Proxima b

littlegreenman

Looks like our nearest celestial neighbour may have something in orbit in the Goldilocks zone after all! It'll be a while before it's theoretically confirmed for sure, and even longer before anyone actually gets there, but an interesting development all the same. Liquid water and a warm atmosphere, good. Probable deadly levels of UV and x-rays, perhaps not quite so much



http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/08/earth-mass-planet-proxima-centauri-habitable-space-science/?utm_source=Facebook&utm_medium=Social&utm_content=link_fb20160824news-proximacentauri&utm_campaign=Content&sf34238279=1

ICBM

'Deadly' is relative. There are now bacteria which have evolved to live in the cooling systems of nuclear power stations, at radiation levels which will more or less instantly fry any other forms of life.

rossyamaha

^ this. The key thing with finding intelligent life out there (which there is), is that they are looking for places that will host life as we know it. Thats all good and well but "alien" is just that. It won't be life as we know it. There will be intelligent life that could actually thrive on zero oxygen, toxic gas, extreme heat, massive gravity pressure etc etc. The search for an earth like planet is purely to find a new home for the human race when we eventually fuck this home up.

With all that said, I'm pretty sure intelligent life has already been found and almost certainly made contact with. The general public simply couldn't handle it. I watched a video recently that demonstrated how we are being slowly conditioned into accepting it exists and being made ready for the announcement. I love all this stuff.

littlegreenman

ICBM said:

'Deadly' is relative. There are now bacteria which have evolved to live in the cooling systems of nuclear power stations, at radiation levels which will more or less instantly fry any other forms of life.

Aye, indeed. And in the natural world next to the "toxic" plumes of boiling alkaline water in deep oceans. And the marine life that feed on them.

littlegreenman

rossyamaha said:

^ this. The key thing with finding intelligent life out there (which there is), is that they are looking for places that will host life as we know it. Thats all good and well but "alien" is just that. It won't be life as we know it. There will be intelligent life that could actually thrive on zero oxygen, toxic gas, extreme heat, massive gravity pressure etc etc. The search for an earth like planet is purely to find a new home for the human race when we eventually fuck this home up.

With all that said, I'm pretty sure intelligent life has already been found and almost certainly made contact with. The general public simply couldn't handle it. I watched a video recently that demonstrated how we are being slowly conditioned into accepting it exists and being made ready for the announcement. I love all this stuff.

Flink_Poyd

Some really exciting stuff happening lately, the Juno mission to jupiter is fascinating. I fry my my brain thinking about the distances and possibilities of what's out there. 

littlegreenman

rossyamaha said:

With all that said, I'm pretty sure intelligent life has already been found and almost certainly made contact with. The general public simply couldn't handle it.

The general public perhaps, I'd be quite excited by it. Though I sincerely doubt it.

Isn't there the proposition that any discovery of intelligent non-human life outside of our sphere of experience would disprove the existence of God as we know it?

Haych

rossyamaha said:

With all that said, I'm pretty sure intelligent life has already been found and almost certainly made contact with. The general public simply couldn't handle it. I watched a video recently that demonstrated how we are being slowly conditioned into accepting it exists and being made ready for the announcement. I love all this stuff.

We can't even live in peace with other humans on our own planet and we're being conditioned into accepting the announcement of ET?  Can't see that working, sorry.

If intelligent extra terrestrial life does exists lets hope it's intelligent enough to stay well away from this damned rock!

Paul_C

digitalscream

rossyamaha said:

The search for an earth like planet is purely to find a new home for the human race when we eventually fuck this home up.

I honestly can't believe that there'll be any of us left once we've fucked this planet up. When it happens, it won't be because of gradual pollution; it'll most likely be a single extinction-level event of our own making, allowed through the apathy and self-centricism of the general population. Look at what we already managed last century, and that's when people actually felt a sense of responsibility.

Jalapeno

digitalscream said:

rossyamaha said:

The search for an earth like planet is purely to find a new home for the human race when we eventually fuck this home up.

