Jump to content
Join the Unexplained Mysteries community today! It's free and setting up an account only takes a moment.
- Sign In or Create Account -

Earth loses status as Goldilocks world


Render

Recommended Posts

Bad news for Kepler-22b. Once deemed the most habitable world outside our solar system, it no longer looks life-friendly. More strangely, Earth's habitability rating has also taken a hit. Both results are thanks to a redefinition of the habitable zone – the region around a star in which liquid water can theoretically exist.

Also known as the Goldilocks zone, because temperatures are "just right" for life there, the habitable zone is the main tool that exoplanet hunters have to rank their finds. But researchers are still using a definition coined in 1993. "Those habitable zones have not been updated in the last 20 years," says Ravi Kopparapu of Penn State University.

He and his colleagues have a new definition. The zone's boundaries have always depended on the star's temperature, plus estimates of how well the atmospheres of any planets would absorb heat from their star. But in recent years, lab experiments have turned up new figures for how water and carbon dioxide absorb light from different types of stars. The redefinition is based on these figures – and pushes the zone further from the star than the old definition.

Now, many planets, including supposedly balmy Kepler-22b, look too hot. However, the redefinition should also bring into the habitable fold planets that were thought to be too cold.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn23118-earth-and-others-lose-status-as-goldilocks-worlds.html

An even better planet than our current one may be waiting for us ...

  • Like 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Now we just need to figure out a safe way to get there once we find it.

o0o0 We got a long way to go and a short time to get there...0o0o

Link to comment
Share on other sites

We'll just get "The Bandit and the Snowman". They win every time.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I have been told that with our current technology it would take to long for a probe or whatever to get to one of these planets. If I remember correctly hundreds of years.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

We'll just get "The Bandit and the Snowman". They win every time.

But can we do what they say can't be done? :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

funny how scientists never make mistakes . They just update their calculations...

  • Like 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I wonder why there is this fear among our Elites and Scientific community that humans are not the only intelligent species in the universe. And they are running from one excuse to another to prove it. Are they that narcissistic how pathtic.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I have been told that with our current technology it would take to long for a probe or whatever to get to one of these planets. If I remember correctly hundreds of years.

Unfortunately, any route you take to the stars will be slow, even if you are powered by the most powerful nuclear propulsion technology…

A trip to Proxima Centauri, the closest star (4.22 light years from Earth) would take Voyager 1 73000 years.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I have been told that with our current technology it would take to long for a probe or whatever to get to one of these planets. If I remember correctly hundreds of years.

It would take 600 years to get to Kepler 22-b, travelling at the speed of light.

Voyager 1 has a speed of approx. 10 miles per second as it leaves the solar system. At that rate it would take approximately ten million years to travel that far. Interstellar distances are really just that staggeringly big.

edit: I see the previous post has addressed this. I really should read whole threads before responding.

Edited by Archimedes
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I wonder why there is this fear among our Elites and Scientific community that humans are not the only intelligent species in the universe. And they are running from one excuse to another to prove it. Are they that narcissistic how pathtic.

Could be. Life is, abundant. The evidence would seem to indicate an agenda of suppression. But for whom? :alien::w00t:
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Great discovery. But who knows their could be planets outside this zone, that could have evolved life just in a different way we would suspect, but still with natural selection of course.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Now we just need to figure out a safe way to get there once we find it.

Ill volunteer I have a cape. And know someone thatll sew a big S on my hoodie.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I wonder why there is this fear among our Elites and Scientific community that humans are not the only intelligent species in the universe. And they are running from one excuse to another to prove it. Are they that narcissistic how pathtic.

This is has absolutely nothing to do with anything.

And is completely wrong at that. The Scientific community has no fear that's why they keep on searching, out of curiosity.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

funny how scientists never make mistakes . They just update their calculations...

Science does not claim to be the "absolute truth", it leaves that to theology. Science is a quest for the truth. Its default position is "we don't know", it then attempts to find out that which it does not know. As a result, as more is learned, understanding is bound to change. This is not science's weakness, it is its strength.

