36 alien civs? Paltry! Claim: up to 6 billion Earthlike planets in our galaxy

_{Denyse O'Leary

June 16, 2020

Exoplanets, Intelligent Design}

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Exoplanet illustration | Credit: © Skórzewiak / stock.adobe.com — Exoplanet illustration (stock image).
*Credit: © Skórzewiak / stock.adobe.com*

Using NASA’s Kepler data, they estimate 1 Earth for every 5 Suns:

“My calculations place an upper limit of 0.18 Earth-like planets per G-type star,” says UBC researcher Michelle Kunimoto, co-author of the new study in The Astronomical Journal. “Estimating how common different kinds of planets are around different stars can provide important constraints on planet formation and evolution theories, and help optimize future missions dedicated to finding exoplanets.”
According to UBC astronomer Jaymie Matthews: “Our Milky Way has as many as 400 billion stars, with seven per cent of them being G-type. That means less than six billion stars may have Earth-like planets in our Galaxy.”
Previous estimates of the frequency of Earth-like planets range from roughly 0.02 potentially habitable planets per Sun-like star, to more than one per Sun-like star.
Typically, planets like Earth are more likely to be missed by a planet search than other types, as they are so small and orbit so far from their stars. That means that a planet catalogue represents only a small subset of the planets that are actually in orbit around the stars searched. Kunimoto used a technique known as ‘forward modelling’ to overcome these challenges.
“I started by simulating the full population of exoplanets around the stars Kepler searched,” she explained. “I marked each planet as ‘detected’ or ‘missed’ depending on how likely it was my planet search algorithm would have found them. Then, I compared the detected planets to my actual catalogue of planets. If the simulation produced a close match, then the initial population was likely a good representation of the actual population of planets orbiting those stars.”
University of British Columbia, “As many as six billion Earth-like planets in our galaxy, according to new estimates” at ScienceDaily

Paper. (paywall)

The basic problem is that it’s speculation with numbers. Only a few changes in variable factors are needed to upset such reasoning.

There’s got a reason why so much science is beginning to sound like the National Enquirer for STEM nerds. But we are waiting for the Big Explain book to come out. Should be a classic.

The 36 intelligent civilizations? See also: New “Astrobiological Copernican Limit” claims 36 intelligent civilizations. It’s all malarkey. In the real world, it would be awfully nice to find fossil bacteria on Mars. When that seems to be taking some time, we hear about 36 alien civs. That’s because there’ll always be a market for We Are Not Alone. The thing is, it used to be called religion, not science. And it still IS religion, not science.

Comments

RP, note what has been a focus here, solar system colonialisation. Practical interstellar travel likely would require revolutionary new physics. Such is pointlessly speculative at this point, save I suppose to sell Sci Fi books involving warp drives, stargates and the like. KFkairosfocus_{June 18, 2020
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"If you are in a vehicle, traveling the speed of light, and you turn on your headlights, will anything happen?"- Steven WrightET_{June 17, 2020
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One of the things you do when you are a first year undergrad in physics is derive the rocket equation. The consequences are very disheartening. I did, decades ago, have a buddy who graduated and went to Cornell for grad school, and when I first met him he was all about inventing a real Warp drive, and by the time he went to Cornell he had already given up on that. I think science fiction has given a lot of people really drastically unrealistic ideas about what we can do and where we can go. We can shoot things into space at roughly 1% of lightspeed, but that’s if you don’t give the object enough juice to stop once it gets there. If you try to do that, the rocket equation just kills you.Retired Physicist_{June 17, 2020
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With current technology we could reach the nearest star in 500-1000 years. But we wouldn’t have enough juice to slow down once we got there. And space is a terrifically hostile environment. There’s little chance we would survive the ride. There is no Planet B. The Tsiolkovsky Rocket Equation is a cruel mistress.Retired Physicist_{June 17, 2020
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Like the word "evolution", the term "earth like planet" is very plastic and subject to misuse. Some exoplanet astronomers consider any rocky body smaller than Neptune to be "earth like", whereas most such planets are too hot, tidally locked, orbiting in heavy radiation, in unstable orbits, or otherwise unlikely to maintain suitable conditions long enough to sustain, much less generate, life. Then there are the other factors needed for life, as listed by BA77 above.Fasteddious_{June 17, 2020
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Jawa
Even if you had all the exact conditions, actually this very same planet Earth where we are, how would you get biological life? How? Can you elaborate?
