From Jacob Aron at New Scientist,
A planet just 30 per cent more massive than Earth orbits in the habitable zone of Proxima Centauri, which is just 4.25 light years away. How Earth-like is it really?
…
The planet – Proxima b – was discovered by astronomers who spent years looking for signs of the tiny gravitational tug exerted by a planet on its star, after spotting hints of such disruption in 2013. Proxima Centauri is 4.25 light years from Earth, making it slightly closer than the binary star system of Alpha Centauri, which the Proxima star is thought to loosely orbit. More.
From Rob Sheldon
I wouldn’t get my hopes up. Years ago, people didn’t put this type of planet in the “Goldilocks zone”. That’s because of tidal locking.
Very briefly, the tidal force is the difference between gravity on one side of the planet and gravity on the other.
Think of a gravity well as shaped like a funnel. If the planet is really close to the star’s gravity well, then the slope of the funnel is steep, and one side of the planet is lower in the funnel than the other side. This means that there’s a “stretching” force on the planet corresponding to this gravity gradient, which we call “the tidal force”. You and I don’t experience it much, because the difference between 93million miles (distance to sun) and 93 million miles + 5′, is in the parts per trillion. But for this planet that is orbiting a dull red star closer than Mercury is to our Sun, so close that a year is 11 days, this difference starts to get substantial.
So what happens? The planet stretches. Then one side is even closer than before and that side wants to always face the sun. Then like the Moon, it adjusts its rotation so that this side faces the sun 24/7, it is “tidally locked”.
If one side of the planet always faces the sun, it gets hot, while the backside never faces the sun and gets cold. The hot side boils water, the cold side freezes it. All the water migrates over to the freezer, and gets locked in ice. There’s little chance of ever finding liquid water on such a planet. If there is a region where water is liquid, the “Goldilocks zone”, then it occupies a narrow strip where the sun is only half-way above the horizon. But for most of my lifetime, it was expected that even liquid water will eventually evaporate, so that the Goldilocks zone dries out. Then there is no liquid water left on such a planet.
So why are we even considering such a planet “Earth-like”?
Mostly desperation. A few papers suggest that if there is an atmosphere, then convection can bring warm air over to the glaciers on the backside and share the heat. Of course, Mercury and the Moon don’t have much of an atmosphere, mostly because tidally-locking tends to remove it. But hope springs eternal. Especially if it brings cash.
Jut for now, avoid the land rush boom. 😉
See also: “Behold, countless Earths sail the galaxies … that is, if you would only believe …”
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I find the details NS gives interestingly in contrast with the pop sci news type headlines about earth-like planets just next door:
Privileged planet strikes again!
(The headline you will NEVER see in NS.)
KF
The big assumption here is that if the conditions are right (which they are not in this case) then life will get started. Explain to me again how life originated.
No one knows how life originated, not even Christians. And the more planets that are found, the better the chances of finding one similar to Earth.
“No one knows how life originated, not even Christians.”
Actually, the key question to be explained for the origin of life is ‘Where did the information come from?’
Every book has an author. And thousands of years before anyone had even heard of the enigma that information presents for the origin of life, the bible records that life has an author,,,
I know of no other religion in the world that had claimed that life had an author prior to the discovery of DNA. And I hold that if it were not for the implications associated with it, this scientific ‘prediction’ would be hailed as one of the most significant successful predictions ever in science. Ranking right next to the Bible’s successful prediction for the absolute beginning for the universe.
It is also very interesting to note that among all the ‘holy’ books, of all the major religions in the world, only the Holy Bible was correct in its claim for a transcendent origin of the universe. Some later ‘holy’ books, such as the Mormon text “Pearl of Great Price” and the Qur’an, copy the concept of a transcendent origin from the Bible but also include teachings that are inconsistent with that now established fact. (Hugh Ross; Why The Universe Is The Way It Is; Pg. 228; Chpt.9; note 5)
Privilaged Kairos? Please remove the mote from your eye.
