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Super-Earths discovered orbiting nearby red dwarf
The nearest exoplanets to us provide the best opportunities for detailed study, including searching for evidence of life outside the Solar System. In research led by the University of Göttingen, the RedDots team of astronomers has detected a system of super-Earth planets orbiting the nearby star Gliese 887, the brightest red dwarf star in the sky. Super-Earths are planets which have a mass higher than the Earth's but substantially below those of our local ice giants, Uranus and Neptune. The newly discovered super-Earths lie close to the red dwarf's habitable zone, where water can exist in liquid form, and could be rocky worlds. The results were published in the journal Science.
[...] Gliese 887 is one of the closest stars to the Sun at around 11 light years away. It is much dimmer and about half the size of our Sun, which means that the habitable zone is closer to Gliese 887 than Earth's distance from the Sun. RedDots discovered two more interesting facts about Gliese 887, which turn out to be good news not only for the newly discovered planets but also for astronomers. The first is that the red dwarf has very few starspots, unlike our Sun. If Gliese 887 was as active as our Sun, it is likely that a strong stellar wind - outflowing material which can erode a planet's atmosphere - would simply sweep away the planets' atmospheres. This means that the newly discovered planets may retain their atmospheres, or have thicker atmospheres than the Earth, and potentially host life, even though GJ887 receives more light than the Earth. The other interesting feature the team discovered is that the brightness of Gliese 887 is almost constant. Therefore, it will be relatively easy to detect the atmospheres of the super-Earth system, making it a prime target for the James Webb Space Telescope, a successor to the Hubble Telescope.
Lacaille 9352 (GJ 887).
Also at BGR.
Journal Reference:
S. V. Jeffers, S. Dreizler, J. R. Barnes, et al. A multiplanet system of super-Earths orbiting the brightest red dwarf star GJ 887 [$], Science (DOI: 10.1126/science.aaz0795)
(Score: 3, Informative) by PartTimeZombie on Monday June 29 2020, @02:35AM (8 children)
I'm going to assume that's actually 70° c (not 700c) in which case bits of the planet might be almost habitable. Even at 70° life would be able to evolve, assuming there is actually an atmosphere of course.
Planets might be extremely common. It is kind of looking that way as we're finding them more regularly now.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Monday June 29 2020, @03:05AM (3 children)
Go? First there should be kilometer scale space telescopes to take a closer look and sort out the promising exoplanets from the garbage.
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(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Monday June 29 2020, @03:13AM (2 children)
Yeah, it's also 11 light years away so I wasn't really being serious.
I am however very serious about wanting human explorers travelling all around our own solar system.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Monday June 29 2020, @10:52AM (1 child)
https://earthsky.org/space/europa-ocean-habitable-goldschmidt-conference [earthsky.org]
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(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Monday June 29 2020, @08:45PM
Thanks. I would mod that +1 Interesting if I could.
Europa, Titan, Ganymede, and Io would all be great to visit.
(Score: 2) by looorg on Monday June 29 2020, @11:07AM (3 children)
Yes that sounds like a reasonable explanation to the typo cause I doubt a planet that had the surface temperature of 700C would be classified as 'earth-like' or be able to sustain life as we know it -- considering most things would either be molten, boiling or gas at that point.
Still I'm not sure I would even want to, or could, live on a planet where the temperature is around 70C. Everything would really have to be indoors with massive amounts of energy spent on cooling. Anything above the temperature of 40C is more of less a serious medical issue as far as humans are concerned.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Monday June 29 2020, @11:25AM (2 children)
Average on Earth is 15°C (59°F). Antarctica average ranges from about -10°C on the coast to -57°C inland.
It might mean you can get away with living in a polar region. Or more likely, the planet will be tidally locked to the red dwarf, so you pick a location on the far side. You might need thousands of kilometers of power lines if you want to use solar energy, or use solar satellites instead.
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(Score: 3, Interesting) by looorg on Monday June 29 2020, @11:42AM (1 child)
Naturally. If the 70C mention is the average, it probably is. So there will be places that are cooler, it would have to be a lot cooler tho but since it's the average there will then also be places that are even warmer. Question might be if there is a spot where it goes so low as say 20-30C which is like a good summer temperature bordering on to hot -- also then consider that there might be variations due to season. But it's livable. If it's just going down to say 40-50-60C then the only thing that will change is really the energy consumption for running all the AC units.
But it's not only about humans, it's also a matter of growing crops and they are just as sensitive as humans in that regards -- also they can't do much about it unlike humans when it comes to adjust. While the optimal temperature change from plant to plant a lot of them prefer something in the 20-25C range for optimal growth so you would most likely have to resort to indoor growing. One could probably breed strains that do better in higher temperatures.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Monday June 29 2020, @01:04PM
I don't know what temperatures would be like on the tidally locked dark side, but it could mean almost no seasonal variations. If temperatures are reasonable and the atmosphere and "soil" is compatible, maybe crops could be grown outside but with lamp towers stimulating photosynthesis. In any case, there should be extensive genetic engineering to optimize plants for the conditions of a particular zone of an exoplanet.
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