Neil DeGrasse Tyson; Image via WikipediaDear Readers,
This Friday Seminar is a special one, written given the buzz from Gliese581g, which has found its way to me from my time-normal Twitter friends Exoplanetology and Intellectual Pornography. They've both kept me up to date on advances in your time stream's understanding of this world has expanded. I'll stick to what you know in discussing it. Gliese581g is interesting for a variety of reasons, the one that I'm most focused on being what it means for human expansion.
A lot of words get thrown around at times like this. In the words of time-normal astrophysicist Neil DeGrasse-Tyson, this should be seen as "...an important turning of the page..." in the search for planets like Earth. However, it "...doesn't mean there are oceans and beaches and resorts..." Gliese581g isn't exactly Earth. You don't know that much about it. I see words like "habitable" and I'm inclined to remind time-normal science journalists how little you really know about life within, let alone outside of, the solar system. Habitable? The odds are low. Inhabited? Well, I'll leave that for you to discover on your own.
What this represents, and what I mean to discuss, is that discovery. Gliese581g isn't likely to represent a second chance for humanity. The gravity there may be a little too high, depending on the precise composition and density of the planet. It's a ribbon world, which limits its settlement potential. There are...issues, to say the least.
One issue I shouldn't have to remind you of is that it may already be inhabited!
Instead of being a complete critic, however, I want to take this in a productive direction. Every scientific discovery, in astrophysics, anachronism, or biology, has two effects. First, it tells us something we don't know before, installing a firm rung for us to step on as we ascend the ladder of knowledge. Second is all about that ladder. Think of it as a tall, tall ladder in the midst of a vast wilderness. With every rung, our lantern casts more light, even farther, so that we can see newer and newer things. Some of these things, the edge of these things, are encased in shadow, left for us to ask questions about. Those questions are the edge of knowledge, the things that will be answered to build the next rung.
You must not look at Gliese581g and say, "this is a new thing that we know." You must look at it and ask, "What new questions can we ask?" You must turn the new page that Dr. DeGrasse Tyson talked about. I'll suggest a brief list:
- Does Gliese581g have a breathable atmosphere and/or liquid-phase water?
- Is there life on Gliese581g? (The link leads to an article about the discovery of a strong signal coming from the Gliese581 system)
- Can we communicate with Gliese581g?
- Can we get to Gliese581g?
- What are the ethical hurdles that come into play when we reach a possible contact with Gliese581g and its potential inhabitants?
Always,
Dr. John Skylar
Chairman
Department of Anachronism
University of Constantinople
An excellent and well-reasoned response to the Gilese discovery. We would do well to remember that we can't simply pack our bags and leave Earth at the first sign of a new world! We don't even know what this place's atmosphere is like, to say nothing of the fact that we can barely get back to the moon, let alone across such a vast gulf of space.
ReplyDeleteBut again, as you point out, that doesn't make this discovery insignificant. On the contrary - it's terribly exciting!
In addition, perhaps it would be entertaining to engage in a sort of thought experiment as to what sort of climate we might find on this planet. After all, we are speaking of a world with narrow habitable bands, with one side scorched and the other frozen. what sort of culture might develop there? What would they think of a spinning world like our own?
Good point, Teal. Though I think to even approach that sort of question, one has to first answer the basics of the Gliesians' xenobiology.
ReplyDeleteFor me to discuss that in detail could be a spoiler, however.
-JS