New habitable planet discovered ? - Page 4

astroron (Ron) · #61 01-10-2010, 10:16 AM

I have just read through this thread,some interesting ideas here,But would the habitable zone be quite small seeing as it is tidely locked to its
Star?

renormalised (Carl) · #62 01-10-2010, 10:22 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by astroron

I have just read through this thread,some interesting ideas here,But would the habitable zone be quite small seeing as it is tidely locked to its
Star?

The HZ of M class stars are small, regardless. The tidal locking of the planet has no bearing on this. That is just a characteristic of the planet w.r.t. its parent star.

higginsdj · #63 01-10-2010, 11:06 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by drsimmo

Or 2048 even...

Doh - of course....

renormalised (Carl) · #64 01-10-2010, 12:55 PM

Here's some more articles (all much the same)...

http://www.newscientist.com/article/...host-life.html

http://news.ucsc.edu/2010/09/planet.html

http://carnegiescience.edu/news/pote...net_discovered

bojan · #65 01-10-2010, 01:04 PM

I am guessing that the issue of HZ and locked rotation of the Gliese 581g was discussed from climatology and meteorology point of view as well.
It is quite conceivable for me that in this middle zone (between hot and cold hemispheres) there must be a lot of wind and generally the weather conditions there must be very unstable.
So perhaps the habitable area of such a planet is even smaller..

renormalised (Carl) · #66 01-10-2010, 01:26 PM

Yes it was. Actually from the modeling that has been done on planets in this situation, despite the differences in temps between the two sides of the planet (if it's in fact tidally locked), the climates are far more stable than you might suppose. The atmospheres of the planets equilibrate fairly quickly and the temp differences become less pronounced, depending on how thick the atmosphere is. A planet of the size of this one will have a pretty substantial atmosphere...at least as thick as ours. I've included links about this in a previous post.

One thing that will be present, though, at the anti-solar point on the day side and that is a huge convection cell....cyclone, several thousand miles across, especially if it's covering an ocean.

However, the assumption of tidal locking was based on it's proximity to the parent star (over 13 million miles). But there's no guarantee that it is tidally locked....it's a large planet at a fair distance from a rather small star. Tidal locking depends on how the orbit of the planet, the rotation rates of the star and planet, the balance between the masses and the amount of flexure induced in the body of the planet by tidal influences has evolved over time. It might spin on its axis every 36 days, the same as its orbital period...we just don't know, yet.

astroron (Ron) · #67 01-10-2010, 01:32 PM

Thanks for clearing that up in my mind Carl

Cheers

renormalised (Carl) · #68 01-10-2010, 01:34 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by astroron

Thanks for clearing that up in my mind Carl

Cheers

Sure

astroron (Ron) · #69 01-10-2010, 04:18 PM

Todays APOD
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html

renormalised (Carl) · #70 01-10-2010, 04:32 PM

I was wondering when they would have an APOD about this

. Thanks

renormalised (Carl) · #71 01-10-2010, 04:42 PM

You know, I reckon they should start giving these planets proper names, instead of staying with rather bland designations. Like 51PegB...they wanted to call it Bellerophon, after the Greek hero, but the IAU said no.

What would they know...they stuffed up Pluto!!!

One name has to be reserved though....Vulcan. That has to go to any habitable planet orbiting 40EriA (Beid). Even if it's not habitable and is just a lump of rock, can't go anywhere else

astroron (Ron) · #72 01-10-2010, 04:50 PM

One name has to be reserved though....Vulcan. That has to go to any habitable planet orbiting 40EriA (Beid). Even if it's not habitable and is just a lump of rock, can't go anywhere else

http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/....s/tongue05.gif
I hope they do, then you will definitely see all the Mr Spock jokes come out of the woodwork

CraigS · #73 01-10-2010, 04:54 PM

Vulcan got destroyed by 'Red Matter' in the last Star Trek ..
Does this mean that the name is now available for re-use ?

Cheers

renormalised (Carl) · #74 01-10-2010, 05:02 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by CraigS

Vulcan got destroyed by 'Red Matter' in the last Star Trek ..
Does this mean that the name is now available for re-use ?

