Newfound Planet a Top Contender to Host Life | Hacker News Reader

Newfound Planet a Top Contender to Host Life

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31 pointsvinny202017 comments

Cool. Strange they show an 'enlarged photo' of it. Also strange to say 'Alien' every time they say 'planet'. What else could it be - a planet right here on Earth?

>Also strange to say 'Alien' every time they say 'planet'. What else could it be - a planet right here on Earth?

To be fair, it could simply mean an exoplanet, a planet outside of our solar system. I suppose "alien planet" is more intuitive than "exoplanet."

We've grown quite accustomed to the planets in our backyard, so I think the word alien is quite evocative here. I was born about 2 decades after the first moon landing, but the first confirmed exoplanets weren't discovered until my lifetime. That's pretty fricking amazing to me.

Yes! I agree. Here's a graph of the number of exoplanets discovered by year: http://exoplanet.eu/diagrams/?t=h&f=&x=discovered...

I consider it the most exciting graph I have ever seen.

Somewhat related, it's frustrating when I read about the history of computer science and am blown away that many of the best algorithms/languages we have today were developed 40-60 years ago. It's always nice to be reminded that there are unsolved problems and unlocked mysteries.

And yet we have continuously greater numbers of software patents filed every year. So obviously innovation is happening -- right? After all, Bubble sort was good, but Bubble sort on a web enabled device with rounded corners is defiantly the cat's meow.

It's x7 earth mass. The reason we've only discovering huge planets is because that's all our equipment can detect, so far (by wobbling/obscuring their sun).

For our solar system, only Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune and Uranus would be massive enough to detect.

Was the debate settled on whether or not this planet exists? [1].

[1] http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2011-01-31-goldilocks-plan...

That is about Gliese 581g, this article is about Gliese 163c. That is a different planet circling around a differnt star.

I find it strange how the writers assume only Earth-like life would evolve on another planet. They speak in terms of bacteria, plants, animals... It doesn't make any sense to me. Out of the 3.5 billion years that the planet has sustained life, animals (first sponges, then cnidaria, etc.) have only been around for 630 million. Evolution didn't happen according to some goal; organisms evolved to suit their habitats.

So saying that plants/animals wouldn't exist on a planet significantly hotter than ours is really strange to say - they'd have no -reason- to. Because the evolutionary tree on that planet would be completely different from ours, the organisms' forms and internal structures will be very different in many ways. The same things won't have happened in their evolutionary history.

And of course, life would be adapted to the planet itself. You might say, "Enzymes don't function at those temperatures." Well, the life on hotter planets will have evolved to use different enzymes that -do- work at those temperatures.

That's because it is the only hypothesis that the evidence available to us can support. It may eventually turn out not to be right, but it's more wrong to claim something else based on the evidence we have right now.

Similarly, it might turn out that our understanding of electricity is wrong and it's really faeries playing tricks on us. But we have no evidence of faeries, so that is not a good explanation of electromagnetism.

While this might be true, it's still interesting to look at planets that WE could inhabit, after having evolved on earth.

The main reason for the temperature constraint isn't actually temperature but rather the presence of liquid water. We currently know of no life form that can exist without it. I believe the 'goldilocks zone' is more specific in that its looking for liquid water on the surface. There could be liquid water underground in bodies well outside the goldilocks zone and there are some indications that this is true of some moons in our own solar system.

'Planet temperature' doesn't completely rule out the possibility of life. Venus for example is hot as hell on the surface but there is actually a band of the atmosphere which humans could hangout unprotected in, its breathable, the pressure is about what it is on Earth, etc. There have been some attempts to send a probe to hang out there and look for bacterial life but I don't think any have been funded.

Venus for example is hot as hell on the surface but there is actually a band of the atmosphere which humans could hangout unprotected in, its breathable,

The atmosphere is carbon dioxide with an aerosol of liquid sulfuric acid. (?)

Hm, went back a reread where I originally saw that and I completely mis-interpreted. Its not breathable, rather from ~50-65km off the surface it is roughly 1 bar in pressure with temperatures from 0-50C and breathable air would 'float' at this height due to the density of the atmosphere. Sorry for the foul up.

So saying that plants/animals wouldn't exist on a planet significantly hotter than ours is really strange to say

Not true. In biochemsitry, some important compounds (eg, proteins) begin to de-nature at ~105 degrees F. So, temprature is a legitimate variable to consider, and the range between denatured protein and frozen water is not that big in Absolute scale. And (even) if you eliminate protein, you still have to deal with the properties of water (anothe ~+100ish F leway before it boils; as noted by other commenters).

You rightly note that there are examples of life (even on earth) which are in some unbelievably hostile environments (think: marianna trench) that are ungodly in temp, pressure, and ambient energy. But the absolute schema it seems more likely that these are evolved special cases of carbon-based life than the origin variants.

Som from Abslote zero to vulcanism (the possible ranges) narrowing down to 0 to 50c or 0 to 100c puts you in the right order of magnitude. At the scale of the cosmos, this seems to make some sense. Although, undeoubtedly imperfect.

you eliminate protein, you still have to deal with the properties of water (anothe ~+100ish F leway before it boils; as noted by other commenters).

+500ish F, if you're on a planet similar to Venus.

+1000ish F, if you allow supercritical water as a substitute.

The Marianas Trench is the deepest part of the world's oceans, a pressure of 1,086 bars (15,750 psi). Yes, I agree there is possible life at crazy pressures in liquid water. Atmosphere of Venus (92 bar), so on earth we have life already documented at near 10x the pressure of venus.

This is consistent with what I was trying to say, may not have been so clear. But on a scale of -200c to +2000c being in a narrowband is water, correcting for temprature/pressure and state condsideration.

That being said, life detections in mariana trench are quite recent. Not likely to be detected by a simple probe of the type sent to mars, etc.[1] Highly specialized equipments. If I was looking for a needle in a haystack, it seems to make sense to find some haystacks first. And then rank-order the haystacks. Having a wider temp band means more haystacks, not neccessarily nore needles. Or easier to find the needles. If I had enough "protein" hospitable haystacks, I might look there first.

[1] The weight of a 1000 bar crush-proof engineering structure, and sophistication of communications and energy systems would be well beyond that curiosity, etc. Curiosity is of course not "simple" in its functionality, for what it does. But it's designed to spec for a unique mission.

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