Uncommon Descent Serving The Intelligent Design Community
Category

Exoplanets

Astrophysicist: If there really are extraterrestrials, what difference would it make?

Scharf: "Eventually it might all just be a bit of a relief. We’ll neither be alone, nor surrounded by anything particularly extraordinary. Copernican mediocrity will be somewhat restored, and we can go back to worrying about everything else that can go wrong on our speck of rock and water as it sails through the cosmos." Read More ›

Ethan Siegel tells us why he thinks colonizing super-Earths would end in disaster

Siegel thinks that a rocky planet of more than 30% greater radius than Earth stands a good change of becoming a gas giant in consequence of its size. Earth is the right size to avoid that. Read More ›

Does the habitability of exoplanets depend on nitrogen?

It plays an unexpected role in planetary temperature, researchers found: While most research about the habitable zone has focused on a star’s brightness (as temperature dictates whether water on a planet could be liquid, ice or gas), new research is showing that this is an extremely simplified and naive picture. The true test for whether or not a planet could host life may, in fact, rest in the most boring of gases: nitrogen… The researchers behind the simulations in this new study found that nitrogen plays a huge role in determining the overall temperature of a planet — and, therefore, its habitability. What’s even more complicated: it’s not a simple relationship, more nitrogen doesn’t necessarily just make a planet warmer. Read More ›

We are now told of radio emissions from an alien world…

Like space junk Oumuamua, it’ll almost certainly turn out to be nothing. So why … ? It’s a legitimate question, at this point, whether “science” is just cultural territory now—a way of saying that one is Woke, Cool, and progressive. Depending on where you work, no actual results may be required. Read More ›

Apparently, Earth is STILL rare

Andrew Zic: But given Proxima Centauri is a cool, small red-dwarf star, it means this habitable zone is very close to the star; much closer in than Mercury is to our Sun.” That would mean those planets would be “sterilised” by dangerous ionising radiation that came from their Sun. Read More ›

Astronomer: I think aliens are out there but sightings claims aren’t persuasive

There may or may not be other intelligent life forms out there. As it happens, we may be in a position to get hard evidence in the next century. But there is no time where it more pays to be sceptical than a time when we could get genuine information. Or not. Read More ›

At Gizmodo: 24 planets might be better places to live than Earth

As in: “For exoplanets to be superhabitable, they should be older, larger, heavier, warmer, and wetter compared to Earth, and ideally located around stars with longer lifespans than our own. So yeah, not only is Earth inferior, so too is our Sun, according to the new research.” Read More ›

Exoplanets made of diamonds?

Researchers: Exoplanets around stars with a higher carbon to oxygen ratio than our sun are more likely to be carbon-rich. They hypothesize that these carbon-rich exoplanets could convert to diamond and silicate, if water (which is abundant in the universe) were present, creating a diamond-rich composition. Read More ›

Is NOTHING sacred? Silicon-based life “may not be likely”?

At Air & Space: "There aren’t many organic silicon compounds to begin with, and silicon-based life in water, or on an oxygen-rich planet, would be all but impossible as any free silicon would react quickly and furiously to form silicate rock. And that’s pretty much the end of the story." Read More ›