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Time to Redefine the "Habitable Zone"?

posted by chromas on Tuesday July 31 2018, @04:53PM   Printer-friendly

takyon writes:

With All These New Planets Found in the Habitable Zone, Maybe it's Time to Fine Tune the Habitable Zone

In the past few decades, thousands of extra-solar planets have been discovered within our galaxy. As of July 28th, 2018, a total of 3,374 extra-solar planets have been confirmed in 2,814 planetary systems. While the majority of these planets have been gas giants, an increasing number have been terrestrial (i.e. rocky) in nature and were found to be orbiting within their stars' respective habitable zones (HZ).

However, as the case of the Solar System shows, HZs do not necessary mean a planet can support life. Even though Mars and Venus are at the inner and the outer edge of the Sun's HZ (respectively), neither is capable of supporting life on its surface. And with more potentially-habitable planets being discovered all the time, a new study suggests that it might be time to refine our definition of habitable zones.

Welcome to the Inhospitable Zone.

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  • (Score: 1, Redundant) by khallow on Tuesday July 31 2018, @07:28PM (2 children)

    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday July 31 2018, @07:28PM (#715350) Journal
    If you're "fine tuning" a wild-assed guess, you're doing it wrong.

    However, as the case of the Solar System shows, HZs do not necessary mean a planet can support life. Even though Mars and Venus are at the inner and the outer edge of the Sun's HZ (respectively), neither is capable of supporting life on its surface.

    No one ever advertised being in a HZ as a sufficient condition for supporting life. It's not a thing.

    It's like lecturing auto mechanics on how to change oil. They probably already have it figured out.

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  • (Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Tuesday July 31 2018, @07:40PM

    by tangomargarine (667) on Tuesday July 31 2018, @07:40PM (#715356)

    "Habitable zone" as in "planets in this zone might be habitable", yeah.

    Sounds like this is another case of "we subjectively have too many planets in the solar system, so let's get rid of some of them." YMMV, for some values of "too many."

    --
    "Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"

  • (Score: 2) by FatPhil on Thursday August 02 2018, @06:48AM

    by FatPhil (863) <reversethis-{if.fdsa} {ta} {tnelyos-cp}> on Thursday August 02 2018, @06:48AM (#716094) Homepage
    I read your post in this voice: http://images2.fanpop.com/images/photos/7400000/Old-Man-Yells-At-Cloud-the-simpsons-7414384-265-199.gif
    --
    Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves