Posted on 03/06/2015 5:22:32 PM PST by BenLurkin
Astronomers believe mysterious signals - previously dismissed as stellar bursts - are coming from an Earth-like planet.
The Gliese 581d planet has conditions that could support life, and is likely to be a rocky world, twice the size of Earth.
Signals from the planet were initially discovered in 2010, but last year dismissed as noise from distant stars.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
Squak8888, You make an excellent point and you snapped me back decades to Physics 101. Now lets see.. The article states in one place that the planet is twice the size of earth while another place says it is 3 times as massive and I’ll assume those figures are true for now.
g = G M / r^2
g = surface gravity m/s^2
G = gravitational constant for MKS system of units
M = mass in kg
r = radius in meters
Since in this case, we are interested only in relative gravity to earth, we can call earth gravity g(earth) and dispense with G.
Rearranging
g(GJ581d) = g(earth) *3 / 2^2 = 0.75 g(earth)
Well that’s a much better result. The diameter being double outweighs the tripled mass because of the square relationship. So maybe a visit would not be so bad!
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You may commence your stoning of this heretic.
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