Newfound Planet a Top Contender to Host Life
news.yahoo.com
Newfound Planet a Top Contender to Host Life
1–10 of 18 posts
Re: Newfound Planet a Top Contender to Host Life
#2Cool. 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?
Re: Newfound Planet a Top Contender to Host Life
#3Cool. 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?
>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.
Re: Newfound Planet a Top Contender to Host Life
#4Was the debate settled on whether or not this planet exists? [1].
[1] http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2011-01-31-goldilocks-plan...
Re: Newfound Planet a Top Contender to Host Life
#5Was the debate settled on whether or not this planet exists? [1]. [1] http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2011-01-31-goldilocks-plan...
That is about Gliese 581g, this article is about Gliese 163c. That is a different planet circling around a differnt star.
Re: Newfound Planet a Top Contender to Host Life
#6Cool. 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?
>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 l…
Yes! I agree. Here's a graph of the number of exoplanets discovered by year: http://exoplanet.eu/diagrams/?t=h&f=&x=discovered...
I consider it the most exciting graph I have ever seen.
Re: Newfound Planet a Top Contender to Host Life
#7Earlier quoted context omitted.
>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 l…
Yes! I agree. Here's a graph of the number of exoplanets discovered by year: http://exoplanet.eu/diagrams/?t=h&f=&x=discovered... I consider it the most exciting graph I have ever seen.
:)
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.
Re: Newfound Planet a Top Contender to Host Life
#8Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes! I agree. Here's a graph of the number of exoplanets discovered by year: http://exoplanet.eu/diagrams/?t=h&f=&x=discovered... I consider it the most exciting graph I have ever seen.
:) 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.
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.
Re: Newfound Planet a Top Contender to Host Life
#9I 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.
Re: Newfound Planet a Top Contender to Host Life
#10I 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…
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.