Planets Like Earth May Be the Rule, Not the Exception based on new research

Brilliant thread thankyou, i am just sad i wont be around to see humans reach these planets.
But i believe mankind will reach them..one day.

originally posted by: JadeStar

What this study seems to be predicting is that small planets like Earth should exist in the temperate zone around almost every star and not just one, but probably two on average and in some cases three.

We do see what happens when things are not just right though. Venus is hotter than Mercury and Mars' core solidified too quick. BTW Venus is due to green house effect, not so much as too close to the sun.

They used the Titus-Bode Law and Kepler data to predict missing planets in the systems Kepler discovered. In the majority of those cases their research indicates that there should be a smallish planet in the Goldilocks range of not just G-type stars but K-types, F-types, etc.

Other types of stars different than our G-type Sun also have "Goldilocks" zones, they just vary by distance and width depending on the type of star:

80% of the stars out there are M type red dwarfs and though some say then can have habitual planets the Goldilocks zone would be closer than Mercury, so that in itself creates a lager number of additional issues. When added that 50% of all stars are actually binary that also doesn't help matters in creating a stable orbit for life.

It is these things that I suggest that earth like planets would not be as common as some may think there is.

its harder to tidally lock a planet than generally thought though because factors such as large moons, atmosphere, oceans and axial tilt come into play. not only that but a tidally locked planets may still have a habitable zone depending on some of the same factors.

and binary or triplet star systems have been shown to have stable orbits available. exoplanets around such star systems have been found. the distance between the stars determines a lot of the stable orbit issue. even if only jupiter class and above planets exist in stable orbits then a moon around such jupiter class planets could very easily be earth sized or greater.

originally posted by: Ultralight
a reply to: JadeStar

S&F from me as well!

It is interesting how we are being slowly indoctrinated to the existence of intelligent life out "there" and new "earth" like planets.

Do you believe in the existence of extraterrestrial and/or intra-dimensional lifeforms?

I don't believe in anything to be completely honest.

Based on astronomical data and observations however it would be logical to assume that some form of extraterrestrial life exists and given what we know about how quickly life started on Earth (almost as soon as the Earth cooled down around 3.9 billion years ago) then it might make sense to assume the process of life begins as a pre-biotic chemical evolution anywhere the right conditions for that to happen exist. To assume otherwise would assume that we were just incredibly lucky and there is virtually no data to definitely support that.

So if life is easy then it's logical to assume that we live in a populated universe however none of that amounts to belief, they're just educated guesses based on what we know. Until we actually find extraterrestrial life it is an open question.

And even if we find that extraterrestrial life is common there will be the open question of how common life which becomes intelligent and develops technology we can detect at interstellar distances.

So no, I do not believe in extraterrestrial life but I suspect that it probably exists as are many other scientists in the field. Finding such life will be a result of observation and experiment rather than faith and belief just as finding the first planets around other stars was a result of observation and experiments rather than faith and belief.

Long answer I know, but I hope it illustrates the difference between saying "I believe extraterrestrial life exists" and "I suspect extraterrestrial life might exist."

As for the second part of your question, whether I believe in interdimensional life. Again I don't believe in anything really and we have yet to even detect another dimension of spacetime.

Even if we -did- detect another dimension of spacetime that would tell us nothing about whether the physics within it permitted anything like life from developing.

As I understand it (and this is way out of my area of study), many of the dimensions postulated by things like M-Theory would be vastly different from our own, with physical conditions which might prevent anything like even basic atoms from forming.

And even if there were a dimension similar to ours, the physics would be different enough that our type of matter might break down there and its type of matter would cease to exist here so even if there were a way to produce the massive amounts of energy needed to open up a gateway even the size of a shoebox (energy which would exceed all the energy the Sun has every produced since it began to shine 4.5 billion years ago), ideas about "interdimensional travel" would probably remain great sci-fi but nothing in science fact so far would support it.

Getting back to the original post, while I am very excited at the possibility that the research in my original post might be confirmed, I am skeptical until it is confirmed because what it predicts is pretty extraordinary so it will require extraordinary evidence which would have to be just about every one of the 40 predicted planets be found to actually exist.

Could that happen? It could, but we'll have to wait and see.

well there are astronomers doing searches to see if some black holes are actually wormholes. And the term "sectors" which is sometimes different from dimensions or universes (but sometimes the same) are considered valid possibilities to explain some phenomenon like the premature disappearance of free neutrons. additionally in the quest to reconcile GRT and dark matter/energy with QM a dark sector has been postulated.

a reply to: JadeStar

within 33 light years of earth...

