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Astronomers report a possible slew of extragalactic exoplanets
Quite remarkable if it is confirmed. Read more here.
Discoveries of exoplanets in our galaxy exceed 3,700 to date, but if that’s not enough for you, astronomers are now probing outside of the Milky Way to find exoplanets in other galaxies. A group of researchers at the University of Oklahoma has just announced the discovery of a large population of free-floating planets in a galaxy 3.8 billion light-years away. Their results were published February 2 in the Astrophysical Journal Letters.
From Astronomy.com
We had a clear night last night so I got to do some observing. I was too lazy to get the scope out so just used the binos. How long have you folks been amateur astronomers? 22 years for me?
Thanks for the interesting link. More evidence that the universe is wondrous.Nice article on measuring distances more accurately, and interesting possible implications.
https://phys.org/news/2018-02-hubble-yardstick-fresh-evidence-physics.html
Also helps us navigate in the southern hemisphere.I don't want to derail this thread, but the plan of salvation is in the stars.
Is this typical? Old Red Dwarf star not so stable...by a lot!:
https://phys.org/news/2018-02-proxima-centauri-good-bad-day.html
People have wanted to imagine these red dwarfs, 85% of all stars, might be hospitable for life.
"March 24, 2017 was no ordinary day for Proxima Cen," said lead author MacGregor.
I would say from the article that it was not typical for this particular star:
Whether it's typical for all red dwarfs to produce such massive events remains to be seen. I doubt that we have enough long term data to make that kind of call, but but my "guess" is that it's an unusual event in general in terms of the magnitude.
Keep in mind that most flares are pretty directional in terms of the slower solar wind, so it's unlikely that this flare resulted on a direct solar wind hit on every planet in the solar system. On the other hand, the original "burst" of very high speed charged particles could have briefly overwhelmed the daylight side of the several planets on the flare side of the sun. Depending on the magnetosphere of the planets involved, some of that high speed particle radiation would have been funneled toward the poles of the planet and the planet's atmosphere likely absorbed a lot of the rest of that radiation.
In short, even such a massive event wouldn't necessarily wipe out all life on every planet in the solar system. A planet that happened to be located on the opposite side of the sun as the flare might have only seen a bit of an unusual light show.
Not great for life developing there, but possible a good place for an advanced species to set up shop for the long haul. Those things can theoretically last a trillion years.Remember people the popular notion little red stars -- Red Dwarfs, which are over 3/4th of all stars -- might be often enough hosting life? Hey, why not, right?
Ah, well...
Maybe...not so much.
Little red stars are more deadly it looks even than I suggested a while back. Consider the increase in flux noted well down in this article!
https://phys.org/news/2018-04-proxima-centauri-flare-powerful-visible.html
What if our own sun got 68x as bright for a while?...
Not great for life developing there, but possible a good place for an advanced species to set up shop for the long haul. Those things can theoretically last a trillion years.
There are still a large number of orange stars slightly smaller then Sol who will last quite a while and might have more sensible planetary orbits and behaviors.
On the plus side, they say that a third of red dwarfs do not actively flare:Remember people the popular notion little red stars -- Red Dwarfs, which are over 3/4th of all stars -- might be often enough hosting life? Hey, why not, right?
Ah, well...
Maybe...not so much.
Little red stars are more deadly it looks even than I suggested a while back. Consider the increase in flux noted well down in this article!
https://phys.org/news/2018-04-proxima-centauri-flare-powerful-visible.html
What if our own sun got 68x as bright for a while?...
That was actually a hand-waving hypothetical sentence. Notably hopeful. We want to instead be clear-eyed of course. It's useful to be aware that only recently do we have instruments that are good at observing variability (for instance Kepler is an example). The instruments needs to be outside the atmosphere ideally (to notice smaller but still important variation), and also needs to stare at the same star(s) a significant time. It's useful to be aware it's easy to find articles only laying out an older theory with some older observations that have been superseded. In the past, "variable" meant large variation, that is quite dramatic, like for example Cepheid. But we want to know more than only that there are extremely variable stars. We want to know instead what about typical stars that don't have dramatic variation, as to whether they are highly stable like our sun, or have still significant variation or too much flaring, etc.On the plus side, they say that a third of red dwarfs do not actively flare:
"However, even if two-thirds of these stars are active, that still leaves us with billions of possibilities."
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