Found 20 light years away: the New Earth

There's a whole lot of "if"s and "maybe"s in this article, but the potential is amazing.

Dude, not even a week after we find Kryptonite on Earth, we find, Krypton... Hello, red sun over there? but with damn near everything else being the same...

Only 20 LY? Damn, that's like hitting the astronomy lottery to find one so "close". the size and proximity make for an excellent bit of dream-storming even if we do end up finding it barren...or...already gone due to some cataclysm.

See, and this is one of the reasons that I'm planning on living at least 300 years - I gotta see stuff like this up close and personal.

That planet is too heavy for a human to every set foot on it. It's so close to the primary that the radiation levels would be lethal. That planet is in no way habitable.

Except for...oh...I don't know....native life?

Yeah, it's a long-shot, but everyone isn't excited about a terraforming project. Simply that it's a planet that is relatively close to the mediums needed to create life as we understand it was created in a scientific manner. That's all.

We'll be terraforming Mars or Venus LONG before we worry about something lightyears away.

Mars is too small to terraform, Venus rotates too slowly to terraform. The best bet for life on known planets other than Earth is Titan, Europa, and the like.

Okay, I have to ask: Are you just playing Devil's Advocate here?

Here comes the science!


Venus' Mass: 4.8685?1024 kg (0.815 Earths)

Mars' Mass: 6.4185?1023 kg (0.107 Earths)

Titan's Mass: 1.34520029 ? 0.00020155?1023 kg (0.0225 Earths)

Europa's Mass: 4.80?1022 kg (0.008 Earths)


So....you're telling me that Mars is too small to terraform based on it's mass? Surface area? I don't get it. Neither are an issue. Would you rather spend X1000000 on the cost of a space station to rival Mars' size? And why would Venus' rotation be an issue? If we're on the surface, it's going to be too cloudy to worry about the length of the day anyway. Amazingly enough...life on earth works just fine in the artic circle where "days" are months long. If we're going to be Terraforming anyway, I'm sure we can figure out something, or camp out on the poles.

Terraforming and Life Already There are also 2 HUGEly different things.

Europa's big claim to fame is its underground oceans and possible geothermal activity kicking up life-producing goodness. Titan's is the idea that shores and hydrocarbons may be able to make some life-producing goodness. Nothing confirmed yet. Either way, they're not in the same basket as Mars, and hardly in the same isle as Venus. Mars MAY have been more Earth like...and considering humans, bacteria, single-cells and animals seem to survive in zero-G just fine, less or more gravity isn't really a major limiting factor.

Also, both moons recieve tonnes of radiation. Why would Planet Gliese be instantly excempt because of this? If it has an atmosphere, it can protect the surface from radiation. Simple as that.