Posted on 08/22/2019 6:03:03 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
A new study indicates that some exoplanets may have better conditions for life to thrive than Earth itself has. "This is a surprising conclusion", said lead researcher Dr Stephanie Olson, "it shows us that conditions on some exoplanets with favourable ocean circulation patterns could be better suited to support life that is more abundant or more active than life on Earth." ....
There will always be limitations to our technology, so life is almost certainly more common than "detectable" life. This means that in our search for life in the Universe, we should target the subset of habitable planets that will be most favourable to large, globally active biospheres because those are the planets where life will be easiest to detect--and where non-detections will be most meaningful".
Dr Olson notes that we don't yet have telescopes which can identify appropriate exoplanets and test this hypothesis, but says that "Ideally this work this will inform telescope design to ensure that future missions, such as the proposed LUVOIR or HabEx telescope concepts, have the right capabilities; now we know what to look for, so we need to start looking"...
The first exoplanet was discovered in 1992, and currently more than 4000 exoplanets have been confirmed so far. The nearest know exoplanet is Proxima Centauri b, which is 4.25 light years away. Currently much of the search for life on exoplanets focuses on those in the habitable zone, which is the range of distances from a star where a planet's temperature allows liquid water oceans, critical for life on Earth.
(Excerpt) Read more at eurekalert.org ...
This artist's concept shows what the TRAPPIST-1 planetary system may look like, based on available data about the planets' diameters, masses and distances from the host star, as of February 2018. 3 of the 7 exoplanets are in the 'habitable zone', where liquid water is possible.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
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Being that the only one we know of so far is less than 1% explored
News alert: Florida land for pennies on the 1000 acre plot. Place your order in early. Which is more believable?
More CO2 = More Life
OK I’ll bite. How do they determine the ocean circulation patterns on a planet they can only “see” by inference?
A new study indicates that some exoplanets may have better conditions for life to thrive than Earth itself has. “This is a surprising conclusion”, said lead researcher Dr Stephanie Olson, “it shows us that conditions on some exoplanets with favourable ocean circulation patterns could be better suited to support life that is more abundant or more active than life on Earth.”
...
Oceans and continents have changed drastically throughout Earth’s history. I assume circulation patterns would, too.
The operative word is “MAY”.
What a ridiculous “study.” Proves absolutely nothing.
This study may be baseless.
We will NEVER know what, if any, life God has made there.
We are alone...
Perhaps the scientists should use the Telescope-microscope used by the astronomers in 1835 South Africa to see the winged men in the moon, as reported in the NY Sun. A NY newspaper would not lie now would it?
Maybe we could see what is on those planets.
https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/the-great-moon-hoax
Title of bears no relation to actual article.
Title bears no relation to actual article.
Since it took 3.5 billion years for life to progress pass 1 cell, and, that very few stars make it past 1/2 billion, let alone 1 billion (most of the ones that do go longer are red dwarf stars and they pump out a huge amount of radiation), other than various one celled life is about all there is a chance to be out there.
You got to have the right star, with a planet in the right place, with a moon to stabilize things, the right material make up, and, a safe part of the galaxy.
Life is more specialized that they lead you to believe.
I believe all the evidence we have points to life being extremely rare.
I think ‘extremely’ is an understatement.
By reading articles before commenting on them.
http://blog.adw.org/2019/02/rare-jewel-earth-like-planets-may-be-very-rare-2/
While most people, including most scientists, believe that there may be billions of inhabitable planets capable of sustaining complex life, the Rare Earth Hypothesis suggests that such a large number is overstated.
This is because there are not just a few things that come together to support life here on Earth—there are many. Here are some:
Earth is at just the right distance from the Sun so that water is warm enough to melt, but not so hot as to boil and steam away into space. Water is also able, in this habitable zone (the so-called “Goldilocks” region), to both evaporate and condense at lower levels in the atmosphere, thus permitting a more even distribution of water, and the cycle of water over dry land known as precipitation.
For suns to spawn Earth-like planets they must have sufficient “metallicity,” which is necessary for the formation of terrestrials rather than gaseous planets.
Earth is in a “habitable zone” within the galaxy as
well. Closer to the center of galaxies, radiation and the presence of wandering planetoids make life there unlikely.
Earth exists in a disk-shaped spiral galaxy (the Milky
Way) rather than in an elliptical (spheroid) galaxy. Spiral galaxies are thought to be the only type capable of supporting life.
Earth’s orbit around the sun is an almost perfect circle rather than the more common “eccentric” (elongated) ellipse. Steep elliptical orbits take a planet relatively close to and then relatively far from the sun, with great consequences for warmth and light. Earth’s stable, nearly circular orbit around the sun keeps our distance from it relatively constant, and hence the amount heat and light does not vary tremendously.
Two nearby “gas giants” (Jupiter and Saturn) attract and catch many wandering asteroids and comets and generally keep them from hitting Earth. The asteroid belts also keep a lot of flying rock in a stable orbit and away from us.
Our molten core creates a magnetic field that holds the Van Allen radiation belts in place. These belts protect Earth from the most harmful rays of the sun.
Earth’s volcanism plays a role in generating our atmosphere and in cycling rich minerals widely.
Our sun is just the right kind of star, putting out a fairly steady amount of energy. Other types of stars are more variable in their output and this variance can utterly destroy life or cause it to be unsustainable due to the extremes caused.
Earth’s fairly rapid rotation reduces the daily variation in temperature. It also makes photosynthesis viable because there is enough sunlight all over the planet.
Earth’s axis is tilted just enough relative to its orbital plane to allow seasonal variations that help complex life but not so tilted as to make those variations too extreme.
Our moon also has a good effect by causing tides that are just strong enough to permit tidal zones (a great breeding ground for diverse life) but not so severe as to destroy life by extreme tides.
There are many more items on the list (see the first video below), but allow these to suffice. The conditions that come together on this planet such that it is capable of sustaining complex life are complicated, remarkable, and some argue rare in the universe. The ability to support life here is the balance of many fascinating things. We cannot but be amazed at the complexity of life and the intricacies required for it to flourish here. It would appear that for complex life to be sustained, many factors must come together in just the right way. The sheer number of these factors sharply decreases the number of possible Earth-like planets, despite the billions of galaxies and stars.
All this background information leads us to a blog at discovermagazine.com: Earth-is-a-1-in-700 quintillion kind of place. (700 quintillion is 7 followed by 20 zeros!) The blog references a study by Astrophysicist Erik Zackrisson from Uppsala University in Sweden.
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