Planet with British weather found 20 light years away A group of boffins claims to have spied the "first discovered terrestrial-mass exoplanet in the habitable zone", the BBC reports. The planet in question is orbiting the much-studied star Gliese 581, some 20 light-years away in the constellation Libra. Of the possible worlds circling the red M-class sun, Gliese 581d had already …
Is there oil?
Because America and China will reignite the space race funded by the oil barons and we'll have warp drive in 15 years if there is. Hopefully the indigent lifeforms bear more resemblance to Daleks than Na'vi, because the last thing we want is human shitbags pissing all over the universe...
I'm no expert, but I can't work out how there could be liquid water on a tidally locked planet?
- The light side: too hot, any water boils away.
- The dark side: too cold, any water freezes and falls to the ground and stays there as permafrost/glacier.
- The twilight band: Yes the temperature may be permanently between 0C and 100C, but I've seen what happens to puddles on our own planet: they dry up, because the water evaporates. Winds will move the evaporated water around until it reaches the dark side, at which point it snows... and then stays there forever.
So, 100% of the water on a tidally locked planet will be frozen on the dark side. Am I wrong?
For a planet to be tidally locked to something the water must be in liquid form. No?
If the water became frozen on one side that would create an eccentric mass which is turn would start the plant rotating again.
It seems unlikely it is tidally locked to the sun as according to the physics for something this far out to be tidally locked to the sun the system must be incredibly old. But actually it seems to be the same age as our solar system.
Analogy would be the earth or mars should be tidally locked to the sun, but they are not.
So I don't understand why this thing is tidally locked.
Of course as the last time I touched theoretical astronomy was 22 years ago (3 month optional A-level Physics course) I might have missed something and Wikipedia might not be the text book I need.
If the planet had rather more water than the Earth, it would be ocean over most of it (maybe with islands, or not). Anyway, ocean circulation might be able to maintain a habitable temperature, and not just in the twilight zone. Sure, some of the surface might be at 100C and some of the other side frozen, but the ocean depths might well be at 4C just as on Earth, because water is denser at 4C than at hotter or colder temperatures.
That's stil quite Earthlike. It's also possible to imagine a planet with many tens or hundreds of kilometers of water depth. I don't think we know enough to speculate what might or might not be possible in such ocean depths, any more than whether life can exist deep in a gas-giant's atmosphere. For all we know, there may be life within Jupiter, and a hot Jupiter might be an even better place to look.
Maybe the answer to the Fermi paradox is that all the aliens "know" that there's no point looking for life on low-gravity slightly damp balls of rock?
So we have to consider enlisting a few of the Cousteau family to the group of explorers going there. And the landing craft should be able to double as a bathyscaphe.
Failing that, they should at least pack a snorkel, swimsuit and flippers.
Icon, because what they may be landing in could be vaguely beer-like.
I am fingers cross hoping this story is true there have been hopes raised of a habitable planet found in that exo-solar system. If it true it will join the finding of exoplanets since 1995 the planet is like the planet in the science fiction novel Anarchos I read years ago as usual science fiction authors have been there first again.
Well a few more years of burning fossil fuels, burning forrests etc and by the time they get here our atmosphere will make the Bebo incensed invaders from 581g feel right at home.
My I be the first to welcome our CO2 breathing overlords and point out that social networks hold no interest for me.......
We can only hope that as they get closer the replacement of the 80s TV that attracted them by reality TV will send them home....
perhaps their role in England could be filled by immigrants from Gliese 581d ? The lighter gravity here (approx 1/2 to 1/3) compared with what they would be used to at home would perhaps make them more exuberant and bouncy - better at trainspotting ? - than their earthly counterparts, which would be an additional plus. Don't know what the BNP would say, though....
Henri
Never mind the BNP - there are plenty of other crazies to worry about: Xenophobic religious and political groups; their xenophilic counterparts; opportunists who'd probably befriend them long enough to rip them off, screw them over and probably start a fight we couldn't win...
Aliens are probably better off staying away and switching to tight-band communication. We're far too mental/dangerous to be let out of our box.
We're all a little hooked up on gravity and what life may exist there... Isnt it ironic, it's in the Libra constellation, the scales are clearly not calibrated correctly.
A suggestion, now here me out on this. SEND IN CHUCK NORRIS!! He'll roundhouse that gravity down to a manageable size.
And *still* barely 20LY form Earth.
That just leaves the small matter of accelerating a ship big enough to hold a viable colony to something reasonably close to the speed of light so they can get there before the mission directors retire...
"This might take a little while longer" as Lisabeth Salander might put it.
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