back to article Boffins spot planet that could support life... just 12 light years away

An international team of astroboffins have discovered that the nearest single Sun-like star has one planet orbiting in the sweet spot for potential alien life. Image generated by Stellarium software showing Tau Ceti in the constellation of Cetus on from Hatfield, UK Tau Ceti, which is just 12 light years away and can be seen …

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  1. jonathan keith
    Alien

    Looks like Pete Cooke

    I was wandering around on the surface of Tau Ceti III in 1985. Admittedly, I was doing this on a ZX Spectrum.

    1. Crisp

      Re: Looks like Pete Cooke

      Did you train at the Academy?

      1. Thomas 4

        Re: Looks like Pete Cooke

        Man, if ever there was a game deserving of a high definition like-for-like remake, it'd be this one.

        I always found it amusing when I was six that I could send a spaceship out by typing "lunch" as a command. =p

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Not sure I want to go there.

    Plateau didn't seem like a very nice place to live especially if you weren't Crew.

    1. Vulch
      Alien

      Re: Not sure I want to go there.

      Downbelow was nice enough as long as you remembered your breather mask.

      1. AndrueC Silver badge
        Thumb Up

        Re: Not sure I want to go there.

        Housing could be a problem sometimes though if a lot of visitors turned up.

        I've also never been entirely happy with station environment facilities being maintained by creatures who don't breath the same atmosphere and have a tendency to wander off and spend several weeks doing nothing but thinking of sex :)

        1. Jedit Silver badge
          Linux

          Unhappiness with station environment facility staff

          It's always the way, isn't it? The younger generation misunderstood by the old.

    2. Charles Manning

      Not sure I'd even go to UK

      and it seems to be able to support life and is only a 20 hour flight from here.

  3. Peter Clarke 1
    Alert

    Re: Looks like Pete Cooke

    Damn, beat me to it!

    12 light years? If we start now we might get there before the end of the world. Oh, wait ......

  4. Crisp

    Now all we need is...

    Some egghead to come up with a way to get a space probe there before I die.

    1. I like noodles

      Re: Now all we need is...

      and back again, I presume.

      1. Crisp

        Re: Now all we need is...

        It doesn't need to come back again.

        We will however have to settle with watching 12 year old telemetry.

  5. Mage Silver badge

    Ping Time

    24 years latency makes for interesting communication. Asimov or Clarke etc had a short story about it. Just talk and don't worry about a two way conversation.

    I wonder what the calling channel is and what kind of modulation?

    1. I like noodles

      Re: Ping Time

      > 24 years latency makes for interesting communication.

      Frustrating, certainly.

      "Hello, this is Earth. It's getting a bit crowded. Is there any room in your particular inn?"

      ....1 year, 2 years, 3 years, .... 24 years

      "Sorry, could you repeat that? I've the kettle on and didn't quite catch it"

      > Just talk and don't worry about a two way conversation

      I've a workmate that does that. It's worse than no communication at all.

      1. henchan

        Re: Ping Time

        > I've a workmate that does that. It's worse than no communication at all.

        A female one? If I remember correctly, in that short story the (male) scientists got the idea from observing a pair of women talking.

        1. I like noodles

          Re: Ping Time

          > A female one?

          No, a male. He's very good at Taekwondo too, so I can't even tell him to shut up.

      2. DanceMan

        Re: I've a workmate that does that

        Does Bob work over there too?

    2. Ian Yates
      Joke

      Re: Ping Time

      "Just talk and don't worry about a two way conversation"

      That sums up my general attempts at being social (in hindsight)

    3. Peter Ford
      Go

      Re: Ping Time

      I would say that it is within the scope of our current tech to get an autonomous probe there which could at least gently crash and send back a squawk of data about surface, atmosphere etc. before being smashed by the indiginous chimpanzee analogues...

      Not sure how long it would take to get there (certainly much more than 12 years), and we'd have to wait another 12 years for the reply, but that's not a problem, is it? Voyager and Pioneer have been out there for decades and are still going. We'd need to kick our probe a bit harder than those to get it to Tau Ceti in anyone's lifetime, but they were tasked with looking at stuff on the way out, whereas this probe would be more single-minded.

