The Moons of Some Giant Alien Planets Could Host Life
Researchers have identified more than 100 giant exoplanets that may have potentially life-hosting moons. The new analysis could change the way scientists search for life in the cosmos, study team members said. That search has generally focused on places more or less like Earth — rocky planets in the "habitable zone" of their host star, that just-right range of distances where liquid water could exist on a world's surface. Jupiter-like planets don't seem like good candidates in this regard, because they have no discernible surface. But the rocky moons of such gas giants may be a different story, study team members said.
Also at University of California, Riverside.
Exploring Kepler Giant Planets in the Habitable Zone (arXiv:1805.03370)
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday June 06 2018, @01:56PM (2 children)
Will life-bearing moons have evolved intelligence?
Will they be smart enough to guide their public policy based on FoxNews and bribery rather than upon science -- even if it is bad news?
People today are educated enough to repeat what they are taught but not to question what they are taught.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Wednesday June 06 2018, @03:15PM (1 child)
Jingoism could be nearly universally selected among life forms that band together and eat other life forms.
The antimatter missiles could already be en route to Earth.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday June 06 2018, @03:41PM
Both could be true.
On the first, whenever you have life forms that eat other life forms, you're going to get tribes. Cliques. In any tribe there will be those specialized as hunters. Others as fighters. Others as doctors. Software developers, etc.
Once the Warrior Caste dominates the Gray Council, subjugating the worker caste and religious caste, there will be problems.
It is scary to watch the extremes of policy ideas (and candidates) now that a lot of people are afraid of having non white neighbors. They simply cannot accept it as a fact of life.
If any antimatter missiles are already en route, we probably cannot detect them.
People today are educated enough to repeat what they are taught but not to question what they are taught.