Hard Light Productions Forums
Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: headdie on December 16, 2009, 05:20:36 pm
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take a look at this article
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/18/20091216/tsc-scientists-discover-earth-like-water-c2ff8aa.html
i think it might need a little transforming though first but at least its close in distance and it is relatively viable
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42 lightyears isn't what I would consider to be close. :/
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"A little bit of work". Try "Impossible".
Its temperature is estimated at between 280 and 120 degrees Celsius (536 and 248 degrees Fahrenheit) with its host star about one-fifth the size of the Sun, according to the scientists.
That, right there, basically means that you need sufficiently advanced technology (As in "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic") to terraform it. Not to mention that 42 Ly is one hell of a long distance to go without FTL or a good way to get to c-fractional speeds without killing yourself in the process.
I refer you to this (http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2007/06/the_high_frontier_redux.html) and this (http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2009/10/how_habitable_is_the_earth.html#comments) for reference.
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42 lightyears isn't what I would consider to be close. :/
In relative terms it is.
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42 lightyears isn't what I would consider to be close. :/
In relative terms it is.
It's a good thing we're speaking relatively, then.
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If it's a waterworld with an average temperature of 120', then either there are massive variances in temperature or pretty high levels of pressure, I would have thought?
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If it's a waterworld with an average temperature of 120', then either there are massive variances in temperature or pretty high levels of pressure, I would have thought?
2.7 times the size I'm guessing around 2 - 3 gravities any one know how that will effect evaporation but i bet it increases something silly
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If it's a waterworld with an average temperature of 120', then either there are massive variances in temperature or pretty high levels of pressure, I would have thought?
2.7 times the size I'm guessing around 2 - 3 gravities any one know how that will effect evaporation but i bet it increases something silly
Yup, thinking about it, the increase in Gravity would increase the pressure that surface materials were on, and since greater density of structure makes a substance harder to melt or boil, that would have exactly the same effect.
We're probably talking a world of swamps, at a guesstimate.
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If it's a waterworld with an average temperature of 120', then either there are massive variances in temperature or pretty high levels of pressure, I would have thought?
Mmmhmm, according to the article: Berta said some of the water would likely be in crystalline form that exists at pressures greater than 20,000 times Earth's sea-level atmosphere. ... The CoRoT-7b has a density close to that of the Earth (5.5 grammes per cubic centimetre) and seems to be rocky, while the new discovery appears to be much less dense (1.9 g/cm3).
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"To keep the planet's density that low requires that it contains large amounts of water," said Marcy. "It must contain a huge amount of water, roughly 50 percent by mass."
Sounds like there's probably not an actual liquid surface here, but rather a solid surface composed of (mostly) water ice. All in all definitely not anywhere near a habitable world though, probably similar to Venus except with water instead of CO2 and silicates.
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Ahhh.. gotcha. They're probably talking about a tectonically dormant planet as well in that case, yeah, doesn't sound all that hospitable to be honest.
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On the other hand, I'd point out the good news from this article, which is that we're still getting closer and closer to finding truely habitable worlds.
The detection of water, in any form, is of major importance, as well as reducing the lower limit of planet size that we can detect. The final step would be characterizing the atmosphere itself, as the presence of life on the surface should alter the atmospheric chemistry in a noticible way.
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youd have better luck terraforming saturn. youd have to live on really large blimps but it could be done.
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youd have better luck terraforming saturn. youd have to live on really large blimps but it could be done.
I hear tibanna gas mining is extremely profitable.