The Importance of Gliese 581g

[Amaris]

From tdarnell

tdarnell | 12 October 2010

The fact that we've found a habitable planet candidate so soon after starting our search has important implications for the number of habitable planets that may exist in our galaxy - which was estimated to be around 10 billion.

Having found Gliese 581g so soon though, may mean one of two things. Either we were very lucky, or there are more planets out there than we thought. Based on this discovery, it's possible that we may have meny more habitable planets than originally thought.

Perhaps 20 to 30 billion stars in our galaxy may have conditions suitable for life.
Category:
Science & Technology

[morganp]

Thanks for posting Amaris. Life looks like it may be far more common throughout the universe than we even previously suspected. We live in amazing times that are made more so without the need for gods and monsters.

morganp

[Mr. Jon Donnis]

The problem is these planets are so far away that we will never travel there, and the chances of any life is so tiny that it is hardly worth looking, especially as we have no way of finding out anyway?

[bujin]

Oct 18, 2010 9:48:45 GMT Mr. Jon Donnis said:

The problem is these planets are so far away that we will never travel there, and the chances of any life is so tiny that it is hardly worth looking, especially as we have no way of finding out anyway?

We can't say what the chances of there being life are, whether it is extremely unlikely or extremely common. So far, all we have to go on is what's happened here. We haven't even done a thorough investigation of Mars to say that it didn't happen there yet.

And we don't have a way of finding out yet, but not so long ago, we didn't have a way of detecting planets in orbit around other stars - they've only been detected within the last 18 years or so, and the resolution is getting better and better. In the mid 1990s, we could only detect Jupiter-mass planets. Now we're getting down to Earth-mass planets, and that's where the fun starts! ;D

Next job is to determine whether these planets are capable of supporting an atmosphere, and in time, we'll be able to determine the chemical composition of the atmosphere. Once we have that capability, there are probably signatures in the chemical composition of an atmosphere that indicate life.

I'd certainly never say "it's hardly worth looking".

[Mr. Jon Donnis]

I think we should be spending all our time and money looking at Mars first, lets learn what we can about Mars first and then move on from there