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Topic: New planet that might support life (Read 2966 times)
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Alvarin
Enlightened
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There is that Drake equation predicting just that, and even if the new-found planet does bare life, communicating is still impossible, so other than just curio there is no real use for the info...
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RTyp06
*Smell* controller
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Posts: 491
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The Gliese system is a red dwarf star that is much cooler than our star. So the new planet has an orbit closer to it's star than mercury does in our system to be within the goldilocks zone. The planet is thought to be tidally locked so that one side is permanent day and the other side permanent night. This means life as we know it probably only lives in a narrow band at the day/night terminator if it indeed exists there at all. Keep in mind that Mars and Venus are thought to be inside our star's habitable zone and so far no signs of life on either of those planets. Evidence that liquid water requires some pretty special conditions.
Now if this planet has a large moon, that could shake things up a bit.
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RTyp06
*Smell* controller
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Posts: 491
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Although I'm unaware of any offical findings of microbes on Mars, I think they're most likely thriving there somwhere. I have little doubt that microbes are living on other planets here in our solar system or on planets in other solar sytems. I think life is abundant and that's just the nature of the universe .
A big deal is made of how insignificant humans are and what a microscopic amount of time we humans have been around, however, life here on Earth is thought to have been around shortly after the formation of the Earth nearly six billion years ago. If the universe is indeed 13 to 14 billion years old, that's a significant amount of time for the existance of life. In fact it may have been around since the beginning of the universe.
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« Last Edit: October 07, 2010, 08:54:58 am by RTyp06 »
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RTyp06
*Smell* controller
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oops I said 6 billion, actually less than 5 billion but the point still stands.
I recently watched this PBS Nova video. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=toRIkRa1fYU
If the claims in the video are true it throws a completely new wrinkle of complexity into biology.
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