Posted on 06/12/2007 6:59:12 PM PDT by KevinDavis
Two months after astronomers discovered an extrasolar planet capable of supporting life, another team has questioned that finding and forwarded its own candidate for a second Earth--although neither world figures to become a prime vacation destination.
Last April, a Swiss team announced that it had found a rocky planet about five times as massive as and 1.5 times larger in diameter than Earth (Science, 27 April, p. 528: ). The object, named Gliese 581c, orbits a red dwarf star in the constellation Libra about 20 light-years away. Based on their calculations, the scientists found that the planet rests near the inner edge of the habitable zone--the range of distances from a star in which water can exist as a liquid--and therefore could support at least simple life forms. That conclusion, the team said, made Gliese 581c the first potential Earth-like destination outside our solar system for future human explorers.
But astronauts shouldn't pack their bags just yet. When an international team of physicists led by Werner von Bloh of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Potsdam, Germany, applied computer climate models to Gliese 581c, it found that even if the planet contained life-giving carbon dioxide, Gliese 581c's close proximity to its parent star would cause high levels of the greenhouse gas to build up in the atmosphere. That would likely warm the planet above 100°C, boiling off any water.
(Excerpt) Read more at sciencenow.sciencemag.org ...
nyah, nyah. ;’)
Surprise during the Search for a Second Earth [ Gliese 581 ]
Informationsdienst Wissenschaft | Monday, June 11, 2007 | Uta Pohlmann
Posted on 06/11/2007 2:20:35 PM EDT by SunkenCiv
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