A new planet! Want to go there?
Apr 25, 2007
Astronomers are giddy about the discovery of a planet outside our solar system that appears to have Earth-like qualities and thus may be capable of sustaining life. The planet orbits a red dwarf star called Gliese 581 in the constellation Libra.
I suspect some people may get really excited when they hear that this planet is comparatively close to the Earth, a mere 20.5 light years away. However, if you’re thinking about booking a flight to Gliese 581 c (which is what astronomers are calling it, for the time being), I’ve got bad news for you. Although 20.5 light years doesn’t sound very far, it comes out at approximately 120,000,000,000,000 miles (that’s 120 trillion miles)!
How far is that, you ask? Well, if you were inclined to travel non-stop (24 hours a day, 365 days a year) in a normal jet airliner at about 500 mph, it would only take 30,000,000 years until you arrived. That’s right, 30 million years! Even if you could book passage on the space shuttle and travel at 15,000 mph it would still take 1,000,000 years to get there.
One more thing to remember is that this planet orbits its star every 13 days (not 365 days like we do our Sun) and its gravity is 1.6x more than that of Earth. So, assuming you could last long enough to reach your destination you would get old and obese really fast! In fact, a 150 lb. individual would feel as if he were 240 lb. on this “habitable” planet. I can’t speak for you, but I think I’ll stay put!
Happy traveling!
Sam