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A Second Earth in Our Solar System

io9.com — It could be that there are objects of Earth-mass in the Oort cloud (a band of debris surrounding our planetary system) but they would be frozen at these distances. They would look like a frozen Earth. So all we need to do is haul one of those babies into our orbit, defrost it, and start populating. Earth 2, here I come!

Bury
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  • ennTOXX, on 02/19/2008, -3/+120*** "...haul one of those babies into our orbit, defrost it, and start populating..." *** ok, you lost me there... :||
    • charliejane, on 02/19/2008, -1/+37Dood it's just like a frozen TV dinner, you just get it in the right orbit and microwave it, an d it'll be good to go.
      • loopyloopy, on 02/19/2008, -3/+1are you Kevin Rose?
      • sanman, on 02/20/2008, -1/+6Hey, how do you know THEY'RE the second Earth, anyway?
        Ever consider that maybe WE are?
        Ever thought of that?
        Hmm?
        • chronusmcgee, on 02/20/2008, -0/+1The Oort cloud is enormous and is by far the largest feature of our solar system. Objects in it are rather far apart though. Even if you found an Earth sized object in the Oort cloud, you would still need a lot of energy just to change it's orbital momentum, not to mention the utter catastrophe the Earth would experience if you put it even slightly off target. For an Earth size object in an orbit at 200 AU the force needed to put it into an proximal Goldy Locks orbit around the Sun would so enormous that you couldn't possible ship out enough atom bombs to make it happen.
        • RationalXubrnce, on 02/20/2008, -0/+2 Why not just move Mars into orbit 180 degrees away. we would need to lug a ton of ice there and the terraforming could begin.
    • atdigg, on 02/19/2008, -2/+66why not just move a star closer to it?
      • LongShlong, on 02/19/2008, -16/+2I hope that's sarcasm! :)
        • Akaji, on 02/19/2008, -5/+11You need to get penises off your brain and focus more on thinking.
          • LongShlong, on 02/19/2008, -7/+1Perhaps you should get them out of your mouth?
            How does one focus on more thinking?
      • brstilson, on 02/19/2008, -3/+58Because that would be ridiculous
      • westhepirate, on 02/19/2008, -1/+6That would require one bad-ass gravity pump.
        • ZigVicious, on 02/20/2008, -2/+3ass-gravity?
          that's one big ass!
        • wire02, on 02/20/2008, -1/+1and an over sized novelty check of all of earth's money.
      • etnuts, on 02/20/2008, -5/+1pulling the planet is safer and easier than pulling a star
        • yodaj007, on 02/20/2008, -0/+5The joke went over your head at .5 past light-speed.
      • sanman, on 02/20/2008, -1/+5Maybe we should push the Earth closer to it.
        Okay, everybody do a handstand, and shove real hard!
        (especially Chuck Norris)
      • wire02, on 02/20/2008, -0/+1But the workers would burn up when they try to attach the cables to it
    • fluidfoundation, on 02/19/2008, -1/+43Sounds like a great idea until after the thing thaws and we have a bunch of extraterrestrial penguins ***** WAY the ***** off and they slingshot our asses pack to the Oort cloud.
    • RevJonathan, on 02/19/2008, -1/+19You just need all the robots to vent exhaust on an island somewhere.
    • Canadian0207, on 02/19/2008, -1/+5isn't there a discovery show based around moving large objects? this would make the show of the year
    • JonTheGoose, on 02/19/2008, -3/+6I'm all for the populating part.
      • thcobbs, on 02/19/2008, -0/+39You'll be the first person to hear "Not if you were the last man on EITHER planet!"
    • jspania, on 02/19/2008, -5/+3YES WE CAN!

      http://archives.cnn.com/2001/TECH/space/02/05/eart ...
      • spydon, on 02/19/2008, -0/+3"Their deadline is about 3.5 billion years in the future" sounds good ._-
      • dannyb37, on 02/19/2008, -1/+2"before it gets too hot for human life?" Oh the narcissism of the human race!
      • bbardlbradd, on 02/19/2008, -2/+1That's ***** stupid.

        Rather than just build a bunch of vessels, wait it out, or let humanity evolve into a creature that can withstand a hot sun on a cold planet, we'd be more likely to successfully move the planet? No.
        • nukemunky, on 02/20/2008, -1/+1Bioengineering is more feasible solution since you would be able to quickly create a human that is specifically adapted to a certain environment. Evolution takes too long and waiting it out may lead to our extinction in the event of a sharp change in climate.
      • stabbingkittens, on 02/20/2008, -2/+1Use Biggest Loser contestants as satellites?
    • echo2501, on 02/19/2008, -1/+7I think we're going to need a bigger microwave.
    • rossmills, on 02/19/2008, -0/+2Well when a man and a woman love each other very much, and want to express themselves in new ways...
    • arobicha, on 02/19/2008, -2/+0Man... to be that naive again...
      • mugicha, on 02/20/2008, -0/+5You've had a lot of bad experiences with moving planets around?
    • OptimusKong, on 02/19/2008, -0/+2I would certainly hope that if we did thaw the place out that we wouldn't name it Earth 2.
    • rmeddy, on 02/20/2008, -0/+1He need to read up on his Kepler.
  • rpi22, on 02/19/2008, -2/+219There's another earth on the exact opposite side of the sun in the same orbit. It's always blocked by the sun so our astronomers can't see it. The thing is that everything is backwards there.... it's true, i saw it on the Twilight Zone.
    • MacParrot, on 02/19/2008, -1/+7Actually it was a movie called Journey to the far side of the sun (I think)
      • davidlow, on 02/19/2008, -0/+5Yeah, that's the name I remember, too. But IMDB shows the name as "Doppelgänger", which in the film was the name of the space ship: http://tinyurl.com/399qvd

        The plot:
        They send a manned space ship to the planet opposite the sun and the ship crash lands. The surviving astronaut thinks he's going crazy because he's back on Earth but everything is reversed, like his living room is now to the left of his front door instead of on the right, he can read things in a mirror and it looks normal instead of backwards, etc. Meanwhile, Mission Control is telling him he returned to Earth in half the time it was supposed to take and he says no he didn't. Spoiler: They figure out the whole mirror-image planet thing and they try to send him back by having the two ships dock in space, but they didn't realize the electrical polarity was also reversed and the docked ships explode. The last scene is the mission control guy killing himself by ramming his wheelchair into a large wall mirror at top speed. Bummer.
        • ifknot, on 02/20/2008, -0/+4thank you thank you thank you! you just resolved 30+ yrs of frustration... I watched that when I was a kid and didn't get to see the end
    • nblsavage, on 02/19/2008, -2/+6Nah...old issue of the Fantastic Four - Counter-Earth.
      • MacParrot, on 02/19/2008, -0/+1Nope (although I don't discount the FF version). Gary Anderson of UFO and Super-Marionette fame did a bunch of movies with an independant British Studio and this was one of them.
    • mortigon, on 02/19/2008, -1/+23I bet on that planet, they all have mustaches
      • moskaudancer, on 02/19/2008, -2/+9No, it's goatees. Didn't you ever see the mirror universe episode of Star Trek where a transporter accident sends some of the crew to the parallel universe?
        • Sawta, on 02/20/2008, -0/+1Would the alternate universe of Bizzaro Earth have everyone with mustaches and cowboy hats?
          • MacParrot, on 02/20/2008, -0/+1I think that would be Bizarro-Digg
    • rickspencer, on 02/19/2008, -1/+6If I remember correctly Father Guido Sarducci announced this on SNL in the mid eighties.

      "I read about this other planet, too, in the same book. [ holds out his fists ] It's-a like, the sun is-a here and the Earth is-a here.. and on-a the other side-a of the sun, there's this other planet we can't see, you know, because the sun is-a blocking it from us.. but it's-a just-a like-a the Earth in every single way, it's like a mirror planet of Earth. There's only one difference, and it's that they eat-a corn on-a the cob-a like-a this.. [ demonstrates eating corn on the cob North-South instead of West-East ] That's it! That's the only difference. I'm not going there, you know, it's-a too messy. I'm used to eating it-a like-a this.. [ demonstrates West-East eating structure ] I just don't want-a change, habit like." http://snltranscripts.jt.org/78/78rupdate.phtml
    • teh_techie, on 02/19/2008, -1/+4They didn't think about the orbit of the earth around the sun being elliptical did they? When we're at the closer part of the ellipse, we go faster around the sun... so we'd be able to catch a glimpse of the other earth going slower on the "further side" of the ellipse...
      • LLLSecretChimp, on 02/19/2008, -1/+6I'm way too lazy to figure this out, but while the earth's orbit is elliptical, it's darn close to circular, which is why it took so long to figure out t hat it was elliptical in the first place. According to this web site (with an .edu domain, and everything, so it must be trustworth), http://www.windows.ucar.edu/tour/link=/physical_sc ... the earth's orbits eccentricity is 0.0167, w/ the eccentricity of a perfect circle 0. Man, Kepler was smart.

        Anyway, the sun would still block the planet and its messy corn-eaters.

    • MacSuxWindozSux, on 02/19/2008, -0/+4Bizzaro World.
    • norman619, on 02/19/2008, -0/+3Only problem there is that we'd know it's there by how its gravityfield acts on the orbits of all the other bodies in our solar system.
      • Greengoo, on 02/20/2008, -0/+1Keep your logic out of my Sci-Fi fantasy!
    • dlowder, on 02/19/2008, -1/+3I love the idea of an "anti-Earth" on the far side of the Earth's orbit, but there are a couple of problems with it. The biggest one is gravity; if the anti-Earth existed, it would have an effect on the orbits of other planets, and also perturb comets that came anywhere near Earth orbit, and eventually its own orbit would be perturbed enough by the gravity of other planets that it would become visible.... In short, if there is such an "anti-Earth", it must have a VERY small mass.

      Here's a good discussion with hard numbers showing what would happen if there were really such a planet:

      http://www.ncas.org/condon/text/appndx-e.htm
      • mmortal03, on 02/20/2008, -0/+1And, even easier than that, our space probes would have seen it by now.
    • joshuabowers, on 02/20/2008, -0/+3You got that wrong: there are TWO planets, orbiting each other, in that location; one is a stark, desert world, while the other is covered in water. The peoples of the two planets sometimes engage in warfare with each other by riding hot-air balloons between their shared atmosphere.
    • yodaj007, on 02/20/2008, -0/+1For you sciency dudes out there, look at the Lagrange points (parent post mentions L3)!

      http://www.physics.montana.edu/faculty/cornish/lag ...
    • juliolarri, on 02/20/2008, -0/+2Global freezing FTW!
    • createcontent, on 02/20/2008, -0/+1http://zinzi.us/?q=node/21
  • neocognitism, on 02/19/2008, -3/+66You'd need a rather considerable source of thrust to nudge something like a planet around. Also, you'd ***** all the other orbits and doom Earth for sure within some cosmically short period of time.
    • Rapter09, on 02/19/2008, -1/+3Yeah, I don't personally think we should probably go around moving planets even if we could. One Earth is better than 0 Earths, if you get me. Though, we'd probably see some cool Greg Martin artwork in real life!
      (Referring to Greg Martin's "Cataclysm" piece)
      • greenwald, on 02/19/2008, -1/+3Yup a bird in hand is better than two in the bush.
    • OHaloThar, on 02/19/2008, -1/+1a few firecrackers would do
    • Enfenestrate, on 02/19/2008, -1/+8I'll go up there and push it. Have you seen the size of my arms?
      • bbardlbradd, on 02/19/2008, -1/+5Nerds don't understand that a push of a key on a keyboard is not the measure of strength on earth. It's actually hundreds of time the amount of pressure that you exert in your fingers, and it's supposed to be pushed away from the source of gravity, and not pressed down towards it. You cannot move a planet b/c you can pick up a bottle of bawls and play games all night.
        • deltaandroid, on 02/20/2008, -0/+1What if that planet is in Spore?
    • slazer, on 02/19/2008, -1/+2yeah, wouldn't that mess with our gravity? it must affect all the bodies of water somehow. that includes us, so someone's gonna hafta rewrite all those moon-based daily horoscopes.
    • davidlow, on 02/19/2008, -0/+13Just ram the planet with another large planet, preferable a white, featureless sphere. You can do this by hitting the white one with the tip of a large space rod.
      • nj10ii, on 02/19/2008, -4/+1Or 8 ball corner pocket off the side rail, would probably work too.
        • MasterGrief, on 02/19/2008, -0/+3Wouldn't that result in a game over?
    • skmice2, on 02/19/2008, -3/+1"You'd need a rather considerable source of thrust to nudge something like a planet around."

      ... not really, we can always call Chuck Norris to do the hard part ;-)
      • MasterGrief, on 02/19/2008, -1/+3It's kind of sad to see how Chuck Norris has fallen out of grace with the internet...
      • screwy3333, on 02/19/2008, -2/+1this isn't barrens chat lmao
    • mrdoyle, on 02/19/2008, -0/+1mass drivers
    • norman619, on 02/19/2008, -0/+1Thrust or the technology to play with gravity.
  • Spartan900, on 02/19/2008, -1/+94Just get on with terraforming Mars already!

    • chewbacca77, on 02/19/2008, -11/+2Venus is probably a better candidate.
    • coyote1284, on 02/19/2008, -1/+11We'd need genetically modified slaves to start it, but then they'd inevitably revolt and claim their superiority because they can survive in extreme conditions while we'd need mech suits to keep up. So we'd have to build 5 robots that combine into a bigger robot to fight the aliens that left the technology on Earth in the first place. No, terraforming Mars is a bad idea.
    • OHaloThar, on 02/19/2008, -1/+5first we just need to make the UAC and start digging until we find a portal.
    • kipmartin, on 02/19/2008, -0/+4we could start by terraforming the middle east. afghanistan could use some sprinklers and a few lawn gnomes to start.
    • postalblowfish7, on 02/19/2008, -0/+1mars belongs to the martians.
      • CYCLEORDIE, on 02/20/2008, -0/+1haven't you heard? martians posess weapons of mass destruction and Bush isn't gonna take this one laying down.
        TIME FOR OPERATION MARTIAN FREEDOM AND OPERATION SPOCK AND YEHAW!
    • JimSartor, on 02/19/2008, -0/+5Mars?! Mars is MUCH smaller than Earth and probably couldn't hold a real atmosphere anyway. Want Earth 2? How about Venus? It's close and already comes with an atmosphere . . . granted, we'd still have quite a bit of work to do, however, if we were going to drag it out to a managable orbit, I am quite sure the rest of the process would be a cakewalk.
      • Tetraca, on 02/20/2008, -0/+2Mars could hold an atmosphere, but its core would have to be fairly hot to let the magnetosphere sheild the planet enough. That time has long gone. We'd need to warm it up again first, probably crash a few good asteroids into it to get its mass a little greater, then we can doubly terraform both Mars and Venus, since the problems each planet faces in the process of terraforming are near opposites.
  • daivos, on 02/19/2008, -1/+64To hell with unfreezing and colonizing. Think of the oil that might be there.
    • victorycig, on 02/19/2008, -2/+5I certainly hope that by the time we can get to one of these planets, we'll be using renewable energy rather than petrol.
      • spammishking, on 02/19/2008, -1/+10Nope in the year 2000 we'll have diesel powered spaceships
        • OHaloThar, on 02/19/2008, -1/+12facepalm.jpg
        • norman619, on 02/19/2008, -0/+2No no no. We'd be green by then. Think mouse powered. The really rich would be able to afford the guinea pig powered craft.
        • ZigVicious, on 02/20/2008, -0/+1no worry, in the year 2000 the humans are all dead.
    • TheN4meless, on 02/19/2008, -5/+3Not so loud! Bush might hear you. We'd have an intergalactic war brewing before even knowing what the damned planet looks like.
      • nj10ii, on 02/19/2008, -0/+8Russia would then plant a flag under the polar ice cap to declare it theirs.
      • jjb123, on 02/19/2008, -0/+3Intergalactic?
    • quiggibub, on 02/19/2008, -1/+6There would have to be life on the planet for millions of years before there could be oil. We'd be better off bottling the water and selling it here for assloads of money.
    • nighthawk8713, on 02/19/2008, -1/+4We don't have to look that far. Titan has all the oil we'd ever need.

      http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/cassini/media/ca ...
  • pmctosh, on 02/19/2008, -15/+2Cool, parallel universe here we come.
  • sc0rpi0n, on 02/19/2008, -16/+2Ok, will we call that the 9th or the 10th planet?

    Seriously, you'll need a massive earth to revolve around the sun at that distance where the sun's gravitational force is extremely weak. It has got to be super massive that the gravity on its surface can shrink you flat like a plate. Oh yeah still Earth 2?
    • admiral101, on 02/19/2008, -0/+12Why would it need to be massive?
      Many comets are in the Oort belt and they are much less massive then a planet.
      By your logic Pluto can't exist as it isn't massive.
    • SineCurve, on 02/19/2008, -1/+4Erm, I think you have your cosmology a bit scrambled, mate. Were you thinking along the lines of "because of the extremely weak gravitational force of the sun at that distance, a planet would have to be "super-massive" in order for the sun to grab hold of it"?
      I'm sorry, but Sir Isaac would have to disagree...
    • Gosroth, on 02/19/2008, -0/+0heh more references to defunct sci-fi cartoons and shows... Earth 2
    • bbardlbradd, on 02/19/2008, -0/+2Actually, it's more likely, at that distance that whatever is in orbit is quite small.

