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Space Science

Planet Found in Double Star System 50

Posted by timothy from the probably-just-some-vapor-farmers dept.
Daniel Dvorkin writes "CNN is reporting that a planet has been found in a double star system. I know, another extrasolar planet -- whoopee! But this one is different since it is in a double star system, and because given the size of the stars (the larger one is about 1.6 times as big as the Sun), the orbit (a little bigger than that of Mars), and the planet (somewhat bigger than Jupiter) it seems very possible that the planet might have a moon of roughly Earth's size and climate. I believe this is the first discovery that comes close to matching those criteria."
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Planet Found in Double Star System More

Planet Found in Double Star System

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  • This might sound kinda crazy (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Apreche ( 239272 ) on Wednesday October 09, 2002 @03:25PM (#4419265) Homepage Journal
    But I think it's sort of pointless to look for earth-ish planets. I know that we're looking for existing life or possible places to live, but isn't it very possible there is some sort of life that lives in a drastically different environment than we do? There could very well be some crazy lifeform that lives on gas giants.
    Not only that, but all of the plaets outside our solar system are many light-years away. It takes way too long to get to them. I think time would be much better spent on figuring out how to live in unfavorable places, or change their climate to be favorable to our life. A moon colony seems a lot more likely, possible, and useful in the near future than some planet a google light years away.
    • or change their climate to be favorable to our life

      Or we could just change ourselves to match the climate. Has to be easier than developing terraforming technology capable of dealing with all the environments we may encounter...

      • Re:This might sound kinda crazy (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Tsar ( 536185 ) on Thursday October 10, 2002 @01:01AM (#4422256) Homepage Journal
        Or we could just change ourselves to match the climate. Has to be easier than developing terraforming technology capable of dealing with all the environments we may encounter...

        Why would you assume this? AFAIK, the only seriously-proposed near-term genetic engineering techniques have been the equivalent of cutting and pasting, or commenting and uncommenting, lines of programming code. What you're describing would require the ability to design whole new capabilities (methane-breathing, for example) into the genome. Of course, that would require the redesign of the entire system, so even if we can eventually pull it off, you've simply created a new species loosely based on homo sapiens, and essentially left all those "new worlds" closed to the rest of us. What's the point?

        Why would we take such a tack on other worlds when we don't even attempt it with mildly inhospitable Earth environments? Is your air conditioner or heater on right now? Is your tap water purified and chlorinated? It would be easier to simply adapt to your local climate and water supply than to develop refrigeration and water purification technologies, but the former limits you to living somewhat comfortably in one climate only, while the latter allows you to travel to any climate without harmful exposure to the elements.

        You may be a bit more adventurous than I, but if spaceflight were cheap and fast, I'd have to be pretty convinced that Planet X3141 was the one before I'd submit my progeny to be genetically engineered for its environment. Call me a Luddite, I guess.
        • It comes down to the ethics of terraforming (ignoring for a moment what we have done to earth). We have no real idea of the likely occurance of life in the universe or even whether we will actually be able to recognise it when we run across it. Terraforming is an inherently violent action and will almost certainly result in the destruction of whatever native life existed there.
          Done properly gen-enging people will be much less intrusive to a native ecosystem though I am fully aware that cheap, fast, accurate and reliable genetic rewriting may be much more difficult than just getting there in the first place.

      • Re:This might sound kinda crazy (Score:4, Funny)

        by Monkelectric ( 546685 ) <slashdot AT monkelectric DOT com> on Thursday October 10, 2002 @02:08AM (#4422411)
        oh I can see it now ... girlswithgills.com and "HOT NON-TERRAN TEENS WANT YOU" spam.
    • I wasn't thinking in terms of colonization so much (although it's an appealing idea for the very long term) as in terms of looking for life that might already be there. And sure, there might be life in the atmospheres of gas giants, or in the clouds of gas and dust in interstellar space, or in all sorts of other environments -- but we wouldn't have a clue how to look for it. Life on an Earthlike planet (or gas giant moon) would be more likely to be of a type we could understand.

    • Re:This might sound kinda crazy (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Graymalkin ( 13732 ) on Wednesday October 09, 2002 @03:55PM (#4419537)
      Who is talking short term besides you? Planet hunters are well aware they're not likely to set foot on a planet they discover orbiting a distant star. They're not thinking they are going to find Earth 2 and fly there. They don't look because of that. They look because they just want to see if we're really as unique as we think we are. We've gone from thinking the Earth was flat and at the center of the universe to knowing it is shaped sort of like a pear and is housed inside of a normal galaxy which turned out to not even look like we originally thought it did. Now we're seeing that not only are we not at the center which the universe revolves but there are planets orbiting stars other than our own. The next step is to find out that we're not the only intelligent group of amino acids and sugar molecules putzing around our galaxy. Hell, we're probably not the only group of self organizing amino acids and sugars putzing around our solar system.

