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Potentially habitable planet size of Earth discovered 40 light years

Potentially habitable planet size of Earth discovered 40 light years away.
posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries on Jul 02, 2024 at 10:16 PM

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42C = L1 cloud of a billion meter-scale aluminum foil discs on aramid stringers as a semi-permanent but easily detected (& removed) highly diffuse solar shade. Always seemed like the least insane geoengineering proposal for actively fighting global warming, since it's mostly reversible.

Feel sad that my literal first thought was: so who's going? Us or, y'know, them? Not just the US. Europe, too.
posted by Ryvar at 10:43 PM

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Where's the line for tickets?
posted by gottabefunky at 11:13 PM

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"We'll be calling our planet "The Earth" and yours [checks list] 'Gliese 12' - no wait a minute 'Gliese 12b' - trust that is OK - we've named you after Wilhelm Gliese so you are going to be speaking German - Viel Glück beim Wettbewerb!"
posted by rongorongo at 12:06 AM

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Sold. See y'all there
posted by potrzebie at 12:07 AM

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Elon, selling Virtual Time Shares™ there in 5...4...3...
posted by PareidoliaticBoy at 1:12 AM

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yeah but do they have wifi
posted by DoctorFedora at 2:53 AM

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Out of curiosity, if someone took this kind of reading of earth, what would the "surface temperature" be? In quotes because of course the temp varies dramatically place to place and season to season. (Though maybe with a 12-day orbit, seasons aren't so much of a thing there.)
posted by solotoro at 3:48 AM

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I'm honestly more concerned about this sinister "Planet Nine" skulking around our solar system, possibly gravitationally influencing our neighbors!
posted by GenjiandProust at 4:01 AM

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what would the "surface temperature" be

The actual answer is ~15C per NASA, but no idea what the method they're using would return at a mirrored distance.

The Lagrange-anchored aluminum foil cloud idea I mentioned upthread was only ever proposed with a goal of knocking a degree or two off just to buy us enough time to get our shit together. The nice thing about it is that it would be quite cheap to implement compared to most other proposals, and thin meter-scale metallic foil discs are almost perfect radar reflectors, so very few are likely to go missing in a cleanup pass however many years later.

Ignore my use of the word aramids, though - you'd think a hobbyist sailor would remember what UV does to aramids, nevermind UV without atmospheric filtering - and ask an actual materials scientist for suggestions. All I can say is aramids ain't it.
posted by Ryvar at 4:04 AM

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Bit toasty, but it might make for a nice beach vacation, assuming there's water. And sand. And hotels. And a system for taking reservations centuries in advance and holding your room until your ship gets there.
posted by Mr. Bad Example at 5:20 AM

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Here's a link to their paper and another one estimating an upper bound of 3.9 Earth masses, so if you plan to visit I hope you haven't been neglecting leg day.

> Lagrange-anchored aluminum foil cloud

I've seen estimates for a project like that requiring something in the range of a half to a million super heavy launches. Also I call dibs on the targeting system that angles the whole thing into a Fresnel lens.
posted by lucidium at 5:37 AM

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See y'all there
have fun. please write
posted by HearHere at 5:45 AM

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40 years sounds almost close, but you have to be a beam of light. At any plausibly attainable speed for human beings, I believe the trip is still going to take hundreds of thousands of years. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space.
posted by Phanx at 5:59 AM

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This is orbiting a red dwarf. I thought the problem with red dwarfs and habitability is that red dwarfs have a lot of activity and, worse, because they are cooler, habitable planets have to be closer, exposing them to the star's outbursts. So the planet might be balmy but unless it has a tremendous magnetic field, it might also be pounded by radiation.
posted by delicious-luncheon at 6:25 AM

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There's also a planet-wide HOA.

They only allow you to have three lawn chairs at any given time.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 6:57 AM

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yeah but do they have wifi

No. But they do run Doom.
posted by Thorzdad at 7:47 AM

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Is Pepsi okay? Because all they have is Pepsi.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 7:59 AM

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I thought it was kind of odd that the article goes off on a tangent about the existence of "Planet 9" in our solar system at the end. I don't know what a planet we can't find in our own backyard — if it even exists — has to do with potentially habitable worlds.
posted by Dark Messiah at 8:04 AM

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I'm honestly more concerned about this sinister "Planet Nine" skulking around our solar system, possibly gravitationally influencing our neighbors!