(my work)

select * FROM dbo.xhip
where (SpType like '%m%' or SpType like '%g%' or SpType like'%k%' or SpType like '%f%') and (dist > 0 and dist le 9.82)

Total number of records: 164, 169 if we ignore spectral type.

What this query says: select all fields from the table called "XHIP"
where sptype (spectral type) is like m ... and dist (distance) is less than or equal to 9.82 parsec

The like term: is a SQL construct to search a field for a string that contains something specific; in this case it is either an "f", "g", "k", or "m"...SQL is not case sensitive. the use of the percent (%) is a wildcard. So the string G2V would be a match, and therefore selected.

The table being searched is XHIP or extended Hipparcos.

At 30 parsec there are 2330 if we ignore spectral type this increases to 2406.

originally posted by: Xtrozero

We do see what happens when things are not just right though. Venus is hotter than Mercury and Mars' core solidified too quick. BTW Venus is due to green house effect, not so much as too close to the sun.

It's actually both.

Venus started out with a higher effective temperature (TEFF) due to being closer to the Sun (as well as the Sun's luminosity being higher) and this higher TEFF is thought to have liberated more CO2 into Early Venus's atmosphere which then began the greenhouse effect and the rest is Venus's tragic history.

80% of the stars out there are M type red dwarfs and though some say then can have habitual planets the Goldilocks zone would be closer than Mercury, so that in itself creates a lager number of additional issues.

The issues come down to two basic ones: Tidal locking and the types of flaring these stars produce.

There has been a lot of research on both of these issues and they are not as daunting as once believed. It turns out, it is a lot harder for a star to tidally lock a planet like Earth with an atmosphere or oceans than it is for a scorched rock like Mercury.

The flaring issue during these planets early years (M-type red dwarfs flare a lot when they are young) is more concerning because it is thought these flares could strip such planets of their water while they are forming.

Other recent research questions that and suggests ways such planets could stay wet.

Who is right? No one knows, but that's why we're building equipment to find out.

When added that 50% of all stars are actually binary that also doesn't help matters in creating a stable orbit for life.

Actually it's more like 25%.

And even then, there are stable orbits around binary star systems and depending on the separation of such stars there can be either two separate habitable zones (one for each star) if they are widely separated binaries, or one oval shaped habitable zone if the two stars orbit in close proximity (think Tatooine).

Interestingly enough there have been planets detected around both types of binary star systems. We've found many planets around widely separated binaries. In fact one of the first extrasolar planetary systems ever discovered back in the 1990s was around a nearby star called Upsilon Andromedae A which has a distant red dwarf companion which orbits it.

It is also thought that our next door neighbor, Alpha Centauri B has at least one planet orbiting it but that planet still awaits further confirmation.

Additionally several "Tatooine" type planets have been found orbiting closely separated binaries. In fact average people classifying Kepler light curves in that citizen science project called Planet Hunters referred to earlier found one of them.

At the time they found that planet it became only the second known "Tatooine" type planet so it shows average people can still make important scientific discoveries.

It is these things that I suggest that earth like planets would not be as common as some may think there is.

Unfortunately in your case, most of those things you pointed out are based on old information which is out of date.

It always amazed me that people think what we have here on planet earth is the pinnacle of all of existence and of sentient life, and that this place in all its so called glory and glitz is oh so special.

Oh ya! Plenty of rocks floating in the void which would mirror this one out there. The universe is after all a very big place.

originally posted by: tanka418
a reply to: JadeStar

within 33 light years of earth...

(my work)

select * FROM dbo.xhip
where (SpType like '%m%' or SpType like '%g%' or SpType like'%k%' or SpType like '%f%') and (dist > 0 and dist le 9.82)

Total number of records: 164, 169 if we ignore spectral type.

What this query says: select all fields from the table called "XHIP"
where sptype (spectral type) is like m ... and dist (distance) is less than or equal to 9.82 parsec

The like term: is a SQL construct to search a field for a string that contains something specific; in this case it is either an "f", "g", "k", or "m"...SQL is not case sensitive. the use of the percent (%) is a wildcard. So the string G2V would be a match, and therefore selected.

The table being searched is XHIP or extended Hipparcos.

At 30 parsec there are 2330 if we ignore spectral type this increases to 2406.

One thing I didn't mention Tanka is that the estimates I gave for a given volume of space differ from our catalogs (which is what you're using) because many low mass red dwarf stars within 33 and 100 light years have yet to be discovered though statistically they should exist and every now and then we find a new one.