Well, as I explained yesterday on the 36 planet thread, the probability against ‘simple’ life itself, (not intelligent life mind you), spontaneously appearing on that hypothetical life supporting planet are, no pun intended, astronomical. Stephen Meyer, using very optimistic assumptions, calculated that the odds of ‘simple’ life spontaneously forming are one in 10 to the 41,000th power.
Signature in the Cell by Stephen Meyer – Book Review – Ken Peterson Excerpt: If we assume some minimally complex cell requires 250 different proteins then the probability of this arrangement happening purely by chance is one in 10 to the 164th multiplied by itself 250 times or one in 10 to the 41,000th power. https://spectrummagazine.org/article/book-reviews/2009/10/06/signature-cell
Professor Harold Morowitz, working from a more realistic thermodynamic perspective, showed that the Origin of Life ‘problem’ escalates dramatically over Dr. Meyer’s optimistic 1 in 10^41,000 figure :
DID LIFE START BY CHANCE? Excerpt: Molecular biophysicist, Harold Morowitz (Yale University), calculated the odds of life beginning under natural conditions (spontaneous generation). He calculated, if one were to take the simplest living cell and break every chemical bond within it, the odds that the cell would reassemble under ideal natural conditions (the best possible chemical environment) would be one chance in 10^100,000,000,000. You will have probably have trouble imagining a number so large, so Hugh Ross provides us with the following example. If all the matter in the Universe was converted into building blocks of life, and if assembly of these building blocks were attempted once a microsecond for the entire age of the universe. Then instead of the odds being 1 in 10^100,000,000,000, they would be 1 in 10^99,999,999,916. http://members.tripod.com/~Black_J/chance.html Harold Joseph Morowitz was an American biophysicist who studied the application of thermodynamics to living systems. Author of numerous books and articles, his work includes technical monographs as well as essays. The origin of life was his primary research interest for more than fifty years.
The reason why looking at the origin of life (OOL) 'problem' from the thermodynamic perspective paints a more realistic picture of what we are actually dealing with in OOL is that in order to explain the OOL you must ultimately explain where the information in that first life (and subsequent life) came from,,,
“The problem of the origin of life is clearly basically equivalent to the problem of the origin of biological information.” Origin of life theorist Bernd-Olaf Kuppers in his book "Information and the Origin of Life".
,,, and there now known to be a fundamental connection between thermodynamics and information,,,
"Is there a real connection between entropy in physics and the entropy of information? ....The equations of information theory and the second law are the same, suggesting that the idea of entropy is something fundamental..." Siegfried, Dallas Morning News, 5/14/90, [Quotes Robert W. Lucky, Ex. Director of Research, AT&T, Bell Laboratories & John A. Wheeler, of Princeton & Univ. of TX, Austin]
In fact, in 2010 the Maxwell’s demon thought experiment, (which was originally devised by James Clerk Maxwell in 1867), was finally experimentally realized. As the following paper highlights, it has now been experimentally demonstrated that knowledge of a particle's location and/or position converts information into energy.
