A possible 'Goldilocks' planet?

[Dichotomy]

Well we COULD have built a base on the moon, sent the pre-assembled parts up, and had a mission to Mars 30 years ago if the aliens hadn't told us to stay off of it.  Do you people not LISTEN to Coast to Coast?  That's the only REAL news out there.  Well that and the National Enquirer.  

[Dichotomy]

or a space elevator...

Sheesh now you're just being silly

[Meatwad]

You'se needs one of them moving stairs

[Bosco123]

right when they found it, the first things that came to my mind...
1) distance to sun (14 million)
2) rotation speed (very slow but not stationary... how does this sustain life? settlements would have to be constantly mobile. water would have to be also or it would evaporate)
3) atmosphere (honestly, with the speed of the rotation, there must not be much plant life or water, therefore an unsustainable atmosphere)
4) water (where is it?  )
5) size (3 times the mass of earth= approx 3 times the gravity, explorers/settlers will need to work out alot before even setting foot there)
then came the other questions
6) distance from us (yeah we arent getting there anytime soon)
7) animal life (land of constant sunrise could give us animal life or not. it depends on the answers to water and atmosphere in that area...)
8) diseases... (where theres plants and animals, there's bacteria and disease. we have no resistance to it at all.  TERRAFORM TIME!!!)
9) time for us to get there... (see number 6)


10) would it be worth it...? (would it be worth the mass millions of dollars possibly billions to bring a group of explorers (or even a probe) that far out just to find out that this planet wouldnt be worth our eyes?

Your right probably not the best thing to be worrying about right now, but when our sun begins to deterriorate in about 10 billion years, then they can start to worry about were that can take us. Is it more important to find this stuff now, and let the future take us there or be scrambling for something we can live on in the way future?

And no we wouldn't have to be constantly moving, just have to stay on the top of the planet, which is probably only about a quarter of the planet, and use the rest for maybe resourses.

[321BAR]

as hot as 160 degrees. Thats close to temperatures recorded on some spots on our own planet. It doesnt mean its that hot all over the place (and its a much bigger world than ours). You can easily expect to find regions that have temperate or tropical temperatures.
rotation speed is not the same as centripetal speed. Aka, the outer ring of an old vynil disc spins faster than the center ring yet both cover the same distance in the same time. Rotation speed is not an issue.

water is almost guaranteed to exist in liquid form under that combination of temperature/mass. Of course thats if the planet followed something similar to earth's geologic processes and is not a sea of molten lava. 

Gravity can be an issue but thats applicable if/when we can send someone there. by the time who knows what tech will exist to counteract that.

If there's water there will be life. Guaranteed. If life sprung up to use that water that is. Would it be worth sending a probe? Hell yes. 20 light years means our fastest ship would not be able to reach it in 200+ years time..and the first signal would take 20 years to get to us after that. If anything they should be scrambling to send that probe this decade. By 2200+ chances are we'll have much better propulsion to send people out there and the probe could very well be sending them a signal telling them 'hey there really IS water here! (or not)" and save them a more costly, dangerous trip.

you dont seem to understand what i was getting at with the rotation...
160 degrees wont sustain water for long on the surface (the side direct towards the sun will force it to evaporate)...

this means that section of the planet is a desert and the opposite side is a frozen tundra due to the rainfall in the temperate regions being moved to the darkside. the temperate and tropical temperatures wont have water long enough for plant life to grow... the vegetation would need to be a mobile vegetation to constantly survive over the years. animal life is different... they can move, but plants would need a way to plant themselves around the planet over time of the rotation and if it rotates at just the wrong speed (not stationary because this will allow life easily or mobile like earth, theres a small area of speeds where rotation could not sustain life here.)

[Saxman]

We have deserts on earth even WITHOUT being tidally locked.

A lot would have to do with the nature of the atmosphere, internal self-heating from the magnetic field and geological activity, the topography of the surface and, if there are liquid water oceans, the currents. If water from the "frozen" dark side cycles into the hemisphere tidally locked with the star that COULD help prevent all the water in that part of the surface from boiling or evaporating away. There may not be lakes, rivers, and other surface water bodies in the interior, but it doesn't rule out an ocean.

