Posted on 02/03/2012 7:27:00 PM PST by Clintonfatigued
The planet, dubbed GJ 667Cc, orbits a red dwarf star 22 light-years from Earth, in the constellation Scorpio. A binary pair of orange dwarf stars are part of the same system.
(Related: "'Tatooine' Planet With Two Suns Could Host Habitable Moon?")
The new planet has a mass 4.5 times that of Earth and orbits its host star every 28 days.
The red dwarf is relatively dim, so the planet receives slightly less light from its star than Earth does from the sun. But most of the star's light is infrared, so the planet should absorb more of its incoming energy than Earth does from sunlight.
That means if the planet has a rocky surface—which is predicted for planets less than ten times Earth's mass—and an atmosphere, it could support liquid water and maybe life, said co-discoverer Guillem Anglada-Escudé, who conducted the work while at the Carnegie Institution for Science in Washington, D.C.
"If it has an atmosphere, it's probably reddish all the time, because the star is really red," Anglada-Escudé said. "It would be like being evening all the time."
For any hypothetical observers on the surface, the binary stars in the distance would be "very prominent in the sky, and it would be an exotic thing."
(Excerpt) Read more at news.nationalgeographic.com ...
“Try like many many lifetimes. We do not have the technology YET to even get close.”
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Please note...I said traveling the speed of light, and considering the nearest star that could have planets, 11
light years, but most likely over 22 light years from Earth.
I am also trying no to insult the UFO/ET believing FReepers.
We do have some don’tcha know?
http://ericfdiaz.webs.com/copernicanrevolution.htm
“There is a cute little anecdote about a discussion between Napolean Bonaparte and Laplace. According to an account by Rouse Ball, Napolean had heard that there was no mention of God in Laplace’s work.
When Napolean remarked to Laplace, “M. Laplace, they tell me you have written this large book on the system of the universe, and have never even mentioned its Creator.”
To which Laplace replied, “I had no need of that hypothesis.” Napolean was greatly amused by Laplace’s reply.”
Yeah but doesn’t a light year mean the distance light travels in one year? So if we had a vehicle that could travel near light speed and the planet is 22 light years away, wouldn’t that be a little over 22 years?
If the binary stars are dwarfs, that must mean they blew off their outer layers years ago frying that planet and it’s moon. There can’t be much left to support life.
Do the math. The simplest living organism known contains a variety of about 200 different proteins with an average length of about 200 amino acids. The theoretically simplest living organism requires about 150 different proteins with an average length of about 450.
The smallest molecule that classifies as a protein requires a chain of about 80 amino acids in a very specific order.
Suppose every atom in the universe is not an atom, but is actually an amino acid. And suppose the entire universe has been assembling these amino acids into 80-length chains, a thousand times per second since the beginning of the universe (approx 13,5 billion years ago.)
You will find that the universe is still about a billion, trillion, trillion times too small or too young to have made even this one simplist of all proteins via random process.
Intelligent life a Mathematical certainty? I don't think so? Do the math.
Darn, no tan lines!
“Do the math.”
Less complicated than the national debt clock, KISS math:
There are a billion planets in this galaxie, and at least one has a habitable planet.
And there are at least a billion galaxies in our universe ... Those are good odds for optimists.
Correction: That average length of that simplest known living organism is not 200, it is 400.
Maybe it’s Romneys.
The Drake equation says otherwise. While his focuses less on intelligent life, his calculations conclude that life most certainly exists.
Although Fermi counters with the “why haven’t we found any” argument, the sheer magnitude of space supports my belief.
We’ll likely never know in our lifetimes, but I find it rather challenging to believe that Earth is the only planet in the universe with plentiful life.
The problem there is that the acceleration would turn you into purée. To get there safely would require several years accelerating at 1g followed by an equally long period of 1g deceleration.
It’s arrogant to think that only life as we know it or can imagine it can survive, replicate and store their history. Government won’t tell us if we’ve been visited by aliens. There’s no way to know if life exists not based on carbon, and that doesn’t mean that it can’t exist that way either.
This is just an astronomer’s wet dream that has hardly any facts behind it. I’d rather read Heinlein or Bradbury.
We can get there. All we need to do is mine spice to fold space.
Great comment. Try to come around freeper land more often!
“if we had a vehicle that could travel near light speed and the planet is 22 light years away, wouldn’t that be a little over 22 years?”
Let me correct myself. I didn’t look it up, but was just reading a book on physics and the author was saying how large the universe is. He said that with current technology it would take 60,000 years. That’s it.
Near light speed may be impossible according to Einstein. Really need that warp drive.
What are “red dwarf” and “orange dwarf” stars?
I know what “red giant,” “brown dwarf,” and “white dwarf” stars are.
Are red and orange dwarf stars minimal mass stars with different ages?
My bad. I've been reading other articles about this planet since I wrote that and they're actually saying the star, not the planet, is metal-poor. Although it's hard to imagine there could be much metal left over in the system for the planets during formation if the star itself didn't end up with much of it, I've got to try to be as accurate as I can. I simply misread it the first time.
From a Centauri Dreams article:
Thus Steven Vogt (UC Santa Cruz), who puts the find into context, noting that heavy elements like iron, carbon and silicon are considered the building blocks of terrestrial planets:“This was expected to be a rather unlikely star to host planets. Yet there they are, around a very nearby, metal-poor example of the most common type of star in our galaxy. The detection of this planet, this nearby and this soon, implies that our galaxy must be teeming with billions of potentially habitable rocky planets.”
GJ 667C is an M-class red dwarf, which is a main sequence star. You’re probably thinking of white dwarfs, which are indeed remnant stars that have blown off their outer layers.
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