Cool   8-)   8-)   8-) 



LkCa 15 b is 450 light years away from Earth and is the youngest planet ever found.

more @
http://xfinity.comcast.net/articles/news-science/20111019/US.SCI.Young.Planet/

Cool indeed.

Maybe we'll be able to plug a couple of more factors into the Drake equation then.

Of course the problem of "where the heck are they" looks to be getting worse, not better, as we discover more and more exo-planets.

Quote from: arpad on October 20, 2011, 10:23:36 AM
Cool indeed.

Maybe we'll be able to plug a couple of more factors into the Drake equation then.

Of course the problem of "where the heck are they" looks to be getting worse, not better, as we discover more and more exo-planets.

All I know is no one is talking to us yet from out there.   

Quote from: walkstall on October 20, 2011, 10:48:26 AM

All I know is no one is talking to us yet from out there.   

Would you? :))

Were not exactly a polite race of carbon based life forms.

The moment we tackle the problem of light speed travel, they'll probably destroy us out of self preservation. :))

Anyone here ever see a horro/sci-fi movie called "Event Horizon"? They talked about bending time/space as a way to get away from the speed of light limitations. Does anyone here have any insight to share on that means of transportation?

Yeah. Good effects. Good creepiness factor.

The science? What difference does it make? Hollywood's rarely shown the slightest inclination to be hemmed in by physics, biology, logic, intelligence, history or good taste.

Quote from: walkstall on October 20, 2011, 10:48:26 AM

All I know is no one is talking to us yet from out there.   

As far as you know.

Quote from: arpad on October 20, 2011, 07:29:23 PM
As far as you know.

My wife thinks I am not of this world sometimes.

Quote from: arpad on October 20, 2011, 07:27:44 PM
Yeah. Good effects. Good creepiness factor.

The science? What difference does it make? Hollywood's rarely shown the slightest inclination to be hemmed in by physics, biology, logic, intelligence, history or good taste.

The point is that I don't think space travel beyond our own solar system is going to involve manned missions until we can go significantly faster than light or until we can find a radically different way to travel such as bending space-time.

Theres one little flaw that never gets addressed when the topic of, speed of light travel is broached.
When we look up at the night sky, the image we see can be as old as our own solar system, so to try and travel to that image, just might be suicide.

For all we know, the outer Universe may be gone, we may already be doomed, but just don't know it yet, because what we see is literally from nearly the beginning of time as we know it, to venture there without a road map would literally be suicide.

Look at it this way, try and find your way through town with a map 150 years old, even the topography changes, not to mention rivers being redirected, or earthquakes changing the terrain.
Point is, what we see when we look up no longer exists, so to shoot for the stars, stars that may no longer exist, is...well...shooting for the stars

Agreed. That is why unmanned missions must predate manned missions to any location. And since even traveling at the speed of light could take millions of years for some of these places it just doesn't seem practical unless we can bend space-time.

Of course if bending space-time isn't possible at some point in the future then maybe we won't ever have the possiblity of leaving our own solar system. I just don't have a grasp on this sort of science so that is why I asked the question here.