Wednesday, September 29, 2010
Habitable planet
Gliese 581g, a planet around a red dwarf star about 20 light years away, appears to be in the habitable zone around its star. The planet itself isn't necessarily habitable--it's probably tidally locked, which means that one side is always facing its sun (and thus hotter) and the other facing away (and may be frozen). There may be an area between the Hot side and the Cold side which is actually habitable; there may not. But right now we live in places as diverse as the Arctic, the Amazon, the Gobi Desert and Polynesia. Maybe we could live on Gliese 581g as well. And if there's one more habitable planet, maybe there's more than one!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
2 comments:
Take a moment to reflect that rational people are discussing the habitability of known exoplanets. What a change 20 years makes.
There is a Q&A on Gliese 581g along with a nice infographic showing the known Gliese 581 system compared to our solar system at space.com. Click on the the Science tab from the home page.
My opinion is that human nature being what it is, if we find a habitable planet reasonably close, we're going to find a way to go there.
Blair Ivey
Probably many more. Have you even seen how many galaxies there are? It is a stupendous number. Too many to think no habitable worlds exist.
Of course, if we can't get to them before the expansion death of the universe, they aren't much use to us....
T.
Post a Comment