Quotulatiousness

November 24, 2011

The shot that started the First Interplanetary War?

Filed under: Space — Tags: — Nicholas @ 08:25

Yes, it may not happen for a few more decades, but we were the instigators of what might be the most long-distance war in human history:

The new habitability study has involved the collaborating scientists devising two different indexes for rating worlds, in proper scientifiction style*. We now have the Earth Similarity Index (ESI), showing how much like Earth a body is, on which Earth is 1, Mars is 0.7 and our Moon is 0.56.

The scientists have also worked out a Planet Habitability Index (PHI), based on such things as planetary magnetic fields, atmosphere, likely local temperatures etc. Titan, icy natural-gas slush moon of Saturn, scores high on this at 0.64.

But, very worryingly, the planets of the dim, red M-class star Gliese 581 — lying just 20 light-years away in the constellation Libra — score high up the listings in both systems. Under ESI, the exoplanets Gliese 581g, d and c are the next three most habitable known worlds after Earth: and they are also well up under PHI.

Normally this would not be cause for alarm, but — as regular readers of Reg exoplanet coverage will know — should there be intelligent aliens at Gliese 581 they will soon have an intense and well-justified grievance against us.

It was a deliberate and evil provocation we gave, and our fate may already be sealed.

January 5, 2010

The real universe is like an original Star Trek set

Filed under: Science, Space — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 07:26

The moon may not be made of cheese, but how about a planet made of styrofoam?

A giant planet with the density of Styrofoam is one of a clutch of new exoplanets discovered by NASA’s Kepler telescope. The planets are too hot to support life as we know it, but the discoveries, made during the telescope’s first few weeks of operation, suggest Kepler is on the right track to find Earth’s twins, researchers say.

More than 400 planets have now been found orbiting other stars, but Earth-sized planets — which may be the best habitats for life – have remained elusive.

NASA’s orbiting Kepler telescope is designed to find them. It has been scrutinising 100,000 stars since April 2009, searching for telltale dips in starlight created when planets pass in front of their host stars.

October 2, 2009

You’d really want to get in out of the rain on COROT-7b

Filed under: Science, Space — Tags: — Nicholas @ 00:03

According to scientists, the recently discovered exoplanet known as COROT-7b is so close to its primary that it rains molten rock:

To find out what COROT-7b’s atmosphere might be like, Fegley and his colleagues modeled it. They found that COROT-7b’s atmosphere is made up of the ingredients of rocks and when “a front moves in,” pebbles condense out of the air and rain into lakes of molten lava below.

“Sodium, potassium, silicon monoxide and then oxygen — either atomic or molecular oxygen — make up most of the atmosphere,” Fegley said. But there are also smaller amounts of the other elements found in silicate rock, such as magnesium, aluminum, calcium and iron.

The rock rains form similarly to Earth’s watery weather: “As you go higher the atmosphere gets cooler and eventually you get saturated with different types of ‘rock’ the way you get saturated with water in the atmosphere of Earth,” Fegley explained. “But instead of a water cloud forming and then raining water droplets, you get a ‘rock cloud’ forming and it starts raining out little pebbles of different types of rock.”

It’d make hell seem like a holiday cottage in the Poconos.

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