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

_{Denyse O'Leary

October 8, 2020

Exoplanets, Intelligent Design}

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According to people who have never lived there:

Astrobiologists have identified 24 exoplanets that aren’t just potentially habitable, they’re potentially superhabitable, exhibiting an array of conditions more suitable to life than what’s seen on Earth.
The saying these days among environmentally conscious people is that there is no Planet B, but a new paper published in Astrobiology suggests otherwise. A research team led by Dirk Schulze-Makuch from Washington State University has identified 24 exoplanets with conditions that could make them more suitable for life than Earth, making them “superhabitable.” Sadly, all these exoplanets are farther away than 100 light-years, so people wanting to get off this shitshow of a planet shouldn’t pack their bags just yet…
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.
George Dvorsky, “These 24 Planets Might Be Better Places to Live Than Earth, Astrobiologists Say” at Gizmodo

The paper is open access.

It all reminds yer house News hack of all the Americans who have claimed they will move to Canada when they don’t like the results of some election or other.

Yes, sight unseen. Never been in Canada except for a stopover at an international airport or some gig somewhere. Don’t know the most basic stuff about how the country works (or is supposed to or maybe doesn’t). Fortunately, they rarely actually carry out their intention. The whining would soon become intolerable…

Not saying Canada’s inferior. Hardly. Just that whining is not a good substitute for thinking and research.

