If our Universe is open, either flat or hyperbolic in geometry, then it will expand forever… or at least until space-time’s warranty expires and a new vacuum is born from some quantum flip. Prior to that, most likely immensely distant, event the regular stars will go out and different sources of energy will be needed
(More)…
The first planets to form probably attracted a primary atmosphere of H/He from the solar Nebula. In our Solar System these were driven off from the four Inner Planets and retained by the Outer Giants, but in theory smaller planets can retain such a mixture. I’ve speculated about such worlds on these blog pages before
(More)…
Some recent news pieces have expanded possible locales for Life. We’ve looked at… Supernova made Earths warmed via Dark Matter …and we’ll look at… White Dwarf Habitable Zones …but a new(ish) idea is “failed stars” – brown dwarfs, but smaller than the 13 Jupiter-mass deuterium-burning limit – might be suitable for life based on other
(More)…
R.J.Spivey writes a provocative essay for the arXiv… From Fermions to the Fermi Paradox: A Fertile Cosmos Fit for Life? …basically Spivey suggests we’re jumping to conclusions too soon about Life in the Cosmos, that the real party is after our current Stelliferous Era, when Life exists in a multitude of planets formed from supernova
(More)…
It’s all over the news! Earth-like Planet Found (for real)! Of course we don’t know much about Zarmina (Gliese 581 g) other than some very bare basics, but her discoverer, Steve Vogt, has expressed his near 100% certainty there’ll be Life on Zarmina of some kind. While I agree with his sentiment I think we
(More)…
xkcd: Exoplanets Just how many exoplanets are now known? Oodles. Topping 500 this week with 400 more odd promised over the next year from “Kepler” and who knows how many being watched prior to the discoverers going public… Exoplanet Encyclopedia
New Horizons, the fastest launched probe, is shooting towards a close encounter with Pluto and its three moons on July 14, 2015. As NH will get ~50 metre resolution we can work out the baseline for an interferometer to achieve the same. In visible light, say 0.5 micrometers, the limit of distinguishable detail 50 metres
(More)…
Our Solar System has changed dramatically over the aeons since the planets accreted/collapsed out of the initial nebula. The Sun both got brighter in overall output, but has dimmed in its extreme UV brightness (EUV) and solar-wind levels, with dramatic consequences for the atmospheres of the terrestrial planets & giant planet-sized moons. A good review
(More)…