      Maybe send half-a-dozen: how about the next X Prize?

      1. NomNomNom

        Re: Ping Time

        we should outfit them with warheads just in case the planet has life

      2. jai

        Re: Ping Time

        If it is habitable, that means it could be already inhabited? How much is that going to piss off the natives if we slam a probe through their atmosphere? Have to hope they haven't got FTL drives otherwise their invasion fleet will arrive here before we get the response from the probe warning us of the huge intergalactic faux pas we've committed.

        1. This post has been deleted by its author

        2. Horridbloke
          Headmaster

          Re: Ping Time

          "...intergalactic faux pas..."? No, merely an interstellar faux pas.

        3. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Ping Time

          But those bastards crash their stuff into our world and they abduct our women and have sex with them.

          I'd say they're long overdue for a bit of payback.

          1. This post has been deleted by its author

            1. Dagg Silver badge
              Devil

              Re: Ping Time

              Death by snoo snoo

        4. Jerome 0

          Re: Ping Time

          One would hope if they've got FTL, they can spot a primitive probe crawling towards them at subluminal speeds before it slams through their atmosphere.

      3. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Ping Time

        The fastest probes we've built are going roughly .004%c. Assuming we could do 10 times better if we put our minds, backs, and bank accounts to it today, that's about 2500 years to get there.

      4. No, I will not fix your computer
        Boffin

        Re: Ping Time

        The fastest probes would be about 70Km/s, a light year is about 9500000000000 Km, which would take about 4,300 years (@70Km/s), so obviously it would take over 50,000 years to get there.

        I don't think our "current tech" is up to the job!

        There really is absolutely no point in sending anything physical there yet, because even if it takes 400 years to build something 1% faster we could send it in 400 years from now and it would overtake the first one (and get there 100 years earlier), build something twice as fast and it saves 25,000 years, really you'd need to build something capable of 10% the speed of light to be approaching practical speeds, which of course you'd need to accelerate to, decelerate from, have fuel onboard for both, even ION drives have fuel, most of the mass of the craft would have to be fuel (capturing fuel would slow it down more than it would gain), and of course it gets hideously complex as the mass changes (down as you burn fuel, up as you approach the speed of light, down more as you burn fuel to slow down, and decreases faster as you slow down) - and don't forget to steer, there's no way you could see let alone predict everything that could be in the way, and an ION drive may not be ale to turn the craft fast enough, conventional fuel? I don't thnk so!

        We need completely new technology (some kind of space compression warp drive, so the physical distance becomes less) to travel that sort of distance, or we need to solve many, many other problems.

        1. This post has been deleted by its author

        2. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Ping Time

          completely new tech agreed .. as outlined here in this paper

          http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/20110015936_2011016932.pdf

          very interesting stuff .. long way off of course but seriously cool nonetheless.

    4. Ian McNee
      Boffin

      Re: Ping Time

      "24 years latency" - so, not quite as bad as Talk Talk boradband then?

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Quote "The potentially life-supporting world has a mass around five times the size of Earth, making it the smallest planet found in the habitable zone of any Sun-like star. The other four planets are between twice and six times the mass of Earth."

    Try again, it doesn't make sense! How can a planet 5 times the mass of Earth be the smallest planet? When you acknowledge the 'four other planets' are between 2 and 6 times the mass of Earth.

    1. I like noodles

      It does make sense

      Try reading it again.

      The 'four other planets' aren't in the habitable zone.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: It does make sense

        Wrong. In order to be the "smallest" planet there needs to be more than one.

        "The other four planets" would be the other planets in the habitable zone. This article has made no reference to planets which are not in the habitable zone. The whole point of the search is to find habitable planets.

        1. Wilseus
          Stop

          Re: It does make sense

          Are you deliberately trolling, AC?

          The article *clearly* says:

          Tau Ceti, which is just 12 light years away and can be seen with the naked eye in the night sky, has five planets in orbit around it, with one lying in the habitable zone.

          and:

          The potentially life-supporting world has a mass around five times the size of Earth, making it the smallest planet found in the habitable zone of *any* Sun-like star.