And there could CERTAINLY be liquid water on the dark side of the planet. It may be covered by ice sheets, but beneath--as in the Arctic here on earth--would be liquid water.

[MrRiplEy[H]]

This planet is exactly like Douglas Adams' Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy describes as 'holiday resort planet where the time has stuck eternally to the afternoon just before closing time'. A planet mostly consisting of sandy beaches and every house has a pool as a standard feature.

[RTHolmes]

you dont seem to understand what i was getting at with the rotation...

I dont get it

[CHAPPY]

Maybe they have Weapons of Mass Destruction or oil. Lets invade.

[ozrocker]

We need to Ask VOSS has he has been there already when he was working for NASA....
or was that the CIA....
or the Russians...

I forgot  I Chalenge
you to find out which it is Maybe it's both. And while yer at it ask him how his P-51 is, or how that was flying the only ME 109 still flyable.

                                                                             <S> Oz

[Dadsguns]

Cant wait until we meet them and trade recipes...........   

[Dichotomy]

hope their cookbook isn't titled 'How To Serve Man'

[321BAR]

We have deserts on earth even WITHOUT being tidally locked.

A lot would have to do with the nature of the atmosphere, internal self-heating from the magnetic field and geological activity, the topography of the surface and, if there are liquid water oceans, the currents. If water from the "frozen" dark side cycles into the hemisphere tidally locked with the star that COULD help prevent all the water in that part of the surface from boiling or evaporating away. There may not be lakes, rivers, and other surface water bodies in the interior, but it doesn't rule out an ocean.

And there could CERTAINLY be liquid water on the dark side of the planet. It may be covered by ice sheets, but beneath--as in the Arctic here on earth--would be liquid water.

yes deserts are on earth. but even you know about the sahara theory right? the sahara used to be lush jungle before a flash heat from a breaking comet took it all out. the shards from this comet are all over the desert there. most of our deserts are in areas of no rainfall or in areas that are too hot and dry to sustain large quantities of surface water. none of these places are at the 160 degree level. the problem is is that once rainfall happens in the sunrise section of the planet, it will not have enough time for life to grow. because if the sunrise goes to daylight too fast for life to take hold, there will be no life. what i am saying is that to sustain life on the planet, it must rotate at a speed such as earth's, or move so slowly that the land of constant sunrise may take years before it hits the day side of the planet... if sunrise on the planet only lasts a few days to months (approximating for my point, i do not know the exact speed necessary to not sustain life) life cannot take hold. maybe bacterium that can survive in the extremes, but nothing more...

[caldera]

as hot as 160 degrees. Thats close to temperatures recorded on some spots on our own planet. It doesnt mean its that hot all over the place (and its a much bigger world than ours). You can easily expect to find regions that have temperate or tropical temperatures.
rotation speed is not the same as centripetal speed. Aka, the outer ring of an old vynil disc spins faster than the center ring yet both cover the same distance in the same time. Rotation speed is not an issue.

water is almost guaranteed to exist in liquid form under that combination of temperature/mass. Of course thats if the planet followed something similar to earth's geologic processes and is not a sea of molten lava. 

Gravity can be an issue but thats applicable if/when we can send someone there. by the time who knows what tech will exist to counteract that.


If there's water there will be life. Guaranteed If life sprung up to use that water that is. Would it be worth sending a probe? Hell yes. 20 light years means our fastest ship would not be able to reach it in 200+ years time..and the first signal would take 20 years to get to us after that. If anything they should be scrambling to send that probe this decade. By 2200+ chances are we'll have much better propulsion to send people out there and the probe could very well be sending them a signal telling them 'hey there really IS water here! (or not)" and save them a more costly, dangerous trip.

Guaranteed?

First of all, there is not even a guarantee that there really is a planet there.  If it's there, what real scientific evidence is there that it is solid and not gaseous?  If it is solid (and located in a zone that will provide life sustaining temperatures - well life as we know it), what about the fact that nobody from this planet has anything but assumptions about what kind of weather/volcanism/earthquakes might be on a tidally locked planet.  Computer modelling is not perfect and is invalid if there are conditions on the planet that haven't been figured into the equation.  It's all just speculation.  Everything they say about it is possible, but a hell of a long way from guaranteed.  We absolutely should send something to check it out though. 

