NASA News Conference Live Thread Wednesday 02/22/2017 1:00 PM EST / 12:00 PM CST

[Weird Tolkienish Figure]

Meh, disappointing. Was hoping for aliens.

[Gefn]

Love this photo

[attachment deleted by admin]

[240B]

40 light years is relatively close. But it it was just another over-hyped more or less blase' announcement, as I expected.


might have liquid water
could possibly support life


Wake me up when you have something real, in hand, that you want to talk about. This could have been just a routine press release instead of the big 'announcement' that they turned it into.

[Oceander]

40 light years is relatively close. But it it was just another over-hyped more or less blase' announcement, as I expected.


might have liquid water
could possibly support life


Wake me up when you have something real, in hand, that you want to talk about. This could have been just a routine press release instead of the big 'announcement' that they turned it into.

Relatively close being a relative term. 

[Weird Tolkienish Figure]

If were were to communicate with "Trappists", it would take a minimum of 80 years to know if they heard us.


Depressing.

[Oceander]

If were were to communicate with "Trappists", it would take a minimum of 80 years to know if they heard us.


Depressing.

Yeah, but then again, they usually don't say anything anyways because even though they haven't taken an explicit vow of silence, their vow of conversion of manners usually dictates silence: http://www.trappists.org/visitor-questions/do-trappist-monks-and-nuns-take-vow-silence

[don-o]

Yeah, but then again, they usually don't say anything anyways because even though they haven't taken an explicit vow of silence, their vow of conversion of manners usually dictates silence: http://www.trappists.org/visitor-questions/do-trappist-monks-and-nuns-take-vow-silence

Monk's vow of silence allows him to speak every ten years, After his first ten years has passed, he says to the abbot, "Food bad."

He carried out his monk vocation for another ten years and then said, "Bed hard."

After ten more years, "I quit."

The abbot replied, "Well I can't say I am surprised. You have done nothing but complain since you got here."

[Joe Wooten]

OK. I don't think any of those would be habitable. Orbiting that close to even a red dwarf would probably mean the rotation is tidally locked with one side always facing the star. Also, red dwarfs are known to be flare stars, so after a few million years, the atmospheres would be stripped from the planets by the intense UV and solar winds especially on the inner 6. I refuse to get excited about small rocky worlds orbiting red dwarf stars.

[Oceander]

Monk's vow of silence allows him to speak every ten years, After his first ten years has passed, he says to the abbot, "Food bad."

He carried out his monk vocation for another ten years and then said, "Bed hard."

After ten more years, "I quit."

The abbot replied, "Well I can't say I am surprised. You have done nothing but complain since you got here."

[Weird Tolkienish Figure]

Guy on Twitter asked if it was in a different galaxy.


I don't think they understand science.


Milkyway is 100,000 light years across. This is only 40 light years away. For it to be in a different galaxy the galaxies would have to be colliding.

[Doug Loss]

The important information is that the star is high in X-ray and XUV output, which makes it much less likely that planets in the "habitable zone" would in fact be anywhere near habitable.  From a paper by Peter Wheatley:

The TRAPPIST-1 system presents a fabulous opportunity to study the atmospheres of Earth-sized planets as well as the complex and uncertain mechanisms controlling planet habitability. Whatever the mechanisms at play, it is clear that these planets are subject to X-ray and EUV irradiation that is many-times higher than experienced by the present-day Earth and that is sufficient to significantly alter their primary and any secondary atmospheres. The high energy fluxes presented here are vital inputs to atmospheric studies of the TRAPPIST-1 planets.

And some further thoughts from Paul Gilster:

Drawing on existing climate models, the innermost planets b, c and d are probably too hot to allow liquid water to exist, while h may be too distant and cold. But the European Southern Observatory is reporting that TRAPPIST-1e, f and g orbit within the star’s habitable zone, leaving us with the possibility of oceans and the potential for life.

Caution compels me to home in on the word ‘potential’ in the above sentence, and also to remind readers that we’ve seen many planets described as being in the habitable zone for which later study made a much less compelling case.
...
My own reservation about habitability: The age of TRAPPIST-1, thought to be in the range of 500 million years, points to a young dwarf of the kind given to flare activity.

[geronl]

7 earth sized planets ups the interesting factor based on the ability to spot them from 40 light years out alone. It means we're getting better at finding them.

The 7 Earth-Sized Planets of TRAPPIST-1 in Pictures

http://www.space.com/35784-trappist-1-earth-size-exoplanets-pictures-gallery.html

Nice. We need to find ways of getting more details from these worlds, though

[Doug Loss]

Nice. We need to find ways of getting more details from these worlds, though

The FOCAL Mission: To the Sun’s Gravity Lens

[Oceander]

The FOCAL Mission: To the Sun’s Gravity Lens

Just for reference, and not to be Debbie downer, but the minimum distance for a FOCAL telescope is 550AU.  For comparison, Voyager is currently about 125AU out.

[jmyrlefuller]

The important information is that the star is high in X-ray and XUV output, which makes it much less likely that planets in the "habitable zone" would in fact be anywhere near habitable.  From a paper by Peter Wheatley:

And some further thoughts from Paul Gilster:

With a proper ozone layer, that issue could be easily negated.

The bigger issue here is the tidal lock. I'd suspect if any of those seven planets have life, it may actually be the ones OUTSIDE the "habitable zone."

[jmyrlefuller]

If were were to communicate with "Trappists", it would take a minimum of 80 years to know if they heard us.


Depressing.

It took hundreds of millions of years of evolution to create a species that could intelligently communicate with itself here on Earth. We can't even communicate reliably with other species on our own planet.

People waiting for some sort of extraterrestrial communication with aliens are, quite frankly, wasting their time.

