Quote:
Originally Posted by Hanni
Astronomers have achieved a big milestone in the search for another Earth: the two smallest confirmed planets ever found orbiting another star… and they’re both about the size of Earth!
Artist’s illustration of the Kepler-20 planets with Earth and Venus for size comparison.
The planets are called Kepler-20e and Kepler-20f, and as you can see by the illustration above they are very close to the same size as our home world: 20e is about 11,100 km (6900 miles) in diameter, and 20f about 13,200 km (8200 miles) across. For comparison, Earth has a diameter of 12,760 km (7930 miles). This makes them the smallest confirmed exoplanets seen orbiting another star! The previous record holder was Kepler-10b, which has a diameter about 40% bigger than Earth’s.
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/ba...the-same-star/
Kepler is finding new planets constantly it seems, very exciting. |
I have an ongoing debate with some friends over whether or not it is ethical to send objects or interfere with planets we believe to harbor life.
My contention is that because of the dramatic distance between our planet and other prospective "earths," exploration is and will always be impossible. Even if you were to send a probe, it would be thousands of years getting there and hundreds of years for the data to be beamed back. Which IMO is a fruitless albeit still somewhat noble pursuit.
Sooo I think it would be interesting to send physical objects to planets we believe could be home to sentient life. Sort of a message in a bottle scenario. A device to create fire for example, or a hand driven crank that lights an incandescent bulb. The particular objects i'm not quite sure of.
This seems to always draw the ire of someone in the conversation. This person feels an intense fear of "screwing" with something we don't understand. My question is do you guys think that it's totally reckless to undertake a mission of that kind? and if not what would you like to send?
btw if i really like to wind up the person I'm talking with about this, I say we could send large amounts of highly radioactive material. So as to encourage mutation and accelerate evolution on planet x.