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These types of planets are known as 'Eyeball planets'. [1] They are hypothesized to have a hot side and a cold side, and potentially a ring around the periphery

These types of planets are known as 'Eyeball planets'. [1] They are hypothesized to have a hot side and a cold side, and potentially a ring around the periphery that is 'just right' where liquid water could form and sustain life. Not sure if this particular planet would meet those criteria. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eyeball_planet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eyeball_planet

ses1984 7y ago
Even if the planet had a strong magnetosphere, wouldn't atmosphere on the hot side be blown away by heat or solar wind? Thus atmosphere from the whole planet would be depleted.
- jerf 7y ago
  Astronomers & cosmologists like to play games where they try to sketch out how a tidally-locked world might, just might, be inhabitable. I tend to think it's balancing on a pretty high-dimensional knife's edge on cosmological time scales; there's all sorts of directions that various resources can fall out of the habitable zone and not be able to come back. For a terrestrial example of the sort of thing I mean, see things like https://www.astrobio.net/biosphere/earths-breathable-atmosphere-tied-plate-tectonics/; https://www.astrobio.net/biosphere/earths-breathable-atmosph... it is thought that a lot of resources vital to life on Earth would have left the biosphere before life could even get going if Earth, or before the biosphere could progress very far, were not tectonically active. Trying to put together a habitable eyeball-planet seems like it has that problem to the tenth power to me.
LeifCarrotson 7y ago
Seems that it be more likely to produce habitable eyeball planets than habitable Earth-like rotating planets - an Earth that was 50 degrees warmer might only be habitable at the poles, while an Earth that was on average 50 degrees colder might be a frozen wasteland all the way the equator - not to mention that seasonal swings in climate for temperate latitudes further decrease your options. With an eyeball planet the acceptable distance from the star, heat flux, and other variables could produce a ring of acceptable climate even if the average global temperature was +/- 100C relative to Earth.
CWuestefeld 7y ago
The problem is that around the margins where it's "just right", you'll probably have mega-winds and stuff, too.

ses1984 7y ago

Even if the planet had a strong magnetosphere, wouldn't atmosphere on the hot side be blown away by heat or solar wind? Thus atmosphere from the whole planet would be depleted.

jerf 7y ago
Astronomers & cosmologists like to play games where they try to sketch out how a tidally-locked world might, just might, be inhabitable. I tend to think it's balancing on a pretty high-dimensional knife's edge on cosmological time scales; there's all sorts of directions that various resources can fall out of the habitable zone and not be able to come back. For a terrestrial example of the sort of thing I mean, see things like https://www.astrobio.net/biosphere/earths-breathable-atmosphere-tied-plate-tectonics/; https://www.astrobio.net/biosphere/earths-breathable-atmosph... it is thought that a lot of resources vital to life on Earth would have left the biosphere before life could even get going if Earth, or before the biosphere could progress very far, were not tectonically active. Trying to put together a habitable eyeball-planet seems like it has that problem to the tenth power to me.

LeifCarrotson 7y ago

Seems that it be more likely to produce habitable eyeball planets than habitable Earth-like rotating planets - an Earth that was 50 degrees warmer might only be habitable at the poles, while an Earth that was on average 50 degrees colder might be a frozen wasteland all the way the equator - not to mention that seasonal swings in climate for temperate latitudes further decrease your options. With an eyeball planet the acceptable distance from the star, heat flux, and other variables could produce a ring of acceptable climate even if the average global temperature was +/- 100C relative to Earth.

CWuestefeld 7y ago

The problem is that around the margins where it's "just right", you'll probably have mega-winds and stuff, too.