WRT to venus though:

Didn't astronomers recently reevaluate Sol's habitability zone such that earth is barely in the (i think it was) outer edge? if i am remembering right then that would put venus well within the habitability zone. of course i may have earth's position completely reversed for all i know.

originally posted by: JadeStar

originally posted by: tanka418
a reply to: JadeStar

within 33 light years of earth...

(my work)

select * FROM dbo.xhip
where (SpType like '%m%' or SpType like '%g%' or SpType like'%k%' or SpType like '%f%') and (dist > 0 and dist le 9.82)

Total number of records: 164, 169 if we ignore spectral type.

What this query says: select all fields from the table called "XHIP"
where sptype (spectral type) is like m ... and dist (distance) is less than or equal to 9.82 parsec

The like term: is a SQL construct to search a field for a string that contains something specific; in this case it is either an "f", "g", "k", or "m"...SQL is not case sensitive. the use of the percent (%) is a wildcard. So the string G2V would be a match, and therefore selected.

The table being searched is XHIP or extended Hipparcos.

At 30 parsec there are 2330 if we ignore spectral type this increases to 2406.

One thing I didn't mention Tanka is that the estimates I gave for a given volume of space differ from our catalogs (which is what you're using) because many low mass red dwarf stars within 33 and 100 light years have yet to be discovered though statistically they should exist and every now and then we find a new one.

Ahhh...thank you. I knew there was a logical reason for the discrepancy.

originally posted by: stormbringer1701
WRT to venus though:

Didn't astronomers recently reevaluate Sol's habitability zone such that earth is barely in the (i think it was) outer edge? if i am remembering right then that would put venus well within the habitability zone. of course i may have earth's position completely reversed for all i know.

Ah....... so now you hit upon an issue close to my heart.

The migration of habitable zones.

So it's like this, when the Sun and stars similar to the Sun are young they have a higher luminosity and this effects the habitable zone, also as a star ages the habitable zone moves slowly outward.

There is a great little web app you can play with which graphically illustrates this.

And there is also this calculator from the Virtual Planetary Lab at my school, UW which allows you to enter a stars TEFF and luminosity and you can see where the inner edge and outer edge of that stars habitable zone would be.



You can also see a yellow line which is the "runaway greenhouse" line for a planet with a similar composition as the Earth.

One thing to note about these habitable zones is that what is in a planet's atmosphere makes as much a difference in its temperature as the heat it receives from its star.

If Earth had a lot less CO2 it could be a habitable but mostly frozen world like Hoth from Star Wars.

If Earth has even slightly more CO2 it could become like Venus, completely uninhabitable.

The planet's mass is a factor as well.

So habitability is an evolving balance between TEFF and atmosphere as well as the mass of the planet and time. (It's a dynamic four dimensional thing rather than the static one dimensional thing it is often simplified to in order to talk in general terms).

I just wanted to mention another article on this topic which is very well written and goes into the history of the 250 year old Titus-Bode Law:

Space.com: Extrasolar Planets Are, Almost, Everywhere

originally posted by: LABTECH767

Still we have not heard anything (that we the public know of) by way of alien radio wave communications, maybe something happed in the local neighbourhood a long time ago and it is silent for a reason?.

Maybe they discovered cable first ! Notice how even our planet has shifted from long distance radio transmission to high band short distance (cells) and cable. The internet is fast becoming "the" method of data transmission even for radio and TV programs. Given the frequency at which this must operate at in order to carry the high data rate this means those EM signals attenuate very fast. You would be lucky to detect them even on our own moon!

Then there's the twist in the tale. Any space faring species will have to travel with some kind of faster than light technology. One would presume that such technology would also allow for faster than light communications.

The reason we can't hear them is because we don't have a receiver....yet.

a reply to: JadeStar

Do you believe in the God Particles existence? The existence of parallel universes?

LHC found the GP and next week intends on opening a black hole into a parallel universe.

Your thoughts?

Thanks for the detailed response. I am interested in what you believe about parallel universe theory.

originally posted by: Ultralight
a reply to: JadeStar

Do you believe in the God Particles existence?

Like I said, I do not believe in anything but did you you mean the Higgs Boson?

I don't know if you know this but it has already been discovered so at this point its kind like asking if I believe in atoms or gravity.

The existence of parallel universes?

Really out of my area but the people who work on such theories are very smart people but they will be the first to admit we have no real evidence such parallel universes exist so it is an open question.

LHC found the GP and next week intends on opening a black hole into a parallel universe.


Your thoughts?

The work at the LHC is often misunderstood by sensationalist tabloids. The experiment referred to is a controlled attempt to create what are called "mini black holes" but they are better called "micro" or "nano" black holes. These are not to "open up a gateway to a parallel universe" because:

1) Black Holes are not gateways to anywhere any more than putting a frog in a blender sends them to another universe.

