7 ms·

Newfound Planet a Top Contender to Host Life

31 points by vinny2020 14y ago

JoeAltmaier 14y ago
Cool. Strange they show an 'enlarged photo' of it. Also strange to say 'Alien' every time they say 'planet'. What else could it be - a planet right here on Earth?
- jere 14y ago
  >Also strange to say 'Alien' every time they say 'planet'. What else could it be - a planet right here on Earth? To be fair, it could simply mean an exoplanet, a planet outside of our solar system. I suppose "alien planet" is more intuitive than "exoplanet." We've grown quite accustomed to the planets in our backyard, so I think the word alien is quite evocative here. I was born about 2 decades after the first moon landing, but the first confirmed exoplanets weren't discovered until my lifetime. That's pretty fricking amazing to me.
  - cryptoz 14y ago
    Yes! I agree. Here's a graph of the number of exoplanets discovered by year: http://exoplanet.eu/diagrams/?t=h&f=&x=discovered&xmin=&xmax=&y=raw&ymin=&ymax= http://exoplanet.eu/diagrams/?t=h&f=&x=discovered&#3... I consider it the most exciting graph I have ever seen.
    - jere 14y ago
      :) Somewhat related, it's frustrating when I read about the history of computer science and am blown away that many of the best algorithms/languages we have today were developed 40-60 years ago. It's always nice to be reminded that there are unsolved problems and unlocked mysteries.
      - derekp7 14y ago
        And yet we have continuously greater numbers of software patents filed every year. So obviously innovation is happening -- right? After all, Bubble sort was good, but Bubble sort on a web enabled device with rounded corners is defiantly the cat's meow.
ChuckMcM 14y ago
Was the debate settled on whether or not this planet exists? [1]. [1] http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2011-01-31-goldilocks-planet_N.htm http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2011-01-31-goldilocks-plan...
- fhars 14y ago
  That is about Gliese 581g, this article is about Gliese 163c. That is a different planet circling around a differnt star.
TheSOB88 14y ago
I find it strange how the writers assume only Earth-like life would evolve on another planet. They speak in terms of bacteria, plants, animals... It doesn't make any sense to me. Out of the 3.5 billion years that the planet has sustained life, animals (first sponges, then cnidaria, etc.) have only been around for 630 million. Evolution didn't happen according to some goal; organisms evolved to suit their habitats. So saying that plants/animals wouldn't exist on a planet significantly hotter than ours is really strange to say - they'd have no -reason- to. Because the evolutionary tree on that planet would be completely different from ours, the organisms' forms and internal structures will be very different in many ways. The same things won't have happened in their evolutionary history. And of course, life would be adapted to the planet itself. You might say, "Enzymes don't function at those temperatures." Well, the life on hotter planets will have evolved to use different enzymes that -do- work at those temperatures.
- chc 14y ago
  That's because it is the only hypothesis that the evidence available to us can support. It may eventually turn out not to be right, but it's more wrong to claim something else based on the evidence we have right now. Similarly, it might turn out that our understanding of electricity is wrong and it's really faeries playing tricks on us. But we have no evidence of faeries, so that is not a good explanation of electromagnetism.
- jhuckestein 14y ago
  While this might be true, it's still interesting to look at planets that WE could inhabit, after having evolved on earth.
- mbell 14y ago
  The main reason for the temperature constraint isn't actually temperature but rather the presence of liquid water. We currently know of no life form that can exist without it. I believe the 'goldilocks zone' is more specific in that its looking for liquid water on the surface. There could be liquid water underground in bodies well outside the goldilocks zone and there are some indications that this is true of some moons in our own solar system. 'Planet temperature' doesn't completely rule out the possibility of life. Venus for example is hot as hell on the surface but there is actually a band of the atmosphere which humans could hangout unprotected in, its breathable, the pressure is about what it is on Earth, etc. There have been some attempts to send a probe to hang out there and look for bacterial life but I don't think any have been funded.
6ren 14y ago
It's x7 earth mass. The reason we've only discovering huge planets is because that's all our equipment can detect, so far (by wobbling/obscuring their sun). For our solar system, only Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune and Uranus would be massive enough to detect.

