gas giants are nearly impossible - the sun is teeny-tiny, not much larger than Jupiter
but not long ago a group of astronomers proposed a new planet definition: effectively everything spherical should be called planet, and a few Ceres-like objects around Trappist-1 are totally plausible
The real question so many earth inhabitants are hesitating to ask is:
HOW MANY OF THESE PLANETS MAY OR MAY NOT CONTAIN TRUMP?
I volunteer Trump and his cronies for a one-way mission.
Two birds, one stone.
Yes, I realise that. But currently the problem in planetary astronomy to which I was referring is nomenclature. I mean, I can see why astronomers think that “Earthlike” is good for budget; but “rocky” is imprecise (with or without metal core?) and the ongoing arguments over the status of Pluto - still not dead - show how emotionally and politically entwined is the whole thing. Detecting more of them and finding out more about them is good, but the water - what the discoveries actually mean - seems to be getting more and more muddy.
Great! Now all Trump has to do is build a giant robot with a yuuuge vacuum cleaner and we have seven planets worth of air… I should be in the nasa
Starwisp’s first mission? Not that we’d get data back in any of our lifetimes. I desperately want to know what’s there but news like this always brings out the space cadets (not on here) with unrealistic expectations.
So that’s where they went. I hope the fish are just as tasty.
Gas Giants? They’ll be named after cheap lagers.
If they speak British English, what they’d send back is “Shut your trap!”
(I don’t know for certain if the expression derives from the Trappists but I suspect so. Cockney rhyming slang would be “keep your norf shut” (norf and south = mouth) but by no means all Cockney slang is rhyming - and it includes elements of many cultures, e.g. scarper = to leave in a hurry.)
You keep using that word ‘nearby.’ I don’t think it means what you think it means.
From a exobiology / worldbuilding mailing list:
Gentlefolk,
Based on a bolometric luminosity of 0.000525 Suns for Trappist-1, only planets “d” and “e” are clearly in the conventional habitable zone, planets “c” and “f” would be marginal, and the others either too hot or too cold by conventional habital zone criteria. But, if planets f, g, and h are tide-locked, their substeller points might be warm enough for liquid water with the rest of the planet frozen. Despite its terrestrial mass, planet “b” seems to have an extensive envelope–perhaps Venusian in character and with 4.3 times terrestrial insolation at wavelenths that are more effective at heating than the Sun’s, it is not a good prospect for liquid water. These new numbers make planet “c” somewhat denser than Earth, but the others are significantly less dense. There is other evidence of an envelope around planet c (hydrogen spectroscopy).
Best, Gerald
So NASA tells us about tiny invisible planets light years away and we’re all agog! but when they tell us about climate change happening right here right now somehow it’s all a con and should be repressed in case it frightens the investors
As wonderful as this is, 'm more facinated in the planet orbiting around our next door neighbor. Y’know the one only four lightyears away from us?
/r/theydidthemath
We need neither “Earthlike” worlds nor “Sunlike” stars to colonize outside our Solar system. All we need is accessible material to build orbital colonies out of, and a star that is stable enough not to threaten those colonies. Planets and moons are actually horrible places to attempt colonization. I wish the media would give up on the nonsense about “colonizing Mars” or the Moon.
http://www.nss.org/settlement/nasa/70sArt/Cylinder_Interior_AC75-1086_5732.jpg
Let’s go!
Now!
I’m excited!
Can you tell I’m gushing?
squee
These discoveries are exciting not because “we can settle them” but because “life could have evolved there.”
I want to see life abounding, like I know it does, proven exoplanetary, man.
We will find it, for it does exist out there. We are not alone…
Trap that, Life!