Maxwell's demon demonstration turns information into energy - November 2010 Excerpt: Scientists in Japan are the first to have succeeded in converting information into free energy in an experiment that verifies the "Maxwell demon" thought experiment devised in 1867.,,, In Maxwell’s thought experiment the demon creates a temperature difference simply from information about the gas molecule temperatures and without transferring any energy directly to them.,,, Until now, demonstrating the conversion of information to energy has been elusive, but University of Tokyo physicist Masaki Sano and colleagues have succeeded in demonstrating it in a nano-scale experiment. In a paper published in Nature Physics they describe how they coaxed a Brownian particle to travel upwards on a "spiral-staircase-like" potential energy created by an electric field solely on the basis of information on its location. As the particle traveled up the staircase it gained energy from moving to an area of higher potential, and the team was able to measure precisely how much energy had been converted from information. http://www.physorg.com/news/2010-11-maxwell-demon-energy.html
And as the following 2010 article stated about the preceding experiment, "This is a beautiful experimental demonstration that information has a thermodynamic content,"
Demonic device converts information to energy - 2010 Excerpt: "This is a beautiful experimental demonstration that information has a thermodynamic content," says Christopher Jarzynski, a statistical chemist at the University of Maryland in College Park. In 1997, Jarzynski formulated an equation to define the amount of energy that could theoretically be converted from a unit of information2; the work by Sano and his team has now confirmed this equation. "This tells us something new about how the laws of thermodynamics work on the microscopic scale," says Jarzynski. http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=demonic-device-converts-inform
Moreover, the information content that is found to be in a simple one cell bacterium, when working from the thermodynamic perspective, is found to be immense, i.e. around 10 to the 12 bits,,,
Biophysics – Information theory. Relation between information and entropy: - Setlow-Pollard, Ed. Addison Wesley Excerpt: Linschitz gave the figure 9.3 x 10^12 cal/deg or 9.3 x 10^12 x 4.2 joules/deg for the entropy of a bacterial cell. Using the relation H = S/(k In 2), we find that the information content is 4 x 10^12 bits. Morowitz' deduction from the work of Bayne-Jones and Rhees gives the lower value of 5.6 x 10^11 bits, which is still in the neighborhood of 10^12 bits. Thus two quite different approaches give rather concordant figures. http://www.astroscu.unam.mx/~angel/tsb/molecular.htm
,,, Which is the equivalent of about 100 million pages of Encyclopedia Britannica. 'In comparison,,, the largest libraries in the world,, have about 10 million volumes or 10^12 bits.”
“a one-celled bacterium, e. coli, is estimated to contain the equivalent of 100 million pages of Encyclopedia Britannica. Expressed in information in science jargon, this would be the same as 10^12 bits of information. In comparison, the total writings from classical Greek Civilization is only 10^9 bits, and the largest libraries in the world – The British Museum, Oxford Bodleian Library, New York Public Library, Harvard Widenier Library, and the Moscow Lenin Library – have about 10 million volumes or 10^12 bits.” – R. C. Wysong - The Creation-evolution Controversy 'The information content of a simple cell has been estimated as around 10^12 bits, comparable to about a hundred million pages of the Encyclopedia Britannica." Carl Sagan, "Life" in Encyclopedia Britannica: Macropaedia (1974 ed.), pp. 893-894
It is also important to realize just how devastating these recent experimental realizations of Maxwell's demon thought experiment are to the materialistic presuppositions of Darwinists. As the following 2017 article states: James Clerk Maxwell (said), “The idea of dissipation of energy depends on the extent of our knowledge.”,,, quantum information theory,,, describes the spread of information through quantum systems.,,, Fifteen years ago, “we thought of entropy as a property of a thermodynamic system,” he said. “Now in (quantum) information theory, we wouldn’t say entropy is a property of a system, but a property of an observer who describes a system.”,,,
The Quantum Thermodynamics Revolution – May 2017 Excerpt: the 19th-century physicist James Clerk Maxwell put it, “The idea of dissipation of energy depends on the extent of our knowledge.” In recent years, a revolutionary understanding of thermodynamics has emerged that explains this subjectivity using quantum information theory — “a toddler among physical theories,” as del Rio and co-authors put it, that describes the spread of information through quantum systems. Just as thermodynamics initially grew out of trying to improve steam engines, today’s thermodynamicists are mulling over the workings of quantum machines. Shrinking technology — a single-ion engine and three-atom fridge were both experimentally realized for the first time within the past year — is forcing them to extend thermodynamics to the quantum realm, where notions like temperature and work lose their usual meanings, and the classical laws don’t necessarily apply. They’ve found new, quantum versions of the laws that scale up to the originals. Rewriting the theory from the bottom up has led experts to recast its basic concepts in terms of its subjective nature, and to unravel the deep and often surprising relationship between energy and information — the abstract 1s and 0s by which physical states are distinguished and knowledge is measured.,,, Renato Renner, a professor at ETH Zurich in Switzerland, described this as a radical shift in perspective. Fifteen years ago, “we thought of entropy as a property of a thermodynamic system,” he said. “Now in (quantum) information theory, we wouldn’t say entropy is a property of a system, but a property of an observer who describes a system.”,,, https://www.quantamagazine.org/quantum-thermodynamics-revolution/
Again to repeat that last sentence,“Now in (quantum) information theory, we wouldn’t say entropy is a property of a system, but a property of an observer who describes a system.”,,, That statement about entropy being a property of an observer who describes the system, for anyone involved in the ID vs. Darwinism debate, ought to send chills down their scientific spine. In other words, contrary to the reductive materialistic presuppositions of Darwinists, information, particularly this ‘thermodynamic positional information’, is now experimentally shown, via quantum information theory, to be its own distinct physical entity that, although it can interact with matter and energy, is its own independent, ‘non-local’ beyond space and time, entity that is separate from matter and energy. On top of all that, this ‘thermodynamic positional information’ is found, via quantum information theory, to be “a property of an observer who describes a system.” In other words, Intelligent Design, and a direct inference to God as the Intelligence behind life, (via the non-locality of quantum information and/or the non-locality of quantum entanglement ), has, for all intents and purposes, finally achieved experimental confirmation. https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/karsten-pultz-why-random-processes-cannot-produce-information-a-new-argument/#comment-690519 Verse:
John 1:1-4 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind.
