Planet outside solar system is habitable

Great!!!! S&F

Always known of course Nice to have this conformation. I would like to add that the other planets in the area were discarded, but only discarded to support earth-like life! Meaning it could well be supporting for non earth-like life (whatever it is).

Maybe movies like "Alien" are not so far of (scary thought, lol)

Cheers!

that's seriously cool news man, thanks for sharing S+F

-Bob

reply to post by Havick007


"I believe it is still speculation that there is intelligent life on the planet earth."

reply to post by mossme89


Oh yes definatly, no one has actually said there was intelligent life on the planet. Well not in any of my news links anyway.

When they said habitable, they didnt say habitable by which species or a specified type of life form. Only that the conditions are good for rainfall and liquids.

I would imagine with a CO2 rich enviroment and certain parts of the planet that are just right, plant life may be present and even lifeforms. Just because we evolved to breath oxygen, it doesnt mean other lifeforms couldn't evolve to live off other elements or in totally different conditions...


For example when you think of Venus you wouldnt think it was habitable right?

Well certain types of bacteria may disagree:

Anaerobic organism

An anaerobic organism or anaerobe is any organism that does not require oxygen for growth. It could possibly react negatively and may even die if oxygen is present. There are three types:

* Obligate anaerobes, which cannot use oxygen for growth and are even harmed by it
* Aerotolerant organisms, which cannot use oxygen for growth, but tolerate the presence of it
* Facultative anaerobes, which can grow without oxygen but can utilize oxygen if it is present

Some of these types of bacteria actually grow and thrive in high acid enviroments and venus has long been known for its sulphuric acid concentrations.

Acidophilic bacteria

Acidophiles are organisms that can withstand and even thrive in acidic environments where the pH values range from 1 to 5. Acidophiles include certain types of eukaryotes, bacteria and archaea that are found in a variety of acidic environments, including sulfuric pools and geysers, areas polluted by acid mine drainage, and even our own stomachs.

I am only speculating in regard to Venus and just using it as an example, but it is very true that many lifeforms here on Earth grow and thrive in the harshest enviroments and in places Humans could never go.



Back to the topic:


It was initially ruled out due to it's distance from the star but after a closer look, strong Co2 is a possibility leading to a hightened greenhouse effect and increasing surface temps. There is also a difference in the type of light and energy the star is emitting and that it penetrates much further into the atmosphere than light and energy would here on Earth from our own sun.

They also believe the planet is tidally locked and not rotating which has a different affect on climate.


Here is some of the original science daily article that has alot more detail than my OP and news links.

First Habitable Exoplanet? - Science Daily

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/a0d7a74e9544.jpg[/atsimg]


To test whether this intuition was correct, Wordsworth and colleagues developed a new kind of computer model capable of accurately simulating possible exoplanet climates. The model simulates a planet's atmosphere and surface in three dimensions, rather like those used to study climate change on Earth. However, it is based on more fundamental physical principles, allowing the simulation of a much wider range of conditions than would otherwise be possible, including any atmospheric cocktail of gases, clouds and aerosols.

To their surprise, they found that with a dense carbon dioxide atmosphere -- a likely scenario on such a large planet -- the climate of Gliese 581d is not only stable against collapse, but warm enough to have oceans, clouds and rainfall. One of the key factors in their results was Rayleigh scattering, the phenomenon that makes the sky blue on Earth. In the Solar System, Rayleigh scattering limits the amount of sunlight a thick atmosphere can absorb, because a large portion of the scattered blue light is immediately reflected back to space. However, as the starlight from Gliese 581 is red, it is almost unaffected. This means that it can penetrate much deeper into the atmosphere, where it heats the planet effectively due to the greenhouse effect of the CO2 atmosphere, combined with that of the carbon dioxide ice clouds predicted to form at high altitudes. Furthermore, the 3D circulation simulations showed that the daylight heating was efficiently redistributed across the planet by the atmosphere, preventing atmospheric collapse on the night side or at the poles.

 

If Gliese 581d does turn out to be habitable, it would still be a pretty strange place to visit -- the denser air and thick clouds would keep the surface in a perpetual murky red twilight, and its large mass means that surface gravity would be around double that on Earth. But the diversity of planetary climates in the galaxy is likely to be far wider than the few examples we are used to from the Solar System. In the long run, the most important implication of these results may be the idea that life-supporting planets do not in fact need to be particularly like Earth at all.

It's almost fustrating that we are stuck here on Earth and we cant just go there to look for ourselves..... it will be the next great journey of exploration when we finally unlock the secrets of interstellar travel or depending on what you believe perhaps when the government decides to let us in on the secret

I completely agree. When speaking about life forms your imagination would not have enough time to go through all the combinations possible. Some could even be unthinkable (so no need to try:lol

However "we" humans most of the time think of life forms we can relate to, even speak to. But my opinion is that the diversity is endless, so endless that we won't be able to relate or communicate to the fast majority of them.