      If it were "Massive":
      1. Would be detectable by it's effects on the already known masses in the solar system.
      2. Would devour the gasses around it, and would become visible.
      3. Would be pulled closer to the center of the solar system by the sun and jupiter.
      4. If it were revolving around the sun at a typical rate, it would drift further from the sun because at that distance, the sun would have little effect on a planet of that volume. On the other hand, when Jupiter is near the "Massive" planet, it would tug just enough to slow down or even pull the planet closer. This would, in turn, cause the planet to drift out, and be pulled back in, causing it to have a highly elliptical orbit that would send it flying through the center of the solar system, throwing off the orbit of every planet that it doesn't collide with, and pulverizing the planets that it does, which would be apparent today if that were the case.
  • victorycig, on 02/19/2008, -4/+9I would so totally be one of the first colonists on Earth 2. A hard life, for sure, but it would be an experience literally out of this world.
    • coyote1284, on 02/19/2008, -1/+6As long as Tim Curry isn't part of the expedition, I'm down!
      • MacParrot, on 02/19/2008, -0/+1Damn it Janet!
        • Gosroth, on 02/19/2008, -0/+1toucha toucha toucha touch me, i wanna feel dirty....
      • Triterion, on 02/19/2008, -1/+2Man, Earth 2 was a great show. I hope one day they'll do a continuation or something.
    • mortigon, on 02/19/2008, -1/+4This comment makes me want to play Deadlock.
    • Rtsight, on 02/20/2008, -1/+1no sex for you.
  • degron, on 02/19/2008, -2/+28I just updated my plans for world domination...build ship, steal planet and become only inhabitant. I win!
    • GaiaAP, on 02/19/2008, -0/+9As a fellow contemporary inhabitant of Earth 1, I wholeheartedly support your change of plans and wish you a pleasant time. Allow me extend my preemptive gratitude for reducing the sum total my my local competitors by one. Mwahaha!
    • Gosroth, on 02/19/2008, -1/+5have fun masturbating
    • BobSutan, on 02/20/2008, -0/+1Meh, even that isn't original. Pinky & the Brain did it years ago.
  • Hydroseeds, on 02/19/2008, -0/+122"So all we need to do is haul one of those babies into our orbit, defrost it, and start populating."
    It's that easy! - But wait! If you call now, we'll give you another frozen Earth FREE. That's right, two Easy-to-Defrost Earths, for the price of one!
    • vinecrawler, on 02/19/2008, -7/+3lol
    • mortigon, on 02/19/2008, -1/+2Does the second Earth also come with a set of Earth populators? My girlfriend and I will do some of the work, but we'd like to keep our species mentally and genetically well.
    • anononon, on 02/19/2008, -0/+10Batteries not included. Some assembly required.
    • MasterGrief, on 02/19/2008, -0/+2Needs a snappier name.

      Earth Eez-Defrost!
    • bbardlbradd, on 02/19/2008, -0/+1Mmm, I'll pass. Why would I need two Earth 2's... if only it came w/ a free Moon 2 instead.
    • Tetraca, on 02/20/2008, -0/+1Just SET IT AND FORGET IT! But don't wait, call now and we'll throw in the Carl Sagan (TM) Knife Set, capable of cutting through the cosmos like a hot knife through butter AND the second microwave earth FREE for just 42 payments of $999,00! Impress your friends! Break the ice at parties!
  • angusm, on 02/19/2008, -3/+10Life requires more than just a place to stand.
    There are a lot of factors that worked together over time to give our Earth an environment where life can flourish (the influence of the Earth's magnetic field, early bombardments by planetismals and icy comets, plate tectonics and even life itself have all been mentioned). I suspect that if you were able to find a rocky, icy, Earth-sized mass in the Oort cloud and tow it into the Sun's habitable zone, you'd end up with a rocky, icy, Earth-sized mass that wasn't quite so far away.
    Of course if you have the technology to move planets around, terraforming one once you get it where you want it should be a snap.
    • GaiaAP, on 02/19/2008, -0/+2Suggestion: Bombard it with asteroid(s) at an angle to melt the organic volatiles, restore a decent atmosphere and increase rotational momentum - it stands to reason that if you can move planets fast, you can move asteroids faster. Just wait for the volcanic activity to stop and the dust to settle and Bob's your uncle :)
      • AirRaven, on 02/19/2008, -0/+2...Which still leaves you with an icy rock with no magnetic field, and an unknown atmosphere, most likely with few or no organic chemicals present.

