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How Gaseous, Neptune-Like Planets Can Become Habitable
An anonymous reader writes: Life as we know it requires small, rocky planets. The gas giants of our solar system aren't habitable (to our knowledge), but a research team has discovered that smaller, Neptune-like planets can be transformed into gas-free, potentially habitable worlds with a little help from red dwarf stars. Such planets are usually formed far out in a planetary system, but tidal forces can cause them to migrate inward. When they reach the habitable zone of their host star, they absorb far larger amounts of x-ray and ultraviolet radiation. This can eventually boil off most of the the gas atmosphere, leaving behind the core: a small, rocky world capable of supporting life.
This sounds like a great way to make a Mercury type planet, but I'm not so sure it will be so great at making a place you would want to live.
I read the internet for the articles.
Wouldn't it be easier to terraform the moons of gas giants
Did Earth once possess a much larger (Neptune-sized or even larger?) atmosphere, maybe sometime way before the Hadean period? I can see the hydrogen/helium literally boiling off by a warming sun, leaving behind the heavier gases. Maybe we're looking at what Earth has now completely in the wrong way, considering that even at 430km the ISS is being slowed by atmospheric drag - common assumption has it that "Space" occurs at what, shy of 100km? This Karman line isn't a solid boundary with Space above and Air below, it's a convenient mark on a piece of paper.
Political debates have me rolling my eyes so much I think I got optical whiplash. I should sue. - Foamy The Squirrel
Or would it boil off just enough of the atmosphere to turn it in to a Venusian hell hole?
The gas giants of our solar system aren't habitable (to our knowledge)
Pfft! You obviously haven't seen Jupiter Ascending yet! Then again neither have it, but that's beside the point.
Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
Jupiter is going to crash into us! Everybody RUN!
Aren't the atmospheres on gas giants so thick and dense that we could make "Cloud Cities" that float on top of the thickest/densest parts of the atmosphere?
That must be how Vader and the Sith were able to rationalize to the Senate to get the Death Star built. The laser was meant to be used to boil off the gasses by having them absorb the X-Ray and UV laser light... but it could be used to destroy planets at the highest setting.
What is that all about? From what I've read the earth's moon is currently moving away from the earth, not closer. So wouldn't the same forces affect the migration of planets once their environs are cleared of dust, gas and planetismals?
No problem, send Lando Calrissian to set up Cloud City!
And yet if you suggest converting the Sun into a red giant then people call you mad.
Apparently the secret to creating a habitable world is to remove the cloud of gas that surrounds Uranus?
How can we continue to believe in a just universe and freedom to eat crackers if we have no ale?
"This can eventually boil off most of the the gas atmosphere, leaving behind the core: a small, rocky world capable of supporting life.'
So after nano tech fiber makes space elevators possible, we can then work on a planet towing device to drag Jupiter in to the sweet spot where it will boil away and leave us Jupiter-2, Rocky Core Edition? Oh wait, first we need to drag a Red Dwarf star into our solar system. Damnable prerequisites.
I only look human.
My mother is a halfling and my dad is an ogre, so that makes me an Ogreling
Looks like another example of how _some_ of Immanuel Velikovsky's ideas, such as those in Worlds in Collision, were actually plausible and scientifically interesting, at least at a basic level. It's too bad he felt it was necessary to sabotage himself by compressing all of his ideas together into an implausibly complex series of events taking place over an implausibly short timeline in order to make a kind of historical conspiracy theory.
This Space Intentionally Left Blank
Notice how the article used Neptune instead of Uranus as an example.
Table-ized A.I.
I can't believe they are just figuring this out. I remember thinking this was possible decades ago as a child.
It just goes to show that everybody is stupid except for me.
How do you boil off something already a gas? Sounds like we need a term for "heating a gas to the point molecules exceed escape velocity"...
Yes, but would a planet created in this way have a magnetic field? Another Mars won't help.
Aren't the atmospheres of Neptune-like planets made mostly of fusion fuels? The atmosphere itself could be used as a fuel source to strip the planet of gas and ice.
Is there some kind of reason we want to find things just like us?
Isn't that kind of boring?
"Consensus" in science is _always_ a political construct.