Jump to content

TRAPPIST-1 now has seven planets. (Possible life?)


_Augustus_

Recommended Posts

30 minutes ago, Spaceception said:

What if it turns out there's more?

@ProtoJeb21 I know, will be having a field day :)

I think there could be at least one more planet. The original Trappist-1d had a range of year lengths from 4 to 72 days. Thallo was found to occupy that inner limit, and several other planets were found to be what was thought to be that original 1d. It seems likely that the upper limit of 72 days was caused by yet ANOTHER planet. Plus who knows how much this system has in store...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

57 minutes ago, daniel l. said:

When it comes to naming them... Seven similarly sized planets = Seven Sisters - I think they should be named after the mythical seven sisters.

The stars in the Pleiades are already named after the seven sisters....

Link to comment
Share on other sites

13 minutes ago, _Augustus_ said:

The stars in the Pleiades are already named after the seven sisters....

That's an obvious issue I had with people naming the system: using names of septuplets or groups of seven. I'd say the system should be named after mythological beings of the same group. The horae are one of those, and there may be enough for a system of a dozen worlds.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, electricpants said:

Yeah, that's the frozen surface.

Underneath, there's a vast ocean of above the freezing point of water (273.15 K).

Those are the hopes & dreams.

To be precise: there may be an ocean and temperature may be in favour of liquid water under the icy shell of Europa (and Ganymede, Enceladus, ....).

But it is not necessary to explain vapour vents and surface structures, if you care to search the publications ;-)

 

Edited by Green Baron
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Poor NASA...all they tried to do was get some good naming suggestions for the Trappist-1 system, but instead got TERRIBLE names from sets of seven somethings. These include the seven god dang dwarfs, the seven deadly sins, the seven main characters of "Friends", and even the seven days of the week. This is why us on the forums are best for name suggestions, if I have to say so myself :P

No I'm serious, I think we can come up with MUCH better names for the system.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, ProtoJeb21 said:

Poor NASA...all they tried to do was get some good naming suggestions for the Trappist-1 system, but instead got TERRIBLE names from sets of seven somethings. These include the seven god dang dwarfs, the seven deadly sins, the seven main characters of "Friends", and even the seven days of the week. This is why us on the forums are best for name suggestions, if I have to say so myself :P

No I'm serious, I think we can come up with MUCH better names for the system.

I wouldn't mind naming them after the seven dwarfs....

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, ProtoJeb21 said:

Poor NASA...all they tried to do was get some good naming suggestions for the Trappist-1 system, but instead got TERRIBLE names from sets of seven somethings. These include the seven god dang dwarfs, the seven deadly sins, the seven main characters of "Friends", and even the seven days of the week. This is why us on the forums are best for name suggestions, if I have to say so myself :P

No I'm serious, I think we can come up with MUCH better names for the system.

I'm sure they knew what would happen and did it anyway. No such thing as bad publicity, right?

24 minutes ago, munlander1 said:

I have 6 planets and a moon in mind:P:wink:.


Moho, Eve, Kerbin, Duna, Jool, Laythe, Eeloo?

Edited by Mitchz95
Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 2/24/2017 at 7:47 AM, _Augustus_ said:

Many of the planets have orbital eccentricities between 0.05 and 0.1. There would be periodic sunrises and sunsets near the terminator.

How often would that happen? Would the star completely dip below the horizon? And how long (Could) it last? I understand we don't know enough about the system yet, but with what we do know, would they have something like days and nights?

Also, I think I'm assuming correctly that it would have the greatest effect on the equator, and least effect on the poles, or am I wrong?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Here's a video on biosignatures.

Also, could that 'false positive' where the lifeless planet and moon has completely different atmosphere compositions, but they look like they have life anyway since the signal is blurred, happen with the TRAPPIST planets since they orbit so close, and we could read false signatures with those worlds, or could we discern the compositions with multiple transits?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

23 hours ago, ProtoJeb21 said:

Poor NASA...all they tried to do was get some good naming suggestions for the Trappist-1 system, but instead got TERRIBLE names from sets of seven somethings. These include the seven god dang dwarfs, the seven deadly sins, the seven main characters of "Friends", and even the seven days of the week. This is why us on the forums are best for name suggestions, if I have to say so myself :P

No I'm serious, I think we can come up with MUCH better names for the system.

