Gliese 581 c?

Question

why are we spending time and money looking for life on mars, an obviously barren and lifeless planet. why dont we take a few years to develope a new, faster space probe that could make it to Gliese 581 c. sure it would take a long time, bt thats the best chance for life, titan and europa are decent chances, but cmon. if not now then when, if we want to find life outside of earth then we need to persue realistic planets, no matter how far away they may be.

campbelp2002, i know fully well the distance it is. and yea maybe a few years is an understatement. but why not atleast develope the technology to do it, if we dont actually use to go to there we could use it for more usless mars missions.

and no, mars isnt like antarctic, theres liquid water there, so far theres none on mars.

Answer 1

My understanding is that new breakthroughs in propulsion systems need to be made before such journeys are launched.

Currently, the biggest roadblock appears to be funding. Right now, funding seems to be diverted to search for life in Iraq.

From NASA statements, 'No breakthroughs appear imminent. This is a nascent field where a variety of concepts and issues are being explored in the scientific literature, beginning since about the early 1990s. The collective status is still at step 1 and 2 of the scientific method, "defining the problem" and "collecting data," but a small number of approaches are already at step 4, "testing hypotheses;" with experiments underway.' - 'The NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts (NIAC) is funding a team of researchers working on a new design for an antimatter-powered spaceship.'

http://keelynet.com/energy/holt1.htm

Keep your fingers crossed that we see such things in our lifetime.

Answer 2

Just for people's information, August Sky & Telescope noted that astronomers had found that the third planet of Gliese 581 was too hot for the conditions they were seeking. It's the fourth planet, 581d, that's seems to be in the liquid-water range.

"A long time" is an understatement. A faster space probe may well be in the future couple of hundred years, but would still take centuries to reach the star, and radio signals would take 20 years to get there and 20 to return. In the near future, it may be possible to fnd more about extra-solar planets to see if any are earth-like, but that can't be done yet.

I'm not sure why an unknown planet around a questionable star should be a better chance than those we can get to, and at least explore. Planets orbiting red dwarfs are known of, but that's about all. For all we know so far, the entire system may not have a rock to analyse.

Why is Mars "obviously" lifeless? It may not always have been, and they're also looking for evidence of life that may have passed.

Answer 3

Because its these type of studies that make finding the more distant possible. If we were sitting on Gleise 581 c using the same equipment and estimates the team used and looked at our solar system, we would estimate that there were 3 planets within the habitable life zone, numbers 2,3, and 4. What gives us a unique opportunity is that we know only planet 3 presently sustains life. By studying the differences between our planet and the others in our system, we are able to start to unravel what conditions must be met for a habitable planet. Why was Gleise 581 c exciting at first? Based on models we derived from exploring our own system, we felt it might have the ability to sustain liquid water. In continuing to add to our knowledge of our own system, we will be able to constantly update models of what we see in distant systems, and someday, when all the pre-conditions that we have knowledge of exist on a planet we see in the distance, we will undertake a mission to explore it in some way. Unfortuneately, our present knowledge of Gliese 581 c tells us it is not likely to sustain liquid water as first believed, and the odds of Gleise 581 d are not known at this point, because with our present technology it must pass in front of its star for us to judge its density which will give us an estimate of its composition. However, due to its orbital pattern, that event will never take place. So enjoy the moments of the Gleises', but remember thats its the moon and mars, satellites and telescopes, that have given us the knowledge to find and interpret the Gleises.

Answer 4

Conditions on Mars are much like Antarticaa--and there is life there.

Gilsee 581 C is roughly similar to Earth--but no more so than Mars, from what we know at thispoint. And--wwe are only at the beginning of examining other stars for planets similar to earth--the technology to do that s just beginning to coe out. That's why its the first one to be found-we're just starting.

But going there--even an unmanned probe--is out of the question at this point. That is an INTERSTELLAR trip--literally a million times as far. We MIGHT have the technology to send an unmanned probe--in a century or two. Not before.

Answer 5

gliese 581c is 5 times more massive than the earth by a rough guesstimate
from the OMIGOSH-it-must-be-accurate! wikipedia blurb(end sarcasm) Gliese 581 c has a mass at least 5.03 times that of Earth. The mass of the planet cannot be very much larger than this or the system would be dynamically unstable
well the averge person would weigh in at oh.. 750 lbs. and the air would make it impossible for your lungs to even function under the tremendous weight of the atmosphere. however if there was life indigenous they would explode in our atmosphere.
also the radiation in inter stellar space would long have killed the crew of your ship before ya even got there. even in hibernation.

here read this link about The incredible problems your idea is facing.

Answer 6

The fact that you even say that shows how little you know about the distances involved. At a distance of 20 light years, Gliese 581 c is well over a million times farther away than Mars. We would not merely need to double or triple the speed of a probe, we would need a speed 5,000 times faster, or 8,000 times faster. 10,000 times faster would be the speed of light. There is no hope at all of us increasing the speed of our probes by that amount in my lifetime or yours.

Answer 7

It would take longer than a lifetime for a probe to make it that far, and it would have to be able to do everything perfectly on its own when it got there as 2-way communication would be pretty much impossible. It would take 20 years for us to receive a signal from the probe, and 20 years for us to respond.

I'm sure there is plenty of research being done on interstellar space travel but as it is right now we are trapped in Einstein's cage. The speed of light rules all as far as we know.

Answer 8

Jason T is correct, Gliese 581 c is not Earth like. But there probably are some planets out there that are Earth like; we just haven't discovered them yet. And it is possible intelligent aliens could live there. And it is possible those aliens could be similar to humans. But it is not possible that those aliens could actually be human, or even be identical to humans.

Answer 9

It would take too long to get there and send signals, and it would cost too much right now-right now our technology is best suited for Mars, Titan, and Europa. New technology is being developed all the time-that's the best way that we can work on getting there in the future. But you will never live to see it. :(

Answer 10

Glise 581c is 20 light years away it would take more than a few years to develop probes that travel at or close to the speed of light, it is more logical to expand through our own solar system before expanding to other worlds, you or i will never see a probe launched to Glise 581c in our life time.