
TRAPPIST-1 Is Older Than Our Solar System - r721
https://www.nasa.gov/feature/jpl/trappist-1-is-older-than-our-solar-system
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jcoffland
I just finished reading The Three Body Problem and I can't help thinking that
we could send signals that would reach these planets in 40 years, we could get
a response in 80 and if we could achieve c/10 we could get there in something
like 500 years depending on acceleration.

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nine_k
Receiving a signal would be one of the more chilling things the Earth
civilization can ever experience.

Good thing if these guys would be on approximately the same stage as we are,
but chances are slim. An answer from someone who knows about radio for 1000
years in much more probable than from someone who knows it for 100 years, as
we do.

Meeting the technologically more more advanced European expeditions did change
the lives of the natives of the Americas, probably to the better, after a few
centuries — if we ignore certain details.

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stephengillie
_Two possibilities exist: Either we are alone in the universe or we are not.
Both are equally terrifying._ \- Arthur C Clarke.

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shellbackground
Third possibility: we do not exist either.

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eru
I'm with Descartes on this one.

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debatem1
A system that will live for 12 trillion years. A home to seven Earth-sized
worlds, rocky planets inside the Goldilocks zone. A hope, at least, for an
atmosphere.

What a universe!

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fizixer
Not all seven, but three of them are in the habitable zone.

Still better than our system no doubt.

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DougWebb
We also have three rocky planets in the habitable zone. That's not sufficient
to actually make them habitable.

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debatem1
I dunno, there's pretty strong evidence that one out of the three here is, in
fact, habitable.

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johngarrison
Whether it harbors intelligent life, however, is still up for debate.

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0xFFFE
By the looks of it, we still have a long way to go. :)

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Gravityloss
So far, we're not doing any better than cyanobacteria -Ray Pierrehumbert.

(The start of photosynthesis by cyanobacteria nearly killed all life on the
planet.)

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throwaway7645
Can someone sum this up for me? The site is too slow/buggy for my phone.

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konart
TRAPPIST-1, a system of seven Earth-size worlds orbiting an ultra-cool dwarf
star about 40 light-years away. Researchers say in a new study that the
TRAPPIST-1 star is quite old: between 5.4 and 9.8 billion years. This is up to
twice as old as our own solar system, which formed some 4.5 billion years ago.

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taeric
Having recently read Eerie Silence, findings like this do underscore the
question of just how likely life is. More, given life, is intelligence a
given? And if there is intelligence, is scientific expansion style
intelligence a given?

I confess these are obvious questions. I had never considered them, though. Is
crazy interesting to consider.

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pavel_lishin
> _More, given life, is intelligence a given?_

Isn't intelligence just one particular adaptation that helps reproductive
success? I'm not sure why it would be more common than flight or warm-
bloodedness.

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PoachedSausage
It seems intelligence is more of a 'master key' that unlocks reproductive
success in a variety of environments and at large scale. The jury is still out
on whether it's a given that intelligence ultimately destroys itself.

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throwaway7645
As in the "great filter"

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muzani
20th century sci-fi: Attack of the Martians

21st century sci-fi: Attack of the aliens from TRAPPIST-1