[jmyrlefuller]

OK. I don't think any of those would be habitable. Orbiting that close to even a red dwarf would probably mean the rotation is tidally locked with one side always facing the star. Also, red dwarfs are known to be flare stars, so after a few million years, the atmospheres would be stripped from the planets by the intense UV and solar winds especially on the inner 6. I refuse to get excited about small rocky worlds orbiting red dwarf stars.

I disagree. Potentially habitable stars around red dwarves are PRECISELY the kind of planets we need to be looking for.

Our sun is a mid-sequence star. Its lifespan is about ten billion years, and it's about halfway through that right now. Within a couple billion years, possibly even less less, it will have increased in heat so much that Earth will no longer be habitable.

A red dwarf, on the other hand, has a lifespan two to three orders of magnitude longer, measured in the trillions of years. If our goal is sustaining life after Earth's destruction, those are the planets that provide the best chance of a stable home to terraform and colonize. The fact that these planets, as well as even closer Proxima Centauri b discovered last year, are within a distance that life could be sustained and transported to them before the specimens die (at least in theory) is cause for a major sigh of relief.

If we're looking for existing life, perhaps not so much, but that is a much bigger crap shoot.

[Weird Tolkienish Figure]

I disagree. Potentially habitable stars around red dwarves are PRECISELY the kind of planets we need to be looking for.

Our sun is a mid-sequence star. Its lifespan is about ten billion years, and it's about halfway through that right now. Within a couple billion years, possibly even less less, it will have increased in heat so much that Earth will no longer be habitable.

A red dwarf, on the other hand, has a lifespan two to three orders of magnitude longer, measured in the trillions of years. If our goal is sustaining life after Earth's destruction, those are the planets that provide the best chance of a stable home to terraform and colonize. The fact that these planets, as well as even closer Proxima Centauri b discovered last year, are within a distance that life could be sustained and transported to them before the specimens die (at least in theory) is cause for a major sigh of relief.

If we're looking for existing life, perhaps not so much, but that is a much bigger crap shoot.

An interesting question is whether life on Mercury and Venus once existed and was wiped out by previous heat?

[Oceander]

An interesting question is whether life on Mercury and Venus once existed and was wiped out by previous heat?

Mercury almost certainly not.  Venus probably not, but an open question.   

[Cripplecreek]

I disagree. Potentially habitable stars around red dwarves are PRECISELY the kind of planets we need to be looking for.

Our sun is a mid-sequence star. Its lifespan is about ten billion years, and it's about halfway through that right now. Within a couple billion years, possibly even less less, it will have increased in heat so much that Earth will no longer be habitable.

A red dwarf, on the other hand, has a lifespan two to three orders of magnitude longer, measured in the trillions of years. If our goal is sustaining life after Earth's destruction, those are the planets that provide the best chance of a stable home to terraform and colonize. The fact that these planets, as well as even closer Proxima Centauri b discovered last year, are within a distance that life could be sustained and transported to them before the specimens die (at least in theory) is cause for a major sigh of relief.

If we're looking for existing life, perhaps not so much, but that is a much bigger crap shoot.

The red dwarf stars are a mixed bag. Very active but very long lasting and there are just as many theories of how life could exist around them as there are theories about why life can't. I think that any life we did find there would be quite different that we're used to but then again I could be wrong.

I find this to be exciting simply for the fact that it widens our perspective of the possibilities that exist.

For me I still believe our best bet for something truly earthlike will be found around stars like our sun where its still very hard to detect earth mass planets.

[Joe Wooten]

I disagree. Potentially habitable stars around red dwarves are PRECISELY the kind of planets we need to be looking for.

Our sun is a mid-sequence star. Its lifespan is about ten billion years, and it's about halfway through that right now. Within a couple billion years, possibly even less less, it will have increased in heat so much that Earth will no longer be habitable.

A red dwarf, on the other hand, has a lifespan two to three orders of magnitude longer, measured in the trillions of years. If our goal is sustaining life after Earth's destruction, those are the planets that provide the best chance of a stable home to terraform and colonize. The fact that these planets, as well as even closer Proxima Centauri b discovered last year, are within a distance that life could be sustained and transported to them before the specimens die (at least in theory) is cause for a major sigh of relief.

If we're looking for existing life, perhaps not so much, but that is a much bigger crap shoot.

Another couple of billion years is plenty of time to find and expand to planets circling F, G, and K type stars that would be much more congenial to life. I really do not think we will find habitable or even terraformable worlds around red dwarfs. Anything within the goldilocks zone will more than likely be tidally locked, and therefore will not have much of a magnetic field to hold in the atmosphere. The only exception would be a wide orbiting moon of a superjovian planet. Orbiting far enough out to not be tidally locked and outside the van allen belts, but able to get a some of the heat given off by the bigger lanet.

[Doug Loss]

Just for reference, and not to be Debbie downer, but the minimum distance for a FOCAL telescope is 550AU.  For comparison, Voyager is currently about 125AU out.

No one said it would be easy...

[Doug Loss]

With a proper ozone layer, that issue could be easily negated.

The bigger issue here is the tidal lock. I'd suspect if any of those seven planets have life, it may actually be the ones OUTSIDE the "habitable zone."

For XUV, maybe.  For X-rays, ozone isn't a shield at all.

[Doug Loss]

Something everyone's overlooking:

The age of TRAPPIST-1, thought to be in the range of 500 million years, points to a young dwarf of the kind given to flare activity.

Not only high possibility of a lot of flare activity, but an extremely young star.  In our system, only a half-billion years after the initial coalescence, our planet was nothing remotely like it is now and there's no evidence at all that it harbored life or even could at that point.

[Gefn]

check out the google doodle on this event. very nice.