        Good luck there.
        • quiggibub, on 02/19/2008, -0/+2If we have the technology to move a planet and terraform it, I'm sure we'd be able to generate protective magnetic fields. Or some other means of protection.
    • leprachaun97, on 02/19/2008, -0/+1***** for nerds, just haul it in already and lets get to colonozing
    • bbardlbradd, on 02/19/2008, -0/+1Why, rather than terraforming and moving the planet, don't we just mess around with DNA until we come up w/ a human that can withstand the environment? Either that, or wait for AI to catch up to human intelligence and tell them to ***** off to Earth 2. Computers run better in colder environments anyway.

      Then we could have intergalactic trade and wars and *****... that would be bad ass.
  • jaymzdean, on 02/19/2008, -2/+25Will it defrost faster if we just place it in a bowl of warm water?
    • Ganja420, on 02/19/2008, -0/+2microwave is faster
      • OHaloThar, on 02/19/2008, -0/+2but to microwave it you need it in a bowl of water
        • Enfenestrate, on 02/19/2008, -0/+1Nah, all you have to do is sprinkle a little water on it and hit the defrost button/
    • Triterion, on 02/19/2008, -0/+1Yeah, Omaha steaks recommends to thawing in a bowl of water cause microwaving it makes it all chewy and gross. I guess the ground would be all sticky and nasty like that.
  • NavS, on 02/19/2008, -2/+19or we could build a paper mache copy and lure everyone with free t-shirts...
    • rubik, on 02/19/2008, -0/+3Will we be doing this tonight or tomorrow night?
      • soulkitchen, on 02/20/2008, -0/+3Its what we do every night rubik.
  • arbouler, on 02/19/2008, -2/+4if a day there is longer than 24 hrs, i can get more work done with higher paycheck! and we get extra couple hours of sleep!
    • spydon, on 02/19/2008, -0/+1And you get a shorter life, yay!
      • Stevethegreat, on 02/19/2008, -0/+3If we can move planets around I don't think aging would be a problem by then.
  • meshman, on 02/19/2008, -9/+13Let's not and say we did:

    "I'd like to share a revelation that I’ve had during my time here. It came to me when I tried to classify your species, and I realised that humans are not actually mammals. Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with the surrounding environment; but you humans do not. Instead you multiply, and multiply, until every resource is consumed. The only way for you to survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern... a virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer on this planet, you are a plague, and we... are the cure."
  • waynejohn, on 02/19/2008, -2/+3As long as Coco-Puffs are involved, I'm in. Just let me know where I need to stand.
  • evilcaptain, on 02/19/2008, -1/+2Someone call Dave "Cinzano Bianco" Lister!
  • coyote1284, on 02/19/2008, -0/+3Call the Planet Jackers, we got a job for them! Just keep Tim Curry away from this "Second Earth"... and keep mummys away from Earth3.
    • PlasticMonki, on 02/19/2008, -0/+3But will they move it for us or just throw it into a sun??? =P
    • Cyberen, on 02/20/2008, -0/+2Would it kill you to say something?
  • snoonoo, on 02/19/2008, -0/+36Looking for partner to populate the second Earth with. PM me.
  • Erez, on 02/19/2008, -3/+5I'm so moving.. earth sucks anyways :P
  • lanzemurdok, on 02/19/2008, -0/+2so in a few hundred years, we start moving to all these other earths. We get a strange sense of identity and pride in our planet, much like the others. Then there's a death star built in there or something like that.
  • xpose, on 02/19/2008, -3/+8We should take a second look at Uranius.
    • thePoopSmith, on 02/19/2008, -1/+7When was the first time you took a look?
      Did you see the Klingons? That was an embarrassing incident.
    • nj10ii, on 02/19/2008, -3/+1I'll not be having you looking more than once at my anus, thank you very much!
    • Tenement, on 02/19/2008, -0/+2As long as you don't invade, you can look all you want!
  • mpfarmer, on 02/19/2008, -0/+24This makes me want to play Spore.
    • Namakemono, on 02/19/2008, -0/+4I was thinking Mario Galaxy. We should bring some of the smaller asteroids here so we can try to jump all the way around it.
  • subterfuge, on 02/19/2008, -1/+10instead of pulling it closer to the sun, we can just capture our CO2 and send it there. 2 birds, 1 stone.
  • gudnbluts, on 02/19/2008, -0/+2I can provide the truck but my tow rope may not be long enough.
    • jonjones115, on 02/19/2008, -0/+1i got some rope, i was gonna use it for a tree swing but never mind, towing earth 2 might be more fun
  • jspania, on 02/19/2008, -1/+9So long and thanks for all the fish.
  • LordSeth, on 02/19/2008, -5/+2I wonder what will be of Earth that was
  • OnlineAddict, on 02/19/2008, -2/+2This is amazing! What other life forms exist in our solar system? It will be interesting to see what happens in the future, crazy to think about.
  • ovation, on 02/19/2008, -8/+0this is so stupid
    • kipmartin, on 02/19/2008, -2/+1or is it so SMART it just LOOKS stupid on the surface? hmmm....
  • RC155, on 02/19/2008, -0/+1Yeah, it's hitting the brakes that is a doozy after the tow from the oort cloud.
    lol