I honestly can't believe that there'll be any of us left once we've fucked this planet up. When it happens, it won't be because of gradual pollution; it'll most likely be a single extinction-level event of our own making, allowed through the apathy and self-centricism of the general population. Look at what we already managed last century, and that's when people actually felt a sense of responsibility.

IMHO a big rock is the most likely extinction level event.

Have a nice day !

ICBM

The irony is that humans would probably survive a Big Rock-type extinction exactly because of our advanced technology to kill each other. The human population would be reduced to a few thousand probably - but the bunkers designed to allow the top military and politicians to survive nuclear war would be just as effective in an asteroid impact… and there are at least two widely-separated ones so even a direct hit on one wouldn't wipe out humanity totally.

The bad news is that the future human population would be descended entirely from politicians, generals and their associated staff.

Axe_meister

ICBM said:

The irony is that humans would probably survive a Big Rock-type extinction exactly because of our advanced technology to kill each other. The human population would be reduced to a few thousand probably - but the bunkers designed to allow the top military and politicians to survive nuclear war would be just as effective in an asteroid impact… and there are at least two widely-separated ones so even a direct hit on one wouldn't wipe out humanity totally.

The bad news is that the future human population would be descended entirely from politicians, generals and their associated staff.

Not sure. The impact a rather large Rock would have travelling at vast speeds is likely to have a bigger impact that your average H bomb.
Even your most secure bunker is not going to withstand 
a) a direct Impact
b) resulting earthquakes on a massive scale likely to occur
 

CabbageCat

Jalapeno said:

IMHO a big rock is the most likely extinction level event.

Have a nice day !

ICBM

Axe_meister said:

Not sure. The impact a rather large Rock would have travelling at vast speeds is likely to have a bigger impact that your average H bomb.

Even your most secure bunker is not going to withstand 
a) a direct Impact
b) resulting earthquakes on a massive scale likely to occur
 

The one on the other side of the world (USA or Russia) would even if one was directly hit and destroyed. The surprising thing is how relatively *small* the impact would be, in relation to the ecological damage it would do - the rock that killed off the dinosaurs was only about six miles across. The earthquakes wouldn't do any serious damage to a bunker thousands of miles away that's designed to withstand a megaton-range bomb going off directly above it.

On a side note, that's something that worries me about the Global Seed Vault on Svalbard - unless the other one is being kept secret (not a bad idea, in fact) - there's only one. That's not a good strategy if you're trying to preserve something as an insurance against catastrophe - there needs to be another one, preferably in the southern hemisphere. Or it would be very unfortunate if a big rock happened to fall near Svalbard...

Clarky

rossyamaha said:

I'm pretty sure intelligent life has already been found 

not on Earth tho

Axe_meister

If a major fault line were hit it could cause a massive global chain reaction with new volcanos popping up all over the place

Axe_meister

A megaton bomb is a drop in the ocean compared to tech tonic forces

ICBM

Axe_meister said:

A megaton bomb is a drop in the ocean compared to tech tonic forces

Sure, but a bunker designed to withstand a direct hit from one on the surface above is going to survive an earthquake caused by an impact on the other side of the world, even at the extinction-level size.

Obviously a big enough asteroid could wipe out all life on Earth, but the odds of one that size still existing in the solar system  in any kind of unstable orbit that could now pose a risk are more or less zero.

Axe_meister said:

If a major fault line were hit it could cause a massive global chain reaction with new volcanos popping up all over the place

No it couldn't. Not unless you've been reading Greg Bear or something .

Axe_meister

One of the fears about yellow stone park (which happens to sit in a dormant super massive volcano, is that an major earthquake could awaken the beast, which could in itself be a major extinction event.

ICBM

Axe_meister said:

One of the fears about yellow stone park (which happens to sit in a dormant super massive volcano, is that an major earthquake could awaken the beast, which could in itself be a major extinction event.

Also true, and the American bunker(s) would then be at serious risk - but the Russians would be fine. So I suppose a direct hit on the Russian bunker followed by an eruption at Yellowstone could be big trouble… unless someone else has another one somewhere.

I'd probably still put money on humans surviving, but it probably wouldn't be a very nice existence for quite a while.