I als agree that it doesn't mean anything to us if we can't see them, but im my mind it could be explanations of wierd sightings such as ghost or strange lights. Again you could go on endlessly. In the end the only life form intresting for us humans are "humanoids" or at least beings we can commnicate with. We could learn so much!

And indeed it's a shame that we (from this generation) probably wont ever have the chance to go out there. That's why I wished I was born 200 years later or so....

Cheers

reply to post by saturnus1962


I think that is a huge problem as well, when many people think of habitable they relate to Earth and average day here. Breathing O2, drinking water and even being carbon based etc.

Just because we evolved under these conditions does not mean that other life may evolve under totally different and ''alien'' conditions to us..

I can't help but be interested in this fact, I've always loved space, and I always loved the fact that there could be life out there and worlds for us to explore.

But that was when I was really young, now I can't help but go 'oh great, another planet for us to hopelessly destroy.'

reply to post by codenameotacon89


Yeah we have alot to learn before we try to explore other planets and enviroments...

I can't help but think of the War of Worlds remake and that it was a virus that killed the invaders. So if we can eventually get to these worlds, we would be faced with bacteria and viruses we have not evolved an immunity for and would be very open to infection etc.

exellent news i always new there must be other planets that could support some kind of life. i also think TPTB have known this for some time.

reply to post by Havick007

But unlike the (stupid?) Martians, we would probably take steps to avoid infection.

reply to post by Phage


Yeah it probably wasnt a good idea to use a movie as an example as any real intelligence would have planned ahead especially for microbes, bacteria and viruses.

Just to add;

It would take alot of time and research to plan ahead though... just think about all the time and money that is spent constantly studying virus mutation on Earth, we live here!! yet still can't control it properly.

Every year they have to develop new vaccines for the simple flu let alone all the other viruses and infections that are even harder to control.

Originally posted by CobraCommander
reply to post by Havick007

 

There are probably Earth like moons with life on them right here, but we can't talk about those. Exo-planet study is pure propaganda.

Life on them? Perhaps. There are a few water moons the have the potential for having life on them, but as far as Earth like moons, No. None of the moons around any of the planets are even remotely like earth. If we could move a few of them closer to the sun then maybe, but the interesting ones are too far away from the sun. Gasses freeze to a liquid or even a solid at the temperatures out there.

Ask the scientists if the work they are doing is propaganda. These people live for the thrill of discovery. They are looking for answers, not covering anything up.

If we leave now... we can get there by the time ours becomes uninhabitable....

Originally posted by franspeakfree
reply to post by Havick007

 

the carbon dioxide-rich atmosphere would almost certainly not be breathable by humans

That's as far as we get with disclosure then, always the same old #, just a different day, keep it from the people until a time where your hand is forced. Jeesh anyone else getting tired of this baloney!

Excellent, that is great news about it's rich carbon dioxide atmosphere.

That means that Gliese is a great place for trees, bushes, plants, shrubs, grass, weed, wheat....and they all consume Carbon Dioxide and release Oxygen.

You could terraform Gliese by putting loads of the above on it's surface.

YAAAAAAAAAY!

I wonder what they taste like?

Hold on Imma be right back, just grabbing my good friend Master Chief...

The thing I don't like is the fact that we wouldn't have to worry about living on other planets if we looked after ours properly (and not to mention sorting the government out). Then it would be just an observation hobby, instead of the hoping we can go somewhere else once we have destroyed out planet.

Really interesting though.

if there is life there are we going to call them Gliesians?
hope we can have some incentive for faster then light travel propulsion systems. that might get us out of our economic downturn.

Yes go space exploration.

reply to post by Havick007


That's not the headline, and that's not the stories result.
It's still all theory.

You might as well have bumped it up another notch and made your headline say "First Contact Made!"

reply to post by Havick007


That planet Gliese 581d, is so far away that even if we could travel at the speed of light, or FTL speeds we still would never get there and back in 3000 life times...

What we are seeing from that Solar System, is 300,000 years ago... Wer'e making projections and assumptions based on a 300,000 year dis·crep·an·cy...

reply to post by Brainiac


What i don't get is why we are looking for life or habitable planets so far away that it's not even logical to reason whether it exists or not. Why not put a boundary on just how far away from Earth it's worth looking? Why waste time and resources studying planets that may or may not exist as imagined, and that we will NEVER be able to REACH...

I've said it again and I'll say it again... We are Alone in the Universe, in relation to our technological limits...