      A moon colony has nothing to do with looking for extra solar planets. Compared to the cost of sending a bunch of stuff into space to crash into the moon in order to build stuff on it building stuff on Earth to look up at light coming from the sky is much more likely, possible, and useful in the near future.
    • I know that we're looking for existing life or possible places to live, but isn't it very possible there is some sort of life that lives in a drastically different environment than we do? There could very well be some crazy lifeform that lives on gas giants.

      Yes there could, but that would be pure speculation. Since we know of only one planet with life, it makes perfect sence to start our search for alien life on similar planets. And it is not like we are throwing away all information on gas giants, on the contrary those are the ones that are most often discovered because of their size.

      I don't see how moon colonies (exploitation of nearby systems) should be exclusive of extra-solar planet research (distant exploration). If it is a cost issue, it is worth mentioning that the former is many orders of magnitude more expensive than the latter.

      Tor

    • Re:This might sound kinda crazy (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward
      There could very well be some crazy lifeform that lives on gas giants.

      Sure there is! Didn't you ever play Star Control 2? The Slylandro! [classicgaming.com]
    • But I think it's sort of pointless to look for earth-ish planets. I know that we're looking for existing life or possible places to live, but isn't it very possible there is some sort of life that lives in a drastically different environment than we do? There could very well be some crazy lifeform that lives on gas giants.

      It really isn't all that crazy to look for closer matches to our own first. What if you did find life on one of those other, more far out planets? Can you imagine trying to communicate? There would be massive "frame of reference" problems. We're not just talking about the funky seasons based on which star you happen to be closer to and which side of the planet you are on, or "my, the liquid nitrogen is especially brisk this morning." Think of how different the thought patterns of a species that floated in the atmosphere of a gas giant would be from ours. If we got a message from them, could you even comprehend that it was a message?

    • But I think it's sort of pointless to look for earth-ish planets. I know that we're looking for existing life or possible places to live, but isn't it very possible there is some sort of life that lives in a drastically different environment than we do? There could very well be some crazy lifeform that lives on gas giants.

      While it's _possible_ that life exists in other environments, environments with liquid water are likely to be the most _favourable_ to life because several physical and chemical properties of water make it absurdly friendly to complex chemistry and to hosting stable environments. See the last article on extra-solar planets for a more in-depth discussion.

      Gas giants have water, but not in liquid form, and have convection currents carrying any material in the atmosphere up and down through layers with vastly different temperature and pressure extremes. Any life that survives in this environment would have to be very, very robust.

      Not only that, but all of the plaets outside our solar system are many light-years away. It takes way too long to get to them.

      Even without faster-than-light travel, it can be done in one or two human lifetimes, if the expense is ever considered worthwhile. Sailcraft driven by stationary laser arrays are probably the cheapest method (antimatter is extremely expensive to produce, and you can re-use your laser array). Even if we don't bother sending colonists or even probes, the demonstrated existance of earth-like planets outside the solar system will spur public interest in all things space-related, which is worthwhile.

      I think time would be much better spent on figuring out how to live in unfavorable places, or change their climate to be favorable to our life.

      These goals are not mutually exclusive. Research on these other topics is already going on. Why not do both?

      The cost of the current family of planet searches is very, very low compared to space missions, as it's being done with ground-based equipment. Even the planned planet-finding space telescopes will be useful for many other types of research, and will be cheaper than any kind of manned mission.

      In summary, I find no fault with the search for earth-like planets.
    • For the record, a googol is a number (1 followed by a hundred 0's), whereas google is a search engine.
    • But I think it's sort of pointless to look for earth-ish planets. I know that we're looking for existing life or possible places to live, but isn't it very possible there is some sort of life that lives in a drastically different environment than we do? There could very well be some crazy lifeform that lives on gas giants.

      I disagree. The Slylandro discussed this very topic with the Precursors and determined that their own existance was highly improbable.

  • "The base is protected by an energy shield projected from the nearby forest moon of Endor..."

  • Could take a while to get used to... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by The_Guv'na ( 180187 ) on Wednesday October 09, 2002 @03:41PM (#4419420) Homepage Journal

    If humans were to find an inhabitable moon there, and set up camp, things could be a whole lot more confusing than on Earth, with or without global warming. It was sunny and fairly temperate today. It's fscking October!!!

    Ah, anyway, the point of my post: Being on a moon around a planet that is orbiting a double star would likely make things a lot more complicated than day-night-day-night and spring-summer-autumn-winter! Not to mention the possible extremes caused by eclipses, orbit, gravity, tides, etc.

