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Scientists Find 'Super-Earth' In Star System From 'Star Trek' (vice.com)
In a wonderful example of truth validating fiction, the star system imagined as the location of Vulcan, Spock's home world in Star Trek, has a planet orbiting it in real life. From a report: A team of scientists spotted the exoplanet, which is about twice the size of Earth, as part of the Dharma Planet Survey (DPS), led by University of Florida astronomer Jian Ge. It orbits HD 26965, more popularly known as 40 Eridani, a triple star system 16 light years away from the Sun. Made up of a Sun-scale orange dwarf (Eridani A), a white dwarf (Eridani B), and a red dwarf (Eridani C), this system was selected to be "Vulcan's Sun" after Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry consulted with astronomers Sallie Baliunas, Robert Donahue, and George Nassiopoulos about the best location for the fictional planet.
"An intelligent civilization could have evolved over the aeons on a planet circling 40 Eridani," Roddenberry and the astronomers suggested in a 1991 letter to the editor published in Sky & Telescope. The three stars "would gleam brilliantly in the Vulcan sky," they added. The real-life exoplanet, known as HD 26965b, is especially tantalizing because it orbits just within the habitable zone of its star, meaning that it is theoretically possible that liquid water -- the key ingredient for life as we know it -- could exist on its surface.
"An intelligent civilization could have evolved over the aeons on a planet circling 40 Eridani," Roddenberry and the astronomers suggested in a 1991 letter to the editor published in Sky & Telescope. The three stars "would gleam brilliantly in the Vulcan sky," they added. The real-life exoplanet, known as HD 26965b, is especially tantalizing because it orbits just within the habitable zone of its star, meaning that it is theoretically possible that liquid water -- the key ingredient for life as we know it -- could exist on its surface.
8 times mass = 8 times gravity
2 times radius = 1/4 times gravity
product = 2 times gravity
Absolutely inaccurate.
We know so little about the kingdoms Bacteria and Archaea that rely on non photosynthetic processes that you cannot logically make that statement.
Except isn't this one a cold dead planet? Also it has like 8X the mass of Earth and 2X as big. How would gravity be there?
It would be illogical to believe that a planet with 2X the gravity of earth could not sustain life.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
Oxygen. To have an atmosphere consisting of large quantities of O2 means *something* is continuously cracking it free from molecular bondage. It can occur natural without life. But to do so in large quantities, and continuously so as to not be locked up with other elements can only mean one thing. LIFE!
Please see the Great Oxygenation Event.
Life is not for the lazy.