2) The tiny black holes generated by this experiment are very short lived (like they only last for milliseconds) and if they can be created with this experiment nature creates them all the time since on the grand scale, the energies densities LHC is playing with has nothing on the universe which floods our planet with cosmic rays of much higher energy.

As such, and according to this National Geographic article mini black holes could be passing through the Earth on a regular basis every day.

Thanks for the detailed response. I am interested in what you believe about parallel universe theory.

Like I said, that's way outside of my area of study.

I'm studying astrophysics, planetology and astrobiology, not theoretical cosmology, quantum physics or high energy physics (though I have learned a tiny amount about the latter since there is some overlap between high energy physics and Gamma and X-ray astronomy.)

a reply to: JadeStar

Another stellar thread (pun completely intended.)

Surely it is only a matter of time. The fact that we are here means that the odds are better than nil, and as the research doesn't include natural satellites that can't be detected yet. Astros are genuinely excited about Europas potential for harboring life and there could be tens of millions of Europas circling Jovian planets as we speak.

The sad fact is that even if we do find another earth like planet we probably will never know what lies on the surface. Looking in our own backyard first is probably a better option because Mars and Europa are within reach and maybe in our lifetimes we could find proof of current or preexisting life, Planets a thousand light years away are well out of reach and could remain out of reach for a hundred generations.

originally posted by: JadeStar

originally posted by: Ultralight
a reply to: JadeStar

Do you believe in the God Particles existence?

Like I said, I do not believe in anything but did you you mean the Higgs Boson?

I don't know if you know this but it has already been discovered so at this point its kind like asking if I believe in atoms or gravity.

The existence of parallel universes?

Really out of my area but the people who work on such theories are very smart people but they will be the first to admit we have no real evidence such parallel universes exist so it is an open question.

LHC found the GP and next week intends on opening a black hole into a parallel universe.


Your thoughts?

The work at the LHC is often misunderstood by sensationalist tabloids. The experiment referred to is a controlled attempt to create what are called "mini black holes" but they are better called "micro" or "nano" black holes. These are not to "open up a gateway to a parallel universe" because:

1) Black Holes are not gateways to anywhere any more than putting a frog in a blender sends them to another universe.

2) The tiny black holes generated by this experiment are very short lived (like they only last for milliseconds) and if they can be created with this experiment nature creates them all the time since on the grand scale, the energies densities LHC is playing with has nothing on the universe which floods our planet with cosmic rays of much higher energy.

As such, and according to this National Geographic article mini black holes could be passing through the Earth on a regular basis every day.

Thanks for the detailed response. I am interested in what you believe about parallel universe theory.

Like I said, that's way outside of my area of study.

I'm studying astrophysics, planetology and astrobiology, not theoretical cosmology, quantum physics or high energy physics (though I have learned a tiny amount about the latter since there is some overlap between high energy physics and Gamma and X-ray astronomy.)

They found a particle they resonably believe to be higgs. but there are issues. the higgs they found is a boring version. it does not impart part of the mass of particles. theory allows for several different varients of higgs. they are gonna look for them because they think this one sucks. really becausethey believe other higgs particles exist. they want to test that out. plus in addition to higgs they want to look for w prime and z prime and some other missing particles in the standard model. also looking for evidence of mirror matter or dark sector matter. right now it's looking like z prime is more interesting than this version of higgs.

a variation is then just a boson which is differentiated by its energy state. the real higgs is a single indivisible small,virtually weightless particle. we can not see inside one planck length, so i think there are many particles within that size still. a photon is a packet of light only as small as we can make it. light radiates by ejecting even smaller particles until a photon becomes one particle itself which can not divide itself anymore, therefore shed no effect "light', by cause particle, not seen directly in space, like light. but small uncomplex matt3r is there, invisible thru the small weak force, magnetism, working with small relative heat differences creating a flow of invisible matter. the closer to earth the more compression, the more solid our planet gets. the more solid, the more complex atom configurations are possible, like oxygen, which is bigger and more complex than single space material particles, which could ignite thru friction once slamming into our atmosphere with a "certain minimal velocity", creating heat locally inside. space is an insulator to heat, which can only exist in our atmosphere, (inside our atmosphere is material for burn, temperature, and ignition thrue more and more density of our planet, creating heat by friction with thicker air, creating a hottest relative core midpoint in the middle as we have.

all energy is movement like einstein said, i say yes energy is movement, of matter flowing, between relative temperatures working on all scales, (as above) the solid visible, heavy, resistant scale, and also on the (so below) non solid invisible scale which is very cold and very slow moving. (heat dispersion) our magnetic north is pointing at the northstar, could this be a sun with a bigger magnetic impact on us than our own sun? i say it could be. the glow of our planets literally is the border where everything gets more and more solid. seen inna color temperature as well from cold black, to dark blue, to light blue, to black earth, but then the core gets more compressed, and turns red, or energetic again.

