Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin
From 0 to 5,000 Planets in 20 Years (discovermagazine.com)
71 points by bentaber on Oct 29, 2015 | hide | past | favorite | 7 comments


It used to be that the discovery of an exoplanet, any exoplanet was big enough news to warrant its own discovery paper. But these days we know of so many planets that putting out an individual paper describing a newly discovered hot Jupiter is a little ho-hum. There has to be something unique about the planet to justify its own paper, otherwise it'll just be lumped in a big data dump paper.


From 0 (+9) to 5,000 (+8) Planets in 20 Years FTFY


super-Earths: rocky worlds that are up to 10 times as massive as our own, and potentially habitable

Wouldn't the gravity on such a planet be 10 times as strong as Earth's? Is it feasible that life could exist on the surface, or only in an ocean?


Gravitational attraction scales as M/r^2, so if the planets have larger radii they won't have 10 times the gravitational attraction.

That said, any speculation about life on super earths should be taken with a huge grain of salt.


One super-grain of salt, to be precise.


Let's build a tiny eco system in a large centrifuge and see what happens.


Practical, in space. Start the ecosystem spinning, and it won't stop (essentially frictionless). Maybe a balloon/bag on one end of a rope, a weight on the other end.




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: