Water World Hopefuls Get Interstellar Reality Check - http://clapway.com/2015/08/15/water-world-hopefuls-get-interstellar-101/

One would think, despite the strangely haunting sequence of monstrous waves ripping and chewing spacecraft and human bodies alike, that extraterrestrial planets covered in water would be prime life supporting material. One might even go so far as to suppose that–considering the degree which water is both necessary and nearly sufficient to support any kind of carbon-based life–that an ocean world should actually be preferred to one covered with land or archipelago.

WATER WORLD HOPEFULS TO GO DAUNTED

According to new research published online before in print in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, that’s not the case. Water that totally covers the surface of a planet interacts with carbon dioxide in the atmosphere in ways that are capable of turning chilly planets frigid and warm ones even hotter. This recent research shows that Earth-sized water worlds would be habitable in an extremely limited range of temperatures; from roughly 32 to 260 degrees Fahrenheit. Any world slipping outside of that range is liable to be detrimental to primordial forms of life. The bad news is that these sub- and super-temps are actually quite common among planets inhabiting the “Goldilocks zone,” which, for a G2 star like our sun, places a planet roughly 102 million to 140 million miles from its star.

For comparison, the Earth is 93 million miles away from the sun.

INTERSTELLAR REALITY CHECK

When temperatures fall below freezing, the ocean water decomposes more carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas of obvious portent, which reduces the planet’s temperature, and at higher temperatures, less carbon dioxide is absorbed, causing the ocean to release a much greater amount of carbon dioxide, which sets a planet into a runaway warming period (hence the term greenhouse effect).

WIDER IMPLICATIONS

This supposition sketches scenarios for water worlds whose type falls outside that of Earth-sized planets and Sun-like stars. Researchers involved in this study have added that the process would be very similar for larger worlds orbiting even more gigantic stars.

The same cycle would take place with greenhouse gases like methane. With such thin temperature range necessary for habitability, ocean planets unfortunately are not likely to make the splash we might have hoped they would as we explore our interstellar neighborhood for signs of life.

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Water World Hopefuls Get Interstellar Reality Check

Kepler 452b: Second Earth Perhaps Not For Us - http://clapway.com/2015/07/24/kepler-452b-second-earth-perhaps-not-for-us789/

Many scientists and space enthusiasts awaiting news about a second Earth were answered when NASA announced the results its phoenix-like telescope, Kepler, had found. The exoplanet that created so much excitement has a size and age reminiscent of Earth’s, and, critically, even exists in the Goldilocks zone of its Sun-like star, ensuring its neither freezing nor burning away any possibility of complex life.

Size, age, and other specs of second earth

Known as Kepler 452b, it’s the smallest exoplanet we’ve discovered existing within that coveted circular area of a G2 star colloquially called the Goldilocks zone. G2 is a category of star-luminescence that our own Sun also falls under. The new planet is about 6 billion years old, has a diameter sixty percent that of the Earth, and is located in the constellation Cygnus, roughly 1,400 light-years away from us.

WHY Kepler 452b IS SIMILAR TO EARTH

Kepler 452b orbits its sun-like star in a year lasting 385 days, which puts it undoubtedly within the habitable zone, which means it is very likely it will have liquid water.

But we shouldn’t get too excited to leap into our planet’s family’s arms.

DON’T JUMP THE SHARK, BECAUSE YOU CAN’T

The associate administrator of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate at the agency’s Washington headquarters, John Grunsfeld, called Kepler 452b a “close cousin to the Earth.” This is an apt description. Since the planet is rocky, like ours, yet smaller, the difference in gravity could do more harm than good.

Additionally, initial studies have suggested to us that the planet has entered a rather misfortunate runaway greenhouse gas phase, similar to what happened to Venus long ago, which is why the planet is so hot and antagonistic to life.

COLLECTIVE FERVER & SENTIMENTALITY

But this unfortunate atmospheric development didn’t stop the Chinese from getting excited, whom after hearing about the new planet flooded social media with over 44 million posts about the planet’s “substantial opportunity” to host life. China’s microblogging service, Sina Weibo, the hashtag #AnotherEarth exploded, with nearly 90,000 participants in the discussion.

Their state-run Xinhua news agency, Xinhua, had to quell high hopes for Kepler 452b’s biocompatibility, but the Chinese populace remained undaunted in its manic ravishing of the discovery, with the highest trending comment “Even Earth has found its other half, why am I still single?” lending credence to the notion of humankind’s innate alienation.

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Kepler 452b: Second Earth Perhaps Not For Us

Watch #NASA unveil news of a #AnotherEarth #LIVE --today. - http://clapway.com/2015/07/23/is-there-another-earth-nasa-live-stream-announcement-of-new-planet-112/

The whole world will be watching a live stream conference as NASA reveals their findings about a potential new planet that is similar to our own today, Thursday July 23 at Noon EDT.

NASA Will Reveal Findings on New Planet Similar to Ours

NASA has big plans today as they are setting up a news conference regarding the newest discovery from the Kepler Space Telescope. Launched in 2009, the Kepler mission is devoted to finding planets within what scientists explain as the “habitable zone,” but to what the average space cadet can call the Goldilocks Zone.

Space enthusiasts are abuzz with gossip that the US space agency will be announcing a monumental find: a new earth-like planet in the Milky Way’s Goldilocks Zone that may be able to support life.

What is perhaps just as exciting as the new find is viewers can tune in LIVE as NASA streams the conference, uncovering what may be the most newsworthy astronomical discovery of the past decade.

Why the Goldilocks Zone is Important for New Earth-like Planets

All planets, by definition, must revolve around a star. If the planet is too close, it will be too hot for water to exist. Yet, if too far away, it will be too frigid for water to stay liquid. Just like in the popular children’s story Goldilocks, the conditions must be just right for a planet to support liquid water, which in turn would sustain the life that we know of.

However, the keywords in that previous sentence are “that we know of” because recent efforts proposed by NASA are interested in finding alien life.

Kepler Hunts for Exoplanets Like Earth That Can Sustain Life

Since launching only six short years ago, the Kepler telescope has been a huge success having discovered 1,028 planets and 4,661 candidate planets. Most of these exoplanets are giant, gaseous bodies similar to Saturn and Jupiter.

Only 11 planets qualify as being in the habitable, Goldilocks Zone with a size much smaller than the gas giants and relatively similar to Earth.

In a news update on the live stream page, NASA has all but spelled out that brink of the discovery: “Today, and thousands of discoveries later, astronomers are on the cusp of finding something people have dreamed about for thousands of years — another Earth.”

For most Internet theorists, even without watching the livestream today, that one sentence alone has changed the idea of a new planet that can sustain life from mere potential to definite reality.

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Is There Another Earth? NASA Live Stream Announcement of New Planet