So... Expand the 'livable' criteria from liquid surface water to also include sub-surface liquid water and...

More planets could harbour life

New computer models suggest there could be many more habitable planets out there than previously thought.

Scientists have developed models to help them identify planets in far-away solar systems that are capable of supporting life.

Estimates of habitable planet numbers have been based on the likelihood of them having surface water.

But a new model allows scientists to identify planets with underground water kept liquid by planetary heat. ...


Keep searchin',
Martin

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ML

Are they suggesting that sub-surface water could support intelligent life to mean similar to we humans ??

Thats a very interesting article. That thought crossed my mind many times.

So really there are 2 main criteria (plus other smaller ones) involved in allowing liquid water on or near the surface of a planet;
1. The distance from the Star (Goldilocks zone)
2. Geothermal heat (Pressure based)

So we all know about the Goldilocks zone theory of being just the right distance from the star. Not too hot, not too cold.

But Geothermal heating would be based on the "size" and "mass" of the planet. The larger the planet, the more internal heat it will produce. More presure at the surface of the planet, the more heat it produces. There would be a happy medium where liquid water will exist.

So in theory, lets take a planet like our planet Pluto. Our planet Pluto gets little or no light or heat from our star, the Sun. But if Pluto were roughly twice the size and mass of the Earth, it would generate enough of its own Geothermal heat to have liquid water at, or near the surface of the planet.

John.

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Considering the stars distances it is quite impossible that life can infect from one solar system to another so that means some huge volumes of solar systems just naturally internally grow life maybe harbor that for 2-3 billion years then shut off like regular star life cycle.

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Mandtugai!

Considering the stars distances it is quite impossible that life can infect from one solar system to another so that means some huge volumes of solar systems just naturally internally grow life maybe harbor that for 2-3 billion years then shut off like regular star life cycle.

Not so... There is the idea of panspermia which, from the sort of stuff we have already seen on meteors and comets and microbe hitch-hikers on our space probes to the moon and on the Planetary Society "Life" tests, all suggests life might well be propagated across large tracts of space.


In the vastness of our Universe, who knows?!

Keep searchin',
Martin

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And still yet more habitable examples to increase the viable proportion:


Weird Planets

Back in 2011 astronomers were amazed when NASA's Kepler spacecraft discovered a planet orbiting a double star system. Such a world, they realized, would have double sunsets and sunrises just like the fictional planet Tatooine in the movie Star Wars. Yet this planet was real.

Now Kepler has discovered a whole system of planets orbiting a double star. ...



Keep searchin',
Martin

---

See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3)

Considering the stars distances it is quite impossible that life can infect from one solar system to another so that means some huge volumes of solar systems just naturally internally grow life maybe harbor that for 2-3 billion years then shut off like regular star life cycle.

Not so... There is the idea of panspermia which, from the sort of stuff we have already seen on meteors and comets and microbe hitch-hikers on our space probes to the moon and on the Planetary Society "Life" tests, all suggests life might well be propagated across large tracts of space.


In the vastness of our Universe, who knows?!

Keep searchin',
Martin

Yes in the vastness of the universe perhaps 1 law might work unconditionally that is : Expect unexpected always.

BTW new situation is telling us that we are only sensing 5% of the universe reality at our current scientific level rest of 95% universe is allegedly dark matters and dark energies.

So possibly we are only talking about 5% of the reality. And how other 95% impact on life harboring 5% well that is totally new level science I guess.

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Mandtugai!

A very good diagram for proportions:


xkcd: Exoplanets


Very interesting...

Keep searchin',
Martin

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And for something rather unexpected:


Planet with four suns discovered by volunteers

Astronomers have found a planet whose skies are illuminated by four different suns - the first known of its type.

The distant world orbits one pair of stars which have a second stellar pair revolving around them.

The discovery was made by volunteers using the Planethunters.org website along with a team from UK and US institutes; follow-up observations were made with the Keck Observatory. ...