          1. James Micallef Silver badge
            Happy

            Mass 5 times that of earth

            I'm not up to the maths involved right now, but with similair density to Earth that's at least 2-3G surface gravity. But then again... if Earth's survival is in peril, any port in a storm

            1. I like noodles

              Re: Mass 5 times that of earth

              I can hear the missus already : "You B*s£$%%, take me home now, I don't care what it's like, you've dragged me all the way here and made me put on 36 stone"

            2. Chris Rowland

              Re: Mass 5 times that of earth

              Assuming the same density as Earth I make it about 1.7G

              Radius is the cube root of the mass 5^0.333 = 1.709 times Earth

              G is then the mass divided by the radius squared - 5 / 1.7 ^ 2 = 1.73

              That's not going to be comfortable long term but would do given nothing better.

              1. This post has been deleted by its author

                1. Anonymous Coward
                  Anonymous Coward

                  Re: Mass 5 times that of earth

                  Humans would adapt to 1.7G given time. You'd probably want to gradually turn up your artificial gravity on the trip there though.

                  On the plus side, you'd have fun coming back to earth for a visit (if such a thing were ever feasible)... not like those poor guys who went to Mars and are now spindly weaklings.

                  1. This post has been deleted by its author

    2. Bronek Kozicki

      simples - the other planets are not in habitable zone.

    3. Andyf
      Headmaster

      Planet size....

      "The potentially life-supporting world has a mass around five times the size of Earth, making it the smallest planet found in the habitable zone of any Sun-like star. "

      /pedant mode

      Erm..... Aren't we on an earth like planet in the habitable zone of a sun like star, which makes this one the smallest planet?

      /off

  7. Pen-y-gors

    Habitable zone != actually habitable

    The definitions of 'habitable zone' vary, but Venus is sort of in our system's habitable zone. Personally, I wouldn't want to try inhabiting it! Hot enough to melt aluminium? Appalling pressure? There are more factors than distance-from-sun that determine habitability.

    Impressive use of telescopic gadgetry though.

    1. Ragarath
      Go

      Re: Habitable zone != actually habitable

      But it is harder to actually study all that from all the way back here. So all they can really say is there is a planet there that "might" be habitable if the other 10 squillion things that need to all meet in one place and dance have actually turned up.

      And then it is only for "life as we know it, Jim" and not all the other possibilities that we have not thought of.

      Time for this planet to draw up it's "prime directive" before we get to the stage of interactions I think.

    2. Lars Silver badge
      Happy

      Re: Habitable zone != actually habitable

      Habitable zone for life but not for us as we would be something like five times heavier on that planet. I would not like to try that.

      1. Carl

        Re: Habitable zone != actually habitable

        Exactly.

        "It's one small step for... oops there goes my femur"

      2. Pookietoo

        Re: Habitable zone != actually habitable

        Not five times heavier - the planet being larger, its centre is further from the surface, and surface gravity has an inverse square relation with that distance.

        1. annodomini2
          Mushroom

          Re: Habitable zone != actually habitable

          Also assumes it's just one planet and not a planet with a moon or multiple moons.

          The wobble technique wouldn't be able to distinguish moons if they were there.

  8. bharq

    "We are now beginning to understand that Nature seems to overwhelmingly prefer systems that have a multiple planets with orbits of less than one hundred days"

    I thought it was just our current planet-detection systems that are biased towards short-orbit planets?

    1. Lord Voldemortgage

      Still if it is finding them everywhere else and we don't have any here our system is still a freak.

      1. chris lively
        Facepalm

        I stopped a the word "prefer".

        If we are unable to detect the right size of planet, due to our instruments or methodology, then there is no way anyone can extrapolate a preference.

        Along those lines, just because our system currently lacks the types of planets we are able to find, doesn't mean that those planets never existed here. Notr can it even imply a preference given the very small sample size.

        Consider a sound recording device that only picks up sounds in the range of a bass drum. I use it in my house and find nothing. Then I go to a rock concert and get a recording. Having some success I go to other rock concerts and pick up more. Then, like an idiot, I decide that My home is unique in all of space because it's the only place I've looked that doesn't have this strange sound.

        Planet hunting focuses on particular star qualities. Such as ignoring the really bright ones and only looking at those that are edge on. Perhaps these planets don't exist in orbits of "bright" stars. Maybe they only exist on a particular plane.... Point is, there are enough limitations here that making general statements about what nature might prefer only makes the guy come off as an idiot.

