3 potentially habitable planets detected around a nearby star.

[paramat]

An international team of scientists found a record-breaking three potentially habitable planets around the star Gliese 667C, a star 22 light-years from Earth that is orbited by at least six planets, and possibly as many as seven, researchers said. The three planet contenders for alien life are in the star's "habitable zone" the temperature region around the star where liquid water could exist. Gliese 667C is part of a three-star system, so the planets could see three suns in their daytime skies.

Artists impression showing the view from the exoplanet Gliese 667Cd looking toward the planets parent star (Gliese 667C). In the background to the right the more distant stars in this triple system (Gliese 667A and Gliese 667B) are visible and to the left in the sky one of the other planets, the newly discovered Gliese 667Ce, can be seen as a crescent. A record-breaking three planets in this system are super-Earths lying in the zone around the star where liquid water could exist, making them possible candidates for the presence of life.

Text and images from www.space.com.

Edited June 28, 2013 by azrael

[GU-11]

Note to self: call real estate agent.

[jenius]

Shouldn't the main sun be bigger in that artist's impression? I was under the impression it's a much cooler star so these planets are located fairly close to their sun.

[Mog]

As long as we don't later rename the star system Ceti Alpha (or one of the habitable planets Ceti Alpha V), I think we should be good.

In all seriousness though, thanks for the info. It's pretty cool to see the advances science is making with this sort of stuff.

Edited June 28, 2013 by Mog

[VF-15 Banshee]

Time to go there.

[anime52k8]

Time to go there.

If we get started right now, and travel as fast as the single fastest object we've ever built (Helios 2) we should be there in just a little over 97,000 years.

[VF-15 Banshee]

If we get started right now, and travel as fast as the single fastest object we've ever built (Helios 2) we should be there in just a little over 97,000 years.

That's why we need Fold Drive.

[DuelGundam2099]

Just be sure none of them are the Vajra homeworld.

[VF-15 Banshee]

Just be sure none of them are the Vajra homeworld.

Naw, that's a couple 10,000 light-years from here.

[areaseven]

I wonder how much unobtainium those planets have for us to mine.

[Old_Nash]

That's why we need Fold Drive.

Time to build one XD

[sketchley]

If we get started right now, and travel as fast as the single fastest object we've ever built (Helios 2) we should be there in just a little over 97,000 years.

With today's technology, its possible to build a ship that will take something like 40 years to get to the nearest star. Of course, if you want to stop, then its 70 years, or thereabouts.

Note: today's technology doesn't mean tried, tested and proven rocket technology. It's with other current technologies that can be turned into engine technologies. So, those above numbers aren't including things like turning that tech into engines, nor building the spaceship, nor motivating the politicians to pry open their wallets to sponsor such an endeavour (or at least that's what I remember from the Discovery Show (or was it National Geographic?) that talked about just that).

[anime52k8]

With today's technology, its possible to build a ship that will take something like 40 years to get to the nearest star. Of course, if you want to stop, then its 70 years, or thereabouts.

Note: today's technology doesn't mean tried, tested and proven rocket technology. It's with other current technologies that can be turned into engine technologies. So, those above numbers aren't including things like turning that tech into engines, nor building the spaceship, nor motivating the politicians to pry open their wallets to sponsor such an endeavour (or at least that's what I remember from the Discovery Show (or was it National Geographic?) that talked about just that).

well yeah, if we want to get into theoretical stuff like nuclear pulse rockets, then you're talking 50 to 100 years to get the 4.3 light years to alpha centari depending on who's numbers you go with. At that point a 22 light year trip is going to be anywhere from 250 to 500 years. in all of those cases, the biggest engineering challenge is going to be creating a closed life support system (food, water, air, medical supplies, waste disposal, etc.) capable of supporting multiple generations of crew.

Edited June 29, 2013 by anime52k8

[ron5864]

A good place to establish a New Edwards UN Test Facility and a proving ground for new VF fighters.

[mechaninac]

Regardless of how long it would take to get there: a one way trip that takes nearly 100k years by conventional rocket with gravity assist, 50k+ years with ion propulsion, or 250-500 years with an atomic pulse-detonation drive; everyone is ignoring the fact that all three worlds are expected to be tidally locked to the primary (always having the same hemisphere facing the star), so that one side is scorching hot and the other perpetually cold and dark with, perhaps, a narrow longitudinal band of twilight that could have the prerequisite conditions for liquid water... If any of them possess a magnetic field strong enough to prevent solar wind caused atmospheric stripping and excessive radiation bombardment, an atmosphere of sufficient pressure for water to exist as a liquid, if water is present at all, etc., then one or more of them may be interesting enough places for a photo op, but they would still be extremely unpleasant, if not inhospitable, places for human beings to live on.

I'm of the opinion that true Earth analogs, if any exist at all anywhere near us or even in the entirety of the Milky Way, will be extremely rare (less that one instance in 10 billion)... so many variable have to be just right.

[sketchley]

in all of those cases, the biggest engineering challenge is going to be creating a closed life support system (food, water, air, medical supplies, waste disposal, etc.) capable of supporting multiple generations of crew.

I like Steven Hawking's solution to that: manipulate DNA so that the humans who take those space flights live at least twice as long.

I'm of the opinion that true Earth analogs, if any exist at all anywhere near us or even in the entirety of the Milky Way, will be extremely rare (less that one instance in 10 billion)... so many variable have to be just right.

Most scientists agree with that. To the point that they think the best possibility of finding something close to Earth would be in orbit around an exo-solar gas giant (but not one of those hot Jupiters, of course).