In the 1970s there were no exoplanets except in the minds of sci-fi writers and astrnomers. In the 1980s we began noticing gravitational flux and hypothysized extra-solar bodies; the religious generally scoffed. In the 1990s and 2000s HARPS and the Kepler space telescope have varified (umm, they are real) 3,500 exoplanets, 2,600 planetary systems,600 multiple planetary systems. From these modest varifiable figures, from a small section of the night sky,and if we extrapolate our confirmed data to the rest of the observable universe, we get a very conservative estimate of 11 billion earth like bodies.(Remember this is derived from what we have observed and know as fact, so far.)
With the launch of the James Webb space telescope in 2018 the priviledged planet will be battered some more.
I’m absolutely fine with that! In fact a God who wastes so much space is one that needs to be questioned, rethought, or just abandoned. The idea that this vast universe is merely an after thought to our creation is an idea I find offensive to my intelligence. It is so plainly wrong, ‘it is not even wrong!’
a few notes:
As well it turns out even the immense size of the universe is necessary for life:
Here is a video of Astrophysicist Hugh Ross explaining the principle behind the immense size of the universe as well as behind the ancient age of the universe:
RVB8, please see BA77 for details you may not be aware of; note that a sample in the thousands from a spiral galaxy’s galactic habitable zone . . . the best type of potential site . . . is very credibly statistically significant; soberingly so. (BA77, thanks as usual for your indefatigable work to collate key information.) KF
PS: A key insight is that many exoplanets are hot jupiters, gas giants close to their stars, suggesting a process of forming beyond the frost line then a solar system destabilising inward migration that would toss planets out of the systems . . . suggesting, onward, that there are significant numbers of wandering planets in space . . . a plot element in at least one recent sci fi work. This raises questions about the difficulty — thus, rarity or even “privilege” — of getting a long term stable solar system with terrestrial planets harbouring life. (And that is a disappointment to any Sci Fi fan or would be galaxy coloniser.) The impact of such is seen in just how loosely “earth like” is used now. As the OP discusses. A tidally locked world — unlike what Star Wars suggests, is not a good candidate.
PPS: Those who set out to judge the motives/mind of God would be well advised not only to see that “the heavens declare the glory of God, the firmament declares his handiwork” but that
F/N: I should add, I am convinced that early childhood stimulation, drawing out and encouragement have a lot to do with where a child goes in terms of its potential. And, parents (and grand parents) are the best such sources of stimulation — one of the failings of a world that seems to ever more disdain the family. Think of the successive doubling times of life in terms of 1st year, 2nd, 4th, 8th, 16th, 32nd as in effect increments equal to the so far life experience. Then as a crude model think of novelty as proportionate to what fraction of cumulative experience one has so far one day is. Multiply by how early experience is embedded in how one processes onward experience. That strongly suggests, getting powerfully stimulating experiences as early as possible, reinforced rapidly so they become baked-in. (Ever wondered why as one gets older, the days seem to speed up? Fractionally speaking, they do.) KF
Oops cross-threaded by accident. KF
Kairos, my point was that the gaps are getting smaller and smaller once again, and as you busily and inadequately refute this finding, new and more wonderful discoveries await.And you know and I know, that discoveries in science only go one way; to the detrement of God.
What happens when, innevitably, micro-organisms are discovered, or the trace of their existance is found? Will you say it’s not intelligent? You will be right of course but it will just be another nail in your cofin shaped denial.
Of course I’m happy science is proving once again, that the tiny minds of religion are not capable of either curiosity, or imagination. Give me the ‘Horse head’ nebulae, you can keep your burningbush!
Does BA even realise that the lion’s portion of his time is spent in refutation. He busily plugs holes (or believes he plugs them)in his unmasted ship, as the surrounding ocean engulfs his paltry efforts; and you encourage him?
Visit science daily, NASA or umpteen other science sites and maybe, you may grasp how Lilliputian his efforts, and yours for that matter, are.
If anyone anywhere ever takes these types of headlines and pronouncements as anything more than hype, they haven’t lived very long.
As always the difference between reality and hype is significant.
RVB8,
Science- of- the- gaps that per unfulfilled intellectual IOU’s are ever getting smaller is one of the myths and fundamental fallacies of scientism. (Of course, this is usually cast rhetorically in terms of a false contrast between the natural and the supernatural and projected as oh, you are appealing to god- of- the- gaps.)