  • donjuan571, on 02/19/2008, -0/+2Ha I knew Nibiru was real.
  • cap11235, on 02/19/2008, -1/+3It's Vulcan!
  • nem0, on 02/19/2008, -0/+0I heard that Mars Needs Women
  • quiggibub, on 02/19/2008, -1/+1Wouldn't moving the planet into our orbit mess with the asteroid belt as it passes through and possibly kill us?
    • dartmanx, on 02/19/2008, -2/+1PLEASE tell me that you are being sarcastic/ironic, instead of stupid.
      To run into something in the asteroid belt, you pretty much have to intentionally aim for it. Also, the largest object in the belt, Ceres (487 km radius), would end up as the loser in a head-on collision between it and an earth-sized (6700+ km radius) mass. There would be a large crater, but no danger.
      • LordSeth, on 02/20/2008, -0/+2A Large crater and no danger? Seriously?
  • pardonmedoug, on 02/19/2008, -0/+2Isn't "dirt" made up almost entirely of decomposed organic matter? I think the article should say "rock and water" to be somewhat more accurate.
    • snetty, on 02/20/2008, -0/+1either that or organic matter is made up of recomposed dirt
  • xy666, on 02/19/2008, -4/+1If earth exists with live forms, why other planets cant.
    • solidus636, on 02/19/2008, -1/+2They can't because they don't have the environment for it...
    • nj10ii, on 02/19/2008, -0/+3Plus they probably know how to form an intelligent well formed question as well..................
  • jetblackz4, on 02/19/2008, -1/+2I thought Pluto was not a planet which means we only have 8 planets.
    • matperk, on 02/19/2008, -0/+5We should just call the new one Pluto and rename the old one. Then we don't have to buy new textbooks.
      • LordSeth, on 02/20/2008, -0/+1Except for distance and size and all the other little irrelevant details
  • kipmartin, on 02/19/2008, -0/+2lets see...judge in fishnet stockings bagged for DUI and Earth 2 terraforming stories on Digg. is it my birthday?
  • Lane, on 02/19/2008, -0/+1The only catch is that currently it would take practically all of our known resources to achieve such a feat but hey that's progress right? hopefully we can string a couple of those new earths in a row and really gain some real estate. While were at it we might as well steal titian. That's one hell of a moon!
  • Incoming9000, on 02/19/2008, -0/+6Exclusive first image of Earth2 taken by the Hubble Space Telescope: http://theforce.net/swtc/Pix/books/weg/dstc3.gif

    • XOldniteX, on 02/21/2008, -0/+0For some reason earth2 looks strangely familiar...
  • jamessavik, on 02/19/2008, -1/+5I disagree with the premise of the article.

