Visualizing how far we must travel to colonize a habitable planet.

[Kablooie]

Last edited Sun Feb 6, 2022, 03:39 AM - Edit history (5)

I was wondering how far we'd have to go to colonize another planet.
To visualize this I pictured the earth as being 1 millimeter in diameter, about the size of a grain of sand.
I placed the sun on the Golden Gate bridge in San Francisco and calculated the distances heading south from there.

At that scale the sun would be a little over 4 inches in diameter and the earth would be a grain of sand, orbiting 40 feet away.

Saturn would be about a football field away from the sun.
Uranus, 2 football fields away.
Neptune, 3 football fields away.

To escape the Solar System we have to pass through the Oort cloud which is a bubble of small, icy objects surrounding the solar system.
The cloud starts about 14 miles from the 4 inch sun which puts it somewhere in San Bruno, south of San Francisco. We go south hudreds of miles to Los Angeles and we are still in the Oort cloud. Further south to San Diego and stii in the cloud. Into Mexico, past Tijuana and many hundreds of miles more into we get to Durango around the middle of Mexico. Finally we are out of the influence of the 4 inch sun, 1700 miles to the north.

We would reach the nearest star, Proxima Centauri, and a possibly habitable planet, Proxima Centauri B, about a thousand miles more south in Mexico City.

The next habitable candidates would be three thousand miles further in Brazil. There are many possible candidates at this distance and continuing down South America into Antarctica.
To reach the farthest known possibly habitable planet you would have to continue down through Antarctica and travel around the globe until you reach Shanghai.

The nearest galaxy to our Milky Way would be the Canid Major Dwarf Galaxy, about the distance of Saturn from the earth at this scale.
The Andromeda Galaxy would nearly as far as Uranus.

Just something to think about.

[leftieNanner]

1. Maybe

We should consider taking care of the planet we currently inhabit.

Interesting post. Thanks for the information and the perspective.

[Bayard]

2. No doubt about it

We need warp speed!

[brush]

5. Yep, considering how long it takes now for our missions to explore the outer planets..

we definitely need warp drive they'd run out of food and water before getting past the Oort cloud.

[cstanleytech]

10. Warp drive would only be useful for short hops. For longer ones such as

across the entire galaxy or even to another galaxy we would need something that can fold space from one point to another point regardless of distance.

[wryter2000]

3. This is why I'm so impatient

With people who think "man" will go all over the universe. Even if we could fly at the speed of light, which we can't, it would take hundreds of years to get to other galaxies.

[R0ckyRac00n]

13. reaching other Galaxies at the speed of light

"t would take hundreds of years to get to other galaxies."

Thousands. The closest known galaxy to us is the Canis Major Dwarf Galaxy; 25,000 light years from the Sun.

[wryter2000]

14. Thanks

I didn't want to think I was exaggerating. Welcome to DU.

[R0ckyRac00n]

15. Thanks :)

Although despite my meager post count, I've actually been here since 2007! I'm mostly just a reader.

[rsdsharp]

4. So, I guess we should pack a lunch, huh?

[msongs]

6. and how many generations of people...hmm nt

[I_UndergroundPanther]

7. Maybe make a video of it

A graphic representation.
That would be so cool.

[RockRaven]

8. A parallel and very sobering issue is to convert those distances into travel times...

At almost any velocity you can imagine humans will ever achieve, those travel times are ridiculous when compared to human lifespans.

[Botany]

9. Please once we make the jump to hyperspace we will be there in 2 shakes of a lamb's tail

And don't forget the worm holes that let the UFOs travel across the universe in not time.

[ymetca]

11. I think that's why the logic

of space-faring tends toward terraforming to preclude extinction by random celestial events wiping out our home planet.

Then, maybe, thousands, even millions of years from now, a much more technologically advanced multi-planetary "civilization" (not sure classified as even "human" anymore) would have some space-warping/wormhole gadgetry to tool around the larger portion of our galactic arm.

