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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: 2) by takyon on Tuesday July 31 2018, @08:52PM (3 children)

    by takyon (881) <takyonNO@SPAMsoylentnews.org> on Tuesday July 31 2018, @08:52PM (#715387) Journal

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astronomy_in_the_medieval_Islamic_world [wikipedia.org]

    Islamic astronomy comprises the astronomical developments made in the Islamic world, particularly during the Islamic Golden Age (9th–13th centuries), and mostly written in the Arabic language. These developments mostly took place in the Middle East, Central Asia, Al-Andalus, and North Africa, and later in the Far East and India. It closely parallels the genesis of other Islamic sciences in its assimilation of foreign material and the amalgamation of the disparate elements of that material to create a science with Islamic characteristics. These included Greek, Sassanid, and Indian works in particular, which were translated and built upon.

    Islamic astronomy played a significant role in the revival of Byzantine and European astronomy following the loss of knowledge during the early medieval period, notably with the production of Latin translations of Arabic works during the 12th century. Islamic astronomy also had an influence on Chinese astronomy and Malian astronomy.

    A significant number of stars in the sky, such as Aldebaran, Altair and Deneb, and astronomical terms such as alidade, azimuth, and nadir, are still referred to by their Arabic names. A large corpus of literature from Islamic astronomy remains today, numbering approximately 10,000 manuscripts scattered throughout the world, many of which have not been read or catalogued. Even so, a reasonably accurate picture of Islamic activity in the field of astronomy can be reconstructed.

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  • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday August 01 2018, @12:34AM

    by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday August 01 2018, @12:34AM (#715461) Journal

    SN 1054 [wikipedia.org] recorded by Chinese and Arab astronomers, the European records are doubious. Fer eff's sake, 'twas visible for two years with the naked eye and for about 23 days was visible during daytime.

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  • (Score: 3, Touché) by Azuma Hazuki on Wednesday August 01 2018, @04:10AM

    by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Wednesday August 01 2018, @04:10AM (#715523) Journal

    VLM is either a permanent troll or has gone utterly, completely mad on race-hatred. And it's not too easy to distinguish the two, given how at least one actual honest-to-cheese neo-Nazi specifically said part of the strategy was to pretend to be pretending.

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  • (Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday August 01 2018, @01:26PM

    by VLM (445) on Wednesday August 01 2018, @01:26PM (#715650)

    Exactly my point. Pretty weak production for a centuries of empire.