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Super-Earth Atmosphere May Be Mostly Water
Super-Earth Atmosphere May Be Mostly Water | Wired Science | Wired.com
"The first direct measurement of a super-Earth exoplanet's atmosphere finds the world is either shrouded in steam or covered in clouds. "This is the first probe of an atmosphere of a super-Earth planet," said exoplanet observer Jacob Bean of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, lead author of a paper describing the cloudy world in the Dec. 2 Nature. "It's a real big step in the direction of doing this kind of work for a planet that's potentially habitable." The planet, called GJ 1214b, is the smallest planet yet to have its atmosphere examined -- but it's just the latest in nearly a decade of probing exoplanet atmospheres. The others have all been gas giants." http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/20...2&viewall=true |
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Super-Earth Atmosphere May Be Mostly Water
On Dec 1, 3:35*pm, Yousuf Khan wrote:
Super-Earth Atmosphere May Be Mostly Water | Wired Science | Wired.com "The first direct measurement of a super-Earth exoplanet's atmosphere finds the world is either shrouded in steam or covered in clouds. "This is the first probe of an atmosphere of a super-Earth planet," said exoplanet observer Jacob Bean of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, lead author of a paper describing the cloudy world in the Dec. 2 Nature. "It's a real big step in the direction of doing this kind of work for a planet that's potentially habitable." The planet, called GJ 1214b, is the smallest planet yet to have its atmosphere examined -- but it's just the latest in nearly a decade of probing exoplanet atmospheres. The others have all been gas giants."http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/12/first-super-earth-atmospher... Red dwarfs are actually ideal solar system hosting stars, as long as they’re not too dwarf, and their planets not too gassy. Although being an Earth sized moon of a gas giant planet (say 10 Mj) that’s situated into orbiting a substantial red dwarf wouldn’t necessarily be such a bad thing. Exoplanet : GJ1214b (aka Super Earth) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GJ_1214_b This exo-Eden at 17,000 km radii is certainly a whole lot bigger than Earth, but packing much less average density and thereby offering a gravity that’s only slightly greater than Venus, though supposedly it’s not as hot, probably offers less dry land than Earth and best of all it’s only 42 ly from us and has a stable dwarf sun of .16 Ms. http://www.csmonitor.com/Science/201...iously-thought http://www.csmonitor.com/Science/201...t/%28page%29/2 “It's a cosmic embarrassment of riches – the universe appears to hold three times the number of stars many astronomers might have estimated only a year ago.” JWST (if it ever gets deployed and we’re not as a nation bankrupted or dead) should multiply that stellar accounting by at least another ten fold, plus accounting for the hundreds of billions worth of rogue items, of everything else including brown dwarfs and smaller that have to exist within our galaxy plus other galaxies and whatever’s in between. Even though of mostly red dwarfs that’ll be added to the cosmic inventory thus far, with JWST as such should easily exceed the supposed 80% missing mass, which makes for a cosmic collapse or recycle as nearly a certainty because, there’s simply enough mass and/ or cosmic density to insure that eventually it’ll happen (again and again). If those red dwarfs amount to roughly 60% of all other stellar, spent stars, molecular and planet mass, it’s going to be impressive once JWST gets an even better look-see, as well as including whatever is rogue between galaxies that’s just too cool or poorly illuminated for most instruments to detect. Brown dwarfs plus everything else that’s relatively cool and/or rogue plus stealth like neutron stars and black holes could easily amount to the other 20%. But then a few others and myself have been saying this all along. ~ BG |
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Super-Earth Atmosphere May Be Mostly Water
On 01/12/2010 8:49 PM, Brad Guth wrote:
Red dwarfs are actually ideal solar system hosting stars, as long as they’re not too dwarf, and their planets not too gassy. Although being an Earth sized moon of a gas giant planet (say 10 Mj) that’s situated into orbiting a substantial red dwarf wouldn’t necessarily be such a bad thing. I do think that a substantial moon orbiting a gas giant planet around a red dwarf would be the most practical way of getting life around a red dwarf. You wouldn't need an Earth sized moon, as the gas giant's magnetic field would provide most of the protection against solar winds. As we see in our own solar system, a Titan-sized moon could be sufficient for life. We might find solitary life-bearing planets like our own less common, but life-bearing moons around gas giants more common. All of the factors that made Earth ideal for bearing life are not there for all rocky worlds, one just has to look at Venus and Mars. Yousuf Khan |
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