New observations of the star system Gliese 667 have led to the discovery of three planets inside a star's habitable zone, the region in which liquid water might exist. Gliese 667 is a trinary system that includes three stars, Gliese 667A, 667B, and 667C, and is situated 22 light-years from Earth in the constellation Scorpius.
With three stars, the Gliese 667 system is quite different from our own solar system, and yet there is now a crucial similarity: three planets in a habitable zone. In our solar system, Earth is of course located squarely in our Sun's habitable zone, with Venus scraping the inner edge of the zone and Mars the outer edge. In the Gliese 667 system, three planets are now known to orbit Gliese 667C inside the star's habitable zone.
Previous studies had identified three planets orbiting Gliese 667C, with one in the habitable zone. The new study, led by Guillem Anglada-Escudé of the University of Göttingen, Germany and Mikko Tuomi of the University of Hertfordshire, UK, has determined that Gliese 667C actually hosts seven planets: two hotter worlds orbiting too close to the star to be in the habitable zone, the three planets in the habitable zone, and two more frigid planets orbiting farther from the star.
The two hot worlds and the three habitable-zone planets are likely tidally locked, meaning that one side of the planet always faces its star and the other side faces away and is perpetually shrouded in darkness. The three habitable-zone planets are all super-Earths, more massive than Earth but less massive than Uranus or Neptune.
Because Gliese 667C is only approximately one-third as massive as our Sun, its planets' orbits are far smaller than those in our solar system and its habitable zone is closer, within an orbit the size of Mercury's around our Sun.
The three habitable-zone worlds orbiting Gliese 667C mark two major milestones in the search for exoplanets. This is the first discovery, outside of our solar system, of three planets orbiting in the habitable zone of a single star. It is also the first time a relatively low-mass star, such as Gliese 667C, has been determined to host several planets in its habitable zone.
The discovery of the additional planets orbiting Gliese 667C was due to data gathered by numerous telescopes, including the European Southern Observatory's (ESO) Very Large Telescope in Chile, Magellan II Telescope at the Las Campanas Observatory in Chile, High Accuracy Radial velocity Planet Searcher at ESO's 3.6-meter telescope in Chile, and the Keck telescope on Mauna Kea in Hawaii. The discovery will be described in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics.
Original ESO press release: http://www.eso.org/public/news/eso1328/ (http://www.eso.org/public/news/eso1328/)
[youtube:2fmsha73]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gflU5hO0MZw[/youtube:2fmsha73]
I thought this was pretty neat. Pretty dense planet wise compared to here.
I have no idea how life would evolve on tidally locked planets. There is no day or night time, although I suppose if the animals/aliens/creatures lived underground or on the dark side then that would be similar to some life here.
Youd need a dynamic atmosphere to even out the temperature planet wide for that.
Sweet. Thanks for the info :-D
If another planet isn't dynamic and active it can't evolve or support life. Solitary
Quote from: "Jmpty"New observations of the star system Gliese 667 have led to the discovery of three planets inside a star's habitable zone, the region in which liquid water might exist. Gliese 667 is a trinary system that includes three stars, Gliese 667A, 667B, and 667C, and is situated 22 light-years from Earth in the constellation Scorpius.
With three stars, the Gliese 667 system is quite different from our own solar system, and yet there is now a crucial similarity: three planets in a habitable zone. In our solar system, Earth is of course located squarely in our Sun's habitable zone, with Venus scraping the inner edge of the zone and Mars the outer edge. In the Gliese 667 system, three planets are now known to orbit Gliese 667C inside the star's habitable zone.
Previous studies had identified three planets orbiting Gliese 667C, with one in the habitable zone. The new study, led by Guillem Anglada-Escudé of the University of Göttingen, Germany and Mikko Tuomi of the University of Hertfordshire, UK, has determined that Gliese 667C actually hosts seven planets: two hotter worlds orbiting too close to the star to be in the habitable zone, the three planets in the habitable zone, and two more frigid planets orbiting farther from the star.
The two hot worlds and the three habitable-zone planets are likely tidally locked, meaning that one side of the planet always faces its star and the other side faces away and is perpetually shrouded in darkness. The three habitable-zone planets are all super-Earths, more massive than Earth but less massive than Uranus or Neptune.
Because Gliese 667C is only approximately one-third as massive as our Sun, its planets' orbits are far smaller than those in our solar system and its habitable zone is closer, within an orbit the size of Mercury's around our Sun.
The three habitable-zone worlds orbiting Gliese 667C mark two major milestones in the search for exoplanets. This is the first discovery, outside of our solar system, of three planets orbiting in the habitable zone of a single star. It is also the first time a relatively low-mass star, such as Gliese 667C, has been determined to host several planets in its habitable zone.
The discovery of the additional planets orbiting Gliese 667C was due to data gathered by numerous telescopes, including the European Southern Observatory's (ESO) Very Large Telescope in Chile, Magellan II Telescope at the Las Campanas Observatory in Chile, High Accuracy Radial velocity Planet Searcher at ESO's 3.6-meter telescope in Chile, and the Keck telescope on Mauna Kea in Hawaii. The discovery will be described in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics.
Original ESO press release: http://www.eso.org/public/news/eso1328/ (http://www.eso.org/public/news/eso1328/)
So are the other two stars in the system relevant to anything happening here, or are they just kind of hanging there off in the distance as in the photographic representation?
I would give up half of my remaining lifespan for a warp ship that could get me to these star systems with Earth-like planets. I want to explore them and the thought that they are out there and I will more than likely never see them is just depressing.
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Today's discovery is very cool indeed. They also just discovered some hot super earths within the last six hours. I believe that there is certainly animal life around one in one million stars and maybe a civilization around one in one billion stars. It is crazy for people to think that we are the only ones in this vast universe. But then again, those people don't accept evolution either.
Interesting article on life evolving on tidally locked planets
http://www.astrobio.net/exclusive/4386/ ... hospitable (http://www.astrobio.net/exclusive/4386/tidal-locking-could-render-habitable-planets-inhospitable)
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This planet is very near to the star and it's blue.
QuoteI would give up half of my remaining lifespan for a warp ship that could get me to these star systems with Earth-like planets. I want to explore them
You realise that these planets are most likely just barren rocks, right? I mean; Venus and Mars are in the habitable zone, and look how habitable those are.
Quote from: "dawiw"[ Image (//http://www.gannett-cdn.com/-mm-/ac1394dbdcca6a36cbf486633b129cd813095ac3/r=x404&c=534x401/local/-/media/USATODAY/USATODAY/2013/07/10/1373492305000-blueheic1312a-1307111048_4_3.jpg) ]
This planet is very near to the star and it's blue.
I saw this yesterday and thought it was very cool. The first planet outside our system that we have been able to determine the color. The raining liquid glass part was pretty interesting too.
Quote from: "Plu"QuoteI would give up half of my remaining lifespan for a warp ship that could get me to these star systems with Earth-like planets. I want to explore them
You realise that these planets are most likely just barren rocks, right? I mean; Venus and Mars are in the habitable zone, and look how habitable those are.
We have life on Earth living at -120 °F and at over 750 °F. So Venus is just a bit too high for life as we've seen it, but it's imaginable that life at hydrothermal vents could evolve to live at a little higher temperature. Since Mars seldom gets colder than -150 °F at the poles, anything living in Antarctica that doesn't need oxygen should do fine on the Martian equator or even halfway to the Martian poles.
No intelligence in here... disappointed...
Earth is just one example of how life evolved. And another ghost with 0 posts. WTF?
Quote from: "Colanth"Quote from: "Plu"QuoteI would give up half of my remaining lifespan for a warp ship that could get me to these star systems with Earth-like planets. I want to explore them
You realise that these planets are most likely just barren rocks, right? I mean; Venus and Mars are in the habitable zone, and look how habitable those are.
We have life on Earth living at -120 °F and at over 750 °F. So Venus is just a bit too high for life as we've seen it, but it's imaginable that life at hydrothermal vents could evolve to live at a little higher temperature. Since Mars seldom gets colder than -150 °F at the poles, anything living in Antarctica that doesn't need oxygen should do fine on the Martian equator or even halfway to the Martian poles.
Even if they do have bacterial life... it's still comparable to exploring Mars. One big, mostly barren piece of rock. While it might be fascinating to explore, you'd probably tire of them pretty quickly.
I'm also not sure whether it's feasible for things that do not need oxygen to be spawned like that, although I've not really looked into the topic. Don't they still need certain circumstances to first appear? Like an atmosphere and electric discharges and such? (Granted I'm not very schooled in a-biogenesis unfortunately.)
I think I'll wait to engage in dialogue with someone smarter and more interesting. Seriously, how many posts could I have made in the first hour of my joining!?
Obviously more than zero, which is why it's strange that your post counter still says "0".
Quote from: "spelaeologus"I think I'll wait to engage in dialogue with someone smarter and more interesting. Seriously, how many posts could I have made in the first hour of my joining!?
Pot, kettle?
Quote from: "spelaeologus"I think I'll wait to engage in dialogue with someone smarter and more interesting.?
really means: "nobody paid any attention to my obviously brilliant post, wtf"
Nope, just asking questions that I genuinely wanted answers to and I figured that there would be no better place than this forum, which is linked to RDs Center for Reason and Science... clearly I was wrong assuming that there were thinking people here. So you all win, I'm deleting my questions and I'll take them somewhere else. I can see why most of the world still calls us (atheists) haters.
Errrrr..... if you want questions about far away planets answered, you should probably try an astronomy or astrophysics forum. Or maybe a biology one. I dunno, I can't see your question anymore.
There's really no reason to think that anyone here would neccesarily be knowledgable on the subject or anything. The only thing we all have in common here is lack of belief and mostly an interest in science... that doesn't mean we have an expertise or anything.
Quote from: "spelaeologus"Nope, just asking questions that I genuinely wanted answers to and I figured that there would be no better place than this forum, which is linked to RDs Center for Reason and Science... clearly I was wrong assuming that there were thinking people here. So you all win, I'm deleting my questions and I'll take them somewhere else. I can see why most of the world still calls us (atheists) haters.
As far as your original questions:
1) Could, not will. Even if we rewound history and ran evolution again, this planet's life would probably look a lot different.
2a) Dinosaurs are no longer considered reptiles, they're Archosaurians, along with birds and crocs. (They haven't been considered reptiles for at least 25 years.)
2b) Current thought is that most dinosaur lines were already going extinct before Chicxulub.
2c) Possibly a world with no Chicxulub would result in a sapient dinosaur-like species, but so what? An evolved velociraptor in a suit would probably look pretty similar to an evolved tree shrew in a suit.
Oh, and yes, we do hate stupidity.