Comments on: Call Of The Wild

By: Val pupa

Val pupa — Sun, 18 Sep 2016 15:45:25 +0000

If you want to know if Proxima B is a planet you have to have correct data to consider it one. My data shows me you can see apperences of several high mountain ranges in the form of pyramids. The other side you can see a city covered up with white clouds, divided land, deep ravin falling with a water. In my opinion, it looks like a planet.

By: Robert Crowley

Robert Crowley — Fri, 02 Sep 2016 15:40:21 +0000

It is thought that to be orbiting at the distance we believe would automatically necessitate the planet being tidally locked. So the tidal magma surges may not be a factor, unless there are other massive planets in relatively close orbits as well. What would certainly be a factor, though, are the atmospheric and hydrological conditions brought about by the constant temperature differential between the facing and opposing sides of the planet. If it indeed even has water.
But, the Messenger probe returned date that indicates Mercury isn’t in a true tidal lock with the Sun, though it is not a large enough variation to go rewriting the physics books. I have wondered if this has something to do with the frame dragging that Mercury experiences being in such close proximity to the Sun’s gravity well. It’s already known that this is the cause for the discrepancy observed in Mercury’s precession versus standard Newtonian models, and Relativity predicted exactly what we observe. Perhaps the mass of P. Centauri is not great enough or the orbit is too distant to have any effect. If it is a true tidal lock, then the “twilight” zones along the terminator could be environmentally stable enough to support conditions favorable to life. But if these zones are always slowly moving, perhaps not. Ultimately, we will have to wait for the next generation of exoplanet-capable observatories to come online and maybe we can get a good image of it and actually see what the atmosphere and surface conditions are via spectrography. Or wait around for things like Starshot and Longshot to come to fruition. But neither of us will likely be around to see what those projects return.

By: Velocity.Wave

Velocity.Wave — Mon, 29 Aug 2016 06:43:12 +0000

Great article Brian!

Well… so yes, on the one hand this is quite a potentially interesting discovery. It also reminded me of Stephen Baxter’s novel, “PROXIMA” which describes the tale of a somewhat habitable planet circling in the habitable-zone of Proxima-Centauri, and the ways in which biology on that planet adopted to deal with pulses of strong x-ray emissions.

I mean if you think about it: here on Earth we’ve got simple bacteria adopting to life living right up against nuclear fuel rods!

So I personally feel the potential for life around red-dwarfs is a STRONG possibility!

The way that life gets started might be very much like here on Earth, in which it is thought to begin right next hydro thermal vents. If such initial life as several miles beneath the surface, that would provide a great shield to Red-Dwarf-x-ray-outbursts, giving life time to evolve and adapt to the harsher environment beyond that planet’s ocean (just as Earth bacteria is just now beginning to adapt to life on nuclear-fuel rods!

By: Jpatrick

Jpatrick — Fri, 26 Aug 2016 17:05:06 +0000

Another problem with Proxima b, assuming it would be a rocky world, which is quite a leap, is that there would be unimaginable seismic and likely volcanic activity. Can you imagine tidal bulges of magma surging beneath the planet’s crust every 11 earth days?

By: talldave2

talldave2 — Thu, 25 Aug 2016 20:33:07 +0000

Tidal locking and temperature variability are going to be huge problems for red dwarf habitability. Based on the fact we don’t see any alien signals, suspect we’re going to find that life and the development of technological civilization each requires some very particular circumstances, perhaps unique enough that only a small fraction of observable universes would be predicted to ever give rise to a spacefaring civilization. The power of the weak anthropic principle may only just be beginning to be appreciated.

This is a great blog, btw, found it by searching for and reading your excellent summary of the quantum correction so-called “no big bang” paper. Science reporting is often terrible, keep up the good work.

By: Jpatrick

Jpatrick — Thu, 25 Aug 2016 18:35:56 +0000

Elsewhere, I read that the “year” of this planet, if it exists, is about 11.2 earth days, and that its distance from the red dwarf star is about .05 au, about 1/20th the distance earth is from the sun. Would it be tidally locked at that distance?