Weird Exoplanet Orbits Could Screw Up Alien Life 161
astroengine writes "Life is good in the Solar System. We have Jupiter to thank for that. However, if the gas giant's orbit were a little more elliptical, there's every chance that Earth would become rather uncomfortable very quickly. Researchers looking at the zoo of exoplanets orbiting distant stars have simulated several scenarios of differing exoplanet orbits and find that many don't resemble our cozy Solar System. In fact, weird exoplanet orbits may be the deciding factor as to whether extraterrestrial life can form or not."
"Weird"? (Score:5, Interesting)
If anything, all of this could be mean that our system is quite weird; at least on average.
And probably still wouldn't be a problem for "life" in general, considering there are several places suspected of harboring life in our own system, all of them quite "hostile" at first sight.
Complex life is another thing, of course... (or - we're frakked, because the aliens will turn out to be total badasses; due to evolving in very harsh conditions ;p )
Life adapts (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:"Weird"? (Score:4, Interesting)
Complex life is another thing, of course... (or - we're frakked, because the aliens will turn out to be total badasses; due to evolving in very harsh conditions)
Or the opposite. Maybe they feel dizzy in stable orbits, like pirates in firm land.
Maybe their ships wobble on crazy trajectories, to keep them calm and at ease.
Re:Save the aliens! (Score:3, Interesting)
In fact, weird exoplanet orbits may be the deciding factor as to whether extraterrestrial life can form or not.
Not sure the word 'fact' belongs in that sentence with the rest of the wild speculation. I do however want to donate to your fund but only when facts become the endpoint of extra-terrestrial flavoured cosmology and not the spark for futurology [wikipedia.org]!
Re:Um yeah. (Score:5, Interesting)
You've hit the nail on the head. We're seeing these systems because either the gas giant is so close to the star that it obviously occludes the light and affects the radial acceleration of the star, or because their orbit extends far enough out from the star that it intersects with and modifies the surrounding debris cloud (think Oort).
Kepler and COROT are starting to return results. They'll need a decade or two to identify Jupiters and Kepler will need 4 or 5 years to identify an Earth or Mars.
Re:Life adapts (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:"Weird"? (Score:3, Interesting)
However, don't forget that the tools are also influenced by different circumstances.
If they, by using your example, would be naturally more armored (plus what's stopping them from also adding artificial armor, even to the point of modifying bone exoskeleton into a kind of composite armor that our modern tanks use?) - there could be pressure present to develop more effective weapons. If they would evolve in a place with 2g, they would be able to effortlessly carry a cargo equal to their mass when on Earth (that would be actually required for them to move comfortably - look at footage from the Moon ;p ). Who knows if their LEO figthers wouldn't tend to outclass ours in such case, meant to routinelly "fight" much deeper gravity well...
(all of this of course assuming we're on roughly equal footing, discarding the required huge technological advancement to get to us)
Re:"Weird"? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Weird Exoplanets (Score:2, Interesting)
I would pay good money to see a scene from the Enterprise's security lounge. Everyone huddled, quivering in their chairs in a sort of vertical fetal position, waiting for the dreaded PA to sound:
"Ensigns Smith and Jones, report to the transporter room for away team duty"
There would be wails of anguish and much gnashing of teeth.
And probably posters on the wall reminding people to make sure their Last Will and Testament is in order.
Re:Save the aliens! (Score:5, Interesting)
Has anyone considered that to them, we are the aliens? [slashdot.org] The link is a story about how our own solar system is uninhabited, and why.
Such planets exist in Sci-Fi too (Score:1, Interesting)
Vernor Vinge - a Deepness in the Sky
On a planet whose atmosphere freezes on a 500-year cycle. Nice read.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Deepness_in_the_Sky
Re:"Weird"? (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm curious as to why you've referred to the dinosaur population pre-extinction as stagnant. I'm not suggesting that you're wrong, just interested in what that might mean.
Re:"Weird"? (Score:3, Interesting)
Here's the situation as I understand it (someone correct me if I get some of this wrong):
The line of organisms that we're descended from has changed quite a bit over time. Other lines have not changed much because they were sufficiently well-suited to their environment already. The theory of common ancestry says that we're all descended originally from one, or a small handful of the earliest forms of life. As life became more distributed, evolutionary forces shaped the populations in each environment into organisms suited to those environments. In cases where life wasn't suited to survive, it simply didn't.
So all life has been evolving for the same amount of time, but some exhibit more dramatic changes over time, while others continue to thrive in forms rather similar to their ancestors from a a couple billion years ago. Evolution has no ultimate goal, so their is no notion of "more" or "less" evolved. There's that which survives and that which does not. We're not "more evolved", we're just different, and adapted to our own environments.