http://www.eso.org/public/news/eso1214/
According to the European Southern Observatory's satellite HARPS, whose sole purpose is to search for planets, there are potentially tens of billions of terrestrial (or rocky) planets orbiting red dwarfs in the Milky Way Galaxy alone. Of those billions of planets, upwards of 40% of them are thought to be somewhere between 1-10 times larger than Earth, and also reside in a habitable zone where liquid water would be able to be maintained. Red dwarf stars are much older than our Sun, and therefore weaker, but they are also the most common star in the Milky Way Galaxy (making up 80% of its stars) so the HARPS satellite has focused its attention towards planets orbiting red dwarfs. The only issue with this is that, due to the stars being older and weaker, the planets habitable zone is closer to the star than our Earth is to our Sun, thus decreasing the chances of life being present on those planets because of a tendency of red dwarfs to shoot off flares that bathe planets in harmful radiation. Nevertheless, the HARPS satellite has revealed how terrestrial planets like Earth aren't as rare in the Universe, let alone the Milky Way Galaxy, as we once thought.
Due to a vast majority of the questions about my PowerPoint being about the Kepler program, or just Earth-like planets in general, I wanted to find something relevant to that. While this is a satellite entirely different from the Kepler satellite launched a little over three years ago, they're both searching for the basically the same information. I love how, as we begin the study the Universe more and more, we are finding that the conditions we find on Earth may not be so rare after all. While life could potentially exist in almost any conditions (take the extremely hot temperatures at the bottom of the ocean, where life still thrives, as an example) it makes sense to look for life where we already know it can exist. With this being the first close examination of red dwarfs and the planets that surround them, we are beginning to narrow down exactly what inhabits our galaxy, and maybe someday, we'll find the perfect twin of Earth which we could inhabit in the future.
This is something I think about all of the time. Like "what if" there is another world out there with life, odds are there is. I mean we are a tiny planet in a solar system is our solar system is just one member of the Milky Way. Scientist are always coming up with estimations of how many galaxy's there really are. I do believe there is life somewhere else though.
ReplyDeleteI find this to be very interesting but also a big waste of time. There are multiple reasons. One being that because the stars are so old even if we were to ever inhabit one of these plants, it would most likely die very quickly and kill us all with a solar flare. Also it would be way to much money to get the resources and people to these planets. Finally by the time we got there we would be very very old or dead. But I guess we can dream.
ReplyDeleteFunny - I imagine people used to say stuff like that to Christopher Columbus. Interesting stuff.
ReplyDeleteWell as of now, they have only been examining these planets through powerful telescopes, no talk of ever inhabiting them exists, it is only to get a better understanding of our galaxy and the universe that we live in. By the time that we would actually have the technology to be able to efficiently travel to any of these other solar systems, I would assume that we would have also invented an efficient way to inhabit that planet and set up infrastructure that can resist the radiation given off by these red dwarfs.
ReplyDeleteMainly, there isn't really any talk of ever inhabiting these planets, it was only for getting the data of what the solar systems of red dwarf stars are like. I guess that the term "habitable" is used loosely, in meaning that the conditions on those planets would potentially be able to sustain life in the current conditions that we know it can exist, and not that we are necessarily planning on colonizing them.
I think it is very interesting that their are possibly more planets that are inhabitable by humans. The only problem with this is that we can not prove that there is water on these planets. I am also suprised that the hubble telescope has not picked up some of these images of planets before. I know that hubble does not just look for inhabitable planets, but I am still suprised.
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion i think that we should send an unmanned drone or something to one of these habitable planets and check them out. I think that we need to get out of the "looking" zone and move into the "exploring" zone and get out there. This is somewhat off topic, but do you think that on one of these habitable planets might have lifeforms on it?
ReplyDeleteHeath, I'm pretty sure the Hubble telescope's main mission is to look as deep into space as it possibly can in order to get as close as possible to seeing the origins of the universe. We have other satellites like the Kepler whose mission revolves around looking for Earth-like planets.
ReplyDeleteCollin, as of now it would take hundreds of years for our fastest spacecraft to reach these planets and examine them any further, so until our technology improves and we find better, longer lasting sources of fuel, we won't be able to explore these planets any closer.
As far as life in the universe, I 100% believe that there is life in the universe. Even though the conditions are extremely rare for life to exist, that is canceled out by the fact that the universe is so large, that rare things happen everyday. Life could potentially exist in any conditions, but if life did exist on these planets, then we could assume that they would be somewhat similar to us due to the similar conditions.
So yes, I personally believe that one of these planets, out of billions, would have life on it.
I feel like this is a good thing for a few reasons. Our world is becoming overpopulated, so if there are planets that are habitable, that could possibly solve that problem. Another reason this is a good thing is because this will lead to more research of the Milky Way Galaxy and more than just this could be found. So, yes i believe this finding is a good thing.
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