Even then, of course, most of the Universe would remain forever physically unexplorable, let alone our tiny corner of it.

One can imagine, of course, the possibility that already existing super-advanced beings out there somewhere have mastered the technology of being "in their own headspace" anywhere in the Universe they want to be.

As an addendum, I talk to some of these beings sometimes, late at night, when all is quiet. And they tell me that, if we all work together, peacefully, with kindness, understanding, and deep respect for each other, and our planetary species-partners, everything is gonna be alright.

And I'm not even high!

[moniss]

12. Great

subject. I have always been frustrated by people in media and crackpots like Musk and Bezos discussing space travel/colonization like it's taking a voyage across the Atlantic. It is a constant fight to get people to understand simple facts about time, distance, evolution of the universe etc. The first thing to always keep in mind is that the information our telescopes etc. are showing us is millions of light years old. That's not just a matter of distance but also time. The second thing is that we know just from our own planet and solar system that there are huge changes that happen over those time spans. Therefore even if you could go instantly to some other planet outside our solar system, seen by telescope or instrumentation, it may not even be there anymore or at least it is not likely to be in the configuration you think it might be. For example another way to think of this is that right now the light from the way Earth was billions of years ago is just now reaching that same planet people may be thinking to travel to for colonizing. Simply put when we look out very far we are seeing the was and not the is. In fact the object may have ceased to exist at all. Our time scale of a couple of thousand years of "mapping" the heavens, by the naked eye at first, then using telescopes/instruments to investigate and gather data is a tiny fraction of the time that light/information took to get to us. A couple thousand years is nothing in geologic time as our own Earth science research has shown.

Therefore our best course is to take care of our own planet. That is the most rational choice. We need to make major changes to do that and do them today.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

16. Serious physicists and astronomers do not believe

that FTL (faster than light) drive will ever be possible. And don't bother invoking "a species millions of years more advanced" to get to FTL. For one thing, species generally don't live that long. Evolution is ongoing. And the speed of light really is a fixed and inviolable limit.

The whole SETI thing (search for extra-terrestrial intelligence) is a total waste of time. If we actually were to capture and decode something from a distance place in our galaxy, the odds are extremely high that they will be long extinct by the time we hear from them.

Something else to keep in mind. According to My Son The Astronomer, when you get close to the center of the galaxy, there is a LOT more radiation which is not particularly conducive to life as we know it. If there are other intelligent life forms out there, they will probably tend to be on the fringes of our galaxy, as we are. And those on the exact opposite side are at least 50,000 or so light years away.

Something else about SETI. It assumes broadcasting signals. Right now, on this planet, we are broadcasting far less than we did even a few decades ago, because we've gone to sending signals directly to satellites which bounce them back the local towers for the cable providers. Not much is going out into space. Plus, SETI is looking at a wavelength we've NEVER used to broadcast signals, which I find rather bizarre.

There's also the issue of radiation once you get outside the protection of this planet. I strongly recommend How to Die in Space by Paul M. Sutter. It will make you utterly committed to saving this planet.

[Kablooie]

17. But it is comforting to think that...

Aliens, many many millions of years in the future may capture signals inadvertently sent into outer space by our civilization and could be chuckling at Lucy and Viv in the candy factory.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

19. In reality, the signals degrade rather quickly.

I'm not sure you could watch broadcast TV on the Moon.

I know, it's a semi-comforting trope, just don't take it seriously.

[Kablooie]

20. Well, if the infinite multiverse theory is correct...

and there are universes where every possible thing happens, aliens will be watching it in one of those.
Or rather, they will be watching it in an infinite amount of universes.

[NickB79]

18. AI robotics is a possible alternative to organic life closer to the galactic core

And it would also solve the distance issue; non-organic lifeforms wouldn't age, require food, water, oxygen, etc.

[SCantiGOP]

21. Unless there is someway to break Einstein's law

and travel faster than light, we will never escape our solar system.