Habitable planet found around Gliese 581, 20 light years away

[gturner]

Top of Drudge.

US astronomers said Wednesday they have discovered an Earth-sized planet that they think might be habitable, orbiting a nearby star, and believe there could be many more planets like it in space.

The planet, found by astronomers at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and the Carnegie Institution of Washington, is orbiting in the middle of the "habitable zone" of the red dwarf star Gliese 581, which means it could have water on its surface.

Much more at the Yahoo News link

Speculation, anyone?

Could these be where the blue dancing girls come from?

 

[Miss Chicken]

I wonder if anyone will ask for it in my Ruler of the World thread? It would probably make a good penal colony.

 

[Lindley]

Tidally locked, huh? So not exactly Risa, then.

 

[Finn]

^Risans control the weather, so it might still be Risa

 

[bigdaddy]

This whole news is pure speculation.

 

[C.E. Evans]

Yeah, everybody knows that Vulcan is closer at roughly 16 light-years away...

 

[RJDiogenes]

I love how the headline reads "near Earth." Twenty years away at light speed, a hundred thousand years at the best speed we've got.

The article is accurate, though; the news is also on the Bad Astronomy Blog at Discover, and other places. It's great news. The planet would not be a comfortable place for Humans; it's tidally locked, three times as massive as Earth, has very uncomfortable temperature extremes, and is probably very geologically active and meteorologically violent-- But it could very well be a good spot to find life. All we need now is a spectral analysis....

 

[Danoz]

I'm not an astronomer by any stretch, but it sounds like we are talking about a pretty big "might."

The planet is tidally locked to its star, meaning that one side is always facing the star and basking in perpetual daylight, and the other is in perpetual darkness because it faces away from the star.

With surface temperatures decreasing the further one goes toward the dark side of the planet and increasing as one goes into the light side, the most habitable part of the new planet would be the line between darkness and light, which is known as the "terminator".

But actual temperatures would range from "blazing hot on the side facing the star to freezing cold on the dark side," they said.

If they decide to take a generational ship to Giliese 581, I think I'll wait for the one headed to Risa .

Thanks for the link, gturner!

 

[Holdfast]

Look on the bright side; if it's tidally locked you never have to race against the sunrise, a la Riddick, in order to avoid being vaporised. So it's got predictability going for it, at least.

Joking aside, why do planets have diffuse terminators rather than precise lines demarcating light and dark? Is it an atmospheric effect; or does this happen on planets without atmospheres too? Is it terrain-related? Or something else entirely?

 

[RJDiogenes]

Well, for one thing the sun will be varying degrees up and down the horizon as you approach and pass the terminator; for another, there's going to be some slight wobble, which will further muddy it up. On this planet, assuming it has an atmosphere as thick as Earth, the temperature extremes will be diffused somewhat by atmosphere circulation-- but the result will be a planet that is one big constant storm, most likely.

 

[watermelony2k]

I love how the headline reads "near Earth." Twenty years away at light speed, a hundred thousand years at the best speed we've got.

The article is accurate, though; the news is also on the Bad Astronomy Blog at Discover, and other places. It's great news. The planet would not be a comfortable place for Humans; it's tidally locked, three times as massive as Earth, has very uncomfortable temperature extremes, and is probably very geologically active and meteorologically violent-- But it could very well be a good spot to find life. All we need now is a spectral analysis....

Still, it's cool knowing that we live in a time where there are astronomers actively looking for and successfully finding planets outside our solar system. We're living the beginning of epic things to come.

 

[Candlelight]

But actual temperatures would range from "blazing hot on the side facing the star to freezing cold on the dark side," they said.

At last, somewhere we can send the entire Republican party!

 

[Brent]

There might be some incredible natural resources there

Would make an excellent mining planet

Just have to hope we don't run across any alien face huggers

 

[Lindley]

Look on the bright side

Beware the Dark Side.

 

[Goliath]

Parasite Planet, at last!

 

[Teelie]

Life on such a planet is very likely if the right set of conditions are met. So the "might" is big but the implication is even bigger. It wasn't all that long ago that such planets as Earth or even this one were so remotely they were thought to be exceedingly rare. Here they find one in what's essentially the blink of an eye.

That means the possiblity of a planet with undeniable, irrefutable proof of life is much more likely than previously thought. This place may even have life but it won't be walking talking, intelligent life we'd like to discover.

 

[Trekker4747]

It's a pretty big "might" on the planet's ability to sustain any meaningful life beyond bacteria and hardy life like that (bacteria and other microbial life has been found in some very harsh Earth environments) but any meaningful animal life or even intelligent life? Seems unlikely given the very small "habitable" area a tidally locked planet like this is going to have on its surface. Not impossible, granted, it's possible life could adapt in such harsh conditions to evolve into something meaningful but, in the end, it's not going to be a great vacation spot or any place we need to strip-mine for unobtanium or anything.

 

[LitmusDragon]

That's it, I'm packing my bags.

 

[ShamelessMcBundy]

Tidally locked, huh? So not exactly Risa, then.

So we discovered Remus?

 

[scotpens]

. . . Joking aside, why do planets have diffuse terminators rather than precise lines demarcating light and dark? Is it an atmospheric effect; or does this happen on planets without atmospheres too? Is it terrain-related? Or something else entirely?

Isn't atmospheric scattering of light a big part of it? The terminator on the airless Moon is fairly sharp.

There might be some incredible natural resources there

Would make an excellent mining planet

Maybe it contains a vast wealth of dilithium crystals!