Ongoing important Science news thread

[polak]

That's all well and good, but now what?

I hope they point some Seti resources at it.

[troutman]

SETI did already look at the planet.

What would the gravity be like on Super Earths?

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog...uch-gravity-us

The formula for calculating a planet’s surface gravity: mass divided by the radius squared. That is, SG=M/R^2. If you express mass and radius in Earth units, you get surface gravity as multiples of Earth's.

Really!? Let’s try it with HD 40307g, using data from the Habitable Exoplanet Catalog. Mass, 8.2 Earths. Radius, 2.4 times Earth's. That gets you a surface gravity of 1.42 times Earth.

It seems counterintuitive, doesn’t it? How can a planet be so much more massive than Earth yet have only 1.42 times the gravity at the surface? The answer lies in the radius. The further you are from the planet’s center, the less its gravity pulls at you. Another way of putting it is that the greater the planet’s radius is for its mass, the less dense it is.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astro..._ish_star.html

[octothorp]

Originally Posted by troutman

SETI did already look at the planet.

What would the gravity be like on Super Earths?

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog...uch-gravity-us

The formula for calculating a planet’s surface gravity: mass divided by the radius squared. That is, SG=M/R^2. If you express mass and radius in Earth units, you get surface gravity as multiples of Earth's.

Really!? Let’s try it with HD 40307g, using data from the Habitable Exoplanet Catalog. Mass, 8.2 Earths. Radius, 2.4 times Earth's. That gets you a surface gravity of 1.42 times Earth.

It seems counterintuitive, doesn’t it? How can a planet be so much more massive than Earth yet have only 1.42 times the gravity at the surface? The answer lies in the radius. The further you are from the planet’s center, the less its gravity pulls at you. Another way of putting it is that the greater the planet’s radius is for its mass, the less dense it is.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astro..._ish_star.html

If you believe the theory that a significant amount of the formation of life on earth had to do with our tides, is a super-earth less likely to develop life because you need a larger moon to counter the greater gravity of the earth and actually create tides? Or does it increase the likelihood, because the larger planet means a greater probability of capturing a significant moon?

[Fuzz]

Solar tides account for about 45% of our tides, so this planet would still experience that.

[troutman]

I heard a scientist on BBC explain last night that plate tectonics was very important in the rise of life on earth. Active geology is required for volcanism and atmospheres? Nutrient exchange?

Something to do with some crusts not having the right materials for plates after the meteor bombardment phase of planetary evolution.

http://theconversation.com/plate-tec...on-earth-44571

[troutman]

http://lightyear.fm/

Hear radio broadcasts leaving earth at the speed of light. The farther you get from Earth, the older the music you will hear.

[Knalus]

Originally Posted by troutman

I heard a scientist on BBC explain last night that plate tectonics was very important in the rise of life on earth. Active geology is required for volcanism and atmospheres? Nutrient exchange?

Something to do with some crusts not having the right materials for plates after the meteor bombardment phase of planetary evolution.

http://theconversation.com/plate-tec...on-earth-44571

I've personally been musing this very thing - I've heard that active geology may be important to the evolution of multicellular life on earth, and I wonder if this is something that can only happen on larger planets - we do not see it on Mars, or on Venus, or any other planetary or other body in our solar system. Perhaps these super earths are more likely to have plate tectonics than smaller bodies?

And what about plate tectonics on a larger than earth sized body? Is there theoretically different layers that could form when a planet has a larger radius and a greater gravity? Is there some differentiation that might arise in a larger planet that might prevent the Iron and Nickel and other heavy elements from reaching the surface or staying on the surface, as often as it does on Earth? We have only one planet to look at with Plate Tectonics, perhaps we are an anomaly?

But that brings up another weird thought - how much harder would it be for a sentient species to leave one of these planets? It's hard enough at 1g to leave earth, what about at 1.4g? How much extra fuel would it take to exit the planet with 1.4g? How much more expensive would that get?

And then there is the species size. Humans are pretty big. If the gravity on a planet with life was increased, would that mean that life might not get as large? What if there WAS intelligent life on a planet, but it only got as large as say a house cat. Would that mean that these cat-sized aliens would have more trouble making a rocket as large as the Saturn V than a human sized species? Especially if they had increased gravity costs for building large in the first place? Plus, the rocket wouldn't be big enough to work there, either, because of the increased gravitation, so they would have to build even bigger?

And if these added costs are put out there, if the planet has no moon, perhaps then there is no reason to have a "manned" space program. No moon means no place to go, or want to go, except for the other potential planets in the system. We have seen just how expensive it is, and reluctant humans have been to go to Mars. Imagine no moon step.

Is it possible the Fermi paradox could be solved based on adding planetary size to the Goldilocks set of conditions needed for a planet? Not too big, but not too small?


/end weird science rant.

[Hemi-Cuda]

Originally Posted by Knalus

I've personally been musing this very thing - I've heard that active geology may be important to the evolution of multicellular life on earth, and I wonder if this is something that can only happen on larger planets - we do not see it on Mars, or on Venus, or any other planetary or other body in our solar system. Perhaps these super earths are more likely to have plate tectonics than smaller bodies?

And what about plate tectonics on a larger than earth sized body? Is there theoretically different layers that could form when a planet has a larger radius and a greater gravity? Is there some differentiation that might arise in a larger planet that might prevent the Iron and Nickel and other heavy elements from reaching the surface or staying on the surface, as often as it does on Earth? We have only one planet to look at with Plate Tectonics, perhaps we are an anomaly?

But that brings up another weird thought - how much harder would it be for a sentient species to leave one of these planets? It's hard enough at 1g to leave earth, what about at 1.4g? How much extra fuel would it take to exit the planet with 1.4g? How much more expensive would that get?

