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the entire system lies within one Earth orbit Perhaps little chance of life as we know it.

• deletes 13y ago
  Moons orbiting the outermost gas giant could support earth like life.
  • tg3 13y ago
    Although if the gas giant is anything like Jupiter those moons are probably getting smothered in radiation that is dangerous to Earth-like life.
    • InclinedPlane 13y ago
      Jupiter is a special case. Due to orbital resonances with the galilean moons the inner moon of Io experiences extreme tidal heating, which results in extensive vulcanism (Io's surface is the youngest in the solar system because of this). This creates a sulfur dioxide atmosphere around the moon which gets stripped off by Jupiter's strong magnetic field after which it eventually gets turned into plasma and forms the inner radiation belts around Jupiter. Without those things happening the radiation environment would be far lower. Saturn, for example, has much milder radiation levels. Also, life tends to evolve to tolerate whatever level of natural radiation background exists. Most, but not all, life from Earth would have trouble with the radiation levels near Jupiter but life that originated on a moon around a gas giant would probably be fine. If anyone wants an idea for a scifi story posit a technological species arising on a planet that experiences significant levels of background radiation. Such a species would be able to more easily tolerate working with radioactive materials, as would their ecosystem. For example, something like the Chernobyl accident may not even be a serious problem for them, since every organism would be able to tolerate radiation exposure. They might be able to operate fission reactors without much shielding. And they might be able to tolerate the radiation exposure of interplanetary space without needing any special shielding at all.
• PhasmaFelis 13y ago
  Not necessarily, if the star is smaller and cooler than ours.
  • jswhitten 13y ago
    It's not, it's slightly larger and more massive than the Sun. Only the outermost planet is within the habitable zone, but it's a gas giant.
• johndoze 13y ago
  This is entirely dependent on the luminosity of the star. The intensity of the light diminishes according to an inverse-square rule and is dependent on the star's temperature and diameter.
• robertfw 13y ago
  Emphasis on "as we know it". With the wild diversity of living conditions we have found just here on Earth, I hope that we find an equally diverse array of life Out There, spanning a wide variety of conditions that we considered too hostile.
• spiritplumber 13y ago
  Seven planets, and it fits into one Earth orbit? Hey, it's Kerbin!