/ News
These Real-Life Alien Worlds Could Become Humanity's New Home In 'Interstellar'
In the upcoming film, Interstellar, a group of heroes blasts off from a dying Earth to search for a new home for humanity. For reasons that aren’t explained in the trailer, the solar system (including Mars) apparently cannot help. Instead, the extraplanetary explorers must seek out Earth 2.0 in another star system.
“There are twelve potentially habitable worlds within our reach,” promises one of the Interstellar trailers. Setting aside the fact that we currently have no handy wormhole or any other way of reaching other star systems: If the Sun were to explode next week, and humanity had to evacuate the solar system, where should we go?
It is entirely plausible (and even expected) that exoplanets are out there that are just as hospitable as Earth. Scientists think there could be 40 billion Earth-sized habitable worlds in the Milky Way alone. Several have already been detected.
Scientists rate the potential habitability of a planet by several different measures. One is the planet’s location in the habitable zone—the so-called “Goldilocks region” around a star where it would be not too hot and not too cold for liquid water to form on a planet’s surface. Another measure is the Earth Similarity Index, which compares the planet’s radius, density, and surface temperature to that of Earth.
Scientists think Gliese 832c’s temperature might be similar to Earth’s. However, it could have a dense atmosphere that traps heat, boiling any water away.
Mass: 5.4 Earth masses
Year: 36 days
Distance From Earth: 16 light-years
“I think that in the big scheme of things, the idea that we’ll someday have to escape the solar system to continue surviving is irrefutable,” says Lee Billings, author of Five Billion Years of Solitude: The Search for Life Among the Stars. “But that’s a long time in the future, and we probably shouldn’t be too eager to abandon our home planet without very good reasons.”
So where should we go? That’s a tough question to answer, says Billings. Scientists haven’t yet spotted the perfect home-away-from-home for Earthlings. And in the past, we would have answered the question wrong. At various points in time, three different exoplanets orbiting the dwarf star Gliese 581—Gliese 581c, 581d, and 581g—were considered the most potentially habitable planets out there. But it turned out that 581c is probably too hot and gassy to be habitable, and 581d and 581g don’t even exist. If we had launched explorers to those planets, Billings points out, they would travel for hundreds of years and find nothing at the other end.
The other problem is that most of the potentially habitable exoplanets so far have been spotted around dim stars called M-dwarfs. Since M-dwarfs give off less heat than our Sun, the planets around them have to be closer to the star in order to have liquid water—too close for comfort, according to some scientists. Any planets in orbit in the habitable zone of an M-dwarf would be at risk for devastating solar flares and tidal locking—where one side of the planet continually faces the star, resulting in a hot side and a freezing cold side, much like Earth’s moon.
“Most of the planets we’ve found so far are borderline cases,” says Billings. “We don’t know enough about them to know what their environments are like, and in some cases we don’t even know for sure that they exist.”
But there’s good news too: “The nearest Earth 2.0 is probably only a dozen light-years away or less,” Billings says. “I think we’re on the cusp of finding it, and there are lots out there, but we don’t have a bona fide, true-blue planet like Earth yet.”
Source: http://www.popsci.com/article/science/these-real-life-alien-worlds-could-become-humanitys-new-home-interstellar?dom=PSC&loc=recent&lnk=2&con=these-reallife-alien-worlds-could-become-humanitys-new-home-in-interstellar
/ About us
Founded by Russian entrepreneur Dmitry Itskov in February 2011 with the participation of leading Russian specialists in the field of neural interfaces, robotics, artificial organs and systems.
The main goals of the 2045 Initiative: the creation and realization of a new strategy for the development of humanity which meets global civilization challenges; the creation of optimale conditions promoting the spiritual enlightenment of humanity; and the realization of a new futuristic reality based on 5 principles: high spirituality, high culture, high ethics, high science and high technologies.
The main science mega-project of the 2045 Initiative aims to create technologies enabling the transfer of a individual’s personality to a more advanced non-biological carrier, and extending life, including to the point of immortality. We devote particular attention to enabling the fullest possible dialogue between the world’s major spiritual traditions, science and society.
A large-scale transformation of humanity, comparable to some of the major spiritual and sci-tech revolutions in history, will require a new strategy. We believe this to be necessary to overcome existing crises, which threaten our planetary habitat and the continued existence of humanity as a species. With the 2045 Initiative, we hope to realize a new strategy for humanity's development, and in so doing, create a more productive, fulfilling, and satisfying future.
The "2045" team is working towards creating an international research center where leading scientists will be engaged in research and development in the fields of anthropomorphic robotics, living systems modeling and brain and consciousness modeling with the goal of transferring one’s individual consciousness to an artificial carrier and achieving cybernetic immortality.
An annual congress "The Global Future 2045" is organized by the Initiative to give platform for discussing mankind's evolutionary strategy based on technologies of cybernetic immortality as well as the possible impact of such technologies on global society, politics and economies of the future.
Future prospects of "2045" Initiative for society
2015-2020
The emergence and widespread use of affordable android "avatars" controlled by a "brain-computer" interface. Coupled with related technologies “avatars’ will give people a number of new features: ability to work in dangerous environments, perform rescue operations, travel in extreme situations etc.
Avatar components will be used in medicine for the rehabilitation of fully or partially disabled patients giving them prosthetic limbs or recover lost senses.
2020-2025
Creation of an autonomous life-support system for the human brain linked to a robot, ‘avatar’, will save people whose body is completely worn out or irreversibly damaged. Any patient with an intact brain will be able to return to a fully functioning bodily life. Such technologies will greatly enlarge the possibility of hybrid bio-electronic devices, thus creating a new IT revolution and will make all kinds of superimpositions of electronic and biological systems possible.
2030-2035
Creation of a computer model of the brain and human consciousness with the subsequent development of means to transfer individual consciousness onto an artificial carrier. This development will profoundly change the world, it will not only give everyone the possibility of cybernetic immortality but will also create a friendly artificial intelligence, expand human capabilities and provide opportunities for ordinary people to restore or modify their own brain multiple times. The final result at this stage can be a real revolution in the understanding of human nature that will completely change the human and technical prospects for humanity.
2045
This is the time when substance-independent minds will receive new bodies with capacities far exceeding those of ordinary humans. A new era for humanity will arrive! Changes will occur in all spheres of human activity – energy generation, transportation, politics, medicine, psychology, sciences, and so on.
Today it is hard to imagine a future when bodies consisting of nanorobots will become affordable and capable of taking any form. It is also hard to imagine body holograms featuring controlled matter. One thing is clear however: humanity, for the first time in its history, will make a fully managed evolutionary transition and eventually become a new species. Moreover, prerequisites for a large-scale expansion into outer space will be created as well.
Key elements of the project in the future
• International social movement
• social network immortal.me
• charitable foundation "Global Future 2045" (Foundation 2045)
• scientific research centre "Immortality"
• business incubator
• University of "Immortality"
• annual award for contribution to the realization of the project of "Immortality”.
/ Follow us at:
/ Contact:
For additional information, partnerships and sponsorship, contact:
info@2045.com
Media requesting information and interviews, contact PR@2045.com
LinkedIn
LiveJournal
Google
Twitter
Facebook
Я.ру
ВКонтакте
Mail.ru