Cheers

Nope...they're chiseling a headstone for the gravesite as we speak

renormalised (Carl) · #75 01-10-2010, 05:03 PM

Spock might be waiting there even as we speak, for a lift back to Starfleet HQ

[1ponders] (Paul) · #76 01-10-2010, 05:36 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by CraigS

Vulcan got destroyed by 'Red Matter' in the last Star Trek ..
Does this mean that the name is now available for re-use ?

Cheers

That won't happen for a few hundred years yet so dont start throwing it out yet

luigi · #77 02-10-2010, 10:34 AM

I read at one of the many links about this that Vogt said something like "Give what we know about life and its ability to thrieve in all kinds of environments I'd say the probability of life in this planet is 100%"

I said "wow!" for the first time in many years a scientist is saying there must be life out there even if just hypothetical.

I hope to be around in 2048 when we get the reply
"please repeat message"

Now I need to write a sci-fi short story my plot is "In the year 2048 our message is anwsered... in French!"

Robh (Rob) · #78 02-10-2010, 02:29 PM

I lie open to the possibility that life may eventually be found somewhere else in the Universe. However, we no nothing about the probability of a life event occurring.

The fact that there is life here on Earth says nothing about the probability of a life event on some planet in a far distance star system. We have no statistical data to make any conclusions. We don't really know how the first life forms popped into existence here on Earth. The existence of certain chemicals and perceived favourable conditions may not necessarily lead to a life event. The argument that there is an infinite number of stars and hence livable planets does not then lead to the conclusion that life must be quiet common. Consider. The set of integers is countably infinite, while the set of real numbers is uncountably infinite. Between any two integers there is an infinite number of real numbers. If it is required that the number of planets be more the size of the set of real numbers to ensure life on more than one planet in our known Universe but the number of planets is actually the size of the set of integers then we will have little luck in finding any other life out there.

Only by searching will we able to answer the question. Are we a lonely fluke of nature or is the Universe like a pristine rain forest, teeming with life?

Regards, Rob

CraigS · #79 02-10-2010, 02:37 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Robh

I lie open to the possibility that life may eventually be found somewhere else in the Universe. However, we no nothing about the probability of a life event occurring.

The fact that there is life here on Earth says nothing about the probability of a life event on some planet in a far distance star system. We have no statistical data to make any conclusions. We don't really know how the first life forms popped into existence here on Earth. The existence of certain chemicals and perceived favourable conditions may not necessarily lead to a life event. The argument that there is an infinite number of stars and hence livable planets does not then lead to the conclusion that life must be quiet common. Consider. The set of integers is countably infinite, while the set of real numbers is uncountably infinite. Between any two integers there is an infinite number of real numbers. If it is required that the number of planets be more the size of the set of real numbers to ensure life on more than one planet in our known Universe but the number of planets is actually the size of the set of integers then we will have little luck in finding any other life out there.

Only by searching will we able to answer the question. Are we a lonely fluke of nature or is the Universe like a pristine rain forest, teeming with life?

Regards, Rob

Real brain bender there, Rob. I agree with the logic and your conclusions which you've expressed via analogy, but can I ask what the difference between 'countable' and uncountable' is?

.. I mean if something is infinite, I don't see how it can be counted ?
Yet, this seems to be key to what you are saying.

Help me !

Cheer & Rgds

xelasnave · #80 02-10-2010, 03:05 PM

I found a 48 cylinder motor bike on utube

... yes 48...who would have thought such a thing was out there?

I bet the probability of someone building such a crazy thing as greater than the probability of life elsewhere.

We are happy to speculate upon the concept that matter is made up of little strings etc and yet many find it hard to speculate upon other life and more so life greater than us being found in other systems.

I suggest just because I did not have the imagination to build a 48 cylinder motor bike that they therefore could not exist.

In our solar system there is life on at least one planet does this not give us the probability rating for all other solar systems?
The problem is we only have one sample so we feel restricted to coming down on the unrealistic view we are somehow unique...

I suggest although we can only operate with one sample the pointer should be that in the sample we have we have at least one planet with life..until other samples contradict our only available sample that we can only conclude all samples will be the same and until other samples prove inconsistent to the current sample we are bound to attribute similar to all similar samples..or in other words..life should exist in the zones habitable by Earths standards...is it unreasonable to work on the basis that all samples will probably be different (no life) to the sample we observe ...

Would it not be arrogant in the extreme to approach the matter any other way for to do so suggests that we are somehow very very special indeed... we found we were not the center of the solar system was that not enough to cool human arrogance.

alex