Einstein had the right eyes on him at the right time, many people can have brilliant new ideas, but if no one considers them they will be lost in time (people can not fathom a lot if einstein did not propose it). ideas to be rediscovered many years later. i think he saved us a lot of time, but all all his brilliance, i wish he could have seen the aether, we would have been further still and to bad he had no time to prove the tachyon, which i think is also possible, given time for humanity to catch up. hopefully cern believes their own results soon so we can accept faster than C speeds of travel for matter and be done with it. we have many different sizes of sun which eject matter at different speeds, i think light can only exist as light inside an atmosphere with air in it, so it encounters resistance we can see as the effect light. invisible streams of matter in my mind should not be limited to the speed of light measured on earth in a vacuum (but still inside our atmosphere), a vacuum which we can not be sure of that is actually is a real vacuum, since we can not find god particles we can never be sure they are out of the vacuum. i think the speed of light is literally the speed of light BUT it can only exist light inside an atmosphere, where there is igniting temperature by resistance, and matter particles like in air but also the incoming beam itself. and oxygen molecules, all of which are needed for a real fire and are not present in space. i think a single tiniest possible lightest particle is easily influenced by relative heat sources like suns, but a single indivisible particle can not "shed"light, it can not burn or radiate 'fuel" and therefore IS invisible by definition. and should be called the god particle and the boson name as its energy state makes distinguishing between them possible. i think at the end of a solar flare the stream becomes the state neutrino, slams into our atmosphere to become in a photon state(burn), leaves our atmosphere and slows by the same space resistance which is little but relative to little so little is enough for slown invisible small particles with non measurable weights to have an influence on each other. i think our magnetic north may be our universal up on a plane of space with a equator of the biggest influence the sun, or does our north point to a bigger scale of influence like the northstar a bigger sun than our sun, as heat goes up and is an invisible force, can magnetism all be about relative heat showing us our universal up. einstein said energy is movement, i say energy is movement, of matter, with direction of flow caused by relative heat differences. on all scales so sometimes visible on solid scales, and sometimes invisible on the smaller magnetic working scale outside of are human senses made visible with color. the sun is a very hot place where everything wants get away from to cool down and rest in its natural state. a high pressure area in space creating the solar winds just like on earth. as above, so below, everything works exactly the same within any scale of dimension, there is only one system. big is small, small is big. i even have an explanation for blackholes and why they are the missing dark matter and solid but that would make this story so long sorry for that. but my point is, if you count blackholes as matter we get the same matter versus nothingness ratio inside like atoms, i think every dimension has 25% matter and 75% nothing,(so of all matter within a closed off vacuumlike dimension only 25% is solid in every dimension or scale until we find that the 75% nothing IS also matter with a tension or weight, creating resistance making lights path not unlimited for eternity explaining background radiation as a border of the max dist of light to travel in space. light meaning a beam of matter carrying information from there to here. our space might be even more dense than space outside of our dimension of space creating resistance as well and finding it hard to reach us. i think space in rest is a energy state btw like plasma gas water solid, so is space a state of matter, with properties and weight. space is so slow moving, it allows for easy passage of matter beams moving thu it. its said that the stars and the sun are not directly visible in space, if light gets its photon state from impact with our atmosphere and ignite by friction there fore creating warmth inside our atmosphere by the velocity of the incoming matter stream. this could explain that. we impose the speed of matter on the speed of light, which need not be universal speedlimit of matter moving thrue non resistant material, planes encounter resistance much more on earth that they would in space with the right propulsion system of course. anyway i myself have no technology to proof any of this plus i have no name in science, but hang a plate in space to measure the pressure (vibration?) of incoming matter (blocking light coming off earth and the side directions, then compress space matter in a sealed off weighed on earth container, bring it back, weigh it again and you have many godparticled compressed in your possession. knowing the dimensions you could guess the weight of space material the see results of the plate.

S+F as usual...
Reading op is like reading my own thoughts..
scary...
Joke aside, its only logiacal as Spock would say.
The "Zone" Isnt fixed it moves with its parent star.
As for planets inside the zone, even jupiterzised
or even bigger might have moons the zise of earth.
As for life, who knows...No one... YET