  9. John Smith 19 Gold badge
    Thumb Up

    Considering the distances from Earth for the *other* candidates this is pretty close.

    We're not even at 1% of the speed of light (Voyager 1 at 13Km/s is 0.0043% of C)

    Earth engineering has a long way to go before a probe has any serious shot of being launched.

    1. Wilseus
      Go

      Re: Considering the distances from Earth for the *other* candidates this is pretty close.

      "Earth engineering has a long way to go before a probe has any serious shot of being launched."

      That's not actually true. Nuclear propulsion is feasible with today's technology. We could start building such a craft right now, given enough money:

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Orion_(nuclear_propulsion)

      1. Ragarath
        Joke

        Re: Considering the distances from Earth for the *other* candidates this is pretty close.

        So, from what I am reading, you want to start an intergalactic war by throwing a nuclear bomb at the closest planet that may harbour life.

        Let's just hope there is no life there huh, at least none that can fight back.

        1. This post has been deleted by its author

          1. Thorsten

            Re: Considering the distances from Earth for the *other* candidates this is pretty close.

            "intergalactic interstellar"

            or maybe intragalactic?

            1. This post has been deleted by its author

      2. John Smith 19 Gold badge
        Boffin

        Re: Considering the distances from Earth for the *other* candidates this is pretty close.

        "That's not actually true. Nuclear propulsion is feasible with today's technology. We could start building such a craft right now, given enough money:"

        This is the nuclear pulse system of dropping "small" nuclear bombs out the back of the vehicle. Obviously with about 50 years improvement in the design software ("bomb codes") we should be able to improve on the design. The bomblet size is just about in the viability range of neutron bombs, which can be quite "clean.". The question is could you use that huge neutron output to ablate a layer of "pusher plate" material while transmuting them to heavier isotopes.

        slightly more "eco friendly" is the "starwisp" concept of Robert Forward, using a a mesh of sensors to act as a giant image sensor/processor/power storage/aerial system in a compact mass that could be accelerated to say 100g (that's roughly the speed of light in 3 1/2 days if exposure can be kept up).

        My point was that either of these concepts is a long way from deployment. Testing for Orion has some particular problems in this area.

        Of course either would revolutionise visits to the outer planets. .

        BTW my thumbs up was for the finding of a planet so close, not the rather limited progress we've made to getting there in any reasonable amount of time.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Considering the distances from Earth for the *other* candidates this is pretty close.

          > This is the nuclear pulse system of dropping "small" nuclear bombs out the back of the vehicle.

          Come the annual Pangalactic MOT inspection, I expect this might fail on the emissions test.

          1. This post has been deleted by its author

      3. Andrew James

        Re: Considering the distances from Earth for the *other* candidates this is pretty close.

        Isn't one of many restrictions to the orion project that the craft would be incredibly heavy. Meaning construction in space. Meaning putting a lot of nuclear weapons in orbit... which frankly no nation is going to be happy about.

        China or Russia: "oh you are just putting them all up there to send a probe to another star. Fine. Please do. Don't mind us and our orbiting under construction arsenal of nuclear power sources for our intragalactic probe will you ... we thought it was such a good idea we'd make one too, hope you don't mind"

        1. Chemist

          Re: Considering the distances from Earth for the *other* candidates this is pretty close.

          I calculate the energy required to accelerate 1 tonne to 10%c as ~5E20 J. According to Wikipedia the sum of energy release from ALL the nuclear weapons test/uses is ~the same. Now I've not read the details of ORION but something seems amiss.

        2. John Smith 19 Gold badge

          Re: Considering the distances from Earth for the *other* candidates this is pretty close.

          "Isn't one of many restrictions to the orion project that the craft would be incredibly heavy. Meaning construction in space."

          True IIRC the original version was to support Earth launch. The vehicle weighs thousands of tonnes (compare that to the ISS).

          "Meaning putting a lot of nuclear weapons in orbit... "

          That's sort of debatable. The "pulse units" as they called were (It's difficult to know given how much is still classified) known were stripped down low yield (140kt, down to 0.1kt) H bombs designed to generate 95% of their energy by fusion rather than fission. I think the plan was to keep the precision triggering hardware (necessary to fire the the conventional explosives) on the vehicle.