bornagain77_{June 17, 2020
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BA77, Excellent arguments that you have presented. But there’s one important thing we should keep in mind: Even if you had all the exact conditions, actually this very same planet Earth where we are, how would you get biological life? How? Can you elaborate? BTW, before you start explaining, would you mind calling Dr Cronin and Dr Szostak so that they have the opportunity to listen to your explanation. I’m sure they’ll appreciate to hear how to do what they’ve tried for so long. Also, don’t forget to contact Dr Denis Noble and Dr George Church right away so that you get the well deserved Evo2.0 OOL $10M award. :)jawa_{June 17, 2020
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As well, it is not nearly enough that a planet be almost exactly earth-size, have a strong magnetic field, and have the correct chemical composition, but a truly 'earth-like' planet must also maintain a stable orbit for billions of years,
“You might also think that these disparate bodies are scattered across the solar system without rhyme or reason. But move any piece of the solar system today, or try to add anything more, and the whole construction would be thrown fatally out of kilter. So how exactly did this delicate architecture come to be?” R. Webb - Unknown solar system 1: How was the solar system built? - New Scientist – 2009 Is the Solar System Stable? By Scott Tremaine - 2011 Excerpt: So what are the results? Most of the calculations agree that eight billion years from now, just before the Sun swallows the inner planets and incinerates the outer ones, all of the planets will still be in orbits very similar to their present ones. In this limited sense, the solar system is stable. However, a closer look at the orbit histories reveals that the story is more nuanced. After a few tens of millions of years, calculations using slightly different parameters (e.g., different planetary masses or initial positions within the small ranges allowed by current observations) or different numerical algorithms begin to diverge at an alarming rate. More precisely, the growth of small differences changes from linear to exponential:,,, As an example, shifting your pencil from one side of your desk to the other today could change the gravitational forces on Jupiter enough to shift its position from one side of the Sun to the other a billion years from now. The unpredictability of the solar system over very long times is of course ironic since this was the prototypical system that inspired Laplacian determinism. Fortunately, most of this unpredictability is in the orbital phases of the planets, not the shapes and sizes of their orbits, so the chaotic nature of the solar system does not normally lead to collisions between planets. However, the presence of chaos implies that we can only study the long-term fate of the solar system in a statistical sense, by launching in our computers an armada of solar systems with slightly different parameters at the present time—typically, each planet is shifted by a random amount of about a millimeter—and following their evolution. When this is done, it turns out that in about 1 percent of these systems, Mercury’s orbit becomes sufficiently eccentric so that it collides with Venus before the death of the Sun. Thus, the answer to the question of the stability of the solar system—more precisely, will all the planets survive until the death of the Sun—is neither “yes” nor “no” but “yes, with 99 percent probability.” https://www.ias.edu/about/publications/ias-letter/articles/2011-summer/solar-system-tremaine Rare Planetary System BY HUGH ROSS - JUNE 12, 2017 Excerpt: Thanks in large part to research on extrasolar planets, astronomers also know that every planet in the solar system fulfills a key role in making advanced life possible on Earth. Two Brazilian astronomers showed that even tiny adjustments in the orbits of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune would prove catastrophic for life in our solar system.5 Regions beyond the precise orbital positions of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune abound in destructive mean motion resonances. As it is, Uranus