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mlqdscrvn t1_itfsk6t wrote

"It's just another sunny bright day"

-some aliens maybe

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patchchili1 t1_itfx3ah wrote

Doesn't mars look like it was stuck by something big north of their Ecuador, perhaps damaging the atmosphere,?

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flipmcf t1_itg15w7 wrote

This is something I haven’t seen make main stream space news often. The “Goldilocks Zone” is a real simplification for habitability.

From the stellar spectra I surveyed for Nstars back in 2000’s, a lot of these cooler stars showed emission spectra and the experienced astronomers were associating that data with flares. He called them “active chromospheres”.

And I expected these cooler, older stars to be more stable and well behaved than ours. Not true at all.

I still wonder if a Goldilocks planet around a M-dwarf with a healthy or very strong magnetic field could survive an active star like this.

I’m really hoping the abundant K and M-stars could prove to deliver some really long-lived habitable planets.

We get significant flares every 100-200 years? Right? And earth’s atmosphere has been around for at least a 500 Mya in one form or another. Maybe even 1Bya?

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ph30nix01 t1_itg2mzc wrote

Hopefully no populated planets in the effected area.

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jerevasse t1_itg8y37 wrote

why does all space news have to hold implications for humans. i want my space news to be unbiased lol

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Mnemon-TORreport t1_itga6os wrote

"Nearby" of course being relative. 65 light years or 6,149 × 10¹⁴ km.

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DarthBrooks69420 t1_itgda0b wrote

Wouldn't these stars form a halo of CO2 ice and other materials getting blasted off these planets? Especially the ones with hot jupiters?

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Whatwillwebe t1_itglr8l wrote

Ok NASA, we saw DART, now what's your plan for this one?

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Corkee t1_itgo9i0 wrote

Replying to flipmcf (#187,495)

One more point against habitable planets around M class stars is that they are likely tidally locked due to the close orbits around the star - even in the Goldilocks zone. Maybe the biggest M class star could have a non-tidally locked planet in its GZ, but that would have to be a young star I guess.

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gdtimmy t1_itgoh4n wrote

And everyone says, “why have we not found aliens, I’ve seen enough movies and believe the science numbers that state there are way too many planets and stars for there not to be life somewhere”? Well dear peoples….the universe is a deadly place that is always destroying, in order to create…it’s basically a big nuclear energy zoo, competing for biggest boom boom and deadliest vacuum cleaners….

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skexzies t1_itgumy8 wrote

"Completely" seems a little nonsensical. Even the low gravity atmosphere stripped Mercury retains some gas. I'm calling foul.

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[deleted] t1_itgy4qs wrote

Stories like this make you laugh at the insignificant issues we worry about day to day.

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UpperCardiologist523 t1_ith8pmt wrote

We have the magnetic field keeping our atmosphere safe because of Earth's molten core. It won't stay molten and mobile forever though, so this will in a few billion years happen to Earth as well i guess?

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bluefxi t1_ithb4mo wrote

That sure would be a pretty bad Monday if that happens here

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Damack363 t1_ithc8b5 wrote

I prefer “slammed” in my Reddit headlines, but “blasted” is okay I guess.

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WalkingOnSunShine12 t1_ithifot wrote

How would this be like if it happened to earth? Sudden lack of air? Or maybe just disintegrate?

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43_Hobbits t1_ithn4wb wrote

Sounds like the Trisolarians are on their way.

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TheHuskyJerk t1_ithquhh wrote

The obvious solution would be to hold your breath, silly science man

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Stargazer_199 t1_ithsop2 wrote

“It’s gonna be a bright, (bright) BRIGHT sunshiny dayyyy!”

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myhamsterisajerk t1_iti7943 wrote

That's what i always say. There is NO possibility of life around red dwarfs due to their violent behaviour. Whenever i see articles about possible life around Proxima Centauri i mention this. And there are always people who want to argue.

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JustAPerspective t1_itip12d wrote

FTFA: "Just like Mercury."

Could've been a three-word headline & article in one, but then where would the ads go?

