This is nuts. The only parallel to this system from sci-fi is Corellia, which was built by ancient and powerful aliens.
Edited by TasteTheRainbowNASA finds 7-planet system with all earth-like planets
3 hours ago, TasteTheRainbow said:This is nuts. The only parallel to this system from sci-fi is Corellia, which was built by ancient and powerful aliens.
Is that canon?
39 light years away. God **** where is that hyperdrive tech?
Edited by Marinealver
I so titled by this. Well not by discovery itself cause its super cool and interesting but by the fact that unless we find those Protean ruins on Mars we will not live to see travel there being possible. On the other hand - 40LY is not such a gread distance - for cosmic scale of course. Assuming we could manage even half speed of light - thats 80 years of travel. That would mean kids would have been born and raised on such a ship, or some crysleep tech needs to be invented 
Anyway super excited! Heed my words - in the next 100 years our ancestors will watch out sci fi and ask their parents - "dad why its scifi?"
In my opinion we, the human race, need to discover what is beyond that hill...that sea...beyond solar system. This curiosity was key to advance.
Only one little step forward but very good news. Many people claims that deep space search is a waste of money...so many children in the poverty and investing in distant stars...
I say that we, as a whole, need to search the stars, oceanic deeps and the core of our planet. As our ancestors learned to make fire, cross that wide river and built oceanic vessels.
So congrats and continue working!
11 hours ago, jmswood said:Is that canon?
Not any more!
On topic though, this is a rather amazing find. Heck, the thought of these planets orbiting so closely to each other that you could see weather patterns and large terrain masses by just looking into the sky just seems so odd and fantastic. With some of the interesting theories being tested and investigated it feels like we're not far off that major breakthrough in space exploration.
Note: when I say not far, I don't mean, tomorrow or next year... I'm talking 30-50 years type thing...
These small stars basically last forever without changing. So if life ever existed there it probably still does. Suns like ours burn hot and fast by comparison, with huge swings in output.
This is so exciting, especially for my son. He's 11 and just went to Space Camp last week in Alabama for a school field trip. He was there for 3 days and my wife went as a chaperon. They come back and we have a SpaceX rocket launch 2 days after they return. The freakin' stage 1 rocket lands back on the platform like an old Buck Rodgers black and white movie! Now, they announce this new system with 3 planets in the "Goldilocks zone"? It's a good time to be alive and a science kid.
38 minutes ago, TasteTheRainbow said:These small stars basically last forever without changing. So if life ever existed there it probably still does. Suns like ours burn hot and fast by comparison, with huge swings in output.
Do cool dwarfs like that put out enough energy to sustain life (at the earth scale, at least)? I'm talking about photons per square meter at the distance of the planet. This obviously depends on size of the orbit, but I didn't know of you had any idea.
48 minutes ago, heychadwick said:This is so exciting, especially for my son. He's 11 and just went to Space Camp last week in Alabama for a school field trip. He was there for 3 days and my wife went as a chaperon. They come back and we have a SpaceX rocket launch 2 days after they return. The freakin' stage 1 rocket lands back on the platform like an old Buck Rodgers black and white movie! Now, they announce this new system with 3 planets in the "Goldilocks zone"? It's a good time to be alive and a science kid.
Space Camp is awesome.
Well if we can't have Firefly Season 2, why not have Firefly Season 0.
1 hour ago, Marinealver said:Well if we can't have Firefly Season 2, why not have Firefly Season 0.
Season 2 was the movie.
2 hours ago, Marinealver said:Well if we can't have Firefly Season 2, why not have Firefly Season 0.
17 minutes ago, heychadwick said:Season 2 was the movie.
Well if you want to be a smart season 2 was the comics. The movie was season 3.
(although it would be nice if there was a telltale game that could be mixed in somewhere between season 1 and the movie). Heck make the movie Season 4. Put it in between the tv series and the movie.
3 hours ago, Biophysical said:Do cool dwarfs like that put out enough energy to sustain life (at the earth scale, at least)? I'm talking about photons per square meter at the distance of the planet. This obviously depends on size of the orbit, but I didn't know of you had any idea.
They're almost all IR in output. Pure heat(and not much of it). Have to invent a new kind of chlorophyll, but yea there's plenty of energy there. Their orbits are super-close to the star. Orbital periods of less than 2 days up to about 20 days. They're all within a narrow band about 5X closer than Mercury is to our sun.
2 hours ago, Marinealver said:Well if we can't have Firefly Season 2, why not have Firefly Season 0.
No doubt! I remember back when Firefly aired we all just shredded how dumb the system was. How improbable. I enjoy being that wrong.
Even Ceres might have some life we think now. These planets are paradise by comparison.
http://www.popsci.com/dwarf-planet-ceres-contains-key-ingredients-for-life#page-2
29 minutes ago, TasteTheRainbow said:Even Ceres might have some life we think now. These planets are paradise by comparison.
http://www.popsci.com/dwarf-planet-ceres-contains-key-ingredients-for-life#page-2
What if the Expanse was the precursor to Firefly? 
49 minutes ago, TasteTheRainbow said:They're almost all IR in output. Pure heat(and not much of it). Have to invent a new kind of chlorophyll, but yea there's plenty of energy there. Their orbits are super-close to the star. Orbital periods of less than 2 days up to about 20 days. They're all within a narrow band about 5X closer than Mercury is to our sun.
Certainly chemical sources are possible for an energy source of native life (such as deep sea thermal vents on Earth), but yeah, IR sucks. Infrared chlorophyll does exist, but i dont know its role in bacterial metabolism. A little bit of Googling suggests it can actually be used to split water, but I'm guessing the efficiency is crap. Still, gives you the fuel to do all the other chemistry.
20 hours ago, Marinealver said:39 light years away. God **** where is that hyperdrive tech?
Or a very fast sublight drive (95% light speed) and some cry stasis pods and we could have ourselves some colonists!
1 minute ago, Robin Graves said:Or a very fast sublight drive (95% light speed) and some cry stasis pods and we could have ourselves some colonists!
Nah, I don't want to wake up with a xenomorph bursting through my chest
http://deredactie.be/cm/vrtnieuws.english/Life/1.2899503
Typically Belgian, we lead the team that discovered the new solar system and we named it after (one of) our beers! 
I don't often get to be proud to be Belgian, but this is on of them. Go Belgium!
Edited by Robin Graves
2 hours ago, Marinealver said:What if the Expanse was the precursor to Firefly?
You read book 6 yet? It's the future of The Martian.
3 hours ago, Robin Graves said:http://deredactie.be/cm/vrtnieuws.english/Life/1.2899503
Typically Belgian, we lead the team that discovered the new solar system and we named it after (one of) our beers!
I don't often get to be proud to be Belgian, but this is on of them. Go Belgium!
I wondered if that was intentional! Thank God for Belgian monks making beer!
3 hours ago, TasteTheRainbow said:You read book 6 yet? It's the future of The Martian.
No spoilers! Some of us plowed through the first three over the summer, and then had to stop to read the books we're teaching this year...
5 is the best of the series. End spoilers.