The pivotal failure of scientism is that it drastically misunderstands the reality that the claim or implication that Big-S “Science” monopolises knowledge is a self-contradictory philosophical claim. Lewontin’s classical example is that the scientific-cultural elites wish to indoctrinate hoi polloi so they imagine that “Science [is] the only begetter of truth.”
This being a philosophical, epistemological claim, it self-refutes. Which does not prevent it from being rhetorically persuasive and emotionally manipulative, firing visions of scientific utopias to come once backward “superstition” is eliminated.
Which polarisation should instantly trip big red warning flags.
where also progressivist sci fi utopias are not a good place to find blueprints for a feasible future. One would have thought that the fiasco of Marxism would have taught us better. (Those who fear civilisational collapse by folly of war and self-inflicted disasters, are far more credible and we should look to history for warnings. Civilisations and great powers, historically, collapse. Tickling economic dragons’ tails leading to unsustainable booms anchored in fantasies is not a long-run strategy for success.)
I won’t bother to play with your pretence of an ever advancing Borg-like juggernaut that will crush or absorb the pygmies that dare oppose it. (FYI, Star Trek and Gulliver’s travels are being satirical of various socio cultural myths.)
Instead, let us go to the pivotal question of responsible, rational freedom. Without this, we cannot freely, responsibly decide to follow and acknowledge the logical and substantial force of a case, all reduces to some species or another of deterministic, GIGO-driven blind determinism. Nowadays, often cast in terms of wetware as a computational substrate. But computation, inherently, is NOT a process of responsible rational inference and judgement, it is blindly mechanical signal processing per algorithms or functions implemented in a physical substrate. Often requiring huge design, troubleshooting and debugging to get such adequately functional. That is, the smarts lie in the designer, not the substrate, which will blindly churn out error just as readily as correct results. A simple illustration is the Pentium recall on discovery of processing errors.
More fundamentally, Reppert builds on Lewis and Haldane:
This is an inherent limitation.
This is a good part of why any species of physicalist reductionism is self-referential, is incoherent and is therefore self-falsifying.
Non-starter, stumbling fatally in the gates.
Instead, I have long since suggested Eng Derek Smith’s bio-cybernetic loop model with a two-tier controller as a more promising system architecture for discussion. Where, the in-the-loop i/o controller is under supervision through an interface to a higher order entity.
This allows autonomy and adaptation, thus also responsibility, to be reasonably discussed.
Where, just to have a reasonable discussion, there is an implied necessity that we are responsibly, rationally free. Or, discussion collapses into a noisy pointless clash and chaos of GIGO failures.
That raises world-roots issues as was already discussed.
However, this is all in a context, you responded with visceral hostility to a summary of a readily confirmed fact. Or rather, cluster of facts regarding exo-planet studies. In your mind inevitable progress of the Juggernaut will show up those wonderful earth-analogu worlds out there and will put to rest silly objections under a tidal wave of discoveries.
The problem is, statistics is statistics.
Backed by physics.
We live in a galactic habitable zone out on the fringes of a spiral arm of a barred spiral galaxy. Where metallicity and sufficient remoteness from frequent supernovae count. Where elliptical and similar galaxies are not good candidates.
Stars with good neighbourhoods, appropriate metallicity and stability are not as commonplace as we wish (including, not having a nearby companion forming a multiple star system that will tend to destabilise planetary orbits). Then, when we see now about 1,000 exoplanets, we see clearly dominant patterns: hot jupiters, which should have formed beyond the frost line then wandered in close, destabilising and expelling terrestrial inner planets. similarly, solar system simulation studies point to serious potential stability problems with planetary orbits.
The overall effect is we have few to no actual good earth analogues, in a context where the dynamics point to this as an unfortunately likely pattern.
Our system is of a patently rare type.
Privileged.
We need to face it.
Galaxy colonisation is going to be a challenge.