I wonder why there is this fear among our Elites and Scientific community that humans are not the only intelligent species in the universe. And they are running from one excuse to another to prove it. Are they that narcissistic how pathtic.

I wonder why so many people fail to understand science or deliberately misrepresent it, especially when it hasn't confirmed their personal beliefs. Are they that narcissistic? How pathetic.

There is no fear amongst scientists about the existence of life, intelligent or otherwise, around other planets. Calculations like this are for the purpose of calculating how common it may be ann where the best places to search are. Science is about knowledge and logic, not guess work and wishful thinking.

Edited by Waspie_Dwarf
  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Unfortunately, any route you take to the stars will be slow, even if you are powered by the most powerful nuclear propulsion technology…

A trip to Proxima Centauri, the closest star (4.22 light years from Earth) would take Voyager 1 73000 years.

Agreed,i think if we ever plan to go to another star we will have to figure out a way to bend space and time to achieve it.Propulsion tech i doubt will ever get us there.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Great discovery. But who knows their could be planets outside this zone, that could have evolved life just in a different way we would suspect, but still with natural selection of course.

And in fact it's possible for life as we know it to also evolve outside the "goldilocks zone."

Not like us, but life like life on Earth.

For example, tidal forces can keep water warm enough to stay liquid underneath ice covers, such as is suspected on Jupiter's moon Europa.

In other words, liquid water could exist in many places outside habitable zones, for many different reasons.

Harte

Edited by Harte
  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

And in fact it's possible for life as we know it to also evolve outside the "goldilocks zone."

I would say that the term "in fact" is a little strong. It is hypothetically possible as it is believed that such conditions could exist BUT we have not yet the absolute proof that such conditions ACTUALLY exist or that life has/can actually form there.

In my opinion, this is why we need to further study the icy moons of Jupiter and Saturn and fill in the gaps in our knowledge.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I would say that the term "in fact" is a little strong. It is hypothetically possible as it is believed that such conditions could exist BUT we have not yet the absolute proof that such conditions ACTUALLY exist or that life has/can actually form there.

In my opinion, this is why we need to further study the icy moons of Jupiter and Saturn and fill in the gaps in our knowledge.

Okay, I can buy that.

Fact is too strong of a word... for now.

harte

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 4 weeks later...

If Earth as a planet did lose its goldilock status, I don't know if I should be worried or just shrug it off.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I have been told that with our current technology it would take to long for a probe or whatever to get to one of these planets. If I remember correctly hundreds of years.

Thousands of years. That is just to get to the closest at 4.5 light years. Further we can't detect planets around a star that close.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The technology is coming where we will be able to get spectra of planets orbiting close stars. Over time we will extend this ability outward. This is far more likely than probes to be the route we will use, since we look at light that has already spent all the time needed to get to us.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thousands of years. That is just to get to the closest at 4.5 light years.

As Hazzard has already correctly pointed out it would take tens of thousands of years to reach the nearest star which is 4.2 light years away.

Further we can't detect planets around a star that close.

What?

Not only can we detect planets around a star that close, we HAVE detected planets around a star that close, see this topic:

Earth Mass Planet Orbits Alpha Centauri B

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

The habitable zone is a rather crude estimate of a more nuanced situation. Even a little additional carbon dioxide in the atmosphere of a planet farther out than this zone could make for an eminently habitable world. A planet with a thin, rather dry atmosphere, which loses heat with greater than usual efficiency might be habitable, even if nearer a star than its habitable zone.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

As Hazzard has already correctly pointed out it would take tens of thousands of years to reach the nearest star which is 4.2 light years away.

What?

Not only can we detect planets around a star that close, we HAVE detected planets around a star that close, see this topic:

Earth Mass Planet Orbits Alpha Centauri B

I stand corrected. Last I heard the star hd to be 100 light years out.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.