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| "Tens of billions" of habitable worlds in Milky Way | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Apr 9 2012, 10:19 AM (378 Views) | |
| Max | Apr 9 2012, 10:19 AM Post #1 |
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Pickle barrel, pickle barrel, Kumquat!
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LONDON (Reuters) - Astronomers hunting for rocky planets with the right temperature to support life estimate there may be tens of billions of them in our galaxy alone. A European team said on Wednesday that about 40 percent of red dwarf stars - the most common type in the Milky Way - have a so-called "super-Earth" planet orbiting in a habitable zone that would allow water to flow on the surface. Since there are around 160 billion red dwarfs in the Milky Way, the number of worlds that are potentially warm enough and wet enough to support life is enormous. Xavier Bonfils of the Institute of Planetology and Astrophysics in Grenoble, the leader of the team, said the 40 percent figure was at the high end of what had been expected and the finding underscored the prevalence of small rocky planets. His team is the first to calculate the number of super-Earths - planets with a mass between one and 10 times the Earth - in such habitable zones, although previous research has found the Milky Way to be awash with planets. Red dwarfs, which are faint and cool compared to the Sun, account for around 80 percent of the stars in the Milky Way. After studying 102 of these stars in the southern skies using a European Southern Observatory telescope in Chile, Bonfils and colleagues found rocky planets were far more common than massive gas giants like Jupiter and Saturn in our solar system. However, the rocky worlds spinning around red dwarfs are not necessarily cosy places for alien forms of life. Because reds dwarfs are much cooler than the sun, any planets with liquid water will need to be orbiting much closer to the star than the Earth is from the Sun. That may mean they are bathed in damaging X-ray and ultraviolet radiation. Scientists aim to take a closer look at some of the Earth-like planets as they pass in front of nearby red dwarfs, which should yield information about their atmospheres and help in the search for possible signs of life. The research was presented in a paper to be published in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics. SOURCE:YahooNews So, is Star Trek right about habitable, Earthlike planets? |
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| LarryOldtimer | Apr 10 2012, 02:36 PM Post #2 |
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The Man!!!
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Scientists here have found life to exist, yea to be teeming under the most dreadful of circumstances. There are fish in underwater caves in which the waters are so acidic with sulfuric acid that humans can't go there without effectively acid proof gear, yet the fish are teeming. Hydrothermal vents have strange creatures living . . . extremely hot with no sunlight at all http://oceantoday.noaa.gov/underwatervolcanoes/welcome.html Not too long ago, scientists studying the ocean made a fascinating discovery that has helped us better understand our planet Earth. Down in the deep and dark waters, they found hot springs on the ocean floor releasing warm and mineral-rich fluids - these are called hydrothermal vents. Hydrothermal vents are often associated with undersea volcanoes. This is because the vents are created and sustained by the heat of volcanic activity at tectonic plate boundaries, found throughout the globe. At these locations, seawater seeps through cracks in the seafloor and is heated by molten rock. This causes chemical reactions between the two, and the altered seawater becomes hydrothermal fluid. This hot fluid then jets back into the ocean, forming a hydrothermal vent. Despite the seemingly harsh volcanic environment, these vents are actually home to a variety of life. Microbes, such as bacteria and archaea, live here - harvesting chemical energy from the hydrothermal fluid. These microbes form the base of a unique foodchain that includes tubeworms, shrimp, and even crabs that live in communities around the vents. (more] |
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2:22 AM Jul 11