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


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33 minutes ago, Spaceception said:

A lighthearted take on the habitability of the TRAPPIST planets

http://newatlas.com/trappist-1-planets-ranked/48139/

I don't get why everyone is singling out poor little Trappist-1d. Like, really people, it's the most Earth like planet ever found, and you're just saying "Oh, no big deal"? Unacceptable.

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2 hours ago, ProtoJeb21 said:

I don't get why everyone is singling out poor little Trappist-1d. Like, really people, it's the most Earth like planet ever found, and you're just saying "Oh, no big deal"? Unacceptable.

At least TRAPPIST-1f gets some love. :wink:

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48 minutes ago, electricpants said:

At least TRAPPIST-1f gets some love. :wink:

However, it is not science-based love. If you plug in the mass and radius of TRAPPIST-1f (Irene), find its density, and plot its point on the mass-radius relationship graph by Sara Seager, you'll find that it is up to 25-30% water by mass. That means its oceans could be too thick (any maybe too chilly) for life. Gallon of Milk, the Mexican albino Humpback Whale, might find Irene a great place to live :P

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Just now, ProtoJeb21 said:

However, it is not science-based love. If you plug in the mass and radius of TRAPPIST-1f (Irene), find its density, and plot its point on the mass-radius relationship graph by Sara Seager, you'll find that it is up to 25-30% water by mass. That means its oceans could be too thick (any maybe too chilly) for life. Gallon of Milk, the Mexican albino Humpback Whale, might find Irene a great place to live :P

Still, I think TRAPPIST-1f is too under-appreciated.

Mainly because, like you said, if you plug in the mass and radius of TRAPPIST-1f , find its density, and plot its point on the mass-radius relationship graph, you'll find that it is up to 25-30% water by mass (Almost directly quoted from you :wink:).

That means it's extremely likely to have water, whether it be ice or liquid, so it's quite the amazing find, even if life is very unlikely.

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3 minutes ago, electricpants said:

That means it's extremely likely to have water, whether it be ice or liquid, so it's quite the amazing find, even if life is very unlikely.

Life, unlikely? I think not for a tidally locked ocean world.

A good amount of people here should know that tidally locked planets have a hot side and a cold side. Any present atmosphere would begin to circulate warm air and cold air from each sides. This would cause a huge wind system, with low and high jets blowing in opposite directions. Think of the cloud belts of Jupiter. Except scaled down. And slower. And with MUCH less clouds. But it seems like they would behave like jovian cloud belts, and may be moving fast enough to physically affect the land and water below them. On a tidally locked ocean planet like Irene, the fast-moving winds would create currents following below the wind belts. These currents would slide past each other in opposite directions, and when two of them rub too close together, they could create huge amounts of sea foam. The bubbly sea foam would trap in nutrients and organic compounds that rain out of the atmosphere. For Irene, I would expect tholins, because a planet of that temperature and that composition could have MUCH more naturally occurring methane than on Earth. All that methane would easily react with all the UV light and X-Rays from Trappist-1, then rain down to the watery surface below. These life-building compounds would get trapped in the pockets of sea foam and possibly form the first cells. Like how warm water-rock pool crevices formed the first life on Earth, a similar thing would happen with sea foam bubbles on a tidally locked ocean world with no solid surface.

Or I'm just being overcomplicated and life would evolve on some sort of present sea floor where volcanic chemicals are gushing out and would power chemosynthesis as it does on Earth.

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Just now, ProtoJeb21 said:

Life, unlikely? I think not for a tidally locked ocean world.

Good science, but you yourself said "That means its oceans could be too thick (any maybe too chilly) for life.".

Good job for correcting yourself though. XD

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4 minutes ago, electricpants said:

Good science, but you yourself said "That means its oceans could be too thick (any maybe too chilly) for life.".

Good job for correcting yourself though. XD

It all depends on atmosphere. At the terminator line - which NASA claims is "best" for life - it would probably be only around 230-220 Kelvin. So basically, you would end up with Antarctic waters.

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1 minute ago, ProtoJeb21 said:

At the terminator line - which NASA claims is "best" for life - it would probably be only around 230-220 Kelvin

220-230 K is below freezing

I think the hot side would be best, because you'd get more light and heat from TRAPPIST-1.

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Something I would like to point out: You do not even need a star to have a life sustaining world. (As Jovian moon Europa is an example.) All you need is tidal forces to keep the interior alive, And you can have anything from a pitch-black night world with volcanic eruptions that heat the atmosphere. To Europa like worlds with vast subsurface oceans.

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There is life on Europa ?

Who knows in detail about the conditions for life ?

Edit: it was an ironic question. I'm just pointing out that it mere speculation/fantasy. There is nowhere life except on earth and nobody knows about the conditions for life, only rough parameters like energy, a system of circulations, temperature ranges, etc. While microbes might exist elsewhere (speculation) there is little chance for another evolution like that on earth.

As far as we know by now a life sustaining world should be somewhat earth-like. Which is rather improbable (but not impossible) given the circumstances.

Edited by Green Baron
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2 hours ago, Green Baron said:

There is life on Europa ?

2 hours ago, munlander1 said:

As far as we know, no.

I said Life Sustaining, Not that it has life already. What i mean is that it could support life even if it did not naturally start there. So we could for example drop a sample of Earth life into the Europan ocean and it would probably thrive. (If it was a species accustomed to pitch black conditions though.)

 

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3 hours ago, daniel l. said:

Something I would like to point out: You do not even need a star to have a life sustaining world. (As Jovian moon Europa is an example.) All you need is tidal forces to keep the interior alive, And you can have anything from a pitch-black night world with volcanic eruptions that heat the atmosphere. To Europa like worlds with vast subsurface oceans.

That's what I've been thinking for Trappist-1h (Cheimon). In fact, if it has a liquid water mantle, then Cheimon is the best planet in the system for life because any little organisms would be protected from radiation by the giant ice shell.

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I know, this is a computer game forum, so i don't take everything too serious. I'm just adding my (euro-)cents while science and fantasy come together :-)

What i wanted to say is that nobody knows whether there is an ocean of liquid water on Europa. It might be the case under certain circumstances, but the water layer is probably solid, though the moon might have something like "tectonics".

Also, life on earth took >3 billion years from monocellular to complex life forms, 3 billion years in which the surface temperature was +/- 15 degrees celsius despite of a changing temperature of the sun as well as changing atmospheric- and ocean chemism.

 

 

 

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3 hours ago, daniel l. said:

What i mean is that it could support life even if it did not naturally start there.

That is the speculative part, hopes are that that this might be the case but evidence for "life support" on Europa is lacking :-)

Edit: given a surface temp of 100K ...

Edited by Green Baron
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