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----------------- - 1721 - Closest stars and more perfect Earth’s?
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- What do your mean,” The Earth has competition?” We live on the best planet in the Universe , right? Maybe, the only planet perfectly suited for life?
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- We think as earthlings everything must be measured as if we are the gold, goldilocks, standard.
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- Astronomers have discovered over 2,000 other planets orbiting other stars. If we extrapolate what we have found to the rest of the Milky Way Galaxy there must be more than 100,000,000,000 planets orbiting other stars in our own galaxy.
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- Some of these planets may be more optimally suited to form and sustain biology than our own. Hard to believe!
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- Earth has a lot of things going for it. Our Sun is middle aged, 5,000,000,000 years old out of a lifespan of 10 billion years. Earth has oceans, water covering 3/4th of the planet. Earth orbits 93,000,000 miles from the Sun which is just right for biology, not too hot, not too cold. Water sustains its liquid state. What more do you want?
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- Earth is big enough to have the gravity needed to hold on to its own atmosphere. Earth has a molten core that creates a protective magnetic field and the plate tectonics to create a life friendly and diverse biosphere.
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- Earth is considered by science to have been more habitable in its past ,300 to 350 million years ago, the Carboniferous Period, than it is today. Today we have much higher percentage of arid deserts, nutrient-poor oceans, and frigid polar regions. The Carboniferous Period was much warmer, wetter, far more oxygen rich. Great forests blanketed the continents. Terrestrial creatures grew to gigantic sizes.
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- Earth today would be considered less habitable.
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- And, our future is grim because in a few billion years form now our Sun will balloon into a Red Giant Star. The Sun is getting hotter by 10% ever billion years. Our Earth orbit is already at the edge of over heating. In 1,750,000,000 years from now Earth will be so hot the oceans will all have evaporated.
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- Earth is past its prime and the biosphere is nearing its end, astronomically speaking.
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- Astronomers have always focused on planets. But, an even better “ Earth” may be found on moons. A biosphere on a super habitable moon could draw energy from reflected light and tidal forces creating heat for its nearby planets. Tidal forces could create friction to heat the moon’s interior.
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- Jupiter’s moon Europa and Saturn’s moon Enceladus are too likely candidates for sub-surface oceans with liquid water. Maybe even life.
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- 2.4 billion years ago on Earth the oceanic algae dumped substantial amounts of oxygen into our atmosphere. This lead to the evolution of more energy intensive metabolisms.
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- Rocky, super-Earths as much as twice our planet’s size should age more gracefully than Earth will because they retain their internal heat much longer. This would keep a molten interior generating a protective magnetic field for much longer time. A planet 25% larger in diameter has 56% more surface area for organisms to thrive.
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- Survey to date suggest that slightly larger super-Earths orbiting smaller stars are more abundant throughout our galaxy. Astronomers calculate that this is where a more perfect world will exist.
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- Technology is fast improving to help us find life on a better planet. In the next 50 years astronomers will have computers that can handle multidimensional data millions of gigabytes in size.
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- Pulsars will be used to test the laws of physics in the most extreme conditions. We will learn how the theory of Relativity works at the edges of discovery.
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- Gravitational wave detectors will study blackholes and stars that are too dim to detect with light waves.
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- Dark Matter telescopes will make visible galaxy halos. Dark Matter is 82% of all matter.
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- X-ray interferometers will study the Event Horizons of these blackholes.
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- Modular spacecraft will be manufactured in orbit using 3-D printing and magnetic flux spinning.
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- Space based telescopes and spectrographs will spit exoplanets light into wavelengths that identify biosignatures for life and geological chemistries
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- These new technological developments will bring stars and planets even closer to Earth, metaphorically speaking.
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- Astronomers recently discovered a close, fast, cold Brown Dwarf star just 7 light-years away. There are only 3 other closer stars:
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-------------------- Alpha Centauri triple star ------------ 4.2 LY
-------------------- Barnard’s star -------------------------- 5.9 LY
-------------------- Brown Dwarf binary ------------------- 6.6 LY
-------------------- Wolf 359 star ----------------------------7.8 LY
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- This star’s motion was measured with infrared parallax.. Parallax is back and forth motion that changes the object’s position with respect to the background objects. The back and forth in this case is Earth’s orbit around the Sun.
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- The Brown Dwarf has a proper motion, apparent motion across the sky, at 8.2 arc seconds per year. ( 60 arc seconds is the width of your finger at arms length ( one arc degree) . (30 arc seconds is the width of a Full Moon ) Rigel star has a proper motion of 0.004 arc seconds per year.
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- This Brown Dwarf has a surface temperature of 250 Kelvin. That is -10F. It is hard to relate this freezing temperature to a star. But, it is not a planet. Many hopeful discoveries are anticipated studying these closer stars and planets. Stay tuned, there is much more to learn.
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RSVP, with comments, suggestions, corrections. Index of reviews available ---
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