The Briefing Room
General Category => Science, Technology and Knowledge => Space => Topic started by: Doug Loss on April 26, 2017, 07:29:37 pm
-
Speculations on Habitable Zone Waterworlds (http://www.centauri-dreams.org/?p=37561)
What to make of Fergus Simpson’s new paper on waterworlds, suggesting that most habitable zone planets are of this type? If such worlds are common, we may find that most planets in the habitable zones of their stars are capable of evolving life, but unlikely to host technological civilizations. An explanation for the so-called ‘Fermi Paradox’? Possibly, but there are all kinds of things that could account for our inability to see other civilizations, most of them covered by Stephen Webb in his If the Universe Is Teeming with Aliens … Where Is Everybody? (2nd ed., Springer 2015), which offers 75 solutions to the problem.
Simpson (University of Barcelona) makes his case in the pages of Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, arguing that the balance maintained by a planetary surface with large amounts of both land and water is delicate. The author’s Bayesian statistical analysis suggests that most planets are dominated either by water or land, most likely water. Earth may, then, be something of an outlier, with most planets over 90 percent covered in water.
(more at link)
-
I would think that planet-wide oceans would move the habitable zone outwards. An ocean world would have a lot of moisture in the atmosphere and that water is a greenhouse "gas" so a planet could be warmer further from its sun. Also ocean currents are a great means of transporting heat so even a tidally locked planet might have a sizable zone where aquatic life could exist.
Technological life would have a much tougher time evolving on an ocean world. It would probably be very stormy with winds whipping at hundreds of miles per hour. I suppose intelligence without technology is possible but of little value to us aside from scientific curiosity. (Robert Forward covered this problem in "Saturn Rukh". The Saturnians had intelligence but it was all passed down stories of generations of doing the exact same thing.)
-
The air and water will probably be poisonous to us, but @kevindavis will solve that problem when we arrive.
-
Simple, modify the human DNA so they can live on the said planet..
Space Ping! PM me if you want on or off the list..
@Oceander
@Sanguine
@Cripplecreek
@Freya
@EC
@Joe Wooten
@r9etb
@Just_Victor
@montanajoe
@Ghost Bear
@Free Vulcan
@Idaho_Cowboy
@geronl
@Scutter
@InHeavenThereIsNoBeer
@bigheadfred
@Victoria33
@Weird Tolkienish Figure
@sneakypete
@bolobaby
-
So the fishing could be great out there. Do other planets have alien catfish?
-
So the fishing could be great out there. Do other planets have alien catfish?
I suspect they wouldn't be catfish (no cats), but perhaps glorpfish...
-
I suspect they wouldn't be catfish (no cats), but perhaps glorpfish...
(https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/29/77/c8/2977c8279fc284bccc5a7de6ba3ec3c4.jpg)