    The Oort cloud is composed of rocks covered by ice- and most of that is ice. Anything with earth's mass would have to be huge to offset the earths density and with the albedo(*) of the ice, we would have seen it by now. There have been no preturbations of the outer planets orbit to suggest that anything that big is out there. All of the planets past Neptune have been discovered by celestial mechanics before anyone saw them in a telescope.
    ____
    * albedo - A measure of the reflecting power of a non-luminous surface, defined as the amount of radiation reflected in all direction to total it receives. A perfectly black object that adsorbs all radiation has an albedo of zero, while a completely white reflecting object has an albedo of one.
  • pjr12345, on 02/19/2008, -1/+5We an all thank Ron Paul for bringing the Oort Cloud into the proximity of Earth. During his last transport to the Cancer Nebula Ron Paul noticed a mass of apparently frozen earth-like matter hovering in the worm hole he was traversing. Upon completion of his mission (a wondrous tale worthy of your attention, but beyond the scope of this writing), Ron Paul arranged for a Remedien star-hauling frigate to escort him through the worm hole.

    At that time the technology did not exist to hover within a worm hole, So Ron Paul commanded the Remedien commander to power his photon engine in a full-spectrum orthogonal pattern. This maneuver stalled the frigate momentarily, allowing the stellar clamps to be inserted into the cloud, and the mass attracter to be enabled. Ron Paul then had the Oort Cloud dragged through the worm hole, all the way to its present location. Since then, Ron Paul has been working with an international agency, assisting them in developing technology to bring the mineral-rich cloud close enough to earth so that it can be exploited for the good of mankind.

    Ron Paul - solving the world's problems - For President!
  • ChristianMagic, on 02/19/2008, -0/+1All we have to do...
  • jelli, on 02/19/2008, -4/+1
    If earth exists with live forms, why other planets cant.
    • pardonmedoug, on 02/19/2008, -1/+4we're all a little dumber now for having read that. thanks
    • swi288, on 02/19/2008, -0/+1WTF, Already read this.
    • mos6507, on 02/20/2008, -0/+2Narrator: In A.D. 2101, war was beginning.
      Captain: What happen ?
      Mechanic: Somebody set up us the bomb.
      (spoken in the Flash animation as Someone set us up the bomb)
      Operator: We get signal.
      Captain: What !
      Operator: Main screen turn on.
      Captain: It's you !!
      CATS: How are you gentlemen !!
      CATS: All your base are belong to us.
      CATS: You are on the way to destruction.
      Captain: What you say !!
      CATS: You have no chance to survive make your time.
      CATS: Ha Ha Ha Ha ....
      (spoken in the Flash animation as Ha Ha Ha)
      Operator: Captain!! *
      Captain: Take off every 'ZIG' !!
      Captain: You know what you doing.
      Captain: Move 'ZIG'.
      Captain: For great justice.
    • wire02, on 02/20/2008, -0/+0Me fail ingresh...thats unpossible
  • Rufunki, on 02/19/2008, -0/+4Perhaps we should send a manned mission to mars before we start talking about bringing planets from the outer solar system to the habital region of the solar system.
  • LogicBomB, on 02/19/2008, -0/+1I feel that until we acheive faster-than-light travel it doesn't really matter if we find a perfect planet to live on. If it takes longer than a human's life to travel there, not much point imho. We can't drag planets around or get to the ones on even the outer reaches of our own solar system. I enjoy reading about them but once we find one... then what?
    • carpespasm, on 02/20/2008, -0/+1actually if we can just make a big sustainable ship, we can take a leisurely ride to a new planet and just make new people on the way as needed. Though if we figure that one out we should probably be better able to get this world running better first.
    • stix213, on 02/20/2008, -0/+0Here is what we do:

      1) Find Earth-like planet
      2) ????
      3) Profit!!!!
  • Gosroth, on 02/19/2008, -0/+1I can't believe that with all these comments there isn't a single one about the Puppeteers in the "Known Space" universe of Larry Niven... those guys moved planets in their own solar system and then also built a Klemperer Rosette to leave their solar system
  • SpookyApplePie, on 02/19/2008, -0/+1i think we should make a second earth out of marshmallows and colonise it. it would solve both world's hunger problems.
  • Flashman, on 02/19/2008, -0/+4"It turns out that there may be many other dirt-and-water planets lurking at the edges of our solar system in places like the Oort Cloud."

    As Douglas Adams wrote, “Incidentally, am I alone in finding the expression ‘it turns out’ to be incredibly useful? It allows you to make swift, succinct, and authoritative connections between otherwise randomly unconnected statements without the trouble of explaining what your source or authority actually is."
  • MaruLono, on 02/19/2008, -2/+1Earth Mark II?
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