Closest ever planet which could house intelligent ALIENS discovered

a reply to: Soylent Green Is People

It's simply moving around its star in a shorter period than Earth does. It's not like time itself moves noticeably faster.

I understand that this planets 18 day year would not necessarily hinder the development of life on this planet but what effects would it have on humans if they wished to colonise this planet at some point in the future?

I'm no expert at all on this sort of thing so I wondered if I could ask the more informed a couple of more questions to help me understand a little bit better.

Does this planet travel significantly faster than the earth as they orbit their respective Sun's.
If Wolf 1061c rotates at a different speed to the earth would this affect humans?

One last question; would the fact the planets star is a Red Dwarf as opposed to ours being a Yellow Dwarf have any effect on humans or the development of life?

a reply to: Freeborn
I don't yet know what Wolf 1601c's rotational period is (how long a day lasts), but humans evolved with the normal 24-hour day with a day-night cycle, and being exposed to different day-night cycles messes with the natural rhythms of humans, and causes all sorts of physiological and psychological problems.

www.sciencedaily.com...

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov...

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov...

Wouldn't a larger planet have more gravity?

originally posted by: MystikMushroom
And just think, when I was a kid in the mid 1980's we were being told in school there weren't any other planets we knew of. Now, some 20 odd years later we've found HUNDREDS and some of them even could support life. . .

Part of me thinks they've known a lot more for a long time...and are just now turning the spigot on and letting the information begin to flow.

Thank Carl Sagan for that.
In his Cosmos he went into great stress and detail that life can pretty much pop up anywhere as long as it has the capacity to capture and utilize large amounts of energy.

Excellent and thank you.

I have a question about planetary formation in red dwarf planetary systems.

Do such systems have the necessary (as far as we know) heavy element density to create planets with iron cores for example? I am asking from complete ignorance here so any input would be welcome.

originally posted by: cavtrooper7
Wouldn't a larger planet have more gravity?

Yes. Mass and diameter affect gravity.

However, saying that it's potentially habitable is not the same as saying it is potentially a place that humans could easily colonize. The article is simply about a planet that could possibly harbor life (life as we know it).

a reply to: Soylent Green Is People

SIGH ...OK still looking for real estate then...

Red Dwarf stars are considerably smaller than stars such as ours, consisting of only 7.5% to 50% of our sun's mass. They are also much cooler and have significantly longer lifetimes than our own sun.

Planets will orbit these stars much closer and much faster than our own sun's planets, especially if they are much bigger than earth. Because of the much longer life-cycle of these red dwarf stars, the evolution of their solar systems will be slower than ours, but should follow the same mechanics of our own solar system.

Red Dwarfs are bar far and away the most common type of star in the milky way, interestingly.

I think it's quite possible we could inhabit such a planet, i think it may be quite a fascinating environment to experience..


full size

a reply to: spygeek

Thank you for that and it is a very interesting link. However, I still have a question regarding red dwarf systems, and that is whether such systems could create planets with heavy cores, as heavy metallic cores seem to be the best way to enable planets to hold onto atmospheres due to magnetic effects. Nobody has answered this question as of yet though.

originally posted by: Soylent Green Is People
a reply to: Freeborn
I don't yet know what Wolf 1601c's rotational period is (how long a day lasts), but humans evolved with the normal 24-hour day with a day-night cycle, and being exposed to different day-night cycles messes with the natural rhythms of humans, and causes all sorts of physiological and psychological problems.

www.sciencedaily.com...

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov...

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov...

that is easier to deal with than the gravity. simply go indoors where light can be controlled when it is time to sleep.

originally posted by: cavtrooper7
Wouldn't a larger planet have more gravity?

see newton's equation for gravity. its not just mass its the distance between the larger mass of the planet and the center of gravity of the object it is attracting. thus if you have a planet that is massive but also big the distance between the two objects centers is greater and the force between them drops as a square of (or maybe the cube of) the distance. if i remember right. but the masses also factor into it. thus gravity isn't a straight relationship to mass.

originally posted by: Jonjonj
a reply to: spygeek

Thank you for that and it is a very interesting link. However, I still have a question regarding red dwarf systems, and that is whether such systems could create planets with heavy cores, as heavy metallic cores seem to be the best way to enable planets to hold onto atmospheres due to magnetic effects. Nobody has answered this question as of yet though.

Apologies, i missed this, if they follow the same mechanics as our own solar system, then yes, they can support the formation of heavy metal core planets. The bigger issue seems to be whether the planet is tidally locked or not and how that may affect the atmospheric conditions, also the absence of ultraviolet radiation from a red dwarf has implications for the likelihood of life evolving..

Planetary habitability of red dwarf systems is subject to some debate. In spite of their great numbers and long lifespans, there are several factors which may make life difficult on planets around a red dwarf.

First, planets in the habitable zone of a red dwarf would be so close to the parent star that they would likely be tidally locked. This would mean that one side would be in perpetual daylight and the other in eternal night. This could create enormous temperature variations from one side of the planet to the other.

Such conditions would appear to make it difficult for forms of life similar to those on Earth to evolve. And it appears there is a great problem with the atmosphere of such tidally locked planets: the perpetual night zone would be cold enough to freeze the main gases of their atmospheres, leaving the daylight zone nude and dry. On the other hand, recent theories propose that either a thick atmosphere or planetary ocean could potentially circulate heat around such a planet.

Alternatively, a moon in orbit around a gas giant may be habitable. It would circumvent the tidal lock problem by becoming tidally locked to its planet. This way there would be a day/night cycle as the moon orbited its primary, and there would be distribution of heat.

according to da wiki it's gravity is likely to be 1.6 earth G. not comfortable for us but livable for short periods of time. a 200 pound man would weigh 320 pounds. the skeleton and muscles could take it for a while. but the cardiac system would have to work much harder to pump blood around the body.

originally posted by: MystikMushroom
And just think, when I was a kid in the mid 1980's we were being told in school there weren't any other planets we knew of. Now, some 20 odd years later we've found HUNDREDS and some of them even could support life. . .

Part of me thinks they've known a lot more for a long time...and are just now turning the spigot on and letting the information begin to flow.

There's a difference between assuming a solar system probably has planets and actually detecting planets. So decades ago we had detected zero planets. Since then the technology and computer analysis software has advanced so that we can now detect them. Next step analysis of the the atmosphere of a remote planet.

No need to assume a conspiracy or secrets, just basic advance of human technology and science.

a reply to: Frocharocha

This is a Cool find! I'm always Loving it when New Planets that may support Life are found! Trillions to choose from!!
If I lived there I'd be about 957 Years old now! LOL!!

originally posted by: MystikMushroom
And just think, when I was a kid in the mid 1980's we were being told in school there weren't any other planets we knew of. Now, some 20 odd years later we've found HUNDREDS and some of them even could support life. . .

Part of me thinks they've known a lot more for a long time...and are just now turning the spigot on and letting the information begin to flow.

Something I have always stated too, less then 20 years ago when I was in school and they spoke fluently of being no water elsewhere, not even just floating in space. Yet now there is water pretty much everywhere and tons of water just a floating around. Therefore anywhere, could harbor life. That is, life similar to ours. Life could exist in some other form we are not aware of yet however.

Love the find anyway, part of me always thinks that planets and life has already been found and that the only reason they cannot blurt it out is because they just do not know how to break it to people due to the world pretty much running off of religion.

I would bet most planets have "life" on them, just not in the form we are familiar with. I'd bet Sentience has many forms.

Let's get that ion drive ready and go visit..

originally posted by: BlackProject
Something I have always stated too, less then 20 years ago when I was in school and they spoke fluently of being no water elsewhere, not even just floating in space. Yet now there is water pretty much everywhere and tons of water just a floating around. Therefore anywhere, could harbor life. That is, life similar to ours. Life could exist in some other form we are not aware of yet however.

Love the find anyway, part of me always thinks that planets and life has already been found and that the only reason they cannot blurt it out is because they just do not know how to break it to people due to the world pretty much running off of religion.

Science suspect water would be elsewhere, but they didn't actually have good evidence of liquid water elsewhere until they started investigating Europa in the 1980s, and more recently Mars. It has also been common knowledge for decades that water vapor and water ices existed in other parts of the solar system. Spectral analysis of places such as the clouds of Venus, Jupiter, Saturn indicated water vapor. I has also been common knowledge for a long time now that comets contain large amounts of water ice.

Science would not assume 20 years ago that somehow Earth is so special that it is the only place in the galaxy or universe with water. That would be very unlike science to make such a crazy assumption. They may say they haven't detected liquid water elsewhere, but that's not the same as saying earth is an the ultra-special place that has the only liquid water in the galaxy.

The star Wolf 1016 apparently has a metals content about 99.8 percent of our Sun, so the creation of planets with iron cores from its stellar nebula seems very likely. I'm not sure if a planet that rotates only once in 18 days would generate much of a magnetic field, but to whatever extent it did, this would tend to protect any atmosphere from stellar erosion. This is definitely an issue for life. Mars gradually lost most of its atmosphere in this way, when its magnetic field failed.
The high mass of the planet should also help Wolf 1016 c to hold onto its atmosphere and water.
A red dwarf star is deficient in ultraviolet light, relative to the Sun. This is a source of genetic mutations that drive evolution on Earth. Other sources of mutations would presumably dominate on such a planet. A relatively heavy rocky planet like this should probably have larger stores of naturally radioactive elements. These could be a factor in genetic mutations.
Suppose that a tidally locked planet, with one side always facing its star, could distribute its heat by strong atmospheric and/ or oceanic circulation. We would still probably find a planet with a torrid zone of deserts and/or tropical jungles near the star-ward point, and a frigid zone, like one of our polar regions, near the opposite point on the planet. A temperate zone around the light/dark terminator also seems indicated.
Since the planet rotates so slowly, there might be one, planet-wide convection cell in the atmosphere. Heated rising air could be driven away from the hottest point in all directions, toward the cold side of the planet. This could force sinking cold air back to the hot side to start the cycle over again.