Planet Nine? How about the Carrington Event in 1859. Auroras were seen in Havana and Santiago, Chile, some so bright that newspapers could read at midnight. Birds woke up worldwide. And offices of the Victorian internet, were set ablaze because the copper wires got so hot. If a similar event happened now -- and we are at Solar maximum after all -- it would be goodbye power grid, goodbye satellites, goodbye smartphones and so on. The multi-million dollar monster transformers of the power grid would be melted and it would hard to make new ones with the Victorian era steam-powered industry infrastructure. If we had it.

It could be worse, though...

Ancient superpowered solar storm that hit Earth 14,000 years ago is the 'biggest ever identified -- the Carrington Event couldn't hold a bacteria's birthday candle to that one.
But look on the brightside:
Like the lucky old sun
we'll have nothin' to do
but roll around heaven all day
posted by y2karl at 8:23 AM

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Is Pepsi okay? Because all they have is Pepsi.

That's it, I'm not going. Let me know when they find the Dr. Pepper planet.
posted by May Kasahara at 8:26 AM

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METAFILTER: Birds woke up worldwide.
posted by philip-random at 8:43 AM

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> pounded by radiation.

I sense a Chuck Tingle title: "Pounded In The Butt By Solar Radiation 40 Light Years From Home."
posted by pwnguin at 8:46 AM

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40 years sounds almost close, but you have to be a beam of light. At any plausibly attainable speed for human beings, I believe the trip is still going to take hundreds of thousands of years. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space.

Not if there's a wormhole near Saturn.
posted by vverse23 at 8:50 AM

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Plans to invade and eradicate the indigenous population in 3...2...1...
posted by Billiken at 8:59 AM

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I'm honestly more concerned about this sinister "Planet Nine" skulking around our solar system, possibly gravitationally influencing our neighbors!
posted by pracowity at 9:37 AM

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The light is better!
posted by lucidium at 9:47 AM

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I'm honestly more concerned about this sinister "Planet Nine" skulking around our solar system, possibly gravitationally influencing our neighbors!

I have to question a definition of neighbours that includes Kuiper Belt objects.
posted by Dark Messiah at 9:53 AM

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Hoping we can tempt Elon, Zuck and Bezos to hop on the next flight out?
posted by latkes at 10:15 AM

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Look, just because you haven't been invited to a Kuiper Belt backyard party, don't get snippy at the rest of us.
posted by GenjiandProust at 10:22 AM

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Perhaps the invite is still in transit, I'll check again in a decade or two.
posted by Dark Messiah at 10:47 AM

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Don't worry about planet nine, it's probably just a small black hole.
posted by biogeo at 12:27 PM

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That's actually "planet? nein!", named after the last broadcast from the German discoverer.
posted by GenjiandProust at 12:32 PM

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Pray that there's intelligent life somewhere out in space
'Cause it's bugger all down here on Earth

-E Idle
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 1:02 PM

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It's much safer if we continue believing that Planet 9 isn't real.
posted by betweenthebars at 1:20 PM

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Can't hear Planet 9 without thinking of the masterpiece Plan 9.
posted by doctornemo at 1:28 PM

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Seriously, I love living in the early age of exoplanet discovery.
posted by doctornemo at 1:28 PM

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I knew an old hippie guy who used to go to Kuiper Belt parties back in the day. He said they were far out.
posted by dephlogisticated at 2:06 PM

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Shhhhhhhh.
posted by All Out of Lulz at 3:29 PM

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Headlines in the potentially habitable planet newspapers: "Potentially soon-to-be-uninhabitable planet discovered 40 light-years away"
posted by verylazyminer at 3:51 PM

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"Pounded By Radiation in the Butt" - Chuck Tingle
posted by loquacious at 4:19 PM

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40 years sounds almost close, but you have to be a beam of light. At any plausibly attainable speed for human beings, I believe the trip is still going to take hundreds of thousands of years.

Nuclear propulsion can cut that down by quite a lot. 0.01c is theoretically achievable with currently-existing technology. 40ly would require a generation ship but it's not unimaginable.
posted by justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow at 6:28 PM

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40 lite years pshaw

might as well be on the moon
posted by Rev. Irreverent Revenant at 10:46 PM

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40 years sounds almost close, but you have to be a beam of light.
So what happens if you are driving along in your car at almost the speed of light and you turn on the headlights?
posted by Multicellular Exothermic at 7:44 AM

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I have never experienced 42C and considered it "balmy"
posted by SonInLawOfSam at 2:57 PM

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