The bad news is their resident dominant species has them on the road to Global Warming....
Posted on 10/01/2010 6:39:34 AM PDT by MNDude
Here’s another good article (from NOVA/PBS) on the subject of detecting the chemical signatures of life in a planet’s atmosphere using spectral analysis. Keep in mind this would only be possible IF the subject planet passes in front of the star from our viewpoint. We would need the light from the star to pass through the atmosphere of the planet in order for the chemicals to be detected.
Origins: Where Are the Aliens?
Chemical Fingerprints
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/teachers/activities/3113_origins_06.html
Does it have a moon that is approx. 1/3 the size of the main planet?
As I understand it, if we did not have the moon as a stablizing influence there would be no life on Earth.
The bad news is their resident dominant species has them on the road to Global Warming....
This scientist is making a religious statement. Don’t bother flaming me. This is a guy describing a distant world as having life based solely on its surface temperature.
¨Science!¨
The Moon apparently stabilizes the tilt angle of Earth's axis at ~23.6 degrees. But I seriously doubt life wouldn't have evolved on Earth and exist today without it.
Interestingly, the Moon is believed to be slowly pulling away from Earth (at about 2 inches or so a year) and so, in the distant future, we won't have it around to stabilize the axis and Earth will begin to rotate wildly about its axis. The familiar climatic zones will migrate to new latitudes. The equator might end up being where the poles are today, at least for a time.
Steven Vogt, a professor of astronomy and astrophysics at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and a big time watcher of “Fringe”.
“To be fair, I don’t believe they said “human life”, or even “intelligent life”.
To be “fair” his statement based on his FEELINGS is not evidence. He insults objective science with his wishful thinking.
“Perhaps microbes, though we haven’t found even any of those...”
Again it is a stretch to even suggest that just because he is FEELING ->
“pretty confident about a place that is detected only by a computer analyzing the fluctuations of a star’s light waves. “
that there is “life” of any kind.
He presents no evidence of that except his “feelings”. That is scientifically impreoper to use FEELINGS to be the evidence of any kind of life - evenif you want to play the liberal, splitting of hairs” game.
 |
||
| · join · view topics · view or post blog · bookmark · post new topic · subscribe · | ||
| Google news searches: exoplanet · exosolar · extrasolar · | ||
Back in the early 80’s there was a rumor that that up in Tumwater, Olympia beer was brewed by the mysterious Artesians. All I know is...I seen ‘em...
Tumwater is probably calcium-rich.
Good point! There's speculation that there could be life under the surface of frozen moons such as Europa and even tiny Enceladus, both of which appear to have liquid water subsurface oceans due to tidal heating.
Since he didn't say, I have no idea.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.