Rather interesting...

Keep searchin',
Martin

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Let the Kepler planets roll!


Kepler telescope: Earth-size planets 'number 17bn'

Astronomers say that one in six stars hosts an Earth-sized planet in a close orbit - suggesting a total of 17 billion such planets in our galaxy...



A home from home: Five planets that could host life

It's one of the big questions: Are we alone on this blue marble or is there life elsewhere in the cosmos? To shed some light, astronomers are searching for habitable worlds circling far-off stars.

A team has now published updated evidence for a planet that could be the most Earth-like yet. According to the US Planetary Habitability Laboratory, it would be the fifth potentially habitable world known outside our Solar System.

So what do we know about these five Earth-like planets, and how likely is it that they could support life?...


Keep searchin',
Martin

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Thanks for that link, Martin. I read about this in the paper just this morning but the link has lots more info.

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Pure mathematics is, in its way, the poetry of logical ideas.

Albert Einstein

And now add a few exo-comets!


'Exocomet' numbers nearly tripled in new study

A new haul of comets around distant stars has been unveiled, more than doubling the number we know of.

The first such "exocomet" was discovered in 1987 but since then only three more had been found.

At the 221st American Astronomical Society meeting in the US, astronomer Barry Welsh gave details of seven more.

Proving that comets are common in the Universe has implications for their role in delivering water or even the building blocks of life to planets. ...


So... Why should our one solar system and life here be so 'special' after all?

Keep searchin',
Martin

---

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All these planets in our own galaxy is a bad waste of time. In 3 billion years the Milkyway and Andromada collide head on. Being in the outside arms are first to sense the gravitational tidal force tearing the galaxy apart. Our little star could be flung out of the system or swallowed by the system coeless into a larger andromada.We have to find a planet in another galaxy and only have so much time. If that dont eradicate mankind the dying sun will. We can spend all this time and expense of finding and seemingly plotting a course of action. The same train wreck occurs and letting the dice roll. So now we can locate planets if they are hot but now for a safe galaxy with a stable future another earth must be found. No one reflects on this fact because of the time involved. Even at lightspeed it will take 25 thousand light years to get there. Distance is our worst enemy no matter how fast you can go.

All these planets in our own galaxy is a bad waste of time. In 3 billion years the Milkyway and Andromada collide head on. Being in the outside arms are first to sense the gravitational tidal force tearing the galaxy apart. Our little star could be flung out of the system or swallowed by the system coeless into a larger andromada.We have to find a planet in another galaxy and only have so much time. If that dont eradicate mankind the dying sun will. We can spend all this time and expense of finding and seemingly plotting a course of action. The same train wreck occurs and letting the dice roll. So now we can locate planets if they are hot but now for a safe galaxy with a stable future another earth must be found. No one reflects on this fact because of the time involved. Even at lightspeed it will take 25 thousand light years to get there. Distance is our worst enemy no matter how fast you can go.

As I said in the other 3 threads that you posted in: the collision of two galaxies is, for individual stars, a non-event. Space is mostly empty, the chance of colliding stars remote.

Also even the process of collision is very slow, taking many billions of years.

This is pretty low down on the list of things about the future to be worried about.

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Pure mathematics is, in its way, the poetry of logical ideas.

Albert Einstein

What I can assure you is that there are more planets with 'life' in this universe that we shall ever contact.
Either because their stage of evolution has lagged behind ours, or has far preceeded it.

The chances of contacting some other planet with their own evolutionary stages over the eons in synch with ours are much smaller that what exists in the cosmos.

Life has existed in other planets, in other glaxies, over eons. They have existed and exited. Just as we shall. And in the context of the cosmos, we have just blinked on and off. No wonder none of us has managed to contact another.

I'll bet you never thought of it in that way......LOL.

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"Freedom is just Chaos, with better lighting." Alan Dean Foster