As far as certainty or guarantees go,  we are still discovering things in our own solar system like moons and planetary rings that we never knew existed.  How can we possibly know anything about a planet that cannot even be detected - except by a gravitational pull on a star twenty light years away?

[Penguin]

Your right probably not the best thing to be worrying about right now, but when our sun begins to deterriorate in about 10 billion years, then they can start to worry about were that can take us. Is it more important to find this stuff now, and let the future take us there or be scrambling for something we can live on in the way future?

And no we wouldn't have to be constantly moving, just have to stay on the top of the planet, which is probably only about a quarter of the planet, and use the rest for maybe resourses.

Correction: After just over 1 billion years, the extra solar energy input will cause Earth's oceans to evaporate and the hydrogen from the water to be lost permanently to space, with total loss of water by 3 billion years.[18] Earth's atmosphere and lithosphere will become like that of Venus. Over another billion years, most of the atmosphere will get lost in space as well;[15] ultimately leaving Earth as a desiccated, dead planet with a surface of molten rock.

Courtesy of: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_giant
And for you wikipediaphobes, references: 1.^ a b c d e Zeilik, Michael A.; Gregory, Stephan A. (1998). Introductory Astronomy & Astrophysics (4th ed.). Saunders College Publishing. pp. 321–322. ISBN 0030062284.
2.^ Color of star ranging blue through orange
3.^ Measurements of the frequency of starspots on red giant stars
4.^ orange sphere of the sun
5.^ The Cambridge Atlas of Astronomy (2nd ed.). Cambridge University Press. 1988. pp. 255. ISBN 0-521-36360-8.
6.^ Harvard University search for orange-yellow clumps
7.^ a b Sackmann, I.-Juliana; Boothroyd, Arnold I.; Kraemer, Kathleen E. (1993). "Our Sun. III. Present and Future" (PDF). Astrophysical Journal 418: 457. doi:10.1086/173407. http://articles.adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-iarticle_query?1993ApJ...418..457S&data_type=PDF_HIGH&whole_paper=YES&type=PRINTER&filetype=.pdf. Retrieved 2008-07-23.
8.^ Pogge, Richard W. (2006-01-21). "Lecture 16: The Evolution of Low-Mass Stars". Astronomy 162: Introduction to Stars, Galaxies, & the Universe. http://www.astronomy.ohio-state.edu/~pogge/Ast162/Unit2/lowmass.html. Retrieved 2006-12-29.
9.^ "Main-Sequence Stars". Stars. The Astrophysics Spectator. 2005-02-16. http://www.astrophysicsspectator.com/topics/stars/MainSequence.html. Retrieved 2006-12-29.
10.^ Richmond, Michael. "Late stages of evolution for low-mass stars". http://spiff.rit.edu/classes/phys230/lectures/planneb/planneb.html. Retrieved 2006-12-29.
11.^ "Red Giants". HyperPhysics (hosted by the Department of Physics and Astronomy of Georgia State University). http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/astro/redgia.html. Retrieved 2006-12-29.
12.^ Strobel, Nick (2004-06-02). "Stages 5-7". Lives and Deaths of Stars. http://www.astronomynotes.com/evolutn/s5.htm. Retrieved 2006-12-29.
13.^ "The fading: red giants and white dwarfs". Free. http://nrumiano.free.fr/Estars/fading.html. Retrieved 2006-12-29.
14.^ Jones, Hilary (22 December 2006). "Clues to the death of our Solar System". COSMOS magazine (Sydney). http://www.cosmosmagazine.com/news/952/clues-death-our-solar-system.
15.^ a b Pogge, Richard W. (1997-06-13). "The Once and Future Sun". New Vistas in Astronomy. http://www-astronomy.mps.ohio-state.edu/~pogge/Lectures/vistas97.html. Retrieved 2007-01-23.
16.^ Hecht, Jeff (02 April 1994). "Fiery future for planet Earth". New Scientist (Boston) (1919). http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg14219191.900-science-fiery-future-for-planet-earth.html. Retrieved 2 July 2010.
17.^ Palmer, Jason (22 February 2008). "Hope dims that Earth will survive Sun's death". New Scientist. http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn13369?feedId=online-news_rss20.
18.^ Sun is a powerhouse - Death in our solar system

-Penguin