is close to a 7:1 resonance with Jupiter (where Jupiter would make exactly 7 orbits around the Sun for every single orbit of Uranus), a 2:1 resonance with Neptune, and a 3:1 resonance with Saturn. Meanwhile, Jupiter and Saturn are very close to 5:2 resonance. If any of the solar system gas giant planets’ orbital positions were to shift ever so slightly, that shift would destabilize the orbit of one or more of the eight planets in the solar system with catastrophic consequences for a long history of life on Earth. Three Canadian astronomers further demonstrated that the orbital positions of Venus, Earth, and Mars must be fine-tuned so as to break up mean motion resonances that could be damaging for life on Earth. They showed that even the orbital features of the Earth-Moon system must be fine-tuned for this purpose.6 The Earth-Moon system suppresses a resonance in Venus’ orbit that is generated from the orbital patterns of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. Unless the Earth-Moon system is configured the way it is, both Venus’ and Mercury’s orbits would destabilize and generate destructive chaos throughout the inner solar system. Every planet in our solar system and Earth’s Moon contribute to making advanced life possible on Earth. The solar system’s array of eight planets must be exactly the way it is. Have you thanked God today for Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune? https://www.reasons.org/explore/blogs/todays-new-reason-to-believe/read/todays-new-reason-to-believe/2017/06/12/rare-planetary-system
I've just touched upon a few of the more salient features that are required for a planet to be able to host life and to therefore be considered truly earth-like, in the following article Dr. Hugh Ross lists many more factors, (816 factors in all), that are necessary for a planet to be able to host life and to therefore be considered truly earth-like,
Requirements to sustain intelligent physical life: Probability for occurrence of all 816 parameters approx. 10^-1333 dependency factors estimate approx. 10^-324 longevity requirements estimate approx. 10^45 Probability for occurrence of all 816 parameters approx. 10^-1054 Maximum possible number of life support bodies in observable universe approx. 10^22 Thus, less than 1 chance in 10^1032 exists that even one such life-support body would occur anywhere in the universe without invoking divine miracle http://d4bge0zxg5qba.cloudfront.net/files/compendium/compendium_Part3_ver2.pdf
One final note, this paper, like the paper cited yesterday claiming that 36 planets in the Milky Way may host intelligent life, is basically an exercise in the Copernican principle run amok. Yet the Copernican principle itself is now found to be a false assumption by none other than our very best theories in science, i.e. General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics respectfully:
November 2019 – despite the fact that virtually everyone, including the vast majority of Christians, hold that the Copernican Principle is unquestionably true, the fact of the matter is that the Copernican Principle is now empirically shown, (via quantum mechanics and general relativity, etc.., etc..), to be a false assumption. https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/so-then-maybe-we-are-privileged-observers/#comment-688855
Verse:
Colossians 1:15-20 The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.
bornagain77_{June 17, 2020
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Well I guess that if you toss out the requirement that a planet actually be able to support life to be considered 'earthlike', and only consider that a planet be "roughly Earth-sized and orbiting Sun-like (G-type) stars. It also has to orbit in the habitable zones of its star -- (i.e.) the range of distances from a star in which a rocky planet could host liquid water, and potentially life, on its surface", then you could arrive at roughly 6 billion 'earthlike' planets in our galaxy. Yet, for those who might be a little more fussy that a planet actually be able to support life before they would be willing to call it truly 'earthlike', then the probability that a planet will be truly 'earthlike' becomes exceedingly rare.