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DreamChaserSt t1_itiyvpz wrote

Replying to gdtimmy (#189,417)

It's not about pop culture or just random probability measurements, It's really the fact that life made it here, so why can't it elsewhere? 3-4+ billion years of life, how can Earth be the only example? Because in spite of the universe being deadly and destructive as you say, life exists anyway. So either life here got improbably lucky where everything else was simply killed, or the universe may just be a little more conducive to life than you think.

But to be honest, basing the assumption on what we know so far about exoplanets isn't the greatest evidence for or against extraterrestial life. We've only been searching for planets over a few short decades, our instruments have only very recently become sensitive enough to analyze the atmospheres of Earth sized planets, and even with JWST online, it may be years more before they're advanced enough to confirm life, not just find candidates. We simply don't have enough data yet.

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flipmcf t1_itji6hh wrote

Replying to OrokaSempai (#190,989)

Thanks. My point is that our star is very well behaved and our magnetic field is quite reliable. Probably a combination of both.

I just googled and found that Venus has no magnetic field today. So I guess our star is pretty well behaved, and Venus has sone good gravity.

I’ve always thought that if the momentum / velocity of a gaseous molecule is greater than the escape velocity of the planet… bye bye gas! No H2 or He in earth’s atmosphere because at ‘earth temperature’ that gas just can’t remain captured by earth’s gravity.

But I don’t know if that’s an actual thing b/c I never researched it or did the math. It’s just a theory.

And slamming charged particles into a planet’s atmosphere at relativistic speeds is surely also a contributing factor to removing an atmosphere. - just to bring the conversation back on topic.

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flipmcf t1_itjk3d6 wrote

Replying to WalkingOnSunShine12 (#191,780)

It would take thousands or millions of years. Stronger flares might do it in thousands.

I’m not a believer in some kind of cataclysmic flare that would rip our atmosphere off in one day. But if one was to calculate how much energy and mass a flare would need to be to do this in days to years, I would guess that the flare would fry all life on earth and the lithosphere would be sterilized much faster than the eventual removal of the atmosphere.

Kind of like being cooked by radiation before the blast wave arrives…. Like terminator 2. But not really. Flares are made of mass, not photons. So you would be pounded by super-fast, electrically charged nuclei of hydrogen, helium and trace metals. AKA Alpha and Beta radiation

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YaB01Keef t1_itjkh9g wrote

think about this next time you complain that its too hot outside

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flipmcf t1_itjku0s wrote

Replying to myhamsterisajerk (#193,375)

Are there well-behaved K-M stars at all? I thought there might be a few that don’t flare like this.

But then again, when they do flare, and all stars will flare if they have differential rotation and magnetic fields… These low mass stars have surface gravity to keep the flare in check?

So many variables.

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iqisoverrated t1_itkg7rb wrote

Replying to flipmcf (#187,495)

>This is something I haven’t seen make main stream space news often. The “Goldilocks Zone” is a real simplification for habitability.

It also completely ignores life that is not land based. Or different than humans.

I.e. the 'Goldilocks zone' theory is complete rubbish.

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Zprotu t1_itod3zu wrote

Replying to OrokaSempai (#190,989)

Question. We know the earth is 4.543B years old, but what exactly does this number mean? Technically, wouldn't the creation process of the earth have started right at the moment of the solar system's beginning? (i.e the exact second of the gravitational collapse of the giant interstellar molecular cloud, so 4.6B years ago, adding about 400M years to the age)

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OrokaSempai t1_itpn6iy wrote

Replying to Zprotu (#212,956)

At some point 2 grains of sand stuck together that would eventually become the earth, but is that actually the earth? Before the moon was formed in an impact with another proto-planet, it was not the same size or composition as today, so at that point it was also a proto planet. That impact was the final step to those proto planets becoming the Earth and Moon, so personally I would say the earth is 4.5B years old, the point it became its final mass. (Also, the cores of the 2 proto planets would have combined at that point giving the earth a large core and powerful magnetic field).

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Zprotu t1_itubxzx wrote

Replying to OrokaSempai (#217,067)

Well all that is definitely included in the creation process of the earth to what it is today. Its why I would consider the point in time when the 2 grains of sand got stuck together as the start of the earth. We are talking about the beginning of earth's creation process after all. And this process began exactly at the moment of the gravitational collapse of the interstellar molecular cloud, no? Wouldn't thinking that the earth is 4.6B years old be correct if you frame it like that?

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