And then there is the species size. Humans are pretty big. If the gravity on a planet with life was increased, would that mean that life might not get as large? What if there WAS intelligent life on a planet, but it only got as large as say a house cat. Would that mean that these cat-sized aliens would have more trouble making a rocket as large as the Saturn V than a human sized species? Especially if they had increased gravity costs for building large in the first place? Plus, the rocket wouldn't be big enough to work there, either, because of the increased gravitation, so they would have to build even bigger?

And if these added costs are put out there, if the planet has no moon, perhaps then there is no reason to have a "manned" space program. No moon means no place to go, or want to go, except for the other potential planets in the system. We have seen just how expensive it is, and reluctant humans have been to go to Mars. Imagine no moon step.

Is it possible the Fermi paradox could be solved based on adding planetary size to the Goldilocks set of conditions needed for a planet? Not too big, but not too small?


/end weird science rant.

Or a species could evolve on a planet with a permanent dust cloud, never seeing stars and thus never even becoming aware of the universe. And if they ever did build a ship to escape their atmosphere and see the universe's true scale for the first time, they might mutter "It'll have to go" and start a two thousand year intergalactic war

[polak]

Maybe life doesn't even need water or solid ground.

We have one measly example of life and on top of that, we are part of it. We have no idea what other possibilities for types of life there could exist out there.

[DiracSpike]

Originally Posted by troutman

I heard a scientist on BBC explain last night that plate tectonics was very important in the rise of life on earth. Active geology is required for volcanism and atmospheres? Nutrient exchange?

Something to do with some crusts not having the right materials for plates after the meteor bombardment phase of planetary evolution.

http://theconversation.com/plate-tec...on-earth-44571

As a geology major I can shed some light on this. It's not necessarily volcanism and plate tectonics, but that they are symptomatic of a planet that still has a hot and active core.

Earth is lucky enough to have a molten iron core which creates our magnetic field and protects the air molecules in our atmosphere from being stripped away by solar winds. The heat found in the core is left over from the conglomeration that formed our planet 10+ Billion years ago, the iron is there beacuse it preferentially sunk towards the center of gravity being a heavier element.

The leading hypothesis on Mars currently is that it had an atmosphere just like Earth but it was lost because as a smaller body of rock than Earth its core cooled to the point where it became solid. As a solid, static rock solar wind robbed it of air and water. A solid core means no mantle convection, which means no tectonism, which means no volcanism.

[calumniate]

Pretty sweet they're coming out with memory that's 1000x faster:

http://www.pcworld.com/article/29518...than-nand.html

Maybe it will be time to update my computer from 2008 someday soon, haha

[#-3]

Originally Posted by DiracSpike

As a geology major I can shed some light on this. It's not necessarily volcanism and plate tectonics, but that they are symptomatic of a planet that still has a hot and active core.

Earth is lucky enough to have a molten iron core which creates our magnetic field and protects the air molecules in our atmosphere from being stripped away by solar winds. The heat found in the core is left over from the conglomeration that formed our planet 10+ Billion years ago, the iron is there beacuse it preferentially sunk towards the center of gravity being a heavier element.

The leading hypothesis on Mars currently is that it had an atmosphere just like Earth but it was lost because as a smaller body of rock than Earth its core cooled to the point where it became solid. As a solid, static rock solar wind robbed it of air and water. A solid core means no mantle convection, which means no tectonism, which means no volcanism.

At first glance something seems off about your scale. Everything I have heard has started with a 4 not a 10.

[troutman]

5% of all people live in the red area, 5% in the blue, and 90% in the white.

http://www.iflscience.com/environmen...ire-population



http://io9.com/more-than-half-of-the...de-t-493103044

[Regulator75]

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/20..._134441260.htm

GUIYANG, July 23 (Xinhua) -- Technicians began assembling the world's largest radio telescope, whose dish is the size of 30 football grounds, deep in the mountains of southwest China's Guizhou Province on Thursday.

In the afternoon, technicians began to assemble the telescope's reflector, which is 500 meters in diameter and made up of 4,450 panels. Each panel is an equilateral triangle with a side length of 11 meters.

Once completed, the single-aperture spherical telescope called "FAST" will be the world's largest, overtaking Puerto Rico's Arecibo Observatory, which is 300 meters in diameter.

Nan Rendong, chief scientist of the FAST project with the National Astronomical Observatories, Chinese Academy of Sciences, told Xinhua that the bigger the dish is, the more capable the telescope is and the weaker messages it will receive.

"A radio telescope is like a sensitive ear, listening to tell meaningful radio messages from white noise in the universe. It is like identifying the sound of cicadas in a thunderstorm," he said.

[troutman]

Is it time to abolish the social sciences?

http://www.cbc.ca/radio/the180/canad...nces-1.3213475

There is a crisis in many corners of the social sciences: academics struggling to replicate research results. Michael Lind is a fellow at the New America Foundation and he says whole fields of research have simply lost their way. In a recent commentary, he calls for the abolition of the social 'sciences'.

[Knut]

I think it is just time to improve the scientific process in the social sciences. Or realize that the individual biological differences between people means you can not shoehorn everyone into specific therapies.

[Jiggy_12]

New human-like species discovered.

http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-34192447

[T@T]

Originally Posted by polak

Maybe life doesn't even need water or solid ground.

We have one measly example of life and on top of that, we are part of it. We have no idea what other possibilities for types of life there could exist out there.

In our bubble we do, but we are a young species and it's very hard to think outside the "bubble" though.

[Knut]

http://opentreeoflife.org/

The open Tree of Life. A huge database showing all 1.8 M species on Earth

You need to download software to explore it all, but the website is really neat.

[Coach]

Whoops. Apparently a hoax. NVM