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Wow oh wow. Universe Today just posted an article about an Earth-like planet discovered around a nearby red dwarf star. (The original source appears to be a UC Santa Cruz press release.)
It's right in the star's "habitable zone" (which mostly means "right temperature for liquid water") and has a mass about 3-4 times Earth's, so a quick estimate is that gravity there might be about 40% stronger than here (it wouldn't be too different than standing in an elevator as it gets going). That's plenty to hold an atmosphere. The planet has its quirks, of course: it's close to its cool sun, so a full orbit only takes about a month. Also, like our Moon it always has the same side facing "in": a planet of eternal sunlight on one side and eternal shadow on the other. Naturally, the only comfortable places to live would be in the twilight region encircling the planet between the extremes of hot and cold, where the red sun burns forever on the horizon.
This is awesome. And it's sooner than most people expected to find something like this, which may mean that planets like ours really are pretty common after all!
Now if only we could find a way to get there.
It's right in the star's "habitable zone" (which mostly means "right temperature for liquid water") and has a mass about 3-4 times Earth's, so a quick estimate is that gravity there might be about 40% stronger than here (it wouldn't be too different than standing in an elevator as it gets going). That's plenty to hold an atmosphere. The planet has its quirks, of course: it's close to its cool sun, so a full orbit only takes about a month. Also, like our Moon it always has the same side facing "in": a planet of eternal sunlight on one side and eternal shadow on the other. Naturally, the only comfortable places to live would be in the twilight region encircling the planet between the extremes of hot and cold, where the red sun burns forever on the horizon.
This is awesome. And it's sooner than most people expected to find something like this, which may mean that planets like ours really are pretty common after all!
Now if only we could find a way to get there.
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I mean, the conditions actually don't seem all *that* conducive to life - but it's interesting to imagine, and it's an optimistic sign for other planets.
I prefer to think that the fact that we haven't encountered other intelligent species yet is a sign either that they're leaving us alone to figure our stuff out, or that they're struggling with the same things that we are.