given because of their resemblance to planetary

www.britannica.com

Eventually, the only thing that will be left of the sun's core is carbon-oxygen degenerate matter we call a White Dwarf approximately 30% of its original mass. Initially, the White Dwarf will be very hot. It will start off around 100,000°K, but over the next billion years or so cool off to around 10,000°K. It will continue to cool reaching around 2,000°K after another 10 billion years.

 

[Gordy327]

Mars has an atmosphere and an abundance of various resources. Which is more than can be said about the moon. Even Europa would be a better choice than the moon. Other than a potential fuel source, the moon is a waste of time.

The moon would make a good staging point to launch larger scale travels to the rest of the solar system.

 

[Glitch]

That's a long way from humans traveling in Interstellar Space.

Exploring and exploiting our solar system will keep us busy for a 100 years ..if we last that long.

I would not rule out the possibility of interstellar travel some time in future. Although it will not be a manned-mission initially. We don't need to travel faster that light, but we do have some serious design issues. The biggest one is fuel. Even if we somehow developed engines that were powered by antimatter, the most efficient fuel source available, we could never bring along enough fuel to reach our destination. The fuel has to be either manufactured or collected in route.

When you attempt to bring fuel you make the spacecraft even more massive, which means it needs to move even more weight, which requires even more fuel. It is a never ending cycle. So the trick is to develop a spacecraft that can either manufacture its own fuel source, or collect the necessary fuel as the spacecraft travels to its destination.

The second engineering problem is developing engines that are capable of operating for years continuously and providing at least 9.8 m/s² of thrust. It would take just over two years at that velocity to reach 99.5% the speed of light.

The down-side is that it is a minimum of a ~5 year journey (from our perspective on Earth), counting acceleration and deceleration. On the plus side, it will get you to Alpha Centauri. We know of at least two planets in that tertiary system. One around Alpha Centauri A, and one around Proxima Centauri. There may be another planet around Alpha Centauri B, but that has not been confirmed.

 

[Glitch]

The moon would make a good staging point to launch larger scale travels to the rest of the solar system.

A space station (at L2, where the JWST is located) would make a better staging point for interplanetary travel, but the moon would certainly make a better fuel source than Earth.

 

[Gordy327]

A space station (at L2, where the JWST is located) would make a better staging point for interplanetary travel, but the moon would certainly make a better fuel source than Earth.

If the moon can be mined for fuel, that would be more cost effective than sending fuel to orbit via rockets, as well as being a refueling station.

 

[Mircea]

In another strike against the possibility of intelligent life out there - the Kepler data has revealed that ours is the rarest type of solar system in the galaxy

If you read the article, the claim is unsupported. Not only is it unsupported, they outright lied.

Stars are grouped/classed based in part on their size and also in part on the visible light they emit.

The larger stars which dwarf our Sun have 0-2 planets at most because when they form they suck up most of the material in their region.

The smaller stars, the G/K/M-Class stars all have 6-12 planets because they do not suck up all the material before igniting and leave plenty of material to form both terrestrial and gaseous planets.

Why?

I don't know. What I do know is that stars form in regions of space where other stars have died and that there are 3 ways a star can die and yield material by going super-nova, nova, or just cast-off. The latter is what our Sun will do. It will expand into a Red Giant but instead of going nova/supernova, it will cast off the outer layer and then collapse into a White Dwarf.

I would hypothesize the larger stars form in regions of space where there is an abundance of heavier elements but less so for lighter elements or lighter elements are not in close proximity. As a result, the star is much more massive when it finally starts sucking up Hydrogen and ignites but it leaves less material to form planets.

The smaller stars form in regions where there's an over-abundance of lighter elements. That results in those stars very quickly achieving the "critical mass" necessary to start fusing Hydrogen into Helium but it also leaves a large quantify of heavier elements to form planets.

All G/K/M-Class stars have planets but those researchers wouldn't know that because no one looks at those star systems, even though they are in close proximity to Earth.

Their unsubstantiated conclusions might actually apply to larger stars but in no way apply to G/K/M-Class stars.

NASA wants to colonize both the moon and Mars.

Good for them. I hope they do. NASA can hire lots of Indian and Chinese engineers to make it happen since Americans aren't sufficiently motivated.

 

[Mircea]

Except our planets don't fit their model. Mars is smaller than Venus and Earth when it should be larger. Also Jupiter is the largest planet and after that the planets begin to get progressively smaller. By their model Neptune or Pluto (if you believe it is a planet) should be our largest planet.

Yes, they are using the wrong model which means they either reject Kepler's and Newton's laws or they are ignoring them.

There's a good reason our Solar System is modeled and it is in keeping with Kepler/Newtonian Laws and part of that reason is this.....

And some say that without the collision with another exo-planet billions of years ago that got earth spinning and formed our moon there would be no life at all on earth.

Earth was already spinning and had a moon prior to that collision in what we now call the Asteroid Belt.

I will show you what Kepler/Newtonian Laws say.

http://cse.ssl.berkeley.edu/AtHomeAs...datasheet.html

Mercury is 35,983,610 miles from the Sun. If we double that, we get 71,967,220 miles. Where is Venus?

Venus is 67,232,360 miles from the Sun. The percent difference is 6.8%

Mars is 141,635,300 miles from the Sun. Kepler/Newton say Mars should be at 134,464,720 miles from the Sun The percent difference is 5.2%

The Asteroid Belt is 260,276,259 miles from Sun. Kepler/Newton say it should be 268,929,440 miles. The percent difference is 3.3% deviation.

Jupiter should be 520,552,518 miles from Sun but it is 483,632,000 miles with a 7.4% difference.

Saturn is 888,188,000 miles distant and Kepler/Newton say it ought to be 967,264,000 miles from the Sun and the percent difference is 8.5%.

If we double Saturn's distance to 1,776,376,000 miles, then we find Uranus at 1,783,950,000 miles for an error margin of only 0.4%.

Doubling Uranus we get 3,567,900,000 miles and Neptune is at 2,798,842,000 miles which is 24.2%.

The percent differences can be explained by gravitational perturbations by other planets and objects. The explanation for Jupiter's size might be that early on there were two stars were forming in a binary-star system but Jupiter wasn't able to amass a sufficient quantity of material for ignition.

Our Earth formed in the Asteroid Belt and then was shunted to this orbit after a collision. Kepler and Newton prove it as you can plainly see.

Note that "AU" is an artificial construct being the distance from Sun to Earth and so applying it to other solar systems is a massive logical and scientific fail.