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I suppose one cannot expect anything better from a site called singularity hub, but this post is disingenuous (or written by an actual hack) for multiple reason

I suppose one cannot expect anything better from a site called singularity hub, but this post is disingenuous (or written by an actual hack) for multiple reasons. Aren’t the majority of planets we are discovering all orbiting red dwarfs, which can exhibit massive swings in luminosity and be very violent? Even the example quoted by the author which such a short radius seems one of them. Also what do you do in a tidally locked planet? Half if not 90 % of it is likely to be unsustainable. Also a rogue planet without a star might be able to sustain simple life but without human sources of nuclear power the only source of energy would be geothermal, so not exactly exciting candidates for living. Also who wants to live in a planet in perpetual darkness? Either the “astronomer” author wasn’t a real astronomer at all or this is just clickbait.

dhruval 4y ago
Sorry for in advance for the dumb question... Are red dwarf planets over represented due to detection methods? Or is there some sort of astrophysics related reason red dwarfs would be more likely to have super earth class planets in orbit? Basically should we hold out hope that with better detection techniques we will be able to detect more planets that are similar to our own.
- ramraj07 4y ago
  My understanding is it’s a combination of both - red dwarfs are the most numerous and super earths are the most easiest to detect with them (smaller star, larger the effect of the planet on its characteristics and luminosity). I am also convinced we will find planets better suited for us than earth eventually. But I doubt any of them would be in any meaningful close distance. Even if you can imagine a 100 year or 500 year ship (like in Expanse) that can get to a planet 10 LYs away, imagine if it’s 100 or more. We might be SOL.
  - bagels 4y ago
    Better suited in what way? Humans are pretty well adapted to Earth specifically.
    - midoridensha 4y ago
      Humans are well adapted to the Earth of thousands of years ago, up until the 1800s or so. The Earth of the future, not so much.
      - Thiez 4y ago
        Sure, depending on how far you want to go into the future, eventually the sun will grow so bright that all our water will boil away... but barring a catastrophe that destroys (almost) all life (nearby supernova, collision with a large space rock, ...) I'm pretty sure that earth will remain more hospitable to human life for tens of thousands of years than any planet we will find.
      - SamPatt 4y ago
        The rapid expansion of human population since 1800 challenges this claim. We don't need an ideal climate to flourish. That's part of our species' strength: our remarkable ability to adapt.
        midoridensha 4y ago
        Humans aren't going to be able to adapt to an irradiated wasteland.
    - ramraj07 4y ago
      More space? Less extreme weather? Lots of accessible mining? Etc
mod 4y ago
If you're calling out the claim in the article, I'd just provide some counter-evidence. But no, they specifically said most of them are not orbiting red dwarfs: > Most super-Earths orbit cool dwarf stars, which are lower in mass and live much longer than the sun.
- ramraj07 4y ago
  What exactly is a cool dwarf? Doesn’t seem to be a real category - there seems to be one called ultra cool dwarves which is a subtype of red dwarf stars including TRAPPIST-1. Doesn’t exclude the tidal locking problem, but can’t confirm if they are more immune to solar variability and storms. Also apparently the planets will never be brighter than sunset in earth. The author could have at least mention some of the potential problems. I stand by calling this article disingenuous. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRAPPIST-1 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRAPPIST-1
- wahern 4y ago
  > they specifically said most of them are not orbiting red dwarfs: The statement, "scientists have found super-Earths orbiting 40 percent of cool dwarfs", specifically links to an article discussing red dwarfs: http://www.inaf.it/en/inaf-news/billions-of-rocky-planets-in-the-habitable-zones-around-red-dwarfs http://www.inaf.it/en/inaf-news/billions-of-rocky-planets-in... That article quotes the author of an ESO HARPS planetary survey paper: “[o]ur new observations with HARPS mean that about 40% of all red dwarf stars have a super-Earth orbiting in the habitable zone where liquid water can exist on the surface of the planet". Cool dwarfs seems to be a direct reference to red dwarfs.
jabbany 4y ago
> Also who wants to live in a planet in perpetual darkness? I'd guess in that case people would be living underground in artificially lit environments... This idea has already been explored by sci-fi. One instance that comes to mind is Wandering Earth where the premise is that people turned the Earth into a planet scale space vessel to escape the sun's expansion and "rehome" the Earth. I'd suggest reading the book rather than watching the movie based on it though.
sbuttgereit 4y ago
"Chris Impey is a University Distinguished Professor of Astronomy at the University of Arizona. He has over 210 refereed publications on observational cosmology, galaxies, and quasars, and his research has been supported by $20 million in NASA and NSF grants. He has won eleven teaching awards and has taught two online classes with over 300,000 enrolled and 4 million minutes of video lectures watched. Chris Impey is a past Vice President of the American Astronomical Society, and he has won its Education Prize. He’s also been an NSF Distinguished Teaching Scholar, Carnegie Council’s Arizona Professor of the Year, and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Professor. He has written 70 popular articles on cosmology, astrobiology and education, two textbooks, a novel called Shadow World, and eight popular science books: The Living Cosmos, How It Ends, Talking About Life, How It Began, Dreams of Other Worlds, Humble Before the Void, Beyond: The Future of Space Travel, and Einstein’s Monsters: The Life and Times of Black Holes." -- https://www.as.arizona.edu/people/faculty/chris-impey https://www.as.arizona.edu/people/faculty/chris-impey Naturally, none of this makes him right... I have no judgement on that point. But does clear some of the ad hominem.
- ramraj07 4y ago
  Which is more ad hominem - I only judged the author by what they wrote. Pointing out they’re a professor sounds more like we need to trust them because of who they are. one could say his career depends on selling this idea that these exoplanets are awesome sauce. Maybe it’s even worse?
  - pc86 4y ago
    I imagine in career depends much more on his peer-reviewed publications and teaching (almost certainly in that order) than on this blog post or one of his presumably many theories. > Either the “astronomer” author wasn’t a real astronomer at all or this is just clickbait. Well it turns out he is a real astronomer, and doesn't appear to be a "hack" either as you also said he was.
    - ramraj07 4y ago
      So he is an astronomer, thus just merely disengenous. I suppose that’s more comforting to you?
njarboe 4y ago
The sentence: "If a super-Earth is ejected from its star system and has a dense atmosphere and watery surface, it could sustain life for tens of billions of years, far longer than life on Earth could persist before the sun dies." is wrong according to the article it references in support. See this comment for details[1]. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32948054 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32948054
- denton-scratch 4y ago
  Yeah, either you orbit at a safe distance, or you get ejected and become a rogue planet. I'm rather taken with this idea of billions of rogue planets, wandering around the Milky Way, carrying life that's billions of years old. Such a rogue might get captured by a star-system's Oort cloud, gradually drift towards the star, and eventully evince more complicated life. In fact I'm not aware of strong evidence that Earth isn't a rogue (it's about the same age as the Sun, but that's circumstantial, right?)
saiya-jin 4y ago
Also I would expect the amount of cosmic radiation bombarding the surface outside of star's envelope would be significant. We on Earth are extremely lucky that we have molten metallic rotating core (possibly done by collision with another planet/moon very long time ago, not 100% sure here), but that's not the default for planets. So yes life can be probably only sub-surface one, but that's generally a tough proposition living off what... geothermal vents and volcanic activity? That's hardly a recipe for anything advanced, regardless of time given to evolve.
- rbanffy 4y ago
  Well… Suitable for life is not synonymous with convenient for humans. For one, a super Earth makes space exploration much harder - Earth itself is very hard to leave with chemical rockets alone.