          It's possible that that in the 4 decades since it's original conception a "fission free" way to build fusion bombs has been found, eliminating the Uranium or Plutonium fall out entirely.

    2. Field Marshal Von Krakenfart
      Headmaster

      Re: Considering the distances from Earth for the *other* candidates this is pretty close.

      Voyager 1 at 13Km/s is 0.0043% of C

      Capital C is the SI unit for coulombs, a measure of electric charge. The speed of light is represented by small c.

    3. Armando 123

      Re: Considering the distances from Earth for the *other* candidates this is pretty close.

      Back in the late 50s the US (via General Atomics) worked on a project to get a spaceship that could reach .1c, using nuclear explosions. Just googled, the engine was called TRIGA, for which Freeman Dyson led the design team.

      Given today's technology, why, we might reach .105c, before the C# code made it blow up.

  10. Lloyd
    Facepalm

    Great

    Now we just need to invent light speed travel and we're sorted once we've finished trashing this planet. Of course we'll have no resources to build hive ships because we'll have used them all up so we'll just be sending 2 people who will have to spend their time trying to create a new civilisation only to discover the journey has rendered them sterile. Glass half empty? Not at all, I poured the contents away and jammed it up fate's posterior a long time ago.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Great

      "Of course we'll have no resources to build hive ships because we'll have used them all up"

      Really? You may not be aware of the fact that the Earth is quite large. Even without venturing to the asteroid belt there's actually quite a lot of easily accessible material even by today's standards of technology. The only resources we're in any danger of depleting, fossil hydrocarbons, can be synthesised... we've no shortage of fissile isotopes and sunny deserts, after all. Oh, and maybe helium. Do you need that to make interstellar spacecraft?

      It is out biosphere that is at risk from human activities, and you can't build a whole lot of spacecraft from pandas and mahogany so their absense won't affect any future travel plans.

      You seem to be confusing fate with a failure of imagination.

      1. jai

        Re: Great

        what? you're telling me we won't be able to have panda-fur-lined spaceships?!?!?

      2. Loyal Commenter Silver badge

        Re: Great

        Great. now I have the image of a ship that uses pandas as its reaction mass in my head.

        "We need to go a bit faster, fire some more pandas out the back of the ship"

      3. Lloyd
        Windows

        Re: Great

        That whooshing noise you heard earlier was sarcasm flying right over your head, Merry Christmas, try not to over-analyse it.

      4. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: you can't build a whole lot of spacecraft from pandas and mahogany

        Doh. So there goes my design for the upholstery and dashboard.

      5. This post has been deleted by its author

  11. Goa T. Herds
    Go

    SETI ?

    Would be interesting to know whether the SETI folks picked up anything from there...

    1. This post has been deleted by its author

    2. Lars Silver badge
      Happy

      Re: SETI ?

      There was an other article about the "noise" we produce for the rest of the universe. I wonder if SETI could pic out intelligent life if they used the data we produce.

      1. This post has been deleted by its author

      2. chris lively
        Coat

        Re: SETI ?

        The issues with radio are huge. Consider this:

        1. Some wanker finally figures out how to send a radio wave. Everyone rejoices and it goes global.

        2. Along the way, someone figures out how to listen to every one else's radio waves. Much gnashing of teeth and clothes rending.

        3. Encryption put in place. It's cracked. New encryption developed. It's cracked. Rinse and repeat a few times.

        4. Radio still in use; however it appears as random noise unless you have the keys...

        5. Radio mostly goes way of dodo in preference for lower power, better targeted, communications.

        So what we have is a very brief window of time in which an open broadcast of a radio wave might be recognized as anything other than background noise on the planet. Predicated, of course, that the discovery of radio waves is done by an entity that isnt paranoid. Quite frankly, SETI could listen from now until the end of the universe and never find anything, even if the galaxy was chock full of planets with intelligent life on them.

        1. This post has been deleted by its author

    3. deshepherd

      Re: SETI ?

      Or maybe they're going to pickup up something from CETI!

  12. Some Beggar
    Black Helicopters

    Wait a second ...