(And yes, that is in the back of my mind . . . currently moving to front burner as a means of economic transformation. Industrial civ 2.0 using more self-sufficient, open source proven tech, energy transformation, solar system colonisation, then if we can achieve the research breakthroughs to trigger it, galactic colonisation. This century’s mission being to reboot industrial civ so that a small but smart community can achieve advanced tech including self-replicating fabs close to von Neumann’s vision. The Moon, Mars, Asteroid belt and maybe gas giant moons, possibly outposts on dwarf planets over the next 200 or so years, while we see if there are breakthroughs in physics to carry us further. And yes, advanced physics with emphasis on high energy particles is the high risk, high potential payoff discipline. Galactic colonisation is a huge potential payoff justifying exploration. Earth transformation is the milk cow to feed that research. But first, we have to survive several emerging geostrategic power grabs.)
So, no, press promo release sites are not going to answer to the sobering issues ahead.
KF
Kairos,
I am no misty eyed dreamer of a future in space fed and peopled by the great human race; that’s yours and BA’s nonsensical position, you call it heaven. Rembrant yes! Motzart, yes! Shakespeare, withou a doubt! You? Me? BA? Heh!:) There are immortals, whose dreams, visions, and creations will be appreciated by aliens (I saw it on a Star Trek episode), but they are not you.
No, my point of view is clear and easy to understand. Humanity may do great things, but I doubt it. My life is important? To me, and my family and friends, but again not really important. You see, I’m ok with this, indeed my tiny insignificant part in this- what? ‘creation?’- if you like gives me an ability to see everything in its proper place; largely pointless, but fun.
You on the other hand, and BA have this overwheening sense of self worth and self importance which interferes with your ability to enjoy the air you breeth.
It is hard to ask the religious to view life as a precious gift, as they tend to think of their own importance and how God will keep their breth going; sorry!
“gives me an ability to see everything in its proper place; largely pointless, but fun.”
The ol nihilistic “Eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow we die?”
You may say Christians are deluding themselves with a false hope. Yet, you are wrong, I hold that Christians have solid assurance for their faith in Christ (and also for their faith in heaven)
Verse:
“Eat, drink, and be merry for tommorow we die”; Why on earth would you consider this an insult? Along with hard work, study, sex, and physical exetion (more sex), it would appear to be a nobe life, one I am leading at present. I like study, I like working, I like sex, and food, and yes I will die, hopefully not tomorrow.
And why BA, are you Kairos, and your followers so devoid of humour? I laugh at most things, especially God. I laughed uproriously yesterday at an infantile fart joke, because it came from an infant. What do you laugh at? I laugh at you, and this drives you a little mad. When you or Barry happily insult me,(thus braking your own postng rules) I say ‘whatever’; because I can. Luckily your beliefs don’t entirely rule your life, the enlightenment has defanged your silliest beliefs, but the erge to appear more Calvinist than your fellows is still plain.
I laugh at God because the enlightenment lets me, Muslims have a very long road to travel. I don’t mock them, not because their faith is any more Middle Eastern nonsense than your own, I don’t mock them because they are not restrained by enlightenment values, they actally think their absurd screed is worthwhile, as upposed to what it is; drivel!
RVB8, Do you hear your angry, contempt-laced tone regarding an issue that is about sustainability transformation of industrial civilisation in the primary instance . . . across the next 100 years — with particular implications for transforming the South? (Where, solar system colonialisation, fusion technology and the like are in fact obvious, reasonable long-term goals of our civilisation; even as maritime exploration was the obvious challenge facing civilisations 600 years ago, one passed by Prince Henry the Navigator and failed by the short sighted bureaucrats of China who refused to build on Cheng Ho’s accomplishments.) That attitude you chose to project already speaks volumes and not in your favour. Then, you tried to turn about and project the incoherence challenge of evolutionary materialistic scientism. But in fact the necessity of responsible, rational freedom of real independently thinking selves (not delusions cast up by wetware in our heads somehow inexplicably created by blind chance and mechanical necessity vastly beyond credible capability of the observed cosmos) as the first premise of rational discussion already decisively exposes such as self-falsifying. We have already also seen the inherent amorality and undermining of moral government, justice and sustainability of society that such ideologies have again enabled over the past 100 years. Remember, all of these polarising distractions are triggered by the observation that with a sample on the order of a thousand in hand, our home world is turning out to be statistically highly unusual and even privileged. It is sadly patent that, lacking cogent answers you have resorted to the rhetoric of dismissiveness, distraction and contempt. It is plainly time for you and those who think and behave as you have, to think again. Not least, the in progress worst holocaust in history, 800+ million unborn children under false colours of rights and law enabled by the undermining of law through amoral ideologies, speaks a grim warning on the matches we are playing with here. It is time to rethink and to do better. KF
rvb8, as well as you ought to enjoy all those things since God created all of them for our pleasure. i.e. Every good and perfect thing comes from God.
