New habitable planet discovered ?

bojan · #1 30-09-2010, 09:00 AM

Gliese 851g

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/20...ble-exoplanet/

En1gma (Robert) · #2 30-09-2010, 09:34 AM

So, when will sir Richard branson offer plane tickets??

bojan · #3 30-09-2010, 09:35 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by En1gma

So, when will sir Richard branson offer plane tickets??

As soon as he sorts out his computer system .

renormalised (Carl) · #4 30-09-2010, 09:46 AM

Good one, Bojan

This is a very interesting, and timely, discovery. Now it will mean that the hunt for habitable planets will kick on very quickly. They should also be looking at some of the closer stars as well for habitable planets.

higginsdj · #5 30-09-2010, 09:59 AM

Its a big step from finding a planet in the habitable zone to saying that they have discovered a habitable planet....... I think someone has made a huge assumption!

renormalised (Carl) · #6 30-09-2010, 10:21 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by higginsdj

Its a big step from finding a planet in the habitable zone to saying that they have discovered a habitable planet....... I think someone has made a huge assumption!

Given everything being equal and the planet's physical characteristics, there's a fair chance that it is. But that still doesn't mean it is, for certain. It may not be and you are correct in saying it's an assumption. They need some direct observations of the planet to be able to confirm whether it is habitable or not.

CraigS · #7 30-09-2010, 10:38 AM

Very interesting ..

I agree .. good one Bojan !! Thanks !!

Ah .. but the diversity is a complicating issue .. I agree ..

Cheers

drsimmo (Simon) · #8 30-09-2010, 11:12 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by higginsdj

Its a big step from finding a planet in the habitable zone to saying that they have discovered a habitable planet....... I think someone has made a huge assumption!

Definitely agree there! It comes down to getting your story out there though. Which do you think a newspaper would pick up: "First habitable Earthlike planet found" or "Potentially barren rocky planet found"?

ngcles · #9 30-09-2010, 11:34 AM

Hi Bojan & All,

This is a wonderful, wonderful feat of dedication and care to be able to compile such a massive dataset and analyse it. Kudos to the team !

One thing that is missing (and it has already been pointed out in the thread) from so many of the print and electronic media going around today is a very important word that is in both the original paper and the press release:

"potentially".

This body is "potentially habitable"

I point that out not to say it has or hasn't got people, advanced life, simple life or no life -- it may. It may not. All this paper and the press release has basically said that this is a planet reasonably similar in mass to the Earth, that may be assumed to have an approximately similar composition that is at the right distance from the parent star that if water is present, there may be portions of the planet were it could exist as a liquid. Liquid water is very, very important if not vital to life. So it is an important discovery as well as a great technical accomplishment by the team. There is no evidence that water is or isn't present, or an atmosphere, or what the atmosphere is like, or the surface. for that matter. Those facts may or many not be determined at a later time.

So I wouldn't be leaping to any further unwarranted or unsupported conclusions.

That's not to detract from the work by the team which is an incredible feat of persistence and technical know-how. Good on them !!

The original paper (I've only read the first few pages so far but it is reasonably easy going -- the abstract is written at almost popular level) is here:

http://www.ucolick.org/~vogt/ms_press-1.pdf

Best,

Les D

marki · #10 30-09-2010, 11:44 AM

Definately an interesting discovery but there are many unknowns for it to be called habitable eg does it have a liquid core and thus a magnetic field, been smacked by a huge rock in the last 5 billion years and lost it's atmosphere etc etc. The exciting thing is that they have found something in the right position and when you think of the trillions of stars out there.... there has to be something. Now how are we going to get there??? Mr Branson ......LOL

Mark

renormalised (Carl) · #11 30-09-2010, 11:50 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by marki

Now how are we going to get there??? Mr Branson ......LOL

Mark

Yep, Virgin Galactic are already selling tickets on the "Enterprise" for trips to there....I wonder what Kirk thinks about that. Hijacking his ship as a cruise liner

CraigS · #12 30-09-2010, 11:50 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by renormalised

Given everything being equal and the planet's physical characteristics, there's a fair chance that it is. But that still doesn't mean it is, for certain. It may not be and you are correct in saying it's an assumption. They need some direct observations of the planet to be able to confirm whether it is habitable or not.