    Just a thought.

    Ali

    • The main conditions for humans to thrive aught to be size (and thus gravity), temperature, and atmosphere.

      Sure, being on a moon around a bigger planet would make for funny (i.e., not like on Earth) day cycles, tides, eclipses, seasons and so on. But those are secondary considerations.

      Where would you prefer to live, on Mars on on Endor (given that Endor has say no seasonal variations, a 100 hour day cycle, and a spectacular eclipse twice a year).

      /Tor
      • Where would you prefer to live, on Mars on on Endor (given that Endor has say no seasonal variations, a 100 hour day cycle, and a spectacular eclipse twice a year).

        And, err, Ewoks.

      • Yeah, I'm aware that humans can easily handle erratic day/night cycles, since we are the only animals to have invented timekeeping devices, but that would have slightly weakened my original post :)

        Where would you prefer to live, on Mars on on Endor

        Do I get to rule and enslave the Ewoks and send them back to Earth as my merciless army of darkness?

        Ali

      • The main conditions for humans to thrive aught to be size (and thus gravity), temperature, and atmosphere.

        Sure, being on a moon around a bigger planet would make for funny (i.e., not like on Earth) day cycles, tides, eclipses, seasons and so on. But those are secondary considerations.

        The problem is that a moon of a gas giant isn't likely to have a friendly climate. Because it'll be tidally locked to the gas giant, days will be the equivalent of several Earth weeks long at *best*, and at worst will last for half the orbital period of the gas giant (if the plane of the moon's orbit is perpendicular to the ecliptic). In both cases, you get one side of the moon becoming very hot, and one side very cold, and hellishly powerful winds whipping around the planet trying to equalize the temperatures.

        When the orbit of the moon passes behind the gas giant, you'll also get a night that lasts anywhere from Earth days on up, which will drop the moon's temperature enough to be problematic. Imagine your city being plunged into antarctic temperatures on a monthly basis. Not fun.

        In summary, while a gas giant's moon would be an interesting place, it wouldn't necessarily be very friendly to human habitation.

        Where would you prefer to live, on Mars on on Endor (given that Endor has say no seasonal variations, a 100 hour day cycle, and a spectacular eclipse twice a year).

        Mars, for the reasons listed above. Give Mars a thick atmosphere by breaking down rocks, and you get an Earth-like climate. Dump a significant amount of CO2 in it, and you get enough of a greenhouse effect to make the temperature livable. Even as-is, it's a lot less hostile to life than Earth's moon.
    • It's been warm and temperate for me every October. But then again, I live in southern California... is it supposed to be cold in October?

      But back to topic... there are even more crazy things that could go on. For instance, if this planet had a vocanically active, inhabitable moon, you might see something like you have between Jupiter and Io; a large electric potential just sitting there. Couple that with the strange solar wind conditions that you would find there, and you might never have dark, the sky might always glow like the Aurora Borealis.
    • Being on a moon around a planet that is orbiting a double star would likely make things a lot more complicated

      Yeah, all the song writers would have to re-submit copyrights to add 's' to 'sun'.

      "I say, it's all right.........here comes the suns" (George Hirrison, with update)
  • When it goes to the dark side of the planet, it would really suck. I imagine if there is life on the planet it gets to enjoy some interesting day patterns. If the orbit and rotation were just right, then you could have every 10th day with an extra 12 hours of dark or whatever. If it was really unfriendly you could get stuck on the wrong side of the planet for a week or more. That makes things real cold real quick.

    Plus you'd have this enormous object to look at in the sky. Now, I can't say I know what I'm talking about here (but then, on slashdot, who does?) but I'd imagine a moon the size of earth orbiting a planet the size of Jupiter would have one huge part of the sky covered. I bet it makes navigating by the stars a bitch for their sailors!
    • I think you're picturing if we were orbitting right next to the other planet. It probably wouldn't look that much different than our sun I don't think.
    • When it goes to the dark side of the planet, it would really suck. I imagine if there is life on the planet it gets to enjoy some interesting day patterns.

      This isn't necessarily true. Take our own earth's moon. When you see a full moon, it is on the opposite side of the sun from us, and yet it's fully illuminated. I could imagine the same thing happening with this planet's moon. If the planet's rotation were correct, I can't see why you couldn't have a normal day and night, except for the occasional lunar eclipse, which would be massive. It would also be neat to see the lunar eclipse (moon between sun and planet) from the moon's point of view.

      You are right though: no matter what, there would be some interesting patterns of day and season with the planet and the other star. It reminds me of the Arthur C. Clarke story 2010 where Jupiter turned into a new star. He mentioned that Earth was very different with the new, much dimmer second sun in the sky at night.

