"New Planets " Topic

Today in Nature:

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Some more news about the habitable zone of red dwarf suns

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I've never thought tidal locking rules out the possibility of a temperate zone on a planet orbiting a red dwarf. Certainly, assuming the presence of an atmosphere, you'd wind up with a region at some point between the two extremes that would be in a medium range as the atmospheric temperatures necessarily blended. Such a region would ring the planet from pole to pole as a broad band, perpendicular to the direction of the star. Within that band, I think temperatures would be quite stable, though what the climatic effects of the two inner and outer extremes would be on local weather I could not possibly guess.

Interesting but without SciFi style faster than light it will take a LONG time to get there.

We better build a wall around our solar system double-quick before those Trappists come to steal our jobs and brew strong ales!

Excellent news!

Amazing how much hope and optimism this engenders to a race that hasn't a hope of reaching these planets to even see if they are habitable for the next goodness known time into the future, yet the seas drown in plastic refuse, talk about myopic feel good. I include myself in this myopia sadly. I'm sure We all dream of catching the next Startrek ship off the planet and worrying about the adventure instead of the bills.

Well, without dreams we'd have no reason to clean up the environment in hopes that we'll survive long enough to be able to get there.

OY…someone just poked seven new holes in that black screen we see at night, that's all!

So are these seven planets all dwarf planets? If so, which one is named Sleepy?

Dan

I've never thought tidal locking rules out the possibility of a temperate zone on a planet orbiting a red dwarf.

And I always thought the opposite. (A glass half empty guy?)

Even with a temperate band running N to S on the planet, the extreme conditions facing the sun and facing away from the sun will intrude.

There is a good chance that there will be little water in the temperate zone. It'll be gaseous on the sun facing side and may be boiling off into space. Of course it is frozen on the other side. Most of the temperate zone water will be humidity, suspended in the air.

The Coriolis effect will be very high. Fierce winds (on a Jupiter scale) and heavy cloud cover are not conducive to life. It's doubtful that photosynthesis could occur. That's a big problem.

And don't forget the sun itself. Red dwarfs last so, so much longer than our Sun. That's good for the evolution of living things. But the red dwarfs have numerous solar flares that can sometimes double the output of their radiation. Never a good thing.

I'm not saying it's impossible. How could we know that? Life is a wonderful and surprising thing. If creatures did evolve in this environment, they would be extremely tough, and tenacious, with a "survive at all costs" outlook. I could see the aliens from the Aliens franchise coming from a Red Dwarf system. I'm guessing we would want nothing to do with them. Lol!

NASA is reconfiguring several of the decommissioned shuttles to pre-position stocks of drilling and mining equipment. Ford and the US Navy are working on a joint project to adapt the fleet of scrap Littoral ships to carry containers of diesel fuel and F150 pick-ups. Billy Beer has been relicensed and has hired an architectural firm to design portable brewery installations. McDonalds has gotten in on the deal with a new franchise called the Solar Arches.

I think each planet should be named after a franchise.

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Dan