dhruval 4y ago

Sorry for in advance for the dumb question... Are red dwarf planets over represented due to detection methods? Or is there some sort of astrophysics related reason red dwarfs would be more likely to have super earth class planets in orbit? Basically should we hold out hope that with better detection techniques we will be able to detect more planets that are similar to our own.

ramraj07 4y ago
My understanding is it’s a combination of both - red dwarfs are the most numerous and super earths are the most easiest to detect with them (smaller star, larger the effect of the planet on its characteristics and luminosity). I am also convinced we will find planets better suited for us than earth eventually. But I doubt any of them would be in any meaningful close distance. Even if you can imagine a 100 year or 500 year ship (like in Expanse) that can get to a planet 10 LYs away, imagine if it’s 100 or more. We might be SOL.
- bagels 4y ago
  Better suited in what way? Humans are pretty well adapted to Earth specifically.
  - midoridensha 4y ago
    Humans are well adapted to the Earth of thousands of years ago, up until the 1800s or so. The Earth of the future, not so much.
    - Thiez 4y ago
      Sure, depending on how far you want to go into the future, eventually the sun will grow so bright that all our water will boil away... but barring a catastrophe that destroys (almost) all life (nearby supernova, collision with a large space rock, ...) I'm pretty sure that earth will remain more hospitable to human life for tens of thousands of years than any planet we will find.
    - SamPatt 4y ago
      The rapid expansion of human population since 1800 challenges this claim. We don't need an ideal climate to flourish. That's part of our species' strength: our remarkable ability to adapt.
      - midoridensha 4y ago
        Humans aren't going to be able to adapt to an irradiated wasteland.
  - ramraj07 4y ago
    More space? Less extreme weather? Lots of accessible mining? Etc

mod 4y ago

If you're calling out the claim in the article, I'd just provide some counter-evidence. But no, they specifically said most of them are not orbiting red dwarfs: > Most super-Earths orbit cool dwarf stars, which are lower in mass and live much longer than the sun.

