Comments on: COROT and the Hunt for Rocky Worlds

By: Eric James

Eric James — Mon, 30 Oct 2006 21:56:41 +0000

I vote that the first rocky earthsize world discovered outside our solar system be named “Sparky” after Charles Schultz.

“I got a rock.” said Charlie Brown…

By: Adam

Adam — Sun, 29 Oct 2006 13:58:33 +0000

Hi Edg

Star-mining is a venerable concept and certainly a Shell could be made from a brown dwarf, perhaps forming the ‘ultimate’ lifeform, a Matrioshka Brain.

Adam

By: Edg Duveyoung

Edg Duveyoung — Sun, 29 Oct 2006 12:04:38 +0000

Yeah, Dyson shells, that’s the ticket. But why limit the concept? Can’t we imagine engineers figuring out how to “hollow” a brown dwarf?

The universe is old enough for “traveling worlds” to have been invented or individual teleportation of some sort.

They’re all angels I tell ya.

Edg

By: Adam

Adam — Sat, 28 Oct 2006 23:14:16 +0000

Hi andy and Paul

Terran planets in the right place and of the right mass will be rare around red dwarfs – like Jovians – but not totally ruled out of court either. As for “hollowed out” brown dwarfs… can’t happen. Perhaps you mean Dyson shells made from brown dwarf masses?

Adam

By: andy

andy — Sat, 28 Oct 2006 18:40:07 +0000

There are a few papers out there which suggest planets such as Gliese 876 d and the “hot Neptunes” around other red dwarfs could be gigantic ocean planets with a liquid water layer above an ice mantle and silicate core. Whether a high-gravity, high-temperature ocean world qualifies as “habitable” is another matter.

In addition, current theoretical models have quite a lot of trouble forming Jupiter-mass planets (e.g. the planets around Gliese 876 and Gliese 849) around red dwarfs, so I think ruling out the formation of Earth-mass planets in the HZ of red dwarfs is premature at this stage.

By: Edg Duveyoung

Edg Duveyoung — Sat, 28 Oct 2006 16:49:39 +0000

There’s no end to what imagination can dignify with a fine draping in possibilities.

How about: after 13 billion years of existence, the primary habitat for intelligence in the universe is inside hollowed out brown dwarfs which — any second now — our instruments will be able to “see” and may find that they’re as numerous and as diversely commanded as yachts in Miami, and just as full of party-time sentients — only in this case, each dwarf will harbor billions of them from a million cultures borne across the eons.

Be some introduction to the universe for us, eh? Be like the lights were turned on suddenly and one finds oneself in the middle of an orgy — of information.

Mostly, we face invisible thresholds now. They’re like black holes — might not see them until they see you!

Edg

By: Administrator

Administrator — Sat, 28 Oct 2006 14:31:51 +0000

That’s pretty much my take as well, and I think it gibes with current thinking, but what do you bet we get some transit findings that throw conventional wisdom out the window?

By: Adam

Adam — Sat, 28 Oct 2006 10:03:35 +0000

Hi Paul

My bet is that the hab-zones of red dwarfs will have Mars-Mercury mass planets and Earth mass planets will be frigid wastes – great potential for terraforming, but otherwise uninhabitable.

But exoplanets have surprised us from their very first discovery around a pulsar…