The problem comes when people put those things, and their own self interests, above the interests of God and of other people.
Too much food, drink, sex, or work can become a god unto itself when it is idolized above God or other people.
In fact, there are 12 step groups to help with each category mentioned when ‘too much pleasure’ gets out of control.
Moreover, your personal desire that there be no God, to interfere with whatever you have placed above God, does not constitute scientific evidence against God. It merely affirms the Christian belief that men have, by nature, a rebellious heart that puts its own destructive desires above the good and perfect desires that God has for us.
Moreover, in science, why in blue blazes should I care what your personal desires are? Only empirical evidence matters!
And as far as the scientific evidence itself goes, your atheistic/nihilistic position is found to be ‘not even wrong’:
As you can see when we remove the artificial imposition of the materialistic philosophy (methodological naturalism), from the scientific method, and look carefully at the predictions of both the materialistic philosophy and the Theistic philosophy, side by side, we find the scientific method is very good at pointing us in the direction of Theism as the true explanation. – In fact science is even very good at pointing us to Christianity as the solution to the much sought after ‘theory of everything’
Moreover, let us be VERY clear to the fact that ALL of science is dependent on basic Theistic presuppositions about the rational intelligibility of the universe and the ability of our mind to comprehend that rational intelligibility.,,,
Moreover, if we cast aside those basic Christian presuppositions about the rational intelligibility of the universe and of the ability of the human mind to comprehend that rational intelligibility, and try to use naturalism as our basis for understanding the universe and practising science then everything within that atheistic/naturalistic worldview, (i.e. sense of self. observation of reality, even reality itself), collapses into self refuting, unrestrained, flights of fantasies and imagination.
i.e. assuming naturalism as true (i.e. methodological naturalism) leads to the catastrophic epistemological failure of science.
As the preceding paper makes clear, and contrary to popular belief, It would be hard to find a more unscientific worldview than atheistic naturalism.
Atheistic naturalism, besides being ‘anti-science’, is a severely impoverished view of reality that denies the most important parts of what it truly means to be human.
Of supplemental note to Atheistic naturalism being a severely impoverished view of reality that denies the most important parts of what it truly means to be human, the fact that atheism leads to a ‘impoverished life’ is born out empirically:
Of related note to improving mental health
F/N: Where I am thinking: http://kairosfocus.blogspot.co.....-gvcs.html KF
800 million (unusual figure) unborn aborted fetuses. Perhaps this is true, it’s certainly true abortions have occured, and probably happen at a faster rate now becuse of the ‘day after’ pill. We are talking about exo-planets right? Why Kairos meandered into sustainability (big supporter BTW)is beyond me. Does he believe if we find more earth like worlds we can rubbish this one?
BA called me a nihilist, I am not, finding other worlds would seem to point to a positivity he, and Kairos deny; our earth is it, the waste of space is just that, a waste of space? Sounds pretty nihilistic to me. But then I don’t see humanity as the be all and end all of creation (I’m happy with that word if it soothes some feathers).
RVB8,
you and ilk continually monitor UD looking for how to pounce. So, you pretty well know or should know the basis. Planned Parenthood’s Guttmacher Institute reports a global abortion rate 50+million pa. In a recent BBC item, the remark was it had fallen to 52 from 56 mn.
Take 50, multiply by 40 y and by 1/2 for a simple growth model. Slice off 20% to be on the safe side, see where that gets you . . . you fill in the blank: ______ mn . . . since the mid 70’s but to the worst, ongoing holocaust in history, half a generation slaughtered in the womb under false colour of law, perversion of medicine in ways Hippocrates of Cos warned against through the famous oath 2500 years ago, with an enabling media culture and educational elite.
Guilty, guilty, guilty are we.
With the American total now about 60 millions in line with their proportion of the global population.
This is a global failure of civilisation.
