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Habitable Exoplanet Found?

BenBurch

Gatekeeper of The Left
BenBurch
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Sep 27, 2007
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The Universe 35.2 ms ahead of this one.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/09/100929170503.htm

ScienceDaily (Sep. 29, 2010) — A team of planet hunters led by astronomers at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and the Carnegie Institution of Washington has announced the discovery of an Earth-sized planet (three times the mass of Earth) orbiting a nearby star at a distance that places it squarely in the middle of the star's "habitable zone," where liquid water could exist on the planet's surface. If confirmed, this would be the most Earth-like exoplanet yet discovered and the first strong case for a potentially habitable one.

<SNIP>
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Halfcentaur said:
Har far away be it? Time to start loading up the arc.
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Har-har! Read the article...
Gliese 581, located 20 light years away from Earth in the constellation Libra...
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What do you intend to load the arc with? How large is the gap, and how much current will you run through it? Will this be an open-air arc, or will it be enclosed? If enclosed, will the enclosure hold a vacuum, or some exotic gas mixture?
 
The gray bearded father will tell me, sir. I intend on hooking the largest whale in the seas and fitting it with the necessary devices to enable it's swimming instinct in space.

Then the rains will come, sir.

*or madame
 
Fnord said:
Har-har! Read the article...

What do you intend to load the arc with? How large is the gap, and how much current will you run through it? Will this be an open-air arc, or will it be enclosed? If enclosed, will the enclosure hold a vacuum, or some exotic gas mixture?
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I think he meant "ark".
 
Fnord said:
Har-har! Read the article...

What do you intend to load the arc with? How large is the gap, and how much current will you run through it? Will this be an open-air arc, or will it be enclosed? If enclosed, will the enclosure hold a vacuum, or some exotic gas mixture?
Click to expand...

Well, if he ever solves those problems, he'll have the mother of all arc lamp spotlights, lemme tell ya. :boggled:
 
I wonder if a stable environment would be better or worse than earth for producing life, I am sure that life would be able to live in constant light though.
trees would probably like it, except that the angle the star is on would not be ideal for extensive forests, since only the very tops of the trees will get light.
Also, I wonder if it has a moon, although that might not be possible since the planet is so close to the star.
 
If the planet is 3 earth masses, I wonder how much we would weigh on it. IIRC if it has the same radius, but is three times denser, we would weigh three times as much. If the density is the same, we would still weigh more, but not three times more because the radius would be larger. Sounds a bit harsh anyway. Atmosphere would probably be thicker.

There are probably better ones yet to be found.
 
Another article

"This is our first Goldilocks planet - just the right size and the right distance from its sun," said astronomer and "planet-hunter" Paul Butler with the Carnegie Institution of Washington. "A threshold has been crossed."
. . .
Adding to the significance of the discovery, the star Gliese 581 is now known to have six and perhaps seven planets orbiting it. And unlike most distant solar systems detected so far, the planets all orbit in a circular path and are lined up by type in a way similar to our solar system.
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Sounds like that planet would have a very narrow band of habitability. Still, the notion of living at a zone of continual dawn is intriguing. Not sure what the outlook for photosynthesis would be; perhaps poor.
 
On BadAstronomy, Phil is saying that because the planet is so close to its star, it is likely to be tidally locked. Same as how the moon is locked to Earth, so that one side always faces the planet (or star, in the new planet's case).

Might make the sunward side kind of hot.
But us in Winnipeg (and Northern Canada) look forward to populating the relatively tropical spaceward side...
 
Would living on a planet with more gravity than we're used to have any unwanted effects on our bodies?
 
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