    • Correct me if I am wrong, but planets the size of Jupiter kick off one hell of a lot of radiation. Wouldn't that be pretty brutal to any 'life' we know of, except maybe roaches? Maybe there is life there, it's like New York, where roaches rule and the humans are the pests!!!! AAHhhh. =] Wouldn't a gas giant that large also be constantly ripping at the moon with its immense gravity? Between its parent star that is 2.5x's the size of the Sun, and a gas giant. I would be surprised if a moon could have survived with out getting torn apart very early in its life. Just a thought John
  • .... it's a space station!

  • Obligatory Starwars comments (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    First of all I am not an astronomer (IANAA) nor am I a Starwars zealot. But I did see the movies and once in a library I flipped through a book on the Science of Starwars, or some such title. I have already seen a number of Starwars related comments, but I would like to give a few reasons why a minshara (I butchered that spelling, I am not a Trekkie either) class moon is unlikely from what I can remember based on that book.

    A planet with a Jupiter like mass is probably a gas giant, like Endor, but if this gas giant is anything like Jupiter in our own solar system, then it has very strong magnetic belts. This would trap protons and electrons inside the field and create massive amounts of dangerous radiation.

    It is possible that the second sun has an eliptical orbit with the primary sun at one of the foci. In this case the changing tidal forces may cause dramatic tectonic behavior, possibly strong enough to tear the moon apart, if the secondary sun ever gets close enough. A gas giant, being composed mostly of gas, would be able to withstand such tidal forces.

    So life on such a moon might have to deal with some inhospitable conditions. Also, do not expect sunsets like on Tatoonie (or however that planet is spelled). The farther sun is so far away it would look like a bright star.

    Another neat point is that, like our moon, any such moon would probably be locked into a position such that one side always faces the planet it orbits. Imagine if you were a primitive Ewok-like race living on the wrong side of the moon, you would never even know that you were orbiting a gas giant! (But think what a beautiful view of a gas giant you might have if you were on the other side....) In such a locked orbit, though, your notion of day and night would be ruled based on the time that it takes the moon to circle the planet and if you lived on the planet view side, imagine the amazing eclipses. (A gas giant may emit some light of its own....)

    Darn it, now I have gotten myself daydreaming!
  • Well, it might be the right size, and maybe even have a moon, but cool stories like Asimov's Nightfall (as well as the longer novel based on the short story by Silberberg) aside, most of what I have read suggested that a planet in a binary system would be exposed to a whole lot more radiation that would be good for earth-type life. Now, the fact that that the Asimov classic was in a system with 3 stars rather that 2 and the fact that I have no real clue what I'm talking about makes this all crap, but whatever.
    • If I recall correctly the planet had seven stars. Great book, by the way. If only I could stop reading Harry Potter long enough to revisit it. :)

      Actually, while I'm on it Nemesis also by Asimov was another great book, and it's about a star orbited by a hot gas giant. <SPOILER!> People are trying to colonize the moon around the GG, but can't because of a sentient microbial form of life.

  • Other habitable zone planets? (Score:5, Informative)

    by Jason T. Wright ( 114371 ) on Wednesday October 09, 2002 @08:43PM (#4421154)
    it seems very possible that the planet might have a moon of roughly Earth's size and climate. I believe this is the first discovery that comes close to matching those criteria."


    You believe wrongly.

    HD28185 b and IotaHor b [astrobio.net] both could support moons with liquid water, year-round.

    HD27442 b [exoplanets.org] (aka Epsilon Reticulum) could also do it [uws.edu.au].

    Other planets [matessa.org] visit their star's habitable zones, too. Even though most of these other planets have eccentric orbits which would take them in and out periodically, they still "come close to matching those criteria".

    Also a much better link to details of the Gamma Cephei system can be found here. [solstation.com]

  • I bet there is no 'our sun is the center of the universe and therefore so, too, are we the most important thing in the universe' sort of thinking there. Then, again, if they are anything like us, they have probably figured out a way around that little problem, too.

    (My other .sig is brilliant and funny, but I left it in my other discussion thread.)

    • Think so? (Score:2, Insightful)

      by waltc ( 546961 )
      It strikes me that most current thinking on the viability of intelligent life other than humanity is exceedingly anthropomorphic. Note that while some of the very same people who find the notion of starfaring sentience crowding the galaxy to be a very rational notion, they find the notion of God to be irrational. If that isn't the same old humanist-centered thinking that's dominated mankind since the flat worlders, I don't know what it is.

      When you get right down to it the only notion of extraterrestrial life most can stomach, or imagine, even, is the kind we could defeat in a face to face confrontation if it came down to that. I doubt we are anywhere near as progressed as you imagine in the sense of our ability to live in a non-man-centered universe.

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