Be Skeptical of the Hype in the Search for “Earth-like” Planets When it comes to exoplanets, "Earth-size" does not mean "Earth-like" - By Guillermo Gonzalez - January 29, 2015 Excerpt: Research is making it increasingly obvious that habitability depends on far more than a few planetary “ingredients” — the few we usually hear about in the breathless news stories about “Earth-like” planets. To grasp the full picture, we have to take account of the myriad details of a planet’s origin, the way it changes over time and its present status. What’s more, all the factors interact in complex ways that we are only beginning to understand. A small change in one of these may affect the others, resulting in a dead world. https://stream.org/skeptical-hype-search-earth-like-planets/ Among Darwin Advocates, Premature Celebration over Abundance of Habitable Planets - September 2011 Excerpt: Today, such processes as planet formation details, tidal forces, plate tectonics, magnetic field evolution, and planet-planet, planet-comet, and planet-asteroid gravitational interactions are found to be relevant to habitability.,,, What's more, not only are more requirements for habitability being discovered, but they are often found to be interdependent, forming a (irreducibly) complex "web." This means that if a planetary system is found not to satisfy one of the habitability requirements, it may not be possible to compensate for this deficit by adjusting a different parameter in the system. - Guillermo Gonzalez - per evolution news
For instance, it is not nearly enough that a planet merely exist in the 'water habitable zone' in order for it to be able to host life, but that planet must also exist in many other 'habitable zones' simultaneously in order to be able to host life,
The Known Habitable Zones (For a Planet) – Hugh Ross – December 2016 Excerpt: in addition to the water habitable zone, there are seven other known habitable zones. 1. Water habitable zone 2. Ultraviolet habitable zone 3. Photosynthetic habitable zone 4. Ozone habitable zone 5. Planetary rotation rate habitable zone 6. Planetary obliquity habitable zone 7. Tidal habitable zone 8. Astrosphere habitable zone ,,, Typically, these zones do not overlap,,, A planet is a true candidate for habitability only if it simultaneously resides in all eight habitable zones. So far, the only known planet that dwells in all eight is Earth.,,, Now, a ninth habitable zone has been discovered— 9. Electric wind habitable zone.6 http://www.salvomag.com/new/articles/salvo39/zone-9-in-outer-space.php Life Requires Galactic and Supergalactic Habitable Zones – DR. HUGH ROSS – APRIL 8TH, 2019 Excerpt: Though research on circumstellar habitable zones has largely focused on the liquid water habitable zone—the distance from the star where water could conceivably exist in a liquid state—another ten circumstellar habitable zones are known to be critical for the survivability of life to date. I have written about these eleven habitable zones here,1 here,2 and here.3 For a planet to be truly habitable it must reside simultaneously in all eleven of these circumstellar habitable zones. Circumstellar habitability, however, is not the only requirement for habitability. For a planet to possibly host life it must also reside in the cosmic temporal habitable zone, the galactic habitable zone, and the supergalactic habitable zone. ,,, Mason and Biermann point out that thanks to a relatively high rate of supernova eruption events, our galaxy maintains a relativistic galactic wind. This wind shields our solar system from deadly extragalactic cosmic rays. However, if the supernova eruption rate in our galaxy were any higher, radiation from the supernovae would prove deadly to advanced life on Earth. Fortunately, the supernova eruption rate in our galaxy is just right. Mason and Biermann also explain how the activity level of our galactic nucleus must be fine-tuned. It takes small dwarf galaxies being regularly absorbed into the nucleus of our galaxy to sustain the ongoing star formation that is critical for maintaining our galaxy’s spiral structure. However, if our galaxy were to absorb or merge with a large dwarf galaxy, that absorption or merger could activate our galaxy’s nucleus. That activation would shower the entire extent of our galaxy with deadly radiation. Fortunately, our galaxy is absorbing dwarf galaxies of the just-right size and at the just-right rate to make possible the survival of advanced life on Earth. https://www.twr360.org/blog/details/2721/life-requires-galactic-and-supergalactic-habitable-zones
In fact, it is not even enough for a planet to be "roughly Earth-sized " in order for it to be able to host life. It has to be almost exactly Earth-sized,
Existence Itself Is a Miracle - Oct. 2014 Excerpt: "For instance, if the earth were slightly larger, it would of course have slightly more gravity. As a result, methane and ammonia gas, which have molecular weights of sixteen and seventeen respectively, would remain close to the surface of the earth. Since we can’t breathe methane or ammonia because of their toxicity, we would die. If Earth were slightly smaller, water vapor would not stay close to the planet’s surface, but would instead dissipate into the atmosphere. Obviously, without water we couldn’t exist." Eric Metaxus https://www.breakpoint.org/bpcommentaries/entry/13/26299 The Cold Trap: How It Works - Michael Denton - May 10, 2014 Excerpt: As water vapor ascends in the atmosphere, it cools and condenses out, forming clouds and rain and snow and falling back to the Earth. This process becomes very intense at the so-called