    Professor Jones ... mathematical models ... fake ... published data sets ...

    IT'S A CONSPIRACY!

  13. I think so I am?
    Coat

    How far away, far far far away

    ((((186,000*60)*60)*24)*365)*12 = 7.0388352e+13 miles

    I'll just get my coat; chat you in a bit

    1. JeffyPooh
      Pint

      Re: How far away, far far far away

      186,282.3960 (probably changed since I memorized it) and 365.2425.

      PS: ((((No) need) for) brackets).

    2. Loyal Commenter Silver badge

      Re: How far away, far far far away

      What's that in linguine?

      1. James Micallef Silver badge
        Happy

        Re: How far away, far far far away

        "What's that in linguine?"

        Not sure, but I think there will be enough linguine for seconds all round*

        *Assuming a few Tera-swimming pools of carbonara sauce, of course

        1. Stoneshop
          Coat

          Re: How far away, far far far away

          What's Tera doing in a swimming pool full of carbonara sauce?

  14. Podsgrove

    Barbarella found the evil Duran Duran with his positronic ray at Tau Ceti

    1. John G Imrie

      I allways wondered ...

      why he decided to come back here and form a Pop group.

  15. Boris the Cockroach Silver badge
    Mushroom

    Or worse

    There is life there, and they've heard the babble coming from our world (OMG they've elected G W Bush as president.. what a bunch of w***ers) and decided if any space probe appears from our direction, they gonna shoot it down.

    Or maybe just nuke us from orbit, only way to be sure

  16. Robert Flatters
    FAIL

    Why did they sound supprised about find planets obiting a sun

    If my thinking is correct someone along while back thought that there would be little or no chance of other worlds obiting other suns. how rong that theroy was.

  17. oldcoder

    Just position a probe with a large magnetic field near the sun... and wait for a flare.. should get 1 to 2% speed of light out of that.

  18. Kubla Cant
    Terminator

    Given the probable gravity on this planet, its inhabitants are going to be pretty tough (or maybe just pretty squat). They've spent several decades putting up with the trash we broadcast into space during the 20th century. In a couple of weeks time they will discover that we have not, as expected, succumbed to the Y2K bug, so the noise won't stop.

    Expect a visit from irate neighbours, probably with tattoos and sovereign rings.

  19. Carl

    or maybe

    The tech isn't yet quite up to spotting planets further out from their stars.

    Just because they can't be seen doesn't mean they aren't there.

    Open minds, people!

  20. Brewster's Angle Grinder Silver badge

    Freakish Earth

    "So our solar system is, in some sense, a bit of a freak and not the most typical kind of system that Nature cooks up."

    And the presence of the moon--which stabilises the Earth's axis of rotation--makes the Earth an even bigger fluke. Perhaps just one in ten planets have a moon that will do the job. And without a stabilising moon, higher-life forms would struggle to evolve.

    1. Tom 7

      Re: Freakish Earth

      Stabilise what? They've just found ice at the poles of Mercury which suggests its not wobbled much in, to use an astronomical term, a fuck of a long time, with nothing to 'stabilise' it.

      1. hplasm
        Facepalm

        Re: Nothing to stablilise it

        Apart from the great big star right overhead,that is...

  21. Katie Saucey
    Thumb Up

    OK, much for the ticket? This point in the week I can use a good nap.

  22. Chas

    what would Kirk say?

    Khaaaaaaaannnnnnnn!!!

    =:~)

  23. SirDigalot

    Hopefully any inhabitants on said planet are having the same conversation having seen a much smaller planet in the habitable zone around our sun and they too are preparing to launch a probe.

    alternatively they already knew about us, and have sent the probe

    alternatively still, the know about us and have other pressing matters to deal with or are just ignoring us because we pose no threat.

    yet more:

    They missed out planet or ignored it as being no threat, AND missed the probe we sent until one day (in the future) it crashes down on their world killing one of their leaders, and a now enraged planet with inhabitants at minimum 5 times bigger/stronger than us, prepare a jump-force to eradicate the puny inhabitants of our world.

    even more obscure, they found our two planets (venus/earth) sent a probe to the wrong one, it was destroyed and they do not think our system habours life, however some crazy radio astronomer insists he is receiving transmissions from our system, the only part he can decipher is the beginning beats to eastenders and it has driven him insane...

    or

    it's just lifeless and dead

    1. FunkyEric

      Nah Nah nah na na na nahhhhhhhhhh

  24. Richard 120

    That sort of distance

    That's a hell of a task, to aim a probe that can travel anywhere fast enough to reach the destination in a human lifetime, navigate the vastness of space on it's own, after all once you get past a certain distance it's not like you can tell it to change direction at short notice.

