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Gliese 581d Confirmed as 'Habitable' Exoplanet

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the but-you-wouldn't-want-to-live-there dept.

An anonymous reader writes "A rocky world orbiting a nearby star was confirmed (PDF) as the first planet outside our Solar System to meet key requirements for sustaining life." The "key requirement" was actually a Starbucks — astronomers were pretty surprised to find out that they like their coffee burnt on Gliese 581d too.

5 of 451 comments (clear)

  1. We've sent them a message already... by cruff · · Score: 5, Funny

    From TFA:

    However, humanity has already tried to make contact with the new planet. During Australia's National Science Week in August 2009, Cosmos magazine partnered with the Australian government, NASA and the CSIRO to run a 13-day campaign to collect goodwill messages from the public to be sent to Gliese 581d.

    The initiative, known as Hello From Earth, collected 26,000 messages, which were transmitted by NASA's Tidbinbilla facility. The signal is not due to arrive until January 2030.

    At which time it will be returned because we failed to include sufficient postage.

    1. Re:We've sent them a message already... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      "Hello from Earth?" They should have called it "Hello World!"

  2. Re:Wow ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Here is something that may interest you. This is a time-lapse video of asteroids discoveries. You'll notice the amount and distance increasing considerably as we reach the present. This shows the difference between technologies 20 years ago and the current ones.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_d-gs0WoUw

  3. Re:Gliese 581d in the 'Goldilocks Zone' by PeterM+from+Berkeley · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Sir,

        We do not even have a self-sustaining colony on Antarctica, which is warmer than mars, and has unlimited air and water. Our colonies on Antarctica are nowhere near self-sustaining. Mars is colder than Antarctica, water is scarce, and there's NO oxygen and barely any atmosphere.

        In other words, calling Mars "habitable" is like calling rocks "edible". The rocks might become edible if you ground them down to dust, added plants, and then ate the plants.

    --PeterM

  4. Re:Goldilocks != "Habitable" by WhiplashII · · Score: 5, Informative

    You won't find oxygen in an atmosphere without life already on the planet. Oxygen is too reactive.

    --
    while (sig==sig) sig=!sig;