tropopause (17-10 km above sea level) where air temperatures reach -80°C and all remaining water in the atmosphere is frozen out. The air in the layer of the atmosphere above the troposphere in the stratosphere (extending up to 50 km above mean sea level) is absolutely dry, containing oxygen, nitrogen, some CO and the other atmospheric gases, but virtually no H2O molecules.,,, ,,,above 80-100 km, atoms and molecules are subject to intense ionizing radiation. If water ascended to this level it would be photo-dissociated into hydrogen and oxygen and, the hydrogen being very light, lost into space. Over a relatively short geological period all the water and oceans would be evaporated and the world uninhabitable.,,, Oxygen, having a boiling point of -183°C, has no such problems ascending through the tropopause cold trap into the stratosphere. As it does, it becomes subject to more and more intense ionizing radiation. However this leads,, to the formation of ozone (O3). This forms a protective layer in the atmosphere above the tropopause, perfectly placed just above the cold trap and preventing any ionizing radiation in the far UV region from reaching the H2O molecules at the tropopause and in the troposphere below. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2014/05/the_cold_trap_h085441.html
In fact, it is not even enough for a planet to be almost exactly Earth-sized. A planet must also contain a strong planetary magnetic field,
Strong planetary magnetic fields like Earth's may protect oceans from stellar storms - March 14, 2019 Excerpt: A study by scientists at ANU on the magnetic fields of planets has found that most planets discovered in other solar systems are unlikely to be as hospitable to life as Earth. Plants and animals would not survive without water on Earth. The sheer strength of Earth's magnetic field helps to maintain liquid water on our blue planet's surface, thereby making it possible for life to thrive. Scientists from the ANU Research School of Astronomy and Astrophysics modelled the magnetic fields of exoplanets—planets beyond our solar system—and found very few have a magnetic field as strong as Earth. They contend that techniques for finding exoplanets the size of Earth are more likely to find slowly rotating planets locked to their host star in the same way the Moon is locked to Earth, with the same side always facing their host star. The lead author of the study, Ph.D. scholar Sarah McIntyre, said strong magnetic fields may be necessary to keep wet rocky exoplanets habitable.,,, "Venus and Mars have negligible magnetic fields and do not support life, while Earth's magnetic field is relatively strong and does," she said. "We find most detected exoplanets have very weak magnetic fields, so this is an important factor when searching for potentially habitable planets." https://m.phys.org/news/2019-03-strong-planetary-magnetic-fields-earth.html
Moreover, it is not nearly enough that planet be almost exactly earth-sized and contain a strong magnetic field, but a planet must also contain the correct chemical composition in order to be able to host life,
Compositions of Extrasolar Planets - July 2010 Excerpt: ,,,the presumption that extrasolar terrestrial planets will consistently manifest Earth-like chemical compositions is incorrect. Instead, the simulations revealed “a wide variety of resulting planetary compositions.",,, The team concluded that terrestrial planets in these systems would have “compositions and mineralogies unlike any body observed within our solar system.”4 https://tnrtb.wordpress.com/2010/07/12/compositions-of-extrasolar-planets/ Elemental Evidence of Earth’s Divine Design - Hugh Ross PhD. - April 2010 Table: Earth’s Anomalous Abundances - Page 8 The twenty-five elements listed below must exist on Earth in specific abundances for advanced life and/or support of civilization to be possible. For each listed element the number indicates how much more or less abundant it is, by mass, in Earth’s crust, relative to magnesium’s abundance, as compared to its average abundance in the rest of the Milky Way Galaxy, also relative to the element magnesium. Asterisks denote “vital poisons,” essential elements that if too abundant would be toxic to advanced life, but if too scarce would fail to provide the quantities of nutrients essential for advanced life. The water measure compares the amount of water in and on Earth relative to the minimum amount the best planet formation models would predict for a planet the mass of Earth orbiting a star identical to the Sun at the same distance from the Sun. carbon* 1,200 times less nitrogen* 2,400 times less fluorine* 50 times more sodium* 20 times more aluminum 40 times more phosphorus* 4 times more sulfur* 60 times less potassium* 90 times more calcium 20 times more titanium 65 times more vanadium* 9 times more chromium* 5 times less nickel* 20 times less cobalt* 5 times less selenium* 30 times less yttrium 50 times more zirconium 130 times more niobium 170 times more molybdenum* 5 times more tin* 3 times more iodine* 3 times more gold 5 times less lead 170 times more uranium 16,000 times more thorium 23,000 times more water 250 times less https://www.reasons.org/explore/publications/nrtb-e-zine/read/nrtb-e-zine/2010/03/01/elemental-evidence-of-earth-s-divine-design
bornagain77_{June 17, 2020
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Looking for exoplanets? What could be more welcome is finding a vaccine for CoViD19 in this planet. Or a cure for cancer. Serious science for real problems.jawa_{June 17, 2020
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