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It’s not quite a spitting image of Earth, but a newfound planet just might be similar enough to support life.
The world is one of three tentatively identified new exoplanets orbiting the star HD 40307. The outermost planet, HD 40307 g, orbits comfortably in the habitable zone, where Earth-like temperatures are possible. That means HD 40307 g could have liquid water on the surface—a probable prerequisite for life. The research is in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics. [Mikko Tuomi et al., Habitable-zone super-Earth candidate in a six-planet system around the K2.5V star HD 40307]
But the planet is at least seven times as massive as Earth. So it could be a supersize version of our planet. Or it might be a scaled-down Neptune. A mini-Neptune would lack a solid surface and probably would not be an ideal habitat for life.
The star in question was already known to host three planets, so the total could reach six if the new finds are independently confirmed.
Confirmation is hardly assured. Two years ago some of the same astronomers involved in this work said they had located a potentially habitable planet called Gliese 581 g. But other researchers disputed the finding, and that planet’s existence has been in limbo ever since. As usual, more data should settle the argument.
—John Matson
[The above text is a transcript of this podcast.]
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3 Comments
Add CommentWhy does everyone think being in the "Habitable Zone" is the only ingredient for life? You need several more things for life to be possible, a relatively non-seismic rocky type planet, a stable rotation that has some semblance of a north and south pole, a moon to stabilize this rotation, a non-toxic atmosphere, and a magnetosphere to shield the planet from the radiation of its sun and from cosmic radiation.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAny of these factors missing and life would be near impossible. It's like we find a single piston from an engine and then say, "This could be from a V-6".
You need to see the other 5 factors and we have no way of doing so yet. We need a crap load of "more data" that we're probably decades or centuries away from obtaining.
That life evolved on Earth doesn't mean that the Earth is the best possible place for carbon-based life.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFor example, a temperature of 50-90oC might enable life chemical processes to run faster. A planet several times larger than Earth could likely support more diverse ecosystems. Larger amount of carbon dioxide would help photosynthesis etc. These environments would be uninhabitable for an Earth-adapted human, but could have native carbon-based life more diverse than on Earth.
two things make this intresting news:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this1) this adds to the planet and planet ¡n habitable zone of a star on Drake's equation, even if the sample and zone of the galaxy taken for the sample aren't statistically significative.
2) life as we know it has certain needs, carbon molecules like proteins work in the 18-45 degrees celsius generally (I haven't forgoten extremophyles), so finding a cylinder is more of a smoking gun to life than finding say a Wankel engine rotor.