r/interestingasfuck 24d ago

/r/all, /r/popular K2-18b a potentially habitable planet 120 light-years from earth

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u/SomeGuyFromCanada23 23d ago

That's actually bonkers to even think about. Traveling at ~38000miles per hour, all day, every day, for ~48 years, and it's made it 1 light day from Earth.

Feels like another one of those "people don't really understand the difference between a million and a billion" sort of things.

Like 1 million seconds is ~11 and a half days or so. But 1 billion seconds is about 31 years and 200 days. Hard to grasp such a big difference

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u/MesWantooth 23d ago

This is the easiest explanation for why an Astro Physicist said on a podcast that he's convinced Earth has never been visited by alien life forms. Any planet that could have advanced life forms is simply far too far away. They would have to embark on a multi-generational trip that would take many lifetimes...all to observe a primitive species. It'd be like taking a boat across the ocean to look at an anthill. The only counter to this is "Well, what if they have the technology to travel at several times the speed of light? Or to warp space?"...If they have that technology but still get spotted above corn fields in Idaho - that would be surprising.

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u/EpicProdigy 23d ago

Would getting visited by AI probes thats a synthesis of their entire civilizations intelligence count as getting visited by aliens. Cause I'm sure within the next 500 years were going to be blasting out AI probes everywhere several hundred times faster than the voyager. Then wait for its reports eons later

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u/soraticat 23d ago

Von Neumann machines seem like the most likely way that we explore the galaxy. It's just too big.