• Welcome to TechPowerUp Forums, Guest! Please check out our forum guidelines for info related to our community.

Super-Earth in 6-Planet System May Have Oceans, Life

Joined
Mar 26, 2010
Messages
9,762 (1.91/day)
Location
Jakarta, Indonesia
System Name micropage7
Processor Intel Xeon X3470
Motherboard Gigabyte Technology Co. Ltd. P55A-UD3R (Socket 1156)
Cooling Enermax ETS-T40F
Memory Samsung 8.00GB Dual-Channel DDR3
Video Card(s) NVIDIA Quadro FX 1800
Storage V-GEN03AS18EU120GB, Seagate 2 x 1TB and Seagate 4TB
Display(s) Samsung 21 inch LCD Wide Screen
Case Icute Super 18
Audio Device(s) Auzentech X-Fi Forte
Power Supply Silverstone 600 Watt
Mouse Logitech G502
Keyboard Sades Excalibur + Taihao keycaps
Software Win 7 64-bit
Benchmark Scores Classified


A newly discovered exoplanet joins the small but growing list of worlds other than our own that may host life.

The exoplanet is a super-Earth, having about seven times the mass of our home planet, but orbits its parent star at roughly the same distance as Earth does from the sun. The star, HD 40307, is located about 42 light-years from Earth in the constellation Pictor. It’s what’s known as an orange dwarf star, making it somewhat smaller and dimmer than our sun, but not by much.

Three exoplanets were discovered around HD 40307 in 2008, but a team of European astronomers has reanalyzed data from the star and found the system contains three more worlds. This makes it look much more like our own solar system, with its eight planets.

The farthest planet in the HD 40307 system orbits with a period of about 200 days, a little more than half as long as our year, and is located about 56 million miles from its parent star. (In comparison, Earth is 93 million miles from the sun.) This puts it right smack in the star’s habitable zone — the area around a star where liquid water might remain on the surface.


This super-Earth receives about two-thirds the amount of sunlight that our planet gets. It’s a bit on the cold side, but still warm enough to have oceans and wet weather like on Earth. While scientists can’t confirm that water exists on the planet, follow-up observations may give them more information.

About five other confirmed exoplanets have been discovered orbiting within a habitable zone but many of them are quite close to their parent star. This likely makes them suffer from a phenomenon known as tidal locking, where gravitational forces cause one side of the planet to always face the star. The same phenomenon is the reason why we always see the same face of the moon.

With exoplanets, this means that one half of the planet is probably roasting under the heat of its star while the other side is frozen in perpetual night. Because the new exoplanet around HD 40307 is far enough away from its star, it has a day/night cycle much like Earth’s and therefore is probably much more conducive to life.

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/11/superearth-habitable-zone/
 

stinger608

Dedicated TPU Cruncher & Folder
Joined
Nov 11, 2008
Messages
11,102 (1.98/day)
Location
Wyoming
System Name Dean Machine/2020 Ryzenfall
Processor Intel 4790K/AMD Ryzen 3700X
Motherboard MSI 1150 Gaming mATX/Gigabyte AORUS ELITE B550
Cooling Cooler Master Hyper 212 LED/SilverStone AH240 AIO
Memory 16 gigs Crucial Ballistix Tactical Tracer/16 gigs G.Skill TridentZ NEO DDR4
Video Card(s) Gigabyte 1660 Super/Gigabyte GTX 1660
Storage Crucial SSD 256 and 2TB spinner/Dual Samsung 980 Pro M2 NVME 4.0
Display(s) Overlord 27" 2560 x 1440
Case Corsair Air 540
Audio Device(s) On board
Power Supply Seasonic modular 850 watt Platinum/EVGA T2-850 Titanium
Software Windows 10 Pro/Windows 10 Pro
Interesting for sure. And also being at about 42 light years away makes it a relatively close planet. Of course we do not posses the means to travel there at this time, but what is to say that if the planet does sustain intelligent life forms, they could possibly have the means to travel to our planet?
 

hat

Enthusiast
Joined
Nov 20, 2006
Messages
21,731 (3.43/day)
Location
Ohio
System Name Starlifter :: Dragonfly
Processor i7 2600k 4.4GHz :: i5 10400
Motherboard ASUS P8P67 Pro :: ASUS Prime H570-Plus
Cooling Cryorig M9 :: Stock
Memory 4x4GB DDR3 2133 :: 2x8GB DDR4 2400
Video Card(s) PNY GTX1070 :: Integrated UHD 630
Storage Crucial MX500 1TB, 2x1TB Seagate RAID 0 :: Mushkin Enhanced 60GB SSD, 3x4TB Seagate HDD RAID5
Display(s) Onn 165hz 1080p :: Acer 1080p
Case Antec SOHO 1030B :: Old White Full Tower
Audio Device(s) Creative X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty Pro - Bose Companion 2 Series III :: None
Power Supply FSP Hydro GE 550w :: EVGA Supernova 550
Software Windows 10 Pro - Plex Server on Dragonfly
Benchmark Scores >9000
If they do have the means to travel to our planet, I hope all that happens is we get featured in their version of National Geographic.
 