Comments

The authors claim that "superhabitable" planets would orbit around K-dwarf stars. But they fail to consider the rotation obliquity habitable zone (ROHZ), which requires host stars of at least 0.9 times the mass of the sun. K-dwarf stars are 0.5-0.8 times the mass of the sun. Hence they have no chance of having an ROHZ. https://arxiv.org/pdf/1101.2156.pdfMikeW_{October 9, 2020
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The authors claim,
Superhabitable planets are bigger and heavier, at about 1.5 times our planet’s mass and about 10% larger. Such planets would feature more habitable terrestrial surfaces, but only in the presence of another important criterium: sufficient plate tectonics to form large landmasses like continents. Superhabitable worlds should also feature lots of water and plenty of archipelagos, the authors argue. A slightly heavier planet also means stronger gravity, which helps to retain an atmosphere for prolonged periods. Importantly, these planets should also feature strong protective geomagnetic shields.
It seems the authors overlooked a minor problem in their attempt to imagine a 'superhabitible' planet that is larger and heavier than Earth.:
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
Besides the authors missing that rather obvious, and fatal, problem with their scenario, I'm sure that there are many other factors that they overlooked in their rush to declare that the earth in inferior to the superhabitiable worlds that they can conjure up in their imaginations: In fact, there are, at least, a total of 816 known parameters which have to be met for complex, intelligent, life to be possible on Earth, or on a planet like Earth. Individually, these limits are not that impressive but when we realize ALL these limits have to be met at the same time, on the same planet, and not one of the limits can be out of its life permitting range for any extended period of time, then the probability for a world which can host advanced life in this universe becomes very extraordinary. Here is the final summary of Dr. Hugh Ross's 'conservative' estimate for the probability of finding another life-hosting world in this universe.
Linked from Appendix C from Dr. Ross's book, 'Why the Universe Is the Way It Is';?Probability Estimates for the Features Required by Various Life Forms: Excerpt: Requirements to sustain bacteria for 90 days or less: Probability for occurrence of all 501 parameters approx. 10-614 dependency factors estimate approx. 10^-303 longevity requirements estimate approx. 10^22 Probability for occurrence of all 501 parameters approx. 10^-333 Maximum possible number of life support bodies in observable universe approx. 10^22 Thus, less than 1 chance in 10^311 exists that even one such life-support body would occur anywhere in the universe without invoking divine miracles. Requirements to sustain unicellar life for three billion year: Probability for occurrence of all 676 parameters approx. 10^-859 dependency factors estimate approx. 10^-303 longevity requirements estimate approx. 10^22 Probability for occurrence of all 676 parameters approx. 10^-578 Maximum possible number of life support bodies in observable universe approx. 10^22 Thus, less than 1 chance in 10^556 exists that even one such life-support body would occur anywhere in the universe without invoking divine miracle 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
And that is just the probability of getting a life supporting planet in the universe,,, that does not even take into account the probability against 'simple' life spontaneously appearing on that life supporting planet,,,
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 (also of note: 1 with 100 billion zeros following would fill approx. 20,000 encyclopedias) http://members.tripod.com/~Black_J/chance.html
Nor does it take into consideration the probability against scientifically advanced, i.e. intelligent, life accidentally evolving from that 'simple' life on that life supporting planet,,
16 Steps to Generating Advanced Life | Dr Hugh Ross - July 13, 2017 Excerpt: Naturalists, materialists, deists, and most theistic evolutionists would answer that the chemicals on early Earth spontaneously self-assembled into a simple cell that was able to reproduce. From there, the cell’s daughters evolved to produce all the life-forms that have ever existed throughout the past 3.8 billion years. Such a history requires that life make at least 16 transitional steps in order to generate advanced life-forms.,,, ,,, Evolutionary biologist Francisco Ayala notes that, from a Darwinian perspective, each step is highly improbable. Taking into account just a few of these steps, Ayala determined that the probability of intelligent life arising from bacteria to be less than one chance in 10^1,000,000.(1) Physicists John Barrow, Brandon Carter, and Frank Tipler calculated the probability of all 16 steps occurring to be less than one chance in 10^24,000,000.(2) To get a feel for how miniscule this probability is, it is roughly equivalent to someone winning the California lottery 3,000,000 consecutive times where that individual purchases just one lottery ticket each time. Realistically, this probability is indistinguishable from someone winning the California lottery 3,000,000 consecutive times where the individual purchases no tickets at all. https://bcooper.wordpress.com/2017/07/13/16-steps-to-generating-advanced-life-dr-hugh-ross/ "In another book I wrote with Fuz (Rana), Who Was Adam?, we describe calculations done by evolutionary biologist Francisco Ayala and by astrophysicists John Barrow, Brandon Carter, and Frank Tipler for the probability that a bacterium would evolve under ideal natural conditions—given the presumption that the mechanisms for natural biological evolution are both effective and rapid. They determine that probability to be no more than 10-24,000,000. The bottom line is that rather than the probability for extraterrestrial intelligent life being 1 as Aczel claims, very conservatively from a naturalistic perspective it is much less than 10^500 + 22 -1054 -100,000,000,000 -24,000,000. That is, it is less than 10-100,024,000,532. In longhand notation it would be 0.00 … 001 with 100,024,000,531 zeros (100 billion, 24 million, 5 hundred and thirty-one zeros) between the decimal point and the 1. That longhand notation of the probability would fill over 20,000 complete Bibles. - Hugh Ross- Does the Probability for ETI = 1?
William Lane Craig, after reviewing Barrow and Tipler’s work, 'The Anthropic Cosmological Principle' stated, "They estimate that the odds of the evolution (by chance) of the human genome is somewhere between 4 to the negative 180th power, to the 110,000th power, and 4 to the negative 360th power, to the 110,000th power. Therefore, if evolution did occur, it literally would have been a miracle and evidence for the existence of God.” ”
“In Barrow and Tippler's book The Anthropic Cosmological Principle, they list ten steps necessary in the course of human evolution, each of which, is so improbable that if left to happen by chance alone, the sun would have ceased to be a main sequence star and would have incinerated the earth. They estimate that the odds of the evolution (by chance) of the human genome is somewhere between 4 to the negative 180th power, to the 110,000th power, and 4 to the negative 360th power, to the 110,000th power. Therefore, if evolution did occur, it literally would have been a miracle and evidence for the existence of God.” - William Lane Craig - If Human Evolution Did Occur It Was A Miracle - video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GUxm8dXLRpA
Actually, when taking into consideration the fact that 'Intelligent Life' requires the ability to think abstractly, and yet abstract thinking is irreducible to any possible materialistic explanation, then the probability of intelligent life evolving via purely material Darwinian processes becomes zero. In other words, it is impossible for Darwinian materialists to explain the existence of human intelligence.
The Fundamental Difference Between Humans and Nonhuman Animals Michael Egnor - November 5, 2015 Excerpt: Human beings have mental powers that include the material mental powers of animals but in addition entail a profoundly different kind of thinking. Human beings think abstractly, and nonhuman animals do not. Human beings have the power to contemplate universals, which are concepts that have no material instantiation. Human beings think about mathematics, literature, art, language, justice, mercy, and an endless library of abstract concepts. Human beings are rational animals. Human rationality is not merely a highly evolved kind of animal perception. Human rationality is qualitatively different — ontologically different — from animal perception. Human rationality is different because it is immaterial. Contemplation of universals cannot have material instantiation, because universals themselves are not material and cannot be instantiated in matter.,,, It is in our ability to think abstractly that we differ from apes. It is a radical difference — an immeasurable qualitative difference, not a quantitative difference. We are more different from apes than apes are from viruses. https://evolutionnews.org/2015/11/the_fundamental_2/
Verse:
Romans 1:20 For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.
bornagain77_{October 9, 2020
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I might try to sell these guys my old car for 20 grand ,I will confirm to them that its in better condition than a new car, and any inspection from 10 miles away is welcomed .Marfin_{October 9, 2020
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The main variable in the article seems to be Global Warming. The better planets are cooler, which means they've never had any Republicans. Even skipping the partisan crap, this doesn't make any sense. Earth was VASTLY more fertile when it was warmer. Plants unquestionably flourish in the warmer times, and don't like the current semi-ice-age. Plants are the real creators of order and life. Animals are parasites from the viewpoint of life vs chaos. We never create anything, we just consume the plants and give them back a poor return of CO2 and rotting bodies.polistra_{October 8, 2020
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If nothing else they would provide some welcome variety for TV show location shooting. There's only so many times you can use Bronson Canyon or Kirk's Rock or the BBC gravel quarry.Seversky_{October 8, 2020
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