NASA News Conference on Discovery Beyond Our Solar System
Discussion
jmorgan said:
We can point dishes at stars and land on the moon. What has changed?
Well if the dish is already built then yes, you can pay a geek to look at the readout. But overall I'd rather do one thing properly than two things badly. And 'Ooh look we've found something that might be a bit like Earth but we're not sure and it's only 40 bazillion lightyears way and here's an artist's impression of an alien to get some social media hits' is not exploration.But I agree it's better than having the first five minutes of the national news devoted to a straight couple bleating that they can't have a civil partnership
Eric Mc said:
Well, I thought it was very interesting news. The more places like this are located, the more the urge to go there - eventually.
Me too. I love this kind of stuff and 39 light years is nothing in the grand scheme of things. But… three habitable planets in another solar system?…..I think someone at NASA just been watching Interstellar? Just need to find the wormhole now.
Nobody is saying they are habitable. Far from it, in fact. Three or the seven planets discovered are POTENTIALLY habitable because they are in the Goldilocks Zone around their parent star.
However, that is a long way from saying they contain life.
Indeed, conditions on the surface of these planets could be very, very different to the conditions we currently think a planet needs to support life.
For instance, we don't know yet how many of the three candidate planets, if any, have atmospheres.
Obviously, if any of them do have an atmosphere, we don't know the make up of the atmosphere.
We don't know the atmospheric density - which is important as that is what allows liquid water to flow on the surface.
What we can estimate is -
their distances from the star
their orbital periods
And we can calculate roughly what we think the "day" on each planet is. In the circumstances found out so far, there is a chance that at least some of these planets are tidally locked to the star, which means one side of the planet permanently faces the star. That would make for very strange conditions on the surface of the planet - especially the climate and weather - assuming there are atmospheres.
So, there's a lot more work to be done to find out more about these interesting worlds.
the
However, that is a long way from saying they contain life.
Indeed, conditions on the surface of these planets could be very, very different to the conditions we currently think a planet needs to support life.
For instance, we don't know yet how many of the three candidate planets, if any, have atmospheres.
Obviously, if any of them do have an atmosphere, we don't know the make up of the atmosphere.
We don't know the atmospheric density - which is important as that is what allows liquid water to flow on the surface.
What we can estimate is -
their distances from the star
their orbital periods
And we can calculate roughly what we think the "day" on each planet is. In the circumstances found out so far, there is a chance that at least some of these planets are tidally locked to the star, which means one side of the planet permanently faces the star. That would make for very strange conditions on the surface of the planet - especially the climate and weather - assuming there are atmospheres.
So, there's a lot more work to be done to find out more about these interesting worlds.
the
I think they are a non starter anyhow, all are extremely close to each other, you could literally make out features like mountains and hills as they pass each other if you were standing on the surface. They are very close to the star and that star would be pumping out x-rays like there's no tomorrow, also because of the proximity to the star they are likely to all have a tidal lock.
This 'habitable-zone' criteria doesn't really sit with me anyway. It's only relevant for life as we know it. With the vastness of the observable universe, it'd be a bit narrow minded to assume any form of life would be life 'as we know it'.
I wouldn't be surprised if there was a below-surface civilisation in a lake on Titan who absorb liquid methane through their reproductive organs, excrete through their hair and who sleep in each other's anal cavaities once every 120 Earth days.
I mean, I wouldn't bet there is, but who's to take -200degrees C and an absence of water is vital? It's only vital as we know it. We should be looking everywhere.
I wouldn't be surprised if there was a below-surface civilisation in a lake on Titan who absorb liquid methane through their reproductive organs, excrete through their hair and who sleep in each other's anal cavaities once every 120 Earth days.
I mean, I wouldn't bet there is, but who's to take -200degrees C and an absence of water is vital? It's only vital as we know it. We should be looking everywhere.
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