ramraj07 4y ago
What exactly is a cool dwarf? Doesn’t seem to be a real category - there seems to be one called ultra cool dwarves which is a subtype of red dwarf stars including TRAPPIST-1. Doesn’t exclude the tidal locking problem, but can’t confirm if they are more immune to solar variability and storms. Also apparently the planets will never be brighter than sunset in earth. The author could have at least mention some of the potential problems. I stand by calling this article disingenuous. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRAPPIST-1 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRAPPIST-1
wahern 4y ago
> they specifically said most of them are not orbiting red dwarfs: The statement, "scientists have found super-Earths orbiting 40 percent of cool dwarfs", specifically links to an article discussing red dwarfs: http://www.inaf.it/en/inaf-news/billions-of-rocky-planets-in-the-habitable-zones-around-red-dwarfs http://www.inaf.it/en/inaf-news/billions-of-rocky-planets-in... That article quotes the author of an ESO HARPS planetary survey paper: “[o]ur new observations with HARPS mean that about 40% of all red dwarf stars have a super-Earth orbiting in the habitable zone where liquid water can exist on the surface of the planet". Cool dwarfs seems to be a direct reference to red dwarfs.

jabbany 4y ago

> Also who wants to live in a planet in perpetual darkness? I'd guess in that case people would be living underground in artificially lit environments... This idea has already been explored by sci-fi. One instance that comes to mind is Wandering Earth where the premise is that people turned the Earth into a planet scale space vessel to escape the sun's expansion and "rehome" the Earth. I'd suggest reading the book rather than watching the movie based on it though.

sbuttgereit 4y ago

"Chris Impey is a University Distinguished Professor of Astronomy at the University of Arizona. He has over 210 refereed publications on observational cosmology, galaxies, and quasars, and his research has been supported by $20 million in NASA and NSF grants. He has won eleven teaching awards and has taught two online classes with over 300,000 enrolled and 4 million minutes of video lectures watched. Chris Impey is a past Vice President of the American Astronomical Society, and he has won its Education Prize. He’s also been an NSF Distinguished Teaching Scholar, Carnegie Council’s Arizona Professor of the Year, and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Professor. He has written 70 popular articles on cosmology, astrobiology and education, two textbooks, a novel called Shadow World, and eight popular science books: The Living Cosmos, How It Ends, Talking About Life, How It Began, Dreams of Other Worlds, Humble Before the Void, Beyond: The Future of Space Travel, and Einstein’s Monsters: The Life and Times of Black Holes." -- https://www.as.arizona.edu/people/faculty/chris-impey https://www.as.arizona.edu/people/faculty/chris-impey Naturally, none of this makes him right... I have no judgement on that point. But does clear some of the ad hominem.

ramraj07 4y ago
Which is more ad hominem - I only judged the author by what they wrote. Pointing out they’re a professor sounds more like we need to trust them because of who they are. one could say his career depends on selling this idea that these exoplanets are awesome sauce. Maybe it’s even worse?
- pc86 4y ago
  I imagine in career depends much more on his peer-reviewed publications and teaching (almost certainly in that order) than on this blog post or one of his presumably many theories. > Either the “astronomer” author wasn’t a real astronomer at all or this is just clickbait. Well it turns out he is a real astronomer, and doesn't appear to be a "hack" either as you also said he was.
  - ramraj07 4y ago
    So he is an astronomer, thus just merely disengenous. I suppose that’s more comforting to you?

njarboe 4y ago

The sentence: "If a super-Earth is ejected from its star system and has a dense atmosphere and watery surface, it could sustain life for tens of billions of years, far longer than life on Earth could persist before the sun dies." is wrong according to the article it references in support. See this comment for details[1]. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32948054 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32948054

denton-scratch 4y ago
Yeah, either you orbit at a safe distance, or you get ejected and become a rogue planet. I'm rather taken with this idea of billions of rogue planets, wandering around the Milky Way, carrying life that's billions of years old. Such a rogue might get captured by a star-system's Oort cloud, gradually drift towards the star, and eventully evince more complicated life. In fact I'm not aware of strong evidence that Earth isn't a rogue (it's about the same age as the Sun, but that's circumstantial, right?)

saiya-jin 4y ago

Also I would expect the amount of cosmic radiation bombarding the surface outside of star's envelope would be significant. We on Earth are extremely lucky that we have molten metallic rotating core (possibly done by collision with another planet/moon very long time ago, not 100% sure here), but that's not the default for planets. So yes life can be probably only sub-surface one, but that's generally a tough proposition living off what... geothermal vents and volcanic activity? That's hardly a recipe for anything advanced, regardless of time given to evolve.

rbanffy 4y ago
Well… Suitable for life is not synonymous with convenient for humans. For one, a super Earth makes space exploration much harder - Earth itself is very hard to leave with chemical rockets alone.