Though only about dozen potentially habitable exoplanets have been detected so far, scientists say the universe should be teeming with alien worlds that could support life. The Milky Way alone may host 60 billion such planets around faint red dwarf stars, a new estimate suggests.
Based on data from NASA’s planet-hunting Kepler spacecraft, scientists have predicted that there should be one Earth-size planet in the habitable zone of each red dwarf, the most common type of star. But a group of researchers has now doubled that estimate after considering how cloud cover might help an alien planet support life.
“Clouds cause warming, and they cause cooling on Earth,” study researcher Dorian Abbot, an assistant professor in geophysical sciences at the University of Chicago, said in a statement. “They reflect sunlight to cool things off, and they absorb infrared radiation from the surface to make a greenhouse effect. That’s part of what keeps the planet warm enough to sustain life.” [9 Alien Planets That Could Support Life]
The habitable zone is defined as the region where a planet has the right temperature to keep liquid water on its surface, thought to be a requirement for life as we know it. If a planet is too far from its star, its water freezes; too close, water vaporizes. Since red dwarfs are dimmer and cooler than our sun, their habitable zone is much cozier than our solar system’s.
“If you’re orbiting around a low-mass or dwarf star, you have to orbit about once a month, once every two months to receive the same amount of sunlight that we receive from the sun,” explained another study author, Nicolas Cowan, a postdoctoral fellow at Northwestern University.
With such a snug orbit, a habitable planet around a red dwarf would become tidally locked, meaning it would always have one side facing its star, much like the moon faces Earth. This side would see eternal daylight.
In the new study, the researchers used 3D simulations to model the way air and moisture would move over a planet tidally locked around a red dwarf. The team found that any surface water would result in water clouds. What’s more, highly reflective clouds would build at the point of the star-facing side where it’s always high noon. This would have a cooling effect in the inner ring of the habitable zone, meaning the planets there would be able to sustain water on their surfaces much closer to their star, the researchers say.
The findings could give scientists a new way to confirm the presence of liquid water on the surface of alien planets with the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), a new space-based observatory scheduled for launch in 2018, the researchers say.
“If you look at Brazil or Indonesia with an infrared telescope from space, it can look cold, and that’s because you’re seeing the cloud deck,” Cowan said. “The cloud deck is at high altitude, and it’s extremely cold up there.”
The same could be true of a habitable exoplanet with a highly reflective cloud cover, the researchers say. If JWST detects a similar cold signal over the day side of an alien world, Abbot said, “it’s almost definitely from clouds, and it’s a confirmation that you do have surface liquid water.”
Tagged with: Voice of Eros
The Scientist speaks of life in a very narrow band which would coincide with our expectations here on earth. However, life does not only adhere or cling to the physical environment this particular planet supports. All planets themselves form the negative polarity to the entire Sun system vortex they are a part of. There are literally worlds within worlds expressing in the same so-called space and only separated or undetected by frequency spectrum differences.
The sun itself supports life Beings not of our purview, and in turn the vortex of this system is maintained and regenerated through an evolutionary process by Higher Beings themselves – such as the Logi. Therefore, all expressions of the interdimensional cosmos IS LIFE ITSELF! And any secondary life forms we might perceive existing on the surface which we might call people or civilizations is only a very limited band of frequency plane expressions.
Each Sun or planet making up interdimensional psychic bodies (called vortexes) support infinite and diverse worlds of life forms within their infinite makeup!. A truly Infinite INFINITE – There is never a void or empty space in the entire microcosm and macrocosm of this great interdimensional Mind-Energy expression.
These articles about the speculation of life on other planets have always seemed redundant. I have little interest in them because it should be obvious that in an infinite universe the odds on our being the only planet with life have to be something like ‘Infinity to One’. When you consider that Dr. Norman said that space is infinitely filled with multi-dimensions, the odds now must become something like ‘Infinity times Infinity to One’!!
The only explanation why this isn’t obvious probably is that most people have little scope of just how vast our universe is. The example I like is …. If you were flying in a spaceship at the speed of light (7-8 times around our planet in one second ) how long would it take you to cross from edge to edge across our Milky Way Galaxy? No one I’ve asked has even come close to the answer of 100 thousand years.
With billions of galaxies now observed, and the vast space in between them, the travel time factor and the scope of just what is known so far is unimaginable, really mind boggling. Also, life on our planet alone comes in all shapes and sizes, with life supported in a plethora of environments. It only makes sense that this would be so elsewhere.
So Gang, until we’ve worked out enough to qualify for permanent life on the Inner, what habitable planet do we want to live on next? 😉
Dear Kenneth,
You got me on…If you were flying in a spaceship at the speed of light! Dealing with even one parsec gave me a headache in college. Dealing with centrifugal and centripetal forces were easier for me to comprehend.
It is funny to me when I think of the numerous times throughout this life I’ve been told that my head is in the clouds….of course no one realized that the clouds my head was in were the beautiful energy clouds of the Inner Worlds.
You are right Kenneth in so many ways with your analysis of life on other planets. You are aware that it exists, have integrated into your consciousness and realize that it is no big deal because it makes perfect sense!
I have not worked out enough to qualify for permanent life on the Inner, but definitely know that is where I want to reside even if it requires that I give up shopping at Dillard’s! 🙂
Love and Light,
Lesley
Ideas I have been exploring…..we don’t fly at the “speed of light in a Ufo Starship” we oscillate with the harmonic frequencies as we become so attuned. The ship is the attunement device designed to be used as a system between substances of the physical universe -planets as atoms… we become transposed across the elements. As we are composed of the substance of this “Cosmic Inner light” -creative mind substance – we can fashion and form the elements through energy frequency adjustments….. we resonate with the “place and time we so desire”. The mind as a universal substance through all matter can be transposed by corresponding energy arrangements. It becomes the field that we travel through.
The trick is to “know oneself” so much so that the elements of the inner and outer self are one….we become malleable to the relative plane we are relative to.
Dr. Normans chapter called “Mass the Illusion” from Tempus Procedium describes this system.
just some thinking in my head.
Michael