Posted on 03/29/2015 5:27:51 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
For a planet to have liquid water -- something necessary to support life as we know it -- it has to be within a certain distance of its star. Too close, and the water burns up. Too far away, and it's a frozen wasteland. But according to new research, most stars in the galaxy have so-called "Goldilocks planets," which sit in the habitable zone, where temperatures are just right for life...
The calculations, which were produced by a group of researchers from the Australian National University and the Niels Bohr Institute at the University of Copenhagen, are based on a method called the Titius-Bode law. This law, which was created around 1770, predicts how planets in a solar system will be spaced out. The researchers applied the law to the 1,000 exoplanets (and 3,000 possible exoplanets) found by NASA's Kepler satellite. They looked at 151 planetary systems -- ones where Kepler had detected between three and six planets -- and found that the Titius-Bode law fit well with the way 124 of them were spaced out...
Once those planets were added, all 151 systems showed one to three planets in their habitable zone. The researchers believe this indicates that most systems do have planets orbiting at the proper distance to hold liquid water.
To help confirm their theory, they've flagged a number of supposed Goldilocks planets that Kepler should be able to see at some point. They hope that other scientists will spot them, adding weight to the "missing planets" they've calculated.
Unfortunately, being in the habitable zone doesn't mean that liquid water is present -- and the presence of liquid water doesn't necessarily mean that life ever can, will, or did exist. But here's to hoping.
(Excerpt) Read more at yakimaherald.com ...
An illustration of an exoplanet like the one Kepler detects by monitoring dips in a star’s brightness, caused by orbiting planets. New research shows most stars in the galaxy have so-called "Goldilocks planets," which sit in the habitable zone. Illustrates GALAXY (category a), by Rachel Feltman (c) 2015, The Washington Post. Moved Wednesday, March 18, 2015. (MUST CREDIT: ESO.)
http://metaresearch.org/solar%20system/eph/eph2000.asp
http://metaresearch.org/solar%20system/origins/original-solar-system.asp
http://www.sis-group.org.uk/news/tom-van-flandern.htm
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That is good but they also need to be able to keep their atmosphere unlike Mars. Then we can think about colonization or conquest.
All right!! Our fuel problems are solved. Drag your garden hose to your car and fill'er up!
Love this space engine simulator. I’ve been exploring the Sombrero Galaxy for weeks. Its fantasy but its still very cool.
lol. Obviously the idiot writer thinks evaporation into gaseous state - think Venus - could be summed up as ‘burning’.
Yeah, all that steam in this genius's shower every morning is caused by the shower water burning.
Gotta get there first.
Man I never hoped Einstein was more wrong about anything else!!
On Star Trek there are numerous class M planets throughout the galaxy.
Hopefully we can figure out how to warp space or cryo-sleep people
Yep. I hope they arent poisonous when we arrive
Yep. Thinking the same thing: Roddenberry was right.
Well I’ve heard sorta thru the grapevine that Einstein neglected something that makes the temporal discussions meaningless.
I’m not sure what or where, just that it was unintentional.
Step 1. Invent Warp Drive
Step 2. Escape from Liberals on Earth
Step 3. Laugh as earth slides back into pre-industrial chaos
Step 4. Realize this has happened before in the past
Step 5. Meet up and say Hello to our smarter human ancestors that have colonized other planets.
Well, at least now we know where Liberals are born.
What better way to spend it than to hit the beach on another planet?
A new life awaits you in the Off-World Colonies. The chance to begin again in a golden land of opportunity and adventure.
To steal an idea from sic-fi writer Kim Stanley Robinson (and others, I'm sure) we'll hollow out asteroids, some 10-30 km in length and build earth-like terrariums inside. They'll be fully self-sufficient little cities of tens of thousands of people containing housing, schools, agriculture, fabrication plants, health care facilities, recreation and even a proper English pub. Put a nuclear-powered engine on the ass end of it, give it a spin for gravity and away we go. We'll get there. It will take generations living inside these terrariums but we'll get there.
And not a one of them are inhabited...
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