Info source: Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
This artist's conception shows a newly formed star surrounded by a swirling protoplanetary disk of dust and gas. Credit: University of Copenhagen/Lars Buchhave
Posted on 06/19/2012 3:36:59 AM PDT by SunkenCiv
This artist's conception shows a newly formed star surrounded by a swirling protoplanetary disk of dust and gas. Credit: University of Copenhagen/Lars Buchhave
ping
Alien Earths Could Form Earlier than ExpectedPrevious studies have shown that Jupiter-sized gas giants tend to form around stars containing more heavy elements than the Sun. However, new research by a team of astronomers found that planets smaller than Neptune are located around a wide variety of stars, including those with fewer heavy elements than the Sun. As a result, rocky worlds like Earth could have formed earlier than expected in the universe's history. "This work suggests that terrestrial worlds could form at almost any time in our galaxy's history," said Smithsonian astronomer David Latham (Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics). "You don't need many earlier generations of stars." ...Astronomers call chemical elements heavier than hydrogen and helium "metals." They measure the metal content, or metallicities, of other stars using the Sun as a benchmark. Stars with more heavy elements are considered metal-rich while stars with fewer heavy elements are considered metal-poor... They measured the stars' metallicities and correlated that with the sizes of the associated planets. Large planets tended to orbit stars with solar metallicities or higher. Smaller worlds, though, were found around metal-rich and metal-poor stars alike. "Giant planets prefer metal-rich stars. Little ones don't," explained Latham. They found that terrestrial planets form at a wide range of metallicities, including systems with only one-quarter of the Sun's metal content.
David A. Aguilar & Christine Pulliam
Wednesday, June 13, 2012
Harvard-Smithsonian Center For Astrophysics
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Seems to me that if we’re alone, God has given it to us to explore and populate.
;’) Nicely done! Also IB “it’s only a theory”, “just in it for the grant money”...
And lets not forget the ever popular, “We’ll never be able to go there anyway”.
:’D
Even worse is someone who wants to pretend to do the math first, *then* tell us “we’ll never be able to go there anyway”. ;’)
If our new found “planetoid” category counts, then our solar system has more rocky planets than gas giants (4 vs. 5+). So this isn’t that wild a concept.
Invent warp drive, start colonizing!
because of the vast distances between stars, I believe at least one of three things need to be true.
Personally, I hope that all three are possible, and BTW, I want a ZPM to run my motorcycle.
There are lots of Class M planets. They visited a new one almost every week on Star Trek.
They even found a planet on which there was silicon based life, as opposed to the carbon based life found on earth. So there could even be life in forms we wouldn’t think about, such as silicon based life, out there in the cosmos.
Figure out how long it would take to accelerate to 90% of the speed of light at one gravity of constant acceleration.
Then, of course as you approached your destination you would then have to decelerate at one gravity for the same amount of time.
There are a lot of very interesting little understood things going on at the sub atomic level which could potentially be harnessed for our own use.
“Spooky action at a distance” as Einstein called it or quantum entanglement has the potential of communicating instantaneously over billions of light years.
Obviously we aren’t going far right now but that’s what science is for. Its also possible that we simply haven’t stumbled across or conceived of something extremely simple
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