Exoplanet: Earth 2?  

Posted by Devin Parker

Possibly, but not a whole lot like Earth from the sound of it.

Gmail alerted me to a Discovery Channel article which says, rather sensationally, "New Earth-like Planet 'Habitable'". Well, after reading the article, one learns that the planet - Gliese 851 c - is about 1.5 times the size of Earth (five times more massive than Earth), meaning it's going to have a stronger gravity than Earth's comfortable 1 G. Until we know its density, I'm not aware of a way to figure out its gravity. Let's assume for the moment that its density is like Earth (5.5) or Venus (5.2); say, 5.35. That would mean that it's gravity would be 1.45 G. If you weighed 200 lbs on Earth, on this planet you would weigh 290 lbs. Not exactly Paradise for humans.

Yet, it's within its mother star's biozone, which means that it could be warm enough to have liquid water. Obviously, with liquid water there's a greater chance of native life. The article says that it could be either rocky (like Earth) or entirely composed of oceans, which I had previously understood to be either impossible or hostile to life. But I can't quote where I read that, so don't look at me - I'm just a hobbyist with a gamebook.

Gliese 851 - the star - is in the constellation Libra, about 20.5 light years away from us, and was cataloged back in 1863. Its star classification is M2.5 V, meaning it's as bright as our Sun (G2 V), with a mass believed to be about the third of the size of our Sun.

Having said all of this, if Gliese 851 c is conducive to life, that's obviously still a huge discovery. It means that we could conceivably find other worlds that humans could - in theory - colonize. If there's life, then there's the chance that other sapient life might exist somewhere out there.

So yeah, that's pretty cool. All we need now are more powerful telescopes to really get a good look at it. Oh, and faster-than-light space travel technology would be nice, too.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 24, 2007 at Tuesday, April 24, 2007 . You can follow any responses to this entry through the comments feed .

8 comments

okay, serious question.

Do you believe in the existance, or possibility of the existance of extraterrestrial life, intellegent or otherwise?

And how does God fit in if the answer is yes?

And know this; we are all judging you

1:51 PM

OH! and if the answer is yes, will we ever make contact?

1:53 PM

Good to know there's other planetary options out there once we finish making this one uninhabitable. A light year is 5,865,696,000,000 miles, so might take a while to get there though.

I haven't read anything about ocean planets being impossible.

3:02 PM

Kham, I guess we'd better get going now. Gonna be a long trip. Bring some books on tape.

Thinking about it, I probably read the thing about ocean planets in a screed against "Star Wars," so... Yeah, take that as you will.

Pat, I honestly have no idea, but there's no reason I'm aware of to think that alien intelligent life and the God of Abraham are incompatible. Humanity was made in God's image, but I don't think that necessarily refers to physical form; correct me if I'm mistaken, but it may only refer to our ability to reason, love and create, and our capacity for conscience; so an alien race that looked nothing like us physically might still be made in God's image.

We also would have no idea whether an alien race were in a fallen state of sin, as we are, or not. They could be in a state of communion with God that we haven't enjoyed since Eden. We could conceivably be a very destructive influence on their society...assuming there were any similarities between us (they could be 'wired' differently than us, and be indifferent or immune to our vices). But even if this were the case, humanity's track record for prejudice and exploitation doesn't bode well for human-alien relations.

The Bible speaks very specifically to humanity, the people of the Earth, and may only apply to aliens if they are in a sinful, fallen state as we are. If that's the case, they may even have a Gospel already given to them... Or we may be tasked with taking the Gospel to them just as the Church was tasked with taking the Gospel to the furthest reaches of the Earth.

So my answer is "I wouldn't be surprised if there isn't, but I kinda hope there is, because that would be cool."

As to whether we'll ever make contact... Well, it's a pretty freakin' huge Universe out there. As Kham said, even getting to Gliese 851 c would be a lot of space to cover. We don't even know if faster-than-light travel is possible, so it's conceivable that the vast amounts of space between inhabited planets is God's method of placing the fallen Earth and other inhabited planets in quarantine. And while it's not specifically stated, the Genesis account seems to hint that technological development was a result of living outside Eden, so we may be the only technologically-based civilization in the Universe, which would mean that likely no one's coming to visit.

But then, they could show up tomorrow and I'd have to revise my theories. What do I know? I'm just a guy with a bunch of Lewis essays.

5:06 PM
Anonymous  

First thing we should do is construct saucer-like space vehichles that can enter the atmosphere undetected and hover over very rural areas late at night. Then we can abduct the inhabitants of the planet (only very stupid or very drunk ones) and do medical experiments on them. also might be fun to make designs in their wheat fields.RRS

6:10 PM
Anonymous  

HA! Nice, "anonymous". But you forgot the need to create space ships that can successully cross the vast distances of space, but tend to crash land in remote desert areas when reaching a planet.

Tip of the Day:
Beware of friendly visiting aliens offering a book called "To Serve Man".

2:09 PM

And once again its proved that if you discuss anything long enough the conversation will turn to old Twilight Zone episodes...

2:33 PM

That's one of the most enduring things the Boy Scouts taught me!

1:18 AM

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