Carl's said it all .. but what I have difficulty with is wrapping my mind around the words underlined.

For example, in our Solar System .. at what point do we say Mars is habitable … as distinct from not habitable .. ? Short of astronauts setting up shop there for a couple of years .. and maybe (or not) surviving ?

Seems the probabilities will always drive the answer to the question.
(Mind you, Earth IS habitable - no probabilities in that statement).

Cheers

renormalised (Carl) · #13 30-09-2010, 12:01 PM

It all depends on the conditions present. Mars is habitable, to the extent that it is, because of what we've found there and assume we can use to make it habitable for a base/colony. Doesn't mean it will be easy or even possible in some cases. It means we can see all the resources we need are present and we may be able to exploit them to live there.

Is Earth so hospitable to life?? Think about it. Try and live in the Sahara with what you've got, now. You'd be lucky to last a few days, if that. Even worse in the Atacama Desert...some places there haven't seen rain in historical times...more than 400 years. There's plenty of places on this planet that aren't too great for living in.

drsimmo (Simon) · #14 30-09-2010, 12:29 PM

In a technical sense though, Mars is NOT habitable. It is too far from the Sun for water to exist in liquid form under Earth-like conditions. Obviously, if you had a thicker and hotter atmosphere (ie a greenhouse effect) this would be a different story.

renormalised (Carl) · #15 30-09-2010, 12:52 PM

Yes, you are right there...if you confine the definition of habitability as approximately Earth-like conditions. But if you were looking for the resources which would allow the planet to be made habitable under the conditions of an enclosed base, then everything is there. It's just a matter of their availability and how easily they can be extracted.

mswhin63 (Malcolm) · #16 30-09-2010, 12:54 PM

Although not to be taken as gospel http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Habitable_zone gives a brief explanation in current physics understanding of habital zone.

renormalised (Carl) · #17 30-09-2010, 12:59 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mswhin63

Although not to be taken as gospel http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Habitable_zone gives a brief explanation in current physics understanding of habital zone.

HZ's are only a general concept...based on one example only....us. There could be many exceptions to the rule.

We extrapolate on the basis of the conditions found on Earth, but even here there are exceptions to the rule.

higginsdj · #18 30-09-2010, 01:56 PM

What 'fair chance'. All things being equal it is a remote possibility at best. What state is the planet in? Primordial and not a chnace of habitability. A dead rock and no magnetic field and the solar wind will have removed all trace of atmosphere. If it does have an atmosphere, of what does it comprise? What is the melaticity of the system? Did the inner solar system go through the same bombardment process as our own, the primary theory whereby habitable making material was delivered to our planet... Does the system have giant planets protecting the inner solar system?

As I said, what are you calling a 'fair chance'? Yes there is a possibility, but to lead the story saying a habitable planet has been found..... Note that I define 'habitable' as being something that our definition of life can inhabit.

Cheers

renormalised (Carl) · #19 30-09-2010, 01:58 PM

I was just thinking...this is why we should be throwing money at figuring out how to develop FTL drive systems for ships. Start thinking outside the box as far as the physics goes. Try anything that might sound weird to present day physics and see what we come up with. Have a look at Heim's ideas and theory. Investigate the Finnish experiment and results further. Brainstorm....that's the only way we're going to do this.

These planets...whether they're gas giants or not, are far too close by and interesting to just let be and never bother to figure out how to get there!!!. If it takes 100 years, then so be it, but at least we could say we tried.

Jay-qu · #20 30-09-2010, 02:11 PM

No need to wait for FTL drives Renormalised, we just need to hit 1g sustained acceleration.

By my calculations, a trip to Gliese 581 (20light years) should take ~5 years (due to relativistic time dilation), though in Earth time it would be more like ~22 years. So a round trip, while only taking 10 years (+time to explore) will return you 44 years after you left..