NASA Announces a Single Star Is Home to At Least 7 Earthlike Planets

[zorkuus]

Exactly. What makes us think we are so smart that we can alter an entire planet's climate, when we can't move our own temperature 2 degrees in the right direction?

Because polluting on purpose to increase the temperature of Mars is far easier than the opposite.

[Slaughty8]

And if each of them could be as beautiful as Earth is, I would LOVE to live there.

[Tijuana]

We could do that easily, just pump sulfur dioxide into the upper atmosphere. Not without side effects of course...

Ah, you read the Gates study. I love that idea. There is actually a huge amount of that stuff that is created by Canadian oil sands production, and nobody wants it. I think the smell would be issue #1.

However, even this idea, which includes turning air craft carriers in to water pumps, and hot air balloons to raise a hose high enough, is extremely crude. Claiming to have terraforming plans is akin to wanting to install a geo-thermal HVAC system, but we currently only know how to light wood on fire.

[Kujako]

Ah, you read the Gates study. I love that idea. There is actually a huge amount of that stuff that is created by Canadian oil sands production, and nobody wants it. I think the smell would be issue #1.

However, even this idea, which includes turning air craft carriers in to water pumps, and hot air balloons to raise a hose high enough, is extremely crude. Claiming to have terraforming plans is akin to wanting to install a geo-thermal HVAC system, but we currently only know how to light wood on fire.

Acid rain would be issue #1, just as it was when the clean air act was passed.

[Tijuana]

Because polluting on purpose to increase the temperature of Mars is far easier than the opposite.

What if you need to move the temperature the other way? How would you pollute Mars, without anyone living there?

[zorkuus]

What if you need to move the temperature the other way?

Why would you want to? Why choose a hot planet to terraform when there are plenty of colder ones out there that are easier...

[Sam the Wiser]

Is it finally time to send in the roaches and moss?

[Kokolums]

Easiest way to control planet temperature is some sort of massive solar filter that sits between earth and the sun. Then you can adjust the termostat up or down as needed.

[Kathandira]

A trip to Alpha Centauri (the nearest star at only 4 lightyears) would take tens of thousands of years. So this one would be somewhere in the hundreds of thousands or more.

1.4 million years

[Tradewind]

Terraforming a planet like Mars is a total pipe dream anyway. The planet is no longer seismically active, unlike Earth where tectonic shifts constantly relieve pressure and heat from the core and mantle and keep the internal balance of a liquid/solid hybrid core and a strong enough dynamo effect by our rotation to generate our magnetosphere. Mars' core is solidified and as such does not have the temperature differential between solid and liquid core materials and rotation necessary to generate a strong enough magnetosphere. Whatever atmosphere we did try to generate would be stripped away by solar winds almost as fast as we can produce it. The lighter elements are especially at risk, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen are literally stripped away every minute like what happens to a comet as it traverses the solar system. This atmospheric stripping is exacerbated by Mars' much lower gravity, even heavier compounds like CO2 and Methane, would be slowly eroded into the void.

[Tijuana]

Why would you want to? Why choose a hot planet to terraform when there are plenty of colder ones out there that are easier...

I dunno, maybe the hot one has a breathable atmosphere? The term "terraforming" implies sweeping changes to the climate, not just making it 2 degrees warmer. Also, the temperature of our current planet is irrelevant to humans directly (within a range). It's just that we need the whole ecosystem to be functional. We could survive just fine on a warmer planet, assuming it's ecosystem was functioning at that temperature.

[zorkuus]

I dunno, maybe the hot one has a breathable atmosphere?

Then why do you want to change the temperature? Sounds like terraforming would not be needed in that case.

[Phookah]

Cool, I guess.

Not sure why this really matters though, given we can't get there and won't be for ah, a long time.

[Tradewind]

Cool, I guess.

Not sure why this really matters though, given we can't get there and won't be for ah, a long time.

Determining if life exists on another planet...not just in our own galaxy, but in astronomical terms in our back yard. Even if all we can do is stare at it on a computer screen, is still a pretty big deal in the grand scheme of human history.

[Tijuana]

Then why do you want to change the temperature? Sounds like terraforming would not be needed in that case.

Hang, this tail chasing has made me dizzy.

My point is that we don't actually have any technology even remotely resembling terraforming. To even bring that up is ridiculous. If we can find a rock that we can live on and get to, we will just go and live there. End of story. No Star Trek, no Spock.

[Halicia]

Because polluting on purpose to increase the temperature of Mars is far easier than the opposite.

So if we take Trump's nominees for EPA, and change them to NASA, we'll have Mars colonized in no time ?

[zorkuus]

My point is that we don't actually have any technology even remotely resembling terraforming.

We kinda do, it just isn't big enough in scale.

[Deleted]

How many light years away and how long would it take for us to get there using current tech?

Not even remotely possible.

[zorkuus]

Not even remotely possible.

It is, but pointless given how long it would take.

[Orange Joe]

Damn, that's a lot.

If I weren't adverse to jumping to conclusions I'd say that almost sounds like the kind of situation that implies terraforming.

When NASA says earthlike, they don't mean just like earth with plants and water. They mean a rocky planet in the habitable zone of the star.