One that utterly indicts us as an utterly be-numbed, en-darkened, wicked age.
The further issue is, evolutionary materialistic scientism under-writes the key radically secularist humanism, cultural marxism and the like that are so much a part of the picture, where from Plato in The Laws Bk X 2350+ years ago, it was known that such is inherently radically relativistic and amoral, thus utterly undermines objectivity of moral government and therefore opens the door to might and manipulation make right nihilism. Yes, 2350+ years ago, we have no excuse of ignorance. Scientism, by in effect trying to undermine bases for knowledge other than big-S Science, manages to put up an epistemological — thus philosophical — claim that refutes itself.
In addition, evo mat radically undermines the coherent, responsibly and rationally free self, ending in self falsification by incoherence. This of course fatally corrodes responsible, reasonable discussion — a phenomenon readily seen from ever so much Darwinist trollery all across the Internet.
We need to get back to basics and realise that we must be responsibly, rationally free or discussion is futile.
Yes, that puts on the table the issue, what sort of world-root grounds the existence of beings like we must be, just to account for the massive fact of responsible, rational discussion and freedom, on pain of self-referential absurdity.
After Hume’s guillotine argument, that requires a world in which IS and OUGHT are inextricably fused in the root, bridging the notorious gap. Where also, non-being has no causal powers so if once there were utterly nothing, such would forever obtain. We need necessary being root, and one simultaneously capable of grounding ought.
There is but one viable, serious candidate (after centuries of debates): the inherently good creator God, a necessary and maximally great being, worthy of loyalty and the responsible, reasonable service of doing the good in accord with our manifestly evident nature.
If you doubt, simply put up an alternative and engage comparative difficulties: ____________________ . (Of course, to do so, you imply responsible, rational freedom, and any scheme of thought not consistent with such cannot meet the coherence and factual adequacy tests so dies not even reach the stage of being tested for balanced elegant explanatory power. This sweeps away entire categories of views fashionable over the past 150 years.)
So, it is high time to re-think, undergo metanoia and set out to reform our civilisation from its deeply suicidal blood guilt, be-numbing of conscience, en-darkenment of mind, and ongoing march of folly.
KF
PS: As for meandered into sustainability, in your patent contempt you did not even pause to do the homework that would easily show that I have long been a practising professional under that theme (with a focus on capacity development — cf here for a recent remark:http://kairosfocus.blogspot.co.....-gvcs.html ), seeing the principle as an application of Kant’s Categorical imperative (and the classical Golden Rule), though I am leery of some of the more junk science and bad economics claims that are too often advanced under that rubric. Energy and industrial civilisation transformation are tied to that. If we can get something like polywell fusion to work, and the Bussard drive, that puts greening across the globe within reach in this century and onward solar system colonialisation. Molten salt and pebble bed reactors are despatchable, allowing us to get out of many of the intermittency problems that plague ever so many renewable techs. I have hope that algae oil may come through, and have not given up hopes for fuel cells. And yes, energy is the pivot. Though good governance transformation is not far behind . . . a current major focus. The distortions of law, government, media, education, family and more driven by abortion are a major manifestation of the progressive disintegration of governance leading to crises that will invite that notorious “solution” the follow me blindly, manipulative political messiah.
PPS: Plato’s warning, 2350+ years ago:
F/N: To begin to go back to focus, I find this recent remark by Walker and Davies rather illuminating:
In short, islands of function in large config spaces pointing to fine tuning and/or to functionally specific complex organisation and associated information; well-known signatures of intelligently directed configuration that (on long observation) are only controversial in an origins context because of entrenched evolutionary materialism.
To get back to focus, just note that we now have of order of magnitude 1,000 exoplanets, and they show a pattern that makes us see the statistics pointing to the rarity and even privilege of our own home world. Where, just the common pattern of hot jupiters orbiting stars close in speaks to how readily solar system dynamics can be disrupted with planets moving about and kicking out other planets. Models of our own system and explorations of what if scenarios readily confirm just how easily things can get into the solar system equivalent of a billiards game.
As I noted in comment 1 which obviously triggered RVB8:
KF
F/N: I headlined 22, so there is a thread where that and linked issues are on-topic: http://www.uncommondescent.com.....ears-from/ KF