Karohemd&#39;s World

I'm sure there are literally countless planets out there that are similar to Earth.

It's getting to them that will be the tricky part, until some mad genius works out how to fold spacetime or something. :(

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Oh yeah but it's the first one they actually identified. All it needs is the correct relation of mass, temperature (distance from star), pressure and composition of elements, then there's no reason why aminoacids shouldn't evolve somewhere else.

Stephen Hawking is still alive. ;o)

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Yeah, the small dim star is the kicker. And also, I'm assuming the star must be older than our Sun? We want one with a nice young star so we can move there when ours exhausts it's fuel.

I'm one of those folk who believes that life is pretty much inevitable when you have the correct elements in place. Hell, there are probably even forms of life that can evolve in conditions that are radically different from ours, so I firmly believe that all these Earth-like worlds will be crawling with critters. :)

Let's get out there and say hello! Alas, I don't think it's going to happen in my lifetime. :(

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morgenstern23.livejournal.com

Hell, there are probably even forms of life that can evolve in conditions that are radically different from ours

*nods* The assumption that a planet needs Earth-like conditions to support life actually quite annoys me! OK, so perhaps we wouldn't even recognise the sort of life that could be supported somewhere radically different, but that does not mean it can't exist.
I mean, there are even places on Earth where it was thought impossible that life could exist ... and yet it does. eg ecosystems which do not require sunlight and photosynthesis. What does THAT say about our knowledge of what is and isn't required for life?

I'm quite sure there's lots of life out there (even if only microbes) but, as you say, getting near it is the hard part!

Still, tis rather exciting they found the first potentially "habitable" planet. So thanks for that,

karohemd! *goes to Google more about it*

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Oh yeah, the possibility of "non-standard" life (silcon based or whatever) is intriguing, there's no question about that.
Still, for a society and civilisation to form, a planet would need at least to be solid.

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Have you read Iain M Banks' latest book, The Algebraist?

He has a bunch of incredibly old and advanced life-forms on a gas giant! It may be total bollocks from a scientific standppoint, but I love the idea!

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I know I need to read more Banks but I still haven't read my to read stack I actually own!

Intriguing.
Well, Edmond Hamilton's Captain Future pulps from the 40s had all "worlds" (as he calls them) of our solar system inhabited by sophisticated civilasations.

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blackmetalbaz.livejournal.com

Tragically, silicon-based life is effectively a non-starter as long chain silicanes are hugely unstable.

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*nods* At least on Earth. Who knows, this property which might change in certain circumstances or environments.

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themadone.livejournal.com

I don't see how that follows. There's plenty of life that exists on this planet that doesn't require any solid land - why wouldn't it be possible for a completely liquid planet to have life too?

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Nobody said anything about solid land.
Solid as not being a gas planet. Even it were completely covered in water, it would still have a solid core.

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oz-not-ozzy.livejournal.com

I thought gas giants did have a solid core, or am I crazy?
(And yes... I realise that both of these could be true!)

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Well, yes, they need a core to form but the majority of their bulk consists of gas while I guess this would be hard with water (at least in liquid form, ice might be a different, er, matter).
The deepest bit of Earth's ocean is something like 8,000km but compared to the diameter of the planet, that's tiny. A gas giant's gas mantle would be far thicker in relation.

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The assumption that a planet needs Earth-like conditions to support life actually quite annoys me!

Me too! There's this assumption that the only life that can exist is the kind we have here on Earth, and that it has to follow the same patterns.

Now, I'm not a biologist, but you'd think the discovery of the ecosystems you mention, like the ones around geothermal vents on the ocean floor, would have taught us something!

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Still, water seems to be necessary.

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Yeah, for life as it's developed here, but who can say that that's the only path that life can go down?

I just feel that we humans tend to automatically assume that because that's the way things are here that that must be the only way they can be. Kind of like and extension of the belief that the Earth was the center of the Universe.

In any case, it seems that as soon as conditions were right for life here, it appeared. The period at which life began seems to get pushed back earlier and earlier all the time, so I reckon that as soon as life can exist somewhere, it does.

So I'm sure it must be spread throughout the Universe.

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As a wise man once said, "It's life, Jim, but not as we know it."

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Exactly!

Trek wouldn't lie to us! :D

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Yeah, the small dim star is the kicker. And also, I'm assuming the star must be older than our Sun? We want one with a nice young star so we can move there when ours exhausts it's fuel.

Smaller stars actually last longer, the larger a star is, the shorter it's lifespan (unless you include White Dwarves, which are basically dead stars anyway).

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Ah, but would it's dimmer light be enough to provide all the energy we need? I suppose that woudl depend on how far away from it the planet was.

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It should do, the "habitable zone" is traditionally defined by how much energy the planet would receive from it's star, so if it's within that then the planet would receive a similar amout to that which we receive on this planet.

It's apparently quite close to the star, with an orbital period of 13 days, which would seem to fit.

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Unfortunately it's not particularly habitable by humans.

Given that it weighs 5 times as much as earth the gravity would be higher, this in turn attracts a thicker atmosphere, the proximity to the sun (given by the 13 day rotation period and the smaller star size) and the fact that there's another planet 4 times it's size in an even close orbit to the sun indicates that there's going to be some serious tectonic activity going on there.

That unfortunately is going to result in more volcanoes, which will spew more matter into the atmosphere, which will either turn the place into a massive oven, or freeze it as the light from the sun is completely reflected.

At that distance from the star it’s probably in a rotation lock as well, meaning that half of the planet’s atmosphere will be constantly boiled by the sun and the other half won’t receive any heat at all, this will cause massive storm systems across the surface of the planet.

So in short, an interesting place to visit, but you really wouldn’t want to live there. :o)

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Arse! :(

Oh well, better luck next time.

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Bet it looks pretty though. :o)

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martinhesselius.livejournal.com

Yoinking! :)

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