31 points by vinny2020 14y ago

Cool. Strange they show an 'enlarged photo' of it. Also strange to say 'Alien' every time they say 'planet'. What else could it be - a planet right here on Earth?

jere 14y ago
>Also strange to say 'Alien' every time they say 'planet'. What else could it be - a planet right here on Earth? To be fair, it could simply mean an exoplanet, a planet outside of our solar system. I suppose "alien planet" is more intuitive than "exoplanet." We've grown quite accustomed to the planets in our backyard, so I think the word alien is quite evocative here. I was born about 2 decades after the first moon landing, but the first confirmed exoplanets weren't discovered until my lifetime. That's pretty fricking amazing to me.
- cryptoz 14y ago
  Yes! I agree. Here's a graph of the number of exoplanets discovered by year: http://exoplanet.eu/diagrams/?t=h&f=&x=discovered&xmin=&xmax=&y=raw&ymin=&ymax= http://exoplanet.eu/diagrams/?t=h&f=&x=discovered&#3... I consider it the most exciting graph I have ever seen.
  - jere 14y ago
    :) Somewhat related, it's frustrating when I read about the history of computer science and am blown away that many of the best algorithms/languages we have today were developed 40-60 years ago. It's always nice to be reminded that there are unsolved problems and unlocked mysteries.
    - derekp7 14y ago
      And yet we have continuously greater numbers of software patents filed every year. So obviously innovation is happening -- right? After all, Bubble sort was good, but Bubble sort on a web enabled device with rounded corners is defiantly the cat's meow.

ChuckMcM 14y ago

Was the debate settled on whether or not this planet exists? [1]. [1] http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2011-01-31-goldilocks-planet_N.htm http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2011-01-31-goldilocks-plan...

fhars 14y ago
That is about Gliese 581g, this article is about Gliese 163c. That is a different planet circling around a differnt star.

TheSOB88 14y ago

I find it strange how the writers assume only Earth-like life would evolve on another planet. They speak in terms of bacteria, plants, animals... It doesn't make any sense to me. Out of the 3.5 billion years that the planet has sustained life, animals (first sponges, then cnidaria, etc.) have only been around for 630 million. Evolution didn't happen according to some goal; organisms evolved to suit their habitats. So saying that plants/animals wouldn't exist on a planet significantly hotter than ours is really strange to say - they'd have no -reason- to. Because the evolutionary tree on that planet would be completely different from ours, the organisms' forms and internal structures will be very different in many ways. The same things won't have happened in their evolutionary history. And of course, life would be adapted to the planet itself. You might say, "Enzymes don't function at those temperatures." Well, the life on hotter planets will have evolved to use different enzymes that -do- work at those temperatures.

chc 14y ago
That's because it is the only hypothesis that the evidence available to us can support. It may eventually turn out not to be right, but it's more wrong to claim something else based on the evidence we have right now. Similarly, it might turn out that our understanding of electricity is wrong and it's really faeries playing tricks on us. But we have no evidence of faeries, so that is not a good explanation of electromagnetism.
jhuckestein 14y ago
While this might be true, it's still interesting to look at planets that WE could inhabit, after having evolved on earth.
mbell 14y ago
The main reason for the temperature constraint isn't actually temperature but rather the presence of liquid water. We currently know of no life form that can exist without it. I believe the 'goldilocks zone' is more specific in that its looking for liquid water on the surface. There could be liquid water underground in bodies well outside the goldilocks zone and there are some indications that this is true of some moons in our own solar system. 'Planet temperature' doesn't completely rule out the possibility of life. Venus for example is hot as hell on the surface but there is actually a band of the atmosphere which humans could hangout unprotected in, its breathable, the pressure is about what it is on Earth, etc. There have been some attempts to send a probe to hang out there and look for bacterial life but I don't think any have been funded.

6ren 14y ago

It's x7 earth mass. The reason we've only discovering huge planets is because that's all our equipment can detect, so far (by wobbling/obscuring their sun). For our solar system, only Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune and Uranus would be massive enough to detect.