So very, very close
Published April 25th, 2007Almost there - and this was was a bit of a surprise so soon. I thought it would take another 3-5 years. But I’m pretty excited for the sake of excitement!
Scientists, for the first time, have detected an extrasolar world that could harbor forms life as we know it. It’s a heavy planet, 1.5x the radius of the earth and 5x the mass. Gravity on the surface would be about 2x earth normal. Not exactly fun for us. But this planet - unlike any ever detected of this size - lies within a distance from its star that would allow water to be liquid on the surface. It is unlike earth though in that it is VERY close to its star and almost certainly tidally locked. One face of the planet constantly faces the star, just like one face of the moon faces earth. The reason it can still support water despite being so close to the star (it orbits in about 13 earth days) is that it’s around a red dwarf. Red dwarves are fascinating little stars. They’re cool, emit a lot of infrared as opposed to visible light, and have highly variable brightness levels. Living around one could be very challenging. But what is very special about them is part of the nature of stars - stars are like candles. The bigger, the brighter - the faster they burn. Red dwarves smolder. The life of a red dwarf is estimated to be about 10x longer than that of our own sun. And evolution could work WONDERS over a timescale like that. Adaptability unlike anything we’d see here, ever.
All very exciting. But before we get ahead of ourselves - this planet really isn’t a great bet for life. Maybe only the most extreme of life. But it being tidally locked is a pretty big problem. One side of the planet would bake eternally, while the other would be stuck in eternal night. This would totally hose the chance for any climate reasonable to us. And while the mainstream press (idiots when it comes to reporting science) goes on about it being habitable, unfortunately those in the know have to rain on that parade. But even so - studying this planet would be fascinating if it does indeed have an atmosphere. We have no idea what a tidally locked planet with a significant atmosphere would be like. How would it distribute heat around? Would there be constant horrible hurricanes around the terminator line? Would the weather be super-predictable, or completely chaotic? And that’s before even considering the effects of geography.
And in a sense, that’s the most exciting thing about this planet - it’s totally cool and totally close (cosmically). It’s 20 light years away. That’s too far to travel with any current technology - but telescopes are getting better fast. We will probably be able to get actual, useful pictures and spectography of this planet within the next decade. And if we ever did get some good, high speed interstellar travel device - this planet would have to be pretty high on the list to visit.
Barring any other even more amazing discoveries - which will come. Soon. Keep your eyes on the sky folks, we’re becoming less alone by the day. So far all we’ve found are desert islands, but soon we’re gonna see something very, very special.
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