 

I did like the suggestion that they be named after the Challenger Seven.

 

Scobee, Smith, McNair, Onizuka, Resnik, Jarvis, and McAuliffe

 

Seven Hills of Rome wouldn't be the worst either:

Aventinus, Caelius, Capitolinus, Esquilinius, Palatinus, Quirinalis and Viminalis

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Kepler's new data on Trappist-1 is finally out for public analysis! 74 days worth of observations of the system. It was supposed to be 80 days, but a stupid solar flare caused the spacecraft to stop taking data for five whole days. Darn it!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, ProtoJeb21 said:

Kepler's new data on Trappist-1 is finally out for public analysis! 74 days worth of observations of the system. It was supposed to be 80 days, but a stupid solar flare caused the spacecraft to stop taking data for five whole days. Darn it!

Imagine if in those 5 days, a high period planet transited :/

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On Wed Feb 22 2017 at 5:05 PM, razark said:

Yeah, in our in-office discussion, we completely overlooked the telescope.  I haven't seen the conference, so I didn't get that detail.

Now the question is, with Renaissance era tech, how could they signal each other and would any sort of meaningful communication be possible?

Two words: Morse Code.

It wouldn't take long for a pair of species on planets within such close visual range of each other to figure out that if they built a large enough array of mirrors (something seceral km in diameter) they could signal each other with a sim0le mathematical code.  Since language and mathematical codes inherently contains certain principles refardless of culture of origin, such a code would doubtless soon by translated by the other planet.   A system of two-way communication between the civilizations would not take long to form at all.

Of course, the chances of two sentient species arising at the exact same time and rate like that is virtually nil.  Doubtless one sentient species would arise millions of years (which in geological time and the history of life is the blink of an eye- trust me on this, I'm a Biologist) before such a species would have otherwise formed on the other planets, and colonized the other worlds if they bore life long before any other sentient species would have had the chance to rise up.  And with that ecological niche filled in, it is highly likely no other sentient species would later evolve on the colonized planet...

The only way two sentient species could ever evolve in such close proximity would be if the first planet to evolve sentient life possessed some insurmountable barrier (such as the lack of certain elements in the planetary crust) to interplanetary spaceflight in that system...

 

Regards,

Northstar

Edited by Northstar1989
Link to comment
Share on other sites

The other day I experimented with the TRAPPIST-1 system that is now included in Universe Sandbox 2. After destroying everything a few times, I decided to see if these planets can hold moons. So for every planet, I added a moon similar in size and mass to our own Moon, all at about the same distance. I thought that they would all be flung out of orbit rather soon, right?

WRONG!

Planets e, f, g, and h were able to keep their moons during the 38-year timeframe that I ran the simulation for. Their orbital eccentricities did increase, but it was much smaller than I thought. Shockingly, despite being the smallest planet, Trappist-1h (Cheimon) was able to keep its moon the best. I doubt these worlds would have such large moons in real life. Maybe moons ranging in size from that of Enceladus to Europa. Those could be detected through the transit method in the new K2 data....

Link to comment
Share on other sites

10 minutes ago, ProtoJeb21 said:

WRONG!

Planets e, f, g, and h were able to keep their moons during the 38-year timeframe that I ran the simulation for. Their orbital eccentricities did increase, but it was much smaller than I thought. Shockingly, despite being the smallest planet, Trappist-1h (Cheimon) was able to keep its moon the best. I doubt these worlds would have such large moons in real life. Maybe moons ranging in size from that of Enceladus to Europa. Those could be detected through the transit method in the new K2 data....

Interesting...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

This thread is quite old. Please consider starting a new thread rather than reviving this one.

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...