Super Earth Just 20 Light Years Away?
...The news media reports that a European astronomer has discovered a planet similar to Earth just 20 light years away.
...First, it was discovered by observing the wobble in a distant star and calculating the estimated mass of the object that would case that wobble using a computer model. The star was estimated in its intensity and the distance of the wobbler from the star was used to estimate the possible temperature to be in the right range for water to exist as liquid.
...Second, the media then hired an artist to draw a planet that looks amazingly similar to Earth and put a red star in the sky. It is called in some newspapers an artist's rendition and in other articles it is just called a photograph, as if someone took a camera to capture it.
...Third, the discoveries are usually used to justify more expenditures of tax money for NASA to explore space.
...What are the actual possibilities for human exploration of such a planet, which is the only reason to consider it a "Super Earth?" Consider these calculations: 20 light years means the time it would take to travel to that object from the observation point if one could travel at the speed of light, 186300 miles per second. Let alone the fact that Einstein's Theory of Relativity predicts that light speed not only is the upper limit, but that the mass of the traveler expands as the speed is approached. Using our current technology, space travelers can move at 25,000 miles per hour, which would mean to travel the 117,583,617,600,000 miles from Earth to this Super Earth would take 536,544 Earth years. Communications just one way would take 20 years per transmission.
...Not only does evolution theory require extremely huge amounts of time, the possibility that life would evolve on another planet at exactly the same time is also enormous. The fact is that mathematics predicts it is nearly impossible from a statistical analysis for evolution to even occur, much less simultaneous evolution in another place 120 trillion miles away!
...One astronomer who is part of the discovery team even stated, "It is only 20 light years away; we can go there." I am amazed that seemingly intelligent people believe such scientists, purely because they have the title of "scientist."
...(sarcastically) I assume we will spend tax-payer dollars to assemble a team of NASA astronauts and Halliburton explorers to go look for oil! I hope we can get the rocket off the launch pad with enough fuel to last for the entire trip and hopefully the return trip, plus supplies to keep those travelers alive for the 500,000+ years it will take for the trip, and I hope in those years, the object hasn't changed too much. Wait, we might need additional supplies, if in that much time, the humans evolve into something different, and by the time they get back with the Super Earth rocks, one million years later, we haven't changed into something they won't recognize. Just think, Hollywood doesn't have a monopoly on fantasies!
...It isn't that it takes so much energy to escape the Earth's gravitational field, but that it takes so much speculation about space travel to escape the Earth's supposedly unsolvable problems. Is it possible that taking sinful humans into space, we are taking the problems with us?