Doubt cast on existence of possibly habitable alien planet

[IDemo]

Astronomers no longer sure about Gliese 581g

Last month, astronomers announced the discovery of the first potentially habitable extrasolar planet. But this week at an International Astronomical Union meeting, doubts were raised about the existence of this exciting new planet said to be orbiting the star Gliese 581.

Called Gliese 581g, the planet was determined to be about three times the mass of Earth, meaning it was a rocky world, not a gas giant like Jupiter.

Rocky extrasolar planets have been found before, but the unique trait about this planet was that it orbited within the red dwarf stars habitable zone, that region of space where temperatures are sufficient for water to remain as a liquid on a planetary surface.

Discovery of planet Gliese 581g
Astrobiologists were thrilled at the news, since liquid water is considered necessary for the origin and evolution of life. In fact, NASA has made it a primary aim to follow the water in the search for life elsewhere in the galaxy.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39640401/ns/technology_and_science-space/

[Bill McBlueState]

1. the best description of the situation is in the last paragraph

"I would say the detection was less than comfortably secure, even in the original Vogt et al. paper the paper was carefully worded, as opposed to what was in some media reports," said Ray Jayawardhana, a University of Toronto astronomer who was not involved in either study. "Of course, it's not easy to definitively rule out something, but the HARPS evidence is at least raising some doubts."

The media and the public definitely jumped to conclusions about this.

[leftstreet]

2. I wonder if alien newspapers speculate whether Earth is habitable

[IDemo]

5. Or whether intelligent life exists here

[awoke_in_2003]

12. well, that's easy...

:)

[TexasObserver]

3. The importance is this: somewhere there are habitable planets.

Maybe not this one, but we will find others. Eventually, one will likely have life as we understand it in a world with water and these temperatures.

[the redcoat]

4. It's also tidally locked.

From the start it would be obvious that the planet wouldn't be sufficient for humans because of that.

It's also 20 light years away. Let's focus on bringing down corporations first.

[Peace Patriot]

7. LOL! Although I totally support space exploration, I had to laugh cuz...

...that's something else I would like to see, equally passionately--focusing on throwing the multinational corporate/war profiteer albatross off our backs. You said it well: "Let's focus on bringing down corporations first." But I would be hard put to choose between these two projects, if I had to. (Why DO we have to choose?)

[the redcoat]

10. Solution! Send all the corporate execs into space!

We don't even need a space ship, just a huge sling shot.

[Peace Patriot]

14. Double LOL! nt

[MrScorpio]

6. Human beings are very much a part of this Earth

The Earth created us.

It's pretty much a fantasy to think that we can thrive anywhere else, without some kind of intervention of our genetic make up.

And who are made to genetically adapt for another planet may not be a natural part of that planet, but no one should expect such an alteration to be sustained here as well.

If we ever reach another planet in the future... Humans will only be temporary visitors and nothing more.

[Peace Patriot]

8. Well, if we manage to travel to a sentient-inhabited planet, don't you think we will have

figured out how to adapt to different environments, or at least how to mitigate/compensate our biology so that we can interact and even live there? Or, if it's a somewhat habitable planet, but not inhabited by beings with DNA title to it, don't you think that, by then, we would have figured out how to make it comfortable for earthlings?

You are extrapolating travel to other planets without extrapolating forward the advances in technology and biological understanding that would likely occur simultaneously with the technical progress that would make space travel possible.

Also, I agree that the Earth created us, but so did the Universe. We are critters of both. And there is fast-increasing evidence that there may be many earths out there.

[MrScorpio]

9. I just think that the people who will travel to other planets...

Won't be anything like ourselves.

Welcome to the new Evolutionary Frontier.

[TheMadMonk]

11. Or even acknowledging the enormous range of environmental conditions...

...we manage to quite comfortably live in.

I suspect given a suitable partial pressure of oxygen and no toxins we would be able to "move right in" anywhere between 0.5g and 2g surface gravity, the same -50 to +50 C temperature range, and pretty much any diurnal cycle at all. Though the last would probably require a certain amount of environmental "insulation" and perhaps medical regulation at the extremes.

However, as we are beginning to learn, there is in fact a certain "Lamarkian" influence to genetics, so anything between a 16 and 30 odd hour day is almiost certainly within the limits of human adaptability over surprisingly few generations. And that adaptability should also extend to gravity, temperature, insolation/UV, even background radiation.

Of course there will be numerous long term health issues for the first generation of colonists, they will almost certainly all die young and early infant mortality won't be a pretty thing. But if we ever find a There to get to and invent a way to get us There, we WILL go, we WILL move in, and we WILL almost certainly prove to be a "bit of a bother" to the local generae far more often than the reverse.

[awoke_in_2003]

13. the problem with detecting habitable planets...

is the size of the star necessary means its light output makes it next to impossible to detect a planet our size or so in the right orbit. Even going with the wobble theory, a planet our size puts a VERY small wobble on the sun it is orbiting.

[Rex]

15. Keep trying, the end result will be yes or we go bust as a civilization.

I'm betting on yes.