The belt of dust and gas surrounding HD 113766 within the "belt of life" may end up forming terrestrial planets
Astronomers have discovered evidence of an Earth-sized planet in the making. This planet orbits a star 424 light years away from us.
Astronomers using the Spitzer Space Telescope discovered a huge belt of hot dust swirling around a young star known as HD 113766, which is slightly hotter than our Sun. The dust belt, which scientists suspect is concentrated to form planets, is located in the center of the habitable zone, a region some distance from the Sun where temperatures are reasonable enough to keep water in a liquid state. The scientists estimate that there is enough material in the belt to form a world the size of Mars or larger.
The star, about 10 million years old, is just the right age to form rocky planets, say the researchers, whose findings will be published in an upcoming issue of the Astrophysical Journal. The timing of the Earth-building system is excellent," says member of the research team, Cary Lizzi from the Applied Physics Laboratory at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland. If the star was too young, the disk from which the planets are formed would be too full of gas and then the planets that would be formed would be gas giants like Jupiter. If he were too old, Spitzer would be looking at rocky planets that had already formed eons ago. "Star systems need the right mix of materials that make up the dust in their disk to form an Earth-like planet." Lizzy said.
Using Spitzer's infrared spectrometer, the astronomers determined that the material surrounding HD 113766 is denser than the snowball-like material common in young solar systems and comets, which are considered "cosmic refrigerators" because they contain primordial components from the formation of the solar system, but it is also not Compressed like the material found in mature planets and asteroids.
"The mix of materials in this belt is reminiscent of the material found in lava flows on Earth" says Lizzy. "I thought of the material on Mount Mauna Kea in Hawaii when I saw the composition of the dust in this system - it contains raw rocks and is full of iron sulfide, similar to "fools' gold".
Earlier this year, scientists discovered one and possibly two Earth-sized planets forming around Gliese 581, a dim red star just the right distance from the star and located 20.5 light-years away. The planets Gliese 581 c and Gliese 581 d are at the right distance from the star to hold liquid water on their surfaces and allow life as we know it, but many observations are still needed to confirm this.
To date, planet hunters have discovered over 250 exoplanets, most of them gas giants many times larger than Jupiter.
10 תגובות
Maybe there is another material out there that we don't know and they are all made of it
I'm not at all sure that finding a life should be the first goal. The survival of the human race is the important goal.
Man needs to look for alternative planets - improve the ability to locate life-supporting planets and it is equally important to improve the mobility in space so that it is realistic to establish colonies on other planets.
In terms of mobility, this is a huge challenge because a trip to a not-so-distant star could easily take 40 years or more, which means an entire population would have to live on this spaceship that would supply all their needs. (Or that over time space stations will be established that will allow gradual expansion into space).
Simple logic means that the more the human race is deployed in relatively distant places in the galaxy, the greater its chances of survival.
The existence of the human race depends on us no less than the existence of the dinosaurs in their time. With all our technology we are nowhere near improving our survivability in the face of a large-scale disaster.
Those who want to register for housing for young couples on HD 113766, can already send details and a NIS 984 registration fee to the 'Electric Cave'. Hurry up, the number of subscribers is strictly limited!!!
my people -
I can imagine - visualize - a beating heart made of iron, but I cannot imagine a scientific explanation for such a heart. Iron simply cannot contract and expand like a human heart. So imagination is a great thing, but I try to stay within the limits of logic.
It is quite possible that somewhere else in the universe there are beings that are based on sodium, for example, instead of carbon as the main atom. The problem is that carbon allows for a huge variety of molecules. Sodium allows… maybe ten different molecules. So if such a creature were to exist, it would have to adapt to completely different conditions than we know. That's why I also say that it certainly won't be as compact and efficient as carbon-based life forms.
But there is no doubt that imagining is fun, and I absolutely support it :>
Roy Shalom,
I don't "see" any other life form either. And if you ask me jokingly how exactly an iron heart beats I will answer you in all seriousness that I don't know.
But just because I don't see or don't know something, doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Carbon and silicon are great materials and here on our planet, Hindus have made great things with them, some of them cool (like beautiful women) and some less cool (like diseases). In another place, far away and full of life - it could be that in a parallel site stands a creature namedRoey Tsezana with a beating heart of iron.
It may not be.
: )
Greetings friends
Ami
my people -
How is an iron heart able to contract and beat?
And more seriously, I believe that the most basic building block of living organisms must be carbon or silicon, because they allow for the widest possible variety of molecules of which organisms will be composed. We are made of carbon (and in fact, organic molecules are defined as 'molecules with carbon atoms') and we may be able to find silicon-based life as well.
Regarding iron and the like... I don't know. As I was already reminded, it is important not to say 'never'. But I don't see a compact and efficient life form based on atoms like iron.
Don't rush there - we will wait patiently.
But this time it is recommended that the Creator take his vacation day already on Friday...
The person who will rule the world will be the one who can drink water from the sea and filter plankton. By the way, synthesis of nucleotides in the laboratory has been around since the XNUMXs. Apparently the same Krieg broke ground by being able to squeeze so many nucleotides together into one coherent cluster. Let's hope that this breakthrough will translate to the benefit of all of us soon.
Pure iron heart? Isn't it better than a diamond? Let there be something to finance the burial!
By the way, yesterday in "Israel Hayom" an article and an interview with Krieg Venter (Prof.?) was published who announced that he succeeded in creating a synthetic chromosome with a length of 381 genes, which can replicate itself!!
Does this mean that this is the beginning of the synthetic human in the future? I didn't think about that! Maybe such a person will survive on eating cloth? Keep the clothes, it will be worth a lot in the future and the older the clothes, the better they taste!
Biologists need to internalize what astrophysicists have known for a long time: there is nothing special about our planet. This means that life based on water and carbon, which is unique to the Earth, is not necessarily the existing or prevailing situation in the rest of the universe.
How about a community of creatures with a beating heart of pure iron?