[Scythe]

NOTE: The image is an artist's concept of how the planet looks like.

It is a bit bigger and somewhat colder, but a planet circling a star 500 light-years away is otherwise the closest match of our home world discovered so far, astronomers announced on Thursday.

The planet, known as Kepler 186f, named after NASA’s Kepler planet-finding mission, which detected it, has a diameter of 8,700 miles, 10 percent wider than Earth, and its orbit lies within the “Goldilocks zone” of its star, Kepler 186 — not too hot, not too cold, where temperatures could allow for liquid water to flow at the surface, making it potentially hospitable for life.

“Kepler 186f is the first validated, Earth-size planet in the habitable zone of another star,” Elisa V. Quintana of the SETI Institute and NASA’s Ames Research Center in Mountain View, Calif., said at a news conference on Thursday. “It has the right size and is at the right distance to have properties similar to our home planet.”

The researchers speculate that it is made of the same stuff as Earth — iron, rock, ice, liquid water, although the relative amounts could be very different.

The gravity on Kepler 186f, too, is likely to be roughly the same as Earth’s. “You could far more easily imagine someone being able to go there and walk around on the surface,” Stephen Kane, an astronomer at San Francisco State University and another member of the research team, said in an interview.

Full Article: New York Times

[xornull]

Dude this is pretty cool. 500 light years though O_O

but what they see is outdated by 500 years because of the distance...

[Eclipse]

Many, many planets like this one have been discovered. They can't confirm the temperature or water presence exactly, as they work it out based on it's size, and distance from its sun. If its distance is just right, its in the 'Goldilocks zone'. Kepler 186 is a promising one. If there is intelligent life there, and they look at earth, they'd see dinosaurs. Scientists say that by day. the year 2050, they will have confirmed intelligent life, as they discover so many planets like this one all the time.

[xornull]

Many, many planets like this one have been discovered. They can't confirm the temperature or water presence exactly, as they work it out based on it's size, and distance from its sun. If its distance is just right, its in the 'Goldilocks zone'. Kepler 186 is a promising one. If there is intelligent life there, and they look at earth, they'd see dinosaurs. Scientists say that by day. the year 2015, they will have confirmed intelligent life, as they discover so many planets like this one all the time.

No, they will not see dinosaurs, they will see our society how it was 500 years ago.

[Eclipse]

No, they will not see dinosaurs, they will see our society how it was 500 years ago.

Wow. Wow. What a fail on my part. I apologize. I misread it as 500 million light years. The rest of what I wrote still stands however.

EDIT: It's meant to be 2050*

[xornull]

Wow. Wow. What a fail on my part. I apologize. I misread it as 500 million light years. The rest of what I wrote still stands however.

EDIT: It's meant to be 2050*

plus even if it was 500 million light years away, they still would not see dinosaurs because the first ones appeared 231 million years ago.

[DarkMuse]

The only way for us to survive that distance would be a conscious transfer to a database where upon entry of the new planet's atmosphere we would redownload our conscious into another being wether it be robot or extraterrestrial. Unfortunately our tech isnt good enough for that yet.

[xornull]

The only way for us to survive that distance would be a conscious transfer to a database where upon entry of the new planet's atmosphere we would redownload our conscious into another being wether it be robot or extraterrestrial. Unfortunately our tech isnt good enough for that yet.

It is possible, you can also do cloning too, but the issue remains:

even if we do send an electromagnetic wave, it would take 500 years for it to arrive on it.

[DarkMuse]

It is possible, you can also do cloning too, but the issue remains:

even if we do send an electromagnetic wave, it would take 500 years for it to arrive on it.

But that is not an issue if your conscious is on a database. It could even be in a virtual reality to distract yourself during the trip!

[Eclipse]

plus even if it was 500 million light years away, they still would not see dinosaurs because the first ones appeared 231 million years ago.

Unicorns. They'll see unicorns.

---

The only way for us to survive that distance would be a conscious transfer to a database where upon entry of the new planet's atmosphere we would redownload our conscious into another being wether it be robot or extraterrestrial. Unfortunately our tech isnt good enough for that yet.

Ermm, no. Use the space ship as a home, reproduce, your great great grand children will arrive.