sanitation123 t1_ixe100i wrote
Reply to comment by insufficientmind in JWST identifies the first concrete evidence of photochemistry (chemical reactions initiated by energetic stellar light) and sulfur dioxide in an exoplanet atmosphere by Easy_Money_
Aren't all Trappist planets too close to their host star for much of anything? I think they all basically orbit closer than Mercury orbits our star.
But that does not take away from the sentiment. Would love to finally see definitive evidence of life.
Cr0n0x t1_ixe29os wrote
Would it be possible to be extremely close to a star as long as It wasn’t super bright or super hot, or is that not a thing.
sanitation123 t1_ixe2uch wrote
I'm pretty sure it is. I imagine all stars have their own goldilocks zone. I don't know enough about this stuff though.
yurnxt1 t1_ixfcbnl wrote
You are correct, all Stars have a habitable "goldilocks" zone, at least theoretically however, all stars are not created equally. For example, it's possible for an exoplanet to be perfectly situated within a stars goldilocks zone but also be effectively uninhabitable due to any number of factors. One such star related factor that could make the development of life on a planet very difficult if not impossible would be a situation where the exoplanet is in the goldilocks zone but it's host star is far to active in terms of solar flares/radiation and or other sorts of violent disruption that comes from said exoplanet's host star on a frequent basis.
[deleted] t1_ixgrrii wrote
[removed]
TIK_GT t1_ixe4mix wrote
Don't the planets get tidally locked then?
sanitation123 t1_ixe5639 wrote
There could be areas on tidally locked planets that are habitable near the terminator between day/night.
nefelibatainthesky t1_ixe5tvi wrote
And if they have oceans or thick atmospheres, the heat can be more evenly distributed
disgruntled-pigeon t1_ixf7jkr wrote
The house prices along the terminator must be insane.
ThereIsATheory t1_ixf8vfd wrote
Yeh although the T1000 risk helps keep the prices down.
burros_n_churros t1_ixfyr0z wrote
No insurance companies will touch that T1000 risk. It’s a roll of the dice for homeowners.
Karjalan t1_ixfelu7 wrote
Yeah. All stars have a "habitable zone", which is, roughly, the distance a planet would have to be to not be too hot or cold for liquid water to form.
Many other things come into play, the amount of stellar radiation beyond heat, the size of the planet, the planets atmosphere composition, and in the case of many smaller stars, if a planet is tidally locked.
Math/simulations of tidally locked planets have shown that it is possible to get a comfortable temperature and have areas of liquid water due to convection and the overall atmosphere composition and density... But it's obviously a different scenario to what we have on earth.
insufficientmind t1_ixe842q wrote
Four of the planets is recognized to be in the stars habitable zone so the potensial for life is there:
>As many as four of the planets (d, e, f, g) are potentially hospitable to life, having orbits in the star's habitable zone.
sanitation123 t1_ixe8ef5 wrote
Awesome. Thank you for the information/correction.
mesa176750 t1_ixejv7i wrote
From what I remember, and it's been a few years since I read up on it, there are a few planets within the habitable zone of the star, but because the star is a red dwarf, that means that the planets are pretty close to the star relative to its mass and they are probably tidally locked. Tidally locked planets theoretically could have a "eyeball" like pattern where the back side is frozen solid, the "pupil" is scorching hot, with an "iris" zone that is semi-temperate because it is cooled from the frozen region that never sees the light from the sun and warmed by the side that is constantly in the sun.
doc_nano t1_ixejbu4 wrote
They do orbit very close, but are still within the habitable zone because their star is an ultra-cool red dwarf. The fact that they orbit so close/quickly was part of what made them (relatively) easy to detect.
I think there are still serious doubts about them harboring life because their proximity to their star and its radiation might prevent any long-term retention of an atmosphere. But opinions seem to vary and we likely won't know for sure until more data come in.
MassiveStunner t1_ixfk580 wrote
If you look up jwst study schedule trappist 1 is currently being observed.
[deleted] t1_ixfkeog wrote
[removed]
urmomaisjabbathehutt t1_ixfiuco wrote
The star is a type K red dwarf if i remember correctly, several of the planets lie in the temperate zone are near earth size and expected to contain large amounts of volatiles (hence atmospheres, possible water...)
a possible issue in such compact system with planets orbiting so close to the star could be solar flares sterilising the nearby planets but who knows trapist 1 contains 7 known planets so i'm sure we will learn something
wanderlustcub t1_ixgrq08 wrote
Several of the TRAPPIST-1 planets are in the star’s habitable zone.
Viewing a single comment thread. View all comments