    Then you need to get it to decelerate to a reasonable speed in order to actually be of any use.

    Maybe if data teleportation can be used in order to perform instant communication with the probe, but I don't think we can make things work that way yet.

    I wish I was smart enough to be able to contemplate working on that sort of project.

  25. Stevie

    Damn

    Shame Poul Anderson didn't live to see this.

    1. This post has been deleted by its author

  26. Paul A. Clayton

    It's two planets

    Their names are Anarres and Urras--just read LeGuin's The Dispossessed.

  27. deshepherd

    Arthur C Clarke

    Well, after things like geostationary satellites etc perhaps ACC has another prediction coming true ... in the last of the Rama novels the Rama spaceship ends up in the Tau Ceti system where it rendezvous with "the node" where "samples" of intelligent life from that region of the galaxy are have been taken to.

  28. Ugotta B. Kiddingme

    five planets?

    Ceti (Alpha) 5?

    KHAAAAAAAAAAAAN !!

  29. Mike Brown

    why didnt we check this one 1st?

    Its the closet after all. Surely we someone should have checked this one before now?

    1. This post has been deleted by its author

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: well, it's out of the closet now

        and it looks like its got a well endowed habitable zone.

  30. Eguro

    My take on the thing

    Clearly this planet has long held life.

    Their first probe was nuclear powered and landed on our tiny planet long ago. Sadly it spun out of control shortly before impact, and - because of it's massive size (coming from a planet 5 times bigger than ours) - wiped out the dinosaurs (and much of everything else).

    Now we've become that planet that they never visit, because they feel a bit guilty about the whole world-wide-destruction they caused. A bit like that friend you have, where you once broke a vase, and now feel a bit guilty everytime you go to visit.

    Official Message to Aliens:

    It's okay! We don't mind you killing the dinosaurs, they were taking up our lebensraum! Come visit - and bring space-babes

  31. Anonymous Coward
    Alien

    So its a planet in a habitable zone....

    With gravity that is about twice Earth gravity--and we don't know what the composition of the atmosphere is, whether it has a magnetic field that protects the inhabitants from nasty cosmic rays and radiation, or if there is a moon of sufficient size to make coastal areas habitable in the face of otherwise hundreds of feet tsunami-sized tides (or if there is liquid water so that there are tides at all!).

    Interesting, but I'm not prepared to jump on the first transport off mother Earth just yet.

  32. John Smith 19 Gold badge
    Alien

    Consider the inhabitants.

    They've evolved in a 5g field.

    Short, squat and very strong.

    Like a race of very hard Ronnie Corberts.

    Be afraid.

    1. LaeMing
      Happy

      Re: Consider the inhabitants.

      I was thinking something crab-like, but Hard-Corbetites is good too!

  33. Trevor_Pott Gold badge

    "We can't send things to other places Really Really Fast."

    Bollocks.

    We've never tried. Voyager is (technologically) about eleventy billion years old. We can do better today. The best part is, we don't even have to work all that hard. We need to build something with A) A bitching power supply and that can B) survive crazy acceleration.

    Then we use a great big honking set of chemical rockets (Flacon Heavy?) to shoot the widget into space and strap a whole pile of other chemical rockets to it. We fire the thing in the general direction of Jupiter and go for the gravity assist bonus. Do your maths right and you can whip around Jupiter picking up all sorts of speed, while aiming in the general vicinity of Sol.

    The real trick is to get the ++fast grav bonus from whipping around the sun targeting Wherever It Is You Want To Go. You coast along until you get about ¾ of the way to your target. Then you turn on your Really, Really, Overpowered Ion Drive and decelerate for all you're worth. With luck, the drone not only passes through the target system, but might even have slowed down enough to put it in some really oblong, comet-like orbit of that system's star.

    At 12 light years away, we might even be able to get the travel time down below 500 years. That's not too bad; and something I think our descendants would appreciate. Wouldn't it be nice to leave them something? We've fucked up everything else…

    1. John Smith 19 Gold badge
      Unhappy

      Re: "We can't send things to other places Really Really Fast."

      The best part is, we don't even have to work all that hard. We need to build something with A) A bitching power supply and that can B) survive crazy acceleration."

      The first part is much easier than the first. The classic example being the Sprint ABM for terminal defense with its 100g acceleration (Breaking M1 less than 1 sec after launch). Given the huge strides in integration putting significant capability into a small package is quite feasible (although they probably can't operate during launch). But to get to light speed you'd need to keep that up for 3.5 days.

      Trouble is Voyager at 13Km/s is 0.0043% of light speed. I mentioned Robert Forwards Starwisp idea and I think that's the closest to being feasible. It could be done if we wanted to do it right now. The engineering is tough but the physics is known. Orion is a longer term option partly due to feasibility (you don't get this in a mini size) and of course the politics.

      There is also the "Icarus" follow up study to the British Interplanetary Societies "Daedalus" plan to explore Bernards Star. That however looked at mining Jupiter for reaction mass to get something like 10% of c.

      In IT a factor of 10 000 improvement does not seem unrealistic (clock speeds, network speeds, memory density have all gone up by these amounts). But outside this area most improvements are measured in %. It's a very different game.

      1. Trevor_Pott Gold badge

        Re: "We can't send things to other places Really Really Fast."

        "Voyager at 13Km/s is 0.0043% of light speed"

        For the last time, we weren't trying to get Voyager to interstellar speeds. We were trying to use it to take pictures of our own back yard. You don't need Orion to get something up to interstellar speeds. You might if you had people on board - though we'll debate the "pink smush factor" of Orion later - but we don't need to go from a dead stop to interstellar in one go.

        So long as your widget can survive crazy acceleration for a brief time, you can slingshot outside the system. You need some truly BITCHING chemical rockets to do the initial boost towards Jupiter, but once around Jupiter followed by one around the sun should give the object more than enough speed to truly crush all speed records and head out into interstellar space.

        Such a designed object would whip past Voyager quite quickly, leaving that probe behind as the slowpoke it is. Again, Voyager's speed is not indicative of the fastest we are capable of going. It is indicative of the fastest we are capable of taking pictures of our own solar system at using 1970s technology. If we just want to fling a widget into the yonder at high velocity, we have the technology for it.

  34. Mike Flugennock
    Alien

    Terrestrial broadcast signal propagation...?

    So, how long are we talking, then, before any possible inhabitants at Tau Ceti receive the first season of Gilligan's Island?

    (ohh, I weep for the spirit and the soul...)

    1. Trevor_Pott Gold badge

      Re: Terrestrial broadcast signal propagation...?

      Um...it's 12 year lag. We're currently sending them the beginning of the reality TV failwagon.

      1. John Smith 19 Gold badge
        Happy

        Re: Terrestrial broadcast signal propagation...?

        "Um...it's 12 year lag. We're currently sending them the beginning of the reality TV failwagon."

        So prepare for the retaliatory strike arriving in around 2024

  35. Sirius Lee

    'Just' 12 light years away

    OK, I know it's in the stellar back yard but 'just' makes seem like we could be there by lunchtime. Well, lunchtime in a million or so years. On the plus side, we'd have time to evolve to a reduced gravity environment on the way and time to evolve gravity support structures again as the gravity was turned up on approach supposing anyone could remember why on they were hurtling through inter-stellar space.

  36. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    space is big and boring

    funny how Scifi people have quietly ignored the mars rover thing and now want to spend everyone's money on something similar but further away . Probably with he same result , dull uninteresting updates that come in at coma aping 24 year intervals.

    All the usual suspects should pay for this stuff instead of wasting money on spock fancy dress outfits for conventions.

  37. MrXavia
    Thumb Up

    With NASA working on Warp drive again, maybe we will be sending a probe out within our lifetimes!

    I love the fact that we live in a world where Scientists are looking for life and ways to go see it!

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