Joined
Aug 17, 2009
Messages
2,557 (0.48/day)
Location
United States
System Name Aluminum Mallard
Processor Ryzen 1900x
Motherboard AsRock Phantom 6
Cooling AIO
Memory 8GB
Video Card(s) ASUS Strix 1080Ti
Storage SSD
Display(s) Benq Zowie
Case Cosmos 1000
Audio Device(s) On Board
Power Supply Corsair CX750
Software Win10 Home
Benchmark Scores 31 FPS in Dalaran.
I can't wait until we develop technology to visit worlds like these.

Then watch the crews die from new and interesting diseases.
 
Joined
Apr 2, 2007
Messages
2,817 (0.45/day)
Location
US
Processor Intel Q9400
Motherboard asus p5q-pro
Cooling Ultra120
Memory 6GB ddr2
Video Card(s) NVS 290
Storage 3TB + 1.5TB
Display(s) Samsung F2380
Case Silverstone Fortress FT02B
Audio Device(s) Creative X-Fi
Power Supply 750W PC P&C
Software win 7 ultimate 64bit
I can't wait until we develop technology to visit worlds like these.

Then watch the crews die from new and interesting diseases.

 

lyndonguitar

I play games
Joined
Apr 1, 2010
Messages
1,877 (0.37/day)
Location
Philippines
System Name X6 | Lyndon-ROG
Processor Intel Core i7-8700k | Intel Core i7 6700HQ
Motherboard Gigabyte Z370 Aorus Gaming 5 | Asus ROG-GL552VX
Cooling Deepcool Captain 240EX
Memory 16GB Corsair Vengeance LED | 8 GB
Video Card(s) NVIDIA GTX 1080 8 GB GDDR5X | NVIDIA GeForce GTX 950M 4GB
Storage SSDs: 500GB, HDDs: 2TB, 2TB, 3TB | SSD: 250GB, HDD: 1TB
Display(s) Samsung 49" CHG90 3840x1080@144Hz, Panasonic 32" HDTV, | 15.6"1080p
Case Cougar Panzer Max
Audio Device(s) HyperX Cloud II | Corsair Gaming H1500 7.1 | ROCCAT Kave 5.1 | Edifier M3200
Power Supply EVGA 750GQ
Mouse Logitech G403 | Razer Deathadder Chroma | Logitech G302 | Mad Catz Cyborg R.A.T. 5
Keyboard Corsair Vengeance K70 Cherry MX Red
Software Windows 10
This is awesome, Why don't we just allot more budget for space exploration and less on other non-sense things?

if there are lifeforms there, would it be similar to the one here?, will they breathe and eat the same things???, What would they look like??

life in the universe other than earth is very much possible but intelligent life forms that have human-like reasoning can be very very rare. If there is, then there's a chance that they might become extinct even before they develop the technology to travel to other stars..

However based on the size of the universe, the number of galaxies, stars , planets, objects, and the possibility of a multi-verse. I believe that we are not alone.
 
Joined
Mar 26, 2010
Messages
9,762 (1.91/day)
Location
Jakarta, Indonesia
System Name micropage7
Processor Intel Xeon X3470
Motherboard Gigabyte Technology Co. Ltd. P55A-UD3R (Socket 1156)
Cooling Enermax ETS-T40F
Memory Samsung 8.00GB Dual-Channel DDR3
Video Card(s) NVIDIA Quadro FX 1800
Storage V-GEN03AS18EU120GB, Seagate 2 x 1TB and Seagate 4TB
Display(s) Samsung 21 inch LCD Wide Screen
Case Icute Super 18
Audio Device(s) Auzentech X-Fi Forte
Power Supply Silverstone 600 Watt
Mouse Logitech G502
Keyboard Sades Excalibur + Taihao keycaps
Software Win 7 64-bit
Benchmark Scores Classified
I can't wait until we develop technology to visit worlds like these.

Then watch the crews die from new and interesting diseases.

yeah, maybe if we could reach startrek era :D
 
Joined
Oct 2, 2004
Messages
13,791 (1.94/day)
This is awesome, Why don't we just allot more budget for space exploration and less on other non-sense things?

if there are lifeforms there, would it be similar to the one here?, will they breathe and eat the same things???, What would they look like??

life in the universe other than earth is very much possible but intelligent life forms that have human-like reasoning can be very very rare. If there is, then there's a chance that they might become extinct even before they develop the technology to travel to other stars..

However based on the size of the universe, the number of galaxies, stars , planets, objects, and the possibility of a multi-verse. I believe that we are not alone.

It depends. They say it has 7 times the mass of Earth. This means gravity will be different on such planet. Meaning all the sea lifeforms would be different (adapted to even higher pressure), land lifeforms would probably have larger muscle mass and stronger bones. Not sure if there would be any flying lifeforms (like birds).
 
Top