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Planet Found in Double Star System
Daniel Dvorkin writes "CNN is reporting that a planet has been found in a double star system. I know, another extrasolar planet -- whoopee! But this one is different since it is in a double star system, and because given the size of the stars (the larger one is about 1.6 times as big as the Sun), the orbit (a little bigger than that of Mars), and the planet (somewhat bigger than Jupiter) it seems very possible that the planet might have a moon of roughly Earth's size and climate. I believe this is the first discovery that comes close to matching those criteria."
But I think it's sort of pointless to look for earth-ish planets. I know that we're looking for existing life or possible places to live, but isn't it very possible there is some sort of life that lives in a drastically different environment than we do? There could very well be some crazy lifeform that lives on gas giants.
Not only that, but all of the plaets outside our solar system are many light-years away. It takes way too long to get to them. I think time would be much better spent on figuring out how to live in unfavorable places, or change their climate to be favorable to our life. A moon colony seems a lot more likely, possible, and useful in the near future than some planet a google light years away.
The GeekNights podcast is going strong. Listen!
If humans were to find an inhabitable moon there, and set up camp, things could be a whole lot more confusing than on Earth, with or without global warming. It was sunny and fairly temperate today. It's fscking October!!!
Ah, anyway, the point of my post: Being on a moon around a planet that is orbiting a double star would likely make things a lot more complicated than day-night-day-night and spring-summer-autumn-winter! Not to mention the possible extremes caused by eclipses, orbit, gravity, tides, etc.
Just a thought.
Ali
Ph33r m3!!!
When it goes to the dark side of the planet, it would really suck. I imagine if there is life on the planet it gets to enjoy some interesting day patterns. If the orbit and rotation were just right, then you could have every 10th day with an extra 12 hours of dark or whatever. If it was really unfriendly you could get stuck on the wrong side of the planet for a week or more. That makes things real cold real quick.
Plus you'd have this enormous object to look at in the sky. Now, I can't say I know what I'm talking about here (but then, on slashdot, who does?) but I'd imagine a moon the size of earth orbiting a planet the size of Jupiter would have one huge part of the sky covered. I bet it makes navigating by the stars a bitch for their sailors!
.... it's a space station!
First of all I am not an astronomer (IANAA) nor am I a Starwars zealot. But I did see the movies and once in a library I flipped through a book on the Science of Starwars, or some such title. I have already seen a number of Starwars related comments, but I would like to give a few reasons why a minshara (I butchered that spelling, I am not a Trekkie either) class moon is unlikely from what I can remember based on that book.
A planet with a Jupiter like mass is probably a gas giant, like Endor, but if this gas giant is anything like Jupiter in our own solar system, then it has very strong magnetic belts. This would trap protons and electrons inside the field and create massive amounts of dangerous radiation.
It is possible that the second sun has an eliptical orbit with the primary sun at one of the foci. In this case the changing tidal forces may cause dramatic tectonic behavior, possibly strong enough to tear the moon apart, if the secondary sun ever gets close enough. A gas giant, being composed mostly of gas, would be able to withstand such tidal forces.
So life on such a moon might have to deal with some inhospitable conditions. Also, do not expect sunsets like on Tatoonie (or however that planet is spelled). The farther sun is so far away it would look like a bright star.
Another neat point is that, like our moon, any such moon would probably be locked into a position such that one side always faces the planet it orbits. Imagine if you were a primitive Ewok-like race living on the wrong side of the moon, you would never even know that you were orbiting a gas giant! (But think what a beautiful view of a gas giant you might have if you were on the other side....) In such a locked orbit, though, your notion of day and night would be ruled based on the time that it takes the moon to circle the planet and if you lived on the planet view side, imagine the amazing eclipses. (A gas giant may emit some light of its own....)
Darn it, now I have gotten myself daydreaming!
What sucks for the civilizaiton on that planet is that they may never learn to navigate spacecraft since the 3 body problem created by having 2 suns is inherently chaotic.
Pretty much everything in this comment is wrong. There are chaotic and non-chaotic solutions to the three-body problem. Sun, earth, moon is an example of the latter.
I suspect that if a planet was in an a chaotic orbit between two stars, then civilizations are not so likely, because climate variations could be extreme (e.g., Mars orbit one year, Venus orbit the next). But if a civilization did exist, then I can't see why they could not learn spacecraft navigation. Thr first challenge is to build rockets powerful enought to leave the planet - this is independent of the planet's orbit. Once they have gotten that far, I am sure the chaotic orbit wont stop them from sending the spacecraft to other planets.
Tor
Well, it might be the right size, and maybe even have a moon, but cool stories like Asimov's Nightfall (as well as the longer novel based on the short story by Silberberg) aside, most of what I have read suggested that a planet in a binary system would be exposed to a whole lot more radiation that would be good for earth-type life. Now, the fact that that the Asimov classic was in a system with 3 stars rather that 2 and the fact that I have no real clue what I'm talking about makes this all crap, but whatever.
Narrative
You believe wrongly.
HD28185 b and IotaHor b both could support moons with liquid water, year-round.
HD27442 b (aka Epsilon Reticulum) could also do it.
Other planets visit their star's habitable zones, too. Even though most of these other planets have eccentric orbits which would take them in and out periodically, they still "come close to matching those criteria".
Also a much better link to details of the Gamma Cephei system can be found here.
I bet there is no 'our sun is the center of the universe and therefore so, too, are we the most important thing in the universe' sort of thinking there. Then, again, if they are anything like us, they have probably figured out a way around that little problem, too.
.sig is brilliant and funny, but I left it in my other discussion thread.)
(My other
It strikes me that most current thinking on the viability of intelligent life other than humanity is exceedingly anthropomorphic. Note that while some of the very same people who find the notion of starfaring sentience crowding the galaxy to be a very rational notion, they find the notion of God to be irrational. If that isn't the same old humanist-centered thinking that's dominated mankind since the flat worlders, I don't know what it is.
When you get right down to it the only notion of extraterrestrial life most can stomach, or imagine, even, is the kind we could defeat in a face to face confrontation if it came down to that. I doubt we are anywhere near as progressed as you imagine in the sense of our ability to live in a non-man-centered universe.