Goldilocks Planet

[QuickMick]

ok ok ok... sure i like sagan, bradbury and herbert (heck ive even read the 'hitchhikers guide' more than once), but im not some UFO nut, but given the size of the universe, it would seem to me to be statistically possible if not probable that some form of life exists out there. heck, didnt they find fossilized microbes from the mars rover?
anyway, this article is pretty cool.


The Associated Press: Could 'Goldilocks' planet be just right for life?

[Bene505]

So what now? To we send an unmanned spacecraft for a fly-by? Maybe one with a nuclear-powered ion pulse engine could get there.

Do we help things along by raining down shower mold and plankton? (Add corn and peas. But not orca, nobody likes ocra.)

And when is Richard Branson starting regularly scheduled service there?

Regards,
Brad

[QuickMick]

plasma, bro... its all about plasma

SPACE.com -- New Rocket Engine Could Reach Mars in 40 Days

[Hartley18]

It is about three times the mass of Earth, slightly larger in width and much closer to its star — 14 million miles away versus 93 million. It's so close to its version of the sun that it orbits every 37 days. And it doesn't rotate much, so one side is almost always bright, the other dark.

Temperatures can be as hot as 160 degrees or as frigid as 25 degrees below zero, but in between — in the land of constant sunrise — it would be "shirt-sleeve weather," said co-discoverer Steven Vogt of the University of California at Santa Cruz.

Yesssiree.. that sounds like fun. A huge planet with either no seasons (or maybe very long ones) meaning little or no wind or weather to speak of and being totally uninhabitable except for a ring around the middle.

Methinks I'll stick with the one we have.. NEXT!!

[GrimStorm]

That's interesting. I had heard about this planet, but not about how it rotates and the long seasons. A planet besides earth that has seasons at all is an amazing discovery.

[w1651]

Temperatures can be as hot as 160 degrees or as frigid as 25 degrees below zero, but in between — in the land of constant sunrise — it would be "shirt-sleeve weather," said co-discoverer Steven Vogt of the University of California at Santa Cruz.

160 and -25 in the shade.I'll stick with Florida thanks. Plus travel time is insane.My vacation time would run out before we passed the moon.

[Bene505]

I'd point out that you'd never see the extreme temps unless you wanted to visit the poles. The sun one that planet would be where the north star (Polaris) is on our planet.

There would probably be wind too, considering the air on the sunny side would be constantly rising and the air on the shady side would be constantly sinking.

Water would be interesting -- frozen on the shady side, evaporated (and long gone) on the sunny side.

As the air moved along the surface from shady to sunny, it would steadily heat up, raising the dew point. So there's be no rain. There'd have to be a mountain range on the sunny/shady border that would take those prevaling winds, raise/cool the air, provide rain and make someplace nice to live.

As the air moves from sunny back to shady at the higher levels, the air would be constantly cooling, resulting in a steady snowfall that would generally evaporate before it got to the ground -- assuming enough water is present. Not sure where this ring of snow/rain would be, or if all the water had simply gone to the shady pole permanently.

The interesting thing is whether it would be like a steady terrestrial warm front or whether there would be variations like a our cold fronts. I imagine there'